One of the hardest things for so many people to do is to try and ask themselves where I feel that I have fault. Sub-consciously people want admit that they are wrong on almost any occasion and a lot of people will make excuses. Of course when a boss asks this question to his or her employee’s it makes it no easier to answer the question that most people feel could hurt them if they answer truthfully or if they feel the answer could be wrong in the bosses eyes. Trying to admit let alone finding your faults can be tremendously hard because for most people down deep inside they genuinely don’t want to have something wrong with themselves. However I am extremely confident and secure in myself and with this question asked of me I can answer with absolute truth. So, what areas am I weak in or where do I see that I need the most overall improvement? My continuous improvement plan is to pick out my faults and improve on them. First area I would like to concentrate a correct my tremendously over competitiveness nature in life. Once I have worked hard on get my competitive nature under control I would like give attention to working on my over all management skills, by being a bolder leader and better mentor. The third thing and the biggest thing for me is how to figure out how to stop being a procrastinator. Letting go of the past, this is the last thing I need to do in order to move forward and become a better person and have a brighter future as a leader. In order to continuously improve I feel I must overcome these shortcomings. The true definition of being competitive is involving or determined by rivalry, Business / Commerce sufficiently low in price or high in quality to be successful against commercial rivals, relating to or characterized by an urge to compete competitively . A competitive nature and a strong will is a key concept that I feel has kept America a super power in such hard times but being this way has its downfalls as well. I feel that as a country we have forgotten what made us great and we are now so use to wanting more, faster, and cheaper. With this in mind several companies have taken so many of these key concepts we have studied this semester and applied them extremely well and shipped millions of jobs overseas and it is clearly not entirely their fault. Just like America a competitive nature has worked for me in so many realms of life but it has also been a burden as well on more than one occasion. This being one of my strongest faults in my opinion I have begun to look into several options on how to equal out my competitiveness not only in my business life but my personal life as well. As I stated I want to equal this piece of my life out and here are the reasons why. Having a competitive personality at work is not always a bad thing. But too much competition has been proven to be detrimental to the environment within an office or construction site. When you are overly competitive it can make you do unpleasant things in your drive to succeed at work. I know I have a tendency to forget about others on my conquest to be the best. . Being viewed as immature or someone who shows a lack of personal concern for my fellow employees is not how I want to ever be viewed. I feel that you can work very hard and work long hours but, you can only do this for a short time before it begins to take a toll on your physical and mental well-being. Two final reasons not to be overly competitive at work, one your colleagues will begin to resent you and a sensible employer would not promote someone who cannot relate and interact properly with others. I have put a plan in place that should help me get my overzealous over achieving self out of the way in order for me to achieve success quicker. My plan for this has been simply working on a few key items. First I have been truly setting back and listening to others and what they have to say when it comes to work at Honeywell and the Navy. I have made sure to listen to their ideas and to any constructive criticism that they may have for me. I know my colleagues can help in my career and I know that some of the skills and abilities that I need to succeed in my career are in the way I relate with my co-workers. I have also begun to work on not automatically stepping on individuals plans when I feel that they could get in the way of my future ambitions. Everyone has a right to strive for their own success, I now just try and concentrate on doing my job the best I can completely do it and try and become the guy people want to go to. I have been doing this by utilizing several of the 10 OM strategies and JIT planning in order to help with quality as a professional. I don’t believe the old myth that leaders are born, I feel that leaders are people who work hard and grow to become the best that they can be. To me a great leader is someone who goes to extreme lengths to get a job done and they ensure while doing it they make their people feel that they're at the very spirit of things, not at the periphery. This is why being a great leader is extremely important to me because not only do I want to strive to be a business leader within Honeywell but I also want to be the best lead by example Naval Officer I can be. Leadership is something that continually evolves, and requires originality. A good leader knows when it is time to change shape because they are highly attentive to all that is around them. I am a really nice guy and when it comes to work and tasks I can get things done but now as I grow older and more business opportunities arise I know I need to become a better leader and learn how to I plan and organize not only my time but others as well. The following are key items that I am working on to achieve greatness as a leader:
1. Work on how to motivate people and teach them the necessary values and skills to move people to really want to accomplish things
2. Develop a better understanding on how to coordinate the jobs, the technology and the people.
3. Ensure to always keep an open mind always with expressing your ideas and listening to others. Communication is key!
4. Ensure that you always keep your cool in all difficult situations. In business things can crazy and not keeping calm in such situations can be hard but a necessity to maintain the respect of your peers an employees.
