Outline
PART A
Introduction
Impact of people management practices on organizational performance
Managerial self-awareness and its impact on leadership and high performing Managers
Management Studies
Knowledge management
Description of activity
PART B
The activity
Prior arrangements for the activity
Results and Discussion
Reflection on the Activity
References
Appendices
Table of Contents
PART A.. 3
Introduction.. 3
Impact of people management practices on organizational performance. 3
Managerial self-awareness and its impact on leadership and high performing Managers 4
Management Studies. 4
Knowledge management 4
Description of activity. 4
PART B.. 5
Prior arrangements for the activity. 5
The activity. 6
Results and Discussion.. 7
Reflection on the Activity. 7
PART A
Introduction
Technology is one of the successes that humankind has come across. It is argued technology is an unavoidable and ever-existent phenomenon in all walks life of the modern man. However, as much as technology is very valuable for information search, it reduces the ability of students to interact rationally in the three-dimensional world. Over-indulgence in technology is harmful to self-awareness (Yancey, 2002).
Productivity of the human resource has been slackened by excessive use of technology at the workplaces, homes and schools. People have turned to technology for refreshment and entertainment when bored, for educational purposes, for social reasons (especially with the advent of Facebook) and many other such social sites. Technology and media have become the source of information which has seen discussions reduce. People have shifted their attention on the internet to get information rather than engaging their colleagues to get opinions (Evans, 2004).
With all these facts, it is quite important for people to realize how a technology-free day can be and how it would enhance dependence on one’s own initiatives to bring self-satisfaction. The feeling of fulfilling one’s own needs as a result of seeking one’s own initiatives enhances self-appreciation and as a result enhances self-awareness.
Several journals touch on skill-development activities. One of the most important skills for individuals to develop, be it in the workplace, home or at school, is self-awareness.
Emotional intelligence and learning in teams
Regardless of whether performance is measured by means of productivity or profitability, there is has a stronger link between self-awareness and the respective results (Clarke, 2010).When people work in groups and share opinions, information is shared and through this abilities and disabilities are realized. The human being is a social animal which means productivity can only be realized by working in teams. Technology has deprived people this due to the assumption that all answers are in the internet. This is inaccurate since self-awareness within the labor force or the employees is quite essential since the employees are the vessels through which the organization interacts with the market and clients. Learning is a communication process which requires a narrative experience, for productivity team work is in evitable (Lamsa & Sintonen, 2006).
High involvement work practices, turnover and productivity: Evidence from New Zealand
When technology is seriously crushing old structures, patterns and hierarchies, the best type of leadership is the one that keeps everyone focused. When the employees of an organization are flexible productivity increases. Flexibility means that an individual can work in several departments comfortably. To be able to move from one department to another it requires that a person learns and his brings us to the issue of interactive sessions between employees. Communication is the key element for promoting learning and sharing of knowledge and skills between employees. No matter how much information one has, they have to learn through instruction therefore cannot depend wholly on read information (Guthrie, 1999). As the power that comes with office continues to erode, managers are supposed to re-asses and develop very articulate employees and create an environment that will enable each employee realize and relate to what is supposed to be done. They should not only stop at that but also do it perfectly. (Paul and Anantharaman, 2003).
Recognition of tacit skills and knowledge: Sustaining learning outcomes in workplace environments
There are five main job characteristics that include a variety of skills, identification of task, significance of the task, autonomy of the job and feedback from the job. This is a procedure that involves a group of individuals to identify each others potential and distribute accordingly. At the work place, Self-awareness is the basis upon which tacit knowledge is built. Self-awareness entails people being aware of their own strength and weaknesses and having that ability to be frank and open about them. This simplifies the distribution process because through open discussions a team is able to produce results faster as compared to when the leader assigns work. Through such sharing, the team gets to understand each other and know their strong points as well as learn from each other (Evans and Kersh, 2004).
From this journal, the data used is from assessment of management-level employees. This is based on the assumption that they are the ones who provide services to a large number of people. The assumption that is made during the study is that the accuracy of results obtained largely depends on an individual with a large scope of operation. This assumption is a shortcoming since the employees also deal with a number of people, if that were the case. For this fact, the results obtained would have been even more accurate if the employees were assessed for self-awareness.
