Westside Toastmasters is located in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, California

COMMUNITY BUILDING LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Activity 1: Ownership

Instructions. One intent of inner leadership is to get followers to accept a kind of feeling of coownership of the work community and its goals. The idea is that "owners" become more than workers, they commit to the work community, its work, and its success. In effect, they come to feel they are working for themselves. They will do better work, more work, higher-quality work because they see the tasks in personal, ownership terms. They have to deliver because they are free to do the work their own way.

Brainstorm a listing of specific actions you can take individually in your work community to help all members take ownership for their part of the group's work.
Include ideas that will work with coworkers, customers, suppliers, and other specific constituency groups relevant to your work community.
List actions you can take immediately—or almost immediately—and without significant new resources.
List actions you can take that may require some time or other resources.
Prioritize your lists in terms of the most feasible and efficacious.
Take all possible steps to implement these actions.

Activity 2: Questionnaire—Pressure Points

Instructions. This activity will help you identify and assess the strengths of pressure points in your work community as a way to begin to improve member performance.

Read each statement and circle the number that matches your response to how typical this situation is in your work community.

Does your work community or its leaders

	Never Always
1. Hold periodic meetings to explain goals and targets?	1 2 3 4 5
2. Appoint followers to task forces or teams to recommend action or policies affecting them?	1 2 3 4 5
3. Provide followers with the time and resources to pursue their own developmental goals?	12 3 4 5
4. Create awareness of the need for change?	12 3 4 5
5. Recognize followers' achievements with encouragement and support?	12 3 4 5
6. Disseminate information in a manner that takes into account the culture of the system?	1 2 3 4 5
7. Encourage followers to improve?	1 2 3 4 5
8. Explain the benefits of achieving system goals and targets to followers?	1 2 3 4 5
9. Communicate changes honestly and explain the rationale for changes?	1 2 3 4 5
10. Feed back information to followers that tells them how their individual performances contribute to the system's performance?	1 2 3 4 5
11. Walk the talk? (Behave consistently with their words.)	1 2 3 4 5
12. Allow front-line personnel to "bend the rules" to satisfy customers within defined parameters?	1 2 3 4 5
13. Ask followers to translate system goals into department goals?	1 2 3 4 5
14. Deal openly with people's concerns?	1 2 3 4 5
15. Use a performance management or appraisal system for all followers that includes internal customer feedback?	1 2 3 4 5
16. Regularly meet with followers to discuss their needs?	1 2 3 4 5
17. Encourage followers to set up or join to work on process improvements?	1 2 3 4 5
18. Ensure that individual follower goals and work group or department goals relate to the achievement or system goals?	1 2 3 4 5
19. Give people a role in introducing change?	1 2 3 4 5
20. Set up some form of variable compensation, such as bonuses, tied to system goals?	1 2 3 4 5

Transfer the number that you recorded for each question to the corresponding space in the second column of the chart on the next page.

Add the scores in each section for each pressure point. Place these totals in the third column. (Note: The larger the number, the more effective you are in each category.)

Pressure Points	Individual Question Score		Total Score
Vision focus and alignment	Q 3 _____	Q13 _____	_____
	Q 8 _____	Q18 _____	_____
Communication flow	Q 1 _____	Q11 _____	_____
	Q 6 _____	Q16 _____	_____
Member involvement	Q 2 _____	Q12 _____	_____
	Q 7 _____	Q17 _____	_____
Leading change	Q 4 _____	Q14 _____	_____
	Q 9 _____	Q19 _____	_____
Clear links between performance and consequences	Q 5 _____	Q15 _____	_____
	Q10 _____	Q20 _____	_____

What is getting in the way of your effective use of the pressure points you scored low on?
How could you effectively leverage pressure in your system?
Are these pressure points (areas of potential change or destruction) in your work community?
How would your coworkers view these pressure points?

Activity 3: Are You a Team Leader?

Instructions. Leading teams is an important inner leader task. Skill in this technique can help inner leaders accomplish both their personal and the corporation's goals. Completing the following questions may help provide insight into your present capacity to lead teams and point to areas for further development.

Rate yourself on each of the following items using the scale provided here:

1

2

3

4

5

Strongly
disagree

Somewhat
disagree

Neither agree
nor disagree

Somewhat
agree

Strongly
agree

_____ 1. I enjoy helping others get their jobs done.

_____ 2. Managing others is a full-time job in and of itself.

_____ 3. I am good at negotiating for resources.

_____ 4. People often come to me to help them with interpersonal conflicts.

_____ 5. I tend to be uncomfortable when I am not fully involved in the task that my group is doing.

_____ 6. It is hard for me to provide people with positive feedback.

_____ 7. I understand organizational politics well.

_____ 8. I get nervous when I do not have expertise at a task my group is performing.

_____ 9. An effective leader needs to have full involvement with his or her team.

_____ 10. I am skilled at goal setting.

_____ Total

Scoring key: Reverse score items 2, 5, 6, 8, and 9 (1 = 5, 5 = 1). Add your score on all items. Maximum possible score is 50. The higher the score, the more team leadership skills you have.

Westside Toastmasters on Meetup

1	2	3	4	5
Strongly disagree	Somewhat disagree	Neither agree nor disagree	Somewhat agree	Strongly agree