Energy and Organizational Sustainability - Essay Example

Innovation: Change, Energy and Organizational Sustainability Skills of the manager and the skills I want to develop A manger is a leader in all essence, the aim of good management is to provide services to the community in an appropriate, efficient, equitable, and sustainable manner. A manager should have a vision which he ensures that is achieved. A manager should be able to motivate people to achieve, negotiate for resources and other support to achieve their goals. It is the responsibility of the mangers to ensure that the available resources are well organized and applied to produce the best result. An effective manger will have skills such as; clarity of purpose and task; good organizational skills; ability to communicate tasks and expected results effectively; ability to negotiate various administrative and regulatory processes; good delegation skills. I will to develop some skills that will ensure that I have brought superior performance in any line of duty that I am given. This will assure my competence in all aspect. The first one is to develop my management and leadership skills; this will ensure that I set priorities, delegate, motivate and develop my subordinate, and coach them to become top performers as well as communicate objectives and goals. It will be also essential that I develop proper and effective communication skills; this will always make me to get my point across, enhance that I have a compelling presentation to support my goals; it will also ensure that I inspire others to achieve better results and demonstrate emotional intelligence. The other skill that will develop is collaboration skills, this will guarantee that I value and celebrate differences, I build rapport, I am capable of forming alliances and negotiating effectively. Critical thinking will be very useful; anything that involves innovation will require a critical thinking and logic skills. This will ensure that I solve a problem logically, research options, avoid biases and focus on meaningful date to draw the right the right conclusion. The skill assessment exercise is very useful as it makes made me acquire the skills that are beyond the skill one learns in college, university or any formal learning institution. The skill assessment exercise enabled me to gain better understanding of my strengths and weakness. I was also able to be really excited about my joy and the tasks related to the job description this made me to very motivate from all aspects in relation to challenges and benefits. It is through the exercise that examined my values and interests; I determined how my talents and skills can be best used to make use of my role in the task. I learned how to take charge of my career and life choices, as this will enable me to have a thoughtful career development. An understanding of my personal and work value were really gained during the exercise. Finally the exercise helped to relate between the life experiences that I received during my life experience such as upbringing, environment, gender, culture, socioeconomic status and how I will relate to the wicked problem to accomplish my job. Problems I foresee for the group exercise and how to confront the wicked problem The group is comprised of different people with different personality, for this reason differences between the members of the group will be inevitable as everyone in the group is passionate. Conflicts may arise in the group, strong, differing, position will be argued at some instances in the group. The argument might lead to a very heated and tense debate that can make members to take sides; this will make the team to have some form of disunity. I can also foresee a situation whereby there will be mistrust or uneven communication. This will happen because some people will be dominating when we are forming a conversation, others will sit in silence and appear to have dropped out of the conversation. Those in silent might be having brilliant ideas that could help the group but instead they remain silent. Another problem is that of personality clash, the personalities of the group members are different and this can cause conflict among team members, as a manager and a leader it will be my responsibility to handle the personality difference. Power issues and personal will also unleash itself in the group, this is because some of the members in the group don’t fit well in the group. These problems that will be experience in the group exercise, though they are challenges they can be transformed to enhance a healthy co-existence of the group. Wicked problems are not actually "problems" in the sense of having well defined and stable problem statements. They are too messy for this, which is why they have also been called social messes and unstructured reality (Ackoff, 1974; Horn, 2001). One of the way to confront the wicked problem is to develop an exhaustive inventory for the conceivable solutions ahead of time (Rittel & Webber’s, 2013). It will be important not to take into accounts of stakeholders’ opinions as they might be giving opinions that favor their personal interest, their special value-sets, and their ideological preferences. The other method of dealing with the problem is acquiring the art of knowing the type of solution to apply. This means keeping the option open long enough to explore as many relationships in the problem topology as possible, before starting to formulate a solution. It will be very important to know that every wicked problem more often than not is considered to be a symptom of the other, and this will enable one to handle the other wicked problem before it may rise. The last technique of confronting wicked problem is to be part of the potential ‘victims’ of the planning that is going to be placed (Ritchey, 2011). Decisions on the boundaries for our research Determining the boundary of the research is very important; it can be cross national, institutional, disciplinary and sector boundary. The boundary that defines the extent of the research, it will spearhead the challenges in the respective places where the research was conducted. There might also be substantial difference that can arise as different regions have differing setting in terms political, social, demography or economic factors. When the boundary is thus determined we shall