Cross Cultural Sensitization - Personal Statement Example

My career objective is to establish myself as an entrepreneur so that I can fulfill my career goals and also discharge social responsibilities by being able to generate employment in my country and also serve the people’s needs with products that may help them in enhancing the standard of their lives. I had realized that though I possessed a great deal of motivation and excitement to follow through but I needed learning of business management to increase my chances of my success. I started searching for a course to prepare me for a graduate degree in business management and then came across this Foundation course from MMU. My purpose for attending the course was specifically to prepare myself for formal learning of business management. My expectations from the course included sufficient exposure to business management concepts, to develop an aptitude for the learning of business management, and an environment which is both exciting and challenging. The foundation course has done what I had envisaged before taking admission. The subjects that I have studied in Term 1 and term 2 have stimulated my mind to think as a business manager now I understand how a piece of news which may not seem to have anything to do with business or economics can have its impact on the economic or business environment. Having read the book, “Understanding organizations” by HANDY C. has provided me sufficient exposure the concepts of business management like Motivation, role, power and influence, group dynamics, leadership, organizational structure etc has stimulated my mind to think in terms of organizational context. Before attending the course though I had seen lot of organizations like my school, my father’s company etc but my mind never thought on how salaries are to be decided and how do they structure the organization etc but this course has sensitized my mind to generate those questions, now looking at any organization I wonder how the roles would have been laid down, authorities delegated, people are motivated or led etc. but I am nowhere near to be answer these questions and that’s where I believe my final degree in business management will help. But this foundation course has done what it was supposed to do. The learning from Heilbroner is what is above the expectations as I had not thought about these concepts and would have never been able to understand how these issue would impact me or my company but having read that all has stimulated my mind to see or read some thing the first thing that come sto mind is what is it going to with the industry I am interested in and the overall business scenario and how? The recent financial crisis has proved phenomenal in terms of its teaching potential about business, regulation, saving etc. My course was just at the right time to complement that learning. The learning about how an organization works is very important for understanding how businesses operate, as I want to start my own business this learning was very crucial for me when I had joined this course. Has the course lived up to my needs? The question is something I may not be able to answer but I can certainly mention that what I have learned is what I will surely need in my career. The course has certainly surpassed my expectations in the sense that what I thought of gaining from the course, I believe I have gained. Here are a few things that I have learned about how an organization works. Learning fro specific seminars Roles and interaction – Beblin 1970 defined Team role as ““A tendency to behave, contribute and interrelate with others in a particular way.”. He also suggested nine different roles that are played by team members. I believe I mostly play the role of a resource investigator and my professional objective is to be an entrepreneur. Before understanding these concepts I had faced trouble working as a group member because of role incompatibility as at times there would be different expectations of other group members from me and my own idea of my role as a group member which would mostly be of networking with outsiders and mobilizing the resources, but having studied these concepts and applying them during my foundation course I have improved as a team member as I now ensure that I clearly spell out what to expect from me from the start only. The role theory by (HANDY C. (1993)) has helped in seeing distortions in my perception like stereotyping, halo effect etc which will help me in managing better working environment in my teams endeavours. Motivation Robbins S and Judge T define motivation “as the processes that account for an individual’s intensity, direction, and persistence of effort toward attaining goal”. The concepts of psychological contract between employee and the organization and Self concept (I) which are central to Charles Handy’s (2003) Motivation theory explain a great deal about motivation process. Motivation, being one of the most crucial aspects of any organizational leadership, the understanding of it can help us both personally and professionally. During the course, my own self concept has been clearly defined which will help me in taking better decisions both personally and professionally. I will have a clear idea of what my “Self concept” is and how over the period would it reflect the changes going around in my life. The knowledge of different types of psychological contracts like Coercive, calculative and cooperative (Handy C 1993) will be crucial in determining my own leadership style. Though I still need to grasp the concept of which psychological contract is best suited for which type of situation. The concept of power and influence This concept has taught one of the most important aspects of leadership. As a leader we often have to change attitude or behavior of others. Though before attending the course I had always taught that was able to influence others but at times I had realized that my way of influencing didn’t work and now looking in hindsight I realize the problem was with the power I