Frustration? Challenges? Frustrations with Challenges?

I broke up with a gal once, I didn't do it well. I was rather harsh. But I was frustrated and I let my frustrations out on her. What's funny is that she always thought I was mad or angry . . . but I wasn't. And she made it worse by thinking that I was mad. She would come back tentatively. 

That was what made me most frustrated. I wasn't upset until she thought I was upset. 

Need vs Want

I've written about this before, . . . probably many times. . . but it's a huge part of my life, and a major theme in the novel I'm currently pecking away on in my Reedsy account. I have a good clip going, got some momentum, and Reedsy hooks you up with an editor, so hopefully, this time, I won't get reviews that say "could really use a professional editor."

But I'm writing about Need vs Want. I wrote earlier that men want to be needed and women need to be wanted. I think I wrote about this in terms of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. The way that men and women communicate, and fail to communicate and the challenges and problems that grow from that. 

Contractors and Adult Education

 My classmate Anna wanted to know more about the work we provide in terms of the contractor community. I’m glad I got her thinking! 

Being a contractor is unique in many way in our industry. One thing that is very unique is the turnover. 

Some of the turnover is intentional. Some of these contractors don’t want to be tied down, and enjoy running from project to project and making money through the different project seasons. 

Others, like to have a more stable dynamic. I am working with an organization now that has never used contractors to help with work. It was just their history to self-perform all of their work. 

So we, as an organization, are transitioning to a stable of work similar to what your organization is doing in terms of adding contractors into the workforce. Part of my focus for this course is to perform a study of contractors and how they interact and what their expectations are for the organizations they join. 

I’m learning a lot about Person-Environment fit and all of the subsidiaries of that framework, Person-Organization (P-O fit), Person-Group (P-G fit), Person-Supervisor (P-S fit), Person-Vocation (P-V fit), Person-Job (P-J fit) and how all of these can be used to influence how contractors are onboarded, if they stay, etc. I get the feeling that a lot of work in these veins have been done for “employee” status, but not as much in terms of contractor mentality which could be more transient by nature. 

Describing Millions of Enlisted with the First Line

Anyone who knows me and this blog knows that I love this series on First Lines (see HERE) even more so than any of these other series that I post about (HERE, HERE, and HERE). So, this one, from WEB Griffin resonated with me. 

It's bit of a doozey, longish, but ultimately worth it. Plus the book itself is a long one so why shouldn't the first line be too. 

Transformational Learning and Craft Cert

 How have you utilized the concepts behind transformative learning moments, and transformative learning in general in your work, life, or school? And what would you think the literature say about how you've used it and why?

This prompt and a post by my classmate made me think of some of the training I've provided in my past. Specifically, I had a "craft certification" class wherein I would facilitate a hands-on course around large heavy machinery. 

Invariably, I would show up and the class of operators who came for the class would arrive despondent, doubtful, and defensivenss. They had been operators for many years, and I, a corporate training director for headquarters couldn't show them what they already knew, right? 

What we did however was instead of making it a "training" as was common in the industry, we tailored it into a "facilitation" which the operators were not used to. Usually, by the second or third hour, the defensiveness and doubt had been erased. The operators started to share their stories about their work, and integrated their stories into the training I was facilitating. 

They became their own best advocates for the course and for the other operators. I had many of them tell me it was the best course they'd ever had. Knowing now what transformative learning experiences are, I see now that we modeled that to some degree. The disorienting dilemma, the dialogue and critical reflection, context and acting on revision; all of these things were present and we actually engineered them to be a part of the training not because I knew about transformative learning, but because it seemed right to do. 

Hoover Article and Tips

I ran across this article (see HERE) about Colleen Hoover and her "CoHort." I really enjoyed reading it and got a lot out of it. It could be that have just gone a long time without reading or writing with the aim toward novel writing or publishing (we can blame this PhD on that), but it was refreshing to read this and dream about writing more creatively again. 

There is nothing too revolutionary in this article or in what the author outlines about Colleen Hoover's methods and techniques, but what is there is worthwhile to remember for any writer. 

