My Management Poem

In management you have to be able to Plan;
Because managerial work is often in demand

In management you have to be able to Organize;
Because if you're not able to, I sympathize

In management you have to be able to Lead;
But that is not all that you need

In management you have to be able to Control;
Because these four processes will help you get that manger's role.

I never thought that having a blog would be something that I would enjoy but I have to say it is very interesting. I think it's a great communication tool for enhancing what we learned in class during this semester and should definitely continue to be a component of this class in the future. In fact, it could probably be integrated into any school cirriculum and I think more professors should incorporate it into their teaching plans.

Yes, the blog gave us a chance to share our thoughts and ideas with everyone in the class. It was a refreshing way to meet new people and learn who they are because after reading each person's blog I was able to get a snapshot of each person's lives. For me personally, I was able to get a bigger picture of the meaning of Management because the assignments helped me to understand what it is through my own experiences. At the same time I feel the blog helps to improve upon our writing skills which is always helpful for me.

D.I.S.C.

The results of the personality test we took in class stated that I am in the high I, high D stages. I believe the test generally (key word being generally), reflects me correctly because I believe I am optimistic, outgoing, have alot of drive and am pretty decisive about things in general. I am always trying to learn from each situation and am willing to improve upon anything. I challenge myself in the hopes of achieving what I set out to do each time. I am not the type of person that gives up easily because I believe I can always be more and others can be more. However, I think I consider myself as having some of the traits of Steadiness and Conscientiousness as well like concentrating on key details and demonstrating patience. Therefore, I think by taking this test someone might be able to get a general idea about a person's personality. It would be helpful to see where a person's tendencies are most dominant thus giving a better understanding of what type of person you are dealing with especially in manangement situations.

I believe this test is helpful to me because I am able to see what I can improve upon in order to better understand myself and be able to manage all the different situations life has to offer.

McDonald's - 4 Pickles and NO Salt Please

I approached the counter at a McDonald's in the food court of a nearby mall after work one evening. The line was relatively small considering it was dinner time and the mall was crowded. A very polite woman behind the counter with a clean, pressed McDonald’s uniform greeted me with a smile and said “Welcome to McDonald's. May I take your order?" Not knowing what to expect and holding back a grin, I began ordering a cheeseburger with four pickles. There was a slight pause and a look of confusion on her face before she asked me if I only wanted four pickles on the burger and nothing else. I quickly explained that I wanted a cheeseburger with everything on it in addition to the four pickles. She smiled and said “okay” in a very understanding voice. Her response immediately made me believe this was going to go smoother than I first thought it would. As I was about to give my order of french fries with NO salt, the woman politely stopped me for a moment to relay my cheeseburger order to the two preparers in the back. She quickly did an about-face and held up four fingers to the make sure the food preparers knew she needed a cheeseburger with exactly four pickles. I couldn’t help but think to myself what was going through the workers minds when they received my order. Anyway, after that short delay, the woman returned to the register and at this point, I ordered a small fry with NO salt. She punched in this part of my order in the register and then asked me if I would like anything else. After responding "no", she relayed my request to the manager who was manning the fry station. I watched as the manager placed a set of newly cooked fries to the side before mixing them with the existing fries. To my surprise, he cleaned the fry scoop of all the salt before putting my fries into the small container. While I was waiting for my order to be completed, I gave my money to the person behind the counter and asked her for a receipt. The manager then placed the fries into the bag that was already set up with my cheeseburger and handed it to me while the order taker took the next customer. I checked my order after leaving the counter and was happy to find that EXACTLY four pickles were placed onto my cheeseburger.

I thought the whole management process at this particular McDonald's was very efficient. The order taker was kind and courteous and understood what I wanted. She was very organized and showed leadership abilities by communicating clearly to the other employees working on my order. She was able to devise a good plan on how my order should be completed by asking me to wait before I continued my order. In my opinion, I didn't think my order posed any sort of challenge for the staff to complete. There was no delay in my order at all because the whole process took about three and a half minutes from start to finish. However, I would have liked the person behind the counter to simply punch in my order including any special instructions and not have to leave the register to make sure the order was relayed to the food preparers. All in all I had a pleasant experience and I believe the management process worked well.

Egg Contraption website

I thought this was kind of interesting.......

http://www.instructables.com/id/Amazing--Graceful-Egg-Drop-Contraption/

Visions

I have always had big plans for myself. When I was a child I used to dream about many things and I would like to tell you about a few of my personal goals.

