Personal Development & Ethics - Assignment Example

? Table of Contents Nature of Business and Services………………………………………………………………3 KSA……….……………………………………………………………………………………….3 Advantages of Self Employment.................…...................................................................5 Disadvantage of Self Employment…………………….…...……………………………..……6 Reflective Evaluation…………………………………………………………………………….7 References……………………………………………………………………………………….12 Part a a. Nature of the Business and Services Being an electrical engineer I would like to start a business which is suited to my educational background. I plan to offer consultancy services in electrical engineering to various industries and manufacturing organizations. The various services will include the maintenance and overhauling of the electrical equipments in the manufacturing and industrial plants. The company will also offer design services for the development of small electrical equipments and parts. b. Knowledge, Skills and Attitude To run a business which is completely based on the technical expertise of the individuals involved in the organization good technical knowledge of things is very important. As I plan to start a business which will offer electrical engineering consultancy services to various organizations and industries I must have a grip on the electrical engineering knowledge with regards to the industries and manufacturing plant operation. For the development of such knowledge I should take the subjects which are related to the automation and control of the manufacturing plants in various different industries. I should also develop knowledge of electrical energy supply to various industrial equipments. Automation and control of various mechanical equipments in an organization are also related to the electrical instrumentation in industries therefore I should opt for these courses for acquiring a perfect knowledge required to provide electrical engineering services to various industries and manufacturing units and for this I should continue my studies after undergrad and should acquire a masters degree in instrumentation, automation and control engineering. Moreover in order to establish a separate business I will also need a detailed knowledge of managerial methodologies in order to run the affairs of an organization and for this I should opt for engineering management and planning courses during my undergrad program. An extensive knowledge of managerial and organizational strategies which include the awareness of ideal organizational structure, organizational culture, teamworking strategies is mandatory. Furthermore in order to run such a business which offers electrical engineering consultancy services to various diverse industries and manufacturing units I should develop the skills like the electrical operation of the plant and equipment in industry. Such skills can only be developed through experience and by working on the industrial equipment. For this I will have to do internships at various industries in order to understand the working of the plant and equipment. I can also work in the electrical maintenance department of any organization in order to develop these skills before starting my own business. For running a successful business a positive attitude is obligatory for excellence. Being the head of the organization I must develop an attitude which is best suited for leaders and should adopt leadership tendencies. The success of the organization largely depends of the strength of the leader to lead by example, to carry forward his team with himself as a single unit and to implement high moral and ethical values in the organization. I will also have to adopt a flexible but controlled attitude towards new and innovative ideas. My attitude should be motivating and encouraging towards the employees in the organization. For getting orders and for good relationship with the customers a communicative and interactive attitude is mandatory. These skills are necessary even for small businesses with a nominal staff like the one I plan to start. c. Advantages of Self Employment There are various advantages of self employment because it gives a person freedom in his professional life and can manage his life on his own. A self employed person can decide his own working hours according to his own convenience and is not answerable to anyone. The performance of a self employed person is totally dependent on his own knowledge, skill and attitude and external organizational factors very rarely influence him and therefore the self employed person can easily judge his own performance. Self employment also gives satisfaction and a peace of mind to the individuals because they consider themselves to be responsible for the things that happen in their professional life. Self employed person sets his own targets and then the decision of devising a strategy for achieving those targets is also his own. He is independent in the selection of the type of work and business based on his own area of interest and doing so, a self employed person find it very easy to work on various tasks and assignments because they are based on his own interest which allows him to enjoy his work. The most common reason of stress and depression at work place is the lack of recognition of efforts of the individuals both financially and morally. Very often the organizational benefits are not channelized towards the individuals in the organization which leads to high levels of stress. A self employed person gets all the recognition and profits in return to his efforts and hard work and it results in the improvement of the performance of the individual. Disadvantages of Self Employment While heading a business venture the magnitude of responsibilities and duties is very high which contributes to tension and stress and the self employed people are over burdened very often. While doing a business on his own, a self employed person has to face situations in which he has to work continuously for long hours and cannot give proper time to health and fitness and also his family. This state results in affecting the health and social and family life of the person. Another disadvantage of self employment is the risk involved in the business. The possibility of failure is there in every business but a self employed person has to bear all the consequences of the failure alone and the financers and investors are only concerned about their money. Such failures very often result in bankruptcy; therefore a self employed individual should prepare himself before hand for the failure and should have a proper exit strategy in such a scenario. (Word Count: 984) Part b Reflective Evaluation The team has been formed to carry out a research work about the employment opportunities in engineering. I consider my role in the team to be of the Company Worker according to the Belbin’s team role specifications because of my ability to give a direction to the team to achieve the set goals and targets. I consider the feasibility of various ideas and set targets while devising a strategy to for achieving those targets and implementing the suggested ideas. While starting the project we