Entries in the Category "MGMT250"
Annual Report Again
Tonight our team met to discuss our plan for writing our annual report. I don't know how this will work, but we basically decided to revise the first annual report. Of course, this entails adding the new data from the second year. The only substantial new sections of our report are the questions that ask for reflections on the simulation as a whole. In any case, I think our strategy will be fine. We did well on the first report and I think we can anticipate doing well again. Our team leader is going to discuss our plan with Professor Piderit anyway.
Learning Plan Again
I have just completed my Part II draft (the goals section). I think that the class discussions that we have had recently were in fact helpful. I chose to use the outline format to describe my goals. This seems to work well. In my paper, I wrote one goal, broken up into subgoals and action steps, and then followed that with a paragraphs describing why I chose it, how it relates to my values, and why it's a SMART goal. I did the same for the next goal. In the end, I'm happy with my draft, although it does exceed the informal page requirement.
Management 250
As the end of the semester draws near, I'd like to say a few things about this class so far. I have enjoyed class for the most part. I think that, for me, it has really helped me to start thinking about my future more than I would have having not taken it. This has happened both through writing my learning plan and through the various activities that we have done, like creating a rusume for example and participating in the mock interviews. I also enjoy our discussions in class as they help me to think about real life work situations and to reflect on situations that I have had in the past. The only aspect that I might change about the course is the readings because they haven't been nearly as helpful as the other aspects of the class. Plus, the books were really expensive.
More on the Learning Plan
In last Tuesday's class we did peer reviews for our learning plans. While this was helpful, I am a little worried about the grading for the final paper. In the syllabus, it says there is no formal page requirement. However, we learned in class that we could be penalized for length. The first part of my learning plan was 14 pages long. This was only to include everything that was required, and I still didn't get an A. How am I supposed to add part two and not exceed 15 pages? I understand that I will have to revise and take sections out, but if there is a page limitation, then the instructions in the syllabus should specify that.
Learning Plan Part II
I have just started my learning plan part II. This assignment is just a little difficult because the directions confuse me. For example, I don't know if the rubric that was distributed is for just part II, or for the complete plan when we turn in both parts I and II. Also, in discussing a class that will aid in achieving a learning goal, what if my goal is to get a minor in economics? Could I then just describe a couple of economics classes that I'm going to take to fulfil my minor? In any case, although the assignment is a little difficult, I do value the fact that it fources us to take a step back and try to objectively look at who we are, where we're going, and how we plan to get there.
Extra Session
I thought that Tuesday's extra session was very informing. We were lucky to have such an expereinced individual come and speak to us about something directly related to class. I thought that he did a wonderful job explaining the systems of performance evaluations to us in simple ways to ease in our understanding. Furthermore, his real life examples helped me to see which types of performance evaluations I wouldn't mind being subjected to in my own career (and the ones that I would try to avoid). One downside to the session was that the "demonstration" was a little boring and the point that he was trying to make with it was a little unclear.
Feedback
I thought Thursday's session on feedback was great. I think that it is very important for everyone entering business to know how to give constructive and accurate feedback. Through my experiences, I have dealt with situations which could have been handled better if only the principles of good feedback were followed. For example, I worked at a restaurant in which the owner/manager insisted on degrading employees and emphasizing mistakes as a form of feedback. Fortunately, I was not usually at the receiving end of this treatment, but i noticed how this poor use of feedback led to a less-productive working environment for everyone on the job. Also, throught the experiment in class, I learned how to give better feedback to others.
Goal Setting
I thought that last week's session on goal setting was very helpful. I have always been good at setting goals and reaching them following a set plan. However, this year, I have had some difficulty with this. I realized that some of the problem resulted because my goals were too unattainable. Also, in some cases, I wasn't taking the proper steps to achieve them. After learning more about goal setting in class, I will always make SMART goals from now on to better my chances of success.
Problems Writing Annual Report
As we all know, the HR simulation annual report is due next Tuesday. Since our group has been working on it, we have run into some problems. First, some of the questions on the assignment sheet are very similar (#3 and #4 for example). Also, throughout the simulation, we have had a lot of trouble noticing how our decisions are affecting our output numbers. Of course the relationships will not be linear, but it seems that we should be able to observe better correlations than we have been. These factors have made it difficult to write the annual report.
Annual Report Strategy
The annual report for the HR simulation is due next Tuesday. Our group decided to split up the questions so that each member would write about two pages answering one question. Monday, we will combine them for our annual report. I think the main thing we have to look for is that we make sure that our report flows together as one cohesive report, rather than several reports pasted together. I think that this can easily be done by going through the report and making sure that it's not repetivie throughout our different sections, and that we use proper transitions.
ethics
This week in class, we are going to be studying ethics. I have not read the readings yet, but I just started to think about business ethics. Recently, it seems that every other week there is some kind of huge business scandal. The thing is, is that all of these scandals and controversy all lead to back to ethics. If every firm in every industry practiced good ethics, I think that these scandals would all but disappear.
