Author: Susan Hendrich

Mighty Molly

/ Susan Hendrich / 3 Comments

Team Molly

Five year-old Molly Anderson has been battling leukemia since May, 2008.  She is a brave young superhero, and thousands of people are cheering her on.  Since Molly has superhero status, we thought it fitting that she have her own fancy superimage.  Check out some ideas for Mighty Molly! 

Vote for your favorite(s).

Mighty Molly

 

 

 

Mighty Molly

Molly’s own words:

Hi, my name is Molly. I am 5 years old and quite a character. I love super heroes and making people laugh. I am super tough and super strong. I was diagnosed on May 28th with Acute lymphoblastic leukemia Tcell (ALL). My treatment is long but I plan to be a super fighter the whole way.

Thanks for supporting Molly Anderson!

Susan

Safety to Fail (again)

/ Susan Hendrich / 2 Comments

To err is human; to forgive, divine. – Alexander Pope

Forgiveness is a gift that costs nothing.

There is tremendous power in forgiveness. We pardon mistakes or wrong choices of others as a means of growing, healing, learning and moving on. The power of forgiveness has long been documented. Think of the role it plays in self-esteem, interpersonal relations, philosophy, sports, child-rearing, education, and law.  Forgiveness brings closure and resolution. Forgiveness frees us to make better choices next time.

So, where does forgiveness fit into training and leadership?

There is no greater learning opportunity than the chance to make a decision that carries the risk of failing. When we provide a safe environment in which learners can try, fail, and try again, we open up a world of learning opportunities. 

How have you incorporated forgiveness into your training and leadership?

Susan Hendrich

Excellence matters

/ Susan Hendrich / 4 Comments

“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”   – Aristotle

Just react to this quote.  Don’t think—just start typing.

Susan

Spotlight on…Implicit assumptions

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Do hidden biases affect your leadership and training?

Project Implicit

Project Implicit provides a short online test that provides the opportunity to assess your conscious and unconscious preferences for over 90 different topics ranging from “pets to political issues, ethnic groups to sports teams, and entertainers to styles of music.” By taking this test, you’ll be assisting psychological research on thoughts and feelings.

The individual sessions take 10-15 minutes. At the end of the session, you will get some information about the study and a summary of your results. Interesting and informative!

About the project

Project Implicit blends basic research and educational outreach in a virtual laboratory at which visitors can examine their own hidden biases. Project Implicit is the product of research by three scientists whose work produced a new approach to understanding of attitudes, biases, and stereotypes.

The Project Implicit site (implicit.harvard.edu) has been functioning as a hands-on science museum exhibit, allowing web visitors to experience the manner in which human minds display the effects of stereotypic and prejudicial associations acquired from their socio-cultural environment.

Take me to Project Implicit!

Here’s the scoop on the test behind the project:

It is well known that people don’t always ‘speak their minds’, and it is suspected that people don’t always ‘know their minds’. Understanding such divergences is important to scientific psychology.

The Implicit Association Test (IAT) shows us that we learn to quickly link or associate sets of ideas in our brains. We might tend to associate the words “sunny” with “good” and “overcast” with “bad”. Besides linking the words, we are linking the concepts and feelings that go with those words and we act on those feelings. The IAT is a way to see how closely our brains have linked certain concepts. The strength of the links is hard wired in our brains.

Note that the IAT has not gone without controversy (see Wall Street Journal; Science News Article).

Your turn

So, now that your interest is piqued…

How can we incorporate what we know abotu implicit assumptions into our learning and development practices?  Let’s discuss ways to uncover hidden biases and optimize the training experience!

More information:

  1. Dr. Anthony Greenwald/IAT Materials
  2. http://faculty.washington.edu/agg/IATmaterials/PDFs/R&W.JEPG(2004).pdf