by Sheena Iyengar on the art of choosing. Dr. Iyengar
assumes that Americans believe the following when it comes to making choices:
1. Make
your own choices,
2. More
options leads to better choices, and
3. Never
say no to choice.
Reflect on these assumptions in your Leadership blog. Do
you agree with Dr. Iyengar? What is the implication of her comments on
leadership? Make sure to stay tuned through the end to see Dr.
Iyengar's Action Research on pink nail polish.
Freedom
of Choice…. with Limitations:
When
I first read this prompt my mind flashed back to when I was a teacher. In my
undergrad we were taught all of the time about student choice and its relation
to education. The broad overall learning was that giving children choices
allowed each child to learn to the best of their ability. However, there was a
major caveat…structure. As Dr. Iyengar mentioned, too many options can be
overwhelming, and can actually lead to poorer choices by the individual. This
concept was proven true when I taught preschool. As a teacher, each student had
a choice of which area to play in during “free time,” but they were not allowed
to move from one area to the next during that time. My new co-teacher thought
that this was too strict and thought that the students should be able to choose
where they played and for how long. The co-teacher perception of my strictness confirms
Dr. Iyengar’s findings and the American assumption that we never say no to
choice, and that more options means better choices. After coming back from my
15 minute break I walked into a room of what can only be described as
Armageddon. Kids were screaming and fighting, toys were all over the place and
finger paint had somehow turned into face paint that reminded me of war paint.
After we finally got the kids settled back into order and outside for recess I
talked with my co-teacher about what happened. She told me that she had allowed
the kids to choose where they wanted to play and were allowed to rotate between
areas freely. After some dialog between the two of us it was agreed that choice
is important for children, but there has to be structure to not only
make the classroom run smoother, but to also support the children’s needs.
I
believe that the story above and the teachings of Dr. Iyengar can be directly
applied to leadership. As described in Dr. Iyengar’s study of children and the
anagram puzzles, people in general perform better when they are provided with
choices, but given too many choices will lead to the opposite effect. The trick
is, is to find the happy medium. As a result, I think a leader needs to provide
freedom for people to choose, while at the same time providing structure and
purpose, by doing this a leader can keep some of Dr. Iyengar’s assumptions in
check. For example, when I worked for the USO, I use to be a part of a fund
raising committee that was volunteer ran. We would start each new season by
reflecting on the previous year and then brainstorming new ideas. This was
always beneficial and new volunteers would bring in a new, fresh perspective
and expertise to the table. However, there was always a challenge of keeping
these meetings focused while at the same time not shutting down ideas or
creativity. As a result, we would start these brains storm sessions by
reminding the volunteers of our goals for the event:
1.)
To raise awareness to community members of the services our specific location
offered to military members and their
families
2.)
To raise at least $30,000 for our location.
With this we set
limitations:
1.)
Ideas
had to be practical. The test for this was, if you as the idea maker weren’t
willing to help implement it, then it wasn’t practical. (i.e. If you want Brad
Pitt to come, then you invite him.)
2.)
Our
investment into the fundraiser could not exceed $5,000
3.)
Had
to align with USO policy
4.)
Any
debate would be solved with a vote
5.)
Finalized
action plan had to be drafted 6 months out from the event
With
these goals and limitations, we were able to come up with some great ideas,
while at the same time staying focused on the task at hand.
Reflection on
Values & Choices:
While
watching the video I had an lightbulb moment when Dr. Iyengar talked about how
choices reflect our values and assumptions. First, this made me think about how
we have discussed in class that it is important for a leader to reflect on
their personal values to inform their decisions. I understood this at a surface
level, but I wasn’t getting how impactful a leader’s values could be in their
decision making.
I
use to be an assistant to one of the directors for the USO. As a result of this
position I was often times a middle man between staff and the director. As a
result, I learned that one of our managers was having employees wash disposable
picnic cups to reuse to save money. On top of this, she micromanaged their
budget so much that the centers were running low on even daily supplies. As a
result, her staff felt degraded. After this came to light the director stepped
in to try to coach the manager to build moral and the staff back up. One of his
requests was for the manager to write up a description of her management style and
her expectations for staff. In her write up she explained that she valued being
thrifty and hated seeing anything go to waste. Also, she called herself a
perfectionist and was “proud of my OCD” and as a result she expected all staff
to be perfectionists as well. Long story short, she was later asked to leave
the organization.
This
memory is what made the connection of values and leadership for me. The
manager’s personal values of thriftiness along with perfectionism were so
strong that they directly influenced her decision making in a negative way.
Although her values could be beneficial, they were so extreme they dominated
almost every decision she made as a leader and blinded her to the other alternatives.
This
lightbulb moment leads me to reflect back on an earlier post about my personal
values. I listed integrity as one of my values; always doing your best even
when others aren’t watching. Now I can start to peel back the layers within my
own thinking and look at how it informs my personal decisions and my potential
leadership decision. When I came on board to my current position there was a lot
of backlogged data, spreadsheets and tasks that needed to be updated while managing
my day-to-day tasks. After a few months of training I was much more confident
in my abilities and was able to quickly chip away at the backlog of tasks.
Recently I have found that I don’t have enough to do to keep me busy throughout
the whole day because I have caught the office up on everything and finished
daily tasks. However, instead of sitting and looking at Facebook I have been
creating a communication plan on how and when to contact students to hopefully
increase student enrollment. It has also opened up more time to think strategically
about how we can grow our campus and support our students. My co-worker and
manager do not expect this out of me, but I expect it out of myself. When I ask myself, “Would you expect an
employee to have the same approach as you?” my answer is definitely a yes. Since
integrity is such a strong value for me, I would expect the same out of those I
lead. The next step for me as a leader now is to reflect on how I can communicate this value to
staff in a positive to staff and the organization.
Iyengary,
Sheena. (July 2010). The Art Of Choosing. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/sheena_iyengar_on_the_art_of_choosing?language=en
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