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Introduction In the very beginning of this semester I had to write some short review about my attitude and expectations towards management in my life. There I mentioned that management is neither a science nor an art. This was chosen to start the essay because of demonstration of negative opinion turning into constructive Judgment. Now I own a clear image of management despite the fact of definition of this science being vague yet. It is obvious now that management’s definitions are variable and prided of any ambiguity.
Some months ago I could say only that management is a fundamental part of business but today I have number of meanings and approaches for this phenomenon. I found management as summarizing term that appears within different categories of modern man’s life. After expanding my knowledge about management through theoretical course studying I changed my mind towards management. Now I don’t treat it like some worthless business school subject. I realized that this is Just a plain word that hides an enormous accumulation of definitions and concepts inside.
All these aspects are connected with different edges of life and sometimes management surprisingly becomes essential part of totally not business-related sides of human existence. My attitude towards this “science” became at least less negative. I discovered some attractive lines of studies within the subject I did not ever like. For example some doctrines and theories of psychology and sociology can often be noticed within concepts of management. For me, actually, business studies like management are built on these sciences and use them as fundamental knowledge for creating future win theories.
When criticizing business studies I always use this idea as a proof of applying word “science” in a figurative sense. All of the business studies are based on some other serious and scientific teachings. But even after this ideas that were typical for me couple of years ago I found management as great and even noble profession and study. Back to old days I disliked the surface of management, the term itself but I always appreciated psychology and philosophy that both were discovered on lectures or while reading some business-related articles. 2 Base
It is weird to write about but roots of any of my Judgment or attitude towards something are hidden deeply in my childhood. Once I heard someone telling me: “Before you criticize and hate something, you should learn about it”. And since that time I have never put this principle away, always trying to create rational and constructive base for every attitude, evaluation or Judgment I produce in speech or writing. It became a fundamental thing of all my studies. Knowledge turn out a fundamental part of any feelings or Same thing here and 4 years ago there was nothing different.
I studied tourism management and now it is international business. It sounds wild to me as far as I mostly enjoy literature, philosophy, psychology and arts. I live so far from this modern world and I am completely sure there’s no place here for such conservative people like me. First time I faced management as a part of my studies was almost 4 years ago in a college where I studied in SST. Petersburg and this was a place where I learned a lot about management theory and history. These lessons were interesting but I still have not found any practical use for them in my life until I started studying the same in
Finland. During basic management studies I found out that practical field for implementation management knowledge in my everyday life exists. In Russian business college I always heard that I’m wrong in stating something or assuming that teacher’s words are doubtful and now I am assured that it was the reason for me not to consume all those knowledge I had to. Finnish studying practice showed me that no one Judges management as a real science and everyone accepts that there are many different points of view existing within it and one of them might be mine.
That motivated me for studying and I really appreciate it. European studies finally introduced me the real essence of those concepts I found worthless before and as a result I started associating myself with manager’s profession unconsciously. Imagining myself as future manager I have to consider my strengths. When going through number of tests I confirmed my own self-positioning proposition. It defined me as explanations and explorations based type of a person. My strengths are understanding, analyzing, discussing and learning. First of all my personality can be characterized by introversion.
I am independent enough and tend to be quite and socially reserved. Operating easily with gestalts, theories, possibilities analysis I base my Judgments and statements on logic and rationality. I used to conduct my works alone using analytic skills and verifiable conclusions while avoiding empathy and personal warmth. Based on this it becomes possible to state that innovator and expert would be perfect as team member roles for me. Indeed I have a precondition for being creative, imaginative and desire to be original in spite of the fact I am logical and constructive the same time.
This even allows me approaching tasks independently and in a specific but still scientific manner. A quality of focusing easily and directly on a task and a predilection for detachment concerning working process can make me an effective part of a team while still bringing sense of convenience for me as an introvert type of a person. After that I have realized that there is another managerial role that suits me well enough to perform it in future. Here I mean myself being an analyst.
This role meets my own qualities due to it requiring person being reserved and critical. Tendency to be accurate, prudent and attentive to any types of errors and mistakes admits my rationality in approaching asks and revising everything again before submitting it as finished. After all this I can say that there is a place for me in a team even though I am not a social and communicative personality. It relates both my studies and perspective career performance. When analyzing my weaknesses I have to accept that there are two of them and one was already mentioned.
