Learning is Fundamental

Today was school day in our household. I was heading back for my 2nd of 3 weekends of intense classwork for my Master's program...hubby and brother-in-law were taking off for an all day class at the Culinary Institute of America on baking.

I'm not going to lie to you. Getting up this morning to go to school was a pure battle of wills. All I really wanted to do was stay in my pjs and putter around the house. I really didn't feel like turning on my very tired brain to achieve my class participation goals (since that is 60% of our grade in this class) from 9AM until 5PM.

But I have to say... class was really great today.

The class is all about Leadership and Management skills. Each person in the class was assigned the job of presenting an issue that had some relationship to what we are learning about leadership - in life, workplace, school...whatever. This is my first time returning back to school after 20 years of avoiding any advanced education, and I have both dread and high expectation of this program.

Today, my classmates WOW'd me. Each story was totally unique - and yet it all came back to the same basic principles of leadership that we've been reading about. I thought I'd share some of the highlights.

Millard.
Former priest/monk.
In his 40s.
Working as Administrative Assistant at College.
Looking for the next stage of his life and career.
Presented story of being given an assignment with an unattainable financial goal for fundraising.
Highlight:
He doubled previous year's collections, but still fell short of the goal set by Catholic Diocese. While he was led to believe he would be given an award - it never came to pass. Funny moments - former priest/monk who says stuff like, "I was so pissed!" and "The bitching really got to me." and "I think they actually LIED to me...their priest!"

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Rafif.
21 year old Muslim woman from Israel.
Working as an intern in financial bond company while attending school.
Life goal: return to Israel and solve some of the issues of the Middle East through political position. (Wow...good luck with that!)
Highlight:
After being told by a clueless manager that she'd be better off staying as an intern and it wasn't really to her advantage to seek full time work at the company, she didn't buy it. She took on a huge project, getting out key financial reports while THREE of her senior co-workers were out of the office. Result - She got an offer from another department in the company (ditching clueless manager) for a full time job. You go girl.

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Esau.
Ecuadorian Man - Twenty-Something.
President of his own not-for-profit organization supporting development of Ecuadorian Youth in NYC (while holding down a full-time job as HR rep in another company).
Highlight: He founded this organization with a small group of people from Ecuadorian community in NYC and has been sponsoring programs every month including GED programs, seminars on financial management, career counseling, health management, etc. AND he is getting more than 50 butts in the seats ON AVERAGE at these events. I remember having energy at his age, but not vision and execution skills to get this to work. Impressive.

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And there were so many more.

Jon.
Works HR at the World Wrestling Entertainment (nuff said).

Gary.
Runs IT and serves as Resident Advisor at local college struggling with security in the wake of Virginia Tech.

Lori-Beth.
Manages international division of an 11 location district of shipping company - only has interaction with one other female in her role and they are in constant competition. (Ladies - we really MUST learn to HELP one another!!)

Fritz.
Became supervisor of a manufacturing quality control laboratory at the age of 26! He manages 7 people - all in their 30s-50s and has instituted totally new processes and procedures to revolutionize the functions.

Dennis (aka Archie due to flaming red hair).
Assistant Coach of college hockey team in competition for division championship who has structured a five-tiered personal score card with expectations for the player's development including teamwork, academics, hardwork, commitment, and development (called the "Arch-o-meter!) "Our goal," says Archie, "is not just to build better players, but to build better men." Honest. He really said that. Cool.

Michael.
Production manager for regional newspaper and periodical publishing house. As overnight press manager he found himself literally refereeing smack-downs between two female employees. (At this juncture, Jon wanted to know if they were recruitable for the WWE...)

Me.
Got to dissect (and maybe vent a little) about leadership (or lack thereof) for two department re-organizations in less than 3 years. (seems boring now, but class seemed interested...)

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But my husband and brother-in-law??


They rock the house.


They brought home their classwork!




A school day that finished with milk and fresh baked cookies.

Oh - the - joy!!