Presentation Week

This week’s lesson was mainly on presentations. We all had to wear formal dressing and do our presentation. It was quite a nervous feeling when I first started presenting. But we had the confidence that it will go good as the assignment had taken quite a bit of time to be completed and hence had lots of data to be presented and we had tried our best to do it well. Our presentation was on the cosmetic company which was a fiction company named as Ladies 4ever. Tracy, Willow, Luisa and I are the consultants of the company. We had also prepared a flyer to make our company more established in terms of motivating the employees with the rights given to them. Our company had also organised a talk for the employees for balancing the working and also family life simultaneously.
On the all, the presentation taught us many different skills like how to write minutes of meetings which none of us had ever tried before. On the all, the whole module had been an enjoyable one with the teaching by Ms Suma. Thank You Ms Suma for teaching us again and hoping you will be teaching us in Module 3100 as well.

Industry Project: Work Life Balance

This week’s topic of focus was also on Industrial Project. We had a submission of the name card. Today we also played an online game. It was mainly for ways to find the ways to solve a problem. It consisted of giving way to the Lady Bird by choosing the given proper directions to make it reach to its target place.
After this, we watched a video on Teenage Millionaires. The teenagers were invited over t a show to share their ways of becoming a millionaire. The 1st teenager had started at a very early age who was dealing with his parent’s clients and brands to earn certain hundreds which was quite a lot for him at an age of 9 yrs. And he had 12 businesses before it turned 21.
The other teenage invited was into creating web pages at the age of 14yrs. And she makes $17000 a month now at the age of 17 yrs. She started it for fun and now it’s a big business.
They both suggested that don’t try to think out of the box. Just does something u can do well and then excel in it. The video had quite a lot of useful tips to help us understand the way to achieve our goals.
After the break, Ms Suma went through the technique to write minutes of the meetings for our project. My group consisted of Tracy, Willow, Luisa and me. So for the rest of the period, we spent in discussing about the minutes and after much discussion, came with a cosmetic company. On the all, the target for the week was to finish up with the minutes and submit it so we can continue with our project.

Industry Project: Work Life Balance

This week’s topic of discussion was on Work Life Balance. Ms Suma explained to us the meaning of Work Life Balance which means a concept including proper prioritizing between career and ambition on one hand, compared with pleasure, leisure etc. Ms Suma gave out a pamphlet on the details of the project on Work Life Balance. Then she went through the details of it to make us more aware of it. It was mainly on what activities our company can come out with to relax the stress of the employees. Inside the pamphlet, all the details were given. After which was break time.
Once we were back from break, Ms Suma instructed us to form a group of four and each make a name card so as to give to the remaining group members. That was the next task for the week which we had to complete and submit to the lecturer.
After this, we watched a video on Life at 30,000 feet by Richard Branson. He is an English industrialist well known for his Virgin brand over 360 companies. He became successful at the age of 16. The names of some of his companies are Virgin Sun, Virgin Spa, Virgin Trains, and Radio Free Virgin etc. He shared his experience on how he manages to run so many companies. His motto of running the company is to motivate the people and bringing out the best in the people. He also designed a space ship and showed a demo of it. It stated that at a high altitude, the people inside the space ship kid of floated and when in the limit of limited, the people were fitted back into their initial places. He also stated that everyone should do something that interests them and not something forcefully. His video and talk had lots of motivation that just encouraged us to work and become a better person. This marked the end of the day.

