Guest Lecture 2

Yesterday, we had a guest lecture of our school president, Hibiya Sensei. I think this is very rare and wonderful chance to have a direct lecture from the leader of our school. Before I had this guest lecture, I had not thought about taking any of the world language classes, nor learning abroad. However, after I had a lecture from her, I started to think about taking world language. I have not yet decided which language to take, so I would like to hear any opinion about any classes! :)

Since the lecture had changed my opinion towards world language class, I would like to give some advantages to learn foreign language, which we might use later in our life.

10 Benefits of Learning a Foreign Language

1)  It makes you stand out.

2) It makes it easier to learn a second or third language.

3) It says something positive about you.

4) It allows communication with more people.

5) It increases advancement opportunities.

6) It increases your job opportunities.

7) It makes traveling easier.

8) It can extend your life.

9) It demonstrates you have a wide range of skills.

10) It promotes understanding of another culture.

These tips may be atarimae to the students in ICU, but I think it is valuable to realize about your ability again, to make full use of it.

I especially liked the “3) It says something positive about you”, because I agree to the idea that challenging and acquiring something, not only foreign language, may help you to be confident of yourself.

http://interculturalist.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/10-benefits-of-learning-a-foreign-language/
http://library.escondido.org/Data/Sites/2/media/images/research/languages.jpg

Chapter 10

In chapter 10, the author talks about the finding creative ways to solve problems. Since I am not

a creative person and often get stuck with my thoughts, I searched for some ways to be a creative person.

1. Commit Yourself to Developing Your Creativity

2. Become an Expert

3. Reward Your Curiosity

4. Realize that Creativity is Sometimes Its Own Reward

5. Be Willing to Take Risks

6. Build Your Confidence

7. Make Time for Creativity

8. Overcome Negative Attitudes that Block Creativity

9. Fight Your Fear of Failure

10. Brainstorm to Inspire New Ideas

11. Realize That Most Problems Have Multiple Solutions

12. Keep a Creativity Journal

13. Create a Mind Map

14. Challenge Yourself

15. Try the "Six Hats" Technique

• Red Hat: Look at the situation emotionally. What do your feelings tell you?
• White Hat: Look at the situation objectively. What are the facts?
• Yellow Hat: Use a positive perspective. Which elements of the solution will work?
• Black Hat: Use a negative perspective. Which elements of the solution won’t work?
• Green Hat: Think creatively. What are some alternative ideas?
• Blue Hat: Think broadly. What is the best overall solution?

16. Look for Sources of Inspiration

17. Create Opportunities for Creativity

18. Consider Alternative Scenarios

19. Create a Flow Chart

20. Try the Snowball Technique

It is hard for me to work out all these tips, so I would like to choose some of the tips.

I think 15. Try the "Six Hats" Technique might be easy and understandable technique to enhance my creativity. I was surprised to know there were tips to be creative, and also surprised by the number of approaches. As I know how to become creative now, I want to put efforts to be creative problem solver.

http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/tp/how-to-boost-creativity.htm

Guest Lecture

In our lecture on Monday, we had Mr.Kitashiro for our guest lecture. His first impression was that he was softer than what I expected. As I listened his lecture, I realized that his thoughts are close to that of Shackleton, especially in the part of being optimistic. I think being an optimist naturally is, in the way, talent that was gifted. Normally, people are born to be pessimistic to avoid the same mistake again. Since we learned from him that people cannot remember more than three points, I would like to give tips to be optimism, using three points.

1. Find good points in the bad situation.
   For example, if the train was late because of accident, think “I was lucky that I did not get caught on the train that actually had accident.” Or even “it was lucky for me that I was not the one who had accident. I should be careful when I walk the platform.”
   This is important step to be optimist, because once you started to think you were unlucky, you will get caught by the thought.
   
2. Use positive words, even if you are feeling negative.
   The words can give big effect to your thought. If you speak ill of others, your bad emotion towards that person would increase. In order to avoid it, it is important not to use negative expression.
3. Start from the style.
   When you are angry, have a deep breath and smile. It is proved by science that smile can make brain to produce hormones to feel positive. Although you cannot change your emotion easily, you can control your facial expression.

These tips are sourced from my knowledge and experience, therefore I cannot put any links, but often these tips are given in many articles and books. I was not born as optimist, so these tips have helped me a lot. I think Mr.Kitashiro was born to be a leader.

Chapter 8

In chapter 8, the author mentions that the good leaders lightens up the team, which is different from being optimistic. I thought that by lightening up the team, people would be more relaxed to communicate with each other, which is related to chapter 6, “Core Team Value”.

