Beth
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Craisin Experience
Leadership Step by Step
The value of seeing a loved one’s expression is that it serves as a signal that something is going on inside of that person. I don’t see the experience of the raisin and the expression of a loved one as totally analogous in that the experience of the raisin doesn’t require interpretation but understanding a loved one’s expression does. However, before the interpretation is the noticing. This is where I see the connection between the two experiences. Noticing opens the door to further exploration of meaning. If a loved one has an expression that I miss, they might feel unseen or unimportant.
I’m not sure about the question regarding the nuances of a boss’s communication as different than the nuances of any communication (I don’t have a boss at this point in my life). What I think this question is pointing to is that there is a lot to see in another’s communication if one pays attention to the details with curiosity, interest, and openness. One might see a small difference in how a person is speaking, the tone of their voice, the volume, or what is happening with their eyes or mouth. They may evoke in us an emotional response, or a question as to what they mean. Once we notice, we can make choices about how to proceed. Is now the time to ask for clarification? Should I back off and approach this later? Might I comment on just the fact of what I see? Being aware FIRST of what I am noticing gives me the opportunity to respond consciously as opposed to unconsciously. I can process a response vs. reactively responding.
I noticed that looking at the craisin with curiosity encouraged me to look with new eyes. I found it pretty easy to pay attention and had a few chuckles with the squishy-ness or how it landed on the plate. The most powerful sensation, though, was the taste when I bit into it. The sweetness really was like an explosion in my mouth, and it lingered and changed over time. As I swept some bits off my teeth with my tongue, the sweetness rose again. I was still tasting it a minute after I had swallowed the last bit.
I realize with this simple exercise that experiences that I have had repeatedly throughout my life can be full of surprises when I slow down and pay full attention to them. It reinforced something that I have been focused on of late; slowing down. Paying that kind of attention requires not being in a hurry, being poised to have something revealed that has been right there, hiding in plain sight.
Eugene’s Essay
It sounds like you used a “method friendship” approach in your life, learning the SKILLS to connect with and enjoy being with others. Your success at accomplishing what you set out to do is admirable. Now, you “want people’s lives to be better for having had me in it.” That is such an awesome goal and one that I think is shared by our compadres in this class. Thank you for your contribution to my learning in the class and your commitment to developing and using the skills you learn to make the world better because you are in it. I will support that goal in every way I know how during the coming weeks.
Olivia’s essay
I hear you loud and clear about having “escape hatches” that allow you to not complete a project or follow through on an idea. I think this class is a great way to keep me accountable to MYSELF for taking the next step and not giving up. I am really appreciating you and the group for that very reason. I am honored being witness to your personal exploration of self and meaning/value. How can any of us ever move forward with any idea that requires leadership without being connected to our own awareness of self, value, agency? Thank you for including us in your journey.
Joe’s essay
I wonder if you might share more about your frustrations? I’m curious if the exercise this week reveals any more to you about that feeling as you look at your inner dialog? I have felt plenty of frustration over the course of these classes, and the group has proved to be a great grounding and sounding board for me. I realize that having a community with whom I am exploring the “methods” of method initiative and method leadership has made a big difference for me. It has helped me not throw in the towel. I find myself wondering about the specifics of your experiences with successful and less successful leadership. I don’t have an “image” in my head of what exactly you do so I don’t know what kind of leading you are doing. That is a point of curiosity for me in understanding what you are going through.
Bonnie’s Essay
I learned a new word from you, voluntolding. Made me laugh. It is actually what happened to me that resulted in my retiring several years earlier than I had imagined. You gave me a new word for it. I appreciate your reference to Ted Lasso, too. A positive spirit is a spirit that attracts and he was such a great example. His “be curious, not judgmental” is something I think we are exploring in this group. Having a safe place to learn and practice the basics is exactly what we are doing here.
Reply to Hayden
Thanks, Hayden. You are so good at responding to what we each write. Look forward to seeing you Sunday.
