During my class with Dr. Harapnuik I have come to understand more how to become an influencer. One of the many things that I’ve learned is if I want to change an attitude I have to change the behavior and then, the attitude will change automatically.
So, I came to my own definition of behavior: an action that is performed automatically. An action or thinking that a person performs without even noticing. This behavior is embedded so deep into the individual, that the person doesn’t even realize that it is happening.
One example is the typical child that throws a tantrum to get something. The child does this, because it has worked in the past and will continue doing until it stops working.
Another example, the coworker that always turns the light off. He or she does it without thinking, because mom and dad taught that action since little.
We can continue over and over and yes, some of the behaviors are good, and others are not good. In fact, I like to see behaviors that bring consequences, instead of good or bad. My elementary principal Mr. Arpee told us the following:
“In life, there are not good things or bad things, there are only consequences. Those can be good or bad”
As any other person, if I want to change a behavior I need a lot of effort. It is not easy to change an action or thinking that has been part of me since I don’t remember why. For some people, might be even more difficult or happily easily. Life has taught me that behavior changes can come when experienced a faith epiphany or a really life changing event. Even when this happens is really tough to keep the desire to change a behavior and most of us, unfortunately, won’t succeed.
But what happens for those who succeed? What do they have in common? What do they do?
Many of them their life event is enough, but for many of us, we need a set of strategies to support us and keep us on track. These strategies had been studied by many scholars and organizational leaders, but Grenny and Paterson did a great job to study them and explain it to us in their book Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change. It took me a while, but with support of Dr. H and my classmates, I finally started to have a glimpse of understanding as for how to start making changes in my environment. I can tell is not an easy task, but it is a very interesting challenge and over all, I feel that it is possible.
My Plan
I have changed and learned many things. As for now, it seems that my Innovation Plan is starting to have some tweaks. I am not surprised. When we are young, we have certain beliefs and behaviors, as we grow, many of these change. Same thing with my Innovation Plan. It was a kid and now is growing and maturing. Right now, “my son” is walking towards robotics. I want to use robotics in my teaching curriculum for my students learn to teach computational thinking. This will achieve my final Goal: embed students with 21st century skills and create Critical Thinkers.
My plan is not boxed only in my classroom. My plan is for every student to have the same exposition and opportunity. Therefore, I need to invite all teachers in my environment and make them part of this amazing project.
How will I succeed? Please click on my Influence Strategy Plan and in my Six Sources Strategy Matrix to find out.
Digital Learning Mindset 