Case study Early Personal History Samples †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Case study Early Personal History. Answer: Introduction This study outlines my professional development plan and some of the critical events of my life regarding my work, career and education. This study also highlights my early personal history and the development needs to fulfil my career objectives. I have used wide reading and theories to conceptualise my goal and career path. I have made my mind that I want to make a career in defence in Australian Army in order to serve the country. I have enough knowledge in business acumen; however, I have grown an attraction towards defence and I want to make a career in the defence sector. I have tried to organise my thought to synchronise my past, present and future. I have attempted to cover some specific parts to draw my strengths and weaknesses in personality that can impact on my professional life.In this study, I have identified my career improvement needs and I have made an action plan based on this. Early Personal history I was born overseas and out of all my siblings, I am the eldest. I have two brothers and one sister. When I started kindergarten, I was quiet and shy. However, I made a few good friends and I am still connected with them. My parents were always strict about education; still, I managed to play outdoor sports. When I was 6, I joined scouting form the school and I loved scouting. I have done my SSC (Secondary School Certificate) in the year 1997 and HSC (Higher School Certificate) in the year 1999. I have completed my bachelor of Business in 2005. Most importantly, I have done many professional courses whenever it required on the job. Right now, I have married a person and I have two kids, one is 8 years old and another one is 5 years old. My first job My first job was at Oporto, which is 100% Australian-owned food franchise. Oporto provides fresh and grilled chicken, sauces and chicken burgers. Oporto organisation started its business in the year 1986 in North Bondi, Sydney. Oporto has now grown to 105 stores in all over Australia and New Zealand. The current customer base of Oporto was 13 million and my role in this organisation was to create and share an understanding of organisational goal. My role in this organisation was assistant manager to foster professionalism in operation and create excellence among employees to assist the business in manage operation. In Oporto stores, I worked to manage the business results and staffs' performance. Oporto was my first organisation and it was my first job, therefore, I was very enthusiastic to play my role effectively. My responsibility in this organisation was to evaluate results in mid-range and short-range objectives of the franchise stores. I had to manage the staffs to ensure criti cal standards for holding times, quality and service speed. I ensured cleanliness within the stores and operational process within the stores. I had to coordinate with the managers of the stores to manage the labour, cash, waste and yields. I had to check the personnel policy, labour laws and safety procedures in order to meet the regulation of the government. I had to prepare people, products and personnel for the shifting duty and I also maintained the customer complaints. I ensured proper security and verification procedures to handle deposit and safe contents. I had to help my managers to develop and implement the store extensions for national promotions. After a month, themanagement promoted me as Assistant Manager in Oporto and my office was shifted to Darling Harbour. After two months of the period, I was promoted to Store in Charge at Oporto Maroubra. I worked there for a year and my role was to handle the overall function of the store. I had to operate the day-to-day operation of a store to ensure the maximum profitability. I had to report to the General Manager of the store about the store's performance and my role got changed as Store Manager in the year 2009. For two years, I remained as Store Manager at Oporto in St Ives. In the year 2011, August, I started working as Store Manager at Oporto Miranda and I remained there for approximately three years. Being a store manager, I had to do recruiting, supervising and appraising the employees. I had to provide training and managing the budget allocation. I have done Bachelor in Business and thismanagement related tasks were not difficult for me. However, this time, I had to learn s ome financial and statistical calculation to deal with managing a budget. I had to deal with customers' queries and oversaw stock control in Oporto stores. Early leadership roles I was initially posted as Assistant Manager Role in Oporto at Oporto International Airport Branch in the year 2008, February. Being an Assistant Manager in Oporto, I had to manage daily operation in Oporto store. I enjoyed this kind of work as I did Bachelor of Business and I had developed this skill. There, I had to manage and ensure the critical standards for achieving speed and quality of the staffs in the stores. I had to manage 35 staffs and labour, preparing people and personnel policies. It was hard to control in the beginning and I was in charge of leading the staffs. I managed their work-based training and maintain their personal files. It didn't take long to train staff the way I want; however, it was always challenging to train new staff. During this period, I developed my leadership skill and confidence. In my college life, I organised departments fest and I used to collect the money and plan the fest. During that time, I showed my leadership skill to make a team for orga nising fest. One issue that I faced even now is lack of confidence to speak out and take a decision boldly. I learnt to develop strategies to manage and lead the team and I developed to manage and monitor staff learning and performance. I had developed learning, thinking and communication style. My career I started my career as Assistant Manager in Oporto store in 2008 and I had been within this organisation since 2014, August. After that, I have decided not to do a business, so I started new work carrier with Australian Defence Department. I got this job just because I looked for a job. I never thought to work with Defence before. From 2014, I have been working in Defence Security DCAC Unit, GIDP. The Department of Defence is a department of Australian government and it takes the responsibility to defend Australia. DCAC unit has its relation with the Australian Defence Forces (ADF) and Australian Defence Organisation (ADO). This defence department has its accountability