Self-Awareness and Career Management Feedback - Essay Example

?I believe that I need to work towards success. Yet success in itself can be a pipe dream, which could blow at any given time as we have seen in the Dubai debacle and the careers attached with it. As such there is something deeper and more intrinsic to me that needs to be coupled with success. I would like to call this significance. I also believe that significance is a combination of that which stirs within me, and how it matches with the circumstances in the world outside. Therefore, as I look at this path towards the management of my career I believe I am also looking towards a means of self-management. The essence of self-Management is self-awareness. You cannot manage anything without adequate and accurate information. The same applies to the management of self. I will be looking carefully at my MBTI results and analyzing them. Any single one of these instruments need not be accurate and sufficient in it self. If a combination of them is pointing me in a similar direction there could be something, which is of importance there. As such I would also look at the feedback that I have received from my colleagues. And then summarise these using the Johari window. I would however like to begin with what I call are my core cultural values. Core Cultural Values Theses are values, which have moulded me to what I am today, and make me function the way I do. Discovering them has been a journey, which is still in progress. The initial uncovering of these values began with me understanding something about my family of origin. My family is a close knit entrepreneurial family. One of the core values of my family of origin is family honour. Right and wrong have been important elements of my family. However when it comes to family honour they can be clouded. While I have seen that most of my friends in the west appear to look down on this. I see this as something that can be very comparable to the team ethic that is being increasingly talked about in the business studies arena and in corporate language. In my newfound western setting my belief then is that team goals must supersede individual goals. As my personality goes this is very difficult for me, and I have to remind myself that I have to function in this manner. This is difficult for me as seen from my timeline in appendix ‘1’. I have been a very successful student. Success in studies is an individual success, and defeat in academics is largely an individual defeat. As seen it is only in my adult life that I have started to enjoy and be good at sports. This has begun to moderate my individual yearnings. Individual success in studies has worked well for me as it has enlarged family pride. Due to this it has been well supported by my family. In my adult life I have begun to step out of the family business and flap my wings in a more management type setting than my family entrepreneurial setting. I soon realize that I cannot take support from people around me for granted like in a family setting. I have to earn this support, and there was somewhat of a learning curve before I understood, that to get support you have to give support. This was somewhat foreign to me until I looked at my colleagues as team members. When I began to look at them, as family it became even easier. I am still very individualistic but realize that I need the support of those around me, which is not a given. It has to be earned. Earned by supporting them. The second aspect of core cultural values comes from my religious beliefs. My faith has been an integral part of me. While my belief is very fatalistic, it has still also taught me to believe that I can make a difference. Living with this two-sided tension has not been easy, until a friend pointed out that it is a good thing, which can cause me to mature very fast. I have tried to hold onto that explanation in recent times. While God is taking care of things in this world according to his plan that he wants me to make my contribution as well. This has caused me to come to an understanding that I cannot leave problems to be attended by other people. On one hand I understand that I cannot solve most problems alone, while on the other I am comfortable holding onto the understanding that I could still make a difference. This was very difficult to practice in the family business setting. However with me moving over into a non family business and now overseas to study, I have begun to see that, something’s can be changed, but something’s must be attempted to be changed even if they do not succeed. Accepting that a situation is an unchangeable status quo is very rarely a good answer. This religious ethic has taught me to work hard and look for improvements that can be made even if they might not change all circumstances overnight. Insight From Myers Briggs I would like at this point to understand what my MBTI results means to me, and then compare them in relation to my core cultural values. My MBTI results indicate that I am an ISTJ. As seen in appendix ‘2’ the most dominant variable is that I am a thinking person with a high score of 15. At the outset I would agree with this and compares in accordance with what I have discussed about myself up until now. On a general basis I am indicated as Introverted, Sensing, Thinking and Judging. In terms of this commentators have pointed out that ISTJ’s have a strong sense of right and wrong, and they are noted for devotion and duty. In terms of the family honour ethic that has been indicated by me, this could be agreed upon. The sense of judgment has sometimes been skewed however due to the same family honour ethic, and I now perceive that my decision to move out of the family business and to be involved with a more corporate environment could be due to this sense of judgment that is prevalent. “ISTJ’s thrive on deep analysis of their surroundings”.