Beth
Jim’s essay
Thank you Jim for your use of “servant leadership” as a description of your aspirations. That is exactly what I am aspiring to, as well. It is a reminder to me to keep working on the listen first and speak last code of leadership. I also was a “leader” in the mental health department with the Deming model and feel like the understanding that most problems arise from process and not people is a good reminder. Thank you for continue to inspire with your own journey.
Hayden’s essay
Hayden, I feel like I know you so much better after reading your essay. You are once again thorough in your responses in a deeply personal an honest way. I love your paragraph about the things you are certain DON’T work as a leader. I would put my exclamation point on each of the things you mentioned. We are at different stages in our lives, but I hear a fair amount of myself in your story. This assignment took a lot of reflection time and every day what I thought and felt changed a bit from the reflection. I feel like I know myself better today than I did a week ago when I started the essay. I think I hear a similar process of discovery for you. I look forward to this part of the journey with you!
It’s Go time
I love hearing your account of the path that has led you to this very moment filled with the dedication and desire to use this one, wonderful life as an agent of a new vision of the possible. I look forward to the unfolding.
Beth’s SIDCHA
The direction of my SIDCHA is mindfulness. I will meditate for 10 minutes a day every day until the end of 2024.
Leadership Step by Step
Personal Essay
October 23, 2024Feeling invisible comes with the territory of being third of nine children. This may have had something to do with cultivating ambitions to stand out from others and to assume leadership roles early in life. In those roles, I felt seen and experienced myself having something of value to offer the world. I was a person who others came to for support. I remember this as early as ten years old when I was a girl scout and in a youth group at church. If there was organizing to do about cookie sales or church bake sales, I was in the middle of it. Friends with boy problems or family problems would ask for my “advice” or just want to talk about what they were going through. I was often a speaker at church group retreats and in class projects. I don’t remember anything about what I actually said, but I remember feeling supportive and caring about what other people were going through. I also felt I mattered.
I had a strong sense of compassion that I believe others felt from me. What I was less good at was seeing myself with compassion. My mother was a strong woman with a strong personality. While she taught me a tremendous amount and loved me fiercely, in her wake I often felt not good enough and intrinsically “bad”. I believe it was my own struggle with these feelings of doubt that made me compassionate toward others and gave me a unique perspective. It also instilled the drive to feel worthy. These are the underlying experiences that drove me to assume leadership roles in most arenas throughout my life.
In my different roles as a manager, my style was more team focused than authoritarian. I solicited the ideas of others in developing solutions to whatever issue was being addressed. I think most of the people who worked with me in a manager role would say that I was open and respectful of the value of each team member. When I wasn’t in the manager role, but team member role, I was still seen as a leader. I didn’t hesitate to communicate my ideas, at times more energetically than people might have liked. When I taught in nursing school, we taught in teams and had weekly team meetings. At one point I brought socks to give to the team members to give to me when I needed to pipe down. The socks were used on more than one occasion. As an instructor in the hospital, my first question to a student after being in a room with a patient in which they performed some skill was “What did you do well?”. No matter, they always proceeded to tell me what the did wrong. Helping people see the good in themselves while still addressing the shortcomings has been a thread in how I operate in positions of leadership. We have to address what needs to be corrected but let’s do that in the context of recognizing the good, too.
These thoughts are part of the kaleidoscope that colors my mind as I consider what leadership is to me now and why I am interested in this particular class in Method Leadership. I am 71, looking at what leadership is and how I want to further develop leadership “skills”. I feel less inclined to prove anything about who I am or who I am not. I am more inclined to listen to whatever you call that thing inside that guides me toward using this life and breath to love. The guiding light of my life is that love is the foundation of everything we long for. Whatever great things we accomplish, if we don’t love ourselves and express love for life and each other in the process, we will feel disappointed. We are left with a hole that is never filled by achievement or triumph. I think this is how I ended up with the project for the initiative class, Love Merida. It is a project that creates opportunity for connection and community building. Will that change behavior or will changing behavior be the impetus? I don’t know.
