Theories of Human Communication - Assignment Example

Introduction Moving down the learning curve is the most proactive methodologies for human capital to enhance long-term knowledge base. Professionalism and enhancing individual skill sets offers competitive advantage on long-term basis. The diverse topics and research notes covered in my curriculum for 2009 stood as importance of verbal & non-verbal communication, snapshot of managerial control and characteristics, organisational goal development strategies, stages of managerial work, organisational structure, business environment due diligence and finally conflict resolve and management scripts. The three most important and interesting things I have learnt are: Importance of verbal and non-verbal communication Organisational structure and Understanding of business environment due diligence i.e. intrinsic and extrinsic assets collaboration Post observing all the study material the topics or research note or case studies which are related to managerial work understanding and control had lower interest from my side and thus stood at slow beginning stage throughout the study course. There was steep acceleration related to organisation structure and verbal and non-verbal communication related study material on my behalf attributed to personal development (i.e. I personally presume communication and understanding organisation structure enhances professional development on long-term basis). Communication is the core for personal and professional development as it enhances networking and team growth dynamics. On the other hand, understanding organisation structure i.e. hierarchical or flat organisation design further improves understanding about chain of command and improves professional behaviour elements. Finally, the most interesting topic I personally felt in study material was literature related to intrinsic and extrinsic assets collaboration and understanding outside and inside of business. The learning curve of this particular topic stood at plateau due to personal interest and long-term benefit for individual career development. It could be truly seen that focussing on micro and macro business environment enhances business understanding and overall growth of corporate individuals. Source: www.dmcdaniel.files.wordpress.com Thus from the above initial learning analysis research topics related to managerial skill sets and control had slow beginning on the learning curve from my stand point due to lower interest levels and discrepancy in personal development goals or objectives. Stages of learning related to three core topics In this section we would highlight the moving down the learning curve for all the three topics mentioned above those caught my personal interest and fascination during the study course. Importance of verbal and non-verbal communication: The course material was particularly focussed on managerial view point and elements related to verbal and non-verbal communication. Example: Up to 93% of what is communicated is non-verbal (Samson & Daft, 2009). Although the material emphasised on scenarios for usage of verbal and non-verbal communication lack of examples and bottlenecks for usage of wrong mode of communication at a particular event were neglected (Littlejohn & Foss, 2008). Enhancing learning curve related to qualitative research note such as understanding the benefits of verbal and non-verbal communication would have been better off with demonstration of personal and professional case studies to enhance individual learning (Miller, 2005). The beginning and steep acceleration was surely provided by the course material. Strengths: The strengths related to verbal and non-verbal communication study course stood as: Creating basic platform for future managers or professionals such as myself to understanding the benefits and pitfalls along with teaching important scenarios for usage of one of the two modes of communication to enhance career development (Witzany, 2007). Weaknesses: The bottleneck related to verbal and non-verbal communication study course stood as: Lower alignment with case studies on personal and professional basis. Individuals move towards the plateau (related to learning curve) much quicker if provided with examples and day-to-day incidents which they might prevent by aligning theory and facts. Thus personally, I decided to improve my learning towards verbal and non-verbal communication elements by reading professional case studies from Harvard Business Review and Strategic Management to understand the benefits and pitfalls related to wrong communication. This will help me as individual professional to prevent similar pitfalls in corporate culture after 1.5 years. The action plan to enhance verbal and non-verbal communication index in next 1.5 years stood as: Treating colleagues as managers and daily practicing the impact of verbal and non-verbal communication scenarios in different situations and chalking down the cause-effect analysis on regular basis. These notes will enhance moving down the learning curve i.e. Steep acceleration to plateau stage. Reading case studies from conflict management and other general journals such as Harvard Business Review and Strategic Management to improve understanding about life case scenarios to prepare myself before entering the real world (i.e. corporate world). Thus it could be seen that my attention was high during the verbal and non-verbal communication study material. On the other hand, retention and production of will be enhanced after implementing the action plan effectively@75% efficiently in the next 1.5 years. This will surely motivate and enhance my understanding related to topic in near future on long-term basis. Organisational structure: The course material was particularly focussed on understanding hierarchical structure in organisation and different managerial levels such as low, middle and top. On the other hand, it classified or categorised different organisation structure such as bureaucratic, scientific management oriented and administrative (Anderson, 2007). Although the material emphasised on diverse organisation structure and design it lacked emphasis on current information technology centric flat organisation structure and comparative case research on both structures to enhance understanding about the advantages and disadvantages of each on long-term basis. This topic particularly is of greater interest from business professional due to the fact that organization structure determines corporate culture and growth on long-term basis (Pang, 2002). Enhancing learning curve related to qualitative research note such as organisation structure would have been better off with case research on companies such as Unilever