A course and a car

So, I am now a day and a half into the course and it is a lot of hard work and very intensive. So much from my break from work! The course started with the inevitable introductions and then it was straight down to it with our first exercise briefing. All this on a Sunday evening when I should be enjoying a film and a bottle of wine!

Today, the pace increased. We started by completing the Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI) which helps to assess your strengths in both 'fair weather' and 'conflict' situations. The SDI categorises you as a 'type' of person with various behavioural traits:

Red: These are assertive, goal focused people who take decisive action and are constantly on the lookout for opportunity.

Green: These tend to be cautious analytical people who judge carefully before acting. They are predominantly concerned with practicalities, fairness, weighing up the issues and using careful consideration before acting.

Blue: These are people-focused carers who consider the needs of others before their own. They are warm and friendly and will defend the rights of others over and above everything else.

Hub: This type of motivation is a combination of all three colours and reflects people who are adaptable, good at team building and able to see issues from a number of different viewpoints.

Of course, there are people, like me, that are 'blends', that is they are a mix of two of the colours and I fell into this category. Having this information is an advantage as it helps you understand your value system and what motivates you. Understanding your motivations helps you to communicate effectively with others, and to get more from interpersonal relationships, it also helps you to develop an insight into the ways in which you, and others around you, alter your habitual behaviour, especially in conflict situations. This understanding can then be used to make choices and change behaviour to bring about improvements in how you manage others, act in a team and communicate. That is the theory at least. I found it very illuminating. It immediately made some things very clear that immediately spoke to me. It wasn't a 'Road to Damascus' moment but it was like upgrading turning on a light. I now understand why I behave in certain ways and more importantly, why some people might not understand my behaviour. Make no mistakes though, this is simply a tool. I know it will not make me a more effective person overnight but understanding something is the first step to making improvements. I liked the way this inventory took account of the shift in behaviour we all make when we are in stressful situations too.

After this we scarcely had time to draw breath before we received another brief for a group exercise and then later on we were divided yet again into groups and briefed on another group exercise. More on these in a later post as we will be completing these tasks over the next couple of days. In that respect this course is designed very much to be 'work like' where we are not doing just one thing at a time but juggling tasks and priorities and planning ahead and dealing with different people and sometimes conflicting situations. This is the essence of the course, as throughout we gauge our own and others effectiveness. Everyday there is an hour session where we give and provide feedback and we have been warned that we will not always be comfortable with what we hear. I will let you know how it goes.

Meanwhile, thanks to all those who took a guess at the mystery car. Those of you who guessed the Ford Edsel can give yourselves a big pat on the back from me. Below is a picture of the car from the front. Check out that chrome!

The Edsel is best known as being one of the biggest automotive flops of all time. Indeed, the name is synonymous with marketing failure. The model in the photographs is the 'Corsair'.

There is no single reason why the Edsel failed, and failed so spectacularly. Popular culture often faults the car’s styling. Poor workmanship has also been cited and marketing experts hold the Edsel up as a supreme example of corporate America’s failure to understand the nature of the American consumer. Business analysts cite the weak internal support for the product inside Ford’s executive offices. The Edsel was "the wrong car at the wrong time."

I took these photo's on a recent day out to the Science museum. More photos from that trip coming soon. Meanwhile come back to find out how I am doing on my course and if I end up throttling one of the other women on the course who is very annoying. If you have a black cat, apparently hers is blacker. You know the type!