My Personal Narrative Example

Ken's Antarctic Awakening

This wasn't what was supposed to happen: unsuccessful with our climb, pinned down in our tent with this wild storm raging outside, radio not working, the ice shelf beneath us cracking and moaning, food and fuel running low, and the temperature a brutal 40 degrees below zero. Nope. By now we were supposed to be safely back at the station with no one but ourselves knowing that we had just climbed Mt. Erebus, Antarctica’s most famous mountain.

No one was supposed to know because climbing a mountain wasn’t why we were in Antarctica. As members of the first ever winter-over construction crew, we were there to work. Our job was to rebuild a dormitory and a couple of other structures, work that wasn’t possible during the busy summer months. But wintering in the Antarctic is an adventure in itself: a long eight months isolated from the rest of the world, with no mail, no fresh food, and no way out if something went wrong.

And things had gone terribly wrong. As three members of the station search and rescue (SAR) team, we had been given permission to do some winter training over the weekend. We said we would camp for one night, near the station. But our real goal was Erebus, an active volcano looming in the distance some 50 kilometers away. Over a series of weeks, we planned our climb in secret, meeting late at night and preparing our gear. With the help of a couple of snowmobiles, we felt we could get to the base of Erebus, then use skis to climb to the lower reaches  of the mountain, and up high use ice climbing gear to reach the summit. If all went well we would be back to the station in time for work on Monday, with no one knowing we had done the climb. 

Just shy of the summit, however, a huge storm came rolling down from the polar plateau, obscuring our vision and very nearly preventing us from getting back to our tent halfway down the mountain. There we hunkered down for the night, exhausted and cold, hoping the storm would clear by morning. When it hadn’t, we knew we had to try and get off the mountain anyway. With one person out in front trying to find our tracks from the day before, we slowly crept down the mountain. Eventually we met the frozen sea and set up camp. But it was a restless night as the sea ice below us scraped against the rocky shore. When the storm hadn’t cleared the next morning we moved again, this time away from shore out on to the frozen sea where the ice was more stable.

Now we started to worry whether we would get through the storm alive. The cold had sapped our strength and we were each suffering from frostbite: on our faces, fingers, toes, most of one of my feet. Inside our tent, each exhaled breath condensed and froze on the inside walls, and each time we moved it came crashing down, soon enveloping us in frost. We had food and fuel for one more day, but if the storm lasted longer than that, our survival was in doubt.

But the next day the storm cleared and we began our trek back to the station. We soon met other members of the SAR team who had been out looking for us over the last three days. Back at the station there was a general sigh of relief that we were safe, but there was anger as well: from the administrators for breaking the rules and causing a major search effort to find us, and from our friends for making them worry that we might have perished in the storm.

As foolish as we had been, or perhaps because of our foolishness, there was much that I learned from this venture. One thing I learned was to not be so selfish in my desires. I learned that I have responsibility to others, and that I cannot selfishly choose to climb a mountain because it is what I want to do. To my family, to my friends, and to my employer, I have obligations, and these obligations must override my personal desires. Another thing I learned is that I can get through the most challenging situations. The three of us worked together and well to keep ourselves alive. Even when it seemed we might die, we never lost faith in ourselves. When I have faced tough situations since then—in outdoor situations, or with my work, or in relationships—I know I have the strength to survive.

Chapter Nine on Risk

Chapter 9 "Risk" features Shackleton's epic sailing adventure from Elephant Island to South Georgia Island, some 1400 kilometers in a tiny, open boat across the most dangerous (and cold) seas in the world. It is very difficult for us to imagine the difficulty, danger, and misery of such a journey. Because of this, I found this chapter a little difficult to relate to my own life, especially as I have never had to take a huge "necessary" risk such as he took. I have, however, taken many, many risks: as a climber, as a kayaker and rafter, as a driver, as a traveler. But the risks have always been of my own choosing, and many of them were careless, thoughtless risks, and it has been only because I have enjoyed a certain amount of luck that I have survived.

