Careers and Career Management Program - Term Paper Example

?Careers & Career Management OVERVIEW Career management entails the methods that assist in planning and shaping the career of an individual with regard to the needs of the organization, potential of the individual and their preferences. Career management is executed by integrating the needs of the individuals with the objective of the company, which facilitates the growth of both in the future years. Career management is done to help the people in assessing their key points and weaknesses. It aids them in building their own purview along with making them focused towards their goals for future (Public Service Commission, “Defining Career Management”). The purpose of career management is to support the people in achieving their aims and goals. Career management program involves a number of human resource management concepts which assist individuals in enhancing their performance through reviews and feedbacks. It enables individuals in identifying their skills and implementing them for their benefit along with the progression of the organization at large. This will assist them in developing a correct career path as per their capability and knowledge. The success of the individuals depends on the selection of the correct principles and guidelines which would enrich their skills. It is often observed that career success and career failure depends on certain decisive factors within the career path of an individual that ultimately create the difference (Public Service Commission, “Defining Career Management”). Correspondingly, the objective of the paper is to understand the reason behind the success and the failure of a person depending on the career management aspects. The importance of career management and the positive outcome are also evaluated in this paper. DESCRIPTION OF THE SUCCESS STORY OF ALAN MULALLY Alan Mulally is the present Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ford Motor Company. He is as an American engineer by education who has attained unparalleled success in his careers in Ford Motors and the Boeing Company. He became the CEO and the President of the Ford Motor Company in the year 2006. Before his career with Ford Motors, he was the President and CEO of Boeing from September 1998 to September 5, 2006. He was responsible for the working and service deliverance by Boeing (Bloomberg Business Week, “Alan R. Mulally”). Alan Mulally is a graduate from the University of Kansas. He had a degree in the aeronautical and astronautical engineering and is also a management degree holder which he completed in 1982. He started his professional career in Boeing just immediately after he was out from his college as an engineer. He contributed in the progress of the company through his ideas and hard work. He demonstrated his hard work through making designs which were benefiting the company. Through his dedication, attitude and thoughtfulness, he soon became the Vice President for his project work on 777. In a little while, he was promoted as the Senior Vice President as he displayed his skills and knowledge of engineering in his work. His interests, focus towards the company, along with depiction of knowledge and skills had been driving him towards success. Subsequently, through his entrepreneurship, values and communication skills, he became the CEO of the company. The objective of the company and his individual skills were allowing him to flourish as the key decision maker within the organization. Through his perception and a clear mind-set, he has always remained aware of the needs and wants from his professional life (Bloomberg Business Week, “Alan R. Mulally”). The contribution of Alan Mulally in Boeing through his efficiency and storing vision acted as key factor in bestowing him with the role of CEO in Ford Motors in the year 2006. He was appointed as the CEO to save the company from the financial crunch it was facing. Throughout his career, he has been recognized for his contribution along with leadership style, and for which he has been awarded with the “Businessperson of the Year” recognition (Ford Motor Company, “People & Careers”). The aggressive attitude of Alan Mulally assisted Ford Motors to develop vehicles at a rapid pace with quality, thereby meeting the needs of the evolving customers. His clear understanding, perception of what is to be achieved and a precise focus on career path made him efficient. His decision making and the strategic management skill made him a successful leader. The reason for his success has been his positive outlook, his ideas of loving others and motive to understand how people work in an establishment. He possesses a long-term vision and knows about his career path. Moreover, his success depends a lot on his positive psychology. By incorporating these virtues, he had kept the business action plans related to Ford Motors quite simple, yet effective for ascertaining long run stability and success (Andolsen 56-60). DESCRIPTION OF FAILURE OF JOHN CHAMBERS John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco is a graduate from the West Virginia University and master’s in Business Administration. He commenced his career in IBM as technology sales executive and then became the Vice President of the US operations in Wang Laboratories. Then, through his hard work and dedication, he joined CISCO as a Senior Vice President and after that emerged as the CEO of Cisco. Correspondingly, the company exhibited a growth in the revenue of US$70million in 1991 and displayed a growing trend from US$1 billion to US$40 billion (Dow Jones & Company, “John Chambers”; Blodget, “The Truth about Cisco: John Chambers Has Failed”). For nearly 15 years, he demonstrated a strong presence in Cisco. The shareholders of Cisco after a decade of his service realized that the strategies implemented by Chambers were a failure. His management style and expansion strategy all failed as the company exhibited no progress in the field of expansion. The analysts stated that the stock price of Cisco had also not displayed a big growth under the management of Chambers. The employees were not very happy under his guidance (Blodget, “The Truth about Cisco: John Chambers Has Failed”). It has been realized that John Chambers was unable to meet the expectations of his shareholders and create value for them. He was not very clear in his approach and strategies which could provide a long-term profit to the company. His plans and ideas made the company stagnant at a point. Chambers was using a bureaucratic form of leadership which made the position of Cisco to decline. The level of interaction and management skills during the recent period of his tenure was not appropriate. Chambers because of his lack of perception