The purpose of this essay is to reflect on what I have learned and developed as a student of professional skills and ethics and how I can implement the teachings and frameworks in my professional life. Many of the case studies and frameworks have made me think critically and look at things from a different perspective.
Being an international student with a different cultural and ethical background, it was challenging yet exciting for me to understand the ethical and organizational behaviors in Australia. This course has helped me in many different ways through case studies and workshops about my working rights and how to succeed in the long run in my professional life. From the very first week of this course, I began to improvise myself by understanding the importance of my mindset and how I can make the most of my potential. (Dweck, C.S 2006) By understanding that intelligence and knowledge are not static and can be developed, I became more self-aware and started working towards my goals.
The Thomas-Kilmann conflict management style taught me the importance of teamwork and how to efficiently make use of the strengths and weaknesses of team members. As a team member of a sales force in my professional life, has taught me to be more assertive and cooperative by achieving tasks through collaboration.
The Johari window has made a significant impact on my learning and working style. Previously, I used to achieve great results with things that my peers and I were familiar with. I was hesitant to explore new things. By understanding and implementing the learnings of the Johari window, I learned to seek feedback from my peers and improve myself in situations that were new and unknown to me. This could be seen in my group presentations where my peers helped me discover my strength of being a good speaker that I was unaware of. The effectiveness has been proven through the great scores I have received for presentations with different groups. The Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunity, and Barriers (SWOB) analysis made me feel confident about my strengths; grab opportunities that will help me grow, and remind me about the requirements to overcome my barriers and weaknesses.
According to the Team Roles Questionnaire (R.M Belbin, Heinemann. 1981), my role in a group would be an implementer where I see myself accomplishing detailed and practical outcomes with an important role being implementing group decisions. I have also learned the importance of group decision-making from ‘The Challenger Disaster’ case study. As an implementer of decisions of a group, I would use the unanimity decision-making method where all the members are involved and aware of the decision made and its consequences.
Learning through communication with others is a proven way of learning. (Harrington, 2016) Previously, I found myself easily convinced into a decision and I faced difficulty in expressing my counter offers. This was probably because I wanted to avoid conflicts or the thought of what the other person thinks about me. By discussing the scenario with my professor and peers, I learned the art of negotiating positively without taking things personally.
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Additionally, the ‘Employee Exit Interview’ activity during my SDW helped me understand that important conversations may require some planning and preparation. As a result, the activity helped me to understand different negotiations and to negotiate with a strategy.
Having finished 10 weeks of this course and reflecting on what I have achieved and overcome, I am proud to say that I am progressing towards the goal that I had mentioned in my ‘Letter to self’ during week 1. For me, the most important goal was to become a proactive team member and to improve my time management skills. Keeping my goal in mind, I initiated the formation of groups and took responsibility for directing and driving the team to its goal. I put myself in charge to take the challenge of encouraging and coordinating team members, contributing with my thoughts, plans, and timelines, understanding their shortcomings, providing possible resources, and providing feedback to derive the best possible outcome for the team. During the entire process, I learned to always support my team members and compromise for the best of the team.
Being a full-time international student and working part-time requires a lot of efficient time management to make the best of both opportunities. Zimmerman (2002, p.87) identified time management, as one of the key self-regulatory techniques dealing with the amount of time that should be allocated for studying. My poor management of time has impacted my poor performance in assignments during my previous semester. As I had to maintain a balance between university life and work life, I found myself prioritizing more work than a university which led to a situation where I found myself lagging behind with assignments. Even after reorganizing myself and catching up with university, I found myself poorly managing time as I was distracted by external factors and lacked self–control.
Time management is important in every aspect of life, and in my professional life, poor time management skills will impact not only my performance but also my stakeholders. In order to improve my time management skills, I have to take control of the time that I decide to spend with external factors and distractions such as entertainment, social media, and gadgets, which is defined as an environmental structuring technique by Zimmerman (2002, p.87) I can achieve so by practicing the technique of self-monitoring to observe and fix problems regarding my functioning with such external factors. (Zimmerman, 2002, p.93)
Having discussed my experiences and reflections on this course, I can proudly say I have achieved my short-term goals. I wanted to be a proactive team member who was responsible for the team’s actions and this has led to achieving good grades. However, there is improvement required in managing time in an efficient way, I will keep striving towards prioritizing and monitoring my activities.
I believe this course has helped me understand not only ethics but also the behaviors of different organizations in different cultures.
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