Meeting

This week’s lesson was mainly concentrated on the team work, meeting and minutes of the meeting. Ms Suma explained to us about the team work. Team work is one of the most essential ways to know our colleagues in the company and also to prepare the project more effectively and with creative ideas. In teamwork, meetings are important. There are certain guidelines on when exactly to hold a meeting. The four main purposes are: 1) Information sharing, 2) Commitment building, 3) Information disseminating and, 4) problem solving and decision making. When a meeting is being conducted, there’s an important thing to be taken down which is the minutes. Minutes refer to taking down of the notes during the meeting so as to help when needed for the reference in the future. Minutes should have three main characteristics which are: 1) agenda relevance that is information recorded is related to an agenda item, 2) content relevance which says that minutes should be written in a form that follows the agenda so that it is easy to find the pertinent material and, 3) decision focus which states that minutes should reflect decisions, conclusions and actions agreed upon, rather than the process by which the decision were reached.
Then, was break time. After break, Ms Suma went through the details on the Industry Project which was on Work Life Balance. The project was mainly on how we come up with strategies to help employees manage the work stress as well as stress form home. For this assignment, firstly we had to create our own name or business card and distribute to our team or group members. The group was to be made with the classmates of the other characteristics like mine is Team Builder. So my other group members can be a shaper, Implementer, Completer or finisher and Specialist. On top of this, we also had a submission of the script on Giving Voice to Values. On the all, it was a great lesson as I learnt how to exactly do minutes of the minutes.

Problem-solving

Today’s topic of discussion was problem-solving, one of the most important factor to continue with the progress if some problem arises. At the beginning of the class, Ms Suma went through some of the ways to solve problems. A model of problem solving consists of Defining the problem, Generating the alternative solutions, Evaluating and selecting an alternative and last but not the least is Implementing and following up on the solution.
The first activity for the day was in groups of 4-5 and it on balancing a straw on one finger of each of us. My group consisted of Tracy, Tom, Willow, Luisa and me. In the beginning, we all had a difficulty in balancing the straw. Later, Tom came with a brilliant idea which was to keep all our fingers touching to each other so as to feel the movements and make it easier for us to balance the straw. All we had to do was to bring the straw up and down without it tripping over the fingers. With the idea that Tom gave, it became an easy task for us. From the activity, I learnt to learn to cooperate to solve the problem so as to work in a more effective way. Following, this was break time.
After the break, MS Suma went through an exercise in the lecture guide itself. There was an individual exercise on analytic problem solving. In it, one particular scenario was given which was to be solved individually. We were given 5 minutes to solve it and then it was discussed in the class.
Then, Ms Suma again went through the case of Lisa Baxter and marked the end of the day with a reminder to submit our script on ‘Giving Voice to Values’.

Ethics in Leadership-An introduction to Giving Voice to Values

This week’s topic was Giving Voice to Values which has become a very important factor to consideration in work place nowadays where female employees often face sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is described as the unwelcome sexual behaviour by a supervisor toward an employee.
The first task for the day was looking into the quiz given in our lecturer guide named, ‘Giving Voice to Values’. It consisted of around 18 questions which would help us with our script writing as suggested by Ms Suma. While attending the quiz, a lot of questions popped out which lead to other conversations and experiences that some of them might have experienced especially the working students. By the time we finished the quiz, it was break time.
After the break, Ms Suma went through the case study on Lisa Baxter on which we had to come up with a script. She gave us certain point of view on how to write a script. It was an individual assignment which sounded quite scary as mostly none of us ever had written a script before. It was quite a tough task.
The whole day lesson practically consisted of us gathering ideas on how to write a script and it marked the end of class for the day.

Temperament and Communication

Temperament and Communication
The class for this week was focused on Temperament and Communication. Basically, temperament describes four organising patterns of personality and answers out the ‘why’ part of every behaviour. Knowing the temperament is important as it tells us our core needs and values as well as the talents that we are most likely to be drawn to develop. There are four types of temperaments which are Catalyst, Stabilizer, Theorist and Improviser.
Catalyst: -
 Core need is a sense of purpose and working toward some greater good
 need to have a sense of unique identity
 value unity, self-actualization, and authenticity
 prefer cooperative interactions with a focus on ethics and morality
 Tend to be gifted at unifying diverse peoples and helping individuals realise their potential
 Build bridges between people through empathy and clarification of deeper issues.
Stabilizer: -
 Core need is group membership and responsibility
 Awareness of responsibility
 Value stability, security and a sense of community
 Trust hierarchy and authority
Theorist: -
 Core need is mastery of concepts, knowledge and competence
 Value expertise, logical consistency, concepts and ideas, and seek progress
 Abstractly analyze a situation and consider previously unthought-of possibilities
Improviser: -
 Core need is to have freedom to act without hindrance and to see a marked result from action
 Talented in using tools
So the activity for the day was that our lecturer had kept a paper at each corner of the class. We had to read the paper and see which of this we fitted into. After much confusion, I settled myself into Improviser which matched with quality I rather was. Then, was break time.
After the break, we had to proceed onto the computer lab to take the online quiz on the same topic named Temperament and communication. At the end of the online quiz, to my surprise, I got the same result as I had stood up for in the class in the period before the break which was Improviser.
I was quite glad and that marked the end of our lesson for the day.

