This semester I’m taking the first course in my major that satisfies a requirement for my eventual management degree. So far it has been nothing that I had expected it to be.
It is totally different than any other business course I’m currently enrolled in. There is no mention of marketing mix, theory of constraints or total return on assets. There is minimal note-taking. To my relief, the phrase “the customer” has not been mentioned once in that class.
In fact, it’s really not much of a business class at all. The class is about people. It’s kind of like a mix between sociology, psychology and self-discovery with a fancy pants business title to it. The correlation between our curriculum and business is strong because people skills are the essence of management, but the business correlation is not what makes the class so interesting. Rather, it is the self-discovery aspect of the class that allows those enrolled to develop their sense of who they are and what they can improve in order to become better managers.
The main premise of the class is this Web site we signed up for that has a survey on it. It asks us various questions on how we handle ourselves and how we interact with others. First we took the survey to see how we rate ourselves. Then we sent the survey out to various family and friends who anonymously answer the same questions about ourselves that we did. Knowing how other people view us is the first step in knowing what our weaknesses are.
Often we are unaware of the true extent of our weaknesses because we’re too hard or too lenient on ourselves. With five being the best and one the worst, I gave myself a 1 overall on time management questions. I know myself well enough to know that I’d much rather log into Facebook or go to the TRECS before I studied for any exam, and I know how often I find myself rushing out the door to get to a meeting or appointment. To my surprise, the culmination of everybody else’s answers leveled out to be a 4 in the same category. Despite my own bad habits, do I know myself as well as I thought or do other people see things that I don’t?
On the contrary, I view myself as very proactive in conflict resolution and decision-making. I’m particularly open-minded and usually put other people’s feelings and desires before my own. The survey results indicated otherwise. They weren’t but a step or two down from where I rated myself, but I’ve found some places where I need to seek improvement. Do I put myself on a platform I haven’t yet reached, or are people being too harsh?
Improving the weaknesses others point out is imperative in order to have a healthier social and professional life. The next aspect of the course involves taking those results and doing worksheets that aim to specifically target the flaws others highlighted and plan ahead for scenarios to fix those flaws when the conflict arises. Fixing the problems takes practice, but thinking ahead of time in regards to what triggers the problem can allow for a person to recognize the trigger and improve their behavior.
Getting the results back and attempting to act on them has been a little bit of an eye-opening experience. We don’t see ourselves until we look in the mirror, and the responses of others is a reflection of the individual we project to the rest of the world. After getting these results back, I’m realizing that I don’t necessarily know myself as well as I thought.
I find it interesting that the class is considered a management course in the business department. The class could just as easily be titled People 101: Managing Human Relationships. The class is not only directly relevant to business and management careers but relevant to the lives of all people in their own, potentially non-business environments.
Essentially we are all managers. Not just managers of stores or restaurants in a business sense, but managers of a career, schoolwork, family, friends and our lives as a whole. We all have a direct impact on the people around us, and we have to learn to manage those relationships efficiently and effectively.
— Oliver Casey is a junior in enterprise management. He can be reached at [email protected].
