Enthusiasm

TTY31201.11.30

Since I started in the AFS I’ve been studying and planning my training throughout my entire career in the AFS. I’m the type who sits down and reads books and will do cross analysis of skills training available. I’ve been working with my trainers to figure out what skills to focus my training on to leverage my natural talents. Overall I’m really enjoying my job as a Medic and I’m looking forward to working with other members of the Browncoats, sharing what I’ve learned. Sometimes they teach you hot to fire a gun, but not how to use it in an intelligent way. I think I’ve mastered the Injection Gun to a higher degree than even my teachers and I want to share that knowledge with others.

I’ve added a link to my plan of study on the right. I think my analytical skills will help others so I figured I’d share it here. I’ve been worknig with Roland to help tutor him in his training so his plan of study is there as well. Apparently my clone has been busy doing the same. Great minds think alike right? If anyone has any questions for me, feel free to comment and I’ll read it next time I’m making an entry.

Today went in for a CT of the small bowel. Why would I have to check in at 6:45 for an 8:00? Well that’s because I had to drink 3 16 bottles of Barium! THEN I had to get prepped with a catheter so that during the CT scan they pumped a shit ton of Iodine into my blood. What does that spell? Dehydration and lots of nasty barium poop! Extra bonus, no caffeine or alcohol. Although they said if I drank 64 oz of water today I could have 1 or 2 drinks tonight.

Meh, and the company christmas party is tonight.

TTY31201.11.29

After getting my noggin filled with all kinds of useless junk and got caught up on my training I decided to make use of it in the battlefield. When you first pick up a leech gun it seems like a rusty piece of junk. After persistence in learning the art of using this piece of technology, here is my in depth analysis.

They are not a good tool for “doing damage”, in fact you really ONLY want to use them when you or squad members are hurt. In fact in my testing it seems like they do roughly half or less their standard damage if you’re at full health and armor. I could be wrong but this is how it seemed. I’m no engineer, I don’t know how these things work, I’m just trained on how to use them. I’d argue that in most situations it’s a poor weapon to use while hunting Bane solo. Its true power is when in a squad and you can destroy your enemy like a solider but keep your party up like a Medic.

It’s best to attack at around 40 yards, kneeling with full bead on the target, locked on and your leech gun be pumping out a really good stream of damage. The damage and ammo consumption is about equivalent to a soldier’s chaingun. A sonic attack, physical attack, or something similar WILL get your stream interrupted and since it take about a second for the beam to start once you get interrupted, generally it’s all over and time to swap to another weapon.

Damage done to an enemy’s armor refills your armor and the heath damage done refills your health. For this reason I believe Virulent leech guns are actually counter productive which the same assumption for injection guns. Novice leech gun or injection gun users might notice an increase in performance with virulent damage, but ideally at expert level skill non-virulent varieties are best. You WANT to be filling up your armor by leeching your target’s armor while doing damage to their health using Decay.

They are GROSSLY overpowered in war games. If Doctor Victeonus thinks he’s unstoppable with his Medical skills, with a Leech gun at expert level skill I’m completely unstoppable. Combine a Leech Gun with decay as described above and there’s no way you’re going to lose a fight.

Compared to the injection gun, which is a absolutely beautiful weapon of mass destruction, Leech guns if you haven’t deduced by now are a HIGHLY situational weapon. For a Medic, Leech guns are useless because Medics will focus their time healing via tools and logos abilities. For an Exobilogist, Leech guns are amazing especially when combined with Hazmat armor and later on Exobilogist skills that grants your squad resistances.

While I recommend expert level training in Leech guns for Exobilogists, novice level training in Injection Guns is recommended as well core damage should be done with Injection Guns and Shotguns while swapping to Leech Guns as needed. Medics are best to just focus on expert level Injection Guns since most Medics don’t generally use Decay.

Legitimate – Stuctural, orginizational power
Coercive – Threatening negative action unless desired action is done
Reward – Offering positive action if desired action is done
Referent – Offering complements and recognizing someone’s good actions
Expert – Showing you “know what you’re talking about”

By far coercive power is probably the least affective of all power one can use for the purposes of leadership. Other more subtle forms of power are more widely accepted and promotes motivation instead of just getting a quick action.