be able to address these matters. When deciding the boundary of the research it will be important to consider to the general joint responsibilities of the other researchers on the other boarder. These responsibilities include; integrity, it will be very crucial for the collaborative partners to possess integrity. This will enhance trustworthiness, the level of trust is very important as this will make the research to be credible. A common goal of the research should also be set; this makes the parties to have a particular aspect that they are looking up to. The purpose of the research should also be set to enhance that all the collaborating party benefit from the research. When deciding the boundary of the research the channel of communication should be assessed and determined. Communication will be a very important aspect to consider in setting the boundary of the research. Some researchers can be very far hindering communication; collaborating partners should communicate with other frequently and openly as necessary to foster full, mutual understanding of the research. Another important aspect to consider is whether the research is compliant with laws, policies and regulations. It will be very important to address the conflicting laws that are applicable to the research. the cost of the research should be considered, huge finances can mean that the boundary of the research will be big on the contrary minimal finance will mean that the boundary of the research will be restricted. The costs should also be shared equally and justly to all the collaborative researchers within all margins. There should be a form of agreements that is common between all the members within the groups in all borders. If some of the researchers in a particular border are not agreeable, it is advisable not to consider that boundary. Considering that UK is a diverse country in terms of culture it will be very important to take into consideration researchers with different dialect. This will make the respondents of the interviewers to be reliable. The researchers can be incorporated from German, France, Spain, and Asia or Africa to help in the interview of the people speaking these cultures. In relation to this again the diversity of the culture can make the concerted partners of the research in other boundaries to be given a chance to disclose their customary practices and assumptions regarding the research that is in practice. The diversity of the perspective, expertise and methods, and differences in customary practices, standards and assumption that could compromise the integrity of the research should be addressed openly. Finally the roles and responsibility should be clearly and properly defined in the boundary research so that there will be no conflict of interest across the borders. Improvement of my contribution to the team Team work requires vast contribution from all the team members in order to provide diversified information and share knowledge. Since my participation in this group before, I have realized that I need to improve some of my skills, experience and knowledge. Although I’m a charismatic person who is able to connect the members of the group through communication of the signals I want to send across in several ways including through actions, I admit my weakness in convincing others and making my point be taken for further analysis by the group members. I have thus noted that although I do a lot of analysis and research and I’m quite convinced about the credibility of my information, it is not enough for me to research a lot if I’m not able to make substantial contribution towards the end outcomes of the group work. As such, I need to develop my interpersonal skills and communication skills which will help me be able to make by contribution settle with the intended magnitude to the other group members. This will help me get the group members deliberate on my contributions. While I have successfully managed to be a very effective facilitator, my efforts are mostly dragged behind my criticism which threatens to wreak havoc while we are working. Some members may offer criticisms which are not well taken by the recipient resulting to conflicts. I would like to improve on my conflict resolution skills. While conflicts are always very common in any group due to personal differences, they have the potential of ruining the group and wasting a lot of time dealing with trivial issues. Conflict should be minimized in the group considerable by setting up measures which will help in disallowing extreme cases of conflicts. Currently, I’m experiencing difficulties solving conflicts without being perceived to be unfair by some members. I believe that acquisition of such abilities will enable me to improve the performance of my group to achieve our purpose as outlined in our objectives. Conflict resolution skills will help me manage the group’s time and requirements properly as our situation requires as to be very economical in term of time used in group work due to increased other class commitments. Furthermore, I would like to improve my skills of independence recognition in huge assignments where every member is given a piece of task to complete and each task contributes towards the end of the final submission. I have been having a problem keeping the overall goal of the bigger picture when I star working on my piece thus leading to lack of correlation between my part and the requirements of the task. I would like to have the skills of understand the end goal while working interpedently. To achieve this I will spend more time studying past assignments and how interdependence was achieved and also try breaking down tasks and rejoining them to build experience in coherence. As such, I would be able to handle any of the stages needed in analytical frameworks while relating it to the final goal. This will surely help in my group contribution. Applying an analytical frameworks This assignment will utilize analytical frameworks as opposed to common sense chat since we are evaluating the strategies, tools and resources which are required to address the wicked problems. This is because common sense chat ignores major societal constructions especially the effects of their proposed solutions. Common sense chat does not indicate how the techniques of problem solution are applied and how resources