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In the video, “The Three things we work for (Money isn’t one of them)” by Andy Mulholland, it is explained that HR no longer needs to be a separate entity but instead it needs to become part of the company’s culture. Mulholland explains: “A good HR is a cultivator of good working attitudes. Good working attitudes is a cultivator of good leadership” (Mulholland). According to Mulholland, Pierre Hessler helped him realize the many opportunities the Capgemini company had for growth and the opportunities Mulholland had as well of learning, developing, and understanding how to move a company through technical issues, understand strategy, help people to develop things, etc (Mulholland).

Mulholland explains that after learning and recognizing the change that needed to be done, he was able to identify 3 things/reasons that employees work for. These reasons ultimately vary between individuals. The first reason that individuals work for is “Give me interesting work” (Mulholland). Reflecting on this reason, I believe this is true. Some people would rather be out in the battle field fighting for what they believe is right, while others are happy and find it interesting to write codes for a computer software company. I, myself, agree that having interesting work can be the difference between enjoying, being motivated to work and just doing the bare minimum. For example, I enjoy my job. I like that my company is involved with the community and its employees. I like that I get the chance to interact with loyal customers as well as new customers. To me it’s personally interesting to be able to see the different personalities everyone has as well as make an impact on their day.

The second reason is “Expand my skills”. This has impacted me professionally because it’s making me grow as a person and as a professional. The company that I work for has provided me with career advancement opportunities. Right now, management’s plan for me is to become a supervisor by the end of this year. This is a great opportunity for me to continue on expanding my skills set. The third and last reason Mulholland talks about is “Recognize me” (Mulholland). Mulholland states this is the most critical reason that employees work for. Recognition is “Really the value that helps people want to be part of the community, grow, and develop with the company” (Mulholland). This reason has impacted me because as humans we all tend to fall back to the type of mentality that says “why go the extra mile if they won’t notice and it won’t make a difference” (Mulholland). Recognizing someone else’s work makes them feel appreciated, valued, useful, part of the team, etc. There are times where I’m super busy with school but I’m told to stay an extra shift in order to cover the employee who is out sick. My boss’s boss sends me a Thank You note the next day for having to work a 15hr shift and still come in the next day to work. That makes a difference on a person’s day. It makes me feel good that I’m being recognized for my hard work.

            Even though the video spoke about the different reasons employees work for and that money really wasn’t one of them, unfortunately, for me right now it is. The only reason why I say Money is the reason why I work for is because I have student loans to pay off. Right now, all my student loans are accruing interests and as much as I would love to at least pay the interest, it’s hard to be able to pay bills and interests on more than 10 student loans at the same time. Another major motivator for me is Purpose. “Purpose is perhaps the greatest employee motivator” (Kennedy, 2013). If I feel like my job can make a difference or I’m contributing to the bigger picture, I am all up for doing it. I tend to be more energized to take on the challenges ahead because I know that at the end my job will make a difference. My last motivator is Acts of Service. “Helping employees get tasks done can motivate employees by evoking a sense of teamwork and purpose”. I find it motivating when my supervisor gives me the appropriate information, opens up her resources for me to complete tasks and so on. In other words, it removes this sense of stress of not having the correct information or contacts to complete the tasks that it actually motivates me to take on the challenge.

References:

            Kennedy, D. (2013, January 24). What Really Motivates Employees? [Infographic] | Entrepreneur.com. Business News & Strategy For Entrepreneurs | Entrepreneur.com. Retrieved April 17, 2013, from http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/225560

Mulholland, A. (n.d.). The Three things we work for (money isn't one of them). Books 24 x 7. Retrieved April 20, 2013, from library.books24x7.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/toc.aspx?site=BW9SX&bookid=43753

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There are various ways I can integrate the supportive communication guidelines provided in Developing Management Skills, to my current workplace. There are 10 guidelines in total. The first guideline, coaching vs. counseling, is something I have seen my boss struggle with. I can integrate coaching into my workplace by providing more guidance on new tasks, provide the information needed to complete tasks, advice subordinates on the problems they might encounter if a certain alternative is chosen, and give directions when needed. Counseling in the other hand, can be used to help others recognize the problem. Sometimes our emotions tend to take over our reasoning and logic. Therefore, counseling others to help them identify, see, define, and even recognize the problem is an effective way of managing the situation.

