1. 2014 Hal Rogers Scholars Program
Creating Purpose Catalysts: Recognizing the Problems as Opportunities
Connecting Your Work on Purpose, and Creating Intentions
Berea College
Entrepreneurship for the Public Good Program
June 24, 2014
8:30 – 11:00 am and 12:45 – 1:45pm
2. Agenda
Help you consider Intentionalityas a way of life
Problem / Need / Opportunities
What this Workshop Can Do For You
3. Pattern Recognition
Creativity can be learned in ball games
Empathy training
Acting entrepreneurial: Accepting Failure
Creative teamwork to solve real problems
Examples and Explanations of Exercises
4. A word from our sponsors…colleges and
universities
5. Intercultural Skills / Humanitarianism
71% of employers want teamwork in diverse groups
67 % of employers want more emphasis on intercultural
knowledge
79% of AAC&U member institutions name intercultural skills as
learning objectives
Source: Employer statistics are taken from Raising the Bar: Employers’ Views on College Learning in the Wake of the
Economic Downturn, a survey of employers conducted for AAC&U by Hart Research Associates and published in 2010.
Employers want Teamwork
6. Civic Engagement
52% of employers want colleges to place more emphasis on civic engagement,
community participation and engagement.
68% of AAC&U member institutions name civic engagement as a learning objective
for all students.
NASPA and ACPA both recommend civic engagement as a key learning
outcome.
AAC&Uidentified civic engagement as one of the member institutions’ four
learning outcomes for all students under the category “Personal and Social
Responsibility.”
Source :Identified by the NASPA and ACPA 2004 report Learning Reconsidered: A Campus-Wide Focus on the Student
Experience. From Raising the Bar: Employers’ Views on College Learning in the Wake of the Economic Downturn..
Colleges desire students that take personal
and social responsibility
7. • Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Competence
NASPA and ACPA recommend interpersonal and
intrapersonal competence as a key learning outcome. This includes
realistic self-appraisal and self-understanding and personal
attributes such as identity, self-esteem, self-awareness, and
confidence.
Source: One of AAC&U member institutions’ four learning outcomes for all students, which were identified in the data
gathered by AAC&U’s 2009 LEAP survey, Learning and Assessment: Trends in Undergraduate Education—A Survey
Among Members of the AAC&U and Hart Research Associates.
Universities want realistic self-appraisals,
self-understanding and self-awareness
8. Knowledge Integration and Application
NASPA and ACPA recommend knowledge acquisition,
integration, and application as key learning outcomes. This
includes connecting knowledge to other knowledge (integration);
relating knowledge to daily life (application); and pursuing lifelong
learning and career decidedness.
Source: One of AAC&U member institutions’ four learning outcomes for all students, which were identified in the data
gathered by AAC&U’s 2009 LEAP survey, Learning and Assessment: Trends in Undergraduate Education—A Survey
Among Members of the AAC&U and Hart Research Associates.
Employers desire students that relate
knowledge to daily life and problems
9. 1. Teamwork
2. Take responsibility
3. Realistic self-knowledge / awareness
4. Relate knowledge to life and problems
Source: Employer statistics are taken from Raising the Bar: Employers’ Views on College Learning in the Wake of the
Economic Downturn, a survey of employers conducted for AAC&U by Hart Research Associates and published in 2010.
Learning outcomes for all students were identified in the data gathered by AAC&U’s 2009 LEAP survey, Learning and
Assessment: Trends in Undergraduate Education—A Survey Among Members of the AAC&U and Hart Research
Associates. Also identified by the NASPA and ACPA 2004 report Learning Reconsidered: A Campus-Wide Focus on the
Student Experience. One of AAC&U member institutions’ four learning outcomes for all students, which were
identified in the data gathered by AAC&U’s 2009 LEAP survey, Learning and Assessment: Trends in Undergraduate
Education—A Survey Among Members of the AAC&U and Hart Research Associates.
Workshop Skills
10. What Can We Do For You ?
… some warmup problems
and puzzles
11.
12. Five of the
flowers in the
vase belong to
the same logical
family. One is an
intruder—which
one, and why?
