Diary Referral on the Centre Focusing on Beauty Procedures and Enhancing Personal Consumer Fitness - Coursework Example

Reflective Diary BY YOU YOUR SCHOOL INFO HERE HERE TABLE OF CONTENTS 0 Introduction and business context 2.0 Diary referral and reflection 3.0SWOT Analysis 4.0 Conclusions Reference List 1.0 Introduction and business context My placement occurred at SOK, a centre focusing on beauty procedures and enhancing personal consumer fitness. My role of crisis manager involved identifying crisis-related challenges that could impact corporate liability or otherwise impact the brand reputation of SOK. This was a new position for SOK, an organisation just beginning to evaluate how to manage existing or potential crisis situations, implementing a variety of risk mitigation procedures and control measures to ensure that negative predicaments could be monitored and restrained. SOK recognised that crises pose threats to the organisation’s stability, involving financial issues, public image and customer welfare (Jordan-Meier 2011). Hence, in the role of crisis manager intern, it was my responsibility to conduct routine risk assessments both internal and external whilst identifying potential mitigation techniques to support a healthy, functional and smoothly-operating business model. This report compiles the most relevant reflective diary entries marking experiences, challenges and learning which occurred during the placement. 2.0 Diary referral and reflection Date 17 July 2014 Task First risk evaluation meeting consisting of internal management team Objectives Discuss risk management practices, determine how to create a culture of crisis mitigation, an opportunity to network with internal management. Tasks completed Identify potential crisis scenarios Understand the business’ inter-dependent business units and divisions Consult with team members on building effective crisis metrics Discuss crisis management reporting structure Reflection: Having had minimal historical experience working with professional teams, I was initially quite nervous about the networking requirements when working with diverse managers. I maintained little practical experience about SOK’s business model and internal divisions, therefore I was initially apprehensive about offering solutions and suggestions about crisis management at the firm for concern that my suggestions would not be considered to be relevant and practical. However, the management team was highly engaging and seemed interested in hearing new perspectives from their new crisis manager intern which gave me opportunities to discuss the categories of crisis that might impact the business, both theoretical and perceived. What was first apparent during the meeting is that there was considerable adversity amongst the other team members about what actually constituted crisis. Some individuals felt that it was more socially-related, consisting of fragmented worker productivity or family life complications which might impact organisational functioning and efficiency. Others believed crisis was more akin to external conditions, such as natural disasters, terrorism, product failures or economic downfalls impacting revenue growth for SOK. During the meeting, this adversity made it difficult to even begin to define a crisis management framework. This meeting was an opportunity for me to improve my public speaking skills and also leadership ideology. I reminded the group of my fundamental learning provided by Lewis (2006) who stated that crises are any incidents which pose a threat to a business’ longevity. With teamwork adversity complicating the process of moving forward on establishing crisis recognition and control systems, I drew on academic learning teaching about transformational management in order to gain followership and respect. Fairholm (2009) defined this as being visionary, inspirational, setting and iterating a chosen mission objective, and providing positive feedback in order to build a more effective team-oriented culture. I suggested that we embrace the different definitions of crisis that were provided by diverse management team members as a method of brainstorming potential crisis issues. In this fashion, I found that the team members were more cooperative and began offering a plethora of different potential crisis problems that might impact the SOK business model. It quickly became apparent that team members were highly reliant on my assessment and opinion as the crisis manager and seemed genuinely appreciative that their suggestions, even when not necessarily relevant, were being transcribed and considered as potential factors needing investigation and analysis. I essentially took the lead in brainstorming and subsequently filtering suggestions being provided by the team which had, previously, been frustrated with the method by which crisis was being defined. I took each suggestion offered, whether relevant or not necessarily applicable to the organisation, and began relying on each manager’s individual knowledge of the organisation to try to justify whether it should be included in a crisis management framework and metrics system. In this fashion, adversity and conflict was reduced, I gained valuable insight into the internal dynamics of the business model, and we were able to create a competent and realistic crisis management framework that would serve as both auditing structure and scaffolding for future crisis analyses. Though I still maintained a minor level of