Gregoria Covarrubias

Dr. Stark – MGMT 605

05/20/2009

PAMS

Stress Management being one of my most powerful strengths,

has created other serious and personal conflicts in my life. My

coworkers see the great side of how I handle stress, but most fail to

recognize the serious side affects that it creates physically and

emotionally. In Developing Management Skills, the authors describe

four key sources of stress. I only have deficiencies with time stressors,

which include work overload and lack of control. I manage stress well

because I can handle the other three stressors, encounter stressors,

situational stressors and anticipatory stressors. In the first self-

assessment, I was under plenty of stress at work, due the development

of a new program, process and training. Therefore, I rated myself high.

I was an important part of the development team and both co-workers

who filled the assessments out where part of the development team,

as well. They noticed how well I managed time constraints and

decision-making under stressful situations. On the assessment, they

both agreed that I managed stress well. One of the keys to stress

management is to be organized. I keep myself organized by creating

to do lists and setting priorities. I also maintain a regular routine of

exercise, which helps me keep routine and challenge in my life.

The problem that I encounter is that I need to learn how to

unwind. I am learning different methods of unwinding. Not being able

to unwind has affected me and I have recently suffered from not being

able to relax. I am having complications with my neck and jaw

muscles. Therefore, being able to relax after a stressful day is

important so that the next day I can have the same energy to battle

stressful situations. I know that there are many ways that I can

improve my stress management and one way is by improving my

organizational skills. Improving my organizational skills will eliminate

certain stressful situations, especially the ones that involve time

management. Changing bad habits, like not having quiet time can

improve my time management. I will close my door for one to two

hours twice a week. This will allow me to work without any

interruptions and give me the ability to create to do lists.

On the other hand, when I am approached with typical routine

problems I do not handle as well as I do a stressful situation. This has

to do with the time constraints that I face on a day to day basis. Due

to the lack of time I jump right into problem solving instead of following

the Rational Model of problem solving, Dr Stark went over in class. By

doing so, I failed to realize that this could take up more time than

following the proper steps. I scored myself lower than my coworkers

average, but my coworkers individual scores where off by three or

more points. The reason for that variance is that I work with one of

them on a regular basis and with the other at most once or twice a

week. The coworker with whom I work with on a regular basis is on my

day to day team. We are faced with routine problems that I tend to

think of as waste of time. I deal with them but not in the best manner.

With the other coworker with whom I deal with less, we usually run into

typical problems; or what I would call a minor issue, that I can solve

easily and over the phone. For example, solving an issue as minor as

replacing a specific material that was wrong, or not available. Solving

these minor issues give the impression that I am good at solving

typical problems, but deceiving to the one coworker because these are

the only problems that here witnessed.

Addressing this weakness will eliminate jumping into solutions

without having analyzed the situation. Not only will this allow me to

solve the problem in a better state of mind, but allow me, in most

situations to save time. I will create a simple template labeled one

through six. One will be Identify the problem, two, Identify decision

criteria, three etc… As soon as I am faced with a problem, I will pull

the paper out and start following the steps and filling out. Once a

month I will go over the problems that I was faced with and decide if

thought the process was correct. Those that I clearly did not follow I

will write another paper on how I now think the problem solving should
have been. For those that I think to be correctly done, I will ask my

one of my coworkers to go over and if they agree the I will put away, If

they do not agree we will discuss and I will follow the same steps that I

followed and point out where the problem lied. Measuring my

performance on this task will consists of me looking at the pile of

wrong versus good problem solving steps. As soon as I have made this

a habit that is not on paper, I will award my self.

Providing negative feedback is one of the hardest things for me

to do. I am the type of person that likes to look at the good in people.

There are situations where my I am forced to show my feelings. My

coworkers scored me an average of 4.33 in this section. This is one of

the most important sections of management, and would desire to score

in the range of five to six. How can I expect my subordinates and team

members to perform effectively and efficiently if I fail to give them

feedback, negative or positive? The sections that I scored the lowest is

in helping other recognize and define their own problems when

providing counsel, clear on coaching versus counseling, correcting

behavior while strengthening a relationship. I have to agree that I

scored an average of four because I rarely give feedback. What

concerns me the most is that my average in this section at the

beginning of the course was 4.5, higher than my coworkers average.

