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Mats's Reflections and Daily Power Struggles
Thank you for the answers John and Lucio!
Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 22, 2023, 11:11 amAlso a small detail, and not sure if it sounds the same in the original language but I also don't like this line:
working for us
This is actually my mistake. The exact translation doesn't make much sense in English but it's closer to "working at us". I wouldn't consider it disempowering in Swedish.
Also thank you for the tip of leaving a review. Just knowing that I have more options than I realized will be helpful the next time I apply for a job.
Quote from John Freeman on July 22, 2023, 11:44 amHello Mats,
well played on your side. Being high power in this situation (we’re not always I think) meant that you have options so it was easier to sub-communicate it than if you had not. I also agree with your POV that it’s always a good exercise to interview and even this back-and-forth was. So congrats for your learner’s mindset (I’m also working on it endlessly).
Agreed with Lucio about the “working for” it struck me as a power move and I did not like it either. Especially knowing you’re not even employed yet. It increases the power distance even more knowing that it is generally not in favour of the applicant at the beginning of the job application process most of the time. That is in this case I think they probably have more job applicants than position giving them the upper hand based on quantity alone. Not talking about quality here as this shows in the interview and can reverse the power dynamics.
Thank you for the kind words John. A lot of the inspiration for working on my learners mindset, as well as many other self development pursuits, have come from your journal.
On the second part, it's just like you say that they have more applicants than positions to give out which naturally affects the dynamics from the beginning. It's the part I always struggle the most with when applying. As long as I get to the interview I feel confident that I can use what I've learned here at TPM to maximize my chances of getting the job, but getting the interview in the first place is something I need to work on.
Thank you very much Mats I feel honored. More and more I feel like personal development is a team sport.
Thanks to you for the post on “everyday power”. Great stuff!
Regarding your feelings about applications: that’s the game. I believe only thing we can do is to learn how to play it better: great CV, great cover letter, great interview. Rinse and repeat. Then we gain experience and it gets easier but it’s never or rarely a given. Like in dating. So I think we’re all in the same boat here. And thanks to TPM we can actually use this as a stepping stone for growth.
Today there was a lecture at University that I was excited to go to. It was about how to create good lesson plans, something that will be very useful once I start teaching.
My lecturer is actually quite good, both entertaining and knowledgable. However, he has the annoying habit of getting sidetracked while presenting. Whenever he speaks about something on one of his slides he ends up falling down a rabbit hole.
Now, if there's one thing I hate it is to sit and listen to a lecture that doesn't give me anything I will have practical use for. Especially since the lectures are 45 minutes (times two) long.
This puts me in the awkward position of not wanting to have my time wasted, and also not wanting to be disrespectful to the professor who isn't teaching effectively.
My approach today was simply to use my body language to show that I was completely focused on what he was saying as long as he stuck to his slides and giving good information, but then looking bored and not paying attention while he got sidetracked. This feels like a low quality move on my side though, and it wasn't particularly effective either.
I considered speaking up and telling my lecturer to stop getting sidetracked, but that would be very disempowering for him in front of all the other students. However, by showing that I wasn't paying attention I still disempowered him a bit without getting him to do what I wanted.
This made me wonder how to make sure that my lecturers don't waste my time, which they almost always do, without disempowering them.
For now I'm thinking that my two best approaches would either be to try to speak with him alone, which is risky since I could threaten his ego, or I could try to ask him questions that will lead him back on track whenever he gets sidetracked.
I'll try the latter approach for now and see if I can make it work.
I could try to ask him questions that will lead him back on track whenever he gets sidetracked.
Good social strategy I think. Or you could leave the classroom when it's not interesting anymore.
Thank you John!
Yeah I've left the classroom a few times when I felt like the whole lecture was going to be a waste.
The strategy I proposed is more for when the topic of the lecture is good but the teacher is ineffective or gets distracted.
A while back I created a self-development group with a few of my friends.
We meet once a week, and each meeting someone will go through/teach about a topic.
Since the very beginning I've been the one putting in the most effort; I've both been teaching the most topics and I've been supplying the place for us to meet as well as taking charge of organizing everything. In other words I've become the leader of the group.
Now, I love teaching, so I don't have a problem with putting in more work than the others and sharing more value (in terms of knowledge) than I get back. As long as I feel like my friends are gaining from it and enjoying it I'm more than happy with the arrangement. However, it has been a recurring problem that people don't show up to the meetings. What's worse is that several times people haven't said that they won't be coming until the very last minute.
This happened again last week, where one person wrote that he wouldn't be coming exactly one minute before the meeting started, and another person didn't say anything at all and just didn't show up.
The next day I wrote a long message in our group chat where I explained that I really like the group but think it's running ineffectively, outlined what I considered to be the problems of the group, presented a proposal for how to solve it, and asked to hear what everyone else thought. It's now been three days, and everyone except one person has read the message, but nobody has responded.
I can understand if people didn't completely understand the proposal, or if they didn't agree with the problems, or if they don't take the group as serious as I do and see it more as a fun hang-out with friends. Whatever the case, maybe it's me having poor leadership skills, I consider it disrespectful for everyone to simply read the message and avoid answering.
I do have another proposal that I think they would like more: that we just keep going as we have so far but I take more of a backseat role, although I suspect this would lead to a significant decrease in content quality. However, since I explicitly asked for their thoughts and they ignored me, I've already lost quite a bit of power. I think that if I write more now or come with more solutions that's even more disempowering.
I've decided to wait a few more days before writing anything, but I don't think the group is going to survive this. It's a real shame because I liked what we were doing, but it's not worth putting in the time and effort when people don't seem to care.
Hey Mats, long time, good to read from you :).
As for this situation, my 2 cents is to consider a different approach.
It seems there is a presupposition there that people should show up, and warn in advance if not (and maybe a few more, such as "pay attention during the meetings", etc.)
The other approach that I like to take for several situations is that you do your thing, and whether people want to join or not, up to them.
Of course that doesn't mean you take no feedback whatsoever or make no demands whatsoever.
And of course it doesn't mean you (can) erase your preference for people showing up.
But still you act based on that approach (and over time the mindset also start shifting).
With this approach the demands are more in the sense of "if you wanna take part, THEN this is what's expected".
This would be a bit like this forum: you wanna write, don't write, comment, lurk... All up to you. If you do choose to take part though, then there are X, Y, Z expectations.
This approach is closer to "pull".
It puts the onus on you to provide a lot of value and make people want to show up first, and then conform to your expectations of proper behavior.
AS for people not responding, that's rather normal in group settings.
Everyone expects others to make the first move -especially when the intrinsic motivation is not off-the-charts-.
Great to hear from you as well Lucio! : )
After reading your response I can see that my approach and mindset was a problem.
I think I focused too much on giving value to the others and not enough on making sure I gain from it as well. Because of this, every time people don't show up the effort I put in becomes wasted. If I instead were to prepare stuff that I need to work on as well, it's not a big deal if nobody shows up as I can just do it on my own. This would still be value-giving and wouldn't lead to frustration from my part.
And if I understand you correctly it is unreasonable to set expectations such as "you have to show up and pay attention". It does remind me of the rule that a leader should use as little coercion as possible, so the "pull" approach is certainly better. More reasonable expectations would be something like "if you do show up, pay attention."
It makes sense to me, I'll see what happens when/if the people respond.
Until then I'll just keep doing my thing.