to Commonwealth Parliament for efficiency and effectiveness to carry out Government's defence policy. In this department, my role is to share knowledge and ability of relevant equipment, procedures and policies and strategies to promote effective local, national, state security operation for the protection of common p eople, property, data and institutions. In this department, my role here is to access and issue defence members new ID, update member's personal details and defence driving license. I have been issuing, access visitor passes production andmanagement for department of defence. I have to manage safe and classified documents and I am accountable for dailymanagement work. I have to manage here roster and overtime work condition. I have to manage teamwork and ensure relief breaks for others. Sometimes, I have to provide general First-aid if requires. My experiences My career started from Assistant Manager Role and I had been in this field for more than 6 years. I gathered immense experience and knowledge in management, operation and leadership. In the management field, I have both theoretical and practical knowledge. In managing people and operation process within an organisation or department, I can handle the work with ease. However, I shifted my field in Defence Security as, since childhood, I have had weakness in defence force. I have been utilising my managerial skills and operation skill in defence security DCAC Unit as I have to check and read memos and receive a briefing from defence security manager. I monitor and authorise entrance and departure of employees, people and visitors. I have gained enough experience in the field of Defence Common Access Card for security clearance. My travels Travel assists an individual to develop skill and enhance professional strength (Hope et al. 2011). Through travelling, I have developed my competencies for dealing with the people (soft skill) and I have also developed interpersonal communication. I travelled so far Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, China, India, and Bangladesh. My future plan is to visit countries like New Zealand and the Middle East. I met various types of people and it increased the networking. I found myself spending my time in India as a social worker in my college life with a social work agency. I discovered the skill that I can handle people's needs and I can communicate people one-to-one. Travelling provides me peace of mind and I love to travel in sea-beach that broadens my horizon. Books give me theories and travelling gives the people with real education (McShane et al. 2016). Travelling and sudden trip plan help me to increase my tolerance for uncertainty. My life choices In my life, I have made choices about my career and my professional skills. In early education, I could not make any decision regarding my education. After I grew up, I have taken my choices of education and career option. I just want that I would continue my work until retirement; plus maintain and balance good and healthy life. I want to look after my family and raise my children to ensure they have a better life. In addition, I am a religious person. I follow my religion strongly. In future, after retiring; I will do more work on religion, voluntarily for my community. In professional life, we spend long working hours as we need to enjoy our work. I have made choices to select my friends as choosing right people for life is important. It is important to choose the right books to read as it enhances our knowledge (Buckingham 2015). My values: First, I want to provide care to my family as for me, family comes first. In the workplace, I want to do my job properly; approving/disapproving of foreign orders. In educational institutions, I provide the value of learning; the value of self in relation to an ability to learn. In case of religion, my beliefs are about right and wrong and beliefs in gods. Moreover, I will be loyal to my close ones and to myself. It is very important to be loyal towards the dreams and career (Cole 2014). Being trustworthy and dependable make a person committed towards anything. I want to make myself as open-minded because open-mindedness helps a person not to be biased over anything. Creativity is another thing that I value most. I love drawing and in my leisure, I spend my time in drawing with oil and watercolour. I value optimism as I always think optimism can enrich people with good hope till the people sink. I did not have any plan to leave the organisation Oporto. I did Advance Management Course (AMC), Intermediate Management Course (IMC) and Basic Management Course (BMC) from Oporto Management Training Centre. I have done diploma courses in Work Safety and Security Operation. I have undertaken comprehensive training as part of my corporate investment strategy that has added my experience and skills in professional development. When the manager of Oporto Store left the organisation, I thought that I would get the opportunity to get the post as I was the most competent for that post. I missed the post as management decided to recruit the new person from external recruitment. I felt frustrated as my attributes; experience and potentiality did not have any validity to the management. After that, I was successful to get the post in Defence Security in government and I felt a satisfaction to work for the country. Before that, I had sought feedback from the people with who I deal and work wit h my leadership, managerial and team working competencies. The people helped me out to find out my weak points. Personal SWOT analysis Strengths Work experience Education and professional courses Personal characteristics Good networking contacts Weaknesses Lack of experience in army Weak interpersonal skills Age Opportunities Positive outlook on life Utilising skills Management knowledge Enhancing personal development Threats Shifting of career from management to defence Physical fitness Limited positions in future field Table 1: Personal SWOT analysis (Source: Self-developed) Development needs Self-confidence: I worked as Store Manager in Oporto and in coordinating with the employees, I faced self-confidence issue. Sometimes, in operation process, I used to feel scared to communicate with the employees. Since childhood, I have seen so many obstacles and I have not got success at all. This absence of win' in my life, fill me with lack of confidence. Team working Currently, in my Defence security post, I have to work in a team. In my previous office, I had to manage a team. Being a good team member is about clearly communicates the ideas with the group in both