Kent State University
Institute for Excellence 2015
Curriculum for Individual Contributors – Subject to change
Created by the Division of Human Resources

Institute for Excellence for Individual Contributors Curriculum 2015

Overview and Objectives

The Institute for Excellence for Individual Contributors – will accelerate performance through:

  • Increasing personal excellence
  • Aligning personal leadership within Kent State University

This design of this intensive, highly focused program is based on vision, strategy, and leadership imperatives to build and lead a customer-focused institution. This program combines interaction with internal and external leaders and leadership theory and research along with action learning to practice and transfer what he/she has learned in the institute.

Individual benefits of participating include:

(a)Increases institutional knowledge through open dialogue.

(b)Results in higher levels of confidence, determination, and integrity for the individual.

(c)Provides a conceptual sense of organization for success and capacity for action powered by passion.

(d)Results in an increased capacity to step out, reach out, speak out, collaborate with others and make things happen.

Organizational Principles

The Institute for Excellence for Individual Contributors 2014 will address the following AQIP organizational principles in its pedagogy.

  • Focus
/
  • Involvement
/
  • Leadership
/
  • Learning

  • People
/
  • Collaboration
/
  • Agility
/
  • Foresight

  • Information
/
  • Integrity

Texts:

  1. Good to Great by Jim Collins, Harper Collins, 2001.
  2. Change Your Questions Change Your Life by Marilee Adams Berrett-Koehler Publishers 2009
  3. The Emotionally Intelligent Manager – How to Develop and Use the Four Key Emotional Intelligence Skills of Leadership by David Caruso and Peter Salovey, Jossey Bass 2004.
  4. The Manager’s Pocket Guide to Diversity Management by Dr. Edward E. Hubbard, HRD Press, 2004

Lesson Plan Components

Speakers

  1. Internal Leaders: Executive Officers, Cabinet members and selected officials – Each executive officer will have an opportunity to spend time with the participants and discuss their current challenges and goals as a leader. These candid conversations help participants learn more about the university and how their work supports the institution.
  2. Duration: 60-90 minutes each, spaced throughout the entire program
  1. External Leaders: Leaders from outside the university will be identified and scheduled to compliment and advance various topics. A partial list includes author and educator Dr. Marilee Adams, noted speaker and leadership expert Norm Douglass of Heart to Heart Communications, diversity expert Dr. Edward Hubbard, argumentation and influence professor Dr. David Trebing of Kent State and Cynthia Ackrill, M.D. noted speaker and consultant on leadership and human performance.

Elements / Topics

  1. Emerging Leader360 Evaluation

Organizational Principles: Agility/Execution, Foresight, Collaboration, Learning

Participants will participate in a pre and post leadership 360 assessment. The initial 360 will set the tone and provide input on potential areas of interest to develop over the course of the year.

  1. Activities:
  2. Complete 360 process
  3. Review results
  4. Whole group discussion on trends and observations
  5. Create development plan
  6. Duration: 360– four hours each
  1. Leading Self and Others
    Leading Self and Others
    Organizational Principles: Agility/Execution, Foresight, Collaboration, Focus, Learning

In this session participants will learn about self-compassion and why it is so critical to the role of leader at Kent State. Based on the work of Dr. Kristin Neff, participants will self-assess their self-compassion abilities and use this information as a basis for opportunities to grow as a leader.

Participants will work with Michelle Bozeman, R.N. on applying Dr. Neff’s work to our environment of leadership.

  1. Activities:
  2. Complete PKPCT assessment and Self-compassion assessment
  3. Review results
  4. Whole group discussion on trends and observations
  5. Create development plan
  6. Duration: 4 hours
  1. Personal Leadership Philosophy

Organizational Principles: Leadership

Each participant creates a PLP which states what they believe about themselves as leaders, what they believe about people and what they believe about Kent State.

  1. Activities:
  1. Create PLP
  2. Review with IEL participants, whole group discussion
  3. Share PLP with subordinates and coworkers
  4. Whole group discuss – revise as needed
  1. Personal Excellence

Organizational Principles: Collaboration, Learning, People

Working with Norm Douglass of Heart to Heart Communications, participants will explore how life experiences, mindset, beliefs and attitudes are influencing work in constructing and limiting ways.