When is does use of leadership power become manipulation?

We see manipulation in places of power all the time. In relationships men manipulate women and women manipulate men. In the work place, lazy people might manipulate good natured helpful people into doing their work. When a waiter is fishing for better tips there is manipulation. When a salesmen is trying to land the sale, there is manipulation.

When ever there is power over another individual there is manipulation. How one defines manipulation is in the eye of the beholder. Some people define manipulation as coercive power. Some people are more sensative to charismatic referend power. While others might have problem with direct authoritative power.

I think as a leader the difference between motivation and manipulation is finding out what kind of power turns an individual off and what kind of power motivates an individual. You might have one individual who is motivated by orders, maybe he has a military background and wants to be ordered. You might have an individual who is impressed and motivated by displays of expert power and strives to be better when shown how he/she can improve his/her potential. It really depends on the individual to figure out what motivates THEM and then use the appropriate power that motivates them and avoid using power that demotivates them.

People have different needs for achieviment. Some people are content at just maintaining the status quo, while others have a high need for achievement. I think that as a good leader, recognizing those who show a strong sense of need for achivement need to be given the room to empower themselves within the organization. Either that or give them “enough rope to hange themselves on”.

Working with others who are below you and allowing them to take aspects of your organization under their wing, playing to their individual strengths is a key aspect of empowerment. This is the test of whether a leader is flexible or not. Sometimes as well you need to be flexible as to the needs of the people you’re leading vs your own vision of what you want to achieve as a leader. There are limits to flexability because too much flexibiltiy could be deemed by some as a weekness.

One of the things I had said from day one to others in my organization, “Drama can’t be avoided, it’s how we deal with it that makes us great”. Sure politics will happen, but having a high emotional IQ an dealing with drama and politics in a calm logical fashion is the difference between good and great. Politics especially in leadership is pleasing people and it takes a strong leader to try to please people but not to extent that it hurts the organization.

Policy can’t please everyone, power inevitably corrupts, and politics can’t be avoided. Politics is the act of pleasing your peers and the people you lead. Policy is the creation of rules or guidelines on how you go about using your power. Power in the end eventually corrupts. Good leaders have vision, the problem is that sometimes your vision conflicts with what people want. A wise person once told me that somtimes you can’t just give people what they want, you have to give people what they don’t even know they want.

You have to push your political adjenda if you feel your vision is right. Make people understand your vision and push your adjenda, hopefully with enough fighting things will go your way and people will be pleased. Some people who can’t handle this conflict give up (flight) or worse give in to the people’s whining (assimilation). I think the best thing to do is have good council who help you stay grounded and let you know when your vision gets the best of you. Sometimes your vision is wrong and the people are in the right.

Articulate in Communication

It appears that articulate communication eludes our modern world. Those who have a grasp of language are often ridiculed or are tuned out. One needs only to examine letters from the last century. Although we may be a more educated and modernized society, our ability to write succinctly, with flair, finesse, etc. seems gone forever.

One area in which this is evident is in speeches. Arguably one of the greatest speech communicators in recent times was Ronald Reagan. Not only was he a very capable speaker, he wrote most of his own speeches.

Accurate in Information

If there is one area that organizations must jealousy guard, it has to be the dissemination of accurate information. We all have recently experienced what influence inaccurate information can have on decision making.

The decision to go to Iraq is a great example of this. In 20/20 hindsight, many are quick to blame President Bush, even though a majority of both Democrat and Republican congress-people supported the invasion at the time. The evidence that most of our leaders believed the intelligence available is seen in the voting. Many of the strongest opponents of this administration made up their own minds, not from partisan information, but from non-partisan intelligence reports. Regardless of what we now believe, the intelligence data is in question, and illustrates the absolute necessity of accuracy. Also, we see everyday that there is an intrinsic link between the validity of info and the credibility of leadership.

