Character Pre-Work

Tomorrow, David and Colleen will be presenting to our class about Character. I am really excited to see what they have for us because I think as we have discussed in class knowing yourself and who you are is essential professionally and otherwise. For this pre-work, we took a survey from the VIA Institute of Character.  These are my top five character strengths:

I really was not surprised by any of these. Other more professional character strengths like leadership and social intelligence were high on my list but the reason why these were my top 5 is because of my values. I really value honesty and being genuine. One of the things that brings me the most joy in life is just being a really good friend to the people close to me. I value the connections I make with others and being true to the promises that I make. I enjoy being the person that my friends turn to when they need help or advice. I also think that this has pushed me in my professional career to always support my co-workers. In our pre-practicum class, Professor Lewis talked a lot about volunteering to do things out of your description as an intern being extremely important. I have always tried to do this especially in my job at UNH. To give you an example, I am working 3 different shifts tonight at my job (only one of them actually being mine) to help out my co-workers who had conflicts. I have continually been recognized as the person willing to cover my colleagues when they get stuck simply because I want to help them out. I also do a lot of things that are outside of my actual job description. This fall, my boss and I attempted to repair the boards we use for broomball. These boards split up the Olympic sized ice surface at the Whittemore Center into 3 separate ice surfaces. I had zero background or skill in how these boards could be fixed and do not consider myself to be particularly skilled in fixing things, but my boss needed help and I decided to give it a shot. This is something that can help and hurt me. My boss appreciates what I do but down the road I need to make sure not to take on too much of other colleagues tasks so I do not get overwhelmed.
The other part of the assignment is to think of someone that we admire. This was likely the easiest question to answer for any pre-work assignment I have gotten thus far. I won't spoil all of the traits this person has, but I think some insight into my background and where I come from is important for this blog. So to stay true to humility being the character trait I need to work on, I'm going to get personal and do a little bragging here. Not about myself, but about my Dad.

This is my Dad, Brian Murphy. He is the person that has influenced me the most in my life and the best role model I could have. In 1988, he worked his first NHL game. Since then he has worked 1,698 career games. He has seen two World Cups, more Stanley Cups than I can remember, and even the 2010 Winter Olympics. He served as the President for the NHL Officials Association in the 2000's and it was during that time that he showed me what a true leader is like. He is one of the most humble people I have ever met. Whenever I go to his games I constantly have his colleagues and friends come up to me and say "You know your dad is the best right?" He has supported me and been my biggest fan through every step of my life. He has been a mentor for many people including one of my closest friends. He spends his off time in the summer volunteering at various summer camps to help others grow as hockey officials. He constantly emails me healthcare news and leadership articles and pushes me to be the best that I can be. While having a full time job that also entails living out of a suitcase and in an airport terminal a lot of the time, he is currently pursing his MBA. It has been a cool experience being in school at the same time as him. We often have overlapping topics and he has given me some inspiration in Organizational Behavior. I hope to have even half of the success that he has had as a leader and a professional.

"8. You don't know your triggers"

The article I posted about Tuesday is something I have continued to think about. It was an article on 11 signs you lack emotional intelligence and #8 was "You don't know your triggers." On Wednesday morning, I found one of my stress triggers. This point in the article was more about triggers that make you act impulsively, but I think it is important professionally to understand your triggers for that as well as anger, stress, etc. Something that stresses me out is being late. I worked the late shift on Tuesday, the night before my interview, and did not get home until past midnight. When I finally got in bed, I went to set my alarm extremely tired and probably not thinking very clearly. When I woke up in the morning, I realized I completely misjudged what time I needed to get up and instead of having about an hour and a half to get ready, I now had a little less than half an hour. I was able to get myself from looking like Ana in the movie "Frozen"

to at least acceptably professional in about 15 minutes. I was extremely stressed from the time I woke up until I was about half way there and realized I would still be about 20 minutes early. I like to go with the rule of thumb, "if you're early, you're on time. if you're on time, you're late."
Luckily this is something that is completely in my control. In the future, I will try to set my alarms for important events earlier in the night so I don't make the same mistake that I did. Because I can get ready extremely quickly, I was able to fix my mistake but I hope to avoid having to use this skill often. Long story short: math is important, set alarms when mentally capable, and being able to get ready quickly is definitely an asset. Everyone has triggers and understanding them and how they affect you is important to either help avoid them or learn how to react more appropriately when they do arise.