( Barron-Tieger, et al. 1995). While I am somewhat reserved even considered cold and aloof, I do engage my surroundings internally, and I am very analytical. This does causes a level of discomfort when I am faced up with social issues in atmosphere where most people want me to accept it as a given status quo. One area where I would like to disagree with my MBTI indicator is that I do believe that I am intuitive. Though I am duty bound I have found myself acting swiftly and decisively when I know something needs to be fixed, even though I cannot explain my actions logically. Which makes me feel that I am somewhat intuitive but this did not obviously surface when I answered the questions. “‘T’ organises and schedules ideas and the environment to ensure the efficient, productive pursuit of objectives. ‘T’ seeks logical explanations for actions, events, and conclusions, looking for faulty reasoning and lapses in sequence.” (Cognitive Process retrieved 2009). In my family setting I appear to have used this more than others, though it has been somewhat moderated due to the way our family operates. I sincerely believe that whether you sense something or intuitively act towards something they need to be logically thought through either before or after as evaluation. The current course has been giving me the ability to get a handle on this and I am very appreciative of this. My faith that I can make a difference propels me to avoid being in a fatalistic mode and to believe that I have the instrumentality to make significant changes. These changes will have to be worked out on a step up basis and therefore requires a good process where the results and the environment are constantly analyzed. The following statement summarisation about ISTJ’s come through as accurate to me, and a suitable description of myself in most situations. “Quiet, serious, earn success by thoroughness and dependability. Practical, matter-of-fact, realistic, and responsible. Decide logically what should be done and work toward it steadily, regardless of distractions. Take pleasure in making everything orderly and organized – their work, their home, their life. Value traditions and loyalty”. (Myers Briggs, d.a)) I do often tend to work for long periods and end up being very eager to fulfil goals, which I deem as important. There has been quite some stress in my family business setting when effort has been required of me to do something, which is quite futile. I am of the opinion that I work best when working alone, but I can work well with others if the situation calls for it. Nevertheless I like to report on what I have done and have a responsible person give me feedback on it. This could arise form the fact that I like to be recognized by being given responsibility. I have many ideas thoughts about many things but do not like to engage in hours of conversation on these if they don’t seem to make a difference to someone or something. Based on my reading of ISTJ’s this seems to be quite close to the general description, other than for the fact that I believe that I am an intuitive person as well. Having reflected on my family of origin, the time line of my life and interposed with the MBTI, I would now like to use the peer feedback on appendix ‘5’, to complete the self-assessment and then summarise the information using the Johari window. In the peer assessment that has been given to me and attached in the appendices section the single telling remark is that I did not set out to help my colleagues. This is at total crossroads with my concept of family honour and the equivalent team ethic I have been focusing on. Breaking this down I believe that I am often caught up with my own ideas and what I sense, that I do not put myself into my colleagues shoes. The other factor of this feedback is that I could be virtually trapped onto my own logic that I do not see synergy of ideas as an effective strategy. I believe that the basic blind spot that I have to overcome is that I am listening to people with my thoughts in mind. Instead I need to become an active listener. The other is that I struggle to present a successful case as do not incorporate team views sufficiently. These would then be the two hidden areas of the Johari window for me, which is included in the Appendix ‘4’. Career Planning Prior to engaging in the exercise of setting developmental and career goals I would like to use some salient points from “Skills for Success: The Personal Development Handbook, by Stella Cottrell to set the basis for this exercise.” Stella states, “Creative thinking tends to be characterized by a drive to find the very best solution, continually looking for an even better, or quicker, or more effective, or more elegant solution. If you are happy with the first idea that comes along, then there is no real spur to creative thought. An element of moderate dissatisfaction, or an edge of perfectionism, encourages the creative process.”