Developing Business Skills - Example

323LON Developing Business Skills Personal Development Plan Zhiyue Jin Covering the period 08.10 15.12 My Goals: My desireis to achieve a working understanding of the modules that I studying this semester and get a thorough knowledge of how to apply it. My immediate goal is to gain very good grades and build a strong transcript and my longer-term ambition is to gain the ability to apply the things I am learning now to my future China-Europe Commercial Business that I intend to form. Contents 323LON Developing Business Skills 1 SECTION 1: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN 4 SECTION 2: DEVELOPMENT NEEDS ANALYSIS 8 Developmental Need Analysis 9 International Cultural Awareness & Negotiations 10 Communication Skills 10 Personal Management Skills 11 Cognitive Skills & Critical Analysis Competencies 12 Teamwork Skills & Group Competencies 13 Self-Awareness Skills & Abilities 14 Bibliography 16 SECTION 1: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN Code What do I want/need to learn? What will I do to achieve this? What resources or support will I need? What will my success criteria be? Target dates for review and completion. How have I chosen these dates? 1 International Cultural Awareness & Negotiations: Build a strong understanding of current international matters and how they are influenced by elements of cultural practices and evaluate international negotiation skills in issues of significance Conduct a personal inquest into issues of international business/strategic importance, with an emphasis on issues relating to “fracking” and OPEC, Russia’s sanctions and the role of Islamism and terrorism. Connect all issues and cases learnt in the course to these matters and evaluate them in a broad framework. Evaluate media report and try to posit every idea. To this end, important reports from popular global networks like BBC, Al Jazeera and CNN will be evaluated for clarity and further knowledge. - Thorough understanding of important ideas. - Ability to apply these ideas to real examination cases for optimal results - Ability to cite issues in class without barriers and limitations. February 1, 2015 when results of examinations are brought to bear and I get to know my grades and scores. 2 Communication Skills: Ability to encode, decode and communicate messages appropriately - Emphasis on written and oral presentations in class and in different settings. Communicate actively in class and prepare three personal presentations on important essay topics to provide a broad overview of the ideas and concepts. Read one recommended textbook on communication skills. Complete all communication activities in class and try to partake in all feedback activities where possible. -Active participation in every class interaction - Personal presentation of class materials in three main areas; - Develop a rapport with teachers in order to ask them to independently review my communication works. December 31: After I prepare all my slide with course overviews and assess my participation in all class activities as well as private performance with teachers. 3 Personal Management Skills: Understand important project management skills and techniques and transpose them to my personal management life and connect it to important real-life issues I need to understand project management skills and competencies and learn how to apply them to real-life situations and matters in order to achieve the best and most optimal skills and competencies. I will apply these personal management skills to my personal journal and try to utilize them to achieve important targets in at least 5 areas of competency including my examinations and learning Ensuring that a work break down structure is created and applied to all my projects and activities that will lead to my familiarization, critical learning and preparation leading to the examinations. This WBS will be based on the time, resources and other constraints relating to my studies. The time for the formulation of a conclusion will be right after presenting this assignment on the 22nd of December, 2014. This will be the concluding activity I will be part of in the semester. 4 Cognitive Skills & Critical Analysis Competencies: This will involve my ability to critically read, analyze and deduce important findings from articles and other activities. In this process, I will move from the traditional Chinese rote learning to a situation and point whereby I will critically analyse things and connect them to real-life situations and matters in relation to my examination targets as well as my quest to form an international business. This will involve reading materials and relevant textbooks, critically jotting down what I think the documents mean. From there, I will personally set questions for myself and try to explain the right answer. This will include practical scenarios relating to a Chinese-European or Chinese-American entity. Documentation of the obviously correct answers and trends. In cases where answers are not so straight-forward, I would consult a relevant professor or tutor for help. Feedback will be known by the 24th of December when I compile all my critical study materials and personally analyse and review it. 5 Teamwork Skills & Group Competencies: This will include my participation and results from group work and other team activities. Critically evaluate and analyse my contribution to group work and document it. Include my individual contribution to every group work that I will do and from there, evaluate the group’s performance. Read Woodcock’s book on group formation and performance. This will guide me in analyzing the elements of the journal entries that I will make. This will guide my analysis of my position in the team and how our performance ranked. Assess and evaluate the group’s results and activities. This will include the ranking of our performance levels in relation to each of the six stages of Woodcock’s classification. This is to be completed by the 30th of November when the grades for group assignments will be received. 