Personal Growth: Determination.
Introduction.
There are two kinds of personal outcomes: cognitive related to the fundamental academic skills, and affective, related to the individual choices (Liu 2010). The personal growth context largely depends on the affective choices and the whole course of the person determination. Innovation in business requires the customer oriented skills, motivation, continuous education, and the extracurricular experience.
Both, the hard and the soft currencies of the employees can determine competitiveness and success of the businesses, especially in the future. Employees with the soft currencies must operate the academic skills while a requirement to the hard currencies is in demonstrating vision, motivation and a perspective to grow as the leaders. The cost of a mistake is too high these days, and the companies have no right to make mistakes by selecting a talent pool or communicating with the clients.
According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a need of self-actualization is the highest need at the top of the pyramid while the underlying needs are the physical, safety, love/belonging, and esteem. Maslow believes that a further personal development may not be possible without meeting the basic needs. Are we determined people, as our determination rests on the needs, that most population cannot meet before the age of 40?
Personal Growth: The Two Approaches.
Why should the universities care about the personal growth of the students or why the students should care about their personal growth. Why trouble, if the ‘low hanging fruits’ can be within the easy reach in the form of the academic success and the transcript is what all the students need. Many universities motivate the students to do the extracurricular work and promote the self-development activities. The mission statements of the top U.S. universities addressed this task in the following ways:
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has mentioned the following conditions as a prerequisite to the personal growth “safe, healthy, and supportive environment centered on well-being” (DSL Mission 2011).
The Harvard University mission statement focused on creating a brick-and-mortar learning environments to promote “professional and personal growth and integrity” (EH&S Mission Statement n.d.).
The California Institute of Technology addressed their approach as the different approach to promoting “both academic and personal growth” skills (Mission Statement n.d.). The University has further stressed on an importance of the personal impact to develop the talent and to uncover “potential for personal and professional growth” (Mission Statement n.d.).
The above examples provided the bird's eye view of the personal development in the future careers of the students. Therefore, there are two approaches to growth: the personal development, and academic. The personal growth is in a relation to integrity, a binding substance between the ‘blocks’ of the academic skills. At the same times, the personal growth depends on many variables that can enhance the students’ potential through meeting the needs of safety, health, supportive environment, and well-being.
Personal Growth: Arguments in Favor.
After reviewing the Forbes List of the top U.S. business, it comes clear what skills the companies require now.
In its strategy statement the company Mars has accentuated on “educating potential customers about [the company’s employees] vision” and applying the leadership skills to fix the problems (Strategy Statement 2016), so the company has a focus on the customer related skills, education and the visionary skills.
The educators are the professionals whose task is in developing the both skills: personal and academic in the educational settings. They are also the natural leaders to bridge these skills to their students. But, the businesses need the different kind of educators, the inspired leaders who can represent their companies and share a necessary experience for the customers.
It may be surprising that the inventor of the electric bulb Thomas Edison made more than 1000 inventions with his team, but he never had a real formal education. Instead, he had a vision. His vision transformed the world, and most of his day he was spending in the laboratory. He was a developing leader during his work because his work was an invention.
These days, personal growth is not possible without a vision, the continuous education and personal research. One of those skills is an extracurricular college work, which may involve many activities such as the sports activities, a development of the social skills, or work on the laboratory tasks and development of the research craft.
The argument for the development of the personal growth is in the shift of balance in demand and supply to the need of the developing leaders. Present-day-businesses demand the motivated and competent people, capable of acting as the future leaders. Such businesses pay attention not only to the academic skills, the caliber of a university but also to the extracurricular skills characterizing the applicants as the researchers, visionaries, motivated and creative workers able to serve the needs of the clients.
Personal Growth: Arguments Against.
On the other hand, the personal growth and research work can be very costly and far not everyone can permit a study in one of the top universities, where personal development is the cutting edge. MIT University has explicitly stated priority, in particular for the personal growth, should be underpinned by safety, health, support and well-being (MIT).
