Individual Accountability and Consistently Continual Improvement Strategies - Essay Example

Career Action Plan Name Institution Date Introduction Every passing day human beings find themselves making goals and objectives either long term or short term. After one has settled on a certain goal or objectives he or she strategizes on the different steps and moves to take on the realization of the goal or even objective. The plan facilitates the effective achievement of anticipated goals within the set time period. As such, action planning helps one to progressively and continuously focus on the idea one may have adhering and making steps one needs in order to achieve his or her goal. Career action plan which is also referred to as individualized career development plan therefore is a more advance road map that one adopts in the achievement of his or her long term career goals (Rothwell, 2005). Individualized Career Development Plan involves several steps whose genesis entails choosing an occupation and later securing employments. Inherently career action plan is a life strategy that if well implemented equips one with knowledge essential for one to achieve sustainable competitive advantage in a particular occupation that one chooses. For instance one may choose to take journalism or marketing as career and as such they must follow the career step by step (with a plan) until they perfect in it. Individual career plans entails organized list of a person’s career related experiences education, preferences as well as other groundwork that helps improve him or her in relation to his or her career of choice. (Rothwell, 2005) Section one: individual accountability In my life I embrace accountability as a value and I understand clearly what it takes to be accountable. As such, in the school of life I have learnt that every human being ought to be accountable for his or her actions consequences whether bad or good which is manifested in his or her actions. Accountability therefore refers acknowledgement of the results one’s own actions as well as full assumption responsibility of the behaviors and actions. Taking responsibility for individual actions brings about fairness. I clearly understand accountability in the work place promotes relationships, peace and general citizenship among the employees. As such, I understand the significance of communication in the work place as a tool that promotes citizenship and harmony as highlighted by Johnson & Media (2013). Proper communication which entails empathetic listening (active listening) enhances productivity of every employee (Noe, 2010). In this regard am ready to embrace it and use it to achieve personalized attention with the clients as well as other employees. This will be very important in handling disagreement if they arise either between fellow employees as well as the clients who require my services. Additionally, I will use this to influence any other person affiliated to the organization either directly or indirectly to my career. While communication is a fundamental to human existence, comprehending diversity and embracing it is equally significant to health relationship either in professional world or in the social world (Richard 2000). Diversity awareness is therefore the responsibility of every human being particularly I as a professional. In this regard therefore diversity involves that understanding that each individual human being is unique as well as re cognizing the wide range of individual difference. The varying differences include race, personality social economic status, culture religious beliefs and gender among others. In overall diversit y awareness means beyond simple tolerance to acknowledging as well as celebrating rich dimensions that exist in individual human beings (Ely & Thomas, 2001). In my professional career I understand that that diversity awareness is my responsibility and therefore I should be held accountable not embracing it. In my career I intend to embrace diversity which facilitates absolute tolerance among the employees hence promoting citizenship in the work place through creating harmonious relationships. In an effort to improving other colleagues I intend to beseech them to embrace diversity and thus developing more creativity and productivity in the work place. As such making diversity as my accountability will increases the competitive advantage of the organization hence sustainable success. Further in my career I intend to adopt and embrace decision making as my accountability. Proper decision making is inherently a competitive advantage strategy in an organization and it encompasses making informed decision which leads to achievement of organizational goals and objectives. Indeed, proper decision making is a necessity in utilization of organization available resources for achievements of the set objectives. For instance available resources in an organization may be human resources, finances, markets and also machines among others. Embracing decision making as my accountability will facilitate proper decision making process which is inseparable with competitive advantage of an organization. While proper decision making enhances proper utilization of resources, it also increases efficiency, as well as facilitating innovations and lastly acting as a catalyst to employees’ motivation as cied by Zerbe (2008). Proper decision making, is also essential in problem solving skills. As a natural part of life, proper problem solving skills have the capacity to mean define success of failure of any organization (Berends, 2007). In my life and career I always strive to embrace proper decision making skills