Reflective Essay
Executive Summary
In order to fulfill the Strategic Perspectives module of this course, the following reflective essay examines feelings, perspectives and outcomes of the situations that occurred during the Glo-bus business simulation. This reflective essay will discuss the events of the simulation itself, as well as lessons learned from both positive and negative outcomes of the experience. Skills and techniques learned in the lesson will also be described. With the help of the Critical Incident Technique, the situations presented to us in the simulation will be described comprehensively and analytically. Following this analysis, recommendations are offered for future tasks and simulations such as this; I hope to improve my performance and my ability to handle these situations in future simulations. Conclusions about my skill set and performance will follow, as well as my ability to facilitate effective teamwork and work as an individual.
Introduction
Throughout a ten week period, to fulfill the Strategic Perspectives module, I participated in the Glo-bus business simulation with a group of other students. In this report, the situations that this team encountered will be reported, as well as our solutions for this problem. This report will also allow us to study and overview the skills we acquired and evolved throughout the course of this simulation, as well as note which skills we found unnecessary for the project. Through this analysis, we should be able to discover new workplace applications for these skills, as well as determine whether or not this simulation has an impact on future teamwork experiences.
Reflective practice will be the primary method of analysis, equipping us to evaluate the situations that we came across, and allow for further development to prevent negative outcomes and encourage positive ones. Teaching education pioneered the notion of reflective practice (Moon 2004, p. 80). According to Reed (1993), "the active process of reviewing an experience of practice in order to describe, analyse, evaluate and so inform learning about practice." With this concept of reflective practice in mind, the business simulation we have experienced will be elucidated and studied to mine further progress from it.
The Critical Incident Technique (CIT) will be the method utilized in order to effectively perform this reflective practice in analyzing the business simulation. The CIT is often used to analyze human behavior during important and intensive events in an experimental learning setting (Cassell and Symo 2004, p. 45). To that end, I can use the CIT to evaluate the situations involved and form learning outcomes from my findings. Through the evaluation of each critical incident as they arise, the problem, solution and future applications can be elucidated clearly and confidently.
First incident - Missing week:
As we started working together in a team for our first several weeks, we started to set up meetings for every Thursday following our lecture in order to set up a schedule of regular visits, and to make decisions for our business simulation. For the most part, we would have full (or mostly full) attendance for our group; as we started, attendance was good throughout the beginning of the semester, particularly because of the relative lightness of the workload. As time passed, and the semester continued, attendance started to drop; other assignments, presentations and schoolwork would interfere with our free time. Anticipating this, we had said up front that suggestions would be emailed to the group by people who knew they would not be there, and we would count that as attending the meeting.
In the sixth year of the Glo-bus simulation, there was a huge misunderstanding with the group's communication, leading to no entries being filled in for that week. I was still not quite familiar with Glo-bus; while I could log in, I did not feel secure enough in my answers to do them on my own. It was my assumption that there was someone in the group who had that task handed to them. However, we did not realize that no one entered data that Sunday night, when we all checked the results to see our low performance on the chart. It was only after it was too late that we realized that no one had entered our data, and it had led to a tremendous amount of animosity with both each other and ourselves.
Solution:
Future Recommendations & Theory:
I have learned many things about this particular situation that I can apply to future business simulations and real-world scenarios. In the future, I will recommend that a group leader be chosen for any future groups that I am in. The responsibilities of that group leader will involve keeping accountability of the people in their group, and making sure things are organized properly - this will prevent us from going off on our own and keeping each other out of the loop. This group leader would help provide responsibility to the group, so that we all know what we are meant to be doing. The group leader could also act as a major contact point, allowing us to all communicate issues and concerns to the leader, who then contacts the appropriate party. By having just one individual in charge of communication and organization, there is no question of what to do when a problem emerges.
Belbin's Team Roles is a central tenet of this suggestion, allowing this suggestion to be based in theory; productive and effective working relationships would be created by applying this theory to our own workplace duties. Building the team around what we can and cannot do, team roles can naturally emerge and thus create better communication and more productive output for the group.
