A new approach to leadership – Synergy Creates Energy

Living by comparison is fatal vision, for always there will be those who appear better off and worse off than ourselves at any given moment in time. In truth, there is no such distinction as superior and subordinate. We all have unique talents that will blossom and flourish when nurtured.

In past decades, there was a more "look out for number one" and "don't bring in people who might want your job" style of leadership. You generally would hire those people who would do as they were told and who wouldn't challenge your ideas or authority. This type of thinking led to bulging bureaucracies and mediocre middle management that accomplished little. This mind-set also created a scarcity mentality that there wasn't enough to go around: so don't share ideas, don't brainstorm with others who might steal your concepts, and above all, don't help your co-workers or employees succeed. We have seen that this approach clearly will not work in the global marketplace of the knowledge age.

Today the challenge is to establish networks, strategic alliances, synergistic relationships, and ad hoc teams to solve problems and help everyone accomplish their goals. You now look for those people who are not satisfied with the status quo, who are striving for excellence and have talents and abilities that you don't.

This requires that you "check your ego at the door" and that you don't get intimidated by others who may have different talents or strengths than you do. This is what synergy is all about. As we value the differences and look at truly working together, one plus one really can equal three or even more.

This week, focus on "working with others" rather than "competing against others."


-- Denis Waitley

 

This article was reproduced with permission from the Denis Waitley Weekly Ezine. To subscribe to Denis Waitley's Weekly Ezine, go to www.deniswaitley.com or send an email with Join in the subject tosubscribe@deniswaitley.com Copyright 2005 Denis Waitley International. All rights reserved worldwide. 

Highly effective Strategies for Overcoming Procrastination

 

In this day and age we are so inundated with choice and opportunity that you might even say that we are spoiled for choice. There is just so much that we could do that we often end up not doing anything at all. Procrastination is one of the biggest dream killers. In a world where there is so much demand on your attention it is becoming ever more difficult to stay focussed and act on the things that would truly give you an extraordinary quality of life. Time is, was and will always be your most valuable asset and the way you use it will determine what you create or fail to create with and for your life. Having an effective strategy for overcoming procrastination is critical if you truly want to push past short term obstacles to create a life of fulfilment.

The abundance that modern life offers us tends to overwhelm us which leads to an emotional overload that will distract you and scatter your effort and concentration. There simply isn't enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time for the most important things in your life. Success at anything in life, whether it be your finances, your relationships or your body, requires an investment of time and effort from you. You need to focus and concentrate your physical and emotional resources on creating a desired result.

The first step in overcoming procrastination it to get really clear on exactly what you want from every area of your life. This clarity will give you the power to look past distractions that may throw you off course. It gives you a direction and a target and will help to build a mental picture for your life. One of the most destructive effects of procrastination is that it makes you feel out of control; like the events of your life is controlling you. If you don't know what you want it is all too easy to jump from the one task to the next. Apart from knowing what you want you should also develop some strong reasons why you want it. This will give you a sense of purpose and motivation that is critical for staying focussed long term.

The truth is that most people know what they need to do to create their life the way they want it. The challenge is not with knowing what to do, but in doing what you know. The only way you will create any result in your life is by taking action and procrastination is what prevents you from acting on the very things you know would give you a greater quality of life. The reason why people procrastinate is primarily because of fear, especially fear of failure. By not taking action and postponing important actions you avoid the potential for failing. The only reason why you procrastinate about anything is because at some level you link more pain to taking action than to not taking action. The ridiculous truth is that these "links" are mostly conjured up (by you) in your mind and they are not even real. When you make a task too big in your mind it will overwhelm you and it would seem too difficult and too big and you will end up procrastinating.



One of the most powerful strategies for overcoming procrastination is to learn how to break your tasks up into bite size pieces. Any task, no matter how big can be broken down into small manageable tasks that is easy to do. If you focus on climbing Mount Everest it will probably put you off immediately, but if you focus on climbing seven small mountain sections it becomes more believable. The power of chunking down your "big" tasks empowers you to take back control of any overwhelming situation – you cut it down to size. Your size.

One of the quickest ways to overcoming procrastination is to learn and utilize the power of immediacy. What can you do immediately? What action can you take right now that will move you closer to your goal? Doing something, no matter how small, will immediately break your mental pattern of procrastination and put you back in control. Taking the first step, even if it is small will create momentum and you will almost automatically be driven to take another step. Don't wait for everything to be perfect before you take the first step. Just do it. Just get it going. Often you will only know what to do next after taking that first step.



There are many strategies and skills you can use for overcoming procrastination. You do not have to be stuck or spinning your wheels. Like any skill you need to learn and practise it until you get good at it. Eventually it will become an automatic response and you will develop the habit of taking action despite your fears and apparent limitations.

This article is published with the permission of the author, Deon Du Plessis. He is the founder of The Self Improvement Gym, and author (in)action, a groundbreaking new action guide for eliminating procrastination.

