My Educational Career - Essay Example

Sub Department Self-Reflection Through my entire educational career, I have discovered that doing something practically is more rewarding than studying it theoretically. This consultancy project offered me a chance to discover how much I had studied and facilitated application of my knowledge on real-life situation through my work as a consultant for a real firm on a definite project. My group comprised of 3 individuals; all from various nations having mixed cultural backgrounds, experiences and knowledge to give. Two members of the group Hujuan and Tang hailed from China and with my nationality being that of Somalia (check 1st week blog).The two Chinese girls in my group had been friends before and therefore were in good terms with one another. At the beginning of the project, we did not all have very strong ties with each other. Opening discussions however brought us closer. We started discussing our goals and aims and reflected upon our previous accomplishments. Such discussions assisted us in understanding each other and we began to get closer as group. The best explanation of the way we adopted the model, interacted with each other and settles on what would be done by who is the Tuckman’s stages of group development (Chapman, 2009) shown below; Source: Tuckman’s Model, (1965) Figure 1: Tuckman’s stages of group development The “Forming” part took us a lot of time to cover. From the time we started the group, we not only added each other as friends on Facebook but also created a group profile which facilitated our exchanging of messages and everyone could see this simultaneously. In accordance to Belbin (1993), so as for a group to function well, it is very important that the members know each other something that assists in the Forming and Norming process. We gradually covered the stages of “forming” to “norming”. So as to accomplish this, we decided to do these roles together and everybody comes with whatever information they gathered to the meetings. After this, we did not spend much time trying to hit the “storming” section of the theory Tuckman (1965).As time went by I felt that the participation of other group members was very minute since they were all expecting me to do all the work and had to inform our supervisor regarding this. It was thus agreed that tasks should be delegated and had to stop doing tasks together as had been before since it was no longer working. Consequently, it is at that point that we proceeded to the last phase of Truckman theory (1965), which is performing. At this stage Tang and I were already well versed with what was required of us to do and were thorough with our responsibilities and goals. Thus, we assisted and helped one another with our roles, exhibiting both energy as well as knowledge creation. We could not extract anything from Hujuan except for report translation and failed to make it to any of the meetings that Tang and I held and seemed to always have excuses something that made me feel that we did not make a complete set as a group (see week 2 blog). Personal development Learning never stops throughout the life of an individual that any prospective manager must go through. There is no one born with a monopoly of knowledge that s/he needs in life (Clegg, 2009). Therefore, in order to fit in the role of international management in future, I decided to embrace learning at every level to make sure that I attain all the necessary skills and knowledge from both formal learning as well as learning from others to assist me in arriving at informed decisions (Mendenhall, Punnett and Ricks, 2005). Some of the top skills that I acquired from this consultancy project comprise of consultancy skills, communication skills, presentation skills, problem-solving skills, research skills, teamwork, independence ,investigating and analysing (see blog week 3,4 and 5). Coincidently, these are the same skills that have been enumerated in the 10 most desired skills in employees that employers want in 2015 (Forbes, 2014). In my opinion, learning and development experience can be categorized in accordance to Kolb’s (1984) learning cycle. This theory is simply concerned with the cognitive process of the learner. The process of learning should therefore be started from within an individual for effective learning and development to occur. It comprises of a sequence of steps that takes place in a cycle from an individual going through a new situation and then s/he has a reflection of what they had gone through. After situation reflection, s/he builds an abstract concept and eventually experiments it in a real life circumstance (MendenhalL and Maznevsky, 2003).According to Kolb (1984), a learner can start at any stage, however, s/he has to pass through the full cycle. Kolbs Experiential Learning Cycle Reflective Process Source: Kolb, (1985). It is at this stage that I can readily identify with the stages of concrete experience as well as reflective observation. Concrete Experience-there is an encounter with a new experience of the circumstance. For my case, being a part of a group that was working on the consultancy project for a real life client happened to be a concrete experience for me. This is due to the fact that I had never before worked on a real life consultancy as part of a group. Reflective Observation-I looked back at the experience in this stage. My experience had been a positive one and had come with numerous transformations in my abilities and personalities something that would assist me in every facet for a future career as an international manager since it facilitated my enhancement of professional development as well as employability. After this experience reflection, I am supposed to come up with an abstract concept, since this stage is summarizing the learning experience and then eventually, the final step is active experimentation which basically involves application of what I learnt or rather (skills that I developed) from this consultancy project in a new project as stated by Kolb (1984) has to undergo the full cycle. Development areas I have acquired various experiences through the entire project that has considerably enhanced my learning of different aspects. Nonetheless, I have a long way to go and so much lies ahead of me to learn in order to realize my dream of international manager in future. This project not only gave me insight into my professional development strengths but also revealed weaknesses. Leadership, interpersonal skills and time management are competencies that I would love to further develop in future in addition to keeping the entire group focused so as to get the very best out of everyone. Conclusion The entire project offered me a chance to improve my employability as well as professional development since it improved my professional development skills which comprised of consultancy skills, communication skills, research skills, presentation skills, problem-solving skills, teamwork, independence, investigating and analysing. In addition, it assisted me to find out weaknesses that I needed to further develop in future which include; interpersonal, leadership and time management skills. The opportunity also provided me with the opportunity to learn and improve my professional development and boosted my employability prospects in looking for graduate employment, hence making me adequately prepared for the challenges that lie ahead of me as a potential international manager. Since I have the intention of constantly expanding my professional development in accordance to Kolb’s (1985) learning cycle “there is no end but only another turn of the cycle”. References Belbin, M., 1993.Team roles at work. 1st ed. Oxford: Butterworth-Honeymoon. B W Tuckman (1965), ‘Developmental Sequence in Small Groups’, Psychological Bulletin 63. Chapman, A 2009, tuckman forming storming norming performing model, [Online] Available at http://www.businessballs.com/tuckmanformingstormingnormingperforming.htm [accessed: 30 April 2015]. Clegg, S., 2009.Global management: universal theories and local realities. London [u.a.], Sage Publ. Forbes, 2015. The 10 Skills Employers Most Want In 2015 Graduates - Forbes. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2014/11/12/the-10-skills-employers-most-want-in-2015-graduates/. [Accessed 01 May 2015]. Kolb, D A 1984, ‘Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development’, New York: Prentice-Hall. Mendenhall, M. E., Punnett, B. J., & Ricks, D. A., 2005. Global management. Cambridge, Mass, Blackwell Publishers. Mendenhall, M., & Maznevsky, M. L., 2003. The Blackwell Handbook of Global Management a Guide to Managing Complexity. Oxford, Blackwell Pub. Read More