This process of looking deeply at what I’m doing here leaves me with some ambivalence because I don’t feel inclined to try to influence others’ behavior as much as I want to connect with them. I like Josh’s definition; leadership is helping others do what they already wanted to do but didn’t know how. The question is, what is it that someone else wants to do and doesn’t know how that I am interested in encouraging with my “leadership”? What I am becoming clearer about as I look more deeply at my own motivation is that I have no interest in trying to “change” people. I do not like being with people who want to change me. And while the definition of leadership we are using doesn’t include changing others, it seems that the focus can drift that way, and that leadership is still measured by how effective we are at shepherding others in the direction of our goals. I DO want to be a force for good in my community. I DO want to offer an avenue for others to discover what is in them to participate in community. To that end, I would like to be best equipped to do that and I think this class can help me do that.
In terms of my role models, John Lewis is always the first person who comes to my mind. As a young black man in the south, his experience of discrimination (such an inadequate word) led him to act. His actions were brave and resulted in great bodily harm. He just kept stepping. No roadblocks put in his way stopped him. His eventual election to the US House of Representatives gave him an avenue to move toward correcting the inequalities he experienced, the most consequential of which was the Voting Rights Act. I think what is most inspiring to me about him is that he saw himself as a link in the chain of generations of inequality. He knew he would not ever see his vision of equality fully realized, but it didn’t stop him. It didn’t make him cynical. He dealt with every person respectfully without making public derogatory remarks. He called it like he saw it, but he stayed focused on the goal, the idea that every single human being is of value and deserves to be treated with dignity. He spoke of “making good trouble” and called out injustice without demeaning others dignity. He always appeared to me as someone who was always acting out of love, love for himself, his community, his country and his ideals. I think about him when I think something is too big, too hard, or too much trouble.
Exerercise 10: People of High Value
I did not speak to 10 valuable people. I did talk to people, I visited communities where I thought I was going to talk to people but in which that didn’t work out as I had envisioned. Nonetheless, I had a number of contacts that were helpful and that moved me forward on my project.
I had been referred by a priest here to a mission church in a pueblo outside of Merida. I think it was his thought that I could do something to “help” them as they are a community of very poor people. I spoke with the madre who is the spiritual leader of the mission and she was open and inviting for my visit. However, there was no opportunity for me to talk to the people of the community during my visit and on the way back to Merida she shared with me that she had spoken with some of the leadership people in the congregation and that what she presented to them wasn’t of interest to them. I don’t know what she said, but I didn’t have the chance to speak with them myself.
I then visited the “home” church that is in my neighborhood the following Sunday. I was hoping to speak with people in that congregation after the service but the service was a special celebration that joined the Spanish speaking and English speaking congregations and was therefore very long and I was unable to stay for further discussion. I plan to go back to try again to speak with people who may be interested in joining me.
1. I met the incoming Secretary of Citizen Participation (a position with the incoming City Council) in a small group setting. I had the opportunity to present my idea and he was enthusiastic about my project and had the following to contribute:
1) Get Mexican people involved.
2) Follow up with his office for possible support in school projects that include children’s art and participation.
3) Inform him of events, send photos etc.2. I spoke individually with the woman in this office who is responsible for migrant relations. Her background is cultural anthropology and she had the following suggestions:
1) Clarify what your goal is. Is the goal “just” picking up trash? Is there a longer term idea or underlying value? This helped (again) clarify my intention to build community and raise awareness of not creating trash in the first place.
2) Get concrete with what you’re doing so others can join you now.
3) She suggested that I collect along a path of the cities “Puntos Verdes” (recycling centers) and I could then immediately have a place to dispose of the collected waste without taking it home.
4) There is a “cultural center” at the local coffee shop where we met that is new and that is an open space for community members to use in whatever “cultural” enterprise they would like. She introduced me to several people and suggested it might be a space I could use for meetings and introducing the project to others.3. I returned to speak to a restaurant owner that stopped me in the street to ask about the progress and to reiterate his interest in the project.
1) Invite people to join me on Sundays and take photos.
2) Get a Facebook page up right away where info and photos can be posted.