apprehension about teamwork and public presentation in this meeting, I learned how to take nervous anxiety and transform it into more productive management skills. Ford, Ford and D’Amelio (2008) identify that in some team environments, controlling managers often become victim of irrational responses from team members when conflict occurs; suggesting a deep connection between management ideology and the psychological condition of team members. By being transformational, hence responding to the unique emotions and perspectives of the diverse team, I learned that resistance and conflict could be reduced and the team put back on the appropriate track to productivity and efficiency. Prior to taking more dominant control over the process of defining crisis, the team had spiralled into chaos and the objectives of the meeting were not being met. This particular experience gave me practical and valuable insight into how to be an effective leader, how to better engage others when speaking in public, and how to build a more cohesive organisational culture. By being more confident and thoughtful toward the perspectives of others, I managed to assist in building a communities of practice ideology at SOK, which is offered by LeBaron (2003) as a more effective method of knowledge exchange which assists in meeting team mission goals and ideological vision. By consistently iterating this mission and vision, as offered by Fairholm (2009), the team remained focused on achieving group goals and building an effective framework for crisis management identification, assessment and control. Date 28 July 2014 Task Conducting the crisis evaluation audit organisation-wide Objectives Review all divisional activities at the firm and determine the severity of potential crisis that might occur within each business unit. Tasks completed Identify historical crisis scenarios through consultation and evaluation of employee and manager sentiment Determine the level of potential risk of each identified scenario Create a report for senior management on findings Reflection: This was one of the most challenging aspects of the new position as crisis manager. A competent and well-detailed crisis evaluation audit required conducting interviews with individuals I was unfamiliar working with whilst also being forced to produce a professional document that would be scrutinised by many different organisational members and managers. In the previous week, the team meeting had identified the crisis criteria which might impact the business and the framework by which to evaluate the severity of these potential scenarios. Still maintaining little practical knowledge of the inter-dependencies of each division and their responsibilities both internal and external, I required advanced knowledge that could only be gleaned through consultation. I quickly realised that my level of commercial awareness was significantly lacking, especially as it pertains to stakeholder engagement and the external market. Stover (2004) identifies that if tacit knowledge (knowledge held by only a select handful of professionals) is to be transformed into explicit knowledge, engagement with others is critical for effective knowledge management. Because I was charged with the obligation of building a crisis-focused organisational culture which involved all organisational members, I learned that I was actually building a knowledge management culture and would have the ultimate responsibility of controlling data and disseminating this information to others. Being an individual that works better independently, I was at first resistant to conducting interviews with others and asking for their sentiment about business practices. It was my absolutely responsibility to create a report that would identify past, present and future crisis situations and such a report would have been unreliable and impractical without gaining this important qualitative knowledge from others. Through engagement with others and conducting job role-related interviews, I believe that I was instrumental in creating a better social environment at the firm. Many disparate managers and employees at SOK, I discovered, were also unaccustomed to working collaboratively with others throughout the business model. Psychological and sociological theory states that effective socialisation is a fundamental motivation for improving self-esteem and confidence (Weiten and Lloyd 2010; Maslow 1998). Having new qualitative knowledge stemming from disparate workers, I realised that the social environment was not conducive to effective team methodology at the firm which might complicate building a culture of crisis mitigation at the firm. As a result, I took these findings to senior managers and expressed my concerns that there should be more focus on building a collaborative team environment. Backed with both statistics and inferred analyses of interview findings, I was able to convince senior management to work with human resources management to build internal programs that would be conducive to improving the social condition at the business. This experience, though intended to be about crisis identification, taught me fundamental lessons about the importance of social belonging in an organisation. Managers and employees that I consulted with seemed genuinely pleased that their opinion and experiences were being considered when developing a crisis management program and framework. Hence, I was able to not only reduce my inherent resistances to working