Contemporary Management Issues Essay

1. What I have learnt about myself and my attitude to or capacity for management in the future
What I have learnt about myself and my attitudes to or capacity for management in the future is the fact that I have been short-sightedly dismissing the importance of interpersonal skills as a sacrosanct component of organisational success. As such, I always wrongfully surmised that as long as every employee met his performance target, then other concerns were very peripheral.
2. Whether I will need to change in any way & how & how I will implement the change
Because of the foregoing, I have appreciated the need to change, so as to make organisational performance more efficient. Obviously, this calls for structural and cultural changes within the organisation. The change will involve providing other means of communication to complement conventional tools of organisational communication such as the telephone and interdepartmental meetings. Instead, other forms of communication such as the open-door policy, round table meetings, educational tours and retreats are to be introduced. Likewise, I am also to incorporate language competence and interpersonal skills as a prerequisite during recruitment drives. All these changes will be implemented pronto, and not gradually.
3. Are there any obstacles (e.g. language barriers)?
Definitely, encountering obstacles will be inevitable when meting out the aforementioned changes. The introduction of the open-door policy will mean that executive or managerial employees will have to make allocations for extra time for spontaneous consultations by members of the junior and auxiliary staff. I also appreciate the fact that the same applies to the use of round table meetings. Educational tours and retreats will translate to extra organisational expenses and liabilities.
4. How I can use my new knowledge or ideas in my future professional practice
I am to use my new knowledge in my future professional practice to: enhance intra-organisational cohesion; make organisational functions more efficient; facilitate client-organisational relations; and to enhance the organisation’s public relations and image. The things that are to be done differently include: introducing open-door and roundtable policy; making interpersonal skills a prerequisite for recruitment; and introducing organisational tours and retreats.
I have taken stock of the fact that all these above changes are tenable. The conditions or resources needed to effect the changes are financial assets, teamwork (and consultations) and communication. The needed finances can be derived from plough-back profits. Teamwork and communication are readily manifest in any meaningful organisation. The open-door policy will help the junior and auxiliary staff consult with the managerial staff on organisational and personal issues. To me, upholding interpersonal skills as a requirement in recruitment practices will ensure that the interpersonally competent is absorbed into the organisation’s rank and file. Organisational tours and retreats will help glue the organisation into a unified whole.
5. In what ways can you apply the things you have learned from the past situation, to your future professional practice?
Again, I have learnt that this three-pronged approach is to be applied to cater for present and future purposes. The structured nature of the approaches underscores the applicability of the recommendations or strategic plans in both short and long-term courses. It will be self-defeatist to apply short-term strategies only. Short-term approaches are prone to higher costs, misapplication in the ratification of long-term projects and become subject to discontinuity when newer and more long-term strategies are considered. The converse of this is that the aforementioned three-pronged approach is bound to benefit the organisation in both short and long-term spurts. I will therefore apply the same approaches since they are highly expedient as they are to transform organisational performance and interaction at both the individual and collective level.