Plc, Nestle SA etc and sketching the comparison of structures and highlighting the advantages and disadvantages for particular period of time i.e. duration. The beginning and steep acceleration was surely provided by the course material. Strengths: The strengths related to organisation structure study course stood as: Creating basic platform for future managers or professionals such as myself to understand different types such as scientific management based design to improve operational efficiency, bureaucratic form to enhance control & chain of command to reduce outside uncertainties and finally administrative basically used in service oriented marketspace (Kogut et al., 2007). Weaknesses: The bottleneck related to organisation structure study course stood as: Lower alignment with comparative case studies on live cases from similar industries such as Unilever Plc and Nestle SA to enhance understanding about benefits and usage of particular design strategy related to particular macro economic conditions. Individuals move towards the plateau (related to learning curve) much quicker if provided with examples and day-to-day incidents which they might prevent by aligning theory and facts. Thus personally, I decided to improve my learning and understanding of different organisation structure and designed flowed cross culturally and across industries by reading live case studies from Journal of Operations Management from Elsevier, Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review to understand the pitfalls of usage of particular organisation structure at the wrong macro economic conditions. This will help me as individual professional to prevent similar pitfalls in corporate culture after 1.5 years. The action plan to enhance organisation structure index in next 1.5 years stood as: Enrolling in International student committee as chief architect and focussing on understanding the structure of the small committee for 1.5 years and look into the changing dynamics of the in-house committee structure aligned with macro economic developments in university budgeting and customer feedbacks. I would like to understand in-house on micro level to reduce pitfalls on long-term basis in real corporate world. These notes will enhance moving down the learning curve i.e. Steep acceleration to plateau stage. Reading case studies related to diverse companies from differentiated sectors from Journal of Operations Management from Elsevier, Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review to improve understanding about life case scenarios to prepare myself before entering the real world (i.e. corporate world). Thus it could be seen that my attention was moderate-high during the organisation structure study material. On the other hand, retention and production of will be enhanced after implementing the action plan effectively@65% efficiently in the next 1.5 years. The lower action plan effectiveness of 65% is mainly attributed to vast academic and empirical studies related to organisation structure. This will surely motivate and enhance my understanding related to topic in near future on long-term basis. Understanding of business environment due diligence: The course material was particularly focussed on understanding different elements (internal and external) impacting organisation behaviour and competitive advantage. The study course material provided is highly generalised and exploratory and provides great insights on diverse elements such as technology, government rules and regulations etc those might negatively or positively impact organisation growth strategies (Porter, 1985). On the other hand, the elements impact is complimented by examples such as Australia Post competes with couriers, parcel delivery companies, phone, email, fax and car companies – Holden, Ford, Mitsubishi, Toyota (Barney, 1986). The brief description of micro and macro elements helps novice readers such as me to understand the diverse cause-effect analysis for a particular organisation and combination of intrinsic and extrinsic resources to improve competitive advantage. This topic particularly is of greater interest from business professional due to the fact that organization hires individuals such as me to enhance profit and EBITDA margins (Collins, 2004). Enhancing learning curve related to quantitative research note such as understanding intrinsic and extrinsic elements impacting organisation competitive advantage would have been better off with in depth literature reviews and theories of past academics along with small case study on famous businesses such as Walmart, Exxon Mobil etc. The beginning and steep acceleration was surely provided by the course material. Strengths: The strengths related to understanding of business environment due diligence study course stood as: Creating advanced and basic platform for different elements (macro and micro) impacting corporate culture of organisation and growth strategies. Weaknesses: The bottleneck related to understanding of business environment due diligence study course stood as: Lower alignment in depth literature reviews and theories of past academics. The past theories of resource based view and competitive advantage would have helped to understand more micro and macro elements and provide explorotary view point on the research topic. Professional business consultants move towards the plateau (related to learning curve) much quicker if provided with grounded and tested literature review and frameworks which they might substantiate with empirical evidence to make decisions in corporate life. Thus personally, I decided to improve my learning and understanding of different theories and frameworks sketching intrinsic and extrinsic assets impact on value chain and corporate culture of organisation via understanding case studies historical by prominent business writers such as Porter , Hamel etc. This will help me as individual professional to prevent similar pitfalls in corporate culture after 1.5 years. The action plan to enhance organisation structure index in next 1.5 years stood as: Enrolling in advanced courses related to strategic management on the university campus over the winter or fall sessions. These additional advanced understanding will enhance moving down the learning curve i.e. Steep acceleration to plateau stage. Reading case studies related to diverse companies and their resource optimisation and competitive advantage strategies from differentiated sectors from Journal of Operations Management from Elsevier, Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review to improve understanding about life case scenarios to prepare myself before entering the real world (i.e. corporate world). Thus it could be seen that my attention