MSc Management Personal Effectiveness Assignment Sample
a) Introduction
Personal effectiveness refers to an individual’s skill and behaviour that assist to achieve goals and objectives in life. It allows an individual to utilise his skill and behaviour in personal and professional life to perform effectively.
Development of personal effectiveness is essential for a person to maximise work effectiveness. However, some individuals have less awareness regarding professional goals.
The significance of personal effectiveness is considered as ability to create ideas and information clearly for an organisation to create a positive impact on professional life. Furthermore, it gives an individual the ability to self-evaluate own skill and behaviour.
Development of personal effectiveness and self-evaluation plays an important role in an individual’s life. Self-evaluation highlights strengths and weaknesses of a person to develop skill accordingly. Becoming a leader for an organisation, personal effectiveness plays a crucial role.
A leader requires important skills, such as communication, decision making, self-awareness and self-confidence to guide an organisation and achieve growth. Therefore, personal effectiveness is going to assist in becoming an effective leader.
This study aims to discuss personal effectiveness and its development for an individual. Study divided into different parts and every part contains information about personal effectiveness. Case study includes Sundar Pichai’s skills and behaviour that makes him an effective leader of Google.
Second part of case study highlighted impact of Sundar Pichai’s personal effectiveness on Google using Covey’s 7 habits and CMI code of conduct. Next part of this study contains a Big five personality test that provides individual personality trait results. Gibbs reflective model is further used for understanding of individual conditions. At last, this study provides effective strategies and action plans for implementing strategies in daily routine to improve personal skills.
b) Case study review
Assessment of Sundar Pichai’s skills and behaviour
Sundar Pichai is the CEO of Google and his skills have made Google reach to the top. Employees of Google have been inspired by his behaviour and motivated them to work harder to do better updates of software.
Sundar Pichai is a compassionate person that employees feel free to work with. In the views of Elyta and Darmawan (2021), CEO of Google is from an engineering background and his knowledge about technologies has led Google to come up with new updates in apps. Thus “personal effectiveness” is important for every organisation to have a successful development.
Covey’s 7 habits
Sundar Pichai’s skills and behaviours are going to be discussed through Covey’s habits that are essential and effective in regular life. Coveys’ 7 habit are knowledges, skills and desires about life based on scenarios that a human can follow (Uddin, 2019).http://MSc Management Personal Effectiveness Assignment Sample The same has been applied to analyse skills and behaviour of Sundar Pichai.
Proactive and begin with the end in mind
Being proactive means taking responsibility of your life and try their whole best without blaming their circumstances. Sundar Pichai is a very thoughtful person and he deeply cares about employees of Google.
He puts employees first rather than just focusing on work and making new innovation with creative ideas. Based on the analysis of Gim (2021), CEO of Google is a very humble and soft spoken person who tries to understand stress the company goes through and tries to solve issues with a calm mind. Sundar Pichai has high values and respect for its employees thus, employees get inspired by this leader.
According to Vidgen et al. (2020), Sundar Pichai is a leader with high ethics and morals that has made him never forget his roots or where he came from thus, leader of Google started as an employee and he understands being one. Thus, Sundar Pichai tries to understand an employee’s situation by placing himself in that employee’s position.
Synergise
This habit is to focus on your particular skill and put your energy on it to do better. Sundar Pichai is from an engineering background and that has made him ideal for the CEO position of Google. His knowledge about technologies and science has made productivity in this company.
His mind-set help to see if Google’s science works or not rather than just competing with technologies. As per him, “We have this vision of a shift from mobile-first to an AI-first world over many years” (Misra and Srivastava, 2018).http://MSc Management Personal Effectiveness Assignment Sample CEO’s passion for technological knowledge has helped him gain skilful employees that work to innovate with a good mindset.
First things first
This habit is to prioritise relevant things that need more focus and concentration right now. Sundar Pichai started from low as just an engineer from India and he never forgot where he came from. He joined Google to test his capabilities on knowledge about maths and science.
His vision was to make android available for ordinary people rather than just selling it to people with privileges. As recommended by Yunus et al. (2020), Sundar Pichai has business visions as to change the world in a better place so that humans can live with ease.
This leader has an inspiring vision to change the world with a voice to paralinguistic kids. His visions have inspired employees to work better to change the world and make it worth living for people.
