SEMESTER: Spring 2019

COURSE NUMBER: EWMBA291T.1

COURSE TITLE: Interpersonal Skills and Embodied Leadership

UNITS OF CREDIT: 2 Units

INSTRUCTOR: Erica Peng

E-MAIL ADDRESS: erica_peng@haas.berkeley.edu

PREREQUISITE(S): None

MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: 
March 15 – 1pm to 7pm
March 16 – 9am to 9:30pm
March 17 from 9:30am to 7pm

Please note the unusual format of this course, which meets on three successive days over the March 15- 17 weekend.  You must attend all sessions in their entirety in order to earn a passing grade.

ATTENDANCE POLICY: Attendance to the entirety of each session over all three days is required. You must be able to attend the entire first day of class in order to participate in the course. Due to the experiential nature of this course, safety and rapport amongst participants is critical to enable learning and stretching. Building psychological safety and a foundation of basic skills begins immediately and continues throughout the three days.

CAREER FIELD: Developing interpersonal skills is foundational to being more effective and successful in personal and professional relationships and in all career fields.

CLASS FORMAT: This course is structured as a 3-day intensive with additional weekly 1:1 skills practice for seven weeks following the 3-day class. The format is majority experiential learning supported by readings and conceptual frameworks drawn from research in areas relevant to interpersonal communication and effective leadership:

• 75% experiential learning
• 15% conceptual material and pre- and post-class reading
• 10% reflection writing

Experiential learning occurs through experiential activities and skills practice, both 1:1 and in an innovative ten person small-group learning lab called T Group (“training group”). There are also five required written assignments: one to be completed prior to the course, one after the first day of class, one within a week after the course, and two during the seven weeks of skills practice after the 3-day intensive part of the course.
There will be one optional meeting three or four weeks after the class (I will offer multiple meeting times).
The T Group format enables participants to practice self-awareness, self-regulation, and interpersonal skills as they engage and interact directly with each other, with the guidance of professional T Group facilitator/coaches. This format requires active participation vs. learning through observation. Enrolling in this course is agreement to stretch out of your comfort zone to practice new skills and behaviors, to support learning for yourself and others.
T Group is the pillar of the renowned Interpersonal Dynamics course (affectionately referred to by students as “Touchy Feely”) at Stanford University Graduate School of Business (GSB). Taught for over 50 years, alumni consistently rate it the course that has most contributed to their development as leaders in personal and professional arenas.

Why is T Group an effective format?

• T Group is a supportive learning environment where participants can take some risks to practice desired skills and competencies with a frame of learning and practice vs. “getting it right.” Participants can request immediate feedback from facilitators and other participants. This is a profoundly effective and powerful process for group members to learn about how they impact others, and what behaviors are effective and influential (or not). 

• Through feedback, participants become aware of unconscious “blind spots” and bias in reactions, behaviors, and verbal and non-verbal communication.

• Skilled and experienced facilitators build safety, provide skilled in-the-moment coaching, model effective behaviors, and raise awareness by pointing out interpersonal and group dynamics, many of which are shaped by social identity, power, and status of group members.

• In the absence of structured activities, the T Group format enables participants to practice skills and behaviors as actual dynamics arise (vs. scripted role plays). This offers opportunity to engage in the following ways:

• Build safety and trust among a group of diverse individuals in a short amount of time
• Connect to and relate with each others’ common humanity and shared experience
• Work through emotional reactivity from difficult dynamics including social identity (race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc.) and other dimensions of difference (introversion/extroversion, level of and comfort with emotions and emotional expressiveness, focus on task vs. relationships, etc.)

All these dynamics are present in our teams and organizations – and families – and unfortunately most of us haven’t learned or practiced how to navigate them very successfully. T Group is a safe learning environment that enables practice with coaching and support.

How can I access TIES Student-to-Student comments about the course?

• Log in to TIES and in the Student-to-Student comment section, select this course number, MBA291T.1B (Fall B 2017).
• Note: These comments are from a seven-week format of the course but they will give you a sense of the impacts of the learning approaches. A few comments address the workload which was much more for the seven-week course.