, ,

What Teenagers Need – Positive Teaching and Parenting

As a high school teacher for the last few decades, I found that the Bible reference that says, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs that it may benefit those who listen," was totally relevant with regard to what teenagers need.
Having a bit of a temper tantrum, whether at home or in the classroom, is pretty well as unwholesome, detrimental and harmful as you can get and only serves to discourage, exasperate or rile your teenagers. (Ask me how I know this.)
"Unwholesome talk" can also be a quiet word of criticism. Once when I was supervising a junior Maths class, I noticed a worksheet on the floor next to a student's desk. It was crumpled in one corner and not many of the exercises had been completed. I pointed out both these shortcomings to the student and it was almost as if I could see the shutters come down on six month's worth of rapport building.
The words came out before I had my mind in gear and I knew as I was talking that it was the wrong thing to say. Normally I would have said "Would you like a new sheet?" or "How can I help you?" or "This is a good start, now let's see how much you can get done in the next 10 minutes." Cajoling is always better than criticism.
My experience, when I'm criticized (even if I know I'm wrong), is to become defensive - and I'm all grown up! Imagine what it's like for teenagers.
What they really need at this stage in their lives are words that build them up according to their needs that it may benefit them - that is, words of encouragement, affirmation and a good deal of praise. The benefits to them and us as parents and teachers are quite amazing - harmony not discord, peace not battling for supremacy and love not war.
When I left my last school where I had been a casual (sub) for eight years, I received "thank you" notes from the students. I think these notes illustrate what teenagers want and need from their parents and teachers.
Some of the notes mention kindness, patience, thoughtfulness, encouragement and fun. Teenagers value these qualities and what I found was that the more I relaxed and enjoyed their company, the less I had to discipline them.
Below I've included a few excerpts from the notes to let the kids speak for themselves. These are teenagers speaking from the heart and show what, according to teenagers, they need and value.
Each note began, "Thank you for..."
• making each student in the school happy
• putting up with us every time you get us (i.e. having patience)
• Always giving every student a chance and treating everyone like an adult giving lots of merits and making every lesson fun and enjoyable
• Being very kind & for giving me lots of (merit) stickers
• You make working be fun
• Being a patient and thoughtful teacher
Patience is needed as well as kindness, thoughtfulness, a sense of humor and fun and the ability to listen more than talk.
When we praise and value our teenagers, the results are nothing short of miraculous.
Philip S. Baker B.A. Dip. Ed invites you to find out more about positive teaching and parenting of teenagers at http://christianteachingtoday.com. His book, "Sunshine in the Classroom Makes Them Happy," will show you what teenagers need and respond to using basic Christian principles. See his story by going to http://christianteachingtoday.com.

,

Measuring Teacher Effectiveness: Are We Creating an Education Nightmare?

We seem to be setting ourselves up for disaster education. Efforts are underway not only to adopt value-added models to rate the effectiveness of individual teachers, but to use these models to identify those at the very bottom who might later lose their positions and those at the very top who might then be eligible for merit pay. Yet in all the policy discussions and public commentary, there's been little focus on learners and on how, precisely, we define the qualities of a good teacher.
The movement to revise methods for teacher evaluation to include such models came about in an effort to undermine current evaluation systems that tend to rate most teachers as satisfactory (Hull, 2011). => http://bit.ly/ka9Fzo

,

Technology Integration:Hints and Helps

... ideas, tools, etc for practical use of technology in the classroom

=> http://bit.ly/lvLr3s

, , ,

Grammar Teaching: Implicit or Explicit?