Emotional Unintelligence

Chris Armijo sent us an article in our google group, titled "11 Signs You Lack Emotional Intelligence." The author is Travis Bradbury who is an Entrepreneur. He talks about how emotional intelligence shocked people when it was shown as the reason that people with average IQ's can perform better than people with high IQ's. He examined data and came up with these 11 signs that show you lack emotional intelligence:
1. You get stressed easily
2. You have difficulty asserting yourself
3. You have a limited emotional vocabulary
4. You make assumptions quickly and defend them vehemently
5. You hold grudges
6. You don't let go of mistakes
7. You often feel misunderstood
8. You don't know your triggers
9. You don't get angry
10. You blame other people for how they make you feel
11. You're easily offended
We've talked a lot about the qualities of emotional intelligence but not as much about emotional unintelligence. First, I just read the list not his descriptions, and one of the first things that really stuck out to me was #9: You don't get angry. I had actually been thinking about this after our class discussion. I had gotten angry with someone and was not acting as friendly as usual which made me feel a little guilty. This was the same day as the EI presentation so it really got me thinking. Bradbury says under this "Emotional intelligence is not about being nice; it’s about managing your emotions to achieve the best possible outcomes. Sometimes this means showing people that you’re upset, sad or frustrated. Constantly masking your emotions with happiness and positivity isn’t genuine or productive." Some of my top values are honesty and integrity but I never really thought about emotional honesty and integrity.
#6: You don't let go of mistakes. This is something I have been working on for a long time. It mostly affected me in sports, especially when I got to the higher levels. My freshman year I played Division I Lacrosse and was extremely hard on myself my first semester in this new environment. It was really hard going from the New Hampshire high school level and trying to transition into the mentality of Division I. I was focused on the mistakes I was making instead of my progress which only made me perform worse. My second semester I made a big change and really tried to work on my mentality which was when I finally starting to produce. I haven't faced this challenge yet professionally but I tend not to be too hard on myself academically when I make mistakes. I know I still have a lot to learn in the health care field and am nowhere near close (hopefully) to my potential. This will be extremely important to remember this summer being an intern. I am sure that I will make plenty of mistakes but moving past them and working to correct them is really what is important.
Luckily, Bradbury says that emotional intelligence is possible to work on. He says that you can train your brain to practice emotionally intelligent behaviors. I feel there are probably some behaviors that are easier to influence than others. For instance, I think it would be much easier to figure out your triggers or work on your emotional vocabulary compared to working on not getting stressed easily or working on being more assertive. These may be harder because assertiveness and stress level are also more closely linked with personality.
This article was particularly helpful because it took a different approach than I had seen before in previous research. It really got me thinking about the many different components that encompass emotional intelligence. I read this list to both of my roommates and they both knew emotional intelligence was something they could work on. I'm glad the article concluded that it is a skill that can be improved. We discussed this in class and didn't come out with a clear answer of if it could be changed or not. Emotional intelligence is absolutely a key skill to have in a professional work environment and something I hope to continue working on

How Does One "LinkedIn"?

A week or so ago, mostly so I could educate myself for interviews, I created a LinkedIn. A week later I still have absolutely no idea what I'm doing (admittedly I haven't really put too much into it yet). Today, I have tried to browse around a get a better sense of how the website works and it is actually extremely helpful. I was able to find the woman I will be interviewing with tomorrow which has given me a few talking points or possible questions for her. It showed me that she did her internship where I am interviewing. I know very little about the specifics of what I would theoretically be doing there so it'll be nice to be able to ask her about her experience.
Overall I think its a cool profile to have. It strikes me as a professional facebook. I even see that there's an HMP Alumni group. One of the things that really drew me to tranferring into this major was the sense of community and how alumni stay connected even after graduating. I think is something pretty unique at UNH to HMP. It'll be nice to graduate, be able to join the group, and give back to the program. Anyway, if you don't have one I would totally suggest making one even just to do a little "professional stalking" as you can't see profiles without making one (pretty much the sole reason I made it). Hopefully at some point I will actually get the hang of it.