One of the most important goals for me at this moment is travelling to as many places in the world as I possibly can. I believe travelling to different countries or even to different states makes me a more culturally diverse person. After each journey I find myself more and more open minded. I enjoy experiencing different cultures and learning from them. I hope to explore more exotic countries like Asia, South America and Africa in the future.

My second vision is about photography . Ever since I was young, I have always wanted to be published in National Geographic's magazine. I get intimidated because after seeing what other photographers have published I never think my photographs are good enough. I have taught myself alot over the years about how to make my photos better but I believe I have a long way to go to become an accomplished and published photographer.

A third vision that I have is to be able to learn how to play either the guitar or the piano or even both. At the moment I don't have too much time left on my hands because I am married, have a full time job and go to school. So it is difficult to squeeze any time out of all that is going on in my life.

As I said, these are just a few of my goals. I haven't even scratched the surface yet but I hope to one day accomplish all of these goals because I don't want life just passing me by.

Decision Making

I personally took a compromising position in the decision making exercise we did in class. I chose this method because I believe everyone has their own valid reasons for the solution they thought would help them out best. You cannot discount anyone for wanting to get a better grade and you also cannot discount the people who actually did get a good grade so it was a tough decision for everyone involved. Additionally, everyone is taking this class for a reason. For me personally, even though this class is a requirement for me, I want to learn how to be a better manager both at work and personally. I am the type of person who wants to achieve that goal and if it means that once in awhile I have to make a compromise and not get everything that I had actually wanted then so be it. What I am learning is how to take a step back and allow others to voice their opinions and listen to their ideas because I know that my ideas may not always be the best idea for a particular situation.

Finally, from my point of view, the beginning of the exercise was a little chaotic. I think we should have had a leader from the start but of course it is difficult to have a leader when no one knows what to expect. After some people stepped up to the task, we were able to get a little more focused on what actions needed to be taken to finally make a rational decision.

Egg-Protection Device

I believe our team followed each step of the planning process as shown below.

Step 1 - Our main objective was to build an egg-protection device that would protect our egg from cracking so that we all could get the extra 5 points credit. Working under the deadline given to us, we named our egg and then quickly came up with different ideas about what type of device we should build.
Step 2 - During our planning process, a few people went to the front of the room to examine the materials we would be using and how each material could be utilized in the best way. They came back with other ideas about how to build our device.
Step 3 - We took alot of ideas into consideration but we finally agreed on one idea. In addition, we thought of a backup plan just in case the first idea wouldn't work.
Step 4- We ended up using the backup plan because after examining the materials we all thought the original idea wouldn't protect the egg well enough. We started to discuss how the device could be put together and how it could be attached to the egg while still having at least 50% of the egg visible.
Step 5 - One person started the building process to implement our idea and it became apparent how the device would be built. We also were able to take corrective action after the building process began by improving upon the device and how it was attached to the egg.

I thought our group worked well together. We were all pretty much proactive and each person came up with ideas about how to make our device a better. However, given the time constraints I thought it was difficult to go through each step efficiently. Since everyone wanted to be involved in every task, it was a little chaotic because no one was allocated a specific job to do. I believe if we had more time we would have been able to allocate specific tasks to each person so that there would not have been confusion about who needed to do what and when but in the end our device was successful.

My Biggest Management Problem

What can I say about management? Management is a part of our everyday lives. We make decisions on everything we do in order to live a better more fufilling life. I want to get ahead but the thing I am having a problem managing at the moment is communicating. Some days I have confidence in my communication skills and am able to communicate what I am feeling clearly. On other days I have no confidence and it's on those days where it is difficult for me to convey what I feel. A perfect example is that I sometimes feel like my manager is not being fair to me and am unable to confront him on certain issues like requesting time off. You would think that this would be a simple issue, however, for me it's not that simple. First I send an e-mail to him with my requested days off and then I wait. Usually I don't hear back from him. Days or even weeks would go by and I still wouldn't get an answer even with follow up e-mails. I have also followed up with him face to face and he still doesn't seem concerned that this is an important issue. It's important to me because I want to finalize travel plans and because I am not getting the "ok", my plans have to be put on hold. After speaking with others in my group, I find that he responds to their requested days off without a problem and still today I keep wondering how I should deal with this issue.

About Myself

Hi, my name is Dawn. Raised in Brooklyn, I am now married and live on Long Island. I currently work for an insurance company in Manhattan and am attending Baruch College in the evenings. The degree I am pursuing is a Bachelors Degree in Accounting which I hope will open more doors for me. Outside the work environment, my interests include travelling and photography.