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Personal development is a conscious process of improving self-awareness, acquiring knowledge, skills and experience that will allow me to achieve my academic, personal and professional goals. In this assignment I will reflect on my personal development that I experienced in my whole life and identify key learning moments that I will critically analyses using various models and concepts I have learnt thus far. I will also reflect on my recent career as a businessman and analyze the fit between me as a manager and my company and also link my personal development to my reason for tarring my MBA with Henley.
Lastly I will highlight what impact my stage 1 assignments could have on my company and identify one key short term goal I intend to achieve during my first year at Henley and present evidence I would use to measure the progress towards it. After a retrospective Judgment of myself, I concede that if I am to grow and become an effective leader and businessman, it is important for me to become increasingly aware of myself. Human beings are a product of their reconstructed memory, with this in mind I intend to make my personal development plan, to guide me in my Rooney of life in its holistic form.
In it, I will document my developments academically and in business through out the duration of my MBA programmer and beyond. The hallmark of a Henley MBA, is programmer members’ personal development and I intend to get stuck into it at an early stage of my studies. My Personal Development Plan will incorporate a number of models but to get off the ground I would use The SMART model, by (Peter Trucker 1954), because Its uses a step-by-step approach that helps create the discipline and the structure that I would require to realize outcomes.
Specific – Completing my MBA within 3 years Measurable – I will timely submit of my assignments Achievable – I have all the materials, aptitude and support from family and Henley, that I require to pass my MBA Reasonable – I am more than equipped to study and understand all the materials I will receive from Henley and those available on Blackboard learn Timely – I have a development plan through which I have allotted enough time to study for my MBA 2. Self-Awareness Reflection Priority of my Personal Development Plan would be to grow and develop personally, academically and in business.
Figure 1 below, by (Chris Dalton, 2013) highlights how my personal development will influence my education, my business and me. Figure 1: Influence of Personal Development plan, adapted from http:// handlebar. Files. Wordless. Com/2012/04/model-for-PDP-at-Henley Jpg Having grown up in a household where education was held up as a high water mark for human achievement, both my parents and I were convinced that I would grow up to be a lawyer, pilot or a doctor.
Reflecting on my personal development in my life, it is evident that whilst a good education has always played a major role to elevate me room one station of my life to the next, I realized that education also included outside the classroom learning, as it is my strong belief that education and intelligence are diverse. After school I worked for Dunlop tires, ICP and BIB Solutions. At ICP my personal development become a priority, the company had a strong belief in training and constant self assessment exercises.
After a successful career at ICP, in 2009, I decided to embark on a new challenge, I started a business. Business grew yearly but whilst all this was happening I neglected my formal education, there was no academic progression in my life, one loud conclude that I was suffering from the tyranny of common sense, the feeling that I knew it all. I would ask myself, What would an MBA teach me that I have not yet experienced in the past 8 years of me being in business? I was living in the bubble of the present.
Deep down I knew I needed to further my academic education, my long standing goal. 3. Key Learning Moment The 24th of July 2013 was my ‘eureka moment’, I decided to concede that an MBA was the next level of personal development that I needed to embark on, if I am to take my business to the next level. I began to suffer a crisis of confidence, since I had not tidied formally for almost 10 years. I knew very well that studying part time would be challenging for me since I also had a business to run.
But I resolved that I would need to be disciplined and have clarity of purpose if I am going to be successful. Honey and Uniform learning styles questionnaire, (Honey & Uniform, 2000), concludes that I am a pragmatist, meaning that I am realistic, down to earth and practical. From these results it is easy to see why I decided to enroll for the Henley MBA, it meant that I resolved that education is not always a qualifier but lack of it might be a disqualified. 20% 100% Activist Re? Sector Theorist Pragmatist Figure 2: Learning Styles Questionnaire results, based on (Honey & Uniform, 2000) Figure 3: Shari Window, (Left & Ingram, 1955) Using the Shari window in Figure 3 above it helped unearth an ability that I had under-estimated and never bothered to try, maybe it was through lack of opportunity but I then discovered my strengths, blind spots and areas I needed to further explore, like my academic growth, which had been my ‘blind spot,’ leaving me only one option, to enroll for the Henley MBA. 4. Reflection and analysis of career
Being a Managing Director of your own enterprise is challenging, it requires an immense amount of discipline, dedication and commitment. Your roles as the owner of the business overlap in many cases. I have come to understand and appreciate the role of a team, and I believe in most organizations, teamwork is an endemic and if used appropriately, can cure most of my company’s ills. Using the Beeline Team-Role type analysis taught me never to undermine the importance of team roles, and I discovered that I need to focus on what I am most useful for in a team, which is being monitor evaluator, completer finisher and plant, Beeline (1993).
This self assessment exercise made me realize that I had a lot of knowledge gaps, and that in a team environment one needs to be flexible to sometimes foregoer one’s ‘natural’ role because they were dedicated to putting the task and the team’s needs ahead of their individual needs as illustrated by (Watkins & Sweet, 1997) in an article titled sailing with Beeline. The Henley Star Worksheet: Taboo Chough SAA 1 Personal characteristics Discipline Dedication Commitment Knowledge and understanding Course Materials
Time Management Effective behaviors Read & study Study & Network Plan & Manage my time Complete my assignments on time Outcomes for individual, organization and community Achieving my MBA in 2016 Leadership Managerial Experience Skills and experience Figure 4: Looking at my role as a manager through the eyes of the Henley star (Stagnant, 2013) It is evident that how well I will perform in any role will largely depend on my level of skills to drive my development.
The Henley star as illustrated in Figure 4 above, concludes that effective behaviors are the drivers for outcomes and that the effective behaviors are a factor of personal characteristics, knowledge, understanding and skills. Having noticed that I was lacking in skills, knowledge and understanding I knew the only way to address this deference was through a Henley MBA. 5. Why the Henley MBA? Enrolling for a Henley MBA was the only rational conclusion. Henley MBA is a very transportable degree, both during the learning stages and after you qualify because it is highly recognized.
The delivery of a Henley MBA is through blended learning. 6. Impact of Stage 1 Assignment The assignments in stage 1 will give me a very good underpinning for me to start ailing in the knowledge gaps that I have alluded to. I have thus far already learnt a lot about teamwork and been exposed to tried and tested models, tools and theories, that I believe can transform individuals like myself and organizations like my own to bring it inline with the international best practice standard.
SAA 1, class of 2014, has strong individuals from multitudes of backgrounds, different organizations across a broad spectrum of the economy – from the public sector, Seems, multinationals and the private sector. There are Coos, senior managers and directors. Henley Business School congresses collaborative consumption, learning through groups. I am confident that the assignments together with these individuals will develop me in my career and ultimately my organization.
Most of all I will learn time management, self awareness, reflection and planning. 7. Barriers to access to data and senior managers I will not have any barriers with regards to access to data and senior managers as I own the business. 8. Time management I drafted a personal development plan refer to Appendix B, which will help me identify what I desire out of a Henley MBA and in life as a whole. This development plan will assist me to become the person I wish to be.