Effective Management Action Plan

Effective Management Action Plan The report aims to help understand distinct management competencies skills possessed and develop an Action Plan for effective management by taking the Personal Assessment of Management Skills (PAMS) test located in Carlopio and Andrewarthas textbook Developing management skills: A comprehensive guide for leaders, (2012). A 6 choice Likert scale questionnaire of PAMS test helped in determining the strengths and weakness associated with each of the skills. To triangulate the analysis of competent skills, feedback from manager, co-worker and friend also assisted in final decision-making process. The following graph represents the results of PAMS, which helped me and the mentors to rate my skills and decide to describe the two competencies, which need to be focussed.   Ã‚   In assessing self-awareness competency, I scored 68% comparatively lower than other competency skills. It wasnt that I in sighted it as a weakness but due to the importance of skill in day to day life I wish to focus on improving it further since it determines emotional intelligence which relates to being smart, healthy and contented. The good was that I did reflect on incidents and tried to analyse shortcomings but the barrier was an image created whenever things went wrong and was not ready to accept wrong things and the same was hindering my personal growth. This was a major issue where everyone wanted me to work build self-confidence and inculcate positive sense of self-worth. 1) LITERATURE REVIEW: Self-awareness is the ability to read and understand our emotions as well as recognise the impact on work-performance relationship. Self-awareness is crucial for productive interpersonal and personal functioning as it helps to understand and empathise people. It helps to acquire knowledge about underlying dimensions of personality and is associated with human behavioural skills of work performance, problem solving, creativity, motivation and life satisfaction (Goleman (1998b: 14)). The five core aspects of self-awareness are Emotional Intelligence, Values, Cognitive Style, Attitude towards Change and Interpersonal Style, which capture all the essential aspects of personality (Allan Waclawski 1999; Atwater Yammarino 1992; Goleman 1998a, 1998b; Parker Kram 1993; Sosik Megerian 1999). Hence being self-aware is being smart, knowing and well managing feelings, utilizing them to make good decisions, motivating with zeal and persistence, maintaining hope in face of frustration, exhibiti ng empathy and compassion, interacting smoothly and maintaining relationships in all walks of life. (Goleman (1998b: 14)) 2) SKILL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITY: My deficiencies rooted from the fact I was quick in assuming things in which sometimes I missed on facts and was rigid of my judgement. So to develop the shortcomings not being judgemental after things do not work out and moving on accepting things and change is on priority in my to do list. In addition, the focus was to ensure all the facts and never assume things and take a quick decision based on incomplete assumptions. I started maintaining a reflective journal for the whole semester and would describe the situations and improvements, discuss them with my mentors to achieve long-term strategic improvement. 3) ASSESSMENT OF SKILL DEVELOPMENT: During the final week of the semester I would again complete the evaluative surveys on Self Awareness in Carlopio and Andrewarthas textbook Developing management skills: A comprehensive guide for leaders, (2012), page 124 and believe that there would be a significant improvement in my scores reflecting that issues of being rigid and over judgemental have been ameliorated. Building effective teams is a group competency and I feel the need to master the skill since I aspire to become a successful Project Manager. The score for this skill from PAMS test by individual assessment was 70%, whereas peers and mentors graded around 74%. One of the reasons being, in case of difficult team members I usually end up taking their tasks and completing on time. However, gradually have realised to have a group mindset and encourage member contribution by group inspiration and motivation. 1) LITERATURE REVIEW: Paying attention to conflict situations (Bakken, E. (2007)) and making sure it resolves within the meeting and implementing four Ps of effective meeting for preparing and conducting meeting, before every group assignment meeting (Carlopio, J., Andrewartha, G. (2008)). Purpose: The reason for organizing a meeting should by clearly communicated amongst team members by circulating meeting agenda, which will help team members come, prepared for meeting. Participants: Depending on the purpose of meeting the right number of people and type of participants (homogeneous- heterogeneous, competition- cooperation, task process are invited. Planning: To ensure that the meeting is productive and efficient, everyone should be prepared for the meeting agenda, which is well structured as per the common rule and leads to final decision. Process: Process is defined as actual conduct of meetings with seven steps stated as follows: 1) Review 2) Introduction 3) Discussion of Ground Rules 4) Report 5) Display 6) Participation 7) Summarise. 