Introduction
The Chinese philosopher Tsang said, “I daily examine myself on three points…” It is obvious that self-awareness is an essential method to improve an individual’s personality, skills and value. I am a fourth-year student specialized in management and accounting with some internship working experience in the past two years. Firstly, I worked as a secretary intern at Ernst & Young in China for four months, which exercised my detail-oriented and planning abilities. Secondly, I used to be an online marketing associate at OneClass Inc. for eight months, which practiced my communication skill, and I found my weakness of negotiating.
Besides, I also have some experience as the vice-president of two Chinese student clubs at UTSC, they are known as CSSA and GPA. At this position, I tried much leadership strategy and found my strength in the area of integrity and trust. Furthermore, the busy work and study tasks fill my university life, so that I found my shortage on work-study-life balance.
However, the graduation is coming the next year. I have to seek a job related to accounting or auditing. Also, I dream to run my restaurant in the future. Both of the goals need me to try hard to improve myself.
Competency
First of all, planning is one of the skills I used in different areas effectively. It is easy to make mistakes if there is no planning before doing a job. For example, I used to miss an online assignment for an accounting course, which was due during the reading week. Because it is in common that no assignment will be due in the reading week. However, I started to make a study plan for the whole term right after the syllabus was available. It helps me begin to prepare the exam and assignment early so that they would not mess up. All in all, it works well so far.
Also, a good plan may help the individual becoming a competitive employee in a project team. For instance, I used to lead two secretaries to prepare group training for 200 staff in Ernst & Young. There were lots of logistic things need to check, such as checking the room availability, estimating the bottles of water needed and writing the invitation email. The order and time to finish it in one month impact the quality of the training. Therefore, the first thing is to make a schedule for each tiny thing I have to finish when I was assigned the task. To sum up, my supervisor was impressed by my effort on planning the whole stuff.
Furthermore, the person who is good at planning indicates that he/she is familiar with different aspects related to the mission. For example, I did the year plan for the student club when I was the vice-president. Based on my two-year experience, I know what the annual events are and what kind of event will be popular for our student members. Fortunately, the plan helped my student club got excellent feedback for that year.
At last, the planning skill is necessary when people want to run a startup such as my dream restaurant. A profile about a business plan competition in a university highlights the results and reveals that 83 percent of respondents identified that they had demonstrated Business Planning and Entrepreneurial Skills during the challenge. (Jones, 2011) The high percent of business planning indicates that if there is no plan, there is no success in the business. Furthermore, no matter in which career, there must be a person act as the team leader. Leader structuring behavior interacted with leader planning skills in determining the quality and originality of group plans. (Marta, 2005) Hence, the failure in planning will impact the performance of the business or project.
Butler and Cantrell (1984) define integrity as the reputation for truthfulness and honesty of the trusted person. (Becker, 1998) On the other hand, the relationship between integrity and trust involves the trustor’s perception that the trustee adheres to a set of principles that the trustor finds acceptable. (Becker, 1998) In my point of view, the prestige of a leader depends on the leader’s performance of integrity and the extent of trustworthiness.
For example, I got the most votes in the election for executive of the student club and becoming the vice president. To a large extent, students who vote for me trust me as an upright person from my daily behaviour and my presentation. Another convincible example is that I handled the key of our office when I was the intern of OneClass, since I was never late and always the earliest person arriving the office. My supervisor trusts me to keep the key safe and will not do anything that may harm the company, such as stolen.
Considering the future, I think no one will hiring an employee whom he/she never trust. A business needs to maintain a culture of integrity to sustain trust, inside and outside. (Gurd, 2010) Additionally, the overall performance would be perfect only when the team members trust each other. Taking a simple example, if there is a staff thief others’ money, the whole office will suspect others and the corporation becoming a severe problem.
The failure of being integrity is not a big issue since it may be hidden by mendacious behaviour. There is a fact that one can cooperate with another party without necessarily trusting that person, just as one can have confidence in an individual’s ability to achieve the desired outcome without trusting the personal integrity of that person. (Allert, 1997) Unfortunately, the non-integrity always comes with the failure of trust; and then it is going to impact the performance of the whole team or the reputation of business significantly.
An American dramatist, Moss Hart, said, “All the mistakes I ever made were when I wanted to say ‘No’ and said ‘Yes’.” This is the truth because it perplexes me so that I cannot be a good negotiator. At most of the time, I am afraid to show my opinion and refuse others’ when I am not a hundred percent sure I am the right one. When the opposite side is aggressive, I feel much harder to present my requirement. Furthermore, most of my friends maintain that the first impression on me is a plain dealer. Therefore, I always fail at the first step of a success negotiation. Take the experience of sponsorship negotiation as an example, my duty is to find some student clubs in the US universities who can promote the service of OneClass. The first potential partner was a little aggressive and asked for an incredibly high amount of sponsorship fee. However, as Party A, I do not know how to convince them that their request is unreasonable. It was obvious that the negotiation failed since they insist on their request.
In theory, negotiating ability can be defined as a “set of strengths required to negotiate and handle disputes effectively”. (Rai, 2013) Negotiation is necessary no matter inside or outside the company. On the other side, co-leadership (just like leadership itself) is a very complex process that involves the moment-by-moment negotiation of power relations. (Schnurr, 2011) If the leader or even the junior staff can perform well on negotiation, as my example above, the money can be saved, the partnership can be built, and new sales opportunity can be gained.