Also relating to this chapter,  I did more research on how to lighten up the team. As a result, I came to the website which introduces how to use humor in the workplace. In this website, it said that;

Here are few “guiding lights” to help you manage to have more fun in your organization.

1. Take Yourself Lightly. Too many of us fall victim to the dreadful disease “acute professionalism”. The symptoms include a furrowed forehead, high levels of stress and blocked creativity. The cure is simple – learn to take yourself lightly, while still taking your job seriously. When you laugh at yourself, you demonstrate your humanity and openness and encourage others to do likewise. As an added bonus, you take away anyone’s ability to laugh at you. As author Bob Ross reminds us, “Leaders without a sense of humor are like a lawn mower at the cemetery – they have lots of people underneath them, but nobody is paying them any attention.”
2. Be Sincere. Dogs know when we’re not sincere, so there’s a good chance our employees will too. If you show up Monday morning with a transplanted Robin Williams persona, staff may be cynical about your newfound attempts to lighten the office mood. So be yourself. Practice sharing your own unique brand of humor and only do what feels comfortable for you.
3. Think Small and Simple. The biggest factors that contribute to employee morale don’t cost a lot of money or take a lot of energy; it’s the small things done on a consistent basis that matter. So look for easy opportunities to introduce a little humor – put up a humor bulletin board, create a humor room (Kodak Eastman and Hewlett Packard have them) include humorous quotes in correspondence and practice spontaneous humor (which as stand-up comedians will tell you, is the most effective form of humor).
4. Practice Relevant Humor. The more you celebrate humor specific to your office, team or organization, the more meaningful the humor is. Relevant, work-related humor becomes part of the corporate history and helps teams to bond around shared experiences. Start collecting a humor file of quotes, cartoons, funny customer questions and anecdotes that relate to your organization.
5. Practice Safe Humor. Humor can break down barriers as easily as it can builds walls, so make sure the style of humor you practice is “safe”. Non-sexist, non-racist, non-religious humor is the order of the day. Also be aware of times when humor may not be appropriate. The safest form of humor? Laughing at yourself.
6. Hire for Humor. If you want to lighten up the office then recruit people with a positive sense of humor. Southwest Airlines, recipient of a “Humor in the Workplace” award, hires for humor, regardless of whether it’s a front line customer service agent or mechanic, so that every employee will fit their unique corporate culture. Even NASA has suggested that one of the most important attributes of future astronauts will be a great sense of humor.
7. Make Fun a Priority. It’s easy to agree with the idea that we need to have more fun in our organizations, after all it’s one of those feel-good, motherhood statements. There’s only one problem – this little thing called life keeps getting in the way. If you’re going to take humor seriously then treat it like any other priority – tie into your mission statement (the corporate motto for Grimes Aerospace based in Columbus, Ohio, is “Growth, profit and fun”), list fun as one of your core values, offer training in workplace humor, include it in goals and work plans, and yes, evaluate it every now and then by asking the simple, yet all important question – “are we having fun yet?”
8. Give Yourself and Your Employees Permission to Play . . . and then get out of the way. Remember, as a leader, people look to you to set the tone for the office. You have the power to decide whether you’re going to be a roadblock on the inspiration highway or a catalyst for creativity and positive energy.

Copyright Michael Kerr, 2006

Michael Kerr, “The Workplace Energizer,” is an international speaker, workshop facilitator and the author of “You Can’t Be Serious! Putting Humor to Work.” You can reach Michael at 1-866-609-2640, or drop by electronically at mike@mikekerr.com or surf on over to www.mikekerr.com

http://www.mikekerr.com/humour-resources/free-articles/humour-in-the-workplace-articles/managing-to-have-fun/

By reading these tips, I realised that humor is very important to the workplace, however, I do not think it is easy for leaders to “think” to be humorous.

Happiness

In our lecture on Friday, we discussed the way of refreshing. I personally have a habit to clean up my room when I get stressed, but I was impressed by Xiaotian's idea of writing out the to-do list. Relating to this lesson, I found an article that describes the way of being happy, and I thought this idea was close to getting rid of stress.

This is the picture I found in the article.

It describes the ways of refreshing, but I would like to pickup several and discuss about it.

Firstly, I thought taking a nap might be very helpful to get rid of stress, so I was surprised to know that it is not as affective as enjoying a cup of tea.

When I looked this article on internet, I found that there is a cafe in Jinbocho which enables us to enjoy both having a cup of tea and taking a nap. This cafe is named corne, which was made for working women to take a nap after lunch. I think this is a very nice idea because it can release working woman from stress.

Also I would like to mention about performing an act of kindness. By acting kindly to others, the person who received the act may become happy, however I felt it interesting that the person who acted kindly would also feel happy. If people were kind enough to do such an act, the world would be better.