The reason for my concern is that if were not for the coworker

evaluations I might have gone on in my career thinking that avoiding

giving negative feedback and only allowing myself to do it as a last

resort, a good business practice.

Addressing this issue with the model on page 247 in Developing

Management Skills, the eight attributes to supportive communication,

will allow me to approach my subordinates in a matter that I am not

attacking them personally, but in a way that I can enhance a positive

relationship. The reason that I always avoid giving negative feedback

is because I do not want to damage in any way or form, the

relationship that I have with my subordinate. Not only would the

employee not perform at the standard that I expect, but not enjoy

working for me. I am going to copy the table on page 247 and post it

on my wall next to me. Whenever I need to give negative feedback, I

will go through the list and select the best attribute that fits the

situation. I will measure this by giving myself a 1 for every successful

attempt and a -1 for every unsuccesfull attempt. At the end of each

month, if I have a positive score, I will take my subordinates out to

lunch and if I am on the negative side I will evaluate, come up with a

reason to my failure and be more aware for next month. This should

become routine and I should not need to keep score. I expect this to

take place in about six months to a year.

Obtaining power is a vague category. Before reading this

chapter, I thought of the subject as an insignificant characteristic. I

mostly believed in positional power, which Developing Management

Skills, defines as legitimacy. The only issue is that since I never

thought about it as an important characteristic or knew too much

about the categories that lie within obtaining power, I failed to realize

how good I was in obtaining power. My coworkers scored me high on

most categories and so did I on the self-assessment. Table 5.6 on page

297, which describes the relationship between the sources of Personal

Power and Personal trustworthiness, can categorize my scores; I am

strong in expertise, effort and attraction. I am strong in expertise,

because I am reliable and very consistent. I provide information that

can be used and that is accurate. When I do not have the information

that is seaked, I know why, I don’t have information, and where to get

it. I am strong in effort, because I always try my best. I give more

than what I am required to do so. I am dependable and perform at a

level higher that what is expected. My coworkers gave me an average

of 6 on putting more effort and taking more initiative than is expected

and on continually upgrading my skills and knowledge. I would have

never thought this was obtaining power. I am strong on attraction,

because I am likable and I make sure that I take care of myself, so that

I can be presentable. Being physically appealing is not the only

important feature in attraction; it is being able to be presented without

my supervisors doubting my abilities. My supervisors, coworkers and

subordinates know that when I commit I deliver.

Building onto this strength will accede to me getting a promotion

or official power. I can build onto this strength by improving in the one

area in which my coworkers did not give me a high score. This area is

forming a broad network of relationships with people throughout the

organization. I do attend events, but I could attend and socialize

more. Not only is socializing important but also I need to develop the

determinants of position power, which Developing Management Skills,

lists on page 298 on table 5.7. They consist of centrality, flexibility,

visibility and relevance. Currently I think that I have visibility and

flexibility. I need to work on centrality and relevance. My position now

is located in the field office, and not at the central office, which limits

my access to people and information. According to Developing

Management Skills, having both horizontal and vertical networks are

essential. I currently have horizontal and lack in the vertical. In my

job, it is very difficult to get network vertically, unless I move from

construction into operations. I have been waiting to move into

operations, but I was waiting until I had at least 3 years of experience

out in the field. I will let my superiors know that I would desire to move

into operations. This also touches into relevance. I need to move from

something that is not directly related to the company’s central

objectives, and into something directly related to the company’s core

objectives. Let me elaborate, I am currently working in construction,

which for the company that I am working for can be a temporary

position. Operations is what actually pumps the oil out of the ground
on a day to day basis, yes, first you need construction to start, but you

don’t need construction to keep operations producing. Therefore, I will

set up a meeting with one of my supervisors, at the end of the third

quarter, 2009 and let them know what I want for myself in their

company. If within a year of that meeting I am moved into or am given

a plan to move, I have succeeded in the first steps to improve on

centrality and relevance.

I have always considered myself as a leader. Depending on the

project, I always seem to naturally take charge. All my assessments,

including my coworker’s, scores where an average of five, but all

assessments varied from four to six, hardly ever getting the same

score on any of the individual questions. This was confusing and I

couldn’t figure out why I had scored myself completely different on

both, first self assessment and the second self assessment. I

concluded that at the beginning of the semester when I completed the

first self-assessment, I was thinking about educational teams. On the

second self-assessment, after listening to multiple lectures, I was

focused on work force teams. Then when I received my coworker’s

assessment I realized that I might have scored an average of five, but

there was one area which really struck me hard, and that was getting a

four on establishing credibility and influence among team members.