which include flexibility as well as open mindedness among others. As such, I have also learnt to acknowledge and appreciate complex skills such as creative problem solving which encompasses adequate information searching in relation to the main problem. This has progressively helped me face arising challenges and problems in both my personal life and career. Being progressively accountable/responsible for problem solving in an organization is therefore one of my dreams hence facilitating progressive attainment better work place which embraces citizenship. Section Two In my professional I have achieved significant number of skills which conclusively forms my strength. At the same time, I have discovered some of my weakness which I continuously strive to improve or eradicate completely. My strengths Throughout I have acquired several skills which can be said to be knowledge-based skills which I have acquired either from experience or education process I underwent. For instance while was in school I acquired arithmetic skills and statistical skills. Further, through the subjects of professional communication, I developed good number professional communication skills such as empathetic listening (active listening), good language, and office communication among many others. In addition, I have developed skills such as photographic and designing, ability to work under pressure, ability to embrace personality diversity, and lastly to be an excellent team builder. Other important skills includes be an efficient and fluent speakers of English and the Arabic native, good and analytical reader as well as being a good writer. The skills have endlessly improved my service delivery efficiency to my clients. Further I have personal traits which blend well with my acquired skills. As such they include dependability, high level of flexibility, formal, punctual and further being a team player. In addition, I am significantly hard-working, friendly as well as being expressive. If these skills are adequately incorporated in organizational duties, they have the ability to facilitate admirable citizenship in the workplace as well as higher organizational growth and achievement of sustainable success, the ultimate goal of organizational operations. Despite having acquired a significant number of skills, I have to admit that I have several weaknesses which I invest many resources to so as to eliminate or even reduce their impacts on my career professionalism. Pride for instance has progressively always been a constant draw back to my professional efforts. In most cases, I am proud of my daily achievements which progressively make me to be overexcited. Indeed I have to admit that sometimes I fail to pay attention to finer details in some of my activities/duties consequently affecting negatively the level of my performance. While pride has been the greatest enemy of my professionalism, I usually invest a lot in handling the weakness Section 3: Consistently continual improvement strategies My professional is not fixed yet but rather it exhibit high level of dynamism particularly nowadays when knowledge is progressively being discovered. This can be blamed by the existence of high level of idea innovation such as E commerce, E business, and diversity awareness among others which have significantly influenced the revolutionalization of business world (Richard 2000). In this case, the current skills are not enough and they are not perfect yet and as such they call for updates so that they can be in line with the current new discovered knowledge. Indeed, my professional is not immune to the current knowledge dynamism observed all over and as such requires updates of knowledge too. In this regard, I intend to continuously improve my knowledge through in-service training, further learning as well as gaining more professional training necessary in bettering my knowledge. Indeed, just like any other profession I intend to be a lifelong learner in my professional learning and discovering new knowledge progressively. Lifelong learning nature of a professional requires one to better their technical and no-technical skills continuously eliminating or even reducing significantly the impact of the weakness on professional performance. For instance am planning to improve my leadership skills by taking a master’s degree program in the next four years. By this I will improve leadership skills which are fundamental in the current era where proper management is highly valuable especially in this era of globalization of ideas. For instance, globalization which calls for production of cheap and high quality products in these hard economic circumstances have been harassing entrepreneurs as cost of production has been sky-rocketing. In this regard, it has aroused for the need for highly qualified and multi skilled labor force. As such, the entrepreneurs can comfortably employ few multipurpose employees hence cutting on the cost of production. I also intend to take more of advanced communication courses and as such my communication skill will equally be improved for the better. The prime aim of my continuous improvement strategy is to maximize efficiency, effectiveness as well as addressing underperformance. The strategy is also meant to enhance sustainable growth consequently producing a reliable person in the United Arab Emirates workforce. Following the strategy implementation I will also gain more knowledge on stakeholders’ engagement mechanisms and skills, conflict resolution skills as well as project management skills. With more knowledge after graduation I will embark on intensified decision making and therefore better