2) SKILL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITY: I plan to maintain a diary on daily basis. After team allocations, I will then analyse my actions during the task by writing down and reflect on these five questions; How successful was the building an efficient team from my point of view? How did the others respond to mine team-building decisions? Was there any conflict? What modifications can I make next time according to own feelings and from the feedback of my co-workers? In what ways can I contribute to make my team better at work? How can I improve my interpersonal relationships with difficult team members, which could be by analysing their attitude in order to encourage them to participate? Also need to follow the 4 Ps principle to ensure active participation of each team member, no stress to anyone in team, motivate the team to achieve goals and effectively allocate teammates by identifying the strengths and weakness and assuring that teams are competent to work virtually as well as in office. 3) ASSESSMENT OF SKILL DEVELOPMENT: During this semester, I have a chance to be a part of team and would do my best to be an efficient team player as well as be chosen to lead by vote. This will inculcate in me a sense of confidence to build effective teams for future work. Also would take the evaluative assessment again to ensure team-building skills have been significantly improved. (Allan Waclawski 1999; Atwater Yammarino 1992; Goleman 1998a, 1998b; Parker Kram 1993; Sosik Megerian 1999). Bakken, E. (2007). Twelve ways to build an effective team. Ceridan Corporation. Carlopio, J. Andrewartha, G, 2012.   Developing Management Skills: A comprehensive guide for leaders. Pearson Australia Goleman (1998b: 14)

Strength of Association

Strength of Association In research. Several principles have been shown to affect the strength of association between stimuli. Based on your own experiences in learning, provide an example of each of the following principles of association: contiguity, frequency, and intensity. Select one of your examples. Describe how a deferent principle of association might explain this example. Contiguity- Association by contiguity refers to the belief that our ideas, memories and experiences are link together when Is frequently experienced with the other, because tit contiguity the closer in time two events occurred. He more likely or strongly they would be associated. (Lieberman, 2012). When I was a little girl I would get into my mother's makeup and use her lipstick to draw on the bathroom wall. This upset my mother so she told me to stop doing this, but oddly enough I continued. As time went on she to spank me and say No when I did this, but when she would wake up and tint the bathroom walls clean tort my art work she would smile and say good girl. Then she would reward me with markers and other art supplies.I began to understand that if did what she said she would be happy and think I was a good girl and I would get art supplies for my good behavior. Frequency- With frequency this is an event or situation that would happen repeatedly. The frequency of association states that the more often two or more things occur together the more they will be associated together. An example that comes to mind Is that as a teen my mother would wake me up early In the morning everyday, which Is pretty hard, but In doing so she would get me a French vanilla cappuccino.I begin to feel every time I wake up n the morning I would get my lovely French vanilla cappuccino. I associated mornings and I guess my mother with a coffee beverage. Intensity- With intensity it involves stimuli. It is associations involving emotional or traumatic events. It occurs when I see places from the past that re mind me of a traumatic event. Trauma and memory form a generalization of fear as stimuli, which resembles those present during a traumatic event. (Lessee, Rabin, Heeler, Laughing, Garage, Pine, ; Grilling, 2010). When AAAS II years old my hip slipped out of place and AAAS in so such pain.I had been diagnosed for hip dysphasia. I was in tears form the pain that had increased over the previous year. By time got to the hospital was at my worst and I was put in the waiting room form six in the morning to 12 in the afternoon, before I was seen, then had x-rays done. By six in the evening I was fed up with the hospital and the staff and just wanted to go home, but I was forced to stay for emergency surgery the next mooring. After this situation I never really liked going to the hospital, because It reminds me of the pain I felt as a child.With my first example I would say it could fall into frequency, because the more I did one thing the more I did one thing such as drawing on the wall I would get spanked. So because of the frequency of the two together I begin to associate one with the other due to it happening do often. Reference Lieberman, D. A. (2012). Psychology of learning. San Diego, CA: Bridgeport Education ‘ Off C. (2010). Personalization of conditioned fear as a pathogenic marker of panic disorder. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 167(1), 47-55. Retrieved from the Protest database.