  1. Activities:
  1. Develop techniques to monitor and manage inner thoughts, feelings, motivations and attitudes for improved performance.
  2. Utilize the Enneagram system to better understand ones’ own and others styles to adapt and increase effectiveness.
  3. Create methods to bring people together in a positive and purposeful approach for improved performance.
  1. Meditation and Leadership
    Organizational Principles: Foresight, Information, Learning, Integrity
    Participants will be working, ongoing, with certified yoga and meditationinstructor Margot Milcetich to conduct a series of meditative exercises to enhance and jump start the process of behavioral change. Participants will practice controlled breathing and enter into a meditative state to decrease stress reactions and increase access to various brain-centers that handle long term memory, short term memory, risk/reward, empathic reasoning and creativity and insight. As the body prefers homeostasis over the brittle edges of exaggeration and depletion, we can teach ourselves to prefer quiet, ease, and balance in the mind. In this state we are receptive and discerning. Mindfulness is a method for learning to access and retain the inner state of balance. Mindfulness has been shown to be able to positively influence the brain, the autonomic nervous system, stress hormones, the immune system and health behaviors.
  1. Business Acumen and Financial Literacy

Organizational Principles: Foresight, Collaboration, Information, Learning

Each decision made or not made has some impact on the university and its performance. When university members truly understand how Kent State operates, they dramatically increase the likelihood that they can make sound and informed decisions. Participants will participate in a business simulation which uncovers how cash flows through an organization and how decisions they make impact the performance of the institution. In this customized simulation the participants will experience financial terminology as well as how the terminology applies to Kent State. They will also receive a Kent State business model to reinforce and support the learning.

a)Activities:

  1. Business acumen simulation
  2. Kent State business model
  3. Action plan

b)Duration:

  1. Business acumen simulation – 4 hours
  2. Kent State business model – 4 hours
  3. Action Learning Plan – 2 hours
  1. Emotional Intelligence

Organizational Principles: Foresight, Collaboration, Focus, Information, Learning

Participants will all complete an Emotional Intelligence test called the Mayer Salovey Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test or MSCEIT. The MSCEIT will reveal participants level of emotional ability in four domains (1) capacity to identify emotions, (2) use emotions to generate thought, (3) understand complex emotions and (4) manage emotions for effective decision making. Participants will also have opportunities to build skills around the four core abilities. Studies have linked leaders with high degrees of emotional intelligence to increased effectiveness in the workplace.

  1. Activities:
  2. Complete MSCEIT
  3. Meet with certified facilitator to debrief and examine results
  4. Create EI action plan
  5. Participate in EI skill building
  6. Duration:
  7. Online MSCEIT – 45 minutes
  8. MSCEIT debrief – 60-90 minutes
  9. EI action plan – 30 minutes
  10. Skill building – 2 – 4 hours
  1. Argumentation and Influence

Organizational Principles: Foresight, Collaboration, Information, Leadership

Participants will work with Dr. David Trebing of Kent State to develop skills around the ability to influence and communicate effectively through the creation of a persuasive argument. Being able to see issues and opportunities from multiple perspectives is an important attribute to being able to assess risk, look for new solutions and lead change. In these four-sessions participants will learn the fundamentals of genuine argumentation and the basics of an academic debate which will be applied to contemporary social controversies. All this to build up to applying this process to the participants Action Learning Project in such a way so that the participant can articulate a compelling case for why his/her change should be implemented.

  1. Activities:
  2. Understanding genuine argument and argumentation
  3. Lincoln-Douglas style debates part 1
  4. Lincoln-Douglas style debates part 2
  5. Application – workplace issues debate and presentation
  1. Duration:
  2. Understanding argumentation – 2 hours
  3. Mock debates, argumentation presentation – 6 hours
  4. Workplace application – 3 hours
  1. Inquiring Leadership

Organizational Principles: Collaboration, Information, Learning, Leading

This one-day segment is done in conjunction with Dr. Marilee Adams, author of “Change Your Questions, Change Your Life” and president of the Inquiry Institute. Great leaders must ask great questions and participants will learn Dr. Adams methodology to building teams by leading with great questions. The first morning introduces participants to the theory and practice of Question Thinking, including how this aligns with and supports Inquiring Leadership and also leadership skills for the 21st Century. This module includes the Learner/Judger Mindset material, both theoretically and experientially. Participants will also engage in a structured journaling exercise to make their learning personally relevant. Participants’ activities will deepen their learning and skill training with a series of practical exercises and tools that will make a significant difference in the success of their work with each other and with colleagues, stakeholders, and others whom they lead. Some coaching on how to apply these tools will be included during the time together.

  1. Activities:
  2. Context-setting, orientation, and introductions
  3. Journaling exercise (first iteration) with application ( Scenario for Learning, Reflection, New Thinking)
  4. Inquiring Leader description—discussion, exercise, and applications (especially in the context of leadership in educational institutions)
  5. Power and purposes of questions—includes 3 quick exercises (including introduction to concept of Question Thinking)
  6. Learner/Judger mindset, including exercise
  7. Choice Map
  8. Switching questions with exercise
  9. Learner/Judger teams & Q-storming
  10. Duration:
  11. Question thinking – 4 hours
  12. Learner/Judger teams – 4 hours
  1. Neuroscience of Change and Transformation
    Organizational Principles: Agility, Foresight, Involvement, Learning

In this session participants will take a deeper look at the amazing complexities associated with changing behaviors. Understanding the neuroscience, physiology and psychology of the brain and body can help leaders think and act with intention in ways that increase the likelihood of taking meaningful action. Based on the work of Srini Pillay M.D. CEO of The NeuroBusiness Group and professor at Harvard Medical School and invited faculty to the Harvard School of Business. Participants will apply this information to their situation and identify areas that he/she can change.

