Happy Blogging!

Blogging, I have never really blogged before so this was something new for me. At first I thought, "Oh man, I have to blog against my own free will", but after awhile it wasn't as bad as I thought. Once class is done, and a blog assignment is up, its not hard to transfer all the thoughts I had during the class into words. Blogging really gave me a chance to relate management techinques to hands-on class activities. Most classes are purely lecture and tests, so we never get to experience the material in real life situations. Not only were the class activities interesting, it led me to relate it to specific management techinques. Blogging was the final step into digesting the information and remembering it without memorization.
The blogging goals I feel were accomplished for me. It gives me a chance to see the perspectives of other students in the class, and also a chance to communicate to students that otherwise I usually wouldn't interact with. Also while reading the professors blog, it allowed me to read the blog with a management mindset. As the class progresses, I have a better overall understanding of management and that helps when reading the professors blog. Before this class began I might have been intimidated by professors writing since I lacked the understanding of management but as time went on a better understanding made me appreciate the blogging much more. Some topics I was thinking "Hey I know what he's talking about", or "hmm..thats what I learned in class". I would probably continue this blog, but maybe write less in it since I got more classes to worry about. If everyone continues it, it would be great since its always nice to learn others perspectives of things, as well as comments.
I feel the blog is essential of this course, and I much rather prefer it than another test. The blogging really helped me research and understand the management techinques, which translates into an easier time on the tests. Also it makes the class feel better as a whole and are not all strangers and gives everyone a chance to interact with one another. I wouldn't say it needs improvement since it's satisfying all the goals already.

DISC is...

DISC managers, what does it mean?
D is for dominance, and sometimes mean,
no doubt would it get mad at Mr. Bean,
I is for influence, and may be very persuasive,
certainly a leader you can put your faith in with,
S is for steadiness, and they prefer a steady pace,
as slow and steady always wins the race,
C is for conscientiousness, and is always neat,
they are always right the first time when they accomplish a feat!

Big D and Little c

For my personal diagnostic profile, my primary trait revealed that I showed Dominance while my secondary trait was conscientiousness. The test turned out to be accurate after I have given it a bit of thought. I always figured that I was more conscientious, yet the test showed me that I want to get everything done my way. While answering the questions I tended to pick more of the dominant characteristics, because that was what was favorable for me. Such as being more insistent rather than tactful. This is a decent balance for becoming a manager because decisions need to be made, while all variables should be analyzed closely. As for becoming another type, I can probably be more influential since conscientiousness just edged over influence.
Determining other people's management "type" is defintely useful either at work or even in class. Professors all have different management styles and students should try to evaluate which type their professor is so they know what to expect for class. As for work, recruiters would benefit from this test since they generally know how the company operates and generally want to get the right managers for the position. This test would also be good for dividing people into groups or teams. Each group should have one of each type of management style. This is good to prevent for example 3 dominant people in a group, which would probably lead to group conflicts.

Vision! The Bigger Picture

As I think about my life after Baruch, there are plenty of uncertainties out there I have yet experienced because I have been attending school most of my life. When I graduate, I plan to apply to take the CPA exam. This can only happen if I finish all my classes in time so this is sort of two goals in one and is also always in the back of my mind. If passed, it will be awesome as I would feel an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. I heard that this was not an easy test to pass, so to achieve this goal is going to require plenty of heavy duty studying.
Moving on from a goal most accounting majors may have, I also would like to concentrate on a hobby of mine which is to play handball more often and become well enough to win a legit tournament. Ever since Sophomore year started, there is less and less time to play, and I do know that working would take up more of my time but its still a goal of mine. Also becoming better than your friends in the game is just icing on the cake.
Another vision I have is to become a food critic. I honestly have no idea on how to become one, maybe go to culinary school. The road to this job I would commit to taking would to first become an accountant for a big restuarant, or maybe even food network. From then on I would just continue to build up a contact list and a name for myself and hopefully one day management would notice that I have a interest in food and give me a chance to critique. Last time when I went to Vegas, there were many restuarants that I enjoyed and I thought "Man, wouldn't it be great if I could do this for a living, and traveling would also be a plus!"
I have tons of other simple goals like to make my bed more often or to watch less television, but I chose only these goals because they represent a challenge that I would have to try hard to overcome.

The 1 Hour Decision!