5. Have a plan at all times and make sure you can delegate when needed.
6. Be strong enough to say no at times, especially when it will slow down your project time or your overall development.
7. Be able to admit your faults
8. Always take ownership of your work, be responsible.
9. Keep a positive attitude
10. Learn from your own mistakes The above are just a few key items out of hundreds that I need to really work on in order to become a great leader. I know I have a tendency to ignore others thoughts sometimes and I try to do it all myself way to much without delegating. But a true leader takes risks by releasing creativity in their followers to build their capability and multiply the talents of the organization. This leads to community and greatness. I feel once I conquer these tasks I will be able to powerfully communicating a vision that animates, motivates, and inspires followers, I will be able to become a great leader and I will be able to be productive in whatever task I choose to take on Early planning is the key to any projects success and if you don’t preplan you chances of success goes down exponentially. Most often you will endure terrible results when you wait to the last minute such as: fines, late payment fees, bad seats at the game, and often hastily done work that can lead to unpleasant consequences. So why do people still do this and better yet I have to ask myself why do I still do it when I know that it will drive me crazy and insane when I have to do the final touches on a project at the last minute. I am talking about procrastinating, what are some of the reasons that people. For a number of people, it never even bothers them; they go cheerfully along pushing things off until reality sinks in and knocks them down. “I only work well under pressure”, is a quote you may hear from a procrastinator and in some crazy twisted way these people make it a game and they actually enjoy the tension that it brings them, the last minute cramming for that big exam, and the can I do it feeling it gives them! But for those select smart ones we eventually make a choice to do something about it because we find that procrastination is always without doubt very stressful. So what are some signs that you are a procrastinator? The procrastinator is often surprisingly confident about his or her ability to complete tasks within a small time frame; and most of the time they can express themselves as being in full control at all times. Eventually this false sense of safety decreases when time passes by to the point where these people suddenly realize, "I will never finish on time!”
At this point, procrastinators will focus all of their efforts towards their project and in some cases they will ignore other things in life and will eventually fall behind on yet another task and then another. This is a constant revolving door for procrastinators and their daily life projects. Once all their efforts are focused on one agenda they once again get a false since of accomplishment and truly believe that they are making progress, but it is only because they are devoted only to the one project.
Other Characteristics
• Low Self-Confidence - The procrastinator may struggle with feelings of low self-confidence and low self-esteem. He may insist upon a high level of performance even though he may feel inadequate or incapable of actually achieving that level.
• I'm Too Busy - Procrastination may be used to call attention to how busy he is. “Obviously I cannot do such and such because my affairs are so complicated and so demanding. That is why I am late, etc.” The procrastinator may even spend considerable time justifying his reasons, time that could be spent doing the work.
• Stubbornness - Procrastination may be used as an expression of stubbornness or pride: “Don't think you can push me around. I will do it when I'm good and ready.”
• Manipulation - Procrastination may be used to control or manipulate the behavior of others. “They cannot start if I am not there.” Let's face it: deliberate delay drives others crazy.
• Coping with Pressures - Procrastination is often truly difficult to eradicate since the delay behavior has become a method of coping with day-to-day pressures and experiences. Obviously if one is cured, others will put new demands and expectations upon you. It's easier to have an excuse, to delay, to put off.
• A Frustrated Victim - The procrastinator often feels like a victim: he cannot understand his behavior or why he cannot get work done like others. The whole thing is a frustrating mystery. The reasons
Like I stated I was the worlds worse at procrastinating, but that all came to a screeching halt a few years back. When I first started as a project manager I only knew how to be the guy who got the job done in the field, but with the new opportunities I had to complete all the background stuff to go along with the field stuff. In my first year as project manager I became extremely ill after putting so much stress on myself trying to finish several projects by myself at the last minute. That kind of mentality is great to your employer but bad for you if you over due and it put too much on your plate at one time. It was at that point that I said to myself I cannot do this every again. So, what have I done to help slow down and hopefully eventually dispose of my procrastinating ways?