One of such risks for me, I will recount in my Personal Narrative, which I will post shortly. A Personal Narrative is simply a story from your life in which you learned something. I encourage you to consider writing a Personal Narrative as one of your non-text posts, should you wish.

Chapter 7 "Conflict"

For this week, I will focus on Chapter 7 "Conflict." This is a very relevant topic for me personally with my administrative work within the ELA.

This is because the ELA has experienced a great deal of conflict over the last several years due to differing views on how we should conduct a curricular reform.

While the majority of the instructors supported a particular set of curricular reforms, a minority of senior instructors were against the reforms. Due to feelings of not feeling respected, of accusations that have been made against them, and due to a considerable amount of "groupness" (a sense of "us" vs. "them" that has magnified the importance of the issues), this group has had great difficulty accepting the reform.

So, what can I "take away" from this chapter on Shackleton?

First, we should have "Deal[t] with Anger in Small Doses" better than we did. Legitimate concerns were expressed by the dissenting group early on that were not addressed. Efforts should have been made to have had extensive discussion and debate over these concerns, and perhaps some compromises needed to have been made. Better yet, we needed more of a conflict positive environment in which open discussion might have led to some "win-win" negotiations. Instead, the minority group felt marginalized and disenfranchised which subsequently led to feelings of intense frustration and ultimately aggression.

Secondly, we needed to have "Engage[d] Dissidents." The reform dissidents were essentially ignored. What we needed to have done is brought the dissenting voices and members "into the tent." I have always loved this notion from Shackleton, that he took the members that might pose the greatest threat to his leadership and made them members of his tent. This way he could consult with them and keep them feeling listened to and wanted, and prevent them from joining forces with others. There is an expression in English, "Keep your enemies closer and your enemies closer" which is attributed to the great Chinese military commander Sun Tsu which expresses a similar concept. We needed to have done something like this by better including our dissidents in the reform process so that they could have more of a say and be part of the reform. Not doing so has led to a lot of problems.

My efforts over the last couple of years have been to try and make up for the past. Giving the opposition an opportunity to express themselves has been one approach. We have had several open meetings in which opposition views could be presented and discussed. More recently, opposing members have been given roles in which they could contribute in ways in which they were uniquely suited. These efforts have been at least partially successful, and much of the division and distrust and anger of the past appear to be lessening.

My Personal Mission Statement

I have mentioned that originally I had planned on us all writing mission statements as part of this class. Now I am thinking it is best to just focus on the blog and your final research paper. Should you, however, be interested in writing a mission statement as one of your blog entries, it is a great exercise for thinking about your life and what you want from it.

Your mission statement can be very short (50 words or less) or longer (a couple hundred words). It can be written as a list such as this one of mine:

At the end of every day I wish to feel that I have been ...

productive

physically active

mentally challenged

important to those I care about

helpful to my family, friends, students, and colleagues

kind, caring, considerate, and honest, with myself and with others.

Someday I hope to have ...

raised two secure, happy, successful children

inspired hundreds of students through my teaching

ridden my mountain bike from Llasa, Tibet to Kathmandu. Nepal.

When I die I wish to be remembered as a good ...

father, husband, son, friend, teacher, colleague, and person.

Or your mission statement can be written more like a paragraph. This is one I did for a course in what is called Personal Leadership:


I, Ken Enochs, living at my highest and best,
am empathic, engaged, positive, and trustworthy.
In my various roles—as a father, son, husband,
friend, teacher, and colleague—a primary purpose
in my life is in helping others achieve their potential.
But, of course, I must also find the space to pursue
personal interests that feed and support my own
development so that I might be a stronger, more
whole, and more satisfied human being, for myself
and for others.


Should you be interested in this task, it might help to look around a bit on the web and find some additional examples. Again, this is purely optional, but it could be a great way of fulfilling one of your blog posts.

On Rank

Last week's Chapter 5 and this week's chapter 6 are both "team" focused chapters.