Emotional Intelligence Pre-Work

Today in class we will be discussing emotional intelligence. We were given a quiz to take before class. Here are my results:

I tried to be extremely honest and objective when taking this quiz because I think this is a really cool and important topic. The only thing I was surprised about was that emotional self-awareness was not my highest scoring category. I did score highly but if you had asked me one of my strengths as far as emotional intelligence I would have thought this was my best strength. One statement that really threw me off was "I'm patient." I definitely didn't think that patience was linked to emotional intelligence and I had to be honest that this is one of my weaknesses. Blame it on my generation of wanting things "at the click of a button" or maybe its just me but this is something I know I struggle with. When I want something I go for it and I like seeing results.
Another score that stuck out to me was my highest score on empathy. I remember reading Colleen's post about empathy and how when she spoke to her mentor one really great piece of advice he gave her was that great leaders are empathetic. A video that she posted describes empathy as something that drives connections. If you haven't read her post or watched this video I would seriously recommend it. I think being a very social person and someone who really values having meaningful connections with others may be why I scored so high in this. I have always been very interested in psychology and why we are the way we are. I genuinely am curious about why others act the way that they do, how their experiences have shaped them, what motivates them, what stresses them out, what makes them happy. I find a lot of fulfillment in understanding and connecting with others. After watching the video and seeing the interaction between the deer, the fox, and the bear I thought that was a perfect visual representation. I think a lot of people will watch the deer and see why those actions aren't as favorable as the bears are yet not see that they themselves may often act like this. I think this has connected a lot with my initial research into personality as well. I wrote about a quote that said the way we construe others reveals just as much as us as it does about the other person. The video talked about one of the key ideas of empathy being judgement. A lot of times we can be quick to judge others, especially strangers, off a single experience or appearance. There are a lot of underlying factors for why we behave the way we do and getting to understand someone before we make assumptions about who they are is really important.
Overall I am happy with my results and really excited to see what Regan and Caroline have to present today.

Class #1: Motivation

For class today we were asked to take a test similar to the personality test but based on Motivation. My result was a score of 51:

We were also asked to write a list of 5 things that motivate us and 5 things that distract us.

5 Things that Motivate Me:

Independence: I want to work hard so that I will never have to be dependent on someone else. It motivates me professionally to work hard to have a meaningful and successful career. It is really important to me and is something that motivates me day to day.

Peer Pressure: We've all heard of it throughout our lives as something that can be both good and bad but I have taken it as something to push me to work harder. I definitely have a competitive nature and am likely to work a little bit harder if I know someone is watching the work I am doing. 

Happiness/Enjoyment: If I really love something or it will make me happy to do it, I will put my all into it. That doesn't always even mean the task itself will make me happy but the end result as well.

Proving People Wrong: I looked around a few articles for some ideas because I got a little stuck here. I saw this one and I can definitely identify with this. I don't think this is one of my every day motivators but when it comes around it definitely motivates me with force. I think adversity in doses can be a great thing. 

Being Comfortable: Feeling comfortable and competent in a situation or task is when I really do my best work. This also applies to my personal relationships. Once I am comfortable with someone is when I really work and communicate best.

5 Things that Distract Me:

Social Media: I am an extremely social person and I enjoy making meaningful connections with people. I enjoy sharing things with others but I have to police myself on when to log off.

Bad Relationships: One of my MBTI traits was "holding on to bad relationships for far too long." and that really struck a cord with me. This applies to both my personal and professional relationships. I find myself to be pretty easy going but if I am working with someone that I don't connect well with this can distract me. I think early in my career the leadership I have guiding me will really affect the work that I produce. If I am having issues with a friend this can also tend to take up a lot of my thoughts and distract me from being on task. I tend to want to keep everyone happy and if I am unable to accomplish that I can be discouraged. 

My Phone: Certainly this ties to social media but it can be its own monster. If I have something very important I often have to hide it or just shut it off. I really enjoy days of just going off the grid and not having it on me and I often force myself to do this because I feel so much more free without it. 

Unclear Expectations: I like to know what is expected of me and what my role is in a project or task. As long as I have clear guidelines I know what I am working towards I will have a clear outlined path. If it is not clear I can tend to get distracted or deviate from my work.

