Lone Warrior – Tribal Leadership

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I have been reading “Tribal Leadership” that talks about the five stages of workplace culture. This is from an interview with Dave Logan (one of the authors):

  1. At Stage One people believe “Life sucks” and they cluster together, expressing hostility, such as in a gang.
  2. At Stage Two people believe “My life” sucks. They feel they are surrounded by people who have power, but they themselves do not.
  3. Stage Three is “I’m great,” which implies “You’re not.” It’s a culture of lone warriors.
  4. At Stage Four the “I” turns to “We” as those lone warriors group into value-based relationships.
  5. Stage Five is “Life is Great” where there is no “they.” These are the history-making groups that have excelled beyond competition.

I was reading the more in-depth version in the book that lists the characteristics of each stage. I think I am in Stage Three, but thankfully didn’t display most of the symptoms except one very surprising one! It was that people at this stage obsessively manage their time and track their time. Oh goodness me! I have been logging and tracking stuff since I was born. When I was in college (in India), I had to hitchhike from one end of Delhi to the other (buses were no good as they took 5 hours and you were just groped and mauled all the way over). So I kept track of every hitchhike I took over two years. I also tracked what I ate, how much I spent, how much I studied, how much I ran, which books I read and in how much time – in short, everything that could be tracked. And the data came in useful. My mom used my hitchhiking log to make a case to the Principal of the college to open the residence for girls.
Anyway! very interesting point that Stage Three leaders also track stuff – but mostly to show off. Oh dear. I dug deep into my soul and I think its partially true. I just love logging the numbers and seeing my graphs rise (I have one from Iridescent from way back when), but its also to show off 🙁 Oh well. will be more mature from now on!
P.S. This is the girl’s residence hall that was opened up thanks to my tracking.

Working in the Informal Science Education field

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First off, here is my weekly report:

It is quite different from last week’s as our team is growing rapidly and we are working on developing an organic way of collaborating – that doesn’t shackle a team-member, but also lets me know who is working on what.
Also, we went to Monterey over the weekend (so the travel numbers are up!) to start our partnership with the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Hopkins Marine Station graduate students. We will be conducting a Family Science Course with the families at Pajaro Middle School in March – April.
I have the highest respect for informal science education institutions for the following reasons:

  1. They have to be good otherwise they wont survive in the wild! Unlike public school teachers, informal science educators have to be amazing otherwise the public just wont come back. In my limited experience (that doesn’t stop me from making generalizations) informal science educators far outperform the public school teachers in the ways they engage with the audience and make science exciting and inspiring. Check it out for yourself here in a video of Jeff Chambers (from the Monterey Bay Aquarium) teaching about marine habitats.
  2. I love the exploratory, free-wheeling, inquiry-based approach to informal science. I believe that is how you will get a child to be inspired to be a scientist, to strive hard, to be self-motivated and to reach for the stars – by showing them how science unlocks amazing wonders in the world, by showing them the wonderful rewards of being curious.
  3. Informal science institutions like the Exploratorium, Lawrence Hall of Science, Monterey Bay Aquarium have masterpieces of art and science that draw people in! In addition they use all the tricks of advertising, performance, theater, teaching and communication that keep the attention of the visitor.

We have tons to learn from them!