Archives for the Month of October 2005 on Danny Pho's Online Journal
Harrah's Casino: the little things
This case study was interesting. I particularly enjoyed how the company was able to motivate their employees with simple incentives. The one thing that stood out to me was how a particular manager can motivate their employees with little things like giving them t-shirts. The group missed their targeted goal by a little but the manager was able to motivate them by giving them the t-shirts. I guess this really works because they achieved their goal the next quarter. It is the little things that have the most effect on a group. The group may have achieved their goal the next quarter without the gift from the manager but they probably worked harder knowing the manager really cared about them and is working to help them achieve their goal. The gesture of giving the gift probably motivated them.
Career Interview
I just completed my second career interview today. I thought this was going to take a lot of time and was going to painful. However, the two interviews turned out better than expected. It was slightly difficult finding people to interview. I personally did not know many people so I went to the Career Center as suggested. I got two alumni but only one responded. Luckily, I was able to find someone else through one of my aunt's friends. The interviews allowed me to learn about fields I did not know about. It was actually very interesting to learn about their lives and what they do with their careers. Overall, I think it was a great experience to build the contact.
HR Simulation
I was a little skeptical in the beginning when I heard of this assignment even though it sounds appealing. The idea of simulating the human resource aspect of a company interested me a lot. It seems like it would be a lot of fun being able to make all kinds of decisions. Then I learned it was a group project. I did not like that idea too much in the beginning because group projects are always hard to organize. Everyone has a different schedule and it is always hard to arrange a time when everyone is able to meet to work on this together. There is also the issue of how much each person is going to contribute to the tasks. Is everyone going to work just as hard as I expect them to or will someone have to pick up the slack of another team member? Now that we actually started the project, it appears like everyone in the team would work efficiently. Everyone on the team has the same amount of power and everyone is expected to work just as hard. I don't think I will be let down by the other members of my team now that we actually started. This is a relief compared to a couple of days ago when we had no idea what we were doing and how we were supposed to approach this assignment. Now that the team is oriented with each other and we know how each person works, I think this project will be a lot of fun even if it is a group project.
MBTI/Self Assessment Tests
I thought the MBTI was pretty accurate. It's a little surprising since I really did not know what to expect while taking the test. I was definitely skeptical but when I read the description, it fit me perfectly. However, when I was reading the leadership and type page, the description did not seem correct to me. Some characteristics on that page were not how I would consider myself but the test seem pretty accurate overall.
For some reason, it seems like I took a lot of self assessment tests this year. Between this course and random other places, I have taken many different self assessments within the past two months. During the Second-Year Institute, I took an Emotional Intelligence test. I was surprised when I saw that was the topic of one of the chapters we were supposed to read. It started to make sense to me how such traits will help in the managerial position. The test surprisingly gave me some great feedback on traits where I can work on to improve.