There is much in these chapters that resonates with me and applies to my workplace, the ELA.

The ELA is a fairly big team, with a great deal of diversity. We have native and non-native speakers of English. We have Japanese instructors, and non-Japanese. We have among the non-Japanese a wide range of nationalities: British, Australian, Scottish, Finnish, and many Americans. We are divided by contract status: some instructors are on short-term contracts, others longer, and some on permanent contracts. We are also differentiated by gender.

While, for the most part, we do a wonderful job of working together to create a great program for all of you, the differences between us,  especially "rank" differences, cause a lot of subtle problems. I say subtle because in general, we are very equality focused. We all teach the same courses, teach the same amount as one another, share in all the non-teaching responsibilities that come with a program like this, and we each have a vote in decision making. It would seem that we are equal.

In reality, however, there are differences. Someone with a permanent contract can, in many ways, do as they like. They can speak up at meetings, choose to be against the directors, not show up at a retreat, etc. Someone for whom English is their native language has an advantage over a non-native speaker when debating issues. Someone from a more debate-oriented culture (e.g. British) has an advantage over someone from a harmony-focused culture (e.g. Japanese). Males, in general, have advantages over females. Those who go home to a family have advantages over those who go home to an apartment alone. People who drink alcohol have advantages over those who do not. Etc.

In psychology these differences are known as "rank." And what you need to know about rank is that those in a lower rank are much more aware of and sensitive to rank differences than those in a higher rank. So... the take-away point that I want you to remember is to be very sensitive and considerate of rank differences, especially those of lower rank than you. You will naturally be somewhat blind to these differences, but those below you will not be.

I work with several people in the ELA of similar rank to me, that have little or no sensitivity to the advantage that they have over others, and this causes a lot of unnecessary resentment. Don't let this be you.

What Makes Us Happier

Further to our recent discussion of optimism and the need for gratifications in our life, I found this on one of my executive coach friend's Facebook page about what makes us happy. It's just an article he found elsewhere, but it is a quick and easy read and provides a nice list of simple ways to be happier. See the article here and for those really without the time to check it out, the ten easy ways are these:

1. Exercise more
2. Sleep more
3. Shorten your commute
4. Spend time with friends and family
5. Go outside
6. Help others
7. Practice smiling
8. Plan a trip
9. Meditate
10. Practice gratitude

So ... not so hard. Most of those are easy to do.

I would like to add to the list this item: "Doing something that you love." For me at the moment this includes photography. This is something I have always had some interest in but over the last year or so I have gotten seriously back into it. Lately, in fact, I have started shooting film again, which is really fun as it makes you really think about what you are shooting because each shot costs money. But the quality of film is different from digital too, which I also really appreciate.

Chapter 3 "Optimism and Reality"

For this week, given that I have already mentioned my thoughts on Chapter 2 in class yesterday, I will focus on Chapter Three, "Optimism and Reality." 

My response: 

Chapter 3, “Optimism and Reality” is an important one as optimism was one of Shackleton’s most noted characteristics. In addition to “You’ve damn well got to be optimistic” quoted in the text, Shackleton also once said, “Optimism is true moral courage.”

This second quotation is one that for years I have carried around in my head and try to live by. The word “moral” in this quotation suggests we have an obligation to be optimistic for the sake of those around us. This is true for me—as a teacher to my students, as a colleague to my peers, as a father to my family, as a friend to my friends. We have to believe that what we are doing is leading to something good, and, of course, such an attitude helps ensure that positive things happen. Perkins quotes Henry Ford (a famous American industrialist who started Ford Motor Company and many modern manufacturing techniques such as the assembly line): “Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can’t, you’re right” (qtd. in Perkins 43). The idea here is that our attitude (optimistic or pessimistic) directly affects what actually will happen.

It is also said that optimists, on average, live approximately seven years longer than pessimists.

So being an optimist is fundamental to my approach to life.

