Where’s NSMH? To infinity and beyond Jeremiah Rivera HTM 480 Leadership Experience

Explaining my Experience What is Where’s NSMH? Who did I work with What did I do Event Connections to the Cycle Reflection

What is Where’s NSMH? For my leadership experience I coordinated the Where's NSMH ? Event for the National Society of Minorities in Hospitality during Hospitality Week at San Diego State University. Where's NSMH is an event that allows hospitality students to have fun, make friends ,and explore the tourist destinations of San Diego through a scavenger hunt adventure.

Who I Worked With: The Team Kelly Burton : Kelly is the Vice President of NSMH who gave me the opportunity to coordinate the event and supervised my progress. Sean Belluscio: Sean is a chapter member of NSMH who wanted to get involved and assist me with the event.

Who I Worked With: The Team By working on a team I was able to relate my leadership experience to a real world situation. Kelly was like my "supervisor."  I had to check in with her to report my progress and to get her approval on my ideas. Sean was like my "employee ". I delegated tasks to Sean and worked with him to plan and execute the event.

What Did I Do? The Work When planning the Where's NSMH?  Event I had to : Create an overall theme for the event  Choose the destinations for the scavenger hunt  Create clues and hints that would lead the participants to the destinations Create awareness of the event and encourage people to attend it & Collect the materials needed for the bonfire which occurred after the scavenger hunt

The Event!

Connections to the Cycle Create a Shared Vision Dev. Service Climate and Expectations Develop Relationships Teach and Train for Service Quality Motivate and Inspire for Service Quality Assess Service Performance Provide Feedback

Create a Shared Vision I had to create a shared vision amongst my team when selecting the theme for Where's NSMH. Sean had never participated in the event before so I had to explain to him what it was about and what it included. I was able to come up with several ideas for the event’s theme. I shared my ideas with Kelly and Sean and together we chose to do the Toy Story theme.

Develop Service Climate and Expectations For my experience I wanted to create a positive, productive, and fun climate. To do so I dressed up like Buzz Lightyear during the event and facilitated conversations within the group to encourage everyone to share their stories and meet new people. When working with Sean and Kelly I wanted to create an inclusive climate so I asked them for their input during each stage of the planning process.

Develop Service Climate and Expectations I feel that I was able to set expectations when I worked with Sean to come up with clues for the scavenger hunt locations. I was able to set expectations by first coming up with several clues myself then sharing my clues with him. Then I asked Sean to come up with some clues of his own using my clues as a guideline for what I expected.

Develop Relationship Through my experience I was able to develop a relationship with Sean and further develop my relationship with Kelly. In the past I have worked with Kelly but this was my first time working with Sean. To develop good relationships it was important for me to communicate and build trust with my team. I made sure that everyone was on the same page by communicating with them and updating them on the progress of the event. For example, after Sean and I had a meeting about what food should be served at the event I emailed Kelly to let her know what we discussed and asked her for her thoughts as well.

Develop Relationship To build trust I made sure that I shared information with my team and followed through with the tasks that were assigned to me. For example, we all trusted each other to get the items for the smores that were severed at the event, and we all followed through with getting the items. Kelly got the chocolate, Sean got the marshmallows and I got the gram crackers

Teach and Train for Service Quality I feel that I was able to teach Sean about planning an event by including him in the development of Where’s NSMH and by assigning him the task of creating an ice breaker activity for the barbeque that took place after the scavenger hunt. During our meetings I explained what the Where’s NSMH event was and told him about my previous experience with the event. We were also able to plan out what was needed for the event and schedule more meeting times.

Teach and Train for Service Quality I wanted Sean to experience what it was like to conduct an event himself in order to teach him planning, communication, and time management skills, so I put him in charge of creating an ice breaker activity. I explained to him what an ice breaker activity was and what I had in mind for Where’s NSMH. During our meetings I checked on his progress and helped him solidify his ideas.

Motivate and Inspire for Service Quality I wanted to motivate and inspire Sean when coming up for clues for the scavenger hunt and the ice breaker activity. I wanted Sean to feel like his input was valued and that he was an important part of my team so that he would be motivated to do his best. To inspire him with his ice breaker activity I told him about my previous experiences with ice breakers and encouraged his ideas.

Assess Service Performance and Provide Feedback In my leadership experience I felt that Kelly was able to assess my performance and I was able to assess Sean’s performance. Kelly was able to assess my performance and give me feedback when I would meet with her to discuss my progress with developing the event. For example, when I created the flyers promoting the events I shared it with Kelly and she suggested that I reduce the amount of information I had included on the flyer.

Assess Service Performance and Provide Feedback She also told me I should also create a miniature flyer and go to different HTM classes to announce the event to persuade people to participate in the event. I was able to assess Sean’s performance and give him feedback in regards to his ice breaker activity. Sean came up with several ideas for the ice breaker and presented them to me.

Assess Service Performance and Provide Feedback His ideas were good but they did not require a lot of physical activity from the participants. When providing feedback to him I let him know that his ideas were good but that I thought it would be a good idea to come up with an activity that involved more action. I made sure that I acknowledge and appreciated his ideas and that I used “I” sentences when offering other suggestions so that I did not discourage his efforts. We were able create a two part activity using one of his original ideas to divide everyone into two teams and adding the hula hoop pass game to include more physical activity to the ice breaker.

The Ice Breaker Activity

Reflection My Leadership Experience was a great way for me to see how the Coaching Cycle can be applied to working in a team and planning an event. This experience was also an excellent way for me to practice being a leader. I really enjoyed being able to work on a team because it allowed me to relate my experience to a real world management situation. I learned that to be a successful leader it is important to build trusting relationships, stay positive and have open communication with those you are leading. I know that I will be able to use the Coaching Cycle a lot next semester because I will be a board member for the NSMH Chapter at San Diego State. Seeing the successful execution of the Where’s NSMH event made all the time and effort that was put into it worth wild.

The End