According to Abraham Maslow (2003) the author of the hierarchy of human needs, wants are not absolute and once a person reached one of the higher levels he/she will further take it for granted. So the people are only developing the new needs instead of developing vision and determination to the personal growth.
The Millennial Generation has stumbled upon the problem the other generations have never had before. The problem is in the growing information flows; therefore, a Millennial person has a limited capability to find, retrieve and process the volumes of the information because of the time limits. Without operating trusted information, without guidance, without the grants for education, good teachers, laboratory works, and peers’ advice, these goals seem to be unfulfillable.
Personal Growth: Replies to the Arguments.
Not all is so fatal because there is a window of an opportunity on one hand and a gap to close on the contrary. In fact, lack of the trusted information is only one side of the medal. In life, a person should choose between procrastination and the time management techniques.
Procrastination can occur at home by watching TV or playing the video games, at the college by reading the social media instead of studying, or at a workplace. Procrastination is taking the years of the lives and is a fake substitute for our useful experience. How to stop this habit to start working efficiently to optimize capabilities for the personal growth? How to control oneself better?
According to the ‘locus of control’ theory, the internal locus of control has a high positive correlation to work motivation and greater expectancy of the positive outcome. The persons with the internal locus of control can view themselves as the masters of their destinies, who can control their behaviors. Most importantly the internal locus of control is not nature but the nurture that people can develop (Grojean 2001).
The other key advice is about how to master the time management skills; D. Kennedy described one of the approaches to the rationally managed time (2013):
Technique 1: Use different kinds of lists, as things-to-do, people-to-call, messages-to-answer, conferences-to-visit, etc. This approach can help to concentrate on the most necessary things which may require 20% of the efforts but would return 80% of the results.
Technique 2: Reduction of clutter by using the automatic memory and the reminders. This technique is the very significant stress relieving technique because typically an individual can keep in the mind seven plus/minus two chunks of the information. The large amounts of information can cause stress.
Technique 3: Escaping or minimizing the number of meetings that lack a focus, and can only steal the valuable time.
Technique 4: By scheduling and planning events a person can estimate the available time by blocking a flow of a free time.
Technique 5: Profit from an opportunity of using the electronic devices during the transfers such as in metro, public transport, etc. (Kennedy 2013).
The communication techniques are the other valuable skill leading to the personal growth. According to the MindTools one of the most useful communication techniques it the 7-c of communication:
If the message or goal is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely, it is also concrete, and the clients would take it seriously.
Businesses require the correct notes because a cost of mistake today is much higher than it was 50 years ago.
If a message is complete, a party will not need extra effort to clarify some details.
A listener can make a crucial impression about the speaker in several seconds, so courteousness is at the forefront.
The propensity for personal growth has many alternatives and the opportunities, even if a student did not study at a top college, he/she should develop the skills of self-efficacy and be able to use the time rationally. The communication skills can produce a reciprocal effect which is necessary for developing the social skills.
Conclusion.
The personal growth can impact the individual careers; many companies positively correlate personal growth, the extracurricular, social and the leadership skills to their long-term expectations. The students with their personal development plans can develop a vision and self-organizational skills. The self-organizational skills are a key to be able educating the customers, to motivate the peers and to grow as the leader. At the same time, fighting the procrastination can be the most difficult self-development task. Meeting the personal development plans is challenging and motivating to the further growth and success.
Works Cited
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Kennedy, D. S. "5 Time Management Techniques Worth Using." Entrepreneur. 8 Nov. 2013. Web. 18 Feb. 2016. <http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/229772/>.
Liu, Ying (Jessie), and Alexander C. Yin. "Assessing Personal Growth." New Directions For Institutional Research 2010.(2010): 111-123. Academic Search Complete. Web. 17 Feb. 2016.
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"The 7 Cs of Communication." The 7 Cs of Communication. Ed. MT Editorial Team. n.d.Web. 18 Feb. 2016. <https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCS_85.htm/>.