But it takes “courage” to be optimistic, and sometimes I struggle to find this courage. There are times—in my marriage, in my work (there are a lot of politics in the ELA), in the direction my life is taking—in which I lose my sunny optimism and find myself instead in a very dark place. Getting myself from the dark place back to the light takes some work. One thing I tell myself is that bad times are always followed by good times, and being older I have plenty of experiences that have proven this true. Another thing that helps me is a quotation from Lance Armstrong, the once great but now deposed bicycle racer, “Turn every negative into a positive.” The idea here is that negative experiences have to be viewed as opportunities, specifically opportunities to learn—about why you might be in conflict with someone else, about what caused you to fail in some activity and what you can do to improve, about how not to repeat the same mistake, etc. Because of our text, I am also interested in Martin Seligman (cited in Perkins 43), who founded the field of “Positive psychology” and is an expert on helping people become happier. To see more about him, please check out his bio-sketch, related links, and video at TED. I am currently reading a book of his called Authentic Happiness, which I have found enormously enlightening.

So that is me, and I look forward to you sharing your thoughts on how to deal with difficult situations in your life.

Macklemore's "Ten Thousand Hours" and related thoughts

I spent some time in Seattle last summer where many of my friends were deep in the throes of "Macklemore Mania." If you don't know about Macklemore, he's a white, American, Seattle-based rap artist who is suddenly hitting the big time based in part on the sophistication of his lyric about topics not normally associated with rap e.g. "Thriftstore" which promotes buying used clothes for cheap rather than over-priced fashion, and "Same Love," an incredibly beautiful song which supports gay love and gay marriage (although he is not gay).

But the song that I wish to focus on here and which, in a way, relates to our class, is "Ten Thousand Hours." The term originally came from the idea that to be truly great at something, be it chess, or a sport, or a musical instrument, takes about ten years of dedicated practice. This adds up to about ten thousand hours, an idea that Malcolm Gladwell popularized in his book, Outliers.

For Macklemore, this is what  is what it took for him to finally succeed, and in the song he tells others that if you want to get good at something, you have to put in the work. As he sings it in relationship to great artists:

See, I observed Escher

I love Basquiat

I watched Keith Haring

You see I study art

The greats weren't great because at birth they could paint

The greats were great because they paint a lot

To see all the words along along with the soundtrack, click here.

For more on this topic, there is also what is known as Deliberate Practice, the notion that a great deal of the right kind of practice is required to be truly good at something.

Post on Chapter 1 "Vision and Quick Victories"

Dear Dynamics,

This was a heavy reading week, but I hope you are starting to get into our text. With Chapter 1 we begin our journey through Shackleton's Ten Strategies of Leadership. Remember that you are to blog on at least one chapter per week, and the "Expedition Log" at the end of each chapter provides good, thought-provoking questions for you to respond to.  For example, from Chapter 1 "Vision and Quick Victories” you are asked to define your Long-term vision and Short-term goals for getting there. Use the questions on 31 for ideas, but essentially what you want to do is describe your hopes and dreams for the future, and the various steps along the way that will help you to achieve them.

As promised, I will do my best to do the same writing assignments as you.

In this case, as I consider a long-term vision and short-term goals, I would like to consider our course as an “organization,” with me as “leader” (although I'd rather see myself as "facilitator") and all of us together exploring terra incognita (unknown territory). Perhaps this can give you a better sense of what this course is intended to be and your part in it.

Long-term vision

Perkins talks about how Shackleton had to “be willing to find a ‘new mark’” (16) such as when he told his crew “So now we’ll go home” (16) when he lost his ship (and hopes of crossing Antarctica). This course, for me, is a new mark—I have abandoned a popular “Adventure Travel” course that I taught for many years in order to take an entirely new direction with this course.

