What's the value of attendance?

nI was attending an online class, part of a course in my MBA, simply because there is a grade penalty for missing classes... And I started thinking:

Attendance is a crucial part of the grading system in many educational systems, which is understandable given the importance of the teacher-student relationship in relaying/consuming knowledge. It is understandable when we are in elementary school, intermediary school, even in high school where most students are prone to be careless towards studying, and attending classes can motivate them to make an effort. It is even understandable why attendance can be important during first years of college, where we are making a jump from high school to a different learning style.

But at some point, we outgrow teaching... At least I believe so. At some point, the teacher’s presence is merely a formality, and a justification for educational institutions to charge loads of money. When we reach a certain level of knowledge and awareness, it should be easy for us to read the materials in a book and understand it on our own or make an extra effort to research it through Mr. Google. We don’t need to attend a class where a teacher is merely reading the text in a book and conjuring up examples we can get in a single Google search, with multimedia showcases.

As the world goes digital, education is slowly following the trend, with virtualization of classes and digitalization of knowledge. So as final thoughts, I ask:

1. What is then the value of degrees if most of what we learn, in most areas, is outdated by the time we graduate and thus we rely on the internet to bring us up to date?

2. And what is the value of attending classes when we are old enough to understand and learn on our own, limiting the role of the teacher to guide, supervise, and grade?

Let me hear your thoughts!n

Doing Business Naked

Have you ever had an important meeting or event that got you so nervous that you had a nightmare about it seeing yourself showing up naked and had every one shocked and pointing at you until you realized it and felt so embarrassed that you wished you could just disappear?! Well this isn’t about that. This is actually about wanting to be there naked! No not literally. Just read on.

Going back in memory to college years you must remember that one of the important courses of management was Organizational Behavior which is supposed to teach business students about group and individual dynamics inside an organization and a huge part of that is communication.

After graduating if you were as enthusiastic as I am you probably read dozens of articles about business etiquette and all the behavioral rules that govern business relationships whether within an organization or externally with its clients suppliers partners or any other stakeholders. We study up on such models because from the beginning of our careers we aspire to reflect an image of professionalism among our peers and our business contacts. We read about interview etiquette email etiquette lunch/dinner meeting etiquette and the entire bundle of business etiquette for the smallest details that we need to tend to like in the following email cover for a job application:

"Dear Mr. (last name) I would pleased to be a part of your esteemed organization… I believe I'll be a great asset to your staff… I would be glad to show up for an interview to discuss how I can contribute to your organization's success… Looking forward to meeting you. Yours sincerely; My Name."

We repeated those words in one form or another almost robotlike because we wanted to sound as perfect as possible. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying that it's a bad thing. It's definitely a must if you're a fresh graduate looking to nail your first interview or job; it's a phase that we all must go through. But things are different now! The business world has been shifting from formal to casual in a rapid pace. All thanks to Social Media that's changing the way business is conducted by re-engineering communication. Your potential employers colleagues superiors managers clients etc. now are with you everywhere and at all times through social networks like Facebook Twitter Linkedin and many others.

We practically have our whole lives in all of its aspects published online for all our business contacts to see and it goes against the golden rule we were always urged to abide by "Never mix business with pleasure." -Pleasure here referring to social activities including online ones.- Let's say you applied to a job at a company that likes to do a little digging about its candidates. You could polish your resume as much as you want but with one hit of a button in Google search of your name potential employers can practically uncover everything you did in your life up until that moment (including your naked baby pictures that your mom published in her Facebook photo albums). Moreover they can even keep up with what you're doing in real time if you're on Twitter.

You can try to keep it all professional and well-mannered on your social networks but the formality and professionalism that you work hard to encompass during business meetings aren’t things you'd want to fake 24/7. I say "fake" because we're all human beings and we're bound to have personal things we're embarrassed of or even just not inclined to make explicit during business interactions for a number of psychological reasons (even though we all know that we all have and do such things). Keeping up with such an attitude of professionalism and formality throughout our life would just be impossible exhausting and just simply not fun!

So we tend to get loose on social networks with our family friends and the new interesting people we meet every day. And we definitely share our personal life publish details we wouldn't normally make public in a business setting and basically reveal our true selves. We practically are naked in front of our business contacts. And I don't know about you but I love it! I welcome the chance to act like a social human being who can talk about work and anything else I'm passionate about just honestly and casually. That would relieve us from the stress of having to act like cold robots all the time. I also believe that it drives us to be better humans because now if you're just a big fake who preaches ethics and morals at work that you never abide by in your personal and social life you better shape up or you're going down! However this new social-business fashion freedom also comes with its set of limitations that you should keep in mind when you're undressing in front of your business contacts.

I'll discuss these in another post titled "4 Easy Tips For The Social-Business Networkers" as to not make this one too long and scare potential interested readers who aren't so fond of theses. Now that was just my personal opinion but I'd love to know yours: Would you as an employer/employee/client rather stick to formality in business or like to do business naked?!