Seek first to understand
This habit is to communicate first to be understood later and this habit can make a person a good listener. McGain et al. (2020) claimed that Sundar Pichai has good communication skills that have made him approach the senior executives of Google for the development of Google chrome which was declined at first. Sundar Pichai then discussed thoroughly about the browser and how it will impact human life with all that information available to human beings.
This skill is not very dominant in technological sector but Sundar Pichai is a good communicator that helps understand thinking capacity of employees. As influenced by Semenova et al. (2019), his main focus has always been the mental health of employees and through emotional intelligence, he is able to understand an employee’s problems.
This skill has also made him understand employees’ capability of skills. Sundar Pichai has learned to become communicative by working in a team, which has helped him develop a good skill that comes handy at challenging situations.
Psychological support that is provided to employees has increased job satisfaction level of workers in terms of providing them a safe working environment. His communication skill has empowered youths of the world to focus on their education more rather than just aiming to become successful.
Think to win and sharpen the saw
This habit is to think with a calm mind to find solutions with critical strategy to overcome challenges in life. It has been observed by Kim and Choi (2019), Sundar Pichai belongs to a diverse culture and that has made him solve problems with a calm mind.
Managing Google is not an easy job and there is always a challenging situation that gets out of control but Sundar Pichai is a competitive person who solves issues with ease and patience. His critical thinking has used strategic planning to achieve the goals of Google.
Sundar Pichai continuously experiments with science and technologies which shows a fearless quality in him by solving issues with confidence. Sundar Pichai is a person who will not avoid responsibility whether it is conflict or partnership with big companies.
Impact of personal effectiveness skill of Sundar Pichai’s on Google
CMI code of conducts
Subdar Pichai joined Google in 2004 as a head production manager. Since then, his skills have increased their innovation in production management. When he became CEO, he made changes in software of Google apps and technologies that are provided by Google.
Problem solving skill of Sundar Pichai has helped him find solutions due to software updates and 3D infrastructure of locations in Google Maps. Sundar Pichai joined management of android in 2013 to get billion devices of Google by increasing his productivity skills.
Employees of Google are from different backgrounds and CEO himself being from a diverse background has helped employees to decrease communication barriers. CEO of Google has a soft spoken nature and that has assured employees to talk out their problems. This communication skill has made employees feel safe and valued to work in this harmonious work environment.
Sundar Pichai is very competitive with his work on mathematics and updates on technologies. He is a very honest person that has made him own up to his mistakes that made Google face a web crash. He encourages other employees to be open about their mistakes as well to improve on their productivity.
As influenced by Braha (2018), he has high ethics on women and men working together to build better world and this has made Google with zero gender discrimination issues. Sundar Pichai has only one mantra, which is that “Talent is what you can improve with time and work repeatedly to be better”.
c) Personal skill appraisal
Summary of self-assessment test
Self-assessment provides an opportunity to an individual for self-evaluation skill and behaviour to understand strengths and weaknesses. Improvement of personal skill self-assessment assists in identifying strengths and weaknesses. Big 5 personality test is a self-assessment process for individuals to test their own personal skills and behaviour (TRUITY, 2022).http://MSc Management Personal Effectiveness Assignment Sample
This test provides results on personality traits, such as openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Considering these, I have used Big five test to self-evaluate my skill and behaviour to improve personal effectiveness for future. Test results provided me with unsatisfactory results about my personality traits. Score that I got from big five personality trait showed me that I need to work on my personality to become more valuable for an organisation.
I scored 69% in openness personality traits. Openness shows a person’s behaviour to think innovatively and in a complex way. As influenced by Silvia and Christense (2020), a high score in this dimension is beneficial for an individual that assists a person to be creative, adventurous and intellectual. My obtained score indicated that I had the ability to think creatively and become adventurous to do something new for organisation.
Conscientiousness refers to an individual’s control and self-discipline to achieve organisation personal and professional objectives in an effective way. I scored 52% in this personality trait that indicates this to be an unsatisfactory result. This score highlighted that I have less control in my personal and professional life.
For instance, long-term goals, such as becoming an organisational leader and poor self-control are going to impact in achieving goals. Next result that I found was an extraversion personality trait. As stated by Wilmot et al. (2019), Extraversion includes two types of personality that are extrovert and introvert. High scores in extraversion indicate an individual’s curiosity of finding outside world, and engaging with other people. 37.5% score in extraversion indicated that I had an introverted personality that restricted me from engaging with other people.
This personality trait affected my communication skill to improve because of less communication during work hours. As influenced by Martin et al. (2019), communication skill refers to a process of interacting with other people to understand each other. Not having an effective communication skill, therefore, restricted me from engaging with my team members to share ideas in work.
