Tessa: Team building blog seis

I was particularly pumped for this week’s topic. Team building excites me (nerd alert, I know)! As an athlete I’ve been on teams my whole life. I played basketball/ran cross country elementary through high school, and continued cross-country through undergrad. I’m sensitive to what make can make or break a teams morale and what qualities make someone a team player. I appreciate the power of teamwork. (We’re in the midst of March Madness right now… There truly is nothing more beautiful than a well-executed pass between teammates who can read each other, or a fluid 2-3 zone defense, but I digress).

Hearing CJ Diamond’s presentation surprisingly made me feel better about the real world. It was great to see that there are companies out there that have clear visions and are not willing to settle on talent. As someone who is looking for a job, I want to work for someone and someplace that has that mentality. I was very impressed with him and hope I can work for someone like him someday.

In terms of the readings for this week… a few things I made note of:

1.     Strength is built through empowerment

a.     I learned this concept through being captain of my cross-country team in undergrad. People want to feel invested in and cared about.

b.     My grandpa taught me that, “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

2.     Building vision

a.     Core ideology

                                               i.     I think knowing your core values as a person is so important. I participated in a leadership conference (LeaderShape) in undergrad and we did an exercise where we wrote our core principles down on a piece of paper, taped it to our shirt, then walked around the room in silence reading everyone else’s. As cheesy as it sounds it was pretty cool. My core values as a person inform my goals for Race Place, which you can argue as both good and bad (see last weeks post about being “paradoxically dispassionate”). My piece of paper read: humility, competence, honesty, empathy, and work ethic

b.     Envisioned future

                                               i.     Race Place definitely has some BHAGs… I haven’t articulated them all that clearly yet. But talking about race and self-identity and getting more comfortable with those things is no easy feat.

Concluding question: If you had to identify your core principles as an individual what would they be?