Foundations of the Social Age MOOC 2017 Q1: Unit 11 - Humility

This post contains publicly available content and my responses to exercises from this unit of the course created by Julian Stodd and Sea Salt Learning.

As I started the course,  I decided that I would go for 100% completion of all exercises given that there was a leaderboard for completion and learner engagement. On the back of that decision, I decided to do the exercises using “wild mind writing”.

 

Introduction

In this level, we will explore how humility is important when dealing with community, how it directly reinforces the fact that the knowledge itself is spread through the community, and we will only be able to access this tacit and tribal knowledge if we earn the right. We are unlikely to earn it through bluster and strength alone.

Overview

Video

In the Social Age, humility is a willingness to engage, not just with what we know or what we agree with, but also with what we don't know, as it is here that we will find our strength.

My response:

Definitions:

humility: the quality of having a modest or low view of one's importance

modest: unassuming in the estimation of one's abilities or achievements

Defo willing to engage with anyone on any subject. For me this comes into sharp relief when you do not know who the other person is (e.g. no Twitter info on their profile) and what their background is but continue in a conversation as you suss them out.

Always want to marshal the collective view of whatever team I am in.

Christian ethos helps me significantly in this area. I know more than most that I am not perfect. I always treat people as equals. Love the Biblical teaching on humility with a strong emphasis on havng the correct view of yourself i.e. not higher or lower than you should.

Re tolerance, reminder of Julia Middleton's core and flex with respect to cultural intelligence (another MOOC I would recommend). If you cut across my core, there will be trouble!

I actually need to be more confident in my abilities as I have self-confidence issues.

Remembering that I used to want to get my point across regardless but know, as I am getting older, if I have only asked questions of the other person and not said things myself that is OK as I have moved on in my understanding of the other person.

We defo do not need any false humility which can be seen through so easily.

I assume that those "doing" social do want to make progress in the formal structure and not just passed over the whole time for formal position vacancies?

Ideally, the dog eat dog career progression type organisations will die.

1.2. Humility in Leadership

Article

Why should a leader be humble?

My response:

This is reminding me of the central ethos of "working out loud" circles, generously giving contributions and not expecting anything back and doing that relentlessly. I do this too much I have been yold. I need to take more care of me and my goals. But I am an inveterate sharer of links and not just to all but invariably specifically targetted to a stated need or my understanding of the person's need based on what has been said publicly or privately.

Also in WOL circles, you are asked to specifically pick a goal that you cannot achieve on your own!

Reminded of the way in which the current Archbishop of Canterbury and Pope were appointed seemingly coming from nowhere in a formal authority and formal power sense. Amazing! Two great leaders of their respective organisations and the Christian church in its widest global manifestation.

1.3. Humility

Reflections on humility, and what it means in the context of the Social Age.

Podcast

What forces prevent us from being humble? List three things.

My response:

• pride
• wanting our own way
• thinking that it is a sign of weakness

Proactivity came to mind. Just getting on with it. Reminds me of tweets I have sent on insinct and the positive results that have then happened because I have taken the first step.

Teaching humility is certainly something that we teach and encourage and challenge if someone does not demonstrate it in the Christian church (or at least the one that I am part of the church leadership team for [set on a large housing estate in Bradford, UK]

1.4. Challenge

Video

Starting with our own actions on how to be more humble, and thinking about the factors which can impact this.

My response:

There are many motivators to people in a formal or a social setting. This includes recognition. If this is done formally to a social leader/"do-er", does this not make then part of the formal hierarchy of the organisation by that recognition? Is the public recognition by a formal leader more important to someone in the social hierarchy than if it was given by someone in the formal hierarchy?

This makes it sound like there is never any gratitude going on in the formal parts of the organisation.

I observe formal leaders and encourage the positives that I see and call them out when I have observed things that I am not happy about.

* wondering whether this parallel world of formal and social hierarchies also exists in organisations like Google *

On the subject of please/thank you, this is a common courtesy for me to say all the time and mean it. This is not optional for me, is not forced and is a natural part of who I am.

1.5. Peace: Dialogue

Article

I wanted to share this reflective writing about ‘Peace’. It requires a certain strength, and a certain humility, to engage in dialogue. What do you think?

My response:

I am getting slightly better at dealing with conflict as I get older.

I once memorably heard someone say in a church context that by not confronting someone you are actually saying that you love yourself more than you love the other person because you do not want to put yourself in an awkward or stressful situation. This has challenged me from that day onwards. I have this in mind whenever I am facing a challenging situation. For me, this is now about are we going to sort the situation out so that we can be better people as a result and be more effective as humans and as workers if this is happening in a work context.

I am a truth and justice person. There are two sides to every story. I have had some memorable experiences of customer staff in an organisation criticise indivuduals in my teams in former roles/companies which I then go to get that side of story and hear a totally different story. We then need to dialogue, clarify the misunderstanding, agree how we move forward and then do so.

I am aware that CCTV etc polarises people in a similar way that tech companies tracking all our online and physical movements. As a law-abiding citizen with our current democracy in a post-EU world, I have nothing to fear from surveillance but that view would change if we became a society like others that e.g. forbids Christians publicly worshipping in church buildings. Likewise with tech companies tracking us, they are not charities and the free services that we take for granted are not free and have a high cost to deliver. For me, there are benefits of suggestions in search results and the like that often take my breath away at their relevance.

Re CCTV, there was a classic TV series on this many years ago - The Last Enemy (http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/lastenemy/welcome.shtml; trailer https://youtu.be/EmGIuSncvd4). The Circle is also worth a read and a watch.

1.6. Share your thoughts on humility

Contribute some thoughts on how humility relates to you and/or your organisation.

My response:

humility: the quality or condition of being humble; modest opinion or estimate of one's own importance, rank, etc.

humble:
not proud or arrogant; modest
having a feeling of insignificance, inferiority, subservience, etc.
low in rank, importance, status, quality, etc.; lowly
courteously respectful
low in height, level, etc.; small in size

For me, humility means that I should have a correct and true view of myself. Not thinking more highly or more lowly than I should. I may actually veer more towards a too low view of myself. I have confidence issues and I am normally a risk avoider. I tend to mask that well as people often express surprise when I start talking deeply about these issues.

It also means to me that I am never a “know-it-all”. There are always things to learn and experience. I may know a lot of things but many have yet to be applied in situations that I have yet to come across.

I may need to address any excess of humility by pushing myself forward and promoting myself more in appropriate ways. Save me from being a pushy sales person!

In all my relationships, short-term or long-term, I seek to be a peer and an equal and not either subservient or dominant regardless of the age, experience and social standing of the other person.