had tried to use. Though I had known much more on certain subjects than my parents but as a child whenever I tried to influence them with my knowledge power it didn’t quite work, but which had worked with my school juniors or friends. The concept of power will be of great importance of me when I will be structuring my organization as I will have to see how much power will I hold and of what type and I will also hand over power to my second in command so that they can influence those reporting in to them. The concept of power will also be important in my relationship with my customers. Knowing which power to use with them will help me better influence them than as compared to my competitors. After attending the course I have come to appreciate that there may different powers to influence different people or the same people but in different situations On Being a Manager The learning from this section has been very crucial as before joining the course though I had an idea of what I would do when I would start my business but having understood Henry Mintzberg’s ten roles played by a manager, now I have realized that as a manager I will have to play several roles covering the range of informational, interpersonal and decision making roles, and more importantly I will utilize this learning along with the learning of role theory that in my organization there are least instances of role ambiguity, role conflict and thus role stress will be checked. The concept of manager as a general practitioner, as propounded by Charles Handy (1999) is quite interesting and telling that actually a manager’s role is too broad and eclectic to be captured in given role title or designation. I have learned the systematic approach to problem solving by identifying symptoms, diagnosing causes, formulating strategy and implementing the decision like a general practitioner does. As a future manager I need to appreciate the dilemma that a manager has to face as reported by Handy (1999) so that I work out strategy to deal with management stress as per the ways suggested by him. And finally since my business will be operating in an environment fraught with global competition and greater environmental concerns I need to be sensitized towards changing expectations from a manager as labor market is undergoing changes like increasing participation by female workforce, workforce diversity, demand for affirmative action. Group Working The way people, as part of a group, work may be quite different from the way they would work if they were to work alone. And an organization is basically a group of diverse groups working to achieve goals at different levels. If people working in a group do not agree on certain points that may lead to conflict, which though potentially a good thing for an organization’s overall development but if not managed properly, may prove to be dysfunctional and lead to lot of wastage and problems in an organization. Thus how people behave differently when they are part of group is an important learning for any manager to ensure maximum productivity and efficiency in the organization. I have learned the concepts like factors that determine the effectiveness of a group, which a as manger I would find very useful when managing teams in my work setting. The concepts like “Group think”, “Group cohesiveness” and “Social Loafing“ all are very practical and applicable in the work setting. As a manager I will strive to increase the group cohesiveness which would bind the organization and lower down the social loafing which mars the group productivity. In the short term the learning of group concept will be very helpful in improving my productivity as a good team player during my studies also. Change and Politics What I learned here is the importance of politics and competition for an organization’s growth. Handy by his statement “competition, even at the cost of distorting the rational structure, may be the economic thing to do” (Handy, C, 1999, pg.293), clearly put across his views that competition is, what makes an organization grow, though it may lead to disagreement, but the overall growth and development that people achieved by competing can compensate for that. The concept of open and closed competition is what I find most interesting though I am yet to figure out on how to draw the fine line between the two. This learning will help me not only in surviving my self but thriving also in an organization. And when I would start my own business I will have to come back to these concepts to fully appreciate how to utilize the functional aspects of conflicts and competition and guarding my organization against the dysfunctional ones. As mostly the symptoms of the conflicts can easily be confused with the causes of the conflict which usually are the goals, ideologies and territories. Thus as the initiator of the business, I will see that my organization design should curb these factors rather than fostering them. Apart from this I have also been sensitized towards the importance of change for an organizations survival. People Development in organization This learning satisfies the most urgent need of a student like me who is at the juncture of taking most crucial decision of his/her life i.e. making career choice. This chapter introduced concepts like career planning, individual learning, group learning which I believe will help me both in short and long run. As the major emphasis of the lecture was on the human resource management I learned a great deal about the subject. The performance appraisal system, compensation planning all will be of great use when I will work for some organization and then starting up on my own. I have learned about how to develop people in an organization which will be of great importance because these days, environment changes very fast and your employees must keep on updating themselves on changing technology, management practices and changing consumer behavior. The assignment part of this chapter mandated me to prepare my own skill inventory in light of current skills I posses