Précis on What makes a Leader

This article is on what constitutes a leader. There are two groups of leaders. One is subdued and analytical, and the others shout their manifestos from the mountaintops. Both possess a high degree of Emotional Intelligence (EI), without which a person with the best training still would not make a great leader.
Most large companies employ trained psychologists to develop ‘competency model’ to aid them to identify, train and promote. EI consists of purely accounting skills, cognitive abilities and competencies EI. EI is proved twice as important as technical skills.
First component of EI is Self-awareness, which means having a deep understanding of one’s emotions, strengths, weaknesses, needs and drives. So, they plan their work well in advance.
Next is Self-regulation consisting of individuals who are master of their emotions. They can create an environment of trust and fairness that is important for competitive reasons.
Motivation is the tool for effective leaders. Some people get motivated with external reasons - big salary or status while others for self-satisfaction. Learning and seeking for creative challenges is their passion. The manager with better pursuing skills is a better manager who considers feelings of others, which is important in today’s world.
Last two of EI is Social Skills. Social skill is mainly being friendly with intention to move people in the direction you desire and they tend to have a wide circle of acquaintances. Learning EI is not easy. It requires time and commitment to learn.

Reflection of Week 5

Today’s topic of discussion was Emotional Intelligence which was a very interesting topic. Ms Suma went through with us its meaning and the emotions that every individual goes through when certain unexpected things come up. To demonstrate this, we were made to play a game.
We had to form a pair with a person in the class who is very close to you and to whom you share all the secrets. My partner was Tracy whom I know for 1 year plus. Then, partner A was called out and were given instructions were given to tell partner B something that would give a shock to the person. As per requirements, I also told her something that kind of got her shocked. She had to console me and help me deal with the situation.
Later on, I was to write down the reaction given by the partner when you told her the secret. IT was a very exciting game.
The next activity was to feel up a form in which we had to tick the category which we would do given the situation. Followed by this was break time.
After the break time, she went to the exercise and them were dismissed. Overall, it was an enjoyable day.

Negotiation test

Today was the negotiation test which was to be conducted by Linda and Ms Suma. All of us were pretty nervous. Everyone seems to be preparing hard for the negotiation test. The time schedule of the test was pasted on the wall near the entrance door. My partner was Danny and the time for the test was at 11.55am.
The instructions were that we were given 20minutes to write on the given sheet of paper on what we wanted to argue and the points which we wanted to put across during the test. After the end of 20 minutes, Danny and I went to the room for the test. Our test was being conducted by MS Suma. During the test, both of us came out with pretty good points which Ms Suma pointed out to us. This increased our confidence. At the end of the test, both of us had a smile on our faces.
Once the test was over, we were allowed to go back home. So, after all my friends were done with their test, we all left. Overall, the test went pretty well.

