Leading Change

1) Brother Ward's lecture helped me learn that risk, sacrifice and loneliness comes along with leading change, and though the these factors may be discouraging, they only enhance the needed commitment and courage of those who lead change. Additionally, I learned these costs of leading change help to ensure that, when long lasting changes occur, the changes are worthwhile. Conversely, it is encouraging and hopeful for leaders who are striving for higher ideals to know that truly good changes are worth the risk, sacrifice and loneliness that may be required.

2) For my leadership role I am going to implement what Brother Ward called, Championing Change. Right now, my team is undergoing a change in our original plans and as we've done this I've found the need to persuade them to adopt the new idea and have found that I can help them succeed in it by taking the risks myself and showing them how to do things. So far our team has been adjusting well, but this weekend we'll be taking a lot of action towards our new plan, so I guess I'll see how committed we really are.

3) In doing my presentation, I learned how important 3x5 cards are to help you stay organized and talk to the audience rather than using a piece of paper, losing your place and looking down to read from it. I also realized how important it is to memorize the outline of your speech as well as key transition phrases so the audience can follow along and so you aren't repetitive.

From the other guys I observed several different styles of presenting. I enjoyed Matt's because he seemed to always be driving to a point and was very focused in where he was going, and that made it easy for me to follow and get excited about what he was saying. I also liked Andrew's because he was very interesting and had an insightful presence which kept my attention even though it was technically a biography. Both of these guys were examples to me, and in the future I will definitely try to reflect the same kind of enthusiasm and presence that they had.