collaboratively with others, but also convince senior managers that HR-related change would be necessary to achieve effective crisis mitigation techniques and procedures. I believe that in the future this experience not only enhances my leadership competencies, but also improve my confidence in taking on a managerial role where effective planning, designing and organizing is fundamental to reaching strategic goals (Robbins and Judge 2010); in this case risk identification and control. Date 11 August 2014 Task Developing a crisis action plan Objectives Produce a report highlighting mitigation strategies and timelines for correction of identified crisis scenarios, Disseminate information to the entire organisation highlighting the potential damage of such crises and action strategies customised for each division and manager. Tasks completed Label each identified crisis with severity level Create a step-by-step guide for crisis intervention and control Disseminate knowledge about the potential long-run risks of each labelled crisis and employee obligations in controlling or managing these problems. Reflection: The development of the crisis action plan was one of the most difficult challenges I experienced during this placement. I have, historically, maintained problems with motivation; staying dedicated and committed to achieving a particular goal or objective. I had been given a timeline by which the action plan draft was to be completed and, in order to meet this deadline, I had to compile a great deal of quantitative and qualitative data to achieve effective and realistic crisis action strategies. Frustrated by the overwhelming volume of achieved data through analyses and interviews, I realised I was not going to meet the assigned deadline. For several days, I struggled with personal self-motivation, tending to blame my own failure to achieve timelines on others and other complications that were occurring during my daily routines (i.e. social interruptions, unscheduled meetings, etc.). As the final deadline began to approach, I realised that I was relying too heavily on extrinsic factors to motivate me, or rewards stemming from external actors such as thankfulness, appreciation and applause (Weinberg and Gould 2011). At SOK, people who were assigned tasks were simply delegated these assignments with minimal feedback from supervision being provided. I have to admit this frustrated me substantially which impacted motivation to complete a superior and relevant crisis action plan template. When the senior manager approached me to remind me that the report was due in a few days, I began to evaluate my own inherent psychology which was making me rely on extrinsic rewards to motivate performance. I began reading up on literature about intrinsic motivations in an effort to meet the deadline for the crisis action plan project. This is a type of motivation where action is driven by having a legitimate interest in a task rather than relying on external accolades to motivate performance (Ryan and Deci 2000). I began reassessing the action plan obligation and trying to view the activity from a different perspective. For example, I started thinking that building a very professional and well-detailed project which met established timelines could have significant impact on my future career opportunities. I essentially changed my motivational mind-frame to begin finding personal enjoyment in the task rather than constantly focusing on how senior managers might review the document and reward its competency. By undertaking this strategy, I was able to not only complete the document efficiently and on-time, but it impacted other responsibilities I had been given in this role of crisis manager and I found inherent motivation to achieve goals for each assigned task with a much more positive and upbeat attitude. This particular situation radically changed my values, at the psychological level, about the nature of professional activity and job role performance. Though I still believe that I have some degree of motivational problems, which will be worked on as described in the Personal Development Plan (see Appendices), I learned a great deal about self-motivation and its ultimate benefits for career development. Date 25 August 2014 Task Evaluation of corporate brand and the external market Objectives Senior management, after reviewing my draft of the action plan, felt it necessary for me to be more engaged with external market conditions and the ultimate importance of marketing to the business’ reputation. Tasks completed Engage with customer service and support representatives at the firm Talk with marketing division about how branding and reputation achieve mission goals and revenue growth Explore long-run consequences of identified crisis scenarios on financials and marketing effectiveness Reflection: I have little experience in marketing and always saw this activity as being a means of exploiting the consumer using terminologies that manipulate the social and psychological condition. Hence, I maintained considerable and largely unjustified bias about marketing at the corporate level. However, after consulting with marketing experts and learning about the quality of engagement with consumers, my opinion about this operational function was radically altered. I discovered that SOK legitimately wants to satisfy its customers and has developed a model based on quantitative and qualitative market research to give the firm competitive advantage in its