Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Communnicating via Blog
The Blog has been a learning tool where we can share information on different subject matters. It allows us to express ourselves in a forum where others are going to asses our thought as well. I feel that I did benefit from interacting with others online which led to further discussions in class. It provided emphasis in the in class activities linked to the lessons helping us think and share our beliefs in the subject matter. The fact that there were enough topics outside course topics made it a lot more interesting. Although for me it was hard making the posting on time because of all the other course material that we had to cover for this and other classes. I do understand that it does offset the burden of the test weight on my final grade. Having this space to post ideas and thoughts about any issues is of great value to me and I do plan to continue posting things on my blog. Although I should admit I will probably not focus so much on management issues. I think that the blog is a very good idea which should continue to be implemented in this course and probably others as well.
A poem to the Management Process
A Manager
Organizes his tasks with presition,
Plans his objectives with care,
Controls the performance of others, and
Leads with his heart in his head.
Organizes his tasks with presition,
Plans his objectives with care,
Controls the performance of others, and
Leads with his heart in his head.
Management Diagnostic Test
The leadership management diagnostic we did in class was an accurate assessment of my personal management orientation. My test results determined that I am a D with a C management type. In some respects I think that the descriptions were a bit extreme especially in the D traits, it made it seem like someone who was a bit selfish and self absorbed. A D person is one who would step over others to get where they want. That does is not something I would personally do to anyone, although I am very competitive. C I believe is a better fit for me being a little less harsh. I think it is helpful to determine people’s management type to better understand where they are coming from. It is important to help individuals realize that maybe they need to raises ad change anything they don’t like about their own types. I think a test like this would be beneficial in aiding personal interactions like dating because if you knew what the other person’s type was and that is not a good fit for you. Then you would avoid a possible waist of time.
A vision of the Future
Having vision is having a positive outlook of the future, it is empowering, and it can change the world. Vision is to be created by leaders, leaders of their own lives who become role models to others. It should be shared and supported by those who set out to achieve it. Vision needs to be comprehensive and detailed in order to set a clear path of what you want and how you will get it. Lastly It should be positive and inspiring to oneself and others.
Vision is necessary to set individual goals towards the future. As a College student it is important to have clearly defined professional goals to succeed in a particular realm. Planning for the future is critical in meeting one’s goals and aspirations. I have set out to accomplish many goals in the next five years. But in particular one of my most important goals gradating from college. This is important for me because I will be the first person in my family to do so. This has deemed very difficult for me because of my current circumstance, of being independent and having to provide for myself, and complications that come up unexpectedly along the way. Achieving a professional career is another one of my goals. My plan is to study account with a concentration in Auditing and maybe in a few years work for the IRS. Family is very important to me thus in the next five years I would like to establish myself and be able to start a family of my own. I know that if I continue to be persistent with a clear vision of my goals I will be able to achieve them successfully.
Vision is necessary to set individual goals towards the future. As a College student it is important to have clearly defined professional goals to succeed in a particular realm. Planning for the future is critical in meeting one’s goals and aspirations. I have set out to accomplish many goals in the next five years. But in particular one of my most important goals gradating from college. This is important for me because I will be the first person in my family to do so. This has deemed very difficult for me because of my current circumstance, of being independent and having to provide for myself, and complications that come up unexpectedly along the way. Achieving a professional career is another one of my goals. My plan is to study account with a concentration in Auditing and maybe in a few years work for the IRS. Family is very important to me thus in the next five years I would like to establish myself and be able to start a family of my own. I know that if I continue to be persistent with a clear vision of my goals I will be able to achieve them successfully.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
McDonald's Management
On November 28, 2007 I walked into my nearest McDonald’s restaurant to place a special order with very specific requirements in order to assess their management process. I ordered a small hamburger with FOUR pickles on it and small French Fries with NO salt. I was really expecting the lady taking my order to look at me as if I had lost my mind. I didn’t even think they had fries without salt. But the lady calmly turned to the guy putting the burgers together and said “hey make sure it’s four pickles, not three” which I guess is what they normally put in them.
