Continuous Professional Development Appraisal Schedule - Essay Example

Continuous Professional Development Appraisal Schedule Entry One I have learned many different skills in this inquiry. The first key learning is how important innovation is to a business. I learned that the products of an organisation have a life cycle that will decide if they are profitable over a long period. Customers want innovation changes if they are going to continue to buy products. Komninos (2002) says it is hard for companies to see when their products have begun decline until sales begin to drop. In the maturity stage of the product marketers are very confident because during this stage products give the best revenues (Komninos). In truth though the product is about to reach decline and business leaders do not have knowledge this is about to occur. They lack vision about this happening and are surprised because they did not plan properly for decline. I have therefore learned that business leaders must be more aware of the market. They have to realise that more labour and finance must be put into innovation. As a future business person I would begin, before the end of the maturity stage, to begin market analysis. I would have to gain information about buyer behaviour, begin market research, and observe competition. This would give ideas about how to launch innovative products that would prevent very large losses in profit and revenue. Using strategy models like PEST, the Five Forces Model, and competitor analysis models would give new ideas about how to make a product with better benefits to buyers. Without being more attentive to this analyses it is likely the business would not be able to adapt to market conditions that change. I would like to learn more about how to conduct primary market research. I often hear about the important of quantitative and qualitative data but I know little about this. My ability to read statistics and gather market data is limit which is important when coming up with innovative ideas. I think that I could improve learning by reading journals, studies and books about these research approaches to become a better business leader. King (2007) says that many business ideas fail because leaders do not understand all the inputs and outputs of a business. To know this a leader needs to understand how to gather scientific data and market data and be able to apply analysis to improve a business model and operations. It would be very helpful for me to gain knowledge about social and scientific research if the business that I manage is to outperform competition and offer customers valuable products. Research is so very important if a business is to be profitable in its operating markets and have competitive advantage. This is said by many professionals in business and innovation. Entry Two In the team, I was a resource investigator. Belbin (1993) calls this a team member that is always looking for team resources and searches to help team members. They are investigators and extroverted to open discussion between team members. During the project the team had conflict about different directions the projects should take. Finding useful information was a source of that conflict. As the resource investigator, I took on the role of discovering new sources of data that would help meet project goals when other group members did not want this responsibility. I found that by being the investigator I was able to get the group to reach agreement and limit conflict when it happened. Also in certain situations, the team resisted change. New ideas that were different than what was original discussed were challenged by team members. Grieves (2010) says that change must be negotiated if members of a team are to accept these changes in direction and ideas. When the team had disagreements I acted as a leader that had team members openly discuss their problems with the change. This opened dialogue important to get projects back on track. I learned the importance of negotiating compromises so that the team was more cooperative. I think I could have improved my team contribution in three ways. First, I could have been a transformational leader. This is a person who sets a vision, re-speaks that vision, opens lines of communications, and inspires others (Fairholm 2009). It was difficult for me to be taken seriously as the leader because team members each wanted power to make decisions in the group. If I had used charisma and always reminded the team of the group’s mission and vision, they might have been more accepting of me as a leader. The group really needed one person that could take on guidance control for the team and the transformational model has been known to be successful to get followers. Second, I would have been a better shaper. West and Markiewicz (2004) say this is a person in a team that challenges group norms. For example, several team members were from collectivist societies. In this, collectivist beliefs are about saving reputation. They did not like to be challenged or have their ideas criticised. I would have used learning that I gained from cross-cultural psychology to better address the needs of those that had problems with fear of poor reputation. I think I did not show enough empathy for these diverse needs that made the group more resistant to changes. I have learned that collectivist societies have much loyalty to group members, but they have a fear of having it publicly stated that they failed. This caused conflict in the group. Entry Three One main challenge was being able to make tacit knowledge explicit. This means taking knowledge held by a person that is not known by others and being able to explain it proper (Stover 2004). For example, during team actions, some members had unique skills that were not held by others that made it difficult for the team to understand. To convert knowledge into useful information, it is necessary to be a teacher and open communications about a person’s skills so that others can learn from this. This was very difficult during the inquiry. I addressed this challenge by