Assignment Paper

Part 1: During the semester, select a group, organization, or social setting and develop a goal of gaining power and influence. After selecting the group, set a measurable objective to accomplish by gaining power and influence (i.e., what will it look like if you succeed?). Next, use as many skills and tactics from the class as you can (including at least one that you rarely use and are uncomfortable with) to achieve your objective. In your paper, describe your objective as well as your thoughts and feelings prior to, during, and after your attempt to use these tactics to gain power and influence. Describe whether you were successful or not (either way is fine, so long as you learned from the experience). Summarize what you learned from your experience.

Part 2: Future Planning. Using both (1) your above experience and (2) the ideas and concepts from the class, write out a strategic plan for yourself as to how you will use the material to build your own path to power for your purpose. Some guiding thoughts: Examples could include what you will do specifically as part of your job finding process? What are you going to do as you enter your new organization? Are their places you want to build influence to change the status quo? In other words, how do you plan to put the ideas and concepts to work for you in your own life? Which ideas or concepts are you deliberately choosing NOT to put into practice, and why?