Then she proceeded to tell another guy dressed as a manager that she needed “fries with no salt”. The order was ready in about three minutes. The process of putting the burger together included two people standing next to each other on the other side of the juices and sandwiches. The first took the buns from the pan and laid them on the table he added the meat and the ketchup that came from an interesting container that you squeeze from the top handle and the ketchup flows out of a four wholes. Then he passed it on to the other guy the one who got the instructions about adding the extra pickle. He put the four pickles and some onions on top of those. He then placed the other bun on top of it all and wrapped the whole thing up with the McDonald’s logo paper. He put it in through the small metal “shaft” and the lady that took my order, whose name I picked up from her name tag was Martha, picked it up and placed it in a paper bag along with my fries which she had gotten herself. Martha told me the total and handed me the bag after I paid her $2.16.
I was treated the same way that I’m always treated in a fast food restaurant, in a fast paced manner with no real attention to detail or care while placing the ketchup into the bag with without taking any real notice if it’s actually landing in there or not. In total 5 people were involved in preparing my order but if you really think of it the number might be different if you take into account the people who set up all the things like the bags and ketchup. When I finally got home I checked out my order and noticed that they had added the correct number of pickles in the burger but unfortunately after tasting the fries I realized they were salted.
I thought that the staff’s manufacturing process was clear, everyone had a specific task and it was clearly simple. In fact it is very repetitive process which left little room for error due to its nature. It looked like a little factory behind the counter everyone busy with their own task. They communication was efficient considering it is so loud in those places with all the people coming in an out and children running around. It is interesting to watch them yell things at each other and understand what they are trying to communicate to one another. I would say that the staff is well coordinated in the way they prepare everything in collaboration with each other. The customer service process could use so work in general it would be nice of you as a customer did not feel so rushed when placing the order. Making contact with the client maybe asking how there day is going or small talk if possible should be encouraged. If I were brought in as a consultant to any McDonalds to help them improve their efficiency I think that I would assess specifically their customer service skills paying attention to how they interact with each customer. I would also suggest rechecking the special orders before handing them to the client because something as simple as French fries that accidentally had salt when they were not supposed to make a difference in whether that particular client is going to choose to make that location their preferred McDonald’s.
Then she proceeded to tell another guy dressed as a manager that she needed “fries with no salt”. The order was ready in about three minutes. The process of putting the burger together included two people standing next to each other on the other side of the juices and sandwiches. The first took the buns from the pan and laid them on the table he added the meat and the ketchup that came from an interesting container that you squeeze from the top handle and the ketchup flows out of a four wholes. Then he passed it on to the other guy the one who got the instructions about adding the extra pickle. He put the four pickles and some onions on top of those. He then placed the other bun on top of it all and wrapped the whole thing up with the McDonald’s logo paper. He put it in through the small metal “shaft” and the lady that took my order, whose name I picked up from her name tag was Martha, picked it up and placed it in a paper bag along with my fries which she had gotten herself. Martha told me the total and handed me the bag after I paid her $2.16.
I was treated the same way that I’m always treated in a fast food restaurant, in a fast paced manner with no real attention to detail or care while placing the ketchup into the bag with without taking any real notice if it’s actually landing in there or not. In total 5 people were involved in preparing my order but if you really think of it the number might be different if you take into account the people who set up all the things like the bags and ketchup. When I finally got home I checked out my order and noticed that they had added the correct number of pickles in the burger but unfortunately after tasting the fries I realized they were salted.
I thought that the staff’s manufacturing process was clear, everyone had a specific task and it was clearly simple. In fact it is very repetitive process which left little room for error due to its nature. It looked like a little factory behind the counter everyone busy with their own task. They communication was efficient considering it is so loud in those places with all the people coming in an out and children running around. It is interesting to watch them yell things at each other and understand what they are trying to communicate to one another. I would say that the staff is well coordinated in the way they prepare everything in collaboration with each other. The customer service process could use so work in general it would be nice of you as a customer did not feel so rushed when placing the order. Making contact with the client maybe asking how there day is going or small talk if possible should be encouraged. If I were brought in as a consultant to any McDonalds to help them improve their efficiency I think that I would assess specifically their customer service skills paying attention to how they interact with each customer. I would also suggest rechecking the special orders before handing them to the client because something as simple as French fries that accidentally had salt when they were not supposed to make a difference in whether that particular client is going to choose to make that location their preferred McDonald’s.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
The Decision Making Process
The decision making exercise we had in class to come up with an alternative way of grading our first exam was a lot more difficult than expected. I really thought that it would be simple to get everyone in the class to agree on a higher grade which would benefit us all. Our class discussion was pretty chaotic and I chose to use collaboration in bargaining and negotiating with all the classmates. This method seemed to be the most reasonable because in a situation where tensions were so high people could easily become aggravated and decide not to cooperate if I had been too aggressive. Given the information on pattern of communication that I now possess I could have also chosen to compromise a bit more in order to facilitate the process.
