Episode Details

Bonni Stachowiak: Teaching in Higher Ed

Bonni is the host of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, Dean of Teaching and Learning and Professor of Business and Management at Vanguard University, and my life partner. Prior to her academic career, she was a human resources consultant and executive officer for a publicly traded company. Bonni is the author of The Productive Online and Offline Professor: A Practical Guide*.

Question from Jignesh

I have been on a leadership course in 2012. Through the Myers Briggs Test, I have learned about my personality type and have received feedback/comparison on world’s most famous leaders. I also recently read Simon Sinek’s book – Start With Why. My assessment about myself has been that I am an introvert. I love working on my own. I realize that Leaders need to challenge their own comfort-zone and for me this would be to try communicating my ideas and practicing my leadership skill by interacting with others.

Knowing the fact that I am introvert. I am not sure how to strike a conversation and to get maximum out of my one-on-one meeting with my stranger LinkedIn industry colleagues. I will really appreciate receiving some advice or ideas on how to strike impactful conversations.

• Teaching in Higher Ed episode 38: Steve Wheeler Talks Learning with ‘E’s

Question from Willie

I value wisdom over rules, but wisdom doesn’t scale well. Our director wants a more consistent experience for our customers. Rules are the traditional method to accomplish consistency, but we can’t make a rule for every scenario because each scenario is different. We do have guidelines in place, which cover the vast majority of cases, but it seems like every time an exception occurs, the natural opinion across the organization is that we need to figure out a way to address the exception in the process. Is it okay for an exception to just be an exception?

• Bonni mentioned Zendesk
• Episode 92: Barry Schwartz on How to Tap Into Your Practical Wisdom
• Barry Schwartz: Our loss of wisdom

Question from Simon

I am downunder in Australia, love your show and your podcast is a staple in my professional life as a manager of customer-facing people in the software industry. I’d like to ask if you could dedicate some time in your podcast schedule to explore “accountability”. It is common these days to hear the words “empowerment” and “accountability” in the same sentence and I use them often. The empowerment side of the coin is straight forward (do what you need to do). I’m looking for ideas on the “accountability” piece. Is this a stick / carrot mentality and how have you seen people make accountability mean something that people don’t just pay lip service to.

Dave’s three steps:

1. Communicate
2. Follow-up
3. Consequence

We also mentioned:

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