Last night, I had the strangest dreams.
I was the team leader of a church choir. We had our first official meeting digitally. The tension was immediate and palpable. A group of, “But we’ve always done it this way,” thinkers were aligned to depose me. Another group argued valiantly in my favor. A heated discussion led nowhere and after the meeting, I received feedback that was not surprising – those who wanted me to lead them gave me high marks, and those who didn’t would have given me negative marks if they could have. The dream ended chaotically, with missed meetings and the presence of unnerving clowns, and I woke well before my alarm.
It was the fitful time between sleep and wake that interested me the most. As I began to venture out of dreamland and away from the clowns, my mind started solving the problem I encountered in my dream. I thought, “Okay, obviously I’m a divisive choice for a leader. The problem is that this group has diverse needs. I think the best leader wouldn’t be one person, but a team of people with opposing viewpoints. This team should harness its diversity to increase the quantity and quality of ideas, thereby increasing participation in the choir!”
What does it all mean?
To say that I’m anxious about grad school is an understatement. But I also know that sleep is a time for creating memories, and there was some long-term learning occurring in my dream.
Begin with the end in mind
I was applying concepts from Chapter 3 in Horn and Staker’s book, Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools. On page 98, they state that “The most successful blended-learning programs… begin by identifying the problem to solve or the goal to achieve.” Notably, In my dream, I started with the problems to be solved. In this case, the problem was, well, ME. Another problem is one I intuited from my experiences in a church choir – garnering consistent members.
Teamwork makes the dream work
I was also applying concepts from Chapter 4 of the same text. I worked extremely hard to understand the 4 types of necessary teams. In the case of my dream, I applied a lightweight team to make sustaining changes with predictable roles. I also thought to employ a concept from heavyweight teams – involving skeptics. Horn and Staker state, “involving skeptics to hear their views… can be an important but tricky balancing act.” While there were many skeptics to change in my dream, I personally value diversity of thought in all that I do. As Rocío Lorenzo said in her TEDx talk, Innovation through Diversity, “Only in the group where you have more than 20% women in leadership do we see a clear jump in innovation revenue.” The more diverse viewpoints, the more likely transformation will occur.
Forward thinking
Our discussion in the Zoom about “Feedback vs. Feedforward” stood out glaringly in my dream. I was hurt and offended by the feedback, even though it wasn’t a bit surprising. What did I expect? In truth, it wasn’t the results of the feedback that were the problem, rather the use of feedback itself. As mentioned in our class discussion, feedback is inherently useless, as it doesn’t provide any actionable information.
Let it grow
Finally, I felt stunned that people perceived me as someone with a fixed mindset. I truly believed I was willing to listen to all ideas with an open mind. This is what led me to realize that I couldn’t be their leader in that time between sleep and wakefulness. In the end, their perception of me was one of division, regardless of what I thought.
I know that grad school will require hard work. I also know that I am capable of the work, that I enjoy a challenge, and that I love to learn. I can live with a little anxiety – I’ve done so my whole life!
Although, I’d still like to know how the clowns fit in.