Monday, October 1, 2007
The Planin Process
The planning activity was a great way to not only learn about the process but also put it in practice. We used our natural skills and abilities to complete our tasks. Our group's name was Unbregg and we put it together to represent our task, not to break the egg as we let it fall into the basket.
Our team tried to utilize all our resources to the best of our ability and we definitely fulfilled the steps in the planning process. As a team we defined our objective by keeping in mind what we wanted to achieve and realizing that we had a time frame to get it done. We determined what our objective was by realizing our advantages and utilizing our team members wisely, for example using the shortest person (me) to drop the egg. Developing promises regarding future conditions entailed creating a few alternate diagrams in case our original idea did not work. We made a plan deciding which of our diagrams we would choose to implement and also allocating job functions to suitable team members. We implemened the plan by trying out our alternatives and then evaluated possible results. This gave us the assurance that our plan would be a success.
Unfortunately our group did not succeed and I believe it was because we failed to look at our task in an analytical manner to realize that our instructions were vague enough to allow us to be more creative in how to accomplish it.
Our team tried to utilize all our resources to the best of our ability and we definitely fulfilled the steps in the planning process. As a team we defined our objective by keeping in mind what we wanted to achieve and realizing that we had a time frame to get it done. We determined what our objective was by realizing our advantages and utilizing our team members wisely, for example using the shortest person (me) to drop the egg. Developing promises regarding future conditions entailed creating a few alternate diagrams in case our original idea did not work. We made a plan deciding which of our diagrams we would choose to implement and also allocating job functions to suitable team members. We implemened the plan by trying out our alternatives and then evaluated possible results. This gave us the assurance that our plan would be a success.
Unfortunately our group did not succeed and I believe it was because we failed to look at our task in an analytical manner to realize that our instructions were vague enough to allow us to be more creative in how to accomplish it.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Management Problems
Management is evolving in adaptation to the divers groups of individuals that make up the business world today. The inability to change with the times is a great management problem that creates an unpleasant work environment. That is a problem that we are facing at my place of work. My direct supervisor is having difficulty dealing with many of her employees because misunderstandings have risen due to her inability to perceive when she is overstepping her boundaries as a supervisor and disrespecting people's personal or cultural beliefs.
One instance of this situation was when one of my co-workers had to take some time off due to a death in her family. She is entitled to three bereavement days but it is her culture to have religious observance for 9 days, which would hold her out of the country for that time. When my supervisor was informed on this she became outraged and threatened to fire my coworker if she went over her allotted time. Fortunately they we able to compromise and she was allowed to take the time off. But a short while after the incident she submitted her resignation.I believe that the manner by which my supervisor handled things was excessive and disrespectful to her cultural beliefs and that the problem is a poor adaptation to the divers work environment we have today.
One instance of this situation was when one of my co-workers had to take some time off due to a death in her family. She is entitled to three bereavement days but it is her culture to have religious observance for 9 days, which would hold her out of the country for that time. When my supervisor was informed on this she became outraged and threatened to fire my coworker if she went over her allotted time. Fortunately they we able to compromise and she was allowed to take the time off. But a short while after the incident she submitted her resignation.I believe that the manner by which my supervisor handled things was excessive and disrespectful to her cultural beliefs and that the problem is a poor adaptation to the divers work environment we have today.
Monday, September 10, 2007
About the Author
I am a lower Junior at Bernard Baruch College and work at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. My major is accounting and I intend to minor in Psychology. I am enrolled in a fundamentals of management course at Baruch in order to enhance my knowledge in the field and make myself more marketable in the business world.
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