28. What Do We Mean By Work?
…work as something much larger than
a job – it’s not just the 9 to 5. It is the
intersection of how your self-identity
and how you spend your time.
29. What Do We Mean by Purpose?
Purpose is a stable and generalized intention
to accomplish something that is at the same
time meaningful to the self and
consequential for the world beyond the self.
51. Lifeline Discovery
Low Points
High Points
Excitement/Enjoyment Instructions: 1) Plot the highs and lows: 2) describe the
event; 3) recognize the interests; 4) find communities;
5) recognize the transitions and key decisions regarding
change.
52. Lifeline Discovery
Low Points
High Points
Excitement/Enjoyment
Learning to
ride a bike
Falling in
the mud
after my
first ride
w/o
training
wheels
Forgetting mom's
signature on the
detention slip
Failing my OAT’s
Losing the Spelling Bee
on rhythm
Got my license
Wrecked my car
Made Varsity
Hit 1st Home Run
Grandmother
passed away
My 1st detention
Being the 1st to pass
the times tables test
Learning to
whistle
Reading to my
Grandma for the
first time
Graduated Top 10%
Had a poem
& short
story
published
Made Little Caesar's manager
Made Dean’s List
Walked on BC Softball teamGot Little
Caesar's job
Being the 1st to pass the
states/capital test
11. Won 1st Place
Science Fair
Winning softball
season & voted MVP
Getting speeding ticket
Didn’t Make
Dean’s List 2nd
semester
Accepted to college
57. Problem Solving Exercises
Ball Games
H + H = H
Biggest Failure
Lifeline Discovery
Three Big Questions
Uncle Ralph
The 10 Year Reunion
Examples and Explanations of Exercises
I am your host for this segment of the workshop. I am Name, home town, year in school, major and what I am considering for my next summer internship assignment.
Introduction – Name, home town, year in school, major and summer internship assignment including name of organization.
We would like to demonstrate how you can create (make up) your life by strengthening your intentionality, team problems finding skills,
This is our agenda.
These are the set of experiential learning exercises design to produce intentional actions.
Before we begin…a word from our sponsors…or a summary of what you might come to expect in the near term based upon our experiences as freshmen and sophomores at Berea College.
Looking back on the EPG Summer Program we have come to see the real value in four areas: Teamwork, Taking personal and social responsibility, adjusting a realistic self-knowledge / self-awareness, and finally, relating academic knowledge to actual life and complex problems.
The research says….
…employers want teamwork in diverse and intercultural groups…. You no doubt recognized the interdisciplinary highly diverse EPG Cohort members in our introductions.
…. employers want colleges to place more emphasis on civic engagement, community participation and engagement developing “Personal and Social Responsibility.”
…..national organizations recommend that students gain realistic self-appraisal, self-understanding and personal attributes such as identity, self-esteem, self-awareness, and confidence.
….Finally, the research reports that Employers desire students that relate knowledge to daily life and problems
Thus….we hope to bring to you today a set of experiences in this workshop that open you up, advances your ability to listen and learn from peers that can help you discern a pathway to become much more intentional about how to locate your passion and use the college and university to deepen your understanding.
We have studied the set of questions and challenges we need to get ready for as we begin to approach firms for internships and for jobs after graduation. We have discovered that the best jobs and the best places for internship are places that seek individuals that are comfortable with cluelessness, ambiguity and uncertainty. These are the creative and innovative firms that are coming up with solutions to today’s more challenging and multifaceted problems.
So, let’s begin the workshop with a set of warmup problems and puzzle. Our instructions are to first ask you to spend a short time on the puzzle alone. We will then give you a chance to talk to table members to gain their insights as to how to approach the challenge.
Five of the flowers in the vase belong to the same logical family. One is an intruder—which one, and why? (answer is the one on the far right)
The four drawings about the duel are not in the right order. Please order correctly.
And, the final challenge on these warmups is…. The drawings about the King’s walk is not in the right order. Please correct.
So…..