Based on my 15 years of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teaching experience, the statement "grammar teaching should be implicit, not explicit" could be argued both for and against. Whether to teach grammar as an extracted focus of ELT (English Language Teaching) or more passively as an inductive, integral topic has been the theme of countless debates on the part of institutions, professors, grammarians and language researchers for decades. Grammar is the branch of linguistics dealing with the form and structure of words or morphology, and their interrelation in sentences, called syntax. The study of grammar reveals how language works, an important aspect in both English acquisition and learning.
In the early 20th century grammarians like the German-American anthropologist Franz Boas and the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen began to describe languages and Boas' work formed the basis of various types of American descriptive grammar study. Jespersen's work was the fore-runner of such current approaches to linguistic theory such as Noam Chomsky's Transformational Generative Grammar.
Chomsky, who studied structural linguistics, sought to analyze the syntax of English in a structural grammar. This led him to view grammar as a theory of language structure rather than a description of actual sentences. His idea of grammar is that it is a device for producing the structure, not of a particular language, but of the ability to produce and understand sentences in any and all languages. Since grammar is the means by which we can understand how a language "works", a definitive study of language grammar is essential to language study.
Strictly explicit grammar study however, and even grammar-focused lessons are often not communicatively based. They can therefore be boring, cumbersome and difficult for students to assimilate. The strict teaching of grammar / structure, except with students of the Logical - Mathematical or Verbal - Linguistic multiple intelligences, can be frustrating and highly ineffective.
Grammar teaching should be implicit
In the early 20th century, Jespersen, like Boas, thought grammar should be studied by examining living speech rather than by analyzing written documents. By providing grammar in context, in an implicit manner, we can expose students to substantial doses of grammar study without alienating them to the learning of English or other foreign language. I also agree with this implicit approach of teaching grammar. The principal manner in which I accomplish this is by teaching short grammar-based sessions immediately followed by additional function-based lessons in which the new grammar / structure is applied in context.
The hypothesis is that adult language students have two distinct ways of developing skills and knowledge in a second language, acquisition and learning. Acquiring a language is "picking it up", i.e., developing ability in a language by using it in natural, communicative situations. Learning language differs in that it is "knowing the rules" and having a conscious knowledge of grammar / structure. Adults acquire language, although usually not as easily or as well as children. Acquisition, however, is the most important means for gaining linguistic skills. A person's first language (L1) is primarily learned in this way. This manner of developing language skills typically employs implicit grammar teaching and learning.
Grammar teaching should be explicit
This does not exclude explicit grammar-teaching entirely, however. Some basic features of English language grammar structure are illogical or dissimilar to speakers of other languages and do not readily lend themselves to being well understood, even in context. In cases where features of English grammar are diametrically opposed or in some other way radically different from the manner of expression in the student's L1, explicit teaching may be required.
Aspects of English language grammar that may offer exceptional challenge to EFL students include use of word order, determiners (this, that, these, those, a, an, the), prepositions (in, on, at, by, for, from, of), auxiliaries (do, be, have), conjunctions (but, so, however, therefore, though, although), interrogatives, intensifiers (some, any, few, more, too) and distinctions between modal verbs (can, could, would, should, may, might, must). Phrasal verbs also present considerable difficulty to Spanish speakers learning communicative English.
Some students also are logical or linguistically-biased thinkers who respond well to structured presentation of new material. Logical-Mathematical and Verbal-Linguistic intelligence learners are prime examples of those that would respond well to explicit grammar teaching in many cases.
Based on my English language teaching and on my second and third foreign language learning (L2, L3) experience, an exclusive approach using either implicit or explicit methodologies is not as effective as utilizing one or the other of these approaches as required. Although it is essential to teach elements of language and develop communicative abilities in our students, there is no one best way to introduce and provide practice in them. Young learners have more natural facility in acquisition, while adults may benefit substantially from more "formal" language learning. Learning styles and intelligence strengths are also a significant factor.
There are many generally accepted ways of introducing the sounds, structure and vocabulary of English, including colloquial forms of conversation and the four basic communication skills. Grammar provides for "communicative economy". Grammar teaching should be implicit, or explicit, as teaching / learning conditions may dictate helping to minimize the student response teachers fear most, "Teacher, I don't understand."
Note: Academic references for this article are available on request.
...................................................................
Related language learning and teaching articles in this series available online include:
"Learning a Language: 6 Effective Ways to Use the Internet"
http://ezinearticles.com/?id=76453
"Six Quick Tricks for Learning a Language"
http://EzineArticles.com/?id=72718
"What's the Strangest Thing you've Ever Eaten?"
http://EzineArticles.com/?id=81349
"What Makes a Person Intelligent?"
http://EzineArticles.com/?id=81350
Teach English in Colombia: Grappling with Grammar, Gold, Guns, and Guayaba
http://ezinearticles.com/?id=85995
Try This for Perfecting Past Tense Pronunciation Practice
http://ezinearticles.com/?id=86780
7 Steps to Better Business English: Choosing a Business English Training Program
http://ezinearticles.com/?id=81697
English Only in the EFL Classroom: Worth the Hassle?
http://ezinearticles.com/?id=89180
Prof. Larry M. Lynch is an English language teaching and learning expert author and university professor in Cali, Colombia. Now YOU too can live your dreams in paradise, find romance, high adventure and get paid while travelling for free.
For more information on entering or advancing in the fascinating field of teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language send for his no-cost PDF Ebook, "If You Want to Teach English Abroad, Here's What You Need to Know", immediate delivery details and no-obligation information are available online now at: http://bettereflteacher.blogspot.com/
Need professional, original content or articles for your blog, newsletter or website? Have a question, request, or want to receive more information or to be added to his articles and teaching materials mailing list? Then contact the author at this website for a prompt response.

,

Games and fun and learning

[Via Bright Ideas]

‘Lyn finds fun plus learning equals smart kids’ is an interview by the Melton Weekly with the inspirational 2011 Victoria Teachers Credit Union Outstanding Primary Teacher Award Winner, Lynette Barr. Lynette is a teacher at Rosyln Primary School and uses 3D games to provide engaging, authentic learning experiences for her students. Lynette explains how teaching needs to reflect the needs of the students: => http://bit.ly/irxAgK

,

A master … and a teacher

“A master can tell you what he expects of you. A teacher, though, awakens your own expectations.”
Patricia Neal