Reflection of Week 3 (ECU lecturer)

Today was our 3rd lesson which was conducted by Linda who is our ECU coordinator. In the beginning, she gave a short introduction about herself. Followed by which, she briefed us a bit on what actually negotiation is though our lecturer, Ms Suma had gone through with us in the previous lesson. Actually since we had a negotiation test the next day, just like MS Suma, she also made us play some games regarding Negotiation.
The first activity was that we had to form a group of four people and each group was given a particular paragraph to read, understand and then one representative from the group to go to other groups and explain the meaning of the paragraph that out group was assigned to do. In my group, we were Willow, Jessica, Brain and me. Brian was our group representative.
Followed by was break time. After the break, we had another activity. It was based on the negotiation. Before that, we were instructed to stand in a line according to our birth date. In that way, we were grouped into three. In my group, we had Edah, Tom, Joyce and me. Tom and me carried out the negotiation while Edah and Joyce were our mediators. I was playing the role of the boss while Tom was playing the role of the employee. The scenario went like Tom, an employee who always came back late from the lunch break. I was supposed to negotiate with him to make him come back on time after the lunch break. At the end of the negotiation, I managed to convince him to come on time with the deal that the employees will get a tea break of 15mins. So that ended our conversation. We both came with a win-win situation. Later on, Edah and Joyce were to point out our good and bad points.
Later after this, we had another one more example to work on how to do the negotiation test for the next day and the class was dismissed. It was an interesting class.

Reflection Week 2

Welcome to the 2nd week of BES 2100. Today’s topic of discussion was Negotiation for which we have a test on week 3 by the ECU lecturer. We were made to play a very interesting game named, ‘The $2 Game’ which included negotiation. A pair was to be formed and they were required to negotiate against each other on the given topic. The first round in the game was to win the $2 from the negotiation with the partner by creating the story. In the 1st round, my partner was Emelia. Our topic was negotiation was quite interesting. It was Chocolate vs. Fruit. She needed to buy a chocolate to get energy but she didn’t have enough money. I was in the opposition that to get energy, she should eat fruits. We had a time limit of 10mins. At the end of 10mins, I managed to convince her to buy fruit instead of chocolate which can make a person fat. So in the 1st round, I earned the $2.
In the 2nd round, we had to change partners. So my partner for the 2nd round was Nisha. In this, the topic was Red Bull vs. other soft drinks. The bet was to win at least $1.30. In this bet, we both had a win-win situation. So, both of us received $1. Then, it was the break time.
After the break, there was one more and the final round. In this one, we had to play with honesty and integrity since you were a known businessman and hence the reputation played a big role. It was with the same partner. So I was paired with Nisha. This time we chose a topic was Durian. She was in the favour of the durians and I was the one against it. At the end of this round, Nisha won the negotiation and she received the $2.
During the game, I discovered a new side of myself. I was actually able to negotiate when the favourable topic like chocolate vs. Fruit came. Once the game was over, the lecturer went over what key points we learnt during the game. Overall, it was a nice day full of activities.

Reflection Week 1

Today was the first lesson of Foundation of Business Leadership. It was great class. Our lecturer is Ms Suma Christal who had once been our lecturer in the module BES 1100. Before the class started, I had a rough idea that class will be consisting of many students. When the class actually started, most of the students out there, I already knew. This made it much easier for me to mingle with the class. Before the break, we were indulged in many activities. The first activity was to get into groups of 5 people consisted of Nisha, Emelia, Edah, Di and me. We had to get a contact number from our mobile phonebooks and note down on how they would describe our personalities such as Agreeableness, Extravert/ Introvert, Openness to experience, Consciousness, Emotional Stability, Temperament and Values. My results came out to high in Agreeableness, a total extravert. I got medium in Emotional stability and openness to experience and low in Temperament and High in values. It was a great exercise to know more about the members in the team.

Following was another activity. In this particular activity, we were given a form by the lecturer which needed us to tick out strengths and weakness from the list of the words given. According to it, my results turned out to be TB (team builder). It quite suit the way I m. Then was break time.

After the break, the class was conducted in the computer lab. There, we were guided to enter into the blackboard and briefed on what our projects were like for this module. One of the most interesting things in this term is that we are going to be blogging whatever we learnt during the lesson every week which makes the lesson more interesting.

On the all, the class was interesting and fun.