MGMT
Final Written Self-Reflection Report
At the end of the quarter, youll post to Blackboard an approximately 500-word, single-spaced written report outlining the concepts from the course which youve found most meaningful and describing how you anticipate incorporating these new concepts into your professional, academic or personal communications. Please submit as a single-spaced, informal informational report in an email format. This submittal will be graded considering both the content as well as the quality of the writing. Ill consider use of writing conventions (grammar, spelling, and sentence construction), the presentation and organization of your ideas, compliance with the specifications of the assignment, and the incorporation of all of the business writing best practices that well discuss in this course. Use Grammarly (www.grammarly.com ), and make indicated corrections, prior to submitting your paper.
Marisol Lewis
MGMT 350
Professor Habich
March 15, 2017
Self-Reflection Paper
When I first started this class, I remember thinking to myself I already know all of this. I was under the impression that this would be a walk in the park and that I would be hearing information that I was already aware of. However, I am glad to say that I have acquired new skills and knowledge through this course that I am confident will help me as I grow professionally. The concepts that I benefited the most from are how to become an effective listener, develop an effective resume and cover letter, compose business emails, and achieve your goals in communicating negative news.
Most of the concepts, if not all, presented in class have been used continuously in my workplace. Learning how to become an effective listener was definitely an opportunity for me. To my surprise, I related most to the barriers to effective listening. I realized that I especially had trouble with keeping an open mind, holding my fire, faking attention, and wanting to speak instead of listen. Often times we are so passionate about what we believe is right and wrong and we tend to shut down other peoples perspectives. I found myself doing this because I was convinced that what I believe to be right is right and vice versa. Additionally, I would have a difficult time allowing myself to listen to the other speakers argument, logic, or reasons if I did not agree with them.
Faking attention is something I would frequently do in the workplace. As a personal banker, you also become a therapist to your clients. There were times when I would have so much paperwork to get done and my clients would want to talk to me about their personal matters. During these times, I found myself pretending to listen by shaking my head or occasionally saying mhm; although I had no clue what they were saying because I was trying to get my work done in between. Other times, I would be having a conversation with a coworker and I would wait for them to finish their sentence so that I could jump in and share my story because I considered mine to be better. However, all of these barriers have led me to realize that I was not being an effective listener in the workplace. I was even able to apply these concepts to my personal relationships and I feel that I have become a better person through my improvement.
The concept of developing an effective resume and cover letter has helped me tremendously. I have been very successful in obtaining jobs that I am interested in. Therefore, I thought that my resume and cover letters were at their highest potential. However, I learned that both my resume and cover letter needed much improvement. Learning how to customize them for the specific job will help open more opportunities for me.
In the workplace, the most common source of communication is via email. Through this course, I have learned how to properly and effectively compose those business emails. I constantly have to relay information to my clients and I always use a formal approach. Before taking this course, I was under the impression that if I needed to compose an email to a colleague, it would have to be just as formal. Now that we have discussed business emails in class, I feel that my peers are able to better understand my requests, while keeping the email concise, direct and professional.
Lastly, we discussed how to convey negative news. Delivering negative news is difficult and happens quite often in my industry. As a personal banker, I must inform clients, who have applied for an account, credit, or loan, whether they have been approved or declined. Letting them know that they have been declined is challenging because the goal is to retain their business while still declining a request. This class has allowed me to develop skills that will help me achieve my goal of keeping that business relationship even though I must decline a service the client is requesting. In doing so, I have made it a point to use an indirect approach and offer the client alternative services as well as let them know what I can do for them.
Completing this course has been an immense advantage for me as I move forward in my career. I have learned new skills and have been able to enhance existing ones. Going forward, I will reference this class in my business practices and use the knowledge and experience that I have acquired. I am thankful for these past 10 weeks and I look forward to applying what I have learned as I advance in my career. Jeffrey Harris
0053638710
MGMT 350
Self-Reflection Paper
I must admit, I did not conduct any research when registering for this course and I had no clue what I would be learning. I have come away with a great deal more than I expected. The topics I found most useful so far are persuasive messages, positive and negative messages, presentations and informal reports. I have already used much of what I learned in my day-to-day activities at work. Using what I have learned has assisted me in my current position, and will help propel me further in my career.
I work as an assistant buyer for a company called iHerb. We are one of the largest online natural products retailers in the world, and we sell products to millions of customers in over 150 countries. My job duties consist mostly of maintaining inventory for five dozen or so brands. However, I am also responsible for negotiating pricing, payment terms and shipping arrangements with vendors, organizing promotional campaigns for brands, and completing a variety of projects handed to me by my superiors. This line of work requires experience with the topics listed above, and my time in this Administrative Communications class has strengthened my skills in those areas substantially.