Appropriate in Situation

Did you know that only one Airline has actually prospered since 2001? It’s true. Southwest Airlines made some hard decisions and most of those tough calls were made by the CEO, Herb Kellerher. Herb and a buddy founded Southwest in 1971, and the business plan began on a cocktail napkin. It was a premonition, because it was…appropriate. That characterizes Herb’s approach to leadership. All of the top leaders of Southwest are appropriately situational. They have to be. Except for flying planes, everyone at a Chief Operating level does every job once a quarter. Can you imagine YOUR CEO helping you load baggage onto an airplane at 3 a.m.? Or, what about a passenger who gets their ticket from the Chief Information Officer? I would say these folks are extremely interested in what both employees and passengers think. Herb (as he asks all to call him) says the secret to successful leadership is: BE YOURSELF!

“Leaders are born, not made.”
“Managers manage things; leaders lead people.”
“The most successful people have the mind of a manager and the heart of a leader.”

Getting a handle on the concept, definition, or framework of leadership is not simple. Leadership can be scientifically measured and analyzed; yet, that intangible and perhaps individual attribute that makes great leaders is ambiguous. It can be visible, yet unseen.

There are thousands of books, studies, and articles written about leadership. Organizations in many industries and services spend billions of dollars finding, training, and retaining successful leaders. Those of us who seek to become better leaders collectively spend millions of dollars on books about the characteristics of leadership with catchy titles like: “The 10 Qualities of a Leader” or “Common Traits of Successful Leadership.” These titles grab people’s attention, but sometimes, the common sense in these articles or books is so obvious one might wonder why anyone would pay for this information.

What Makes a Leader Great?

1. They are Teachable. A successful leader is always enrolled in the college of life, and their ‘major’ is learning from their teammates, coworkers, subordinates, peers, supervisors, etc. The best teacher may be younger, older, more experienced, less experienced, brand new, or seasoned. In other words, I firmly believe that everyone has something to offer those who are willing to listen, learn, and apply new information to their lives. To be teachable, one must be approachable, open, and ready to learn. If a manager begins to believe that he or she “has arrived,” reached the pinnacle, or become an expert, there is great danger that he or she will stop learning and growing, become stagnant, and merely be a manager—not a leader.

2.They are Entrepreneurial. Successful leaders treat all employees as if they owned the business. This emphasizes ownership of responsibilities, decisions and outputs, Also, peers and subordinates will quickly become fellow stakeholders when the leader is willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish the tasks needed for success.

3. They have a Sense of Urgency. Time to plan and decide is needed, but successful leaders are all about action. They know that time can be a precious commodity and is a limited resource, so acting swiftly and decisively is a key component to continued prosperity in business and organizations.

One writer summed up this concept of leadership nicely when he wrote: “Leadership appears to be the art of getting others to want to do something that you are convinced should be done”. The key phrase is “to want to do.” Leadership must not be coercive—it must be persuasive. Thus, the teachable becomes the teacher, the entrepreneur becomes the CEO, and urgency becomes a cultural norm for a thriving organization.

TTY31201.11.28

Today I was recognized for my advisory and analytical skills, I was given the position “Principle Adviser” to the Commander of the Browncoats. This position is apparently an advisory only position to help the Commander with tough decisions and lead the clan. Back on Earth I was a manager of an other organization but I was the “Go to” guy for everyone and it was quite overwhelming. In this position within the clan I’m the go-to guy for one man, the Commander. Of course this means I’m not Chief Medical Officer anymore, but heck I like the ring of “Doctor Victeonus, Principle Adviser to the Commander”.

TTY31201.11.27

Ah, life… Time to bring on the death.

I must thank my alter ego for giving me access to his database. It needs a little sometime extra. Some color… some blood. Don’t expect my logs in this journal to be about goody goody things like preserving nature and taking care of cuddly animals like Treebacks. I was made on this filthy rock for one thing. I am a bringer of death and decay. For now I’ll focus those energies on the Bane. Just don’t get in my way or else I’ll show you what it’s like to mess with an Exobiologist.