Being able to have credibility and influence among team members is

key in management. In table 9.4 on page 511, Developing

Management Skills, has seven ways of building team leader credibility,

I am deficient in being clear and consistent and using commonality and

reciprocity. Not being clear and consistent is due to not taking a stand

as soon as the team is first initiated.

Even though I scored an average of five on all assessments, I

consider this a weakness, because of the variance from assessment to

assessment, and the importance of this in management. Addressing

this issue, by having an agenda for each team meeting, will set clear

goals. This will allow me to be clear and consistent and be able to

reiterate my goals not just on paper but also in person. My drawback

is not expressing certainty in the beginning of the team creation and

this will be eliminated with the agenda. Commonality and reciprocity

can also be improved by using am Agenda. On the Agenda, I can

define my stance on the issue and my goals, and it could lead into

subjects that the team has a common understanding. The outline

would consist of an introduction, where I would clearly state my goals,

and step into action items from previous meetings, then I will introduce

new items by talking briefly about understandings that we all have,

concluding with an overview of the meeting. The understandings can

be as simple as “I understand you all have busy schedules” or “Isn’t

the weather nice today.” The overview of the meeting will be my

report card. We will go over the meeting key points and point out what

was agreed and what was not. If the team agrees on my ideas or came
to a mutual agreement the I have succeeded.

Leading change is, by far, one of the subject matters that I have I

have spent most time in the past 2 years. The Economy and the

company’s need for change to be productive and efficient are some of

the reasons why I have had to lead change and live change on a daily

bases. I could have used some of these chapters a few years back, to

save time and headaches. Out of all the scores on my coworkers’

assessment, this section is the section that I scored the lowest

average, four. On my first self-assessment, I scored myself a four and

on the second, I scored myself a three. In the beginning of the

semester, I knew that I was involved and leading constant change and

failed to completely analyze if I was getting my message through.

After reading a couple of chapters and retaking the self-assessment I

realized that where areas for potential improvement. In the first self-

assessment, I gave myself a five on unlocking the positive energy in

other people, and on the second self-assessment, I knocked it down to

a five, while my coworkers averaged a 3.5. In certain situations, I do

unlock the positive energy, but in most I do not even think about being

positive when I know that the first reaction from some of the people

affected by change are going to fight the change in any way possible.

The book describes this as negative energizers. I do not consider my

self as a negative energizer, but as a victim of it. Knowing that most of

my coworkers, supervisors, contractors and staff are going to fight the

change makes it difficult to be positive. The only reason that they

commit to the change is because they have no other choice, I have not

been able to get everyone affected by the change to go from

compliant to committed. This then leads to getting and average of 3.5

on both, communicates a vision in ways to capture people’s hearts as

well as their heads, and how to get people to commit to my vision of

positive change.

I have recently been faced with a serious change, in which

most of the people who have been affected, do not want to follow the

new procedures. This has a lot to do with being committed versus

being compliant. Most of the employees that are affected are only

following the new procedure when it is most obvious. Let me elaborate

on the situation, before, employees where not required having

purchase orders or prior approval before buying anything. The new

procedure requires them to change the process, by requiring them to

have approval, or a purchase order, before they initiate the order. My

coworkers have been used to buying whatever whenever they felt like

it. They didn’t have to take the time to get an approval. Now they

have to submit an order into a requisition, which gets quoted and

approve, through the proper channels. This could delay the order, but

not entirely true. Some of my coworkers have decided to follow the

rules only when it is mot visible. Since, this is only a pilot program;

there have been no official policy changes to accommodate the

change. But, there have been official orders from their bosses to follow

the system. My plan, which I have already started to initiate, is to first,

have meetings with the people affected on a regular basis, second,

offer rewards to those who are following the new procedures. The

meetings will be informational and include a concerns and comments

section. This will allow the people affected by this new change to be a

part of the change. I will address the meeting by letting them know

that this new procedures are to benefit them; they are my customers in

this new process and that if there is anything that is causing them a

headache that they should let me know, so that I can fix the problem. I

need them to buy into my thoughts and beliefs. This won’t happen

unless I let them know what the new procedures are