Agreeableness describes a person’s behaviour of prioritising other needs ahead of their own. High score in this personality trait indicates a person taking care of other people needs that impact in achieving their own goal. I scored 67% in this personality trait that showed me that I have a tendency to agree with other people’s decisions.
I faced a problem in decision making because of high agreeableness. I have a habit of accepting others’ decisions that restrict me to increases effectiveness of my own decisions. In my personal observation, I feel that I have a negative personality. The Big five test result proved that my observation of negative behaviour is right. I scored 60% in neuroticism that showed I had fear, anxiety and guilt. [Refer to Appendix]
Gibbs reflective model
Figure 1: Gibbs Reflective Cycle
(Sources: Influenced by Ardian et al 2019)
Gibbs reflective cycle is a famous skill development cycle by providing proper guidance in the development process. As commented by Ardian et al (2019), Gibbs reflective cycle is divided into six stages that are description, feeling, evaluation, analysis, and conclusion and action plan.
These six stages are going to provide individuals past experiences that are faced by a person because of personality traits.
Description
I have major personality traits that restrict me from becoming a valuable employee for an organisation. Personality traits, such as introverted personality is problematic for me to engage with other members of organisations to share ideas to increase effectiveness.
Furthermore, it restricts me from learning new skills for my future development. Introvert personality makes me less talkative in organisational circumstances therefore, I talk less during work hours that restrict learning from organisational leaders or team members.
Feeling
From my past experiences, I feel that I need to develop my personal skills that assist me in becoming an effective leader. Negative experiences create mental and physical pressure in my professional and personal life.
However, Big 5 personality tests provided me with strengths and weaknesses that I need to focus on developing. Now I have to create strategies and practice in my regular life to develop my personality.
Evaluation
Implementing skill development strategies are impacting positively for improving in a certain time. I adopted strategies such as active listening for improving communication skills.
Active listening practices increase my listening skill that assists me to find out key information during interaction. Finding key information during conversation assisted me to develop my decision-making skill in my organisational works.
Analysis
Neuroticism is a major problem in my professional life to think creatively. Neuroticism affects my self-confidence therefore, I suffer from fear, anxiety, shame and guilt.
Fear of failure restricted me to develop to share ideas with leaders and team members.
Conclusion
Analysing past experiences, I make a decision to create an action plan towards improving my personal skill and behaviours.
Through using an action plan I am going to improve my communication and self-confidence to become effective in future.
Action plan
| Strategies | Aspect | Impacts | Time |
| Communication skill | To improve my communication skill, I am going to use body language improvement. | There are two types of communication: verbal and non-verbal. Body language plays an important role in non-verbal communication. Duration of communication depends on body language therefore; it increases duration that assists me in gaining knowledge from organisational leaders through interaction. | 4 weeks |
| Self-confidence | To improve self-confidence, I need to identify my strengths and weaknesses. | Identification of my strength is going to assist me in using my strength in organisational work and avoiding my weaknesses. | 2 weeks |
Table 1: Action Plan
(Sources: Created by Author)
Impact of weaknesses in my employability
Personality traits create a negative impact on my professional career to achieve my goals. Creative thinking is an effective skill for an employee to have for creating ideas that can be beneficial. However, I am an average thinker that restricts me from thinking creatively.
For instance, situations such as creating new ideas for increasing sales for an organisation I have to face difficulties for the average thinking process. Furthermore, it affects my decision-making skill also.
As influenced by Hallo et al. (2020) Decision making is creating choices by analysing new information that can assist in improvement of an organisation. Agreeable personality traits play most impact in my decision-making skill. I am easily influenced by other people’s decisions that impact the effectiveness of decision making. Moreover, personality neuroticism creates fear of failure in my personality that restricts me to develop decisions and sharing with organisational leaders and team members.
d) Learning method discussion
Identification of different methods that supports in developing own personal effectiveness
Personal effectiveness is an ability that enables one to effectively contribute in successession of any work through innate characteristics. These unique characteristics first need to be identified and developed according to individual professional segments (Gumennykova et al. 2020).http://MSc Management Personal Effectiveness Assignment Sample
I have already identified weakness in my characteristic traits that acts as an obstacle in developing personal effectiveness. However, it can be overcome through acquisition of mental and physical exercise, communication with strangers and making myself more social. The main weakness in my character is that I have poor problem solving skills.