3) Follow up with a graphic artist contact (he plans to go with me to make an introduction) to get a decal/poster designed and produced.4. Radio reporter informed me that the interview he taped of me on the street was used in a radio program on community events, the first in a series of “La Ciudad que Queremos” (The City we Want”).
1) Provided a contact of a woman who is also involved in radio and other media suggesting she would do an interview in English about the involvement of expats participating in beautifying the city.
2) Offered further assistance with contacts when I want.I have felt like I need to make some decisions about the project before proceeding with more conversations. I am at this point continuing with the idea of inviting others to join me on Sundays and to develop a decal or small poster that I can give to businesses and individuals who commit to maintaining their properties free from trash. I also will start a Facebook page that allows them to share their journey of “loving Merida” in photos and stories. I will do this as a step toward the solution I have already stated, as stated below.
New Problem: Same as old problem
New Solution: Hold a clean-up event in either one or both a church community and a school community based on city pride and stewardship. Establish a leadership group from the communities involved to develop the details of the event and to take ownership of it.REFLECTIONS:
I have not found it easy to stay within the structure of the recommended exercise. As I take some further concrete steps, I think I will have further questions and will be better able to make contact with “valuable people” actually fruitful. I continue to feel encouraged by the response of people with whom I speak. I also find myself discouraged when I walk down the streets and am confronted with how big the problem is. At these times I go back to Zoi’s question about is the real goal trash (it is at least partially true) or something else. I want this to be a way to build community and consciousness. Community connects us in ways that increases our desire to take care of one another and consciousness also opens us to our part in caring for the environment around us. I continue to focus on the “task” of trash while keeping these foundational ideas in the front of my mind.Hey, Evelyn
I found myself thinking about holograms when reading your post. It isn’t exactly a correct analogy, but the idea is that the whole is represented in each part. Thus, wherever we start, we have a path to the larger frame or picture, which means that where we start isn’t as important as starting. You have so much heart for people and for life, I think you could follow any of the paths you mentioned, and it would lead you to your deepest heart.
Beth
Hey Hayden,
You are so refreshingly self-reflective and open! Thank you for sharing so deeply the process you have been going through. Your initiative has shown in this class and with that baseline, I am confident that you will find ways to live your values about animal protection and advocacy. I hope we will learn of them as we go forward in the class.
You identified the 4-6 week mark as being challenging (and so did Olivia in her response) this reflects my experience, too. It makes me remember my teaching days when as professors, we gave each other knowing looks around week 6 because students hit a slump and had difficulties maintaining their energy. I am realizing that on the student end of it, you all as classmates have helped me navigate my slump.
Thanks!
Beth
Method Initiative Exercise 9: Second Personal Essay
I started this class because for several years I have wanted to organize a “clean up Merida” project. I never acted on this idea because I didn’t know where to start and it seemed fruitless and overwhelming. The class has helped me realize that I could just “jump in” with my idea on my own and then let it grow from there. “Start with where you are and what you have”. Making a poster for my cart that says “I “heart” Merida” and picking up trash on Paseo Montejo on Sunday mornings has proven to be an energizing place to start because it both feels good to “do something” and because there has been positive feedback from people on the street every time I have gone out.
Thinking of “who” has the problem has been a different way to approach the problem than anything I have done before. When I started, I considered the trash on the street the problem. It is for me and it is for most of my friends. I wasn’t sure it was for local people. In thinking through what the negative feelings are and for whom, I realized that the feeling evoked by the trash is disgust, overwhelm and hopelessness. These are the feelings that paralyzed me and perhaps others. Though I have had formal conversations with friends and acquaintances that have confirmed that others have these feelings, the consistent response by strangers on the street thanking me for picking up trash reinforces the idea that others want it to be different but also don’t know how or where to start. With this in mind, I have gotten some supplies to share with others who want to join me on Sunday mornings while I work on organizing a larger community event.
The idea of iterations has helped me see the process as one that is expected to evolve. When the class started, I had in mind a city-wide event that would look like the Love Modesto event with which I was peripherally familiar. While I still have that as an eventual goal, the feedback from people who have organized similar events is to start small and learn from them how to scale up. Josh’s feedback that my Sunday morning pickups WERE a start encouraged me to keep it up.