Second incident – No Motivation:
Following that first incident with the lack of communication, morale was down, and we had to work even harder to keep up with our grades. Having lost an entire week, it was difficult to compete with the other groups in the class, which were already ahead of us. Spirits were low, and we were less motivated to continue with the rest of the work that was required of the course. Seeing our names last on the scoreboard every new week was disheartening, to say the least. When we could enter our decisions at the end of each week, we simply did not have the energy or the spirit to make innovative choices and raise our profits. Our scores definitely reflected that lack of spring in our step. I was personally disillusioned with our progress, as there was no forward momentum, and we established a reputation as the worst group in our course.
Solution:
Once we recognized that this was a pattern in our individual and group behavior as a whole, we knew we had to take risks and boost our morale through innovations and new strategies. First, we had a meeting to specifically discuss the continuing low scores, and the prospect of our missing motivation - as well as possible changes that we could make. Three hours later, with the meeting finished, we were ready with new strategies that would improve our chances of success in the simulation. The real danger of this new strategy was the possibility of another group doing the exact same thing we were, thus not allowing us to catch up with them. However, the success of the existing strategies for each group (except ours) meant that no one was trying anything new - just sticking to what worked. To that end, we felt reasonably sure no one would take our particular tack on this issue. Once we got our new results, which showed vastly improved scores, we were celebratory; our rut was over, and we could get back to work with a renewed sense of vigor. After that point, we were much more positive about our outcomes, and we subsequently worked much harder to achieve them.
Future Recommendations & Theory:
If this kind of lack of motivation were to ever happen in a group in the future, I would feel very comfortable suggesting this same solution to our problem. I would advise that we have a meeting to discuss the specific issue of lack of motivation; this would preferably happen in a neutral setting, away from the workplace, so that people feel more comfortable and removed from the situation at hand. This will also spur innovation, as the new environment would be extremely refreshing for us. Motivating each other is an incredibly important thing within a business environment; this will allow team members to feel connected to the group (as opposed to being an outsider), and the group work will benefit from all members being incredibly attentive with regards to their tasks.
The Incentive Theory would be the ideal theory to implement this strategy (Maslow, 1973). With the help of Maslow's strategy, immediate rewards would be offered to goals accomplished, thus improving motivation. When we utilized this in the simulation work, we saw results in a matter of days; once we started doing better, our work improved exponentially, as we were more motivated by past success to feel confident that we would repeat it. The intrinsic motivation of this particular project was the grades being extremely important (being a large portion of our final year grade); this kind of self-guided motivation is very important. However, group work also allows for extrinsic motivation to occur, where other members of the group inspire and motivate you to work. This allows for greater effectiveness within a team setting.
Conclusion
My own understanding of business practices, communication, motivation and more has been dramatically changed by my experience with the Glo-bus business simulation. Existing skills I already possessed were enhanced, and new skills were found and developed, thus making me a better businessperson overall. I am now very familiar with the tenets of teamwork and cooperation within workplace environment, and the importance of strategy in finding new and improved outcomes. Communication and motivation were the group's two chief issues, which were closely tied to responsibility, leadership, delegation of duties and teamwork. These reflections and experiences, as well as the theoretical frameworks used to solve them, will become a substantial and unique way for me to improve my existing business practices. I hope to improve these skills further, becoming more proficient at inter-team communication and self-motivation; with these improve abilities, I can market myself much better as a business professional and put these problem-solving abilities to use in a challenging profession. I learned quite a bit from these experiences and setbacks, and will keep on learning and developing these skills. Through the help of the Glo-bus simulation, I now know what it is like to experience life in a professional business, the importance of outcomes, and the hectic nature of deadlines. I have experienced substantial professional and personal development, and my problem-solving skills are that much more innovative. In short, I very much appreciate this experience and will take these lessons with me into my future career.
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