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How do you react when confronted With an issue? An issue is some sort of a conflict. It can be task related or relationship related. I believe I am better at handling relationship conflicts as compared to task oriented conflicts. Major part of the B School experience comes from working in groups and student committees. People from different places with different personalities and diverse backgrounds come together to achieve a goal which usually is either pulling off a big event in case of student committees or get good grades in case of study groups.
This usually leads to ask related conflicts. Moreover, since it is a residential program over 500 students are living together in the same campus. It is human nature that relationship conflict would arise. When confronted with a conflict involving task, usually employ the avoidance approach or the compromise approach. I give in too easily. Now that sit and think about it, it could be because of my low self confidence and this under confidence leads me to believe that others would probably know more than me and thus accepting their perspective seems to be the right thing to do.
But as has been proven time and again, m usually not so wrong. Thus, I have started believing in my work and change my approach to handling an issue related to task. I still bend over when I am faced with extremely dominant people but I am working on not being a push over and slowly moving towards using confrontation approach to handle such conflicts. As for relationship conflicts, I believe in confrontation. The person that I am, relationships have always taken precedence over success. Any issues in any of my relationships with my beloved ones have always taken priority in my life.
My approach to solving elationship conflicts is usually one of confrontation. This is to ensure that there is no misunderstanding caused due to communication gaps. This approach has always worked for me in the past. Especially when the issue arises between two people both very close to me, taking sides is not possible; the best way is to ensure there is no communication gap. This technique has solved a lot of issues and saved a lot of relationships. Highlight five creative things that you have come across in your day to day life or at your work place and describe why you think each of them failed worked)? ) During my internship, I came across this application that was created by my guide to track the time employees were actually working as in logged in at their desktop. This application has saved a lot of cost for the company and also acts as a regulation for the employees. This innovative application was the creative idea of my guide. 2) A restaurant in Bangalore tried to come up with an Italian and South Indian cuisine integrated. It is known for its Dosa Pizza. The restaurant gained a lot of popularity and has expanded its chain. 3)
A start up by a friend, a clothes boutique, due to lack of funds could not get professional photographers and models to promote her clothes. She decided to use her friends (fat and thin) to model her clothes. This led to increased customer base since the store used normal girls to model and promote the store. 4) Growing up with extreme pressure on studies and doing well in academics, have seen friends use extremely creative methods of cheating in daily tests like writing formulaes on their palms, hiding chits in their socks or shoes. Sometimes they would get caught but most of the times they would et away with it. ) One of our professors at XIMB used a rather creative way of teaching, through story telling. This engaged students in the class as well as helped them learn more than normal lectures or case studies. This teaching style works for students as they tend to remember a Concept more through a story rather than a traditional lecture. How do you motivate others to be creative? Motivation comes through leading by example. In a team, each person should lead by being part of the team rather than dominating. Personally believe ther people can be motivated to show creativity through extrinsic and intrinsic rewards.
When I am in trouble with my parents, I usually ask my sister to come up with something original as an excuse to get me out of the mess and in return I offer her some sort of a bribe. I believe even in organizations, extri nsic and intrinsic rewards will stimulate creativity in people. I also believe giving people deadlines and setting a defined goal for them motivates them. I work best under pressure, but different people have different stimulus. For some creativity comes when there is no stress, no goal. Thus, it is important to identify a person’s motivators and use those to motivate people.
Share with us your experiences when you needed to move on with a creative idea or assignment or a project in your daily life or in your work place that required help from others? Creativity always requires support. have this one experience that I can relate to this question. A colleague and I came up with an idea of creating a monthly News Letter for our particular service line. This News letter would be a source of information for all employees to know what is new on the floor. For example, any new projects hat have started, new people who have joined the service line and any upcoming events.
We also decided to include a technical section where we would publish articles that would be written by employees on the floor itself stating a difficult issue he had to face in his project and how he overcame it. Since we were at the junior most level, we needed support from our seniors. So we approached our senior consultants with the idea who loved it. They further proposed it to the senior manager of our service line who was a bit hesitant initially. After numerous discussions with him and complete support f our senior managers we managed to release first edition of our newsletter.
This idea was appreciated by everyone on the floor and we received recognition for it as well. Another creative idea some of my colleagues and I as a group came up with an idea of Friday Fun Exercises for people on the floor. This would involve getting people out of their cubicles and cabins and make them play games to ease up the tension and lighten the mood. This idea was supported and appreciated highly by my senior manager and with his support we managed to pull off a lot of events one Friday of each month.