(Cottrell S. 2003) She also proceeds to give five clear steps which can be used to enhance creativity; Avoid satisfaction with one solution, Test it against different levels of pressure, feed brain with different expectations, experiment with ideas that might not relate directly to answers, give brain down time to process above, keep working on the plan. Having moved from a family entrepreneurship to a corporate entity, and having identified that I am a committed person who likes to make an a difference in my world I was thinking of another option after my course of studies are done, which is working with an Non Governmental Organisation. This is the second idea. Invigorating creative in Stella’s advice I also want to put down a third idea which is being associated with a “For profit charity”. “Non-profit social entrepreneurs often struggle to scale up their innovations without adequate access to the growth capital, distribution systems and infrastructure readily available to conventional businesses. Rather than accepting these limitations, many are increasingly pursuing hybrid models that draw from the best of both worlds, incorporating traditional business structures and strategies to achieve a social bottom line”(Social Edge, 2008). My career plan will be discussed in the light of the hybrid model called a for-profit charity. This is going to be a groundbreaking development in my country. I will definitely have to overcome the dual blind spots in my persona and develop active listening, as well as the ability to present a case. The smart plan for this purpose is available in the appendix ‘3’. I would like to mention here that once I return to my home country I would be giving myself a period of two years to fully implement the five steps of creative enhancement as specified by Stella. I would test the concept of a for profit charity against the pressure of my family, non-governmental organisation operating in the country and other profit-organisations. I would then test this against different levels of acceptance in terms of different levels of structure, different levels of acceptance by community leaders, customers amongst whom I intend making a profit and the recipients of whatever benefit I plan to provide. While the idea is to head such an organization the possibilities of starting the plan by working for an NGO which works amongst my planned recipients, then moving on to a partnership. By starting with a current NGO I hoping that I will gain much needed knowledge on what is actually needed for the recipients and what are the gaps in the current focus on this group. As I do not plan to compete with the NGO, on the contrary when I start making profits even to disburse some through NGO’s I do not see this as ethically wrong. The partnership is also an effective tool to overcome my blind spots, and be in that family type team format which I am so used to. References Barron-Tieger, Barbara; Tieger, Paul D. Do what you are: discover the perfect career for you through the secrets of personality type. Boston: Little, Brown.1995. Print "Cognitive Processes: Extraverted thinking". Retrieved 2009-05-12. Electronic http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/the-16-mbti-types.asp Cottrell S. "Skills for Success" Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 2003 Print http://www.socialedge.org/features/skoll-world-forum/skoll-world-forum-2008-sessions/swf2008-03. Electronic. Appendix 1 Event Description Early Life Primary Education Very Successful Teen And Adolescent years Entered Sports Arena Secondary Education Struggled but succeeded Very Successful Adult Life Involved in Family business Moved to a Corporate Entity Tertiary Education Fully accepted, promised a bright future. Had to work for a secure future. Goals and aspirations being changed and moulded Appendix ‘2’:Myers Briggs Questionnaire Appendix ‘3’ : Action Plan Objective Opportunity for development Measurable by Achievable Through Relevant because Timescale Principles of Communication First semester Next Year 360 degree feedback before and after Understanding the principles and effect of components better -To understand weaknesses better First Academic semester 2012 Active Listening Seminar Practical exercises and Cycle of performance and evaluation To know what the other is really saying modules -To get the Future target job Jan – March 2012 Presentation Skills Immediately Feedback from instructor and colleagues Ability to put across a case Increase acceptance of thoughts presented Balance of year 2011 Join Toastmasters From 2012 June Scoring by experts Asking for advice and guidance -Increase confidence Next two years Source: www.mentoring.scot.nhs.uk/ Appendix ‘4’:Johari Window Public Self Dependable and faithful. Committed and Conscientious. Crusader mentality on social issues. Appreciated for the attention that is given to detail, and for the analytical ability shown with plans. Blind Spots Active listening Ability to present a case. Hidden Self Struggle with issues of right and wrong and faithfulness. Sacrificing team goals for individual goals. Get anxious and tired when plans and projects do not move on. Do not have much patience with niceties. Unknown area ?? Appendix ‘5’: Peer Feedback Read More