International Comparative Perspectives Article

 The Role of Work-Related Needs in the Relationship Between Job Crafting, Burnout and Engagement has a focus on the role that employees can play in adjusting to their work demands through job crafting. The intent of the research completed by Travaglianti et al. (2016) is to investigate how the concept of Needs Supply (N-S) fit, a sub-category of a larger series of value's-fit concepts that include Person-Organization (P-O) fit, Person Group (P-G) fit, Person Situation (P-S) fit, Person Job (P-J) fit, and Person Supervisor (P-S) fit, might affect retention and motivation for employees at organizations. N-S fit is a direct subset of P-J fit along with Demands Ability (D-A) fit. These two sub-categories of P-J fit focus directly on what the authors argue is a key employee fit marker. 

N-S fit and the ability for the employee to change their job through Job Crafting (JC) is related to psychological needs fulfillment and "is related to well-being at work and positive employee attitudes" (Travaglianti et al., 2016, p. 2). Additionally, Burn Out (BO) and Worker Engagement (WE) can be affected by a greater focus on JC by employees. Specifically, the author's hypothesis is that workers engaged in JC behaviors will proactively modify their job to increase the fit between their specific work-related needs and their current job characteristics (Travaglianti et al., 2016, p. 4). The intent is to increase WE and decrease BO for workers. The philosophy and worldview of Travaglianti et al., (2016) are expressed when they write "individuals who can choose a working environment in congruence with their personal characteristics will experience more positive work-related outcomes (p. 1). 

The theories that the authors focus on include not just self-determination theory (SDT) and Maslow's hierarchy of needs theorizing that "individuals will perceive high employment quality if, for example, their needs for safety, income, security, and skills development are fulfilled" (Travaglianti et al., 2016, p. 2). To determine this among their participants the authors conducted a qualitative (passive) computer-based survey/ questionnaire delivered to 1500 respondents in the federal public service sector/bureaucrats, within the Belgian national government. 

This is significant in that if a direct relationship can be proven between job crafting and person-job fit or needs supply fit, then the authors argue that individual outcomes can reduce burnout syndrome and increase worker engagement. This can have a positive result in terms of employee retention and potentially decrease the turnover within an organization with high employee turnover. Travaglianti et al., (2016) highlight the importance of job crafting to job fit and to worker engagement when they state "individuals adopt such proactive behaviours in order to match with their ability and needs and thus to increase the fit between themselves and their environment" (p. 3).

The author's "study provides empirical evidence of the underlying mechanisms between JC and individual outcomes, but also of the role of JC behaviours in proactively modifying the nature of the job in order to match with workers’ needs and desires" (Travaglianti et al., 2016, p. 9). One specific recommendation that the authors make is that "managers should, for example, ensure more job autonomy and increase interactions. In this way, employees may be able to modify their job demands and their job resources to match with their own needs and abilities, in order to increase their well-being at work" (Travaglianti et al., 2016, p. 9).

Comparing the theories within Travaglianti et al. (2016) with adult learning theories, Knowles et al. (2005) state that "Maslow emphasized the importance of safety (p. 70) and "Maslow, with his conception of self-actualization as the ultimate aim of learning, also sees goal formation as a highly dynamic process occurring through the interaction of the learner with his experience (p. 128). Finally, Knowles et al. (2005) expounding on the idea of safety for the individual writes that with safety comes the "tendency to go on to richer, more complex experiences, and accomplishments int eh same sector" (p. 47) and that this can lead to a greater sense of capability, mastery, and esteem. 

In a manner similar to Travaglianti et al., (2016), McCulloch and Turban (2007) look at similar factors in the role of how to select candidates. The contrast is, that McCulloch and Turban (2007) want to stop employees who are not a good fit for the organization from becoming employed, while Travaglianti et al., (2016) are looking at how the employee can affect change within themselves and their roles to make values fit within their organization. Other articles, such as Boon and Biron (2016) focus on how other influences can impact the role of the employee and the P-J fit and how that might affect turnover. Miller and Young (2020) have a similar focus, on ensuring that employees who are not a good values fit, or who do not have value congruence with an organization do not get hired by that organization. This focus on outside influences is unique in the studies of P-O fit theory as most of the articles reviewed for this project have been more introspective and focused on an employee's ability to change themselves, based on the theory of self-determination theory. 

