Leaders in the Making Teamwork – Lesson 14 Competent

Consider This... Integrity is what we do, what we say, and what we say we do. Don Galer

Review There ARE some things an individual can do to be considered competent. What are they? 1. The competent person is committed to The competent person never settles for The competent person believes that The competent person consistently...

Excellence Valuing excellence is one sign of a competent person. In your journal you were to write about excellence. As a class, share some of your thoughts about excellence. As a class, share some of your thoughts about excellence. What is it? How do you become concerned about excellence? Who do you know that practices excellence?

Team Push-Up Briefing: In this activity you will have the opportunity to do a team push-up. You will start with four people in the shape of a square and then see if you can discover a pattern to get more and more people involved. Activity: Ask for four volunteers who can do a push-up. Ask one person to lay on the ground face down in “get ready to do a push-up” position. The second person lies face down, perpendicular to the first person so that the tops of their feet are on the back of the first person. The third person lies perpendicular to the second person and lies face down with the tops of their feet on the back of the second person. The fourth person completes the square. At the count of three everyone goes up. If someone can’t get up, have them start going up on 2 instead of going up with the rest of the group on 3. After a couple of foursomes have been successful, see if you can’t do a larger group push-up - maintaining the same formation. This will take a designated leader! Go for the world record! People who can’t do a push-up or have back problems of some sort can be cheer leaders.

Word Pictures Briefing: In this activity you will have a chance to use your brain and not your brawn. Activity: Each team is given a stack of 3 x 5 cards with the Word Pictures on them. This is a race to see which team can get through their stack of Word Pictures first. Each stack should have the same word pictures, but not in the same order. On the go sign, each team should look at one Word Picture at a time. If a team reaches one they can’t solve, they must stay on it for at least two minutes before moving on. The winner is the first team to complete the stack or who has the most right answers in a given time frame.

Think About It What do you think happened in the team push-up? 2. What worked really well? 3. What could you have done differently? 4. Was anyone left out? 5. If you were left out, how did it feel? 6. Who tried to include, talk to, or otherwise engage someone who wouldn’t or couldn’t participate? 7. What could you do to include a person who was left out? 8. What did it take for the team push-up to work? 9. What did it take for the Word Problem game to work? 10. What could you do better next time? 11. What kind of team player are you? 12. Who in the group did you notice striving for excellence? How could you tell? 13. Who in the group believed that details mattered? How did you know? 14. Would you consider yourself possessing some of the characteristics of the competent person? 15. How could you apply the techniques you used to solve the Word Problems to your everyday life?

Journal #17 We have spent the last two sessions talking about becoming more competent. We’ve talked about excellence. Now consider the character traits of the competent person that allows him to believe that details matter and to be unwilling to settle for “good enough”. When do you find yourself willing to settle for ‘good enough’? When do you find yourself settling for nothing less than the best? Would you consider yourself detail conscious? Why or why wouldn’t you want to be concerned about details? What would it take for you to become more attentive to the little things? Then, in the broader view, take a step back and look at the big picture. How IS your character? Are you continuing to work on an area in which you are weak? Character is like a muscle. Just like being able to do multiple push- ups, character needs use and to be pushed a little in order to develop. How are you developing your character muscles? Or are you still sitting on the bench?

Think About It... Good enough never is.