and my future goals, thus this led me to do a lot of self awareness analysis which has helped me a lot in terms of deciding my right career choice and charting out plan for my development. Organizational Design This has exposed me to an important aspect of a manager’s task. The learning of organizational design is very important as organizational structuring is not an easy task; Handy (1999) had described organization as community of people and not structure of machine, which means that an organization is more than the sum total of all the individual working in it. People don’t always act very rationally, so the issues like power, conflict, jealous, ego clashes have to be kept in mind along with other operational issues like task structuring etc while designing an organization. The organizational structure designing process has to deal with challenges like striking the right balance between uniformity and diversity. Though I have learned to appreciate these issues but I need more learning to be able to take these decisions when I start my own business or even if I work for some organization. Before joining the course, economics never made so much sense to me, I even didn’t wonder how this entire economy thing played out. But after attending the course, I can certainly say that now I wonder, I still may not get all the answers to my questions but I believe as the starting point even being sensitized to wonder is a good learning. To be able to quench my curiosity I believe I would need more knowledge which is what my future studies or the habit of following the news would fulfill. Some of the specific things that I learned from economic lectures (Heilbroner) I learned how economics thoughts have evolved over the period from 1700 AD to now. Early most thoughts were characterized by the optimism of Adam Smith with his quite soothing concept of “An invisible hand” that guides the market and ensures welfare for both rich and poor. The concept of “Law of Market” gave me a new idea which I could easily relate, by taking a very close example of our university only, in a batch if every students vies to get highest marks that would increase the average marks of a batch or classroom and if different classes (sections) vie to get highest average marks the entire college will finds its average marks increasing which will perpetuate and would increase the overall average marks across the world provided people are motivated to compete and win. But then what about arms’ race which I read somewhere in Game theory. The market system of demand and supply has given me a very basic but powerful idea about how prices determine everything in the market which I will surely need when running my own business. Then the exposure to the pessimistic view of Malthus and Ricardo about the overall damage towards which societies headed or society’s dependence on unfortunate events like famine or drought for its survival was quite a paradoxical idea at first but then it forced me to think critically. One thing that I categorically learned, is we need to keep challenging our own thoughts and we can simply blindly believe them for ever. On a more formal note this also gave me an idea how it’s the economics which determines politics etc. So as a businessman or even as a citizen economics is not something which economists have to care about even we businesses have a great deal to do with what economics teaches us. I learned how to see the impact of various economic / political events on a particular industry or business which I believe is very important part of business planning and forecasting. Then the learning about the ideas of utopian socialists suggested an alternative system may also exist to support society. Mill’s concept of separation of distribution from production and giving more emphasis on distribution challenged my own thinking again, but learning Mill’s ideas, as great contributions as it was called, about educating society to decrease birth rate shook me that why didn’t it come to me when I was reading about Malthus and Ricardo and their pessimistic views. The concept of pressure groups as a future businessman did not frighten me at all, though I had worked on an assignment to study about two companies challenged by pressure groups. Knowing and reading about Bill Gates and Warren Buffet provided the moral support. Reading about Karl Marx and his philosophy would have been thought provoking and disturbing, had we not witnessed the recent financial turmoil manifesting near collapse of capitalism. I don’t think that I have gained the knowledge to be able to decipher all what is going around but I, for sure, have been sensitized enough towards understanding them all. Some of the skills that I believe as highly required in business management and that I have improved after attending the course: 1) Interpersonal skills – Team work and assignments 2) Communication skills – Writing and speaking English 3) Reading skills - After reading diverse topics 4) Searching skills on net – All the assignments and portfolio making has helped here 5) Conceptual skills – Reading philosophical views of Karl Marx, Adam Smith , Charles Handy etc has helped 6) Awareness about business environment - 7) Cross cultural sensitization – studying in differ country with diverse group Overall my learning has been great, as the foundation course has taught me how to generate ideas and then challenge them. My final degree selection has been made easy by this course, as earlier I had thought Human resources would be my option which has been reinforced by the course. My both, individual and group learning have been great here, as for individual learning all the determining factors like desire to learn, awareness of culture and time and space allocation, have been favorable and so have been the factors for group learning, thanks to the culture, environment and infrastructure of the university. As the last thought, the assignments and other exercises have really taught me how to stretch myself beyond my self - defined limits. Read More