The Travaglianti et al., (2016) article although intensive in their investigation of job crafting on needs supply fit, is worthwhile in terms of employees being able to change their environment to meet their needs and to match their abilities to the demands of the job. Other articles, however, tend to look more at how outside influences can affect the employee's relationship with the job, the leader in some cases, and recruiters in others. Finding ways to recruit more effectively is worthy in terms of keeping organizations healthy and functioning, but finding ways that employees can change their own capabilities, to adjust their abilities to the demands of the job, can provide another, potentially more effective, check against burnout and a miss-match of values between organizations and employees. 

References

Arthur, W., Jr, Bell, S. T., Villado, A. J., & Doverspike, D. (2006). The use of person-organization fit in employment decision making: an assessment of its criterion-related validity. The Journal of applied psychology, 91(4), 786–801. https://doi-org.er.lib.k-state.edu/10.1037/0021-9010.91.4.786Links to an external site.

Boon, C., & Biron, M. (2016). Temporal issues in person-organization fit, person-job fit and turnover: The role of leader-member exchange. Human Relations; Studies towards the Integration of the Social Sciences, 69(12), 2177–2200. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726716636945Links to an external site.

Knowles, M. S., Holton, E. F., & Swanson, R. A. (2005). The adult learner: The definitive classic in adult education and human resource development (6th ed.). Butterworth-Heinemann.

McCulloch, M. C., & Turban, D. B. (2007). Using person-organization fit to select employees for high-turnover jobs. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 15(1), 63–71. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2389.2007.00368.xLinks to an external site.

Miller, J. M., & Youngs, P. (2021). Person-organization fit and first-year teacher retention in the United States. Teaching and Teacher Education, 97(103226), 103226. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2020.103226Links to an external site.

Travaglianti, F., Babic, A., & Hansez, I. (2016). The role of work-related needs in the relationship between job crafting, burnout and work engagement. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology. https://doi.org/10.4102/sajip.v42i1.1308. 

More On Priorities

A while back, I wrote about priorities… And I think I want to expand on that just a bit more.

Terms of self-authorship one of the more important things I've learned is about ill-structured problems. The world is filled with ill-structured problems. And earlier I also wrote about ill-structured people. Basically what I meant by that was there are people out there who create  . . . by their very nature . . . ill-structured problems. I coined the term ill-structured people and I hope I can trade the market and make some money off of it very soon.

I've also authored the terms . . . "complifiers" and "complify." A play on the word simplify that I'm still stunned hasn't gone viral yet. 

The Simplicity of Self-Authorship

As you may remember, part of the reason for this journal is that it acts as a vehicle for self-authorship. An opportunity for self investigation, to try and rise above, be less ego and group centered, and more community centered and open. To be more like water off a ducks back. 

I think what I’ve noticed is that the lines of simplicity of life and self authorship follow the same track. What I mean to say is that as self authorship goes up, complexity naturally goes down. I have a friend who when I met them seemed incredibly self-authored. I actually looked up to them for this. I was the squirrel who flashed after nuts or strange noises, they was the duck or actually the water off a duck’s back. But over time we switched. I became more duckish while they became a bigger squirrel than I ever had been. Now, the contrast, thanks to self-authorship, is even more stark. They are a mess in many different ways, and I am living with a greater and greater degree of simplicity. 

What does that mean? An example. . . .

I asked someone I work with to do something for me. I framed it both as a direct order and a personal favor to me. They went ahead and did the opposite of what I asked. For a brief moment I wondered what my boss would do to me if I had done to him what this person did to me. It would not have been a good meeting. Might have ended in firing. I considered that, but not really. 

How would going that route help me? Or that person? 

I realized the problem was really my own. I should never have made it a binary choice. I had done it to myself. Ultimately, it all didn’t matter, but I learned quickly, within that brief moment as I considered, I could get upset and fume and rail, or just accept what life threw at me with grace and a heart open to learning how to do a better job in the future. I picked option 2 much quicker in this instance than I ever had before. 

It more than any other time was a true moment of self-authorship. There was a choice between complexity and simplicity and the simple solution was much easier to accept ultimately, allowed for a learning opportunity for me, and in the end, because what could have gone wrong didn’t, none of it really mattered. 

I often think about that friend and the complexity that they allowed in their life, the way that they became a squirrel. I wonder now if they were never the duck I thought, but rather just a great actor. Someone who could pretend to live the life of a duck, but ultimately was the squirrel that they always tended to make fun of. 

I’ll say this, about this episode with this person at work. My “enlightenment” (such as it is), our relationship, and our future is far more positive because of my duckishness. A squirrel who might rail and scream and huff and puff or be insulted and upset without learning that they put themselves into that position through their actions would ultimately have a more difficult life. That line of simplicity would have gone up on the graph to become more complex. By adopting a self-authored approach the line continues to move toward simplicity and positivity. 

The squirrel is out there being squirrely and their life is more complex than it needs to be. I hope they come back around to being the duck they think they can be. It’s a much more easy and simple life as a duck than a squirrel. 

Reference Article Number 2

  I have to find two sample articles to help me write the qualitative article that I wrote about in this space a few days ago. The second one I found is this one:

A Qualitative Case Study of Employee Turnover in Retail Business

Summary

This is a qualitative study of shift work in the US manufacturing industry using a case study interview format of 18 workers within the retail industry focused specifically on employee turnover.  The study uses multiple foundational theories and established models to collect and analyze the data and cite numerous established experts in their fields to provide credibility to the study and the conclusions. First, the authors discuss the person-organization or (P-O) fit theory which Olubiyi et al. (2019) explain is "a holistic concept that describes the compatibility between individuals and organizations, covering how an individual's values, interests, and behavior are consistent with, or compatible with the organization's culture as a whole rather than as a specific function or task" (p. 1) and go on to describe why this theory is used by writing that P-O fit is "is typically measured in terms of value congruence; an alignment of the values of individuals and the organizations they work for" (p. 1). This is the theory that guides the focus of the study and provides background and grounding. Additionally, the authors apply and allude to the attraction-selection-attrition (ASA) model in the study. This Olubiyi et al. (2019) write is a model similar to P-O fit that implies that job applicants will be attracted to and selected by those organizations whose values are similar to their own; and that once they have joined the organization, those employees whose values do not fit with the organization's values will either leave voluntarily or be removed by the organization" (p. 2).

Types of Data Analysis

Additionally, the authors use the general environment fit scale (GEFS) "to investigate value congruence within a single dimension of fit in a particular social context and assess individual perceptions of similarity to others in the setting" (Olubiyi et al., 2019, p. 3).

Reporting of Findings

The analysis of the data is provided using coded data drawn from Nvivo's verbiage analysis obtained from the case study interviews of the 18 participants to discover trends and themes within the data. This is presented both in histogram or bar chart format as well as described in the written text. There are no quotes from the interviews to back up the themes or data representations.

Scholarly Voice

The authors' voice comes across as deeply expert in the field of employee retention especially as they cite so many theories and models to align their study and results to established works and background. However, the lack of any interview quotes to provide color or context to the data that they provide in histograms leaves the reader believing that the study is coldly analytical.

Reference

Olubiyi, O., Smiley, G., Luckel, H., & Melaragno, R. (2019). A qualitative case study of employee turnover in retail business. Heliyon, 5(6), e01796. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e01796 (Links to an external site.)

Leave No Man Behind . . . (But leave 8 if you have to)

Last month I wrote about the somewhat abbreviated ending of the first book in the WEB Griffin’s The Corps series of books. Well I just finished Call to Arms, the second in the series, and the ending was vastly different. 

First, the end is not abbreviated. In fact the entire book leads up to the climactic ending quite well. So from a story and book point of view, this second was far better paced and set up than the first. 

Humanistic Adult Ed

  The question I was asked to take on this week dealt with Humanistic Adult Education. Choose one other perspective (e.g., Humanistic, Postmodern, Progressive...) and compare/contrast it with the Behaviorist perspective.

