Nano Tools for Leaders XX

After Action Reviews

Nano Tools for Leaders® are fast, effective leadership tools that you can learn and start using in less than 15 minutes — with the potential to significantly impact your success as a leader and the engagement and productivity of the people you lead.

Contributor: Todd Henshaw, PhD, Director of Executive Leadership Programs, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; former Director of Military Leadership, West Point.

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The Goal:

Create a culture of continuous performance improvement and adaptive learning by systematically reviewing team successes and failures.

Nano Tool:

Called “one of the most successful organizational learning methods yet devised,” the After Action Review (AAR) was developed by the United States Army in the 1970s to help its soldiers learn from both their mistakes and achievements. Since then, the AAR has been used by many companies for performance assessment. And yet, as The Fifth Discipline author Peter Senge notes, efforts to bring the practice into  corporate culture most often fail because “again and again, people reduce the living practice of AARs to a sterile technique.”

Student Reflections: Leadership Venture to Antarctica

A student’s adventure during a Wharton Leadership Trek takes him to the ends of the earth and back again..

Contributed by: Amod Jain, WG’13

12.31.2011 12:47:03. That’s the moment that stairs paved my way to a new world. As I descended on them from the plane, I noticed their similarity to other airline stairways: decrepit condition, shaking as you move, white paint coming off and just wide enough for one person. But then, how different could stairs be anyway? Well, they could be if they deliver you to a land like no other, a land at the end of the world: Antarctica.

As I took my first step on that land, I smiled and my eyes were already glowing more than the strongest stars, staring at the best sight in the world. Finally, after days of anxiety, excitement, anticipation, daydreams and preparation, I was here. Finally. 

Nano Tools for Leaders XIX

Global Leadership: Working Across Borders

Nano Tools for Leaders® are fast, effective leadership tools that you can learn and start using in less than 15 minutes — with the potential to significantly impact your success as a leader and the engagement and productivity of the people you lead.

Contributor:  Mario Moussa, Learning Director of Wharton’s Strategic Persuasion Workshop, and co-author (with G. Richard Shell) of The Art of Woo:Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas (Portfolio/Penguin, 2007).

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The Goal:

Enhance your effectiveness in working across global borders.

Nano Tool:

As companies extend their global reach, managers must stretch their abilities to communicate and collaborate across borders. Both the stakes and the failure rate are high: research shows that over 40 of executives who were previously successful in their home countries have trouble adapting in unfamiliar cultural settings. The basic difficulty lies in a lack of mental agility. Those who succeed are open to learning new ways of communicating, navigating social encounters, and building relationships. 

Applying his research on communication in complex social settings, Dr. Moussa has created a process for developing a “global mindset.” The process starts with a fundamental question: “What kind of border is most important in my situation?”

Student Reflections: 2012 USNA Leadership Conference, Part 3

U.S. Naval Academy Leadership Conference 2012
Visionary Leadership: Navigating through Unchartered Waters

In the final post of this 3-part series, Anna Pham, WG’12 reflects on lessons from the U.S. Naval Academy’s Leadership Conference in February 2012.  Students from over 20 different schools, military and civilian, gathered in Annapolis, MD for three days of leadership development workshops and experiences.

Reflections from Janani Ramachandran (W’11), Greg Rose (W’12) can be found in posts Part 1 and Part 2.    

 Part 3: Anna Pham, W’12

As the end of January drew near, the thought of having to miss half a week of school for a conference became heavier. Upon arriving in Annapolis and interacting with students and faculty from around the world, this weight quickly lifted as I embarked on the conference program.

  

Student Reflections: 2012 USNA Leadership Conference, Part 2

U.S. Naval Academy Leadership Conference 2012
Visionary Leadership: Navigating through Unchartered Waters

In this 3-part series, three undergraduate Wharton students reflect on their lessons from the U.S. Naval Academy’s Leadership Conference in February 2012.  Students from over 20 different schools, military and civilian, gathered in Annapolis, MD for three days of leadership development workshops and experiences.

Reflections from Janani Ramachandran (W’11), Greg Rose (W’12) and Anna Pham (W’12) are featured.  This post is part 2 of a 3 part series.  

 Part 2: Greg Rose, W’12

I feel incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to attend this year’s U. S. Naval Academy Leadership Conference on “visionary leadership”. I have seldom been challenged to consider the importance of leadership in life or death situations: scenarios in which there is no “next time”  for applying lessons learned. Thus, the military context that served as a backdrop for the conference’s panel discussions, breakout dialogues and keynote speeches helped to drive home a number of salient lessons about effective leadership.  

Student Reflections: 2012 USNA Leadership Conference, Part 1

U.S. Naval Academy Leadership Conference 2012
Visionary Leadership: Navigating through Unchartered Waters

In this 3-part series, three undergraduate Wharton students reflect on their lessons from the U.S. Naval Academy’s Leadership Conference in February 2012.  Students from over 20 different schools, military and civilian, gathered in Annapolis, MD for three days of leadership development workshops and experiences.

Reflections from Janani Ramachandran (W’11), Greg Rose (W’12) and Anna Pham (W’12) are featured.  We’ll bring you their reflections in three parts.

 Part 1: Janani Ramachandran, W’11

What is the definition of success? Prior to attending the United States Naval Academy Conference I would have said a variety of things: getting good grades, having close friends, or landing the “perfect” job. I wanted to accumulate titles and achievements to prove to others that I was smart and capable.  When things didn’t go as planned, I handled it with frustration and a little self-pity, wondering why I needed to suffer through obstacles on my path to success.