Informational Interview 

For this assignment, you will apply the process for defining coaching success by conducting an informational interview with the leader of your choice. The leader should be in your chosen career field (either your current career field or the field you wish to enter). You will need to make arrangements with the leader to conduct the informational interview early in Unit II.  

Goals of the Informational Interview

At the beginning of the coaching process, you will define what success will look like for that coaching experience. To do this, you would conduct an informational interview to: (a) identify the competencies needed for the leader to be effective in his or her role within the organization and (b) determine which of those competencies the leader would like to improve, by asking questions about challenges that the leader faces in the position and within the organization. Through this dialogue, you will pinpoint the competencies to focus on throughout the coaching experience. (Keep in mind that for the purposes of this course project, the leader will not be involved beyond the informational interview.)

Develop the Informational Interview Questions  

Develop the informational interview questions that you will ask in order to accomplish the goals of the informational interview (see above). List those questions in your field notes. Take care in developing your informational interview questions because the richness of information you glean from an informational interview is largely dependent upon the questions you ask.

Be sure to use the information from the Unit II lesson, video, and readings as you craft the questions to ask during the informational interview. Also, be sure to review the rubric that will be used to grade this assignment. This will give you direction for developing questions designed to elicit rich information about the leader’s insights into the competencies needed for his or her leadership role within that particular organization and within that industry.

Conduct the Informational Interview

Meet with the leader. Ask questions, listen, observe nonverbal behavior, and record the leader’s responses and your observations about his or her nonverbal cues. Record this data in the form of field notes, as described below. Be sure to number your interview questions, and record the detailed responses and nonverbal behavior below each corresponding interview question.

 Field Notes Format

The assignment should be submitted in the form of field notes. Your assignment should list:

Ø  interviewer’s name (your name);

Ø  leader’s name and job title;

Ø  organization where the leader is employed, as well as the organization’s type of industry;

Ø  date of the informational interview;

Ø  place where the informational interview is conducted;

Ø  the time you began and ended the interview, showing the length of time for the informational interview;

Ø  informational interview questions;

Ø  leader’s responses to the informational interview questions; and

Ø  notes on any nonverbal communication you observed as the leader was responding to the questions.

This unit includes a two-part assignment. These two parts will be submitted in a single document within Blackboard and will be graded as a whole.

1. Informational Interview Field Notes: Record the questions and responses from the informational interview. Also record any non-verbal behaviors, or body language, that you observe as the leader is talking. Together, the verbal and non-verbal information serve as the data you are collecting, in order to guide the Leadership Coaching Plan.

2. The First Segment of the Leadership Coaching Plan: Defining Coaching Success: Use the field notes from the informational interview to identify the competencies that the leader would like to improve through the coaching process. 

Leadership Coaching Plan:

Defining Coaching Success: Based on the information in your field notes from the informational interview: (a) evaluate the competencies needed for that specific leader to be effective in his or her role within the organization and (b) determine which of those competencies the leader would most like to improve, by the answers about the challenges that the leader faces in the position and within the organization.

With this information, write a paper, a minimum 2 page in length, to explain how coaching success would be defined if you were to coach this leader. This will serve as one segment of your Leadership Coaching Plan. Use the heading “Defining Coaching Success” for this assignment section, and feel free to use subheadings as needed.

Link to Video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSubkQg1KyY)

For this assignment, write a reflection paper that is a minimum of three completely full pages. Reflect on the best, most rewarding experience that you have ever had as part of a team. Maybe this experience was in your work organization, a military unit, athletic team, rock band, choir, symphony, theater troupe, volunteer organization, church, or any other team that provided a rewarding experience for you. Use the socio-cognitive systems learning model to inform your discussion.

Incorporate at least four library resources to support the ideas you present in your reflection. These sources may be drawn from the unit readings. You should cite these four sources.

Provide an introduction to the reflection paper, and also include the following elements in your reflection. In your paper, please use headings that correspond to the elements below.

1.      Team Experience Describe this team experience. What made this team so special? What was your role on the team? Why was this experience rewarding for you?

2.      Team Values What did the team value? Give specific examples. How did you know that these were the team’s values? Discuss the clues you observed that may indicate the values and deep underlying assumptions of the people involved.

3.      Behavioral Norms What were the team’s normative patterns of behavior? Give several specific examples of patterns of behavior within the team. How did these behaviors reflect the team’s values and deep assumptions?

4.      Team Outcomes What were the outcomes of the team’s interactions? Give specific examples.

5.      Analysis of Team Culture Analyze the team’s values, behavioral norms, and outcomes. Use the socio-cognitive systems learning model to inform your analysis. Did the team ever experience a conflict or a misalignment of values, behaviors, and outcomes? If so, explain what happened and what the results were. If not, explain why you think the team never experienced conflict.

6.      Conclusion Draw any final conclusions on your analysis of the team experience, and summarize your reflections.  Use APA style.

References:

Friesenborg, L. (2015). The culture of learning organizations: Understanding Argyris’ theory through a socio-cognitive systems learning model. Forest City, IA: Brennan-Mitchell.

Ernst, C., & Martin, A. (2006). Critical reflections: How groups can learn from success and failure. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership.

Fairholm, G. W. (2009). Organizational power politics: Tactics in organizational leadership (2nd ed.). Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.

Joiner, B., & Josephs, S. (2007). Leadership agility: Five levels of mastery for anticipating and initiating change. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Kitayama, S., Duffy, S., & Uchida, Y. (2007). Self as cultural mode of being. In S. Kitayama & D. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of cultural psychology (pp. 136-174). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Mezirow, J. (2003). Transformative learning as discourse. Journal of Transformative Education, 1(1), 58-63.

Palmer, P. J. (2004). A hidden wholeness: The journey toward an undivided life. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Palmer, P. J. (2011). Healing the heart of democracy: The courage to create a politics worthy of the human spirit. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Walsh, C. (2010). Development as Buen Vivir: Institutional arrangements and (de)colonial entanglements. Development, 53(2), 15-21.