Monthly Archives: July 2013

I would develop a system to get affordable and fresh produce to low-income families.  The food system in America is perpetuating the obesity and health problems in America.  If people do not have enough money to live on, it is only logical that they would purchase inexpensive, easy to cook, pre-packaged meals high in carbohydrates.  However, these meals also carry the most sugar and sodium content and do not provide the nutrients that our bodies need to be healthy.

I would therefore establish a ‘mobile farmers market’, such as a prefabricated school bus that could take these healthy foods to neighborhoods where local grocery stores or neighborhood corner stores were insufficient.  The food would be subsidized so it becomes the affordable and logical choice for locals.  I would also provide basic recipes and teach cooking classes to educate people on how to cook fresh produce in their everyday lives.

On a micro level, the social entrepreneur project would benefit individual, low-income communities.  Locals would grow accustom to the farmers market’s regular weekly attendance and do their grocery shopping accordingly.  They would also be able to teach their children about healthy eating habits.  On a macro level, if this program were successful in a target city, for example, New York City, it could expand nationally.  If this project could contribute to reducing the amount of obesity in these urban areas, it could have drastically positive effects on our healthcare system as a prevention mechanism.

I think donors would find this idea strong and easily digestible.  It does not have a complex business model, it does not necessitate massive amounts of start up costs, and it has the potential to create a big shift in people’s mindset and health.  Michelle Obama’s ‘Lets Move’ campaign has done a lot to publicize health issues, especially in kids and school systems in the recent years.  I therefore also believe that there are federal grants that would contribute to funding the project.  I would develop short promotional videos and a website to increase exposure to the project and I would attend conferences related to health and education.  I would then write a significant amount of grant proposals.

I like to think that my leadership style encompasses many of the characteristics of community builders, navigators and renewal champions. However, generally,  I would describe my style as a direction setter. I believe that I have a knack for getting and keeping people’s attention, persuading people to act and building awareness and understanding.

Do I lead by example? Do I delegate? Do I rule by consensus? Yes, yes and yes. I know from experience that it’s hard to get people to listen to you and believe you if you do not practice what your preach. So, I always do my best to lead by example.

In terms of delegating, I find that it is a very important task that should not be taken lightly. I’ve had apprehensions in the past about assigning tasked. I must admit that I was one of those people who felt that the best way to get something done right was to do it myself. Unfortunately, time does not permit one to hold that view and run a business effectively. Therefore, I had to learn how to delegate.

When working in a team I believe that consensus plays a crucial role in the team dynamics. In order for every member to feel respected and like a contributing memeber I think it is important to incorporate a consensus into the functioning strategy.

Just recently I was placed in a team of 6 people with one very difficult team member. This teammate is very controlling and generally objects to most suggestions made by other teammates. He is not open to ideas that are not his own and focuses too much on trying to control everything.

Communication in general and digital communication plays a very important role in how this team functions effectively. Work is divided amongst the team equally and in order to minimize dissent we collaborate via google docs. This enables everyone to see in real time where each person stands on completing their portion of work and limits face to face contact. In this particular situation this is an effective strategy.

Working in teams are never easy but it is important to remember to be open to ideas, communicate in a manner that is honest and open to be effective. Also, work by consensus. This allows everyone to feel valued.

I and Faith gave a presentation on ‘Leader as a Trust Builder’. Faith started the presentation. She did a good job by outlining the key elements in the presentation. The introduction was short, to the point and appealing enough to arouse interest in the audience. Faith maintained a good eye contact with all members in the room. This is important as it makes sure you engage with all people sitting in the room. Faith covered about seven to eight slides. Then I took over the remaining part of the presentation. I think that the transition between us was very smooth and the presentation did not lose any flow or connectivity. I was well prepared about the topic and did not have any difficulty in discussing the points during my presentation. Our presentation was for approximately fifteen minutes. We had also put some interesting questions at the end for discussion with the class.

According to me, we both did a very good job as far as the oral communication is concerned. We had a nice flow and tone to our voice. We used gestures and eye contact effectively to engage the audience. The presentation was also well organized as far as the content goes. We had put only bullet points so that the audience have all their attention to what we are talking. But we also had some interesting pictures on our slides to make them interesting. There were some formatting errors on the power point slides. But these errors can be easily corrected. The next time we give any presentation, we will double check to see that the formatting is consistent through all the slides. I did use few fillers in my sentences like ‘umm’. But the count was much less than the previous presentation, so I definitely made some improvement on the use of fillers. For the next presentation, I will further try to reduce the use of unnecessary fillers and work towards improving my articulation and gestures even further.

