L@E chap.5

*Sorry I've missed many posts, I will be putting it up later on if anyone who is bored to death enough to read my reflections on chapters they read a while ago.*

I felt that in "The Team Message" segment, there was a lot of emphasis on 'making' everyone level. I found this kind of interesting and also something that I haven't been conscious of.

First, I have to admit that I've never been in a team sport, or a school club that had a certain, clear goal to work for. So I probably lack in experience compared to most people.

Well, I was in the koto-club through junior and senior high, but we never had to 'create' a shared identity. At least we didn't think we did. It had 10 club members at the MOST, we were basically the outcasts in school, so we had a pretty strong bond without much effort. Most of the students' at school didn't know the koto-club existed, even some teachers would mistake us for the tea-ceremony-club because of our yukatas. So, we all had strong feelings towards the club, its survival as a school club, and each other. 

We never had communication problems like informing and getting everyone involved, since it was hard to miss/forget/purposely exclude someone when you only have 10 members in the first place.

However, we always have had a great leader : our coach.

She actually is every example that came up in the book-at least so far-and in class, including the common-enemy example Yusuke gave. Our coach is an experienced koto player, of course, and she has taught generations of the koto-club. And, I never noticed this until it came up in RW, but she did most of the things suggested!

She knew each of our talents/weaknesses, and she implicitly let everyone know by mentioning it during our group practice. At a difficult part of a piece, she'd stop the group practice for a minute, and make everyone play that part individually. She yell straight out what's wrong if you weren't doing it right, she'd complement you with joy if you were good at it.

She also would have us talk about the mental image we each had for the piece, a few weeks before performance, and at the last rehearsal we'd come up with a 'keyword'. It wasn't a goal exactly, it was more like something to look forward to in our own performance.

Also, this is the thing I hadn't even considered before I read L@E, but, she values little parties and get-togethers a LOT.

In the 6years I was involved, we never missed one Welcome-new-members-party, Farewell-senior-members-party, not even a Uchiage-打ち上げ- after a performance. I always loved these, but never really considered them as playing an important role in teamwork. But come to think of it, without that it would've been nearly impossible to have the strong bond we always had.

There's a lot more I want to talk/brag about my koto coach being a great leader, but this is getting long and sidetracking from the book, so that will be in a different post.

Anyway, I was gobsmacked when I noticed my coach had done all this mentioned in L@E, although I don't know if it's on purpose or if she was born with Super-good-leader-genes! 

Hoping to find more surprises in the rest of the book :)

Orange + negotiation skills = Cake?

Well, I’ve found out that I might be good at negotiating! Or at least I know what I need to make an orange flavored cake.

After that “two oranges negotiation” class, I decided to prove that you only need the orange peels for the cake. *This had nothing to do with my sudden crave for cake or the fact that I like to bake when I get stressed out.

So, I started out with making pound cake batter.

Then, I cut out a slice of the orange for decoration later on,

and squeezed all the juice.

I’m going to use the juice to flavor icing later on, just so it won’t go to waste.

After that, I chopped up half of the peel

and added it to the batter. I also strained the juice so the icing won’t be all lumpy.

Baked the cake and waited for it to cool, then coated the cake with icing

and decorated it with the slice I cut out in the beginning...

Ta-da!

So at least I know how to negotiate over food, I hope I can transit at least the idea and strategy for a good negotiation. Even in a more serious, legitimate negotiation and although I’m not very good in logical thinking, I got the main point in creating a win-win resolution! 

Kristi :8)

Leadership!

I have always considered confidence as the most important element in becoming a great leader. I know there are many other characteristics you must have in addition, but confidence always struck me as the prior to any other. Probably because I had the least of it when I was in a leading position. In the 2nd year of high school I was my class’ leader for the school festival, and the Volunteer club leader. I loved my class and my club, and I enjoy brain-storming and planning and stuff, so the time consumed over that was not a problem at all. In fact it actually had a positive effect on me since I got to work on things for my friends, and it got my mind off my personal worries. However, I had a lot of trouble when it came to deciding on things. I’m a complete worry-wort, which is the reason to my indecisive personality. I can think about whether or not to buy a ¥1000 hair accessory for weeks! And now I had to make decisions that could effect a big part of my friends’ high school memories. [ Dum-dum-duuuum! ] 

So, what I did was take polls like everybody does in high school :) This worked out half the time, if everyone was in the mood of listening to me. The other half was we’re-too-busy-talking-about-what-to-do-after-school time, and I wouldn’t have enough people voting for anything. So, I was constantly a little tense and SUPER insecure having to decide on a lot of things basically on my own. I wasn’t sure what I was doing, I was always terrified that I’d make/made the wrong choice, the only thing I was sure of was that everybody would hate me at the end. Thankfully this last guess was incorrect, and I had great fun with my friends throughout the rest of high school.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to finding out what could’ve helped me back then, and how to change if I ever have another occasion to be in a leading spot. :)

Kristi :8)