  1. LEAN Problem Solving

Organizational Principles: Agility, Information, Learning, Leadership, Integrity

Problems exist in all organizations. In the fast pace and high stress levels of today’s higher education environment, solving problems quickly and effectively is an essential skill. In this one-day program, participants will learn a simple but proven step-by-step approach for attacking and solving problems based on LEAN methodologies. Within the time-honored Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) framework, participants will learn how to develop a standardized, yet flexible process that integrates easily into any current company format.

  1. Team Dimensions

Organizational Principles: Agility/Execution, Collaboration, Learning

Participants and their peers will complete a Team Dimensions assessment and receive aggregate feedback on how their team approaches work. The Team Dimensions concept and the Team Dimensions Profile were developed by Allen N. Fahden and Srinivasan Namakkal, who have conducted creativity seminars and trained corporate personnel on the innovation process for over two decades. After more than 10 years of observing and researching teams that develop innovative services and products, Fahden and Namakkal discovered that each team member demonstrates a preference for performing certain roles over others. Their preferred roles reflect the way they think and the way they behave in terms of change. Fahden and Namakkal also identified the roles that people perform in the team process. People who are comfortable in each of these roles tend to share distinct patterns of thinking and change-related behavior. Fahden and Namakkal call these patterns the primary dimensions of teams: Creator, Advancer, Refiner, Executor and Flexer.

  1. Activities:
  2. Complete Team Dimensions self-assessment
  1. Receive aggregate data, discuss results, trends
  2. Create action plan for applying to the workplace
  1. Diversity Management

Organizational Principles: Agility, Collaboration, Involvement, Learning, People, Integrity

Leaders need help to move past accepting diversity toward utilizing diversity as a mechanism to improve team performance. While many leaders acknowledge that diversity is the right thing to do, they are less skilled in how to utilize that information. In this daylong session, participants will work with noted diversity author and scholar Dr. Edward Hubbard as they explore how to transfer this knowledge into specific diversity enhancing behaviors.

  1. Activities:
  2. Identify and implement the leadership behaviors of a diversity champion
  3. Assess diversity feedback measures and key performance indicators

Action Learning

The Institute for Excellence is not a theory course nor is it strictly about learning merely for the sake of acquiring knowledge. The IE is about “doing” or more specifically the IE is about applying what you have learned to your workplace environment. Action learning as a term was first coined by Professor Reginald Revans in the 1940’s. Action learning is a process whereby the participant studies his/her own actions and experiences in conjunction with others in small groups called action learning sets. IE participants will have ample data on their leadership strengths and weaknesses. Within the first third of the program, they will identify the areas that they wish to focus on and create a plan for how this will be done. Participants will identify a specific workplace scenario that allows them to demonstrate growth in their desired competencies. They can then begin the process of experimentation and practice on development. A final presentation will take place at the conclusion of the program.

  1. Activities:

1.Identify Action Learning initiative

2.Create Action Learning plan

3.Begin Action Learning

4.Report on Action Learning findings

  1. Action learning final projects must also demonstrate the following:
  1. Alignment to divisional strategy map
  2. Incorporation of feedback from 360’s
  3. Personal learning objectives
  4. Demonstrate business impact
  5. Individuals existing work, projects or goals

Additional Components

  1. I4E App – Each participant will be asked to utilize the I4E app 2-3 times a week. The app allows the user to select or prioritize the type of information he/she would like to receive. Specific I4E content will be pushed to the users via the app as well.
  2. Class participation – Participants are expected to be prepared to engage speakers and fully participate in all course requirements, including discussions, reading and out of class work.
  3. Supervisor follow up – Human Resources will engage in frequent follow up with the participant’s supervisor to ensure they are kept appraised of the learning and know their role in supporting leadership growth and development. Communication will be via email, phone and face to face.
  4. A rubric for all course elements will be applied to help guide participants to applying the knowledge and skills in the most advantageous ways.

Attendance Requirements

Participants are expected to attend all sessions and be present while the group is “in session”. Missed sessions impact the performance of the whole group and so participants are encouraged to strive for 100% attendance. We recognize however that 100% attendance is not always possible for a variety of reasons. Generally absences at a total rate of 15-20% of the total number of sessions or less over the duration of the program are deemed acceptable. Absences above that place the participant are at risk of being removed from the program.

Individual Feedback

Participants can request individual feedback at any point of the program, on how they are meeting the obligations and requirements of the course regarding their levels of participation in class, out of class preparation, etc

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