If the material from this course is going to stay with you and be useful, it is important that you use it during our semester together. The individual doing power project, therefore, asks you to take the material and put it into practice. Learning by doing is one of the best ways to master both subject matter and skills. Also, trying out behaviors you have not done before or think you won't enjoy permits you to test your assumptions. This individual project asks you to get a little outside of your comfort zone and push yourself to build power and use the ideas of the class as you are learning them.

a) begin with some specific objective. What are you trying to change? What are you trying to accomplish? Such an objective could involve either changing a policy or practice in the organization or advancing your position to one of more power, or both; consider how you might know if you have successfully achieved your objective--how are you going to assess your progress (as objectively as possible)?

b) outline a set of things you are going to do to try and influence the situation;

c) describe what you did, what worked, and what didn't, and why. Compare this to what was in the literature and what we have discussed in class (i.e., integrate what you learned through your experience with what you learned conceptually);

d) What were your personal lessons in power from this experience?