It has been refreshing to have a structured purpose in reaching out to people that I might have been timid about reaching out to before. I have yet to make a real “cold call” because everyone with whom I’ve spoken has been someone in my community with whom I’ve had at least casual contact or a referral by someone with whom I’ve spoken (Classmates have been invaluable in giving referrals). I do feel the groundwork has been laid for making cold calls and I feel more comfortable and prepared to do so. I have had so much positive feedback that I expect people to be open and receptive to the idea of a clean-up event that would invite broader participation from the community. My challenge now is to establish a group of people committed enough to the idea to be on a “steering committee” to organize and plan an event. I have a visit to a local church scheduled. I am hopeful they will be interested in starting a project in their community and that there will be a person or two interested in heading up the project with me.
While I had difficulty completing the spreadsheet, it did make me think of what items/expenses to expect and how to obtain them. I have a better idea of what will be needed and thus have a list of things to bring to the table when organizing an event with a specific group. I believe that some of the people I have talked to in the business community will be willing to provide some financial support and “in kind” help such as with advertising or supplies. I think I still have a long way to go on this but it has gotten me started in assessing the costs and the benefits of the project to those who participate. Since I am not looking for this to be a “money-making” event, I have a different perspective than others. However, I also don’t want it to be a “money-losing” event.
I am thinking about how to make the event “sustainable”, as in not creating more trash and minimizing the need to buy new things with which to do the work. I am still pondering how to dispose of the trash collected. There are recycling centers that I would like to enlist as well as the trash collecting services that are already used by the city. I have discussed with classmates and others some options for how to have the volunteers identifiable when they are going about their work. Love Modesto uses T-shirts, and I like that idea because people are proud of them and wear them throughout the year providing more opportunities to get the word out. The idea of “repurposing” t-shirts that people already have doesn’t address the need to make them the same and identifiable from a distance. I am exploring what the most “sustainable” t-shirt might be and how much it would cost. Having a t-shirt be a part of what the volunteers “get” would be significant here. I have not settled on a solution to this but I am working on it.
I have now developed relationships with a number of “movers and shakers” in Merida who have voiced support and interest in the project. These conversations have not just been beneficial for moving forward with what I want to accomplish, they have also been personally satisfying. I have heard their stories and gotten to know them beyond a superficial level. I learned that Ireland used to be the worst European country for cleanliness until someone thought of starting a national movement to change it and thus was born “Tidy Towns Ireland”. This is a national competition for being the “tidiest” town in Ireland. It started in 1958 and is still going strong. According to my friend, it was pivotal in turning around the national “consciousness” of taking care of and pride in the country of Ireland. I wonder if something like that could be part of my project. Could we develop recognition for neighborhoods that decide to clean up their streets? Give them acknowledgments that would matter to them? Ireland has gotten my synapses firing. I also learned that there have been neighborhood structures in Mexico before, something like the Neighborhood Watch program except for keeping the neighborhood clean. It is an idea that has not continued, but there may be those who remember it and who would be motivated to help a new iteration come to life. Another conversation was with a young man who grew up in Campeche, a World Heritage Site city and the one with the designation of “the cleanest city in Mexico”. He grew up with that being emphasized in his schooling, in his home, and in the city-wide identity. He was shocked when he moved to Merida and saw the condition of the streets with ever flowing trash. Each of these people is part of my “circle” now and I will have no problems connecting with them as the community wide event plan evolves. All of these examples have seeded my own ideas that I will bring with me when developing our Merida project(s).
My next steps are twofold. One is to continue with my Sunday morning clean ups soliciting others to join me and the second is to meet with the church community that was a referral by a Padre in Merida. Now that I have a contact in the radio community, I will reconnect with him, too, and explore other media avenues for getting the word out. I have become a bit more trusting and relaxed (less stressed) about allowing this to grow organically as I continue the assignments and meet with more local people.