Annual Report
Our annual report for the HR simulation is coming up. As a group so far, we have worked together pretty well. We meet regularly once per week and seem to get the work done efficiently. However, we haven't really observed how our decisions are affecting our results. Consequently, I think that writing the annual report will be difficut. Any advice?
HR Simulation Team
When we first started talking about how teams fail in class, I thought it was all a bunch of nonsense. However, after working with my HR simulation team, I have realized that I was wrong. It's not that my team is in bad shape at all, I have just noticed that working in teams is not as easy as I first thought. There are a lot of things to consider. For example, is one person in the group doing the majority of the work? Are there people in the team who take advantage of the work of others? Is everyone's input heard and respected? Like I said, it's not that my team specifically is suffering. I just thought that these are questions that we should all keep in mind in continuing our HR simulations.
Career Interviews
I have just recently completed my two career interviews. I had to do a little networking to find the right candidates, but it was worth it to talk to such great people. The first interviewee has worked at Key Bank for about 20 years. He is married and has two children. Since starting at Key after graduating from Bowling Green University, he has gained experience in several departments and has continuously been promoted. My other interviewee was a 2004 Case graduate and has just started his job at Union Capital Mortgage, a small mortgage banker just outside of Cleveland. He landed the job after working a summer internship there while he was still in school and seems to be doing very well for himself as well. It was great to hear the experiences of these two individuals as they related to me, and my pursuit of an education and a career. I think that it was especially helpful to get two different perspectives: one of an established professional, and one of an aspiring young talent.
demotivation
I thought that last week's discussion on demotiviation was great. I think starting off talking about demotivation first, peaked the class’ interest for the lecture. In my opinion, motivating (as opposed to demotivating) employees is obviously the best choice for any company. However, I will say that I have seen demotivation work as well. My first place of employment (a Dairy Queen restaurant), for example, was run by a manager that often demotivated employees. This method worked, too, and not just in the short run because it has been the most profitable Dairy Queen in Ohio for several years. The downsides of this technique that I noticed over the years have been high turnover and low employee morale.
More on the Learning Plan
I was thinking more about Part I of the Learning Plan. It's due on Thursday October 20, which is only one week from this Thursday, so it's really coming up. So far I have completed one interview for the assignment, which went really well. I thought that it might be helpful for everyone in the class to somehow (probably through email) share what we have done with our peers as we begin to write. I have always found peer critiques helpful in writing papers, and I think everyone will benefit if we try this out. Feel free to let me know what you think.
Learning Plan
It's hard to believe that Part I of the Learning Plan is due in about two weeks. I think that it should not be that hard except for the fact that the whole paper is about me. In my past experiences, I have always found it difficult to talk about myself, let alone write an eight page paper. It has to be done, though, and I am planning to start it this weekend. I have two potential interviewees in mind and I hope to get that out of the way first. Does anyone have any advice for Part I of the Learning Plan?
First thoughts on HR simulation
Like a lot of other activities that we have done so far, I really did not know what to expect from this HR simulation that we have just started. Reading the description in the actual book did help a little. However, I never really understood the simulation until our group first got together to discuss our team plan, possible positions, and how we would handle our first incident. It seems that this project will require a lot of work, just from the energy it takes to work within a group and to get things done. However, I am confident that the HR simulation will be great experience in both teamwork and in making management choices for all of us. I already feel as though I have learned a little more about how groups work after only two meetings.
Mixer
I thought that the class mixer was a pretty good activity. It got students and others to interact in simulated networking environment that was similar to what i experienced at the Career Fair. However, I think that, as students, we didn't take it seriously because a lot of us know each other and introducing yourself and creating contacts with people that you already know is sort of strange. It was a worthwhile exercise to practice communicating, also.
interview paper
At first, I forgot all about having to write a paper to fulfill the interview assignment; I thought we could just do the interview and be done. Then, when I was reading my syllabus, I realized that I had to write a 4-6 page paper on just the interview alone. I really didn't think it was possibe to write such a lengthy report on an event that lasted only a half hour. However, once I started writing it, I realized that I really had a lot to say. I included how I prepared, the actual interview session itself, and then my thoughts about what had happened. In the end, I think it was an easy paper to write.
Interview
I recently had my mock interview last Friday. I wasn't nervous at all that week because I was so busy and hadn't had much time to think about it. However, when I arrived at the Career Center, I started to think about all the questions that he could ask me and what I was going to say; I became a little tense. When I was finally called in, the interviewer really put me at ease. He basically just went right down the line asking me questions about my resume. He landed a couple of tough questions that I stumbled on too. At the end, we went over how it went and he gave me some feedback. In general, I did well, he said. He mentioned that I nailed a couple questions with my examples from my experiences, but of course he noted a few things that I need to work on. Hopefully I will participate in several more mock interviews for practice in the next two years before I have a real one.
Internships
I have recently updated and published my resume on eCompass, partly because i had to for the mock interview assignment, but now i realize that i desperately need an internship for this summer. Working on my resume and making a trip to the Career Center has really got me excited about internships and careers though. It also reminded me that I need to start really thinking about a specific management concentration. If anyone has any advice about how to secure internships or just how to find the right one, please let me know.