Day 3

Good Definition of Assessment: Deciding what we want our students to learn and making sure they learn it.

Program Assessment Cycle
Learning Goals
Programs and Services
Assessment
Using Results

Stewardship
Ensure the org's ongoing health and well-being
improve programs and services
deploy resources
demonstrate quality to stakeholders


Developing an Assessment Culture
Demonstrate the value of assessment
Just make them do it
Develop learning organizations
Build relationships
Instill trust
Develop an organizational mindset for growth
Show compassion; reverence the whole being
Identify the elephants in the room

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Public Works University: Training for the Future

Williams, Arvis and Kujoth, Kimberly

City of Milwaukee Dept. Public Works

Public Works University (PWU)

"Every organization is known for something...We are striving to be known for service excellence"  Arvis Williams

"A commitment by the City of Milwaukee Department of Public Works to the professional growth of our employees through training and continued education. Public Works University includes training at all levels - from front-line workers to executive management. Exclusive training opportunities will be developed and offered to PWU graduates on an ongoing basis. PWU is one way DPW is enriching lives through investment in our workforce to improve service delivery and provide benefit to our community" (http://city.milwaukee.gov/MPWU). 

Service Excellence Model

Lens of the Customer - the excited grandma at the hospital 

Everything Speaks - first impressions

Service Mapping - lookinga t processes, ripping them apart, putting back together through lens of lens of customer.

Self-Directed Workgroups 

My Take Away - See From My Customer's Lens

One particular aspect of the Service Excellence Model I believe most servants forget is the Lens of the Customer. As a leadership development trainer, and have the opportunity to work with diverse groups of business men/women, college students and various other individuals. Each time I work with a group I have to remember that my role is to serve their teamwork, leadership, and character growth capacity. However, the most important step is to remember that i need to grow these individuals from their lens, according to their needs, beliefs, goals, and objectives. This is opposed to me working with an analytical individual and telling them to see the world differently, or less analytical. Here I would be telling the person to be someone against their own wiring. I want my customer's experience to be one of running towards their own leadership, strength, and personality shape wiring rather than away from it to help them become the best version of themselves with their lens.

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Al Gini

According to Gini, Barbara Kellerman claims that we seek out leadership and it is part of our DNA. However, we have a tendency to become fixated on good leadership; the leaders who have left a positive imprint on society. While there is nothing wrong with this tendency, we as a society need to pry open the minds of the most corrupt, ineffective, and unethical leaders. These are the leaders, like Adolf Hitler that "offer us lessons on the use and abuse of power" (Gini, 2013). There is an inherent danger in hero worship, or studying positive exemplars of a specific effort. The status of a so-called great leader "blurs reality" (Gini, 2013) and provides us a false reality. We must begin to not only study the good but study the bad examples of ineffective and unethical leadership.

Here is a great idea Gini (2013) shared with us today in the defense of studying poor examples of leadership:

In other words, studying what doesnt work well in leadership is equally as important as studying what does work in leadership. We need to understand the continuum of effective, just, and ethical leadership comparatively to unethical, immoral, and evil leadership. Let's return to the analogy above. If all we do is focus on healthy leadership, we limit our awareness and understanding of the factors, beliefs, and behaviors of that which causes health in leadership. Therefore, I believe by focusing on both sides of the continuum, a leader becomes more aware of their present position and personal journey. The leader then understands how leadership can turn to the wayside by following in the footsteps and decision making tactics of histories poor leaders. 

Dr. Gini referred to the Hero's Journey mono myth that is supported as a universal narrative worldwide. Upon entering my third year of service, I think of myself entering my final hero's journey of the program. Here my journey is defined by a journey towards transformation, change, and rebirth. I have chosen corporate social responsibility (CSR) as my issue for the third year. I am interested in better understanding the role of the corporation in society. 

I look ahead to the challenges, choices, and changes that will occur on my scholarly hero's journey and truly feel a calling to an adventure. My supernatural aid will be the literature I review and the business leaders I interview on the topic of CSR. Past that will be determined by my attitude regarding the threshold guardians, or those arguments against corporate social responsibility. I will encounter arguments that derail, or even challenge my thinking on the topic. However, these encounters are healthy and beneficial in the learning process as a hero. 

While most characters despise, fear, and avoid the threshold guardians, the first form of external conflict, I embrace them head on. The purpose of the threshold guardian is to challenge the character's integrity to carry on, to be persistent.

Takeaway for Leadership, Learning and Service - To transform as a leader, change as a learner, and be a reborn servant, I need to understand my continuum of good vs bad leadership to create a powerful personal hero's journey.