# educ7650 Paper 1 Jethro Jones ## Not Turned in Here's the DocX ![[educ7650paper1.docx]] ## Assignment Directions Paper #1, due by March 11, stems from The Human Element. Frame your paper around these three questions: (1) What are the authors’ main messages? (2) Recount an incident from your past which would have been more productive if you had applied what you learned from this book. (3) Describe an action that you plan to take in the future and how you will incorporate some of the content from this book. The scoring rubric follows. Books Referenced: [[The Human Element]], [[Positive Intelligence]], and [[Snow Leopard]] ## Assignment Innovators have a hard time because they go against the grain and they too often forget about The Human Element in their innovations. So argue Loran Nordgren and David Schonthal in "[The Human Element](https://amzn.to/4hZmQnk)". This human element involves a couple different things that impact how we act as human beings. In every decision, there is a dilemna presented to the decision-maker: follow the path of least resistance and do what's easy, or go with the friction. Nordgren and Schonthal argue that the easier the innovator makes it for decision-makers, the more they will say yes. This basic knowledge is easily agreed upon, but the value in this book lies in how the authors suggest ways to make it easier. While this is not a book review, but rather a way for me to think about how I can apply this book in my day-to-day work, I'll focus on the areas that resonated with me the most. I'll focus on the idea of Fuel, Familiar Friend, and Quieting Fears. First, Nordgren and Schonthal argue that fuel reduces drag by "convinc[ing] people to embrace a new idea [by heigtening] the appeal of the idea itself." Further, they state "Fuel is costly. Two properties of Fuel make it so. Fuel is fleeting, and its impact is proportional to the amount of Fuel that is applied" (Nordgren and Schonthal, 2021, p 24). A challenge that I have personally faced is that my ideas are different than most. My ideas come with a lot of what Nordgren and Schonthal refer to as drag, the thing that keeps people from adopting my ideas. My biggest challenge is that what is obvious to me is not obvious to others. One of the ways Nicolas Cole of "Category Pirates" talks about this idea of creating fuel is to define your category. He says, "If you want short-term money, then create Obvious content. If you want long-term dividends, then create Non-Obvious content (your library will last longer)" (Cole, 2022, p 22). The point is, you must reduce drag and create fuel to make it easy for people to say yes to what you create. As an innovator myself, this has been a challenging aspect of my business of principal coaching and consulting. One area where I have started to define some thing of value is in my approach to AI. I created the [APLUS framework](https://jethro.site/aplus) for adopting AI in schools. I reduced drag by giving it a cute name, APLUS, defining what we should focus on, and being opinionated in what I suggest in that approach. When schools decide to adopt AI, I suggest they follow these simple principles, and by so articulating them, I made it easy for them to see why and how they could adopt AI. The second part of this is making the foreign familiar. Nordgren and Schonthal say, "We are heavily influenced by who communicates information. People are more likely to listen to a message when it comes from someone they know or someone who is similar to themselves" (2021, 53). The way this has really benefitted me is by starting a podcast over almost 12 years ago. By having a long-running podcast, I have created an air of authority so if I say something on the podcast, it is from a "familiar face" as Nordgren and Schonthal describe it. This played out in the AI space. In early January 2023, I did a Twitter Space with my friend Damon Hargraves, then [published it on my podcast](https://transformativeprincipal.org/s10/518). This early conversation about AI catapulted me into peoples' minds as someone who was at least more knowledgable about AI than they were, and opened doors to people being willing to hire me and consult with me about AI in schools. Even if the person didn't know me, they saw my history and track record on the podcast itself and assumed that I had the expertise and experience to speak to it. Giving a familiar face is similar to what Shirzad Chamine describes as being in "Sage Mind" in his book Positive Intelligence, which leads to the final point of quieting fears. Our fears come from our Judge saboteur. Chamine says, "The Judge warns you that if you empathize with yourself or others’ avoidable hardships, you are encouraging more of the behavior that caused the hardship. You’d better punish rather than empathize, it says. A key fallacy of this argument is the belief that empathizing with pain means condoning the action that brought the pain about" (2012, 85). The judge is what makes us have fears. One of the ways that you overcome that is by utilizing your Sage, which is simply the opposite of the judge. The Sage have five powers: "(1) to Explore with great curiosity and an open mind; (2) to Empathize with yourself and others and bring compassion and understanding to any situation; (3) to Innovate and create new perspectives and outside-the-box solutions; (4) to Navigate and choose a path that best aligns with your deeper underlying values and mission; and (5) to Activate and take decisive action without the distress, interference, or distractions of the Saboteurs" (Chamine, 20). These five powers are evident and communicated to others through our actions and our own mindset. Chamine describes it thus: "The most visible manifestation of this is that we yawn when another yawns, or cringe when we see another in physical pain. The less visible manifestation is that energy, mood, and even PQ levels can be contagious. For example, it’s more likely that your own Saboteurs will come out swinging if someone approaches you with his or her Judge in charge" (Chamine, 2012, 130). One of the strategies that the Nordgren and Schonthol suggest to quieting the fears is to become an ethnographer, which views people in the wild to see what they are really struggling with. That is exactly the first two sage powers that Chamine suggests you start with. This approach of becoming an ethnographer has greatly helped me by being curious and empathetic to what people really need. It has helped me figure out how to provide them support and clarity for the issues they are really facing. It's helped me provide strategies and skills they really need, instead of just providing what works best for me. Nordgren and Schonthal identify the need for this empathetic approach. "Frictions are difficult to spot because they require empathy. They require that you understand your audience and see the world from their perspective. When you are selling change, it's natural to fixate on the idea. But to understand Friction, you need to shift the spotlight from the idea to the audience" (2021, p. 33). What that has resulted in for me in my consulting is stellar feedback for each of the presentations that I do, because I am really helping them with what they actually need. Obviously, I still have a long way to go, but each year, I learn more and more about what I need to do to be better and grow more as a coach and consultant. Perhaps some day, I will "arrive." ## References - Chamine, S. (2012). _Positive intelligence: Why only 20% of teams & individuals achieve their true potential and how you can achieve yours_ (1. ed). Greenleaf Book Group Press. - Nordgren, L. F., & Schonthal, D. A. (2021). _The human element: Overcoming the resistance that awaits new ideas_. Wiley. - Cole, N., & Yoon, E. (2022). _Category Pirates_ (Kindle). Category Pirates.