The day after the test we had an activity that resembled peers in a jury making decision. We all had to come to a consensus of how the first exam would be reflected in our average. Knowing the class average was in the 70's, there was worry that the class might lose motivation for the class. I agree that is true at times like when i get a bad grade on the first exam, I tend to be less motivated about the class knowing that the best grade I can get might be a B- or something. When the class was debating for a better grade, many people were more passionate than others while some just sat back and relaxed. Out of the different ways of handling conflict I would say I used "avoidance". I didn't use that strategy because I had no chance of winning, but I saw how the curve was calculated and I would be saisfied eitherway if we got a curve or we got to drop the lowest grade. Also I saw that tension was really high in the room, and I didn't want half the class countering whatever I had said so I just listened for the most part. Maybe if we got nothing at all I would get upset, but I guessed that the class will atleast come to a consensus on something.

After experiencing how the class reacted to this decision making process, I think it could have been done using "collaboration", where the class breaks up into maybe 4 or 5 groups and each group has their own ideas. This way it could have been more organized and the time constraint would be no bother. The leader did do a good job reminding us of the time constraint as well as represent the group unbiased to any decision which I thought was important. Opinions were respected and the leader didn't want to pressure anyone into anything. Also if there would be groups, if a group has a few people who don't agree with the decision, it would be better for the group to handle it rather than 80 classmates against maybe one person. If one person is put on the spot like that, its hard to come up with a response that accurately shows how they feel.

Overall I saw about 4 out of the 5 ways to deal with conflict used in the activity and different personality clashes. There were compete to win personalities who freely expressed their opinion, avoidance people who sat back and listened. A few accomodating people who voted for the benefit of the other students, and compromising was used to an extent, but not fully, as in the end the majority got everything they wanted. Collaborating was an idea that was brought up, but not used, I'am guessing because everyone including myself was anxious to come to a decision quick instead of working in groups. With this experience, I learned that when a group of people need to come to a consensus on something, there are multiple ways people handle the conflict and it will be interesting to see how my friends react to decisions in the future.

Save the Egg!

In this task, the goal was to save the egg from a 10 feet drop, and we had 25 minutes to plan and 10 minutes to actually carry out the plan and build a contraption out of straws and tape. Our group actually thought we only had 15 minutes to plan, but as the time went on, we saw that nobody got their materials yet at the 15 minute mark so that problem was behind us.

While planning we eventually saw our groups strengths and weaknesses. Things that worked out in our favor was being right next to the scissors, and having a person who really wanted to drop the egg and felt confident about dropping it. Some weaknesses included too many discussions at once, and everybody has their own plans of how to build the model. Our group went from strategy to strategy, encasing the egg in a cube, a triangle, or even having it suspended in a rectangle. These were pretty difficult to make, and another plan of just wrapping straws around the egg was devised. The strengths of having it enclosed or suspended were that it wouldn't touch the ground at all and the straws would take all the impact, but they were hard to make. We didn't choose a tactical plan, we wanted to try to see if we could build the harder models first, and if that didn't work, we would just wrap straws around the egg. The group didnt have a full consensus on the model because we ended up just doing the wrap method because group members were worried there wouldn't be enough time to finish building. We also didn't design it specifically, as we made adjustments as we saw fit on the actual model, then drew it later.

Everybody had a role, whether it be the egg dropper, time keeper, model builders, tape person, straw handler, model designer. While we did go through the last step, it wasn't too organized, we didnt measure progress towards the goal, we just put anything we saw fit onto the model to accomplish our goal and hoped for the best. We went through Steps 1-4, but 5 basically we skipped as we had a plan but didn't follow it specifically. Our egg ultimately cracked, and was a result of our decent planning, but cracking under pressure when we felt we didnt have enough time to produce a better model, and had really no excellent plan for the alternative model. The group could have been more effective in planning the alternative strategy, since in the end thats the strategy we used. Next time I believe the group should follow through on its optimal plan and if not then we need a better alternative plan. But sometimes even if theres the best planning, if the idea isnt good then the planning ultimately is going to be irrelevant.

Managing another manager

I work in Modell's currently and my manager is one of those no nonsense type of persons. I didn't see or speak to him while I was getting hired, and the first time I saw him he wanted to speak to me about needing me to work another day in the week. He won't talk to you when something you do something well, but he'll be there to let you personally know what you did wrong. One time a customer was upset as they usually are and decided to take offense when we didn't have a pair of shoes they wanted. The customer decides to be dramatic and calls the manager out, and I had to tell him my side of the story which is so troublesome it isn't even worth the job sometimes. The worst part is going to see him about an off day, if it doesnt work with his schedule, even if you ask a month in advance, then you've got no choice but to work, unless you're a rebel. After having experience with this type of manager I always tried to stay away of his line of vision, and when you really need an off day or anything else for that matter, I always try to talk to the nicer manager. Sometimes I think the two managers are playing good cop bad cop, but as long as you got the good cop on your side, you'll be lucky half the time.