was high during the organisation structure study material due to importance of the course (helping me to become a good analyst or consultant). On the other hand, retention and production of will be enhanced after implementing the action plan effectively@80% efficiently in the next 1.5 years. This will surely motivate and enhance my understanding related to topic in near future on long-term basis. Stages of learning related to noncore topics The niche topics covered under the study materials were conflict management, functions of management skill sets, roles in organisation design and finally managerial control. The material was part of one of the three core topics discussed earlier and were interconnected (Blake, 1964). The topics were highly advanced and would be particularly understood more precisely on job such as different roles in organisation discussed as informational, decision makers and managerial (Blake, 1964). These unique and niche topics are too theoretical and could be easily remembered while referring to a case of live example on job training. The evaluation and understanding of niche study material is as follows: The strength & Weakness related to Managerial control study course stood as: High theoretical models and disadvantages of improper implementation of managerial control sketched properly (Hemphill, 1949). Unique knowledge sharing of tactical and strategic managerial control activated though process on long-term basis. Lacked case studies and empirical evidence on the models related to managerial control. The strength & Weakness related to Roles in organisation study course stood as: Categorisation of roles in organisation was fine tuned. Lacked comparative analysis of different roles and authorities in flat and hierarchical organisation structure (Fiedler, 1967). On the other hand, difference in informational and decision making roles seemed overlapping and caused confusion in me. No background for improving the understanding of overall study material was provided. The strength & Weakness related to Conflict management study course stood as: Broader perspective of pitfalls related to conflict and unique value propositions to reduce conflict. Although the literature provided was related to two core issues i.e. losses post conflicts and steps to ensure smooth operation of organisation i.e. no conflict oriented (Kellett, 2007). The course material lacked in-depth information sharing mechanism and was too general. The strength & Weakness related to functions of management sets study course stood as: The four stages of management planning-organising-leading-control were broadly defined and co-relation with managerial control and roles in corporate culture (Gomez-Mejia et al., 2008). The co-relation was loosely coupled and required in-depth literature review understanding. The strength & Weakness related to corporate social responsibility sets study course stood as: The course material described triple P bottom of corporate social responsibility in broader basis. People, profit and plant perspective helped me move from shareholder value to stakeholder perspective (Williams et al., 2008). The study material on triple P bottom line was low on case study analysis. In 21st century environment liabilities and non compliance has been the buzz word. The empirical evidence was loosely coupled. The strength & Weakness related to motivation sets study course stood as: The course material described motivational theories of Maslow Need Hierarchy and X and Y theory providing the needs of human capital. These theories helped me understand the different needs of human and would be useful on long-term in people management roles such as middle level managerial (Reis, 2000). On the other hand, this course material was useful in understanding the different cognitive centric needs. Labour is one of the core three elements other than capital and land to improve competitive advantage for corporations and individual personnel’s (career development). Low empirical case studies of successful and failures related to Maslow’s Need Hierarchical Theory misinterpretation would had enhanced the learning curve from steep acceleration to plateau. The strength & Weakness related to HRM sets study course stood as: The course material helped me understand the diverse human resource management strategies such as Organizational management, Personnel administration and Manpower management (Armstrong, 2006). The course material was well substantiated with case studies on above mentioned topics. It helped me understand co-relation between leadership, managerial skill sets, motivation and human capital as a whole. The course material lacked important discussion on Industrial management which could had completed the HRM learning cycle.. Thus personally, I decided to improve my learning (slow beginning to steep acceleration) and understanding of conflict management, functions of management skill sets, roles in organisation design and managerial control by focussing on historical frameworks and case studies on niche topics from standard journals and business studies such as Harvard Business Review, McKinsey Quarterly, Booz Allen Hamilton cases. This will help me as individual professional to prevent similar pitfalls in corporate culture after 1.5 years. The action plan to enhance conflict management, corporate social responsibility, motivation, human resource management, functions of management skill sets, role in organisation design and managerial control index stood as: On job training and reflecting the understanding after 1.5 years. Conflict management and in-depth understanding of managerial control can be achieved while at work on a particular position such as Middle level management. Conclusion Effective implementation of understanding related to three core topics from the course material will enhance my learning capabilities and improve long-term sustainability in turbulent business environment in 21st century. Adherence with the action plan for all three topics will improve long-term professional (business environment knowledge) and personal skill sets (communication). On the other hand, niche topics such as conflict management and managerial control will be practiced on-job training after 1.5 years of course study. Thus core topics will be refreshed and auctioned before management degree while unique and niche topics will be practised on job thus improving overall productivity and career growth of me on long-term basis. The learning curve for me is as follows: References Littlejohn, S.W. and Foss, K.A. (2008). Theories of human communication, 9th edition. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth. Miller, K. 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