reading up on journals and studies about knowledge transfer and knowledge convert. I learned that this is done better through experiential learning. This is hands-on teaching that helps others to understand unique knowledge. I think that this conversion process could have been more efficient by letting others read the journals and studies I found instead of just discussing issues of innovation and other team concept. This would have given them hands-on learning (experiential) and allowed for better social discussion of the issue until everyone understood its meaning and direction. I also had problems putting theory into practice and making it logical. For example, Steensma, et al. (2005) state that many businesses which seek innovation try to teach other partners of a business and share resources. The idea is to create alliances with suppliers and other important business partners. However, I found that to build such a partnership would be a very long investment and not all partners would likely want to be involved. To explain, a supplier of important business resources needed for production might have a very closed culture. My business, though, might be more open and ready to collaborate. I thought about real life limitation in business structure and culture that could make the theory of alliances very difficult. To address this limit, I studied many journals and resources on alliances and strategies for building cross-professional teams. These studies gave best practices and strategies when cultural issues make alliance building difficult. I think this approach better prepared me for the future as a business leader dealing with B2B relationships. Also, how to build social and professional relationships to gain resources important for being a company that can build innovative products and launch them successfully. Theory versus real-life is sometimes difficult to comprehend and consider. If one company is a bureaucracy and another is a culture of teamwork and openness, it is important to know strategies for gaining their partnership successfully. I also had a problem with understanding process issues in a business that build innovation. Measuring productivity and reading financial data is not my specialty. To address this issue, I began searches online that showed how to make these analyses simple and easier to address. It helped me be better at reading statistics and performing calculations. Entry Four The group seemed to manage the inquiry well. In most cases all team members were focused on achievement of goals and objectives. There was some level of conflict that happened and one team member even left the group because of this conflict. This did not change the morale of the group however. Once the team found strategies to reach agreement and discuss ideas and direction it was better function as a team environment. My preferred role, as said earlier, was a leader but there was challenge to having just a single leader. The team had two people who wanted to be this coordinator, a leader that is confident and good at delegating tasks (Aritzeta, Swailes and Senior 2007). They are mature and have the ability to get everyone on task. The conflict that happened was result of more than one person wanting this high level role of coordinator. In one situation, one team member was so dominating that they wanted only to delegate tasks and were criticised for this aggressiveness. To end the conflict, the team agreed that there would be no single leader. This discouraged the two people wanting to be coordinator. One other team member wanted the role of finisher, the person who proof-reads everyone’s work and sets very high standards of performance. This too caused conflict because people felt it was too harsh of their work quality output. This person was also worried about giving other people different tasks because they felt they did not have the skills to perform them proper. This person wanting to be the finisher was seen as a nuisance to some and caused some motivational problems in task assignments. The team was not able to stop these behaviours of the person wanting to be finisher and the rest of the team agreed to simply tolerate it. I think that in future teams, we could have been more open about the problems with feeling too criticised and showed more empathy toward this person who had a need to be the proof-reader of everyone’s work outputs. I did not want to be this finisher and I also wanted more autonomy in work tasks without being overly criticised for quality and direction. One other team member was not as productive as the rest of the team. They wanted only to give their ideas and showed very strong enthuse about their special learning. They had knowledge in certain subjects then the rest of the team and did not fail to show this to everyone. It was viewed as boasting and over-confident. This made social and professional relationships with this person difficult because people saw this person as too prideful and bragging. This again made me want to be the leader because I felt I could better build positive relationships with diverse team members. Entry Five My biggest mistake in the project was not recognising that everyone in the team had different learning styles. For example, some learned through visual while some learned through hands-on experience. I found this frustrating when trying to discuss direction and offer teachings. Some people are called divergers, who are sensitive, like to observe and like to show their imagination and creative (Thorpe, Edwards and Hanson 1993). This diverger type likes to brainstorm and want to discuss most issues of a team with the entire group with a desire for more social discussion (Thorpe, et al.). There are also convergers who are people who like more logic in problem solution. They are technical and have much less need for interpersonal communication. This type likes to solve problems using reason and are frustrated with creativity when logic can be used (Thorpe, et al.). I think that my mistake was not seeing this and letting conflict happen. People showed