The second guideline is congruency meaning be honest. I tend to be pretty honest with my subordinates about the problems and situations we encounter. For example, my supervisor wanted me to manage the hours before her manager begins to cut hours. I had personally found this difficult to accomplish without making the other shift short staffed. When I approached everyone with honesty about the situation, they actually volunteered to come in later in order to provide the night shift the extra help they needed without going into overtime or going over the budgeted hours while others volunteered to take a longer lunch break. The third guideline is descriptive communication. The steps to descriptive communication are: describing objectively your observation of the event that occurred or the behavior that you think needs to be modified, describe your reactions to the behavior or describe the consequences of the behavior, and suggest a more acceptable alternative (Whetten & Cameron, 2011). This guideline is something I believe I would need to practice more. I have seen my boss blame a person more than recall objectively the event or situation. This has resulted on subordinates becoming defensive and in turn nothing gets done or fixed. I can use this guideline as a way to describe more objectively the occurrence of the events, describe the consequences of the action taken, and suggest more alternatives in case the situation arises again.

The fourth guideline kind of relates to the third guideline meaning focus on the problem and the solution rather than the personal traits (Whetten & Cameron, 2011). This can be integrated by asking the person their perspective of the problem, what was the problem, how can I help to fix it and so on. Make the issue the problem and not the person involved. The fifth guideline is validating communication. Validating communication helps people feel recognized, understood, accepted, and valued (Whetten & Cameron, 2011). I have integrated this by asking employees for their help when problems arise, asking for their feedback/inputs on situations, just have a regular conversation with them to get to know them better, reward them for their hard work, and so on.

The sixth guideline is using specific and not global statements. This means to provide specific instructions/statements rather than either-or statements. I have integrated this to my workplace by providing specific instructions about what needs to be done throughout the day and what has a priority. Avoiding the “either-or” statement helps subordinates focus and dedicate more time to priority tasks rather than be distracted by routine tasks. The seventh guideline is conjunctive communication. I have integrated this guideline when conducting meetings with team members. I allow them to take turns speaking and voicing their concerns while also providing feedback, keeping track of the time spent on each topic as well as keeping control of the topic. Keeping control of the topic has been the biggest issue I have encountered because we begin to remember something we had initially wanted to ask a person so the conversation typically begins to veer off to a different topic.

The 8^th guideline is owning the communication. This is something that I have struggled with. Rather than taking ownership of my decisions, I would say, “That’s what the boss told me to do”. I must integrate this to my daily decisions by saying “I”, “me”, “mine” decision, choice, and so on. This will help create some credibility to my abilities of guiding people to the correct course of action. The 9^th guideline is providing supportive listening. I have integrated this guideline by actively listening to subordinates concerns, struggles, opinions, ideas, beliefs, and so on. Lastly, the 10^th guideline is implementing a personal management interview program. Such program does not exist with my company but I have taken the initiative to at least once a week ask everyone to sit down for a few minutes and share their concerns as well as provide feedback.

Since majority of these guidelines I have already begun to implement them on my own, I can say that they have been quite rewarding. It has helped me figure what do they look for in a leader, what changes they would like to see, what struggles they may be facing, how to coach them better, and so on. There are many advantages to using these guidelines for supportive communication and the results are great.

Source:

Whetten, D. A., & Cameron, K. S. (2011). Developing Self-Awareness. Developing management skills (8th ed., p. 265). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall/Pearson.

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In order to describe my decision-making style, I needed to have a basic understanding on the different types of decision-making styles. After watching today’s video lesson on routine and complex decision-making, the decision-making style video helps leaders find out what type of decision-making style they most often use. This video is an exercise that is set-up with different terms to which the leader must then choose the best descriptive term that describes them and their abilities. Each term describes what type of style or approach the leader uses when making decisions. This description allows each person to understand and reflect on his or her decision-making style. In turn, this may also help leaders change their negative decision-making style to a more effective and/or positive decision-making style.

After completing the above-mentioned video exercise, I found that I’m a cautious decision maker rather than a risk taker. I believe I’m cautious depending on the situation and the risks involved. The higher the risk the more information I would like to have before making a final decision. When the information is not available I tend to rely heavily on my intuition over logic. At times there will be moments where your past experiences have taught you enough to help you reach a decision and that’s where intuition comes in. You rely on those past experiences and experiences from others to guide your decision rather than rely on logic when there’s a time restriction. Another form of describing my decision-making is through self-motivation rather than be influenced by others. My desire to learn and grow with the company tends to help me stay motivated and focused on my personal and professional goals. No one knows you, your desires and wishes better than you know yourself.

Depending on the problem, the risks, the events would determine my rational/logic behind my decision. Just as I mentioned earlier, if I have the time to make the decision then I would find the information, understand it, and then make the decision rather than let my feelings and emotions guide my decision making. Another set of words that could be used to describe someone’s decision-making style is passive vs. active. The way I like to think about these two words is by thinking how active are you in the company, in making the decisions, and being part of the decision-making process. In my opinion, I believe I’m pretty active when it comes to this. Since its part of my desire to learn and grow with the company I tend to stay active on this aspect. The last sets of words are quiet vs. assertive. I’m a very quiet and shy person when surrounded by those I may not know too well. Therefore, I’m the complete opposite of someone with a forceful personality.