came across various options regarding the way we can carry out the research with success. I actually gave a role to each and every individual in the team based on his capabilities and then I devised a proper methodology for carrying out the research by giving a proper time frame according to which the team will work during the execution of the project. As no one in the team is capable enough to lead the team or assume the chairman’s role, I being the company worker is the most suitable person in the team to become the leader of the team. I want to lead the team towards the target very smoothly and that is why I do not believe readily in new and innovative ideas regarding research methodologies. I plan to follow the same useful techniques which have been used in the past very successfully because if we will try out new techniques that will result in wastage of time in testing. Trying the new ideas is not an option while working on a project; this is something that should be done during the experimentation period because the failure of the new technique will not affect the final result and success of the project. I believe in exercising self control by being disciplined during the course of a project because if each and every individual will start being disciplined the whole team can work as a disciplined unit. While carrying out a project I am more than willing to entertain suggestions from my teammates only if they have been practiced successfully in the past. The status of the project and the scheduled tasks are always known to me because I believe that each and every individual of the team should have a very clear idea about the strategic advancement of the project and he must know all the stages and phases through which the project has to pass before becoming a complete project. If the individuals in the team do not have a clear understanding of their role in the team, the current status of the project and what is going to happen next, they cannot work as a useful member of the team. Bearing a straight forward approach sometimes becomes a source of displeasure for the teammates and I am rated as over-competitive for the whole team. But I try to maintain a balance and I do not criticize my teammates for delays and mistakes during the execution of the project and believe in correcting the mistakes of my teammates by setting good examples for them. At times due to changing conditions it becomes inevitable to come up with new and innovative strategies for carrying out the project but I am not willing to adopt these new methodologies because I do not believe in experimentation during such a critical stage of a project. According to my point of view this is a better approach and can be less risky. Talal and Abdullah Alkandri are working as team workers in the team. Their positive point is their interactive nature and ability to communicate with each and every member of the team very effectively. They are the morale boasters in the team and continue to tell their teammates about their roles in the team, their strengths and how they can utilize their strengths to fulfill the assigned roles. While working in the team we consider them as the source of binding in the team because they involve each member of the team in various tasks which helps in creating emotional and ethical ties between the team members. They respect the ideas and suggestions of other team members and consider them an asset for the team because they believe in incorporating all the suggestions of the teammates to form one strategy which a collection of these ideas. They try to avoid conflicts between the team members by justifying the criticism by any team member towards others. Although team workers work with a very positive and encouraging approach in the team but they lag behind other members in the team with regards to technical expertise and skills and the members of the team generally consider them less productive in achieving the goals but they actually have a very significant contribution towards the success of the project because they are the driving force behind the team and keep the teams free of conflicts between team members. Mohammed Hamed plays the role of plant in the team as he gives ideas and very useful information to the team. He actually gives ideas which are practical and are propose solutions to various problems which occur during the execution of the project. Whenever the team faces a situation which seems to be a dead end, he starts searching for new approaches and strategies to solve the problem in order to move forward and the good thing about the ideas and suggestions given by him is that they are readily acceptable to all the team members. Hamed is a person who can search information but come up with completely new ideas based on that information. The ideas presented by the him very rarely are not picked up by the team members, in such a scenario I play the role of being a leader in the team by understanding the ideas presented by him and explaining the usefulness and practicality of those ideas to the other team members. His ability to come up with new ideas very swiftly makes him focus on the apparent problem and at times he misses the minor details which have actually caused that problem. In such a scenario the ideas and suggestions are not practical and cause conflicts to arise between him and other members of the team. The role of Ali Masfer is can also be termed as the role of a company worker because he actually gives direction to the team and devises strategies for the proposed ideas and suggestions. The difference between Ali Masfer and my role is that my role is a combination of the role of shaper and company worker and that is why I can assume the role of the leader because no other member in the team is capable enough to be given the role of chairman. Ali Masfer has the ability to organize the random ideas and suggestions given by the teammates but he does not have the ability to convert them into a strategy, while I after gathering the ideas and suggestions make an analysis of the situation and my teammates and then mould the random ideas and suggestions into an action plan in which all the team members have specified role based on a time frame for the execution of tasks and ultimate accomplishment of the set targets and goals. The role of Mohammed Alsulmi is also somewhat the role of a team worker but he is not as motivating as Talal or Abdullah Alkandri but follows the instructions given by the leader very efficiently and effectively and is deemed as a team worker in the sense that he contributes to the team by completing the assigned tasks in time. The six member team formed by us although lacks some of the essential team members of an ideal team but it is still good enough to carry out various projects successfully. The team members are motivated and have a vision to achieve the goals by identifying their roles in the team and cooperating with each other for achieving the collective goal rather than focusing on individual goals. (Word Count: 1342) References S. Cottrell (2010), Skills for Success, The personal Development Planning Handbook, Palgrave Macmillan Read More