6 Self-Awareness Skills & Abilities: Evaluating my emotional intelligence in relation to the end that our professors want us to achieve and also evaluate the appropriate level of emotional intelligence I need to build and run a successful Chinese international trade entity. Apply emotional intelligence grids and standards to evaluate the targeted results expected of me as a UK undergraduate student. Extrapolate by applying the models to small or medium sized international entities ran by entrepreneurs under the age 30. From there compare and contrast with my abilities. Conduct a SWOT analysis of my abilities in relation to emotional intelligence in the academic sense and the prospective business context Deduce my emotional strengths and weaknesses, evaluate them and draw a plan for improvement and enhancement of my abilities. Complete this by the 15th of November before the examinations begin so I maintain focus and understanding. SECTION 2: DEVELOPMENT NEEDS ANALYSIS A personal development plan is a structured system through which a person directs his competencies and energies in order to achieve certain stated ends or goals. “Development plans are the end product of a process in which you analyse your strengths, weaknesses, experiences and consider what the next steps could be for you”(Tassoni, 2013, p. 16). Therefore in development plans, a person does an honest assessment of his or her qualities and streamline efforts to attain desired ends over a given time horizon. Development plans are aimed at improving the current competency of an individual albeit in a structured and conscious context whereby resources are appropriately defined and utilised for the attainment of optimal results (Nolan, et al., 2012). Development has different facades and this includes education, experience and ethics and these are streamlined in a way and manner that an individual can achieve the best and most important results in the foreseeable future (Mumford, 2011). The emphasis of personal development plans involve the fact that a worker is made to take control of his or her personal development and this comes with the flexibility of setting and changing timescales and goals and also help a person to think through the future of his growth and development (Tassoni, 2014). However, some scholars identify that the most significance importance of personal development planning is that it aids in providing a basis for career development reviews and analysis (Armstrong, 2013). Developmental Need Analysis Personal development plans (PDPs) are created with the view of concentrating the effort and competencies of an individual into the creation and attainment of specified ends. Therefore, it involves the evaluation of the career and professional pathway of an individual and the streamlining of important competencies in order to achieve this end (Sambrook & Stewart, 2012). In most cases, there are personal and individual learning objectives that are complemented by other long-term needs and desires that might not be feasible to evaluate at the point at which the PDP is being prepared (Robinson & Simpson, 2014). The details of my personal developmental needs and desires are spelt out in my personal journal. And in the process, I want to focus on two main ends. The primary end, which I seek to achieve in the short-run is to gain the educational, ethical and experiential knowledge expected of a UK trained business professional. Therefore, I expect to gain important insights and knowledge into how things are done and evaluated. My family made the major sacrifice to bring me to the UK to study because they want me to gain the benefit of studying and mastering the English culture. Therefore, my primary objective is to gain the best grades possible and gain the best competencies I could get in this learning environment. However, as a personal ambition, I hope to set up my own international business coordinating entity that will connect businesses from Europe, the United States and Canada with business opportunities in China. This will be done by managing a large portfolio of basic entities including online shops and other large technologically based entities (for details, see personal journal). International Cultural Awareness & Negotiations There are numerous external environmental variables that define the way and manner in which a business operates and this forms the basis and the crux for decision-making in the real-life business environment (Kotler, 2013). Thus, most businesses in the international sphere will need to conduct PESTEL analysis and this is done by examining things of strategic importance. For any business to succeed, its management must be able to do the right forecasts and analyse variables appropriately. Therefore, I hope to understand the implication of important variables in the current international environment in order to identify how they affect organisational behaviour and the international business environment. I therefore, want to be able to connect issues and draw logical conclusions that will be able to affect my future firm and organisation. This will therefore mean I have to get a critical understanding of important matters in the present dispensation and be able to conduct forecasting with them in order to draw conclusions. I hope to include these variables in all decision-making patterns and interactions in academic matters. Details of activities can be found in Appendix 1 of my personal journal. Communication Skills Communication skills involve the ability to encode, communicate and decode messages in the best way and