Reflective Journal on Tutorials - Essay Example

REFLECTIVE JOURNAL By (Name of Student) Course Code: Course Title Name of Professor Name of University City, State Date of Submission Tutorial #1 In this week, I gained useful insight regarding management. Specifically, I was excited to learn that management entails the controlling, leading, organizing, and planning of human and other resources with an aim of attaining organizations goals efficiently and effectively. I was introduced to Henri Fayol and his four managerial functions. I learned that organizational performance as a measure of how effectively and efficiently managers employ resources. Efficiency entails a measure of how well or productively resources are employed to attain a goal while effectiveness regard how a measure of the appropriateness of the goals pursued by an organization and the extent at which they are attained. An efficient and effective manager chooses the right goals to pursue and make good use of resources with an aim of attaining these goals and the outcome is services and products that are wanted by the customer at a price and quality that they can afford. On other hand, I learned that an inefficient, but an effective manager chooses the right goals to pursue, but does a poor job of employing resources to attain these goals. An efficient and ineffective manager chooses wrong goals to pursue and make poor use of resources and the end results is low quality services and products that are not wanted by the customer. I was also introduced to a broad range of resources employed by managers. These resources encompass financial capital, computers and IT, raw materials, machinery, knowledge, skills, and people. I was excited to learn different types of managers and their roles. They encompass first-line managers, middle managers, top managers, as well as, Chief Executive Officers (CEOs). I was also introduced to a broad range of management challenges. They encompass practicing global crisis management, managing diversity, ethical behavior among others. Tutorial #2 In this week, I also gained useful insights regarding managing cultures and organizational culture. I learned that organizational environment is a set of conditions and forces that operate beyond an organization’s boundaries but impact a manager’s ability to acquire and make use of resources. The environment can be divided into general environment and task environment. The general environment includes global, legal, political, demographic, sociocultural, technological, and economic while the task environment encompasses competitors, customers, distributors, and suppliers. I was introduced to organizational culture which is the set of standards, norms, values of behavior and shared expectations that influence the manner in which members of the organization relate or interact with each other and cooperate with an aim of attaining goals. I was excited to learn that founders of organizations play an integral role in creating and maintaining organizational cultures. I was also introduced to managing leadership. I learned that leadership is a process of influence that directs, motivates, and inspires to achieve goals. I also gained useful insights regarding the five types of powers available to leaders. Some of the models I was introduced to include the behavior model, trait model, Fielder’s contingency model, House’s path-goal theory, and Transformation leadership model. I learned that the behavior model describes two leader behaviors, including initiating and consideration structure. I learned a lot regarding managing change and diversity. Specifically, I learned that managing diversity is an essential aspect of management and that organizational environment and workforce are increasingly diverse. Moreover, I was excited to learn that diversity management is an ongoing process that requires frequent monitoring. I also learned that managing organizational change is both an important and difficult task. I gained useful insight regarding a four-step process that can be employed to manage change within an organization. These steps encompass assessing the need for change, deciding on the change to make, implementing the change, and evaluating the success of the change. Tutorial #3 In tutorial, I was also introduced to metacognition. I learned that metacognition entails thinking regarding one’s thinking. In other words, metacognition refers to the process employed to plan, monitor as well as evaluate one’s understanding and performance. I was excited to learn that metacognition encompasses a critical awareness of one’s self as a learner and a thinker, and one’s learning and thinking. I was made aware that metacognition practices increase learners’ abilities to adapt or transfer their learning to new tasks and contexts. It also assists learners to be cognizant of their strengths and strength as group members, test-takers, readers, writers, and learners. I also learned that metacognition require learners to externalize mental events. Learners with the most developed meta-affective and metacognitive practices at the end of the courses are able to clear obstacles and shift away from oversimplified thinking regarding ethnicity and racism, appreciate diversity and redefine the world in racial terms. Tutorial #4 I learned a broad range of things regarding motivation. Firstly, I was introduced to the concept of motivation. Motivation includes psychological forces that determine the direction of an individual’s behavior, level of persistence and level of effort. I was excited to learn that managers work to create a motivational climate where people contribute focused inputs to attain desirable outcomes. In was also introduced to