Connecting the Dots
I actually purposely thought about my different experiences in organizations before writing any of the blog posts. I have also decided to write about three different organizations that I have been a part of as a way to force me to think about the intricacies of each one, and also to compare how all of them work and why they are successful or not based on what the organizations purpose is. I am able to compare my blogs so far more with opportunism, organization structure, and management than I am with the pricing concepts we have been covering recently. This is because the only organization I have talked about where I would be able to reflect on how pricing works is my internship experience at CME Group, which is also the organization I have had the least experience in. Before writing about the organization structure of my baseball team I enjoyed comparing and contrasting my different organization experiences with each other using the textbooks examples of different structures and team focuses, and all of them were different.
One topic from class that I would like to have tied into some of my posts a little more is leadership. Especially when thinking about my work as an intern, I sat through and participated in the training they give there new-hires in the department as somebody was hired just after I started. Part of this involved learning about the company and what the department does through one main employee that is in charge of the process. However, most of the other employees also worked with us and taught us more in-depth different aspects of what needed to be done in certain situations. Therefore, I was led by numerous different employees over the two months this happened. I would have discussed the different styles of them and which ones I thought were more effective, at least for me.
At first when writing these posts I would search for experiences I had that would make it easy to write about the prompt and then focus mainly on just thinking about that one experience. Now I like to look at the prompt and think about how it relates to a bunch of different experiences and how it is different between them. I then try and write about the one that I found most interesting, which is usually the one I am able to analyze more in depth and relates to the prompt in multiple ways. I enjoy writing about my experience in organizations more than in hypotheticals, as it is easier to relate to the prompt and it helps me to understand it more that way. I also enjoy the prompt when it gives us multiple possibilities of topics to talk about, as it allows me to be able to focus on one that relates to my experiences more or one that I find more interesting.
One topic from class that I would like to have tied into some of my posts a little more is leadership. Especially when thinking about my work as an intern, I sat through and participated in the training they give there new-hires in the department as somebody was hired just after I started. Part of this involved learning about the company and what the department does through one main employee that is in charge of the process. However, most of the other employees also worked with us and taught us more in-depth different aspects of what needed to be done in certain situations. Therefore, I was led by numerous different employees over the two months this happened. I would have discussed the different styles of them and which ones I thought were more effective, at least for me.
At first when writing these posts I would search for experiences I had that would make it easy to write about the prompt and then focus mainly on just thinking about that one experience. Now I like to look at the prompt and think about how it relates to a bunch of different experiences and how it is different between them. I then try and write about the one that I found most interesting, which is usually the one I am able to analyze more in depth and relates to the prompt in multiple ways. I enjoy writing about my experience in organizations more than in hypotheticals, as it is easier to relate to the prompt and it helps me to understand it more that way. I also enjoy the prompt when it gives us multiple possibilities of topics to talk about, as it allows me to be able to focus on one that relates to my experiences more or one that I find more interesting.
May I caution you to avoid using two adverbs in a row - actually purposely thought - it made me cringe. The famous writer, Stephen King, has a quote you should heed. "The road to hell is paved with adverbs." And in this case, you got there in your very first sentence. Let's see if you can make a safe return.
ReplyDeleteWe will get to discussing leadership in a few weeks, but get into leadership styles. Instead, we'll look at mistakes people in management positions make as well as to consider what type of leadership can be effective. It is my view the personality matters for leadership style and people with different personalities can go about things quite differently, but each can be effective if they adhere to the basic principles of good leadership. I also want to note here that many people think of leadership in a way that I think is an outmoded view. So we'll consider students' prior views about leadership when we have this discussion.
One of the things you said in the last paragraph - that you prefer writing about actual experience to hypotheticals - makes you different from some of your classmates, who have written just the opposite. So let me remind you that you can write about something other than the prompt, as along as you can tie what you are writing about to what the class is discussing. If I do have another prompt about a hypothetical down the road, you might exercise this option.
I think there should be a balance between writing about actual experiences and hypothetical scenarios. I feel both have their pros and cons. In my post I wrote about commenting about current events that happen in the financial world.
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