I get nervous and puzzle whenever there is a critical problem. According to Soros et al. (2018), one needs to evaluate a problem through in-depth research and critical analysis of possible solutions so that one gets the best solution for that particular problem. Low extraversion restricts me to socialize with different people and I could not effectively participate in a group discussion. Hence, I need to develop confidence by conversing in front of the mirror and socializing with people to gradually eradicate low extroversion.
Action plan for developing personal traits
| Strategies | Action | Impact | Time |
| Problem solving skill development | In order to develop my problem-solving skill, I have to make my mind agile and need to get in-depth view of problem | An agile mind can easily solve a problem through critical analyzing and by getting an in-depth view of the problem. Hence, I need to practice meditation and mental exercises so that my mental agility develops. | 6 weeks |
| Active listening skill development | I have to develop my active listening skill through socialisation with various types of people | Active listening skill is an integral part of communication. I would engage with as many people as I can so that my communication gets improved and my active listening skill is enhanced by giving attention to their words. | 3 weeks |
Table: 2 Action pan
(Sources: Created by Author)
Impact of weakness in professional life
Neuroticism results in poor decision making and low extraversion leads to poor communication skills. In every profession critical decision making and problem-solving skills are required to overcome problems and accomplish work efficiently.
Also, communication gaps in the workplace lead to dissatisfaction among employees. Both of these weaknesses negatively impact on professional life and work as obstacles in the succession of organization.
Strategies to improve personality traits
Meditation is one of the best ways to get rid of anxiety by leaving a calming effect on the brain. It also enhances concentration and makes the brain powerful through continuous mindfulness (Greiser and Martini, 2018).http://MSc Management Personal Effectiveness Assignment Sample I would start to meditate at least 15 minutes a day and then gradually increase the duration so that I can see improvement in my consciousness. On the other hand, Neuroticism drives towards negative emotions and results in poor emotional stability.
I would consult a psychologist to eradicate neuroticism through counselling. Apart from this, I would pursue PMI agile online courses that would guide me to develop mental agility.
Extraversion is also a weakness in my personality traits and I have to learn to spend time alone so that I can overcome this. According to Nurani et al. (2019), participating in a group discussion develops confidence.
Moreover, extraversion leads to poor communication skills as I feel anxious while meeting different people and this anxiousness leads to improper physical gestures. Hence, I would pursue a course on Active listening skill development that not only helps paying attention to the speaker but also helps me to develop gestures to show that I am engaged in listening.
Action plan to implement strategies
| Strategies | Action | Impact | Time |
| Psychological counselling session | I would take required counselling session from my therapist to reduce effect of Neuroticism | All the negative feelings and anxiety in a social gathering would be eradicated from my personality through psychological counselling. It scientifically works on mental health improvement and has proven effects in overcoming neuroticism. | 3 weeks |
| Participate in group discussion | I would find online courses that involve group discussion along with communication skill development. | Group discussion would boost my confidence to interact with various people and paying attention to their perspectives would help me to develop active listening skills. | 5 weeks |
| Practising mindfulness | I would try to be mindful through meditating for at least 15 minutes to 30 minutes. | Meditation not only helps to reduce stress and anxiety but also enhances inner strengths. So mindfulness increase focus and consciousness so that i can solve a problem quickly | 8 weeks |
Table 3: Action plan
(Source: Created by Author)
e) Conclusion
In the above study, it has been acknowledged that personal effectiveness plays a crucial role in achieving future goals. Sundar Pichai’s behaviours and skills have been discussed by aligning Covey’s 7 habits to get a better understanding of skills that have impacted Google.
His concentration skill has made employees of Google focus on making android for ordinary people and that opportunity has led him to increase net profit of Google. In part of personal skill appraisal a Big 5 personality test is conducted to gain information about personality traits.
Test reports provide information about openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism. Report of test result is summarised in this part of the study. Summary analyse every personal trait that is found through Big five report. Gibbs reflective model is used in this part for providing guidance to improve personal effectiveness of individuals.
This study also includes personality traits impact on organisational works. This report has identified strategies and methods that would be beneficial to overcome weakness in characteristics. It has keenly scrutinized those methods and strategies in order to incorporate this with daily practices.
It develops action plans for personality traits that help in understanding problems from the core. Moreover, it has found out psychological sesion, participation in group discussion and practicing mindfulness would be effective strategies to develop personality traits. It can be concluded that these strategies would effectively contribute to eradicating weakness from personality such as low extraversion and neuroticism.
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