In general, people normally look at great leaders and try to adopt their styles while leading other people. I have also observed several leaders and have a learnt a lot from them. I try to encapsulate their strategies and thinking and apply it while making any decisions. I believe that true leaders are those who can generate a feeling of trust among their team. Good leaders are well respected by others. I always try to develop a feeling of trust within my team. This helps to bring up all the issues within the team and also makes it easier to solve them. I believe that effective and straight forward communication is a must in order to gain the trust and confidence of the team. I try to keep the processes as transparent as possible to all the team members so that they are aware of what’s going on in the team. This helps to promote unity in the team. People also feel more attached to their teams which helps to improve the productivity. I believe that if you want people to do the right things, you should also behave in that way. In short, I do believe in leading by example. Especially when you are the leader, people always look up to you. So you have to make sure that you give a positive signal to others. How can expect other to be punctual when the leader is the one who always arrives late? On many occasions, as a leader, you have to represent others  or the entire team. I have represented my team in several meetings with senior executives. I normally involve all the team members whenever possible, but at times, you have to delegate. While taking any decisions, I always ask the team members about their thoughts on the concerned matter. I do take a consensus especially while deciding the schedule for team meetings or status reviews. But I take other decisions according to my judgment by taking into account the overall consensus.

There are very few challenges I have faced during team projects. One of the reasons is that I find it easy to work in teams as I can easily adjust myself per the situation. Some of the challenges which I have faced are the way in which the problem is tackled or time at which they are tackled. Everyone has their own perspectives and priorities which can lead to conflicts in the team. But we have always made sure that the team has a contract which everyone followed. Communication is really important for a team. Miss communication can have disastrous effects on the team like double work, missing deadlines or even failure of the entire project. Effective communication can make sure that everyone is aware of what each individual is working on. It also helps to avoid any miss understandings within the team and makes sure that everyone is on the same page. The best and quickest way to communicate these days is via emails. Digital communication is now the key mode of communicating within the teams. This makes sure that messages are delivered to the members even when the team member is not physically available. Teams are often spread across boundaries in today’s world. This has only been possible due to digital communication.

One of our assignments in Business Communication-2 involved presenting our views on different leadership styles followed by leaders in the industry. Me along with my team partner Vaibhavi presented on Leadership style involving building trust. After viewing the presentation on VOCAT, I was quite satisfied with the content of the presentation, however there are a few points on which I would definitely like to work upon.

While presenting, I noticed that I use fillers extensively ( a fact I was not unaware about). In the future, I would definitely like to see myself not using fillers when I am trying to complete a sentence or thinking for a better word to describe something. The other thing which lacked in our presentation was the fact that although the slides conveyed our point of view, they appeared to be quite wordy. For a diverse audience, this might cause people to not pay attention to what we were communicating as they would be busy reading out of the slides. Some of our slides also had minor spelling errors which again might cause distraction (or change the meaning of an entire sentence!!). Apart from all this the transition of content from my part of the presentation to Vaibhavi’s also could have been a little more smooth.

In order to improve my presentation skills, I need to stop using (so many!!) fillers and may be just stop when I am thinking of a better word or feel the urge to umm!! Apart from this getting a third person to review the slides before final presentation can also be helpful as it would bring out the errors which I would have easily overlooked.

Overall, I think we gave the class some real good food for thought.

We both looked comfortable and did a good job at body language and eye contact.  I have tried to work on ‘scanning’ the room in the past and can tell the difference in my application depending on how nervous I am.  The transition from Carla to me was good, but my transition back to her could have been more logical.  I also think some media (a 30 second clip of some kind) would have been a nice addition to the presentation.  This might have drawn in listeners and possibly added a little humor with the right clip.

It’s nice to have so few people in our class to get more ‘air time’ presenting and more time to focus on our own presentation vices.  For example, I have trouble with pause, which is apparent in the speed at which I present and the amount of fillers I use.  I need to work on using pause to engage listeners.  It will allow the audience to digest what I’m saying and allow me to collect my thoughts and ensure I’m on the right track.  I am working on speaking slower, which is apparent in this video.  However, when I speak slower, I also have a tendency to lose my emotion or energy for the particular topic.

There were also a few items that I had intended to speak about in the presentation but I forgot and never looked at my note cards to trigger the thoughts.  I believe Carla mentioned this as something she needs to work on as well.  My hand gestures are also a nuisance.  I use them too often and for no reason; they are a distraction.  Lastly, we both could have moved around a little more to engage the audience but we both recognized the constraint of the camera for this strategy.

Overall, I think that Carla and I gave a solid presentation.  The structure of the presentation flowed nicely; we had a clear introduction, section breakdown and conclusion/wrap up.  This made it easy to follow by repeating the main points multiple times in different ways.  It is advantageous that both of us have had experience with meaning maker leaders.  We were able to draw from our own experiences and relate them to the book’s definitions and anecdotes.  I believe the examples we used and the questions we asked to the audience were relevant and thought provoking.