problem solving processes. As such this will enhance and facilitate organizational growth and therefore sustainable success. Section 4 Evaluation of performance A responsible and committed employee always has the desire to understand and comprehend his or her level of performance through appreciating and acknowledging assessment and evaluation mechanism. The mechanism acts as litmus papers for employees growth and they forms basis of the need for training and perfection (Bebchuk & Fried, 2006). To the organization performance evaluation acts as the grounds on which rewards and punishments for individual employees are determined hence promoting citizenship in the work place (Bebchuk & Fried, 2006). Given the results for instance, promotions and salary increment among others are usually given as rewards while demotions and salary reductions are usually given as punishment. While the results of performance mechanism essential to the organizations, they are equally fundamental to each individual employee. Indeed, the results are usually the genesis of employee self-reflection on their personal development and further facilitating better view of their jobs while laying foundation for skills development. Such performance mechanisms include performance appraisals, employee appraisal as well as performance reviews (Sims, 2002). To evaluate my personal professional performance and development I plan to adopt and implement some of the said performance test standards including performance appraisals. The result will facilitate my improvement in professional and personal skills hence increasing my competitive advantage in the workplace. Section 5: My thoughts and personal goals of displaying professional behavior and development when entering the workplace. Just like the taste of the employer my professional agenda is top display professional skills such high level of decency which entails good appearance, respectful and clear communication skills as well as empathetic listening. As such, my goal is to facilitate sustainable success in any organization that I will be part of. To achieve this I intend to invest my productive professional skills and personal skills optimally as resources. I will significantly promote citizenship in the workplace an attribute which is completely inseparable with sustainable success. Further, I intend to make a difference in organization for being an agent of change through utilization of and incorporation of latest discovered ideas which are essential particularly in the current era of globalization and wide range of innovations. Such ideas include diversity which entails inclusive of all regardless of individual differences such as race, cultural background and ages among others. Such a strategy promotes decision making in the organization as well as enhancing tolerance in the workplace (Ely & Thomas, 2001). Further, the strategy encourages creative thinking among the employees and therefore proper decision making and problem solving as highlighted by Richard (2000). While diversity is worth being embraced, e business equally needs to be progressively incorporated in modern organizations. E business improves communication between organization stakeholders and the organization. E business usually goes hand in hand with E commerce which entails the most recent phenomenon of buying and selling via internet. This has significantly increased organizational sale revenues and therefore achievements of organizational competitive advantage. Conclusion As cited in the paper career plan is fundamental to both the employees and the employer. To the employee, the career plan outlines clearly his or her goals hence acting as a source of motivation to carry on. To the organization the career plan helps to understand the capability of the employee and also verify whether his or her goals are in line with the organization goals and objectives. Additionally it also facilitates employers to understand weaknesses of the employees and therefore, plan for training and distribution of duties. References Bebchuk, L. & Fried, J., (2006). Pay Without Performance: Overview of the Issues. Academy of Management Perspectives. Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 5-24. Becker M., (2008). Handbook of Organizational Routines. Edward Elgar Publishing Janosik S., (2007) Common Issues in Professional Behavior. NASPA Journal. Vol. 44, no. 2 pp 285-306 Ely R. & Thomas D., (2001). Cultural Diversity at Work: The Effects of Diversity Perspectives on Work Group Processes and Outcomes. Administrative Science Quarterly. Vol. 46 no. 2 pp 229-273 Richard O., (2000). Racial Diversity, Business Strategy, and Firm Performance: A Resource- Based View. Acad Manage. Vol. 43 no. 2 164-177 Johnson R & Media D., (2013). What Are the Benefits of Effective Communication in the Workplace? Retrived on 2nd December 2013 from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/benefits-effective- communication-workplace-20198. Noe D., (2010). Why Good Communication Skills are Important in the Workplace retrieved on 2nd December 2013 from http://www.careerpath360.com/index.php/why-good-communication- skills-are-important-in-the-workplace-8524/ Zerbe W., & et al., (2008). Emotions, Ethics and Decision-making. Emerald Group Publishing Berends H.& et al., (2007). Problem Solving in Organizations: A Methodological Handbook for Business Students. Cambridge University Press. Rothwell W., (2005). Career Planning and Succession Management: Developing Your Organization's Talent--for Today and Tomorrow. Greenwood Publishing Group Sims R., (2002). Managing Organizational Behavior. Greenwood Publishing Group Read More