are allocated in order to provide working examples of other regions which have experienced the same problem and offered sustainable solutions to the country or the affected population. On the other hand, analytical frameworks provide insights into the methods and means used in collection of information regarding the problem. Analytical frameworks will be able to help us in opening lines of inquiry and analyzing network relations since it provides us with a platform to organize analysis patterns and different types of organization techniques which will be the pace setters for our objectives. Other strengths of using analytical frameworks include providing for tools and skills which are effective in delivering certain objectives. Examples are provided in the framework as a means to achieving credibility and reliance in research. It will also provide validation justification for the time and resources used in researching and conducting investigation in this project. The analytical framework utilizes a set of skills, tools, models, examples, resources and the capacities required to undertaken some tasks. As such, they provide a starting point for providing arguments on the project. The checklist in the framework helps to guide the projects and keep the members of the group focused on the final goal. In case other skills and resources are required to successfully manage the project, the framework provides us with the provision of alternative models to use in meeting our objectives. This is not the case for Common sense chat where although members may be given the parts in which they are supposed to research and contribute to the groups, they always overlap in arguments disrupting the coherence and deviating from the intended purpose. This assignment makes use of Social Constructionism theory in understanding social construction. In this case, we use Social Constructionism theory to understand the construction behind ‘wicked problems’. This theory implies that the society is very influential in determining how people perceive, interpret and view social phenomena. Thus it is important to use the societal frameworks such as the immediate beliefs, attitudes and culture in seeking to offer solutions to the ‘wicked problems’. Implementing an explanatory theoretical perspective in this assignment grounded in social constructivism aims to create meaning of the problem and expected solutions to the problem. Social constructionism specifies that knowledge is constructed by processes of interpreting interactions with and in the society, while also incorporating cultural influences. Phenomenon will serve as the guiding methodological framework because of the purpose to understand the innovation of the energy sector as the solution to the looming problem and also involving public debate an how they public perceives the meanings they make out of the impeding problematic experiences. Valuable experience The whole experience in opening lines of inquiry on the society has helped me in gaining valuable experiences. I have learnt that the energy crisis in the UK has very dire consequences which can be very catastrophic to the economy of the country. The British economy is highly dependent on energy as every enterprise runs its operation by using energy and thus blackouts will ruin the economy of major cities, which in turn will ruin the economy of the country. As such, social constructions reveal that it is not easy to separate politics and energy production in the county. I have also learnt that energy is directly linked to other social constructions in the society such as politics. This correlation was exposed by performing theoretical exploration using Constructionism theory which indicated that the energy sector is very powerful since it fuels the production of the UK. Since the UK is a capitalist country, the energy sector may be influenced by several person in the political cycles and thus they influence the when, how, and how much of energy to produce. Thus, exploring this issue will rub the different categories of politicians in different ways which others owing the industries will be opposed to paying much money leading to battles which could ruin political careers. Innovation is not an easy thing. It involves frameworks which are involving and mostly involve a lot of conflicts. Most people in the society have a tendency to resist change and investigations of this aspect lead to different reasoning between the two contradicting groups. While those oppose to change are protecting their own personal interests, others support the introduction of innovation in the energy sector to prevent national blackout. It is also imperative to note that this analysis revealed that even the promising solutions to the energy problems have another side effect. This shows that innovation is not an easy process to implement since boundaries must be highlighted, advantages analyzed and also the problems associated with them. Balance should be reached depending on the type of problem to be solved. I have learned the importance of self-assessment during group work and its contribution to objectives of the group. Self-assessment is performed for individual work and that of the whole group. Self-assessment should be performed against the learning outcomes provided in the objectives of the course. This helps in ensuring and reassuring us that things are on the right track and intermittent objectives have been achieved and thus, provide hope of meeting the final objectives through the allocation of the appropriate skills and resources in their respective activities. This is because engaging the public in debates may cause a lot of deviations and interruption in purpose. Self-assessment is effective in ensuring that you keep in the right track. References Ackoff, R. 1974. Re-defining the Future. Wiley: London. Bijker, W. E., Hughes, T.P. and Pinch,T.eds.,2012. The Social Construction of Technology Systems. Cambridge: MIT press. Ritchey, T. 2005. "Wicked Problems: Structuring Social Messes with Morphological Analysis". (Adapted from a lecture given at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, 2004.) Rittel, H. and Webber, M. 2013. "Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning". Policy Sciences, Vol. 4, pp 155-169. Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Inc: Amsterdam. Read More