Justin Curtin

ETEC-530
5/16/2015

Final Exam

1. What are the major lessons regarding leadership from Leading with Soul? How could
you apply these lessons in your professional practice?

Quality leadership is not something that can be forced upon a particular group. It works
best as an organic process, stemming from an existing structure or sense of familiarity
within an existing group. It doesnt necessarily have to evolve and maintain that existing
structure, but it should start with the familiar. Leadership can be nudged or guided in a
particular direction, but the group must be receptive to it. If a group is not receptive to
that leadership direction or style, the group may flounder or fail until new, more
grounded approach is taken.

Leadership should come from a place of understanding, compassion, and love. Power
that comes with leadership should not be relegated to a single entity, but rather shared
in an effort to empower other group members. Giving group members a level of
autonomy in their process affords them a sense of authorship, aiding in the idea that
leadership is in fact shared. When the leadership recognizes the contributions of group
members, it reinforces the idea that group members roles and are significant to the
benefit and wellbeing of the group.

Since reading this book, Ive made an active effort to apply the four gifts of leadership
into my work routine. On first reading, I noticed that there were pieces of these gifts
that I was already applying without thinking about them. After our class discussion, it
made sense for me to change my passive application of the gifts to an active one.

One of my roles at my office is help users with their technology needs. As such I make
an effort to empower the users with the ability to use different technologies
(Authorship). In demonstrating different tools, I interject by having the users do part of
the demonstrating themselves. While some are initially apprehensive to this process it
serves two purposes: 1) It proves to the user that they can use a given technology
themselves and 2) that the technology is not something that they should be afraid of
and not touch.

When developing new processes, or working to refine existing ones, I will often hand
the process over to one or a few of my teammates for testing and evaluation. After
running a particular process themselves for a period of time, Ill ask for feedback on the
process, citing that I know my method may not be the best, or that whats easier for me
Justin Curtin
ETEC-530
5/16/2015

may not be easier for others. By letting them know that, it affords a sense of comfort to
the teammate to speak their mind about a process. Using that feedback, I revise the
process for retesting and reevaluation. When everything looks good, Ill present the
new process to the whole team citing the development as a team effort with those who
aided in its refinement.

2. Meadows describes nine general system traps.

a) Explain what Meadows means by a system trap. Identify three types of

system traps, and give a general description and example of each.
b) Please discuss a way of solving one of the three traps you chose. Illustrate your
answer with an example.
c) Discuss how the concept of "system traps" could be useful for persons who have
a leadership role with educational technology.

A system trap defines a problem-generating structure in an existing system whereby a

standard response does not fix or resolve the structural problem.

I will use the human body as a system to demonstrate a common system trap. The
human body it tries to maintain a temperate of 98.6 degrees. If a human gets sick due
to a virus, their temperature may get hotter as a result. Simply trying to make the body
colder through some external means does fix the problem, as being hot is not the
problem. Being hot is a symptom, changing the state of that symptom does not
necessarily fix or resolve the actual issue of being sick due to a virus. This is an example
of a policy resistance trap. In this example, the balancing loop of a system the human
body has been changed due to the input of an external factor a virus. A new output
of that system as a result of the new input is that it gets hot. Simply adding a cold input
to the system to change the temperature does not resolve the balancing loop of that
system, but merely introduces an unnecessary problem to it it is sick, but now also
cold. Instead of adding new things to the system to try to resolve it, a better way to
deal with this system trap is to evaluate all the actors on that system and try removing
them. In this case, simply not doing anything and letting the body resolve the issue on
its own is likely the best solution. Of course if the issue persists, other methods may
need to be employed.

Some other examples of system traps include Drift to Low Performance and Success to
the Successful. In the Drift to Low Performance trap, the gauge of performance is at
issue. I will use the public school system as an example for this trap. If it is to be
Justin Curtin
ETEC-530
5/16/2015

assumed that previous years teaching performance standards are the gauge for the
next year, it is the perception of a teaching group that the previous years performance
is the optimal performance measure. If a group fails to meet the performance
standards that next year, and the same cycle continues, the performance goals will
continue to drift lower and lower, thus lowering the quality of education year over year.
To resolve this, performance measures must not be relative (in this example to the
previous year). Instead, performance measures should be absolute, irrespective of the
previous measurement. In this way, slippage is less likely to occur, and could possibly
even improve.