and interest was unable to meet the demand of the shareholders and execute the policies implemented in an effective manner. The decision making and reevaluation which were required to be done by Chambers failed as he was not clear with his perception. The reason for his failure was his approach towards the gender balance in Cisco. The aggressiveness of Chambers due to the upcoming threats was disturbing his decision making process for the company and the employees in the long run. The strategies implemented by Chambers failed largely due to his lack of perception and clear ideas without the consent of his management. The reason for his behavior or approach was his style of management which is bureaucratic (Dow Jones & Company, “John Chambers”). COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF THE REASONS BEHIND THEIR SUCCESS AND FAILURE BASED ON CAREER MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES The success or failure of a CEO depends a lot on how he/she manages their career in keeping with the objectives of the organization and its welfare. In case of John Chambers, the reason for his failure was his lack of planning and clear vision. The knowledge and skill of Chambers were not utilized efficiently as he acquired businesses which were not related to the core business. The decision made by him was distracting the focus of the management from the core business. This made the employees face issues with regard to the objective of the company. Moreover, he was not able to strategize policies according to the core objective of the business. This made him lose his company’s market share due to his lack of information search. The failure of Chambers also emanated owing to a lack of value and rigorous honest evaluation of people and their experiences. The CEO of Cisco was giving more importance to his own ideas without concerning the values of the other people. The entrepreneurship approach followed by him was creating a negative impact on the employee and the management. The objective of the CEO is to make the investors have faith in their venture through his transparency and ability to gain confidence of the shareholders. However, Chambers lacked in motivating the employees and was unable to manage the structure of the process as well as was incapable to uphold strategies to achieve the desired goals. This made the business non progressive at a point where the market was growing but the stock prices of Cisco were not performing to the expectation of the people. This was due to a lack of knowledge, skills, career planning and timely effective decision making ability. His aggressive decision making without the concern of the management people made him face the failure as the employees were not able to trust his ideas. This is because his strategies were not proving effective in growing the share prices (Blodget, “The Truth about Cisco: John Chambers Has Failed”; Andolsen 56-60). On the other hand, the success of Alan Mulally materialized because of his clear understanding of the vision of the company. Meeting the objective of the company with the employees to make them feel valued and in order to make them respect his decision in achieving the goals were his key ideals that made him successful. Mulally had a simple business plan with his views clear for attaining success in the career path. His disciplined intensity towards work, effective team management skills along with the ability to understand the needs of the employees made him successful. The self-effacing manner of Alan Mulally and his management skill are the decisive reasons for his success. The personality of Mulally along with his skills, knowledge, values and ability to make the people understand their interest in accordance with their own make him successful in his business approach and as a leader. The reason for his success throughout his career has been his attitude to solve complexity with proper attitude. The focus he has towards the work, his team as well as for managing resources has made him an effective leader. The ideas for innovation and a clear vision and mission has made him an ideal public figure and hence a successful leader (Taylor III, “8 Reasons Why Alan Mulally Is Better For Motown than Microsoft”; Andolsen 56-60). LEARNING ABOUT CAREER MANAGEMENT The success and failure of a leader and the related business depend a lot on how the career is managed throughout the life. From the above analysis, the three things learnt from career management are confidence, clear understanding and relationship building with effective management skills (Harrington 117-119). Confidence is one of the key attributes of career management. An individual needs to be confident about his/her moves so that the allied people have faith on his/her ideas and make them effective. Confidence towards the work and the ability to make prompt decisions are effective constituents of career management. In addition, it is observed that clarity of mind to what is to be achieved and the way to achieve them make a person more desirable and effective. Therefore, owing to the presence of such career objectives made a person such as Alan Mulally successful. His clear ideas and aims allowed him to take correct steps or measures towards the achievement of the goal. A proper planning makes the other people have faith on the ideas and helps in achieving them for the success of both the company and the individual. Relationship building is an important aspect for ensuring success, as a good team member can be an effective team leader and be successful. The knowledge about the subject working for and being the master of it will help in making effective decision (Harrington 117-119). Thus, career management is an important facet for a steady growth in the career path with minimum failures. Works Cited Andolsen, Alan A. Six Steps to Your Successful Career Path. Information Management Journal 42.4 (2008): 56-60. Print. Blodget, Henry. The Truth About Cisco: John Chambers Has Failed. 2011. 10 Dec. 2013. “Alan R. Mulally.” Bloomberg Business Week. 2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. “John Chambers.” Dow Jones & Company. 2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2013 “People & Careers.” Ford Motor Company. 2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. Harrington, Brad and Douglas T. Hall. Career Management & Work-Life Integration: Using Self-Assessment to Navigate Contemporary Careers. United Kingdom: Sage Publication, 2007. Print. Public Service Commission. “Defining Career Management.” Report On Career Management In The Public Service (2002): 1-8. Print. Taylor III, Alex. 8 Reasons Why Alan Mulally Is Better For Motown than Microsoft. 2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. Read More