Dishonesty: Honesty is probably the value I hold in the highest regard. If I feel that I cannot trust someone that severely affects my relationship with that person and can quickly demotivate me from working to my potential. 

Being on the Other Side of an Interview & 30 Day Challenge Update

So I recently challenged myself to 2 goals for 30 days. Overall it has been going very well. I have definitely pushed myself to take this seriously in hopes of learning a bit more about self management and habit formation. Ive been very good about carrying my water bottle around but I did give myself a bit of wiggle room with my second goal. Instead of only allowing journaling before bed I have given myself the loophole of that or reading as I have been reading a book on personality and as a Junior in college between my job on campus that I love and dedicate a lot of time to, I don't have a ton of time for some non-required reading. But this book has really intrigued me and I don't feel I am cheating anything by allowing this. I hope to keep it up for the remaining part of my 30 days.
I procrastinated on this post for a while because this was a very interesting opportunity for me. As I mentioned I have a job on campus. I am a Supervisor for UNH's Campus Recreation Intramural Department. It is a job I really value and if I wasn't so sure HMP is where I belong along with it being not particularly feasible, I would make a career out of it. In short, I provide feedback and educate officials. At games, I am there to back them up if there are any disputes, issues, or things get out of hand. I specialize in broomball, ice hockey, and floor hockey as well as working the many other sports we run such as basketball, flag football, and even innertube water polo. If there is any injury I am the one responsible to deal with it and call an ambulance or if its serious enough, administering CPR. A little less than two weeks ago, I was given the opportunity to be on the hiring committee for officials applying to be promoted to my position. I was extremely excited to pick who I would be working with/who may possibly be working for me if I get the promotion I am applying for. Intramurals is an extremely tight knit family of around 15 or so people and our decision process is as much about the interview answers as well as overall personality. We all have to work very closely together and part of the interview process is making sure we are bringing on people who will fit in well with our little family. While this process is a bit different than what we are going through now with HMP since it is an internal hiring process, it was a very eye opening experience for me. If I can give you all, and anyone reading this, any advice as far as an interview, seriously prepare. The one biggest thing that stuck out to me is people had HORRIBLE answers to the question "what is your weakness?". If you haven't thought about this question or read any articles that give tips on interviewing, the answer is supposed to be honest enough that its not a lie such as "working too hard" but its not so bad that people don't want to hire you. To give you an example, I was asked this in an interview. My answer was that my weakness is public speaking, however that I feel this is due to my lack of experience within public speaking and that I am currently taking 4 courses that all require me to present in front of a class and one requires me to even teach 3 classes with a partner. While I wish this wasn't my weakness, it is honest and I have explained how I am working to improve on it. It also (for most internships) is not a deal breaker. Really think about the types of questions someone is likely to ask you. A lot of our questions were not out of left field however I felt a lot of the people we interviewed didn't sit down and think of the types of questions we would be asking. We tried to catch this as well by asking "what is one question you thought that we would ask you today but didn't?" The other thing is to ask questions. We've all been told this but it really does make a difference. In our interviews, we asked the candidates what they thought we did as a Supervisor. Some answers were okay and some were just flat out wrong. We work side by side with officials so not having even the most basic understanding of what we do is pretty inexcusable. But the one person who stuck out the most gave a pretty decent answer to the question and then at the end asked "So you asked me and I'd like to hear in your words, what do you guys do?" He stuck out because almost if not a little more than half of the candidates did not even ask a question even though they themselves were pretty unsure of what we actually did. It was also nice to brag about how hard we work and how much we really do love the job. They sell themselves to you and its nice to sell your position back to someone who did a good job. Asking questions shows you are interested in the position and that you are really engaged in the process. On my first interview I almost prepared a little to much and had no reservations about the program, however when asked if I had any questions I still asked two good questions.
Overall I really valued the people that gave well thought out answers and even if they weren't exactly what we had in mind, were genuine and engaging. We also asked a few fun questions like "what would you do with a million dollars?" and "what superbowl appetizer are you?" and the answer to those also told us a lot about the people we were interviewing. It's very important to stay calm even when you may be intimidated by your interviewer because body language and tone can quickly throw off an interview. I wish I had had this experience before my first interview because I think I gained a lot from being on the other side of the interview process.