A narrative approach for organization learning in a diverse organization
The efficiency with which an organization develops and motivates its human resource is very essential and is a forecast of how well the organization can perform. American Journal of knowledge management postulates that people bring out that crucial difference between failure and success (Lamsa and Sintonen, 2006). Narratives are used to communicate individuals’ experiences and knowledge therefore their diversity is exhibited. This narrative approach is important in learning in the organization because they can be understood and remembered easily. When applied at the work place, it is easy to analyze because the response shown can be used to measure progress without asking for feedback. This is because it is participatory in nature and represents every person in the organization despite the position they hold. All these journals used what is called a multi-rater assessment, which is a measure of exactly where an individual stands. This tool points out discrepancies for the sole purpose of improving future behaviors (Wing, 2005). It can be rightly argued that putting the extra effort to obtain data from a multitude of sources sometimes is in vain. This is because of vulnerability to halo effect and the ratings would not be very representative of the dimensions used. However, the best memories are the ones that consist of experience. They consist of what people do daily through interaction for instance when reporting to a senior person or when taking a task on behalf of a colleague, one is able to learn .Such firsthand experiences cannot fade as first as read knowledge (Lamsa & Sintonen 2006).
Description of activity
A team of five literature students went on a full day without any technology use in this skill development exercise. This activity would not only entail turning off cell phones but also all technological gadgets and handsets including iPods. It entails the complete and absolute elimination of all forms of digital technology. The amount of time that individuals (in this case, students) are spending on their technological gadgets has raised lots of concern.
PART B
My chosen skill development activity entailed going for a day without technology. It is common knowledge that in this era, going for even an hour without technology sounds absurd. Of late, lecturers have been complaining about the students’ attentiveness in the lecture halls. In the lecture halls, it is commonplace to find at least a student or two using their phones to log into social sites while the lectures are in progress. The technology-free exercise was not only tied down to the classroom situation but to an entire daytime covering all the break hours.
This activity is important because technological distraction -is an issue that cuts across the board from children to adolescents to college students and even those in the working places. This activity was easier to implement. This is because every student in my class owned at least one digital gadget. Therefore, the exercise appeared practical. Apart from trying to find a solution to the students’ attentiveness in the lecture halls, this skill would go a long way in preparing the students for the work environment.
This skill, when appropriately implemented, would boost students’ performance. Due to the undiverted attention, the students would pay attention to the lecturers. In addition, the students would inculcate the feeling of self-reliance, which would boost their self-belief and confidence. There will be self-reliance in seeking alternate forms of entertainment and self-reliance in answering assignment questions, as opposed to surfing the net for answers. Overindulgence in technology is never time-consuming. Therefore, breaking from the undesirable addiction is a move towards time management and quality educational performance. This exercise is also intended to create quality in the team since this is a Quality Team Development skill and is an important skill in management.
My chosen group is a team of five students. All five own cell phones and other digitals such as laptops. They can hardly do without these gadgets.
Prior arrangements for the activity
When we met I presented my request that they run a full day without technology. It is quite important to note that I approached the five colleagues after a number of them thought it was not possible to carry out the activity. Most students that I had approached earlier confessed to being unable to stay without their gadgets. Therefore, I had to convince them.
We all agreed that for the exercise to materialize, it was quite in order to gather their technological gadgets and collectively put them away. The gadgets were to be placed in a safe at the dean’s office and the key given to the dean himself for safekeeping. Before that, we had to explain to the dean of students what we intended to carry out. The Dean thought it was a good idea. My team decided that the best day to carry out the activity would be a Friday. This is because Friday is always students are usually busy with their gadgets after the strenuous week of learning. In addition, we thought it rather wise to inform our parents about it. This was necessary in order to avoid cases whereby parents could call and not receive an answer. As previously agreed, we were to keep off all forms of technology including our digital calculators. We all looked forward to this day since it felt like we were preparing to shoot an epic film – one of the old age films in which not even a wristwatch was to be spotted.