I look at Humanistic Adult Education and see many things that align with an overarching or conceptual view of the behaviorist perspective. 

In my previous post, I talk about the nuance of specific conditioning for adult education. Things as simple as a "ding" to denote getting a question correct, or a "womp-womp" for questions that are incorrect, are reinforcing and conditioning student behavior. 

But when I look at humanism, what attracts my notice is "self-actualization" where the text notes that Maslow and Rogers "see education as a means of fostering self-actualization and fully functioning individuals" (Elias & Merriman, 2005, p. 125) and that "humanistic education is student-centered" (Elias & Merriam, 2005, p. 124) where the teacher doesn't always know bets but it allows for individual and learner freedom to be there best potential. 

How do these two come together in my mind? In terms of life events I think our learners can find positive reinforcement in their careers and in the development of their skills. Conditioning can be in the form of pay raises, "atta boys," the contentment they can find in being a mentor, and in rising through the ranks. This can all lead toward them becoming their best possible selfs, fulfilling their potential, and perhaps even steps closer toward self-actualization. 

Reference

Elias, J. L., & Merriam, S. B. (2005). Philosophical foundations of adult education. Malabar, FL.

I May Be a Weenie . . .

To begin, I work in a very macho industry. Petrochem and refining is right up there in many respects to upstream oil and gas drilling or offshore deckhand and roustabouts. I support and work with guys who turn wrenches and have grime and much on their hands. 

Secondly, I have a background of being an Airborne Ranger badass. I was a door kicker and the first man in the stack for years in the 2nd Ranger Battalion. I was a Spec Ops Commando. Doesn't get too much more badass than that. 

I bring all this up, because I don't necessarily like the same types of movies that my colleagues and compatriots like. Never have been. Anyone who knows me knows this. I shut down for a month or more before Christmas exclusively to watch Lifetime and Hallmark channel movies. I promoted the idea of a blog to rate and review Lifetime and Hallmark movies. Look through this blog and you'll see that it's littered with reviews of rom-coms, and romance and more. Hell, one of my life's goals is to write a novel that eventually get's turned into a Lifetime or Hallmark movie . . . anyone heard of Everyday Sox? That's the one!

In 2001 I saw the movie Amélie. Loved it. Reminiscent of my time in Paris, well acted, funny and intriguing story, quirky, and a cute girl. What's not to like. 

Now? 

Well, now I think my favorite movie (if we exclude Rear Window, Fury Road, North by Northwest, etc etc) is Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris. 

Who knew right? Maybe I have a thing for cute Parisian girls (especially if they have ponytails). Or maybe I love the swings from high to low, or great stories that have a tear-filled payoff. Who knows what it is, but put this sucker on the list for me! 

Imagination Inflation

In one of my all-time favorite (non-fiction) books, Make it Stick by Peter Brown, he writes, among a myriad of other things, that writing things down helps adults ensure that they are locked into memory. Makes sense. Teachers have been saying that for years in every class you've ever been in right? Don't just highlight, don't just read, write it down. Another great step is to elaborate and summarize. 

Why summarize? 

Well there is something out there called the Dunning Kruger effect. Basically, this is the idea that people with high competency and ability generally have low confidence but those with low competence and ability will in some cases have too high confidence in their abilities. 

The Dunning-Kruger effect occurs when a person's lack of knowledge and skills in a certain area cause them to overestimate their own competence. By contrast, this effect also causes those who excel in a given area to think the task is simple for everyone, and underestimate their relative abilities as well.