Personal characteristics display that my greatest weak point is communication and its’ importance is obvious. I think my personality specification is not the only reason of me being bad at contacting other people. It is also clear that lack of oral practice has its’ own effect upon this. For sure, I am unable using English language same fluently and freely as my native one and this confuses me a lot. Next weak point is my problems with time management. Every student has this problem with allocating time resources according his or her tasks to complete.
Some of us can deal with this by meeting the deadline and completing everything on the last breath and the last day. I see this as a huge problem because of quality and responsibility decreasing. Even when I pass something in time or Just last minute miming before arranged time I realize that I am going to feel less responsible the next time. Or when being in a hurry completing some assignment I can clearly see that the quality of my work is a lot lower than it could. And again to underline – time management problems lead to lack of quality and irresponsibility.
To underline the conclusions of written above I would like to mention them one more time and define as a direction of future learning process and personal improvement through studying activities as well. First of all I need to go through experience of activities with intensive communication involved. This is that kind of support I need to develop an ability of confident and efficient interaction and intercourse within general society and of course in terms of business and student environments. Secondly time management.
At first sight seemed a very hard thing to reform due to its’ psychological reasons. Later I started digging deeper and realized this problem being Just another ordinary one. Communication problem arises from the depths of personality and solves Just by practicing, same with inefficiency of time allocation – it is only a habit so repairmen actions are even easier here as they are also a battalion process, Just the opposite one. I have to create a habit of organizing things, actions and time by refraining from praising improvisation.
For example Anthony K. Tax – one of the Harvard Business Review floggers, made his own but yet traditional conception to solve problem of time management missing. This article is called “Make time for time”. At first he mentions the importance of having a purpose and after that – progression through moving towards it trying to avoid spending time for insignificant and short-term issues that don’t effect on general goal achievement. Thus we have to ensure ourselves, as Tax says, that we are not Just running hard but also towards correct direction.
Next point I have found useful in this article is what was called a calendar audit and an idea behind it. This is an advice meant to give an understanding of what we actually spend our time for. In advance it works even better in case of its’ visualizing evidence is made. This idea gives a clear possibility for effective planning and defining priorities. Author also mentioned an importance of possibility to compare time allocation in one month with another one’s.
It should provide us with an ability to make conclusions and correct our perspective direction in terms of personal and professional development. After that there is next two parts that are completing this strategy of conducting effective time management. These are “thinking time” segregation and avoiding multi-tasking. First one in fact can be described a preparation gap – time for observing possibilities and what is more important – defining clear purposes of what are we going to do within event planned. This indicates effectiveness of our actions creation within incept of rational time allocation.
Final advice considered to be to most useful for me personally as far as it contains criticism towards main enemy of mine – procrastination. Multi-tasking will always let me waste my time for something that is not even a task and thus will keep me off the general task I always have to keep in mind and concentrate on in terms of productivity. This concept described above steers towards next sub-topic to cover in this essay. Principles and habits that I am going to practice within my management are the concepts I mentioned in this whole part.
Beginning with creativity, innovativeness, disposition towards analyzing and exploring, then constructiveness, scientific approach and finally goals to achieve – punctuality, communicativeness and effective time management all are points to be used in my perspective experience within a role of manager. To conclude I can mention “delivering results” as a key principle. Indeed, I would prefer focusing on achieving goals and gaining certain results throughout process of both my studies and career. I consider all the characteristics would perfectly meet in this point I have called a key principle.
Conclusion In conclusion I would like to summarize the entire essay by saying that my attitude towards management is still ambiguous. I am unable to be categorical in any judgments that touch my state of my mind. Firstly still can find good points and make self-positioning within management. But sometimes I still think of it as a typical business manifest and thus define it also as an immoral, unnatural and even greedy. Something abusive for human nature, that makes him Just a slave doing his monotonous Job and obeying a single value and a dream to chase – money.
But in my current state this proposition is treated as plain thoughts I have already passed by. Now I developed into another position that is based on a wider, open and more constructive attitude. To reach this point I had to be affected by another article and also from Harvard Business Review. Now I mean traditional, classics and as I think one of the best business and management related articles ever. It is “How you will measure your life” by Clayton M. Christensen. This article was chosen for conclusion and it is not a random choice at all. The article contains everything I have written about.
You can notice there an author underlining importance of having a clear purpose, self- positioning, defining roles, personal strategy creation and finally resources allocation. All these concepts were defined there but what is more important – the effect of this article on me. It also observes a problem I am very sensible about by defining management as a noble activity and reason for this is the thing I was wrong about. By reading this article I discovered management as a profession that is after some elevated ideas and goals, not Just revenues and money itself.