a broad range of motivation theories. Some of these theories include self-determination theory, expectancy theory, needs theory, equity theory, goal-setting theory, learning theories, pay and motivation. I learned that self-determination theory focuses on the nature of motivation. The basic tenet of self-determination theory is that human beings are growth-oriented, active organisms who are naturally inclined towards integration of their psychic elements into a unified sense of self and integration of themselves into larger social structures. I was also introduced to intrinsic and extrinsic motivation as well as different types of extrinsic motivation. Entry #5 I was also introduced to the concept of communication and its importance to management. I learned that it is impossible to be an effective manager or become a great leader with great or excellent communication skills. Managers must be understood by employees and other important stakeholders in a way that is meaningful to them and this can only be done through communication. I gained useful insight regarding underlying principles of communication that managers or leaders should adopt. These principles include start by earning trust, show or demonstrate that you care, communicate with clarity, focus on how you can serve other people or the other person, be non-judgmental and open, listen, be empathic, pay attention or notice what is not said or read between lines, be honest in revealing what you do not know and sharing what you know, and learn how to re-frame a message as needed. I was also gained a lot regarding the power of listening, particularly attentive mindful listening. I was excited to learn how one can effectively communicate directly or indirectly to a third party. Specifically, when communicating to a third party, one should make sure that the message is well-reasoned, correct and true, and substantiated by solid business logic that is accurate, clear, consistent, and specific. Moreover, one should keep in mind that communication is not about himself or herself, your circumstances, your positions, and your opinions, but is rather about assisting others by adding value to their world, understanding their concerns, and addressing or meeting their needs. Final Reflection on the Course So far the course has been exciting and informing. I was introduced to a broad range of things, including management, managing cultures and organizational culture, managing leadership, managing change and diversity, motivation, as well as communication and its importance to management. It was interesting to learn about management which entails the controlling, leading, organizing, and planning of human and other resources with an aim of attaining organizations goals efficiently and effectively. I learned that that organizations use change management to minimize chances of organizational malfunction caused by failure to adapt to changing environment conditions. Since change is the only certain thing in an organization due to it is ubiquitous nature, organizations should therefore be prepared to predict change and lay management structures to manage change. Change management can be viewed as the process of implementing new strategies, corporate structures and procedures to effectively overcome internal and external forces affecting an organization. For an organization to successfully implement change management there should be behavioral and organizational structural adjustment to align changes with the expected outcome. All this definitions imply that change management is an indispensable tool that organizations use to implement change and achieve the desired business outcome. Nevertheless people are at the center of this change process since there is change of behavior, practice and attitude. Therefore, change management advocates for people’s participation in the implementation of changes in an organization. I was also excited to learn that Leaders also play a critical role in successful implementation of change. The leaders must understand the goals and objective of the firm and adopt PM system that is in line with the goals and objectives of the firm. Transformative leadership and mobilizing the existing resources are considered important in the change management process. Effective leaders should constantly communicate with the employees and all important stakeholders to ensure that PM system is successfully implemented. Additionally, effective leaders always involve all the stakeholders in the decision-making process and value their contribution. Effective leaders promote a feeling of community within the firm, develop transparency among their employees, and instill assurance in change. Communication plays a critical role in the implementation of performance management system. Effective communication boosts the morale of employees, align the firm from the bottom to the top, and promote appreciation. I learned that one of the barriers to effective communication is lack of trust. Absence of trust can make effective communication between organizational managers and their subordinate very challenging. Employees are less likely to communicate and share ideas if they do not trust each other. Additionally, information may not be shared in the absence of trust and the existing communication is always untrustworthy and suspect. For instance, when employees are using email, they do not see the facial expression or hear the voice tones of the ones they are communication with. Consequently, mistrust may occur. Equally important, I succeeded in doing a broad range of assignments that were accorded to me. Specifically, I managed to effectively use Harvard citation style when doing my assignments. Read More