Team Building and Leadership: Create-Learning » Environmental

Building Community & Teaching Reflection at Camp

mike — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:41:42 +0000

I spent some time at Camp Inquiry.

Then I returned to facilitate the campers. With a focus on creating a community where people were open to reflection and critical thinking. The photos below show many of the highlights we experienced.

Special thanks to Clark Dever Photography for taking photos and spending time with us.

michael cardus is create-learning

Nature Deficit Disorder is Parents Fault

admin — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:29:00 +0000

Uploaded on March 30, 2008by ktylerconk

This article is from TreeHugger

According to the Guardian, “Voce argued that it was becoming a ‘social norm’ for younger children to be allowed out only when accompanied by an adult. ‘Logistically that is very difficult for parents to manage because of the time pressures on normal family life,’ he said. ‘If you don’t want your children to play out alone and you have not got the time to take them out then they will spend more time on the computer.’ to read entire article click here….

Working with school groups and youth groups I often find that teachers and staff fall into the “Folkloric” way of thinking; that when they were in school and kids that everything was better and children knew how to play. This is true in workplaces also – “These Gen-Y kids have no idea how to work” or another quote that I heard recently at a retirement party, “Once all the old time people leave, this place will never be the same, it was soo great back then it is going to be horrible when all these old time guys leave.”

I feel that what they are saying (teachers and school staff) is a wishful thought that when they do leave things change and the place falls apart.
A selfish hope that they are so important to the organization that the place falls apart when they leave and these children are so screwy that they need me to save them.

What does my going on have to do with the quote from TreeHugger – we should reflect upon our behaviors and realize that the change and cultures that are created, we create!!

By being fearful of your children playing outside – your children and afraid to play outside, by saying that students do not share as well as we did – you are recalling glorified system and behaving in a manner where the students are not encouraged to share.

Remember we see what we are looking for -

michael cardus create-learning

Environmental Concerns: What is your organization doing about it??

admin — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 14:16:00 +0000

image from TreeHugger: Cartoonists find climate change not so funny

I was in a discussion with some professors at College Leadership Conference about the “Green Movement”. I made the comment that many colleges and businesses are shifting to green initiatives because it is the “in” thing recently. While I visit many college campuses I see litter and little to no recycling and I see false environmental Jargon with no teeth. These professors stared at me for a moment, then expressed that many of them do not know what to do to justify the environmental movement on campus.

I agree we often (this includes businesses with New Business theories) jump into this frenzy of doing the “NEW THING” and have no idea how to implement it or even if it is right for the organizational culture and climate. I remember when the “Fish Philosophy” emerged. Many companies I was facilitating and consulting on team goals and team skills wanted their training to be “Fish Philosophy”. I read the books and studied about “Fish Philosophy” created customized trainings based on the philosophy. Many of the groups after I consulted really had no concept of what it really meant.

They heard that this was the “IT” thing and thought “WE have to do this because Betty in accounting said it is great!” These ideas come and pass rapidly and HR as well as Team managers have very little to no thought about the long term effects.

This “flavor of the month” creates a culture of false buy-in. Employees know that if they attend the parties sit in the consultant training meeting – while creating and illusion of following the new company track – things will go back to the way they have always been. A crying wolf culture the team soon becomes numb to new ideas and concepts within the culture. Take care when jumping into the new trends – A new one I see that makes me nervous is the Generation Y wave of fear and trainings going on – I understand and see the irony – I lead gen-y trainings myself and I feel that it is not just a Gen-Y shift we are going through it is a full spectrum of all generations at the workplace. If you are going to follow the “IT” theory think about how it can be implemented into the work and college or university culture. These juggernauts often shift slowly – so choose wisely where to spend time and organizational change.

Back to environmentalism WHAT are you and your culture doing? It is easy to create false claims the challenge to is implement plans and organizational change.