body language in the team that showed frustration with the diversity of team member learning styles and personalities. My mistake was letting myself also be frustrated with these differences. I think that if I had studied how to work better in teams with very different attitudes, I could have reduced some conflict. I should have been a better leader using strategies from studies in social and psychological that could have made the team perform better. My second biggest mistake was poor time management. When deadlines for tasks were far away, I worked slowly to meet goals. However, this slow work made it hard when the deadline finally arrived, and I grew frustrated when having to crunch research and tasks to meet these deadlines so important for team goals. I learned that time management is very important. I should have worked to block distractions when a task needed to be done on time. This means limiting my use of social media and mobile device in order to get a task done without having to crunch when the deadline finally arrives. Mathews (2015) says this is putting up a do not disturb sign as a means of better time management. Teams rely on members to get their tasks done on time and I learned that time management is important in a business. Especially in a business that needs team working to reach innovation goals and deadlines, like with a new product launch. This inquiry has shown that innovation is achieved through team work and cooperation. If team members are not meeting deadlines for a project, the entire process fails or is delayed. I think that reading up on tips and strategies for dealing with unmotivated team members would be important. I also believe that better time management strategies, other than the do not disturb sign, would help to be a better team member for a business that needs innovation to be competitive and profitable. Entry Six I found the different models of innovation to be most valuable. They showed the cycle of innovations to reach their final market. They also showed the need for planning for change and measuring the impact of these changes. They created a pathway from planning to launch that helps a business leader understand all of the factors that will impact whether the launch is successful. These models gave me new ideas for understanding the business environment. Not just the internal factors, but the external factors as well that will be important for whether a product is accepted by markets. For example, open innovation tells to view the current market, see the new market desired, and other firm’s markets also. I learned the importance of new entry strategies such as licensing to try to drive out competition and also the value chain needed to support the innovation when it is launched. Basically, these models helped to witness sourcing, technology, seeking growth, and how to select the best ideas. I learned that businesses are very diverse and a good leader must be better aware of internal and external issues if innovation is to be profitable. For example I learned that early market entrants can have better reputation with customers and become the model for customers. This becomes a competitive advantage for the first to market business and makes it hard for other firms to gain this type of reputation. Through the inquiry I learned about the importance of a brand and being a first to market innovator is very valuable. This has been seen with companies like Apple that is always a pioneer and makes it hard for new market entrants to enter their market. I also learned to be more valuable as a business leader in finding opportunities. To do this though it is necessary to have a full knowledge of the market conditions. For example, many models like the Ansoff Matrix help to find growth strategies. When a business finds the growth strategy it can actually achieve it can then plan resource allocate. Like realising the business can diversify because it has human capital and financial resource. Then innovation becomes possible to develop new products to serve a new market and prepare the business for growth and expansion. Basic, I learned how to be a better strategic manager to make my business successful when innovations are very important to outperform competitors and gain an edge. I did not understand before the course how innovation was linked with strategy. Being able to give value to investors and shareholders is strategy. Risks and opportunities is strategy. All of these are part of innovation and must be thought of before a business can launch valuable new products. References Arizeta, A., Swailes, S. and Senior, B. (2007). Belbin’s team role model: development, validity and applications for team building, Journal of Management Studies, 44(1), pp.96-118. Belbin, R.M. (1993). Team roles at work. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Grieves, J. (2010). Organisational change: themes and issues. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fairholm, M. (2009). Leadership and organisational strategy, The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 14(1), pp.26-27. King, A. W. (2007). Disentangling interfirm and intrafirm causal ambiguity: A conceptual model of causal ambiguity and sustainable competitive advantage, Academy of Management Review, 32, pp.156-178. Komninos, I. (2002). Product life cycle management, Urban and Regional Innovation Research Unit [online] Available at: http://www.urenio.org/tools/en/Product_Life_Cycle_Management.pdf (accessed 14 April 2015). Mathews, J. (2015). How to manage time with 10 tips that work, Entrepreneur. [online] Available at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/219553 (accessed 15 April 2015). Steensma, H.K., Tihanyi, L., Lyles, M.A. and Dhanaraj, C. (2005). The evolving value of foreign partnerships in transitioning economies, Academy of Management Journal, 48(2), pp.213-234. Stover, M. (2004). Making tacit knowledge explicit, Reference Services Review, 32(2), pp.164-172. Thorpe, M., Edwards, R. and Hanson, A. (1993). Culture and processes of adult learning. London: Routledge. Read More