There is a question about perfectionism in one of he assigned tests that help me figure out my personalities impressed me. I quickly click the answer that I am usually considered as a perfectionist. This truth makes me do badly on balancing the study, work and balance. My friends complained that the work is the most important thing in my life. Once, I was sitting and having the Lunar Year dinner with them in Japanese cuisine, but I spent time in answering my colleague’s phone and immediately opened my laptop to finish the urgent task I just got. When I was done with my work, they almost did their dinner. This case usually happens in my daily life. I work overtime just for checking the numbers of a file for the third and fourth time to make sure there are even no tiny mistakes. I stay at home for the whole weekend just for modifying an event poster. The good news is that I win the praise on my work. However, I lose lots of chances to enjoy the leisure time with friends and families.
Furthermore, if I do not have time to do something to relax, I might become a boring workaholic. It is not a favourable condition in the long term because I do not want to do any other thing except sleeping when I go back home late. Alternatively, I even have to bring the document back to continue my work at home, with my supervisor virtually. The result is that my co-workers find it is hard to chat with me about some popular topic, such as the Raptor’s winning, the restaurant they are going to try at Winter-Licious and Taylor Swift’s Live in.
At last, I admit that one of the reasons I work that hard since I want to become a full-time employee there, after graduate. It is a fact that international student face more difficulties in seeking a job that can help them apply for the identity of Permanent Resident. Fortunately, there are greater efforts by government agencies and universities to raise international students’ awareness of their employment rights, notably by the Federal Workplace Ombudsman and State Governments (Workplace Ombudsman, 2009; Study Melbourne, 2009). This positive change can be attributed to the better recognition of international students’ off-campus experience and the idea that life-balance is important. (Ong, 2009) It cannot be denied that when I finished my intern and finally had time to do my favorite things, I feel more happy and build up more friendship.
Plan for Strength
To capitalize the strength of integrity and trust, I would like to set a specific goal for the next six months. As most of the course require the students to finish the group presentation and group project, some of the group member may be lazy to finish their part. However, the other group members have to do the extra work to complete that part for the final grades. I would like to point out that kind of lazy students and let my group member trust me that I can finish my part even I have to start it late due to some other assignments. Although those who do the wrong thing feel uncomfortable when they state briefly.
There is a theory that “Admit the mistake early and inform everyone affected what would occur because of it.” (Lombardo, 2004) So I feel confident on my goal. This goal can be measured easily by my group members, and it can be finished by myself. However, I might fail on my goal due to the heavy course load. If I choose to drop the course, my part of presentation have to be finished by others. This behaviour may lead me to lose the trust from my group members, and they might refuse to group with me in another course. Furthermore, achieving this goal can help me build a good relationship with other students and expand my network. In addition, the report of lazy students can help them study hard because no pains no gains in the university study life. Meanwhile, it helps build a fair environment for all student who make an effort on their assignment.
One of the simple truths we all have to face up to as adults is that wherever we are in business at present is where we deserve to be. If we had greater knowledge/skills and a more positive attitude, then we would be in a better position. If we had less knowledge and a more negative attitude, then we would not even be where we are today. In order to advance in business, we must change in some way. (Dobbins, 1997)
Therefore, if I follow my plan and achieve my goal, I can make it as a habit in my life. Then, when I become an accountant or even an auditor, I can quickly adapt the requirement to be honest with the data and the figures. On the other hand, if I become the owner of a restaurant, the benefit and expand the market would be based on the reputation. The trust from the customers is what we called reputation. For example, do not cheat on workmanship and materials.
Plan for Weakness
Negotiating Ability is not necessarily something that a person is born with but is an attribute that could be honed through training gives them a chance to improve their capabilities in terms of handling disputes. (Rai, 2013) My goal to improve my negotiating ability is to learn from a role model. However, the shortage is that this goal needs others help, which is the role model. As my role model is my best friend, and she handles the sponsorship of a student club, it is easy for her to let me get involved in the negotiation opportunity. The research of self-development shows that “Learning is a change in behaviour.
Recommend courses, books, tapes, a role model to the team member.” (Dobbins, 1997) It indicates that role model is an effective way to learn a skill. In detail, I plan to observe what she prepares for the negotiation, when she makes the request to Party A and how she refuses the unreasonable request. There is a fact in the sale or purchase of a home which is similar to the sponsorship negotiation, which is the best negotiators always prepare well by gaining as much insider knowledge about the situation as possible before negotiating. (Bruss, 1994) Besides, I can help her finish some negotiation for my practice.
There is also some benefits for my friend because I can provide more idea to make the negotiation success and build a good relationship with the sponsor. I maintain that this plan is measurable because the amount of sponsor fee can be measured directly. My goal is to help her raise $10,000 sponsor fee for her student club by the end of March 2016. The experience I gain from my plan can become a competitive story for using in my future interviews. It is the best prove of my negotiating ability.
What is more, negotiation is necessary for people who work in the business area, even an accountant need to negotiate with the auditors. If I choose to start my restaurant, much stuff needs to negotiate with, such as the vendors. There are plenty of benefits from a successful negotiation, such as saving money, preventing the company facing a significant financial problem. The final goal for my plan is to become a skillful negotiator in tough situations with both internal and external groups. (Lombardo, 2004)
Conclusion
The self-awareness is an important step to improve my personal skill and social value. By analyzing the two strengths and two weaknesses, I recognize myself again and summarize a lot of valuable experience. What is more, I have the confidence to finish my plan of action and see the good result in a couple months.