verbal and non-verbal communications (Daft 2013). My communication skill is satisfactory; however, I cannot gel up with team easily so that I can share my knowledge with a team. Within a team, conflict management is an important aspect; I need to work on this. Feedback from my colleagues shows that I have issues in team working and it is significant in army life as well. Decision-making skill Decision-making is an important skill within an organisation and it is also important in army life. In order to be an effective leader, decision-making is very important. In taking a decision about the organisation or in army field, decision-making skill will help a person to take the strategy. I feel the conflict in taking the effective decision as dilemma always works within me. Quick-thinking and effective problem solver In the life of an army officer, I have to have quick and logical thinking capability. Since my childhood, I lack the presence of mind as my thinking is not rational. I face the issue in short-temper nature and I cannot solve the effective problem in my life. Problem-solving needs two important skills, mental skills and analytical skills. I might lack in comparing, evaluating, contrasting and selecting the topic to think logically. Empathy Showing empathy is important in leadership and in army field. As stated by (Kon Ferry 2014), cognitive empathy is about showing understanding to someone's emotion, thoughts in a very rational way rather than emotional sense. I lack emotional empathy as I hardly feel about someone else's feeling. Reality check I was concerned about my career as in private sector; I hardly got the opportunity to spend my life in a real sense. In private organisations, work-life balance cannot be maintained as work pressure is high. After failing to achieve the manager post in Oporto, I tried to get a new opportunity. My self-confidence was affecting and it started to create new stress in my life. I started discussing the changes in my career to a few people. They suggested me to try in defence security as I have done a diploma course in security. Some people told me about to check the personality assessment, competencies and managerial potential. I talked to my manager; however, our wavelength did not match. In addition, I talked to my friends as well and they suggested me some of the private organisations where I can make my future. These are multinational organisations and my friends are trying to look for change as well from private companies. Therefore, I went through the reverse job analyses in order t o identify the selection criteria and my skills. Therefore, I had made a gap analysis of my competencies and I recast my application letter. I also went for career counselling officer in order to discuss my strengths and weaknesses. I searched for a new opportunity and I got the opportunity to serve my country through defence security. Conclusions This analysis helps me to find out my strengths and weaknesses of me with personal career history. Present career opportunity and focus are also explained in this study to recognise the common issues that can be solved through Professional Development Plan. I want to work in Australian Army in order to serve the country. This following action plan is the gap to bridge the gap between weaknesses and competencies. Recommendations The team working: I have to improve my team working skills through developing people management skills. It is needed to create enthusiasm, supportive, informal and listening to others through taking constructive feedback. Self-confidence: It is needed to groom myself in order to see myself in the big picture. Set a target for I am needed in order to take control of self-confidence. I am positive and I need to kill the negative thoughts. It is needed to get to know to act in the positive notion. Decision-making skills: It is needed to identify decisions that need to be made in the right situation. Thinking of possible options is needed and among all possibilities; I need to choose the right one. I will evaluate the option and choosing the right strategies in the army and in organisation both are important. Empathy: In order to improve empathy towards others, I need to improve listening skills and I should be non-judgemental towards others. Effective leaders focus on helping to find a solution rather than be judgemental (Hatch 2013). I need to improve self-awareness as being empathetic, it is needed not to let others feelings influence. Quick-thinking and problem solving In the decision-making skill, fast-thinking is necessary with fast decision-making abilities. Problem-solving skill needs a good understanding of the issues that come with sustained speed. Action Plan Short-term goals Target Actions to achieve Target time frame (within 3 months) Evidence of completion 2. Self-confidence skills Delegate responsibilities Use the downtime Reward yourself Have clear vision Be passionate Maintain positive attitude Think positive Act positive 01.02.2018- 01.05.2018 High morale Enhance knowledge Groomed me Get to know me Mid-term goals Target Actions to achieve Target time frame (within 6 months) Evidence of completion 1.Team working 2. Decision making Listen to others carefully Body language improvement Be specific in communication Think before speaking Clear and logical objectives Creating enthusiasm Identify the issue Explore the option Monitor the impact Choose the option Last six months of 2018 Improved communication with seniors High confidence level Improved public speaking Improved presentation skills Improved negotiation skills Gaining knowledge in different spheres of organisation Long-term goals Target Actions to achieve Target time frame (within 12 months) Evidence of completion 1. Empathy 2. Problem-solving skills Deep listening Confront the feelings Be flexible Self-assessment Risk-taking Evaluate the problem Online tests on strategic thinking Test and review Select the solution During 2019 Break problems into parts Take actions Strategic knowledge about management Gaining knowledge about roles of managers Table 2: Action Plan (Source: Self-developed) Bibliography Buckingham, M 2015, StandOut 2.0: Assess your strengths. Find your edge. Win at work, Harvard Business School Press, United States. Cole, K, 2014, The Supervisors Survival Guide: The complete toolkit for the new team leader, Woodslane, Australia. Daft, R 2013, Organizational Theory and Design, 11th ed., South-Western Cengage Learning, United States. Hatch, M 2013, Organization Theory: Modern, symbolic and postmodern perspectives, 3rd ed., Oxford University Press, United Kingdom. Hope, J, