fandomhigh | Leadership, Thursday, Period 1, Class 7 (10/23/08)

"Today we're talking about problem solving," Nathan said. "As a leader, this is something you're going to have to do a lot. Step one may seem obvious, but it's something many leaders fail to do: accurately define the problem. Let's say someone comes up to you and says that they can't finish building a bridge because they ran out of money. Your people need that bridge built so you approve a higher budget. Does that solve the problem? What if the reason why the project was running out of money was because someone was stealing it? Or mismanaging the construction? Or because nobody researched to find out that you were building a bridge in the worst possible location?

"This is why the first step of problem solving is asking questions. What are the details of the problem? What's going on? Why is it happening? What do other people think about the situation?"

Nathan handed out cards with pictures on them. "Put together, all these cards tell a story. You each get one. You're not allowed to show anyone what your card is. Your assignment is to find out as much as you can about the story. Go around to your fellow students and ask them about their cards. What's on them? What's going on? Are their cards similar to yours? I'll give you a hint that they're numbered, so you may want to seek out those who have cards close to your number first, but that's not a requirement.

"Get as many details as you can. I'm here if you have any questions."

[ooc: OCD is up!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Turtle's nose wrinkled a little as she looked over her card. It reminded her annoyingly of Westing and his clues, but they'd hopefully be less obnoxious and not lead to as pointless as an answer as America the Beautiful.

"Hey, Turtle," Joan said, making an effort to be nice to her follow StuCo rep. "What's on your card?"

"Hey, Joan," Turtle gave her a small, half-hearted smile. "I've got..." She took a second to look it over, making sure she got the details. "Someone with a Felix the cat shirt, with a watch, making an imprint of some hieroglyphic thingies. What about you?"

"A little boy playing with a boat at a pond," Joan said.

"Hmmm," Turtle frowned a little, thoughtfully. "What's the number on yours? Mine's five."

"Mine's nineteen," Joan said. "So I must be near the end."

"And far from mine," Turtle agreed. "That makes me feel better about the fact that there's almost no connection here at all."

"Yeah, mine's only two away from Ben's though," Joan said with a sigh. "And ours aren't anywhere near related."

"Maybe," Turtle mused, "it'll make more sense the more you have?"

Tony's preferred method of information-gathering had always been just keeping his eyes and ears open. He doodled in his notebook and tried to hear what his classmates were saying.

[Okay if he overhears your conversation? If not, I'll assume there's too much classroom chatter to make out any particulars.]

Edited 2008-10-23 22:45 (UTC)

"Number nine," Tony said. "You?"

"Five!" Turtle chirped a little, excited that the number was somewhat close. "So what's actually on it?"

Tony frowned at his card. "Some hieroglyphics, something that might be a mountain and what looks like the top of a column."

"I've got hieroglyphics, too!" Turtle said, excited to finally have something related. "At least, I think they are. Some guy in a Felix the cat shirt is imprinting them."

"Does he look Egyptian?" Tony asked.

Re: Class Assignment

stocksgrrl.livejournal.com - 2008-10-24 01:35 (UTC) - Expand

wantstodirect - 2008-10-24 01:42 (UTC) - Expand

stocksgrrl.livejournal.com - 2008-10-24 02:06 (UTC) - Expand

wantstodirect - 2008-10-24 02:08 (UTC) - Expand

stocksgrrl.livejournal.com - 2008-10-24 02:26 (UTC) - Expand

wantstodirect - 2008-10-24 02:41 (UTC) - Expand

stocksgrrl.livejournal.com - 2008-10-24 02:52 (UTC) - Expand

wantstodirect - 2008-10-24 02:56 (UTC) - Expand

"Turtle!" Momoko waved a cheery hello. "My card is weird, what about yours?" She paused. "Well, it isn't really weird, since it's a card and that's not weird for a card to be, but what's on it is weird."

Turtle couldn't help a little snort of a laugh because that, while a little tricky to follow, was cute. "Well," she said, "what's on it?"

"Just an archer." She looked down at the card again to make sure she hadn't missed something. "Well, a red archer. What's on yours? I know they're supposed to all together make sense, but I don't see how."

"So guy imprinting hieroglyphics," Turtle said with a shrug. "Your archer isn't crude like a hieroglyphic, is he?"

Momoko raised an eyebrow and checked the card again. She turned it upside down and frowned. "Well, it's not exactly high art at its finest. Yours is a guy making hieroglyphics? An Egyptian?"

"I think he's copying them," Turtle admitted, "rather than making them, and he doesn't look specifically Egyptian. So it makes me wonder if your archer is just one of the hieroglyphics, you know?"

"Hmm. That makes sense." Momoko nodded. "Can you see any of the figures that your guy is copying? Oh! What's your card's number? If ours are close, then maybe they're more closely related, right?"

"Right." Turtle nodded, looking closely at her card again. "You can't really tell what they are, unfortunately. But my card number is five. How about yours?"

"Two. So there are two between ours. Have you found out what three and four are yet?"

stocksgrrl.livejournal.com - 2008-10-24 02:45 (UTC) - Expand

heromaniac - 2008-10-24 02:54 (UTC) - Expand