Google †PESTEL & Porter’s Five Forces Analysis Essay

1.0 Introduction Google Inc, a global technology company, founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, is the most popular search engine in the world. Google provides numerous free services and products such as Google search, YouTube, Google Maps, and has transformed how people use and share information. Google’s business spans from advertising, data analytics, operating systems to technologically advanced devices such as Google Glass, Driverless cars, Solar-powered drones, and was recently named â€Å"The World’s Most Valuable Brand† due to consumers perception of Google being a forward-looking company focused on innovation (Bloomberg, 2014). As of 2013, Google has 43,862 employees working in more than 70 offices in over 40 countries around the world with their headquarters located in Mountain View, California, USA. (2014). For the purpose of this study, I will be basing my analysis of Google in Singapore, its Southeast Asia headquarters which opened in 2007. The following sections will analyse the various factors that will influence Google’s operations in Singapore, and conclude with recommendations of how Google should further improve to boost its competitive edge. 2.0 PESTEL Analysis 2.1 Political Though little political restrictions affect Google’s operations due to the nature of its business, government stability is a major aspect in Google’s strategic planning. Singapore had been rated Asia’s most politically stable country (Berdzenadze, 2013), and Asia’s most competitive economy in the Global Competitiveness Report by the World Economic Forum (2013). When the market of operations has political and economic stability,  businesses will thrive and in turn advertise more, thus increasing business opportunities for Google. 2.2 Economic Google was hailed as being â€Å"Recession-Proof† when they continued to post solid earnings through the economic downturn (Quittner, 2008). It is well positioned to weather the downturn, as its services are free to consumers, and advertisers substituted traditional media advertising with online advertising to cut costs. Regardless, Singapore is widely acknowledged as having one of the best business environments in the world. Ranked as the world’s easiest place to do business (The World Bank Group, 2014) and city with the best investment potential (as cited by Economic Development Board, 2014), Singapore with its sound monetary and fiscal policy attracts many investors. The more investment dollars pour into a business, the more they are willing to spend on advertisements, which increases business opportunities for Google. 2.3 Social In Singapore where there is high internet penetration rate of 87% and mobile penetration rate of 156% (IDA, 2014), consumers comfortable with technology often see the internet as the first source of product research before making their final purchase, making Google a very important part of the process. To increase the number of users accessing Google’s services from their mobile device, Google released its own Android mobile operating system which now holds 55.8% of the mobile device market share (comScore, 2014). It is thus increasingly important for marketers to influence consumer’s final purchasing decisions by advertising in this space. However, Google’s infrastructure created to customise and personalise each user’s search experience by storing their personal information has been  received with mixed reactions as some find Google’s sale of such information a violation of their privacy. As people’s attitude and concern towards protecting their private data change, Google’s business may face a threat. 2.4 Technological Beyond a search engine, Google constantly innovates and develop its wide range of free products aimed at strengthening user engagement. Technology rapidly advances, and Google actively takes measures to ensure they do not fall behind. According to Bloomberg data, Google has acquired 127 companies in the past three years (as cited by Farzad, 2014). Besides buying companies, such as Waze, a GPS navigation software, and Admeld, an advertising optimisation platform, in a smart defensive play to acquire companies that poses a threat to its business, Google has been acquiring a wide range of technological companies from Humanoid robots to Airborne wind turbines to Home automation devices. In a bid to strengthen its business, Google is increasingly moving into developing hardware technology that has a tangible presence in consumer’s homes and offices. 2.5 Environmental It is estimated that Google runs over a million servers in data centres worldwide, with its first Southeast Asia data centre in Singapore operating since 2013, and consumes a huge amount of electricity. Every time someone makes a search or sends an email, they contributes to the electricity bill at Google’s data centre (Tan, 2014). However, Google argues that they have made the world a greener place considering the electricity consumption for a search in lieu of a drive down to the library. Above all, unlike other companies, Google builds most of their own data centres down to the energy-saving chips it uses, and custom-designs its servers for efficient energy use (Glanz, 2011). Its  facility in Singapore uses recycled water for its cooling system. Although Google is a high carbon footprint business, it has adopted a proactive strategy to hold itself up as a 3ly responsible company by making its facilities environmentally-friendly through generating its own renewable energy from solar panels, wind farms and purchasing carbon offsets by funding green efforts. 