Overall, there could be a benefit on using an in-between approach to decision-making. For times where a decision needs to be made immediately and there’s a high risk involved, a risk taker may make a better “call” than someone who is cautious. Therefore, I think its best to have an in-between approach. A cautious manager must learn when and how to take risks, be intuitive as well as logical, be rational/logic but have feelings and emotions specially when dealing with subordinates, be active but also learn when to be passive, be assertive but also learn when to be quiet and learn from other people’s experiences and mistakes. A manager that is well rounded in all these aspects of decision-making, will know when and what techniques to use to each given problem/situation. This, in my opinion, would help him/her become a better leader.

Source:

Exercise: Decision-Making Styles. (2012, April 2). Films on Demand. Retrieved April 9, 2013, from digital.films.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/play/7A2UTV#

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A good example of conflict resolution was one that I personally participated in during my sophomore year in college. In one of my business classes, our group had to present a term project on the aviation industry. This project counted for 10% of our final term grade, which added to the pressure of making the perfect term project. The conflict was over differences of opinion of how the project should be started. Part of the team wanted to just assign parts of the project to everyone at random, others wanted to choose their own subjects, and others wanted to divide into teams to discuss which areas of the industry we should focus on. I, myself, was part of the team that wanted to discuss which areas of the aviation industry we should focus on. Our project guidelines were so broad in themselves that I thought that by narrowing down areas of focus we would deliver a more solid term project rather than have everyone do what they wanted to do.

After 3 weeks of disagreement, our team decided to have a meeting to discuss our differences of opinion. I began the meeting by urging them to come to a solution before the end of the meeting because our final grades were at risk. After everyone expressed their opinions on why they felt the project needed to be started the way they thought it should be, we all reached an agreement. The agreement was that we should focus on a specific part of the aviation industry, the airline industry and more specifically the commercial passenger airline industry. After completing the term project and presenting the project to our teacher and fellow classmates we received an A on the project. But, we also realized that another team had fallen on the trap that we almost fell for, which was having a broad project of the entire aviation industry. The teacher commented that they should’ve picked a specific aspect of the aviation industry rather than have such a broad overview of the entire industry.

Overall, the conflict was a difference of opinions of how the project should be started. I played the role of the initiator of the negotiation/conversation, while the rest of the teammates played the roles of responders (Whetten, 2011). At the end of the negotiation we all reached an agreement on how the project should be started which was to have a narrower focused approach to the project. The results of this solution helped us receive an A for the term project.

Understanding now how we all had differences of opinions on how to start the project, I realize that it was due to our diverse backgrounds. Our backgrounds were all completely different from each other. Some of my teammates had private education while others had public education. Some of us were from the United States while most of them were from overseas. I have realized that not everyone was/is brought up the same way I may be or even educated the same way as me. Therefore, we all believed at one point that we were correct while others were wrong. As managers we need to understand diversity. Diversity doesn’t just come from a person’s backgrounds, upbringings, values, ethnicity, beliefs, education, and so. It also comes from understanding another person’s point of views, their needs, beliefs, why they believe their decision may be the best one, and so on. As managers we must be able to listen to our subordinate’s needs, understand them, and reach a solution or agreement. Securing the other person’s needs and commitment to a solution is more important than reaching the manager’s solution. Once the subordinate feels like his/her needs have been met, the subordinate will be more compliant on the completion of the project (Berman pt2, 2008).

There’s always room for improvement. Reflecting back on how the situation was handled I believe there could’ve been other ways to handle the situation such as in a timely manner. One way is to confront the situation sooner rather than wait it out and before the disagreement escalates. Our team confronted the situation poorly by allowing 3 weeks of “waiting it out” to get the best of all our talents. Secondly, the negotiation process could’ve been more effectively done if someone had been assigned as a mediator. The mediator would’ve ensured that we had pushed the conversations along rather than allowed people to get sidetrack from the point of the negotiation. Lastly, before setting up the meeting, the leader should’ve chosen a more private area for the negotiation to take place. Our negotiation occurred in the library during one of the busiest time in the library.

Sources:

Berman, J. (2008, February 10). Conflict Resolution - Part 1 - YouTube. YouTube. Retrieved April 7, 2013, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2GWmDUKF3o&feature=youtu.be

Berman, J. (2008, February 10). Conflict Resolution - Part 2 - YouTube. YouTube. Retrieved April 7, 2013, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vga7bhGd5dI&feature=youtu.be

Whetten, D. A., & Cameron, K. S. (2011). Developing Self-Awareness. Developing management skills (8th ed., p. 70). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall/Pearson.