After Session Reflection

After Session Reflection: Practicum 1

Hannah Elise Jones

MSOD 616

September 27, 2017

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After Session Reflection

My project in Practicum 1 was with Mersen, an international manufacturing company,

headquartered in France. The presenting challenge in our project was how to develop the 1,000

managers at Mersen. Specifically we were asked to consider the value of creating a corporate

university, integrate best practices from relevant organizations, and share various alternative

learning methods they had not yet considered. Our team was comprised of myself, Grace

Amos, Grace Chen, Sammi Phillips, Jeff Hottinger and Danny Howell.

To examine our project in more detail I will focus on the pivotal moment of the

development of the model we used to frame our deliverable. This event occurred early in the

evening on Monday, timing which allowed it to impact the deliverable as well as our group

dynamics for most of the project. Specifically, Grace A. presented a rough maturity model of

organizational learning and in the span of about two hours, we got it to a place where it became

the framework for our deliverable and the rest of our work.

From this point on the goals of the project gradually reshaped themselves around this

model. Our original task was to provide recommendations on a corporate university, but it did

not take much research to see they were not ready for that step and we were searching for what

else we could say. Once we created the model we saw what value we could add. As a result, the

project shifted from being just the sharing of best practices, to the opportunity for a thought-

provoking conversation that could make an impact for the client longer-term. This reframing

gave us a bigger goal to strive for, and in that way it fundamentally changed the project.

Specifically the outcomes were shaped as we used the stages of the model to organize

our deliverable. It helped us not only section out the content, but also to divide up the work.

This was helpful in the sense that it gave us a framing that we did not have previously and

helped us align our large amount of content into one story. However, I believe we could have

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After Session Reflection

leveraged the model more to cut down on the significant amount of content we had, and present

only what was core to the maturity model concept, leaving more of the details in our final

resource document.

As I reflect back on the project I also see how the development of the model,

specifically the two hours as we were doing the work, impacted not only the final deliverable,

but our group dynamics moving forward through the project. It is in this reflection that I see

more of how I impacted the group. I played a strong role in this project, something I had tried

to avoid in our previous consulting project in D.C. In our debrief, Sammi, who also worked

with me in D.C. shared that she not only felt that I was more effective in my stronger role, but

also that she felt safer working with me; that my natural state of leadership helped her to come

to the project with her best self too. This one piece of feedback has helped me see the

importance of leaning into and not minimizing my own strengths, a habit which I am becoming

increasingly aware of through this work.

In the specific example of the creation of our maturity model, I was aware of

consciously stepping into a position of leadership with my contributions. When Grace A.

presented her original idea, she was processing out loud, walking around a few words and

concepts. In my mind I clearly saw the model she was creating as a maturity model, but I was

conscious of staying so, knowing that it might not be a term that everyone would be familiar

with. In that moment I made an intentional decision to interject and offer this form of framing.

Grace took to it immediately and it helped us move forward quickly and get others in the group

on board with the concept. Because of my decision to speak and share my knowledge at that

pivotal moment, I was then regarded as an expert throughout the project, and in many times

directly referred to as one.

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As the work progressed I was pleased with the way I was managing this responsibility

and leadership. However, during our debrief it came out that others in the group were not.

Specifically, Danny sited that he felt there was competition between myself, Sammi and Grace

when we were working on the model. He cited that competition as a reason that he did not feel

comfortable participating in the group, and as one of the elements of our group dynamics that

lead him to feeling like an ‘outsider’.

During our debrief I received direct feedback from Sammi that leaning into my own

power made her feel safer working with me, and I received indirect feedback from Danny that

leaning into my own power made him feel less safe. This has been a fascinating juxtaposition

for me because it presents the question of who's needs we attend to in groups. On the one hand

I feel that my actions helped our group create a stronger deliverable, but other the other hand I

know I was not focusing on inclusion of all group members. I don't believe I was dismissive or

shut anyone down, but I did not go out of my way to solicit the quiet voices. In Danny’s eyes

this made me competitive, and unwelcoming, while in Sammi’s eyes it made me confident and

knowledgable.

I find myself returning to the question of how we meet the needs of groups, regardless

of where each individual is at in themselves. I see this tension playing out in so many settings,

and am becoming increasingly convinced that it should be a concept that is central to my point

of view as an OD practitioner and one that I will continue to explore as we continue our work.