Seeing the Best in Others

When reading a book called Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being the other day, right off the bat the book struck me. One of the most important quotes I read, author Brian Little stated, "We will find that how you construe others reveals as much as you as it does about them." He explains this with a situation of if you were in a restaurant and saw a man a few tables over send back his meal for the 4th time, what would you think of him? Would you automatically assign traits to this man (rude, perfectionist, etc)? Would you assume he is acting out of his norm and possibly just had a bad day? What I took out of this is what we see in others can reveal a lot about who we really are. It does make sense because I feel that often times people with a positive outlook on the world tend to see the best in people. I think that this can be a weakness and a strength. Having a negative outlook on life is toxic and unproductive. However assuming that everyone around you has your best interests in mind or treats you as well as you treat them can also lead to disappointment. I think there is a balance between seeing the best in people while also understanding that not everyone makes the right decisions all the time. As managers, there is a time and place for seeing the best in others. It is important to trust your employees and set them up for success but it is also important to recognize failures and when a team member is just not working out. I am super excited about what I've read so far from this book and for what is to come.

Perception and Evolution of Personality

Today in class I talked with Dr. Bonica about personality testing and the way results can differ when we answer the test and when someone who knows us answers the questions for us. It got me thinking about a conversation I had a few months ago when talking with one of my best friends. She has been one of my best friends since middle school and has stayed one of my best friends through college. We were having a conversation and I remember saying that I felt I figured out who I was pretty early in high school and hadn't changed much since then. She told me out of all of our friends she felt I had changed the most. That really got me thinking about how well we can really know ourselves. It is certainly possible to have a developed sense of self, but how well do we do at being objective about ourselves? My mentor also talked about how when she took the personality tests at different points in her life that she got different results. I wonder if a change in personality is gradual or incremental. Is there a certain base of who we are that has ever-changing aspects? I am really excited to learn more about theories of personality and why we are who we are. It will be exciting to dive into the topic of personality and although we have done some testing and exercises, we haven't fully talked about the theories and science behind it. It is a very interesting topic and I am excited to learn more and present my findings to the class.

Introduction to the Class and My 30 Day Challenge

This afternoon, I was chatting on the phone with my mentor (hi Katie!) discussing class and possible topics for the "One" portion of our early careerist primer. I had now realized I had not fully explained, in my blog or to Katie yet, what we will accomplish in this class.
In HMP722, our goal is to create an early careerist primer focused on organizational behavior and also keep up a portfolio in a form that is public (I chose this blog). The primer will consist of three sections: "One" focused on the individual, "Two" focused on the interpersonal, and "Many" focused on groups and organizations. We have been given a lot of free reign to decide what the topics of our primer encompass. Each of us has paired up with a classmate and we will each teach 3 classes focused on a topic from each of the three sections of the primer. Linking back to personality I think it is interesting that Logan and I will be presenting together being the only two P's (excluding Dr. Bonica) in the class. At the end of the semester, we will hopefully have a primer we can be proud to pass down to the future students that will enroll in this class.
Katie and I discussed many topics and it really got me thinking about what topic we should choose to present. After our conversation, I quickly remembered a video that Dr. Bonica had sent out about 30 Day Challenges. This interests me because I think it ties into goal setting at the most harmless level and also relates to forming habits. Putting this out in the public will also keep me accountable and will span around the same time as our "One" unit. So here is what I challenge myself to do for the next 30 Days:
1. Carry around a water bottle every single day and stay hydrated
This is something so simple but I am incredibly horrible at. I exercise at least 5 days a week and next week will be getting back into lacrosse practices. I often go to gym right from class because it is on the opposite side of campus from my apartment and find myself without a water bottle. I think its a very easy task but also an easy step to being healthier.
2. Instead of watching Netflix before bed, write something in a journal
I know this is a horrible habit but it somehow has often made its way into my routine. Last Winter I took up a journal as an outlet for a stressful situation and although I do not need it as an outlet anymore hopefully it will stop my continuous Netflix binge of Shameless.
For this challenge I will only start with two goals which will give me no excuse to not stick with it and be a good introduction to see if 30 days can form a habit. I hope this gives me a little insight into forming habits and goals.