2.6 Legal From the perspective of law and regulation, the internet is inherently transgressive and difficult to govern since it is global, and information can be instantly transferred at anytime, anywhere. Google’s products collects a lot of personally identifiable information on its users – DoubleClick cookies tracking online footprints, Google wallet storing name, credit card details, and thus how this information is compiled, used or stored are a natural concern. Google’s data centre in Singapore serves users around the region, and Singapore’s business-friendly approach with the privacy law on international transfers of data that does not restricts transfers to specific countries on their approved list, but instead puts the onus on the company to put in place measures to ensure personal data is transferred to locations with comparable standard of protection, makes compliance issues less complicated than that of Europe’s (Bratby, 2013). In general, Singapore is a relatively late adopter of privacy laws (The Register, 2014), and is largely reactive rather than transformative. As such, legal issues that may arise in Singapore are likely to be those that Google already has measures or policies in place. 3.0 Porter’s Five Forces Analysis 3.1 Threat of New Entrants Although the internet has traditionally been viewed as a â€Å"low barrier to entry† marketplace, the barriers to entry in the internet search market are high, as it would take a giant step in innovation, and a mammoth starting capital to build a network infrastructure that could compete with all of Google’s services and products. The scale of Google’s businesses has become a significant barrier to entry. Nevertheless, companies focusing solely on developing a single product or service that Google offers could potentially usurp Google’s dominance in that area, as seen with the Rubicon Project, an advertising start-up which surpassed Google’s Ad Network reach by over 6 million unique visitors (Thomas, 2012). 3.2 Threat of Substitution Some of Google’s products and services could potentially be substituted, such as users choosing GPS instead of Google Maps, but Google’s primary business is their online search engine, which is difficult to substitute. Everyday, an average of 5.9 billion Google searches are made (Statistic Brain, 2014). Although there are alternative sources of information such as newspapers, books, television, or radio, the internet is the preferred source for people to retrieve information as it provides information on demand. As of now, the threat of substitution is low as there are no foreseeable substitutions for online search. 3.3 Supplier Power Google owns its search platform and advertising services tool, thus it has very limited exposure to suppliers. Due to the advertising system used to generate revenue, both the advertiser and search engine user are Google’s customers. However, websites that have given inventory to Google for sale can be considered their supplier. As websites frequently have their inventory  listed across multiple ad exchanges, Google will have to return both quantity of sales and quality of pricing of their buys to maintain the impressions given to them for sale by web publishers. So long as Google maintains strong market dominance, supplier bargaining will remain low. 3.4 Buyer Power Although internet users are free to switch to alternative platforms, most of Google’s products and services that they use are at no cost to them. Whereas in the case where the buyer is the advertiser, buyer power is low as there are limited vendors they could spend with. A key feature of Google’s ad buying platform, DoubleClick, is that advertisers can buy ads on 300 different websites with a few clicks instead of making 300 calls or meetings to get the ads on all the websites. The scale of modern online media buying is staggering as Google provides access to millions of possible sites for advertising. Although Google’s products are not unique, they are at scale, and can make competition difficult for start-up and smaller competitors. 3.5 Industry Rivalry Google is known for being the best search engine with high relevance within its searches, thus its position as the market leader in the search market with about 80% market share (Nguyen,2012). Though competitors have caught up, and substitution of Google search in favour of Yahoo or Microsoft’s Bing is certainly possible, ‘Googling’ has now been ingrained in people’s mind, and is largely a habit instead of being driven by significant product differentiation. When Google introduced the Android operating system, they have placed themselves in direct competition with Apple. Though Android phones currently has larger market share than iOS phones, Apple will not easily give in in the battle of mobile operating systems. Google’s strategy is all about scale and interoperability. With advertising making up over 90% of its total revenue (Google Inc, 2014), it is critical for Google to protect its space, thus its entrance into the browser and mobile operating system market. When one owns the platform, one has the stage. Google tries to own as much of the overall ecosystem as they can so as to lock in its users and keep out competitors. In doing so, it does not need considerable advertising expense to stay and remain on top. 4.0 Conclusion & Recommendations In terms of PESTEL analysis, I recommend that Google venture into new markets around the region. Singapore is a mature market, thus opportunities to grow further are rather limited due to its market saturation and small population. In essence, it is difficult to justify large advertising spend when it can never attract large reciprocal sales as it simply does not have the population to support it. However, expansion into emerging markets in Southeast Asia such as Indonesia or Philippines will help its revenue growth. To illustrate, Indonesia has internet penetration at 24% (Statista, 2014), which translate to 60 million users. That is 12 times Singapore’s population. The propensity of growth there is phenomenon. In terms of Porter’s Five Forces analysis, I recommend that Google diversify into other ventures that helps generates income as it is not healthy for the company to rely almost entirely on one source of revenue. With its wide range of free products and services, Google could select a few of its products to further develop as alternative revenue sources such as its VOIP business, or licensing fees for its products. Google will also need to ensure that it maintains its momentum in the research and development of its search engine to ensure that it is ahead of its competitor. With Microsoft and Yahoo search’s merger, the convergence of technologies will improve their search engines, and possibly catapult Yahoo’s more successful products such as Yahoo Finance and Flickr. As long as Google’s continue to innovate and stay ahead of its game, they will remain the market leader in the industry. 