The last system trap I will discuss is the Success to the Successful. In this trap, the
system favors and rewards the successful over the less successful, creating an ever
expanding gap over time between those that are and those that arent. Economics fall
into this trap in a number of ways, with regards to corporate tax law, heath care,
education, and many others. To overcome this trap, one must try to avoid the trap all
together. The only winning move is not to play, as noted by the computer system
Joshua in the movie War Games. In my personal life, Ive done this in the housing
market. The successful in this example are housing contractors and developers, and the
unsuccessful are new home buyers. I was a new home buyer trying to buy a new home,
but was constant being beaten out by contractors with more money. I couldnt seem to
find a house that a contractor couldnt buy faster or with more money. After a long
period of time, I was able to remove myself from the situation and discover that there
was a very niche market that contractors would avoid. Through patience, I found a
good home that contractors did not know about and thus could not compete with me
on. I won the game by simply playing a different one.

In a leadership role, there are many system traps that need to be considered. Since
many leaders are asked to evaluate their direct reports, the Drift to Low Performance is
a trap to very mindful of. This trap could also be at issue in a technology space. As
technology ages, its utility can diminish over time, if technology is gauged simply by its
utility at last use, a technology system will degrade over time until all utility is lost. If its
standards are kept to an absolute standard instead of a relative one, those standards
can help ensure that a system is maintained and well-kept over time. In the right
scenario, it could also ensure that it is upgraded over time to ensure that standards are
maintained.

In this same way, the Policy Resistance trap can be utilized in troubleshooting when a
technology system exhibits a bug, for example. A technological bug may create similar
Justin Curtin
ETEC-530
5/16/2015

issues to the way a human deals with a virus. In that same vein, the way out of the trap
may also be the same. Adding unnecessary inputs to the system may not be the best
resolution. Evaluating the actors on the system and removing potential bad actors on
the system may be a preferred route. This is also known as troubleshooting.

3. For this question, please choose a group presentation in class other than yours.
a. Please identify the topic of your own presentation in class and the different
topic you will be using for purposes of this question. For example, you should
write something like "I was in the organizational change models group and I'm
choosing to be writing about the planning and implementation topic.
b. What were the main ideas from your chosen presentation?
c. Please explain how you can apply ideas from this topic to your professional
practice.

I was in the Personal Learning Networks group and Im choosing to write about the
Social Media Planning topic

The main idea about this project is that the social part in Social Media is no longer the
only component of this resource. More than just social, it can be used as a tool to
convey important and timely information to a group or groups of people. It can be a
mechanism for socioeconomic change. It replaces older, slower, and less reliable forms
of communication, allowing for the instant dissemination of information.

Once in the hands of those that need the information, it can be acted on through social
media tools much faster than previous tools would allow. The ability to do this creates a
level of involvement not previously available through older methods. As noted in the
presentation, this allows for easier and more streamlined communication, fast and
effective philanthropy and outreach, distance learning, collaboration, and support.

Blogs are just one form of social media. In my professional practice, my office uses a
tool called Microsoft SharePoint. One of its many features includes a blog component,
which is frequently used to communicate information to office teams or my office as a
whole. Many teams or departments maintain their own blogs, which they use to
communicate information about different initiatives or programs they might be working
on. By making each blog accessible through the office Intranet website, everyone in the
office has the ability to search the site to find information about other departments in
Justin Curtin
ETEC-530
5/16/2015

case they need to find out whos involved in a particular project, or who to contact
about ideas or questions about a particular initiative.

Within my own department, the Help Desk, we use our blog as a means of record
keeping on how to deal with standard issues we receive calls or emails about. By doing
this, it makes solutions to office-specific issues searchable for other users should they
not want to contact us right away. Of course there are those who prefer to be told the
answer than find it themselves, so this blog serves as a reference tool for us so that we
dont have to memorize solutions for every problem we encounter. In this way, the blog
acts as a kind of social knowledge base.