Achieving_Excellence

Achieving and Maintaining Individual Excellence Introduction Achieving and maintaining individual excellence comes with life’s challenges along the way. Without these challenges some accomplishments would not be worth getting to. I have lived by the phrase “What does not kill you makes you stronger” and “God will not put more on your plate than you can handle”. My goal for the past few years has been to receive my Bachelor’s degree in Business Management/Human Services. It has taken five years to get where I am today in my education and have four classes left and has had many obstacles along the way. Right now I am currently working part-time caring for an elderly woman, so I am seeing the side of human services of the elderly. I work closely with her physicians and CNA’s on a daily basis and have recently had my take on Medicare and Medicaid for her which has proven to be frustrating. Managing the Environment I do not have much of a work environment because I work out of her home and take care of her business by phone or email. In an organization environment there needs to be structure and positive leadership. With structure an organization can plan how to operate services. While working in the school system managing the environment takes every staff member to make it work. The principal is like the manager he or she has to maintain composure and a positive attitude to get their teachers and supporting staff to keep students motivated and create innovative ideas to keep students involved in their education. Each year goals and objectives are created and expected to be met by the end of the school year. Throughout the year meetings are held along with training sessions to focus on the learning ability of students and give teachers a fresh outlook on the objectives and goals for the year and to see the progress met. Financial Management These training sessions and in-service hours that are required throughout the year is the responsibility of the staff member to attend and get the required hours. Some of these are completed outside the classroom and sometimes out of state over several days. The training helps them accomplish the goals set by the school and board of education. Training sessions give teachers new ideas and creative techniques for teaching students new ways of learning. These sessions can introduce teachers to new programs for the school and to help deal with changes productively and opportunities for personal and organizational growth. Supervision Supervision is an important part of the human services area, our text defines effective supervision begins with the use of appropriate models of motivation and leadership (Lewis, Packard, Lewis). Supervision helps you to understand your role and helps you to create an ideal vision of your job. In traditional supervision, you learned to identify problems, offer solutions and explain consequences of actions against them. Any supervision must do this in order to maintain the working relationship you have and meeting the needs of the organization. I have held a few supervisory positions that I worked hard to get and learned along the way. Supervision positions taught me to become more organized than I already was and how to motivate others to be organized and responsible for their actions. Every position I held I became more knowledgeable in how to manage others. Different leadership styles to consider include visionary/inspirational leaders, commanding leaders, situational leaders; people oriented and task oriented leaders. The right leadership style might change as the situation changes within an organization (McShane, 2005). Financial management Financial management plays an important role in any agency or organization. There is financial planning, control, and decision making, it is the primary function of the organization. Depending on the agency or organization will depend on where their money comes from. Managing the money incoming and outgoing is essential especially if there are government funds involved. Financial management can evaluate operational areas, and detail information on items such as cash history, vendor payments, bonuses, training expenditures and transportation costs when necessary. Program evaluation Evaluations serve many purposes in an agency or organization. Evaluations can help in decision making and improving specific programs that may be struggling. Evaluations collect data on programs, and employees. Evaluating employees can help increase productivity and time management by letting the employee know what positive things he or she is doing and constructive criticism to make the employee become a better employee and accountable for this or her actions. For a company evaluation it helps to decide what if any changes need to be completed, if a program is not working then a discussion needs to be held on how to make it work. Information System Information Systems can help an agency keep up with today’s technology. Information systems usually involve computers with the software for creating programs, collecting data for feedback, program modification, and employee satisfaction. Planning and Program Design I believe in planning for anything especially in a work environment. If a program is not effective than it needs to be changed not kept going in hopes it will change itself. I have learned several new things while working in the school system especially as a reading coach. Knowing what will work and what will not work makes your position much easier. In my position I had to find ways to teach students to read in a way that would be creative and interesting to them. I attended many sessions that included different ideas for reading capabilities. The same works in a human service agency management needs to find ways to make employees more productive and keep a positive atmosphere. Five Disciplines Peter Senge discusses the five disciplines of component technologies saying that change is teaming and learning is changing (Senge, 1990). The first discipline is personal mastery saying that people should approach life and work as an artist would approach a work of art(Senge, 1990). I personally approach any issue as if it is the most important. I want to master any part of my position so that I can increase productivity within the organization while helping as many clients as possible. Mental models is another important discipline that I believe is just as important to identify and find resolutions for issues as they arise and not wait until it is too late. Team learning has been an issue with me throughout the past couple years. I enjoy working with team members I never liked relying on someone else’s work for part of my grade especially when we are not face to face. I have learned that each member brings a different aspect and knowledge to the team and have learned to appreciate that. As a team we have learned to face our issues head on whenever we have been faced with them. Shared vision is part of the team learning seeing each person’s vision and making it a whole learning different ways or how other people see an issue can make it easier to focus on a solution. Systems thinking is the last discipline. I really like this one because it’s one of the benefits to handle different types of issues raising the thinking levels of each other and get the results an agency is after. Conclusion In conclusion The five disciplines can help any organization as long as they are used in the way it will benefit the agency and I can relate to many of them when I was managing. I am a strong willed person willing to help change negative attitudes toward work environments and how employees should work together when a issue arises. Allow them to help come to a solution as a group and create new programs and work with the ones that work and create solutions for the ones that do not. References McShane, Steve and VonGlinow, Mary Ann. (2005). Organizational Behavior: Emerging Realities for the Workplace Revolution (3rd ed.) New York. McGraw-Hill. Chapter 14: Leadership in Organizational Settings. Retrieved June 30, 2012 from the University of Phoenix Online Library. Lewis, J. A., Packard, T., & Lewis, M. D. (). Management of Human Services (4th ed.). Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database..