REQUIRED READINGS: Articles and short videos (before and after the weekend class) available on bCourses in a StudyNet reader on interpersonal development topics and research: including neuroscience, psychology, emotions and interpersonal neurobiology, communication, social identity and stereotypes, and leadership.

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: 50% written work and 50% active engagement in your and others’ learning.

20% Pre-class Assignment
10% Friday night Reflection Journal
20% Post-class Reflection Journal
*25% Ranking based on personal risk-taking in support of your behavior/skill goals
*25% Ranking based on your contribution to your T Group’s development by supporting others’ learning and development

*Final ranking: At the end of the three-day intensive, you will complete two rankings for each member of your T Group (including yourself) based on the following assessments:

• Level of personal risk-taking in support of your practice goals (behaviors and/or skills)
• Contribution to the T Group’s development by supporting others’ learning and development

50% of your grade will be based on these rankings, a reflection of your level of engagement and how you engage in T Group. Facilitators will also submit a ranking of the members of their T Group. The data will not be shared amongst students but you may request information about how you were ranked.

Note: Grades will conform to the recommended grading curve for Haas elective courses.

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES: While many can describe what “good leadership” looks like, far fewer understand the actual skills and behaviors that enable us to be effective and influential, as well as connect with the humanity and dignity of ourselves and others. In a spirit of learning and discovery, the instructor and facilitator/coaches will guide you through practice of awareness, skills, and behaviors foundational to leading teams, organizations – and your own life and career progression – from a place of inspiration, empathy, and dignity.

The cornerstone of this course is practicing awareness, skills, and mindsets, both 1:1 and in a small group learning lab called T Group (“Training Group”). Be prepared to proactively share meaningful personal experience and learnings with your classmates during the three-day class. (And in weekly 1:1 Partner Practice for 7 weeks after the three-day intensive as an option for continued development.)

Experiential learning that arises in-the-moment often involves uncertainty, ambiguity, and discomfort. The course format provides an opportunity to practice and strengthen being more comfortable with discomfort, a core leadership skill that helps builds resilience and capacity, critical for being effective in moments of stress and uncertainty amidst the growing complexity of our global context.

Learning Objectives

In the course you will have opportunities to practice the following:

• Learn how to drive your own process of learning and development through identifying goals, setting intention for practice, and taking calibrated risks in areas that include: personal sharing, listening with empathy, getting curious, expressing appreciation, giving and receiving feedback, owning the impact of one’s actions and behaviors.

• Voice awareness about your emotional reactions and what tends to evoke them.
• Manage and “regulate” emotional reactivity that can derail you from being present and effective, through individual and interpersonal practices.
• Transform internalized insecurity, doubt, guilt, inner critic, etc. that gets in the way of interpersonal engagement and connection, and having impact and influence as a leader.

• Develop self-awareness and interpersonal skills to build safety, trust, and rapport, towards creating environments where people feel engaged, appreciated, and motivated to share and contribute to goals.

• Give and receive feedback as a collaborative process of learning how to align impact with intention.
• Better understand how social identity, power, and status impact reactions and behaviors that manifest at the individual, interpersonal, and team level.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: As a leadership development coach and consultant, Erica believes that with Awareness + Practice + Feedback + Guidance, people can break free from unconscious and limiting beliefs and behaviors that prevent us from manifesting our most inspired and inspiring leadership. Erica’s expertise is supporting individuals to develop both internal grounded presence and awareness, along with external skills and competencies. She incorporates *somatic awareness and whole body approaches to develop embodied leadership behaviors and presence.
*The word somatic means “of the body” and comes from the Greek root, soma.
Having lived, worked, and traveled extensively in Asia, Latin America, and Europe, Erica brings nuanced awareness and skill in navigating leadership, team, and organizational challenges involving language, culture, social identity, and other dimensions of difference.
Erica has over ten years of experience facilitating and supporting the delivery of interpersonal development courses at Haas School of Business, Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), and University of San Francisco Law School. Through her coaching and consulting practice, Deep Stream Leadership, Erica offers high-impact experiential leadership development workshops based on the popular "T Group" format. She also works with leaders and senior teams on organizational culture change efforts, and supports clients to align core skills, purpose, and values with career and leadership development.