Learning Experience of Participating in a Debate - Assignment Example

Learning Experience of Participating in a Debate Introduction Experiences in daily life routine help individuals to learn how to overcome difficulties in life and how to cope up with the challenges. This research paper would look into the author’s experience of participating in a debate, base don Honey and Mumford’s learning styles theory. The author will also reflect upon his adopted learning style and how this learning style will help him in future practices. Lastly, a learning journal is also presented in the research paper to support the learning experience of debate mentioned later in the paper. The Debate Recently I had a chance to sit with my college friends after 3 years, mainly because most of my friend shifted to other states right after completing their college studies. I stayed in my hometown to complete my higher education and had a job to look after. When my friends came to visit me at my house, I ordered some food and drinks to serve them with. On the dinner table, my friend told me of his experience of how his business’ is facing challenging times due to bad quality services delivered to customers. Being a marketer, I knew the importance of service standards delivered to customers, on the overall performance of the business. My friend (Mr. X), being in a restaurant business, had difficulties in generating enough revenues from his business during last year, to pay off his debts. He stated that customers are not satisfied with the physical environment of the restaurant and servers’ ability to serve customers with courtesy. Due to these shortcomings, customers perceived that his restaurant does not provide proper training to the staff, so that they know how they should communicate with customers. On the other hand, the outlook of his restaurant is so congested, that customers complain they find it difficult to roam around in the restaurant. Moreover, the furniture and lighting theme implicated by him in the restaurant also makes customers feel suffocation. He also informed us that fixing the outlook would require a handsome amount of money, whereas; staff’s training is the area where he lacks the most and find himself helpless to train staff in such a manner, that their behavior with customers reflect restaurant’s values. One of my friends (Mr. Y), listening to this story suggested that Mr. X should hire the services of a business consultant in order to get rid of these issues. Mr. Y also suggested that the consultant should be allowed to make critical decisions pertaining to the management of the restaurant’s daily operations. Another friend of mine (Mr. Z) interrupted here and suggested that giving consultant the authority to make managerial decisions would allow him to sneak into confidential information and take over the managing rights from Mr. X. I was observing the debate closely and in back of my mind, I was thinking of a suitable solution to the problem. As a marketer, it is a core part of my job to ensure business’s stability and to make sure that the business is catering the needs of the customers efficiently. My clientele base includes a number of customers who would ask for my help in crisis situations. It also includes helping businesses to understand why their performance is on downward tack and how to overcome the obstacles. From my past experience of helping a laundry business to improve its customer delivery and a restraint to improve the dining experience of the customers, I figured that the best solution Mr. X’s problem is to carry out a market research. By conducting market research activity, Mr. X would know what are customers’ expectations from his restaurant and what are their preferences pertaining to staff behavior with them and the physical environment and ambiance has maintained at the restaurant. My Learning Style I am a student of business management, therefore; I depend upon realities and practical evidences to base my decisions. In this manner, I am an activist learner who would never assert any information or support a decision with having evidences and logic behind the decision (Rogers 24). Whenever I make a decision, I review what has happened in the past in similar situations and what were the outcomes of my decisions taken at that time. If a situation is new, then I would like to carry out research pertaining to the pros and cons of any decision taken to encounter the situation. Research is a scientific means of assessing decisions and phenomenon. In this manner, I get to practically implement my decisions before applying them to a business process, which increases the chances of positive outcomes. In Mr. X’s situation, I suggested the best possible alternative that he can adopt to save his business, because; I had experience of handling similar situations for businesses. Market research would enable Mr. X to understand the type of ambiance that customers would prefer in his restaurant. Moreover, the market research would also acknowledge Mr. X about the ambiance and lighting theme that customers would prefer within his restaurant. Lastly, market research will also enable him to understand demographic and social profile of customers, so that he can train his staff to communicate and serve customers with their preferred tone. Analysis “Become smarter at getting a better fit between learning opportunities and the way you learn best. This makes your learning easier, more effective and more enjoyable. It saves you tackling your learning on a hit-and-miss basis. Equipped with information about your learning preferences, youll have many more hits and fewer misses” (Honey and Mumford 5-8). Honey and Mumford’s model of learning is beneficial in understanding how each manager possess a learning style, which is reflected in his decision making techniques. From the debate I mentioned in the previous sections of this research paper, it is clear that my is based on logic and past experiences of handling similar situations (University of Leicester). Keeping in view the suggestions made by Mr. Y and Mr. Z, it can be asserted here that Mr. Y is a theorist, who would make decisions who likes to stereotype. That is Mr. Y imposes the meaning of one situation to all other situations, whether or not they are similar to each other. On the other hand, I found that Mr. Z is also a theorist who would make decisions based on, what he or someone else might have done in similar situations in the past. In contrast, I am an activist who would weigh the process and cons of alternative decisions that can be made in the present scenario. I would refer to researches and experiences of managers under similar situations and what alternative they had adopted to reduce the harmful affects. This debate experience also made me understand how debates can be a good learning source to make critical business related decisions. This is because; during the debate all three of us presented our ideas to Mr. X pertaining to improving the situation of his business. After carefully listening to our ideas, Mr. X decided to agree with my idea and start making calculations pertaining to the financial resources that will be required to complete the task. In this manner, I identified Mr. X as a pragmatist learner. This is because Mr. X asked me to share my experiences of putting business related strategies into practical decisions and also requested my tips and guidance throughout the transformation process so that maximum benefits can be yield from the implication of the decision. Future Implications In the future, I would like to enhance my learning abilities so that I can be more realistic towards decision making at my workplace. This would require me to strengthen my research skills so that I can testify all my decisions with the help of proven positive outcomes. Works Cited Honey, Peter and Alan. Mumford. The Learning Styles Questionnaire, 80-item version. Maidenhead: Peter Honey Publications, 2006. Print. Rogers, J. Adults Learning. Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2001. Print. University of Leicester. "Honey and Mumford." 2013. Web. 14 January 2014 . Appendix-I: Learning Journal Title of Learning Experience Summary of learning from the learning session Are these learning beneficial for future decision making? Is it possible for me to use the learning experience for my personal decision making? What more can I learn from such learning experiences? What would be the outcome of implicating learning experiences? Debate on improving business’s conditions on dinner with Mr. X, Mr. Y and Mr. Z I learned that decisions made by individuals vary form person to person, depending upon the learning style each individual have got. These learning are beneficial for me in the future, because; it teaches me about the importance of being flexible in decision making as it would encourage every individual to share their views and concerns on the decision The learning experience will be beneficial for my personal life as it teaches me to test the authenticity of decisions by research into the area From such learning experiences, I can also learn about what are the factors involved in a business’s life, that might have a positive or negative impact on its performance Making decisions based on activist learning style would improve the accuracy of decisions made by me pertaining to improving the situation for my clients’ businesses Read More