established industry. Why was this learning lesson important? Kotler and Keller (2007) identify that consumers go through a five stage decision-making process when determining whether to buy a product or service. This involves identifying they have a problem, seeking information, evaluating potential alternatives, making a final purchase decision and then evaluating the quality of the engagement post-purchase. Hence, a business must be considerate of what customers actually need and desire in order to provide relevant services and products that will be evaluated with high quality. Having consulted with marketing experts and client support representatives, I gained a very fundamental set of lessons about how to run a successful organisation. Without customers, a business will fail and I did not fully understand the lengths a business must go to so as to ensure customer loyalty. Even though my obligation was to assess crisis situations, I gained valuable insight into the operational function and the extent to which marketing is one of the most fundamental and financially beneficial activities. This situation allowed me to revise the action plan to consider more dynamics of the external market and customer in order to mitigate crises and risks. I learned that SOK maintains many services that could potentially inject liability into the business, giving me a broader understanding of how marketing is a strategic activity and not just an effort to mislead consumers. This will have substantial benefit for me into the future especially with rising competition and globalisation making it difficult for a firm to gain competitive edge. Where I had essentially been focused on document production and the internal dynamics, it gave me a much greater appreciation for the inter-dependencies between external situations and internal policy changes that I did not fully understand prior to these consultations. 3.0 SWOT Analysis Strengths Eagerness to learn new things Extroverted individual Deeply committed to achieving goals Strong professionalism and respect for professional behaviours High level of proficiency in business software programs Weaknesses Apprehension with public speaking and networking Reduced fundamental knowledge of commercialisation. Often easily stressed with challenging situations Inferior writing skills Professional confidence Opportunities Strengthen competencies on leadership ideology in contemporary organisations through journal reading and examination of empirical studies Network with other professionals to build confidence and gain better public speaking and teamwork skills Expand academic knowledge in operations and marketing Study consumer behaviour journals and empirical studies to gain perspective on the influence of consumer attitude and emotion on business strategic development Threats A highly competitive job market demanding high skilled professionals Writing skill inferiority Self-discipline issues and procrastination at the inherent level Lack of knowledge of commercial operations Inferior concentration skills leading to easy distraction both personally and professionally. 4.0 Conclusions As illustrated by this reflective diary, encompassing the most fundamental learning achieved throughout the entire placement, I learned a great deal about business operations (namely marketing), how to improve leadership capacity and ideology development, enhance teamwork functioning at the firm and organisational culture development, and improving motivational status when working on complicated workplace projects. This placement was very challenging and I believe that the demands placed on me to produce top quality reports and engage with others illustrated the level of trust that organisational managers placed on my competency and professionalism. I intend to utilise these lessons in future career planning and job role, as well as the development strategies found in my Personal Development Plan (see Appendices) to become a more well-rounded professional. Reference List Fairholm, M. (2009). Leadership and organizational strategy, The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 14(1), pp.26-27. Ford, J.D., Ford, L.W. and D’Amelio, A. (2008). Resistance to change: the rest of the story, Academy of Management Review, 33(2), pp.362-377. Jordan-Meier, J. (2011). The four stages of highly effective crisis management: how to manage the media in the digital age. CRC Press. Kotler, P. and Keller, L. (2007). A framework for marketing management. Pearson Prentice Hall. LeBaron, M. (2003). Bridging cultural conflicts – a new approach for a changing world. Jossey Bass. Lewis, G. (2006). Organizational crisis management: the human factor. CRC Press. Maslow, A. (1998). Maslow on Management. Wiley. Robbins, S. and Judge, T. (2010). Organisational behaviour, 14th edn. Pearson Education. Ryan, R. and Deci, E.L. (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: classic definitions and new direction, Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25(1), pp.54-67. Stover, M. (2004). Making tacit knowledge explicit, Reference Services Review, 32(2), pp.164-173. Weinberg, R.S. and Gould, D. (2011). Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 5th edn. Leeds: Human Kinetics. Weiten, W. and Lloyd, M. (2010). Psychology applied to modern life: adjustment in the 21st Century. Thompson Wadsworth. Appendices A: Personal Development Plan **ATTACH YOUR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN HERE** Read More