manner possible to achieve various competencies and ends (Hellinger & Pauwels, 2013). This is a highly important end that all institutions seek to achieve in their students. However, the focus is often placed on academic wellbeing and the achievement of great academic gains with little or no conscious effort to teach communication related matters in institutions of higher learning (Menelly, 2010). I will seek to achieve results in communicating comprehensively and precisely in order to achieve the targets and aims of every communication assignment I need. Therefore, I need to do some reading and critical evaluations in order to get important insights into communication and its related activities. I hope to do some personal practical works and activities in order to showcase my abilities to teachers and professors for reviews and an insight into my thoughts. Personal Management Skills I have come to understand and accept that the most significant and the most important skills for resolving issues and matters is through the use of project management. This is the art and science of completing definite tasks within defined deadlines in order to achieve specific ends (Hill, 2009). Thus to achieve the best and most relevant results in personal management, I will want to directly apply the principles of project management to practical issues in order to achieve direct results. Project management begins with the breakdown of work and this involves the definition of strict and clear deadlines and resource constraints. An example of a Work Breakdown Structure is presented below: This is a model that is used as a system and a means through which work can be categorised. Personally, after reading about Project Management, I realized it is a better option for planning my life than all other models. Therefore, I took reasonable steps and measures to create a project management plan for my studies. I seek to apply it in my studies and activities in order to organise myself, achieve various objectives within certain constraints and gain the best results. The definite ends are shown in Appendix 4 of the study journal. Cognitive Skills & Critical Analysis Competencies In Appendix 3 of my personal journal, I have outlined the elements of the differences between studying in the Chinese culture and the Western culture. The main difference is that China’s Buddhist and Communist cultures require people to accept absolute truths without questioning it. On the other hand, the British culture shows that people must evaluate and analyse things in order to draw independent conclusions in issues and matters. Thinking and evaluation is an important tool for the achievement of optimal results in academic courses and journals. Therefore, I have a target of reading certain books and using their philosophies to plan and organise my life. This includes books that indicate that the best way of learning is to read the text and jot it down and try to apply it to real-life situations and scenarios. Therefore, I planned to use that approach to learn this year. I critiqued and analysed important ideas and used it to evaluate and assess issues relating to my course. Whenever any external analysis came up, I utilised the Chinese trading firm I desire to form as a means of evaluating my thoughts and ideas. Teamwork Skills & Group Competencies By far, Woodcock provides the most practical and most outstanding views on how groups are formed and made to excel in the work environment. Therefore, I sought to use his book as a means to promote my group membership competencies and abilities. I hope to use his interesting dichotomy of forming, storming, norming, performing and dorming (Sambrook & Stewart, 2012) as the basis through which I could evaluate and analyse every group work I do in the semester Through this, I hope to evaluate the dynamics of groups and use it as a basis to examine and assess the effectiveness functions of my individual and group performance activities. Self-Awareness Skills & Abilities I conducted a personal SWOT analysis in my review that can be found in Appendix 2 of my personal journal. It provides important clues and directions relating to the abilities and competencies that I have and can utilise in achieving my personal ends in practice and in various activities. The Johari window guided me in evaluating my potential and identifying my competencies and abilities. This unearthed the abilities that I could potentially have and those that could be brought out in future through the identification of important events. This is to provide me with important guidance on how to become a better individual in education and to my colleagues at work. Bibliography Armstrong, M., 2013. Managing People: A Practical Guide for Line Managers. 4th ed. London: Kogan Page. Hellinger, M. & Pauwels, A., 2013. Handbook of Language and Communication: Diversity and Change. Amsterdam: Walter de Gruyter. Hill, G. M., 2009. The Complete Project Management Methodology and Toolkit. New York : CRC. Kotler, P., 2013. Competitive Advantage. 12t ed. London: SAGE. Menelly, D. P., 2010. Lessons in Communication: A Study of the Integration of Western Businesses. Indianapolis, IN: Xlibris Publishing. Mumford, A., 2011. How Managers Can Develop Managers. 3rd ed. Surrey: Gower Publishing. Nolan, Y., Moonie, N. & Lavers, S., 2012. Scottish or National Vocational Qualification level 3. 3rd ed. London: Heinemann. Robinson, P. & Simpson, L., 2014. E-Appraisal: A Guide for Primary Care. New York: Radcliffe Publications. Sambrook, S. & Stewart, J., 2012. Human Resource Development in the Public Sector:. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Tassoni, P., 2013. Playwork: S/NVQ Level 3. London: Heinemann. Tassoni, P., 2014. Childrens Care, Learning and Development Candidate Handbook. 2nd ed. London: Heinemann. Read More