The activity
The activity started very early in the morning on Friday. As agreed earlier, they were all to come very early before the classes commenced. However, one of the came ten minutes late and it was evident that he had to take some time to finish with her gadgets before surrendering them for ‘safe-keeping’. The rest were wondering whether she was still coming and wished that they could call her. They briefly met before the morning class, put off and collected their gadgets then took them to the Dean’s office. However, they all realized that they had broken the rules earlier. Apparently, they had used the alarm clocks to wake up. Alarm clocks are pieces of technology. Thereafter, they were more careful not to use any form of technology.
After submitting their mobile phones and the other gadgets including wristwatches, calculator, laptops and iPods, they all sat close to one another. They could not tell why but staying together felt better than staying individually. When one felt like logging into Facebook, you only had to stare at a colleague and he would very sternly stare back. It felt good to see that one was not alone. I spotted one of the students throwing a glance at his wrist. Probably, he was expecting the watch to be in place. He is one of those people who would never go for more than three minutes before glancing at the watch. He looked at me feeling embarrassed and I stared back at him as if to say, ‘What do you think you are doing!’ That just gave me a reason to bust out with laughter but I wisely refrained.
For the first time after a long time, Margaret was not holding a phone on her lap as the lecture was on. However, I spotted her occasionally scratching her chin for consolation. May be she was regretting it but all the same, it was too late to withdraw. It was useless because she could not pull out from the exercise. I caught her glancing again and gave her the customary stare and she frowned back at me. Joy appeared somehow composed and the day was seemingly okay for her. However, this did not go on for long. I spotted her whispering to her neighbor then scanning through the hall on her right side since that is where we all were. I think Joy realized that she was trying to get mischievous and she gave her the warning stare. We could guess from her looks that she was trying to borrow a cell phone from her neighbor.
During the break hours, they stayed close just to make this day a complete success. Majority of the other students were informed on what we were up to and therefore this made it even easier to carry on with the exercise since they refused to heed to our calls for technological favors. They had a rough time refraining from using their gadgets which seemed to be a requirement with every step.
One challenge they encountered was when one lecturer asked for hard copies of the assignments we had forwarded to him earlier via email. This was quite tricky but luckily, they were able to convince the other students to do them the favor. They were able to have their assignments printed and handed in by others who were not participating in the activity.
Apart from the activity that carried out by the group of five people, information was also gathered from the other students, the lecturers and tutors on their take on technology use. This information was collected through the help of a questionnaire (in the appendix section).
Results and Discussion
From the answers obtained from the questionnaires, it was evident that people are not able to stay away from the technological gadgets. The cell phone is the widely used form of technology by individuals of the age between 17 and 24. The persons over thirty years use their handset mainly for communication purposes and those below thirty mainly use their cell phones for entertainment and accessing social sites.
The mode of accessing the internet varies with age. Individuals who are of ages thirty and above mainly rely on personal computers. Those below thirty years of age find their cell phones very handy in accessing the internet. The television is another widely used technological gadget followed by iPods, which is common in the age bracket of 17-24. Music systems and Wi-Fi’s are also widely used. Most males possess wristwatches.
From the above information, it is enough to conclude that technology use is far-reaching. The dependence on technology for information and entertainment is undeniably extensive.
Reflection on the Activity
From the activity carried out, it was discovered that technology is addictive. It was also evident that in terms of time consumption, addictive technology use was far overboard in time wastage. The group confessed that at the end of the day, they felt productive and self reliant. They had the feeling that they could perform better in personality and in academics if they cut down on their technology usage. It could aid in shaping ones personality because overindulgence in technology took away socialization time and one could easily be cut-off from the real world. All these are great steps towards self-realization.
In order to come up with a better exercise, it would be necessary to involve a bigger group of persons – probably a hundred persons or even more. This would be very productive since, with the greater number, many individuals will realize that they can minimize their technological consumption to create quality time for personal development.
This is a quality team building and self-awareness strategy that would be very appropriate for managers to put into practice. Managers using this skill building activity would succeed in bringing out the best in their employees and the labor force in general. This is so because the employees would be able to learn about their weakness and build on their strength. All these are pre-requites for self-awareness. The employees would spend even more time doing productive work and not waste away working hours. Moreover, this is a skill that builds teamwork since it requires mutual support from the others in order to pull through successfully. Employees would inculcate the spirit of togetherness in order to achieve goals. As evident from the exercise, we needed the support and constant reminder of others in order to tow the line and stay focused.
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