Because of attending this course, I have become a more effective negotiator with vendors, co-workers and my superiors. When requesting additional discounts or more favorable terms, I employ useful statistics and facts to persuade vendors to provide said discounts. I have learned how to better present my promotional plans to vendors and superiors for approval. My reports are now more concise and better organized, utilizing either direct or indirect strategies depending on what I am reporting on. And I have been more aware of the tone of my emails and chats. I take care to word my emails more carefully so as not to come off sounding rude or aggressive.
Using the skills I learned in this class, I have managed to extract additional discounts, or arrange rebates, from some of my larger vendors. I have put together multiple promotional calendars for brands and entire product categories in 2017, and I even managed to convince my director of the benefits of using more promotional dollars on our smaller brands. My communication with our Accounting and Receiving departments has noticeably improved since I began to more carefully word my messages to them to sound more inclusive and positive.
I know that I will be employing the skills I listed above more extensively as I strive to move up in the company I work for. I also know that the other topics covered during this course, such as business etiquette, ethics, teamwork, meetings, and constructing resumes and cover letters, will all play an important role in my career path. This has been by far one of the most useful courses I have taken in school. I owe much to this class for the improvement in my current job and the trajectory of my career, to a fully-fledged buyer and category manager beyond that. XiuQi Yao
Professor Habich
Mgmt 350
March 19, 2017
self-reflection
I am an international student from China. In China, students simply to study in the school without any internship of part-time work until they graduate. As a result, after the graduation, the students experience the first time of joining the society and taking a job. As an international student, I havent developed communication skills and I did not even know how important they are before I took the MGMT350 class. I am now really grateful for the opportunity to take this class and I appreciate it very much.
The first thing I learned from the class is how to write a resume and a cover letter. Before the class, I thought resume and cover letter is the same thing which is similar to an article needed for introducing oneself to recruiters. I did not realize how important the resume and cover letter are and the extent to which they might define the success or failure of job searching process. I realized that the resume and cover letter are ones first step towards the future life. During the class, I have realized that writing a resume or cover letter is not similar to writing an article. In this process, it is crucial to choose the most suitable style for your resume. One can choose a form of functional or chronological resumes and organize it either as a direct or indirect report. Then it is necessary to create clear points and think over headlines for each part. I think that a thorough resume should demonstrate applicants competence and be logical, which would help it to capture recruiters eye-sight. As a result of the class, now I know how to structure a cover letter and a resume and which information to include in them. Thus, I would be able to create a professional and attractive resume as well as to write a cover letter that would draw the attention of potential employers and help me to move forward in my career.
The second thing I learned from the class is how to accomplish work in a team. While being a part of a group, we can collect more ideas from the group members, so the work efficiency would be increased. Such understanding implies that establishing a successful group first requires setting a common goal that can attract people with the same interest and then defining an intercommunication channel. For instance, I chose a case study about Whole Foods Market on blackboard and I met with the team members who were also interested in this case study. Thus, we have created a discourse community focused on the case of Whole Foods Market. We communicated, shared our ideas, were looking for useful information to combine it with our own ideas to complete the case study successfully. This appeared to be an effective way to write an assignment since one gains more knowledge and has more ideas to think about.
The last but not least finding was that one needs to develop communication skills, including writing as well as speaking. At the beginning of the class, I used to give the professor a paper with numerous grammar and word usage mistakes. Under professors guidance, I was very lucky to get a chance to improve my writing skills with the help of the writing center. During the class, I realized that communication is not only about knowing what one wants to express. It is more important to express the ideas clearly and create a message that the receiver would understand. This task is even more complicated in the case of oral speaking. I acknowledge that speaking is very hard for an international student, especially public speaking. But since I am now studying in America, I need more exercise, and this is what I also received in the class. After a presentation in the class, I understand that it is highly important to speak. Speaking often tends to help to improve oral English as well as to boost confidence and provide more courage. This happens if ones speech is accepted, for which I am grateful to my classmates and professor, encouraging me to challenge myself.
In overall, it is necessary to admit that taking this class appeared a challenging experience for me. Before the class, I did not understand the importance of communication, which also implies not knowing the principles of communication within a group. In this situation, the class helped me to learn important things and to make attempts to apply the gained knowledge on practice. I have learned about writing a successful resume and cover letter, which might help me in my career. Similarly, I gained a chance to practice my writing and speaking, which is an important experience for me as for an international student. Finally, the class showed me the value of working in a group and the essential role of communication throughout the whole process. The gained experience has provided me with the new knowledge that I would be able to apply in the future, so I am very grateful for the class and the opportunity to participate in it.