REFLECTIONS
I enjoyed writing this essay more than I imagined. I had felt pressured to “catch up” and was more in the mode of “getting it done” than actually benefiting from the process when I first sat down. However, as I began to write, I realized that I am more focused about the project than I was before. When the class started, I examined a few extraneous avenues before landing on “just” a clean-up project as a good goal. This was largely due to speaking with people who have done their own versions of “clean-up projects” that have endured decades and that have helped raise the awareness of trash and of stewardship. The experience of talking with people has been rewarding and effective in moving me forward both with ideas I want to incorporate and those that I don’t. Having had so many spontaneous contacts on the street on Sunday mornings has been fueling my determination to see this through. Meeting someone with a radio program last Sunday confirmed to me that local interest is there. I feel ready to take the next steps.
Method Initiative Exercise 8: Spreadsheet
Project ASSUMPTIONS
I don’t really have a 2 year plan. My goal is to find a community with which I can launch one clean up event from which I can learn in order to replicate with the same community or grow it to other communities. In order to do that, I only need a few supplies that I believe I already have. We will need water and trash free snacks which I am hoping to generate as donations either from the community itself or a business partner. I think the longer range plan will be directed from the initial experience.
In this plan, I assumed I could get a number of business partners. I think I could work out a plan to generate $100 per month from one of them each month in order to supply what is needed for the clean up. In order to do this I will need more specific numbers as to the actual costs.
I spent at least 4 or 5 hours looking up costs but what I know at this point isn’t sufficient to really know what be needed down the road. Part of my vision is that getting people from the church or school to form a “steering committee” and that the vision of the event will come from that group. Thus, the monetary needs will be driven by that plan.
I can’t really say this felt motivating to talk to others about my plan beyond what I am already involved in doing. It made me aware that I don’t want to be the sole driver of it. I want this to belong to the people who are doing it and so I want the plan to be driven by that. Thus, those are the people I want to talk to first.
REFLECTIONS
This exercise made me consider what the costs would be and how I imagine covering them. I don’t see this as a “profit generating” project. It is a community building project that will need some supplies and refreshments for participants (at least at the beginning. It may evolve to include other items requiring money but I don’t know what those will be yet) I don’t think much will be needed at the beginning and I think with the contacts I have already made and with donations those things can be covered.
I need more time and some assistance to figure out how to develop a web presence that could be used to advertise beforehand and to celebrate after. I need to find someone who could help me think that through. Again, I can have the idea about how to do that and do it with the people who will be participating in the project.
Exercise 7 – Create a Visual Model
Old Problem: People feel discouraged, overwhelmed and hopeless about trash in the streets.
Old Solution: Hold a clean-up event in either a school or church community or both based on city pride and stewardship. Establish a leadership group from the communities involved to develop the details of the event and for the group to take ownership of the event.
New Problem: Same
New Solution: SameThe link below is my list and my visual model.
REFLECTIONS
I feel like I do understand the project better after thinking of the people/groups that need to be involved. I have revised several times and added groups but am already thinking of more but want to get in what I have done thus far. I realize that such an event needs a plan for cleanup AFTER the trash has been collected and my list and visual plan doesn’t include this component. Also, there needs to be a plan for water and refreshments that isn’t included. I am thinking about how to do these things in the most sustainable way.My motivation to talk to people remains high. I don’t know if this did anything to change my motivation, but it did highlight who I need to talk to in order to accomplish the task
Hey, Joe,
Looking forward to hearing from you this week, if these difficulties continued or if you feel like you broke through any log jams.
See you tomorrow,
Beth
Hi Hayden,
I am happy to hear you are feeling you are homing in on how you want to proceed and are feeling more confident in your ability to do something meaningful with your project. It sounds like community is key!
Beth
Hey, Evelyn,
I have been asking myself how anyone with regular responsibilities of kids, jobs, other parts of their lives are managing what this exercise required. I am retired and I felt like my entire week revolved around completing this assignment. I am glad I did it, and it was a good experience for me, but it consumed my week. I think Josh said this is the most time-consuming week, so I hope it gets better for you and those who have full lives outside of this class.
Beth/Mom