A Leader By Default

"9: Why do you listen to 1?

5: A group must have a leader.

9: But what if he's wrong!

-5 looks down baffled with no answer-"

I was watching the animated movie "9", which I quite enjoyed, and those lines inspired me to write about a topic that has always interested me and at times even disturbed me. "Leadership".

Let's not get into the statement "A group must have a leader" because in my opinion that's debatable, and I'm sure that any one of you out there who has the urge to constantly follow a (/any) leader, must have a million justifying reason but the fact remains that it's a matter of personal preferences. However, I do agree that in certain situations, one person must lead in order to avoid chaos. My debate is on WHO would make a leader!

I live in the Middle East, occasionally in Lebanon (my home country), where the concept of leadership is often flubbed (☚ word of the day - flubbed: messed up, screwed up, destroyed, ruined, etc.). If you watch regional/international news (which I avoid with great passion), you must have heard of Lebanon and its many political dilemmas due to the many leaders and parties, each trying to take over and prove their alleged rightfulness. Now don't take that as a statement that "we suck and you rock!". I know every country has its problems, but I'm in no position to judge something I haven't experienced firsthand (PREJUDICE IS BAD!).

Now let's head to the source of the problem as to what makes a leader worthy of being a leader (before you think to yourself "oh this is going to be one of those boring theses", it's not! It's going to be fun and you'll get a treat at the end.).

According to the very general definitions you would find for "Leader" or "Leadership", a leader is a person or thing (e.g.: an organization) that rules, guides, and inspires others. Well I don't know about you, but to me that sounds pretty vague and subjective.

Let's try to search for "Leadership attributes" for more accurate results:

Google search engine results: about 863,000 for leadership attributes. (0.36 seconds)

Good luck reading them all to know what would make a leader! Or you can just keep on reading and get an idea based on my perspective.

One result that I found a bit reliable is this right here:

The 11 critical attributes of leadership are listed below:

1. Unwavering Courage (in some cases, courage is inapplicable.)
2. Self-Control (you'd have to know the leader personally to be able to judge on this one)
3. A keen sense of justice (based on what law?!)
4. Definiteness of decision (what about the quality or rightness of the decision?!)
5. Definiteness of plans (What about commitment to execution?!)
6. The habit of doing more than paid for (Is there an extent to what he/she is being paid to do?!)
7. A pleasing personality (Even if it's just an act?!)
8. Sympathy and understanding (Again, a close knowledge is necessary as so not to fall for stories)
9. Mastery of detail (one side-note: in Lebanon, we have ministers heading ministries totally irrelevant to their experience and background. Not much mastery of detail there! Like a car mechanic fixing a spaceship.)
10. Willingness to assume full responsibility (So he/she is willing, but will he/she commit when $#!+ happens!?)
11. Cooperation (Is it really cooperation or an exclusive club of plotters?!)

Answer this in full honesty: Do you look into all of those attributes before committing yourself to a leader? (Yes? What? I can't hear you!). It is surely hard to investigate and have certain proof of all those attributes, but don't just simply follow a leader who looks impressive because he/she has many other followers. Don't just blindly trust a leader and follow his actions with complete obedience without having an objective sense of reasoning. Leaders are human and thus bound to make mistakes at times even if they were supermen/superwomen (BTW Superman is dead, if you haven't read so yet.)

Where am I going with this?

Be your own leader first. learn to have the above attributes and be the best you can be as a person.No one is better than you as a human (unless you are an evil villain), but some can outshine you with their actions. Thus, learn from their actions, imitate, modify and originate, but never just follow to be in the herd!

If you find yourself with an urge for a role model, investigate, question, and always reason. Don't just trust what other followers are saying even if they were your best friends, or wife/husband, which brings me to my next point.

Have some guts and stand up for what is right. Don't just stand up to what your leader thinks is right and don't defend him/her when you know he/she is wrong. Just follow the leader's singular actions, one at a time, rather than the leader himself/herself.

Conveniently and coincidentally, I just came across this quote -watching the movie Zeitgeist, that was referred to me by a friend- that directly fits my point:

"They must find it difficult… those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority.

- G. Massey, Egyptologist"

Now, this isn't a conclusion, because I still want to hear from you as to who you consider as a leader/row model (in any industry, profession, age, dead or alive, etc.), and why or how he/she inspires you.

And don't ask me whom I consider as a leader. That position is going to be vacant until I am proven wrong or I have better alternatives, because no matter what the case is, NEVER appoint a leader by default!

P.S.: As for the treat, I consider knowledge to be the biggest treat. If you don't agree then you shouldn't have been here on the first place =), but you're still welcomed.

UPDATE: I just came across a really interesting article on the mistakes that leaders do, which is what you need to watch for in your leader; an interesting read titled: The Seven Deadly Sins of Leadership.