So….(1) what have you learned? (2) When or upon what exercise or puzzle did you learn this? (3) Why might this learning matter to you or be important? (4) In light of this learning, what might you do differently?
So….let me introduce you to Clifton and Uncle Cleve….In your spare time you might pick up the book….. What I have come to learn from Clifton and Uncle Cleve can best be summarized in three statement:
1.
2.
3.
Mime Ball
Sound Ball
Random Word Ball
Animals Word Ball
We also read, Work on Purpose by Echoing Green. Echoing Green. has discovered what moves others – particularly entrepreneurs for the public good or social entrepreneurs - to action. Echoing Green’s research reports on what gets each of us out of bed in the morning. Echoing Green has inventoried the skills, beliefs and our gifts of others, particularly those under 25 years of age.
Through class exercises we inventory our own skills, beliefs and gifts, values and the value we want to provide to others within structured exercises presented in the Work on Purpose Book.
Over the past twenty-five years, Echoing Green has performed hundreds of in-depth interviews with Echoing Green - world-changing social entrepreneurship - Fellows, uncovering the common experiences that led them to meaningful, high-impact work. The Work on Purpose program then compared the WoP Fellows’ experiences to scholarship from the world's top research institutions—from Stanford, Yale, Duke, and University of Pennsylvania. From these sources, Echoing Green pulled forth a list of ten principles designed to guide anyone who wants a high-impact social change career.
Pick three that were important to you and highlight to the audience.
These are member of the EPG Program. We intend to learn and practice experiences that lead to meaningful, high-impact work. The Work on Purpose book uses five social entrepreneurs’ stories to illustrate one simple framework: Heart + Head = Hustle.
“Heart” is the issues, ideas, passions and people that move you. These are things that you are connected to, things that make your heart beat faster, whether because you find them deeply compelling, infuriating, or thrilling. Share on short story from Work on Purpose.
“Head” is your unique gifts: the skills, abilities, knowledge, connections, and everything else you bring to the table. This includes the insights you have as a result of your experiences, your access to communities that others may have difficulty connecting to, and so on.
“Hustle” is what happens when you align your heart and your head, doing work that draws from both of these spheres. This refers to those times in which you are really moving, in which you are really “in-the-zone.” You are in a mental state of operation in which you perform an activity fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. You might lose track of time, doing the work you would do for free (even when you get paid for it). Why? Because you are driven by something extraordinary: your personal purpose.
For Echoing Green …work as something much larger than a job – it’s not just the 9 to 5 (or the 8 to 6, or the midnight to morning). It is the intersection of how your self-identity (for instance, as an artist or a changemaker) and how you spend your time (for instance, writing books, working with children).
Through Echoing Green, this EPG Cohort has come to learn that we add the following line to this definition: “in service of making the world a better place.” This is what William Damon calls “noble purpose” in The Path to Purpose.
Distribute the cardstock with the Echoing Green Principles. Review the three major Categories: Find what is right for you, Good for the world and Be bold.
Heart + Head = Hustle teaches participants how to identify work that aligns their heart (addressing the social and environmental issues that most move them) and their head (using their unique gifts). Distribute the Heart + Head = Hustle worksheet on cardstock. Instruct participants to fill in the “heart” section of the Venn diagram. In this area, they will write the issues, ideas, people, and other things that move them. Tell them that you will read a series of questions to help trigger their thoughts. They can directly respond to these questions by writing their answers in the “heart” section, or they can ignore the prompts and free-write about what moves them.
Read the questions very slowly, giving participants time to write after each question is asked.
What issues or ideas make your heart beat faster, whether because you are so deeply compelled by them, because you are angered by them, or because you are overjoyed by them?
What is the primary topic of the articles you always read, and the movies, books, and TV shows to which you are most attracted?
What are some similar qualities in the people you consistently find yourself drawn to?
When are you sitting on the edge of your chair?
What social or environmental problem do you ache to see solved?
When have you seen injustice?
Have you ever stood up for anyone? Who? Why?
Who would you stand up for, and why?
What stories resonate with you?
Why?
Who are “your people”?