• I created a concentrated goal that would have me finishing ahead of schedule on all my projects. I started creating a time line chart and used the JIT method in order to improve my steps along the way in the completion process.
• I would then break the overall goal into manageable tasks that were never overwhelming and could be managed in a timely manner, if managed correctly.
• After dividing task out tasks I put them in priority based on time, cost, interest and expertise that the task will require.
• As begin to execute the task that have, I ensure to update my schedule every day. I do this in order to see if I am on schedule, or if I am behind what got me off track and how can I prevent it during my next project (learn from my mistakes), or am I ahead, how did I get there, what did I do that helped my process move along quicker (learn what to do next time because it was the right way to accomplish the task).
• I ensure I bring my team in once a week or as needed and I also have quite to for me individually to brainstorm. This is where we talk about the project and what is good and what is bad with the processes. I really try to encourage laying any and all ideas out on the table with no recourse if someone or I disagree with an idea. We take all the ideas and put them on paper and come up with a game plan to continue forward in order to make the project a success.
• The last step is to maintain a routine with very minimum changes to it. When you get a set routine you should stay with because the more you keep the structure the better you will become at performing the certain parts of a project that are the same or similar. Now I did state above to learn from mistakes and good fortune and adapt there as well and only change your routine when it benefits you and your goals for the better.
I have found that when I have applied these simple steps my projects have went smoother and my stress level stays a lot closer to where it needs be. The two major keys to success here for me was putting a plan in place up front by writing it down and keeping with the routine strategy.
My final flaw that I will put on paper or discuss openly use to be my inability to let go of the past. Many people including me chose or have chosen to hang on to things that at some point have hurt us, angered us, and depressed us. I know I cannot speak intelligently about what it has done to others but for my experience; it was a tremendous burden in life for quite some time. To prevent this burden from dragging you down its lonely path for a long period of time you could always go with the old saying of just let it go you are better off. But unfortunately for me know one showed me how that was suppose to work, how was I suppose to just let it go. Hanging on to negative thoughts of your past experiences will keep them constantly linger in your mind and they will drag you down as they come in and out of your memory. Chances are you're like most people and you have a number of unpleasant experiences that you're holding on to, which is preventing you from moving forward. How did I change? I begun focusing on what was important, sounds too simple but that is exactly what I did. I had to figure out what about the thoughts kept them lingering and I began focusing on pure thoughts, happy thoughts to supersede them. This is a simple process but it got me moving in a new direction and helped me stop building negative energy created from the negative events/emotions. Another thing that helped me was a stress ball, when I get angry from something someone said or if I remember a past thought I just pick up the ball and within minutes I am feeling better. My last technique was a suggestion from a dear friend and that is when I am would get in a bad way I would write down all my thoughts and I could express myself however I felt was best and that helped me get everything out and let it all go. I feel that I have made tremendous strides in my efforts to improve myself. My overall goal is to continue to improve and learn as I go. When I first started looking into this project of myself improvement I never knew how it was going to work for me, but I can say I have truly curbed my competitive nature and I am focused on working with others and helping others around me grow by using my methods and their own. I have seen vast improvements with how others work with as well. With the vast improvements with others attitudes has helped open up several doors for me and I have truly capitalized on them by doing the basics. And the basics are simply focusing on the big picture, staying organized and learning from mine and others mistakes. As a leader I ensure to stay ahead of as much as I can possibly be and I never procrastinate and allow things to get out of hand. I ensure that I maintain focused driven charts and schedules posted on my intranet in order to allow everyone in my team to be focused as much. It may sound crazy but for me the letting go of the past was one of the hardest things for me to do and so far it has been one of the most gratifying because I feel that it was the piece of the pie that brought me down the most and hindered my success. It is never easy to admit your faults but when you get the courage to do it you can make a serious difference in your life and move forward in life and make it better not only for you but for those around you as well.