A part of this is "the illusion of knowing" which Make it Stick goes over in some detail in Chapter 5. But I found this amazing table that summarizes it all in a really nice way and brings up some amazing tangential concepts. This comes from Korsakas (2021)

• We tend to selectively look for evidence that confirms our beliefs or values (while ignoring contrary information) – confirmation bias
• We tend to think that we knew something was going to happen after the event has already happened, or in other words, we have a tendency to perceive past events as having been more predictable than they actually were – hindsight bias
• We tend to believe that we understand complex phenomena quite well and deeply when in in reality we have a superficial understanding at best – the illusion of explanatory depth
• Our memories are influenced by our social circle, and if several people report that something has happened slightly differently from the way you remember it has happened, then these other memories by other people will be incorporated into your memory (although they might be false) – memory conformity
• We tend to believe that other people share our beliefs, and while that might not be true – false consensus effect
• Our decisions tend to be influenced by a particular reference point aka an anchor – anchoring
• We tend to ascribe success to ourselves, while failure to external factors – self-serving bias
• We tend to rely on things or examples that are easy to recall on the spot when making a decision, if a memory is more difficult to recall we often deem it less important – availability heuristic
• If somebody asks you to imagine a fictitious event vividly you might begin believing that this event has actually happened – imagination inflation
• Often if we do not stop to think and go with our intuition we are susceptible to various biases and can make mistakes (of course, this is not always the case, intuition can often be useful) – this is known as system 1 thinking and incorporates a lot of the aforementioned biases

It's that idea of summarizing that helps people realize that they don't have that illusion of explanatory depth and could potentially help stay out of the Dunning Kruger effect. So, here I am summarizing these concepts so that hopefully I will remember them later. 

Korsakas, D. (2021, November 13). What are illusions of knowing? And how to avoid them? Learning Rabbit Hole. https://learningrabbithole.com/what-are-illusions-of-knowing-and-how-to-avoid-them/

Down Time

So I have a bit of down time. Not a ton, but just a bit. What do I mean by that? I mean my classes are over and I have about a month before my next two or three classes begin. So, what am I doing with this little bit of extra time?

I’m reading.

A Glidepath from Pedagogy to Andragogy

 When thinking about moving from pedagogy to andragogy I really like the idea of a glide path from pedagogical principles to andragogical principles. 

I think as andragogical principles become more accepted and formal, then establishing the techniques that can help bridge students from pedagogy to andragogy will become more scheduled, formal, and measured.

It's all grey areas and variable based on the learner's perspective.  But I love the idea of a glidepath that helps develop students and learners and take them from being more accepting of pedagogical techniques to being more accepting of andragogical techniques. I get the opportunity to talk with Andrew Parzyck quite often and his area of interest is right at this hand-off between highschool and college, so incoming freshmen to college classes. He's focused on androgogical principles and how the instructors see them and how the students see them. Having that "glidepath" so to speak would help make that transition more manageable and understandable. 

There is no binary or black-and-white answer to the question. Some learners may become 100% adult learners at 18 or 19 (or younger depending on the individual) and some may need a longer glide path to go from pedagogy to andragogical principles and may never find a more andragogical approach to be beneficial to them. 

Add to this the fact that in my classes, we have learners who are of various ages, as well as different experience and education levels and we have a whole class like that. For some they'll need a more pedagogical approach, others will be more comfortable with andragogical principles and techniques, and the trainer will have to be dynamic enough to deal with them all. 

So not only are there several shades of grey with individual learners but there are shades of grey into the class, and among different subjects, etc. Like you, I support the perspective that recognizes adult learners as a unique population that requires specific approaches but also recognizes that it's a process, not a light switch and it's a process for each learner as well. 

Another First Line and Series

I won’t go through it again, except to say I like the first lines series (see HERE). It’s one of my favorite to keep in these posts, but they’re also, at the moment 

I like to read these books to allow my mind to rest and to enjoy reading again. They're fun and they're easy and quick. They're also a bit of a formula. 

Another First Line and Series

I won’t go through it again, except to say I like the first lines series (see HERE). It’s one of my favorite to keep in these posts, but they’re also, at the moment 

I like to read these books to allow my mind to rest and to enjoy reading again. They're fun and they're easy and quick. They're also a bit of a formula. 

But as the article I posted about Colleen Hoover shows, formula books aren't bad, it depends on the formula, doesn't it? 

The reason I'm reading these is not that I need a pallet cleanser, that's partially it. But I am into series books. I'm reading the Corps series by WEB Griffen, I'm reading Tom Clancy books with my son starting with Red October, and now, with this one, I'm reading Louis L'Amour Sacketts series. Should be fun.