5.0 References Bloomberg. (2014, May 21). Google Overtakes Apple as Most Valuable Brand [Video file]. Retrieved 13 June 2014, from http://www.bloomberg.com/video/google-overtakes-apple-as-most-valuable-brand-PgHrIgIsQMuzLZA4CxRJSg.html Bratby, R. (2013) Singapore takes business-friendly approach in data protection guidelines. Retrieved June 24, 2014, from http://www.zdnet.com/sg/singapore-takes-business-friendly-approach-in-data-protection-guidelines-7000021091/ comScore. (2014). comScore Device Essentials – Singapore & Hong Kong 2013. Retrieved June 13, 2014, from https://www.comscore.com/content/download/23711/1282705/version/1/file/ singapore-vs-hongkong-mobile-usage.pdf Berdzenadze, I. (2013) Singapore: Asia’s Leading Business Hub. CNN. Retrieved June 24, 2014, from http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-953461 Economic Development Board. (2014). About Singapore – Facts and Rankings. Retrieved June 13, 2014, from http://www.edb.gov.sg/content/edb/en/why-singapore/about-singapore/facts-and-rankings/rankings.html Farzad, R. (2014). Google at $400 Billion: A New No. 2 in Market Cap. Business Week. Retrieved June 22, 2014, from http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-12/google-at-400-billion-a-new-no-dot-2-in-market-cap Glanz, J. (2011, Sep 9). Google Details, and Defends, Its Use of Electricity. The New York Times, pp. B1. Retrieved June 23, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/technology/google-details-and-defends-its-use-of-electricity.html Google Inc. (2014) Google Annual Report 2013. (pp. 26). Retrieved June 13, 2014, from http://investor.google.com/proxy.html Google Inc. (2014) Company – Google locations. Retrieved June 22, 2014, from http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/locations/ Google Inc. (2014) Investor Relations – 2014 Financial Tables. Retrieved June 22, 2014, from https://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html Info-communications Development Authority of Singapore. (2012). Google breaks ground for Singapore data centre. Retrieved June 13, 2014, from http://www.ida.gov.sg/blog/insg/in-the-news/google-breaks-ground-for-singapore-data-centre/ Info-communications Development Authority of Singapore. (2014). Infocomm Landscape – Facts and Figures. Retrieved June 22, 2014, from http://www.ida.gov.sg/Infocomm-Landscape/Facts-and-Figures Quittner. J. (2008, 16 Oct). Behold! The Recession-Proof Google!. Time. Retrieved June 22, 2014, from http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1851286,00.html Statisticbrain. (2014). Google Annual Search Statistics | Statistic Brain. Retrieved June 16, 2014, from http://www.statisticbrain.com/google-searches/ Tan, H. (2011, 21 Dec). Rainfall to cool Google’s data centre here. The Straits Times, pp. 21. Retrieved June 23, 2014 from http://newslink.asiaone.com/user/OrderArticleRequest.action? documentId=nica_ST_2011_22596292&year=2011&month=12&date=21 The Register. (2014). Singapore lures big biz with mega data protection regime. Retrieved 24 June 2014, from

A New With The Family - 1074 Words

A new addition to the family I was six years old, sitting in the back of my dad’s truck, my mom was yelling at him, telling him it was time. She stated that her water had already broken. We were going to visit our family members which would’ve taken around half a day to see them. I was afraid of what was going to happen, but also incredibly excited about it. I looked out the window and saw nothing but barren land. There was nothing but dirt and a few dead plants for as far as my eyes could see. I began to slowly roll down my window, but immediately rolled it back up due to the immense amount of heat. My dad called 911, and said that his wife was in labor. He then proceeded to ask if it would be possible to go back to Anaheim, but they†¦show more content†¦My mom was getting worse, and I was beginning to worry about her and the baby. I again asked my dad if he could stop at the nearest gas station or store so that I could use the restroom and stated that it was very urgent. He responded by giving me an empty bottle of water and telling me to â€Å"be careful.† I tried convincing him to stop at the nearest gas station, but he said no. I reluctantly took the bottle and asked him where to put it when I was finished. He jokingly told me to drink it. I laughed, placed it in the back seat cup holder, and stared at it with a disgusted face for a few minutes. I was glad that I at least didn t have to worry about my bladder exploding for the next few hours. My dad was arguing with my mom for a few long minutes before we stopped at a building that two shapes on it that appeared to be a dog and a cat. I asked if we were here, and my dad said â€Å"maybe papio.† He sounded sad or embarrassed for some reason but I couldn’t figure out why. We entered the building and I then realized exactly why my dad was embarrassed, we had stopped at an animal hospital. We were there for a few minutes and then left in a hurry. I was surprised tha t my mother seemed so calm. My Dad said that we were going to a place called Delano. After around 20 minutes, we had finally arrived at a clinic in Delano. The place looked very much like an