"The Square"

I was lucky enough to experience "The Square" exercise this past Wednesday with 34 other students. There was a little rule shagging going on, which was promptly corrected by Dr. Johnson (in my defense.. I did not have the slightest clue I was doing something against the rules; they were somewhat ambiguous).

Perhaps that was one of the many reasons why this event took much longer than anticipated to bring to a close. I believe the lack of unity and leadership (which could have been put in place via a Democratic process prior to the beginning of the exercise or voted upon while blindfolded, which would have been infinitely harder to accomplish.. the gift of sight is quite useful) ultimately made us inefficient. Some of the other reasons determined, during the discussion shortly after the exercise, showed that not many had taken the initiative to either take the lead if they had experience or asked questions/advise of those that did. Retrospectively, that shows a lack of attention to the environment and perhaps being aware of the resources at hand.

Several of us are probably at fault for assuming the lead at different ends of the square and not placing more emphasis on globalizing a strategy. I do not want to make this into an all too critical post either, as we did end up in a square after the better part of the hour. To the credit of the class, there were students on either end, although working locally, that were mostly willing to follow along with the few vocal leaders. Some leaders were willing to make consolidations with other vocal leaders and follow various strategies to get their corners worked out... this may have been the greatest accomplishment as it showed our leaders were open to the ideas of others as well.

I have faith our class may end up being alright as a group in the long run after all. :)

Anish