When you imagine the world you want to live in what three words come to mind?
What feels like “home” to you?
If you were starting an organization or project, what values would you shape it around?
When your inbox is full, what emails do you always open first? What organizations or individuals are they from? What is the topic of these emails?
After you have asked all the questions, give your participants an additional three to four minutes to free-write about what moves them. In total, this should take about three minutes.
Now ask the participants to fill in the “head” section of the Venn diagram with their skills, abilities, knowledge, connections, and everything else they personally bring to the table. Again, tell them that you will read a series of questions to help trigger their thoughts. They can directly respond to these questions, or they can ignore them and free-write about their strengths.
As before, read the questions very slowly, giving participants time to write after each question is asked.
What do you know inside and out?
What groups or individuals do you know well or have unique access to?
What education, traditional or non-traditional, perhaps from a neighbor or uncle, do you have?
What have you learned for your jobs; things you would put on a resume and things you wouldn’t?
What are your tangible skills and intangible strengths?
What experiences have you had that have given you insights or information that most others do not have? What are these insights?
What are the three things that your best friends, your family, and your mentor would agree you are best at?
What is your role in groups—whether you are with your friends, your family, or your peers? Are you usually the pragmatist? The entertainer? The organizer?
Imagine that when you leave this session, you receive three emails— personal, professional, and semi-professional—all asking something of you. What are these people asking of you? What do they see you as an expert in? What do you wish they were asking you?
After you have asked all of the questions, give the participants an additional three to four minutes to free-write about their strengths. In total, this should take about three minutes.
Next, it is time for your participants to fill in the “hustle” section of their worksheet, the section in which the heart and the head overlap. Here your participants should list various ways that they can combine their heart and their head.
Prompt them to begin writing with the following:
Now that we’ve identified some important components of our hearts and heads, we’re going to move into the “hustle” section. When we talk about “hustle,” we are referring to times in your life when you’re in the zone, losing track of time, because you are doing the work that you would do for free— even if you are getting paid for it! Your hustle is your unique contribution to the world.
Look back to your “heart” and “head” sections. Pick one idea from each category and see if you can find a way to combine them into a “hustle.” This is the time to get creative, to play with ideas.
We want you to write as many hustles as possible and surprise yourself!
Some of the hustles you write down can be things you would never really do. You are not deciding the rest of your life right now; you’re just playing.
So be creative, be messy, write on the back of the page if you need to. Get it all down.
As your participants write, read the following triggers. In total, give them eight or nine minutes to write.
Hustles can be topics, like the history of social change movements. Your hustle can be a question for you to investigate or consider.
They can be job titles or career paths.
They can be roles: think about boards, volunteer opportunities, paid or unpaid work.
They can be artistic projects.
They can be organizations or schools, existing or non-existing.
They can be complete thoughts or just fragments, shards of an idea.
Some things you write down may be natural extensions of the work you do now—they may be activities or ideas that you can incorporate into your work or your life as it is now. Other things may require radical change.
You can write fragments, single words, or full paragraphs.
Another resource we discovered this summer is…..
How many people have seen this movie? We looked at the movie through a different lens.
This is what we learned:
1.
2.
3.
The group was prompted to consider their biggest failure.
Facilitators instructed participants to free write. Free writing is a term for constant writing without thought, erasing, crossing out or stopping. After free writing, the group was prompted to narrow their thoughts down to their top 5 failures.
Next, the group selected one or two of their top failures to write on a sticky post-it note with the marker pins
The sticky notes were put onto the walls, roughly at the same time. This removed the original identity of the author.
Once all of the failures were displayed, the group was instructed to look at other failures and select the sticky notes that resonated with them the most.
The floor was open for discussion and people were encouraged to share the other failures that they could resonate with.
The group was prompted to consider their biggest failure.
Facilitators instructed participants to free write. Free writing is a term for constant writing without thought, erasing, crossing out or stopping. After free writing, the group was prompted to narrow their thoughts down to their top 5 failures.
Next, the group selected one or two of their top failures to write on a sticky post-it note with the marker pins
The sticky notes were put onto the walls, roughly at the same time. This removed the original identity of the author.
