The Power of Being Different

Designed and developed by Joan F. Marques

  • Facilitator in Business and Management
  • Educational Outreach Trainer
  • Doctoral Student in Organizational Leadership
  • Author of business articles with special emphasis on: spirituality, self-improvement, and diversity issues.

Welcome!

Course Layout

This course is divided into three areas:
    1. The module menu
      a. The module menu gives you an overview of the individual modules and lessons of the course.
      b. Each module of this course is broken down into smaller lessons.
    2. The content display area
      a. The content display area is where all of the information is presented.
    3. The evaluation tools area
      a. The evaluation tool area provides the questionnaires to be filled out by students at 2 stages in the course: before and after.

Audience:

This is a web-based course that can be used as a functional instrument of education by individual entrepreneurs, small business owners, as well as all other interested adults who want to improve their personal leadership skills in day-to-day operations.

Purpose:

This course discusses the necessity of being different as a powerful tool toward achieving success.

Coursework focuses on increasing the insight of course participants in the importance of moving away from incrementalism (continuous innovation that guarantees safe but small successes), and getting used to radicalism (innovating in a complete different field: doing what others haven't thought of yet). The course will provide the basics one can maintain to preserve an innovative spirit and assure impulses for constant improvement. These basics will be built upon the following self-analyzing tasks for students:

  • Formulating and presenting their self-perceived strengths

  • Considering and presenting their mission and vision statement

  • Formulating their life goals

  • Defining their target group

  • Formulating ways to maintain relationships with revolution potential.

  • Formulating ways to detach themselves from the status quo

  • Formulating a declaration of personal independence

  • Formulating their next plan of action.

 

The course will also emphasize on the disadvantages of being risk-averse, no matter how comfortable the status quo may be. This will be incorporated in the postings and discussions when working on the formulation of ways to detach oneself from the status quo, in the second week of the course. Issues such as diversity, change of daily rituals, and empathic listening to the self and others, will be conferred. The points of view of several management gurus on revolutionary management will be analyzed. Suggestions on how to maintain revolutionary leadership will be made.

Note: It is highly recommended, although not required, that you take the lessons in order. Each lesson assumes knowledge of information covered in previous courses.

 

Course Structure

This course contains the following modules and lessons:

Module 1: Incrementalism

  • Lesson 1: What is incrementalism?
  • Lesson 2: How to eradicate incrementalism from your life.

    • This module discusses the problem that most large, established organizations, as well as people are facing once they gained importance: incrementalism. This is the process of endlessly renovating and improving, and focusing on the most obvious competitors, resulting in the great lag that finally costs them their place in the market.

    • Organizations do that by following the familiar path that all competitors are following, instead of looking for other opportunities

    • People do that by allowing themselves to get caught up in running from one meeting to another without creating time for something completely different, which is THE way to keep an open and novel mind.

     

    (Gary Hamel)

    Module II: Radicalism: Becoming a Revolutionary

  • Lesson 3: Formulating Personal Strengths.
  • Lesson 4: Formulating personal mission/vision statement
  • Lesson 5: Formulating most important current goal + Plan of action.
  • Lesson 6: Identifying your Target group.
  • Lesson 7: Identifying ways to maintain open lines with sources.
  • Lesson 8: Writing your Declaration of Personal Independence.

    • This module reviews possible ways to get into the lead and stay there. The phenomenon of radicalism will be discussed. The need to "look in different places", and "how to become a gray-haired revolutionary" (Hamel, 2000), will be focused on. Participants will be encouraged to offer suggestions on how to become a revolutionary in their own company or life.

    Some appropriate components of how to obtain a state of mind to detach oneself from the status quo and start moving ahead will be presented, and then discussed.

    This is also the week where we will develop a dialogue on some important issues to make renewal a constant factor in your life. Some of Tom Peters' hints from his book The Brand You 50 will be reviewed. Students will be given assignments and exercises to assist them in formulating their own "mode" in becoming and staying radicalists.

    Final assessment:

    Lesson 9: Writing your essay: guidelines.

    This part, which is presented at the end of module II, evaluates your comprehension of the course content.