My intention is to create a course that combines an interest in organizational development (how organizations and the people in them function, develop, manage change, etc) and such interrelated topics as leadership, negotiation, conflict resolution, team building, etc. as outlined in the description and syllabus for the course. But these topics interlink with a wide variety of other social behavioral interests such as interpersonal communication, emotional and social intelligence, group dynamics, human motivation, etc. —all of which are also fascinating. The problem is that whole books have been written about each of these topics. It is a challenge knowing where to begin and what to include, while at the same time providing some sort of unifying theme for the course.

So…this course will offer a sampling of many of these aspects of human behavior in organizational settings, with an opportunity for you at the end (with your final presentations) to focus on an area of particular interest that you can present and share with the class. But to provide a unifying theme, we will focus on the topic of leadership throughout the course via our text and our blog entries.

Short-term goals

A big goal right now is getting us all on board with our blogs. We simply need to get in the habit of reading the text, making posts, seeing what others have written, and making a few comments. We are all linked together so we can work as a team sharing with each other our thoughts, dreams, goals, etc. Thanks to the many of you who are already off to a great start.

Another, related goal, is to get a better sense of what each of you wants so that we can negotiate our way forward with this course based on your input.

Perkins mentions how Shackleton was able to “create engaging distractions”(26) to keep his crew motivated. I will try to do the same. I will provide you with web links, occasional short web clips in class, some fun activities, guest speakers, etc. which I hope provides inspiration and motivation. 

This is enough for me for now (probably more than enough!), and I look forward to hearing from you.

First Text Post (on the "Preface")

As promised, I will make blog entries the same as you. This way we can all feel like we are all participating and working together.

For my first text post, I will focus on the Preface to our text, Leading at the Edge. At the end of the “Preface” is a section called “Expedition Log.” Here our author, Perkins, asks if we have ever been in a situation in which we were “stretched to [our] limits of performance or endurance” (xix).

I do have a very dramatic survival story of an experience in Antarctica (Nankyoku Tairiku in Japanese) that involved trying to climb a high mountain and getting lost in a storm in extremely severe conditions. I’ll share this later but you can click here if this interests you now.

But I have to admit that my current job, simply being the Assistant Director of the ELA has been surprisingly challenging. The instructors all come from different nationalities and cultures and everyone seems to have a strong opinion about everything. For the last couple of years we have been undergoing a reform process, and all these different points of view along with a great deal of factionalism have created a highly charged political working environment.

What has helped me get through this situation?

Empathy. Trying my best to listen and understand the various points of view has been very important. Everyone wants to feel like they are being heard.

Trustworthiness. Creating trust involves being honest, protecting the confidentiality of others, and trying always to do what I say I will do.

Optimism. Maintaining my optimism has been critical to both success and my sense of well being. There are occasional very bad days, and weeks, and even terms, but knowing that better times are ahead has kept me focused on going forward.

These three qualities—empathy, trustworthiness, and optimism—have helped me enormously. But these qualities do not necessarily come naturally, and I have had to constantly work at it.

So that is my first text post. I now look forward to hearing from you your reactions to our text and other related experiences you wish to share. For a text related post, consider responding to the same question that I have above, that is, have you been in a situation in which you were “stretched to [your] limits of performance or endurance”?

First Post

Dear LILTDYites,

It was great meeting you for the first time on Monday.

You are a lively group, and it is going to be fun being your teacher. It will be a challenge too; already I can see that you will push me to know my material and to provide you with substance. That is good as I like to be pushed.

Your first blog post (or second if you have already begun writing) is to comment on the topic of interpersonal communication as it relates to you. What we will often find is that one thing leads to another, so our conversation about first impressions, handshakes, smiling, social intelligence and the biology of leadership will likely get you thinking about related topics or links, personal experiences, etc. For example, Shiho shared with me the link to The Ultimate Handshake, which while intended to be funny (and is), also contains a lot of truth about the anxiety involved regarding getting it right. This in turn can cause you to reflect on an awkward first impression you have made (and maybe what it took to recover).

So ... with this entry, please share any thoughts you have on any of the topics above. Should you have a link to share, or images, or whatever to include in your blog, please feel free to be as creative or colorful as you like.

Ken