Once all of the failures were displayed, the group was instructed to look at other failures and select the sticky notes that resonated with them the most.
The floor was open for discussion and people were encouraged to share the other failures that they could resonate with.
Starting with the cycle on top, the seven cycles can be placed into an order given a logical principle. What is it? What order should they be in?
We would like to describe briefly, a set of additional exercises in the Work on Purpose Workshop.
Describe the event
Write one concise or two sentences describing each event. The idea is to capture some of the key work satisfaction drivers mentioned earlier, specifically interest, abilities/skills and values.
Use action words, such as “designed “led” or “assembled”. Try to describe each event using two or more verbs. For examples, if you delivered a solo rendition of a song at a school assembly, rather than “sang song” write “selected, rehearsed, and performed Don’t Let the Rain Come
Down at school talent show. Drew big applause!
Use verbs
Include a note about the context in which you acted in other words, write down the place and theme of the event.
Recognize the Interest
Interests are key resources that truly make you. Consider your high point events – the things that excite you. In what context did each event occur? Ask for an illustration of a EPG team member. What activities or action were involved?
What other commonalities point to specific interest areas?
Do these areas of interest suggested match up?
Identify transitions where you made the key decisions regarding a change. Were these highs or lows?
Professionals note the differences that emerge from internal locus of control is crucial to work satisfaction. Internal locus of control means you decided for yourself what you wanted to do, rather than being influenced by external parties. When we know ourselves well, we are unlikely to act in response to others’ expectations.
Most career professionals agree that work satisfaction is driven by three key factors: interest, skills and abilities and personality. The Lifeline Discovery exercise is a tool that helps you define and examine these factors.
Distribute the blank Lifeline Discovery tool.
Plot you High and Low Points
Recall events representing high and low points in your life and plot them on a timeline that stretches back as far as you can remember. The vertical axis represents enjoyment and/or excitement, the horizontal axis represents time.
“High points” and “low points” are:
Specific important events in your life: good or bad – related to work, social life, love, hobbies, academics, sports, spiritual pursuits or other areas.
Milestones or landmarks you remember clearly and are associated with strong feelings.
Show a sample.
Start at the far left with the earliest high or low point you can remember, and then work toward the present. When you have plotted 15 to 20 events, draw a line connecting all points.
Describe the event
Write one concise or two sentences describing each event. The idea is to capture some of the key work satisfaction drivers mentioned earlier, specifically interest, abilities/skills and values.
Use action words, such as “designed “led” or “assembled”. Try to describe each event using two or more verbs. For examples, if you delivered a solo rendition of a song at a school assembly, rather than “sang song” write “selected, rehearsed, and performed Don’t Let the Rain Come
Down at school talent show. Drew big applause!
Use verbs
Include a note about the context in which you acted in other words, write down the place and theme of the event.
Recognize the Interest
Interests are key resources that truly make you. Consider your high point events – the things that excite you. In what context did each event occur? Ask for an illustration of a EPG team member. What activities or action were involved?
What other commonalities point to specific interest areas?
Do these areas of interest suggested match up?
Identify transitions where you made the key decisions regarding a change. Were these highs or lows?
Professionals note the differences that emerge from internal locus of control is crucial to work satisfaction. Internal locus of control means you decided for yourself what you wanted to do, rather than being influenced by external parties. When we know ourselves well, we are unlikely to act in response to others’ expectations.
Specific important events in your life: good or bad – related to work, social life, love, hobbies, academics, sports, spiritual pursuits or other areas.
Milestones or landmarks you remember clearly and are associated with strong feelings.
Show a sample.
Start at the far left with the earliest high or low point you can remember, and then work toward the present. When you have plotted 15 to 20 events, draw a line connecting all points.
Revisit the Lifeline exercise to recall specific events).
1. What were you doing?
2. Why did it feel so good? Describe those feelings as specifically as you can. Name one or more of your role models.
3. Who do you admire most, and why? Write down several words that describe that person. For example, one Forum member named Nelson Mandela as a role model. While doing this exercise, she wrote down kindness, persistence in the face of adversity, recognition, and status. These words offered clues to the things she valued in herself as well as others.
4. How would you like to be remembered by your friends? Write down some of the things you hope they will say about you after you’re gone. Have the workshop participants share their results.
Uncle Ralph includes you in his will. You get $9 million in year one and $9 million in a trust fund to be released upon completion of the second year long task.
Have the participants describe Your Brand-New Life with the following constraints:
(1) First Year, First Task
Spend this year learning new things. You are NOT required to attend a college, university, or any other formal educational program. You simply must use your time and energy to focus intently on learning new things. So, what would you learn? How would you develop yourself?
(2)Second Year, Second Task
Find a cause to support. You have one year to investigate, participate in, and ultimately select a cause or a project you really care about – something that will help humanity (your neighborhood/city/country/the world/the environment, etc). At the end of the second year, you must donate the $9 million in your trust fund to the cause or project you have selected. What cause will you select?
Epilogue
Your Lifestyle Starting in Year Three
What sort of lifestyle will you enjoy after completing the two tasks? You have $9 million. Where will you live?
With whom? How will you spend your time?
What activities will you pursue?
What will you strive to accomplish?
Have the participants share their results.
The purpose of these exercises are to help the participants review their development and abilities and to “see” themselves and their talents in the future.
We challenge everyone to think about one type of “work” they would do for free. Then tell them that they will be “trying on” that type of work today. Have everyone close their eyes to prepare for the next exercise. Encourage them to relax, let go of their concerns, and clear their minds.
We Might Say:
You are moving forward in time to ten years from now. Take a moment to mark how old you are. Your day has not yet begun, but you are beginning to wake up. Right now, you are living the life and doing the work that you said you would be willing to do for free. You may be getting paid for it or you may not, but you are doing it. (Remember the Uncle Ralph gift?) We walk them through the day, how they wake up, get ready for work, visualize the apparel, what they eat for breakfast, where they go, how they get there. Do you take the train? A bus? A car? Or maybe you amble down the hallway to another room in your home?
As you arrive at your workplace, what do you see? A big building? A small office? A forest? A stage? A studio?
What happened over the last ten years that led you to this day? Did you go to college? Get a degree? Where? Did you travel? Hold a series of jobs?
Now it is evening and you are about to go to a party, a reunion party. You are getting ready. What do you put on? How do you prepare? How do you feel? Are you ready to re-meet your peers and see who they have become in the past ten years? Now tell them to hold those thoughts, sit down, open their eyes, and jot down some notes about what they visualized. Tell them to write down their job title, how they felt throughout their day, what happened over the ten-year period that got them to where they were, their favorite part of their older self, and so on.
Then We Might Say:
Now, stand back up and close your eyes again. Resettle into the self you saw ten years from now. Stay still until I say, "Welcome to the party.” Once I say these words, you are going to open your eyes as the self you are trying on. Walk around and chat with other people at the reunion party. Try to talk to at least ten different people, but absolutely talk to a minimum of five.
We select party music, often choose a song by Michael Jackson (who we think will likely still be popular in ten years!). When you are ready, yell “Welcome to the party!” and turn on the music. We give the group fifteen to twenty minutes to wander around the room talking to one another. Have the participant greet their returning colleagues who arrived at the reunion.
Afterward, we have them return to their seats and discuss the experience.
We might ask:
• How did it feel to be the identity you tried on?
• How did it feel to tell people what you did?
• Did anything surprise you about this activity?
These are the set of experiential learning exercises design to produce intentional actions.
Have participants return to their worksheets and we would have them select one hustle that is particularly interesting to them. Encourage the participants to write on the bottom of the worksheet one action they will take that week to move their hustle forward, something specific and concrete. It could be to research their hustle topic, to contact someone who has a similar job, or to begin volunteering at a place that moves them.
We would encourage them to think about the resources that they have access to through your school or organization. You may even want to take a moment to tell them about particular resources that you think they may benefit from, and to hand out materials about these resources.
If time permits take question and comments.
