Responses and progress all in one week!
Well - this has been quite a week!
So far 8 out of 13 have responded to my survey. Since I've kept it anonymous - I have no way of know exactly which 8... which is good... as I suspect the other 5 may not respond... the email w/ the invitation is surely buried beneath dozens of more recent emails by now. But - I'm keeping the survey open through next week, just in case.
The responses.... well... in some ways they are not all that helpful... but... there are one or two interesting things to note. Nearly all the responses were either "Agree Strongly" or "Agree" ... or some other form of a positive or very positive response (for those questions that had a different set of answers). There was one "no opinion" on one question.
The two things I found most interesting (and will bear some influence on how I format my request for peer reviews I think) was that while the majority of respondents "Agreed Strongly" to the questions asking if they respected me and trusted me... the choices flipped (more said only "Agree") for the questions asking if they know that I respect and trust them. I thought this flip/flop was telling... my colleagues are very sure that they respect and can trust me... but they are not quite as sure that I respect and trust them. So - I now need to explore how I can better demonstrate that trust and respect.
The other thing that I found quite interesting... for the questions where I asked if there had been any improvement (or depreciation) of my communication and my contributions to the team... most of the answers indicated that the quality of my communication and my contributions had stayed the same. A couple of responses indicated that I had improved... none indicated that I done worse. So - while I feel like I'm on the path to improving, the team perceives that I've stayed the same. Now... this could mean that they all think I was great to begin with... ;) But - I think it means that I still have something to work on there. Again - this will come up again in the peer reviews I will request from my colleagues.
Now - on to other progress.
Sign number 1 of progress:
Late in the week before this past week, I received notice of a local and very economical professional development opportunity through our local ASTD chapter. The local chapter offers short (2 hour) workshops/presentations once a month on Friday mornings (8am to 10am... roughly). Recently, they've held these workshops/presentations in a conference room at the hotel adjacent to the building we work in. This month's presentation was on Learning Styles and Cultural Considerations in eLearning design/development. Because this is a professional organization for Training and Development, the presentations are not always so directly related to what we (the eLearning designers/developers) do... As I always do when I see such an opportunity, I sent an email to the group. But - this time I did it a little different. I sent an email to the group and the managers... and rather than just say "look at this interesting event that's happening next week"... I formed the email as a question to the managers... "There is an timely and potentially useful presentation being offered by the Local ASTD chapter next week. It is being offered next door and it is only $20 (per person) to attend. What do we need to do to get the expense approved for any of us who want to attend?" Our manager then said that we should just let the administrative assistant know by Friday if we planned to attend and he would take care of getting the check cut. As it turned out, I and three of my colleagues attended. The presentation itself offered some good information and prompted some interesting discussion on how we as the designers sometimes impose our own preferred learning style on the lesson and forget to consider the other potential learning styles of our audience (clients). The discussion was not extensive, but this is the first time more than one of my colleagues have attended one of these presentations with me... so I consider it a big step. I'm just glad the presentation was interesting and applicable to our work - that will help to encourage future participation.
Sign number 2 of progress:
Instant messaging today w/ the colleague I've been working on the online symposium presentation with. During the course of a mostly social conversation (a little business and also I was beta testing a new site he is working on for a contract job)... he told me how much he appreciates all the ways that I'm working with him... he said that he recognizes how much I've done to help him and he really appreciates it. That's nice... but here is the really good part... he also said that we all (the whole team) need to work harder to recognize and publicly acknowledge each other's value... what we bring to the team. He said that now that he is a senior (yes... he finally made senior... don't know if I've mentioned that in here) he will make an effort to make sure we are all aware of what we all bring to the team - that we all value each other. That is HUGE and it makes me very happy - as I think it could be a real breakthrough if we could make our group dynamics more about acknowledging how much we value each other (and what we value about each other) and less about how frustrated we are w/ the company, our manager, or whatever the gripe of the week is. The gripes will still be there, but we will have something to fall back on... someone's shoulders to stand on... someone to support us in a positive way.
So - my next step is to figure out how to inspire more of the same. I'd like to get started working on peer reviews (for myself). Also - my IM conversation with my colleague today has me thinking that I might want to try a classmate's excellent suggestion of handing out index cards (or something like that) and asking everyone to write one thing (for each person on the team) that they value about their team-mate. I have to think about how best to present it so that it doesn't seem like some kind of party game... and so that it is different from the "Mahvalous" coupons that the company already encourages. Ok... that's all for tonight - gotta make my potluck item for work tomorrow.
So far 8 out of 13 have responded to my survey. Since I've kept it anonymous - I have no way of know exactly which 8... which is good... as I suspect the other 5 may not respond... the email w/ the invitation is surely buried beneath dozens of more recent emails by now. But - I'm keeping the survey open through next week, just in case.
The responses.... well... in some ways they are not all that helpful... but... there are one or two interesting things to note. Nearly all the responses were either "Agree Strongly" or "Agree" ... or some other form of a positive or very positive response (for those questions that had a different set of answers). There was one "no opinion" on one question.
The two things I found most interesting (and will bear some influence on how I format my request for peer reviews I think) was that while the majority of respondents "Agreed Strongly" to the questions asking if they respected me and trusted me... the choices flipped (more said only "Agree") for the questions asking if they know that I respect and trust them. I thought this flip/flop was telling... my colleagues are very sure that they respect and can trust me... but they are not quite as sure that I respect and trust them. So - I now need to explore how I can better demonstrate that trust and respect.
The other thing that I found quite interesting... for the questions where I asked if there had been any improvement (or depreciation) of my communication and my contributions to the team... most of the answers indicated that the quality of my communication and my contributions had stayed the same. A couple of responses indicated that I had improved... none indicated that I done worse. So - while I feel like I'm on the path to improving, the team perceives that I've stayed the same. Now... this could mean that they all think I was great to begin with... ;) But - I think it means that I still have something to work on there. Again - this will come up again in the peer reviews I will request from my colleagues.
Now - on to other progress.
Sign number 1 of progress:
Late in the week before this past week, I received notice of a local and very economical professional development opportunity through our local ASTD chapter. The local chapter offers short (2 hour) workshops/presentations once a month on Friday mornings (8am to 10am... roughly). Recently, they've held these workshops/presentations in a conference room at the hotel adjacent to the building we work in. This month's presentation was on Learning Styles and Cultural Considerations in eLearning design/development. Because this is a professional organization for Training and Development, the presentations are not always so directly related to what we (the eLearning designers/developers) do... As I always do when I see such an opportunity, I sent an email to the group. But - this time I did it a little different. I sent an email to the group and the managers... and rather than just say "look at this interesting event that's happening next week"... I formed the email as a question to the managers... "There is an timely and potentially useful presentation being offered by the Local ASTD chapter next week. It is being offered next door and it is only $20 (per person) to attend. What do we need to do to get the expense approved for any of us who want to attend?" Our manager then said that we should just let the administrative assistant know by Friday if we planned to attend and he would take care of getting the check cut. As it turned out, I and three of my colleagues attended. The presentation itself offered some good information and prompted some interesting discussion on how we as the designers sometimes impose our own preferred learning style on the lesson and forget to consider the other potential learning styles of our audience (clients). The discussion was not extensive, but this is the first time more than one of my colleagues have attended one of these presentations with me... so I consider it a big step. I'm just glad the presentation was interesting and applicable to our work - that will help to encourage future participation.
Sign number 2 of progress:
Instant messaging today w/ the colleague I've been working on the online symposium presentation with. During the course of a mostly social conversation (a little business and also I was beta testing a new site he is working on for a contract job)... he told me how much he appreciates all the ways that I'm working with him... he said that he recognizes how much I've done to help him and he really appreciates it. That's nice... but here is the really good part... he also said that we all (the whole team) need to work harder to recognize and publicly acknowledge each other's value... what we bring to the team. He said that now that he is a senior (yes... he finally made senior... don't know if I've mentioned that in here) he will make an effort to make sure we are all aware of what we all bring to the team - that we all value each other. That is HUGE and it makes me very happy - as I think it could be a real breakthrough if we could make our group dynamics more about acknowledging how much we value each other (and what we value about each other) and less about how frustrated we are w/ the company, our manager, or whatever the gripe of the week is. The gripes will still be there, but we will have something to fall back on... someone's shoulders to stand on... someone to support us in a positive way.
So - my next step is to figure out how to inspire more of the same. I'd like to get started working on peer reviews (for myself). Also - my IM conversation with my colleague today has me thinking that I might want to try a classmate's excellent suggestion of handing out index cards (or something like that) and asking everyone to write one thing (for each person on the team) that they value about their team-mate. I have to think about how best to present it so that it doesn't seem like some kind of party game... and so that it is different from the "Mahvalous" coupons that the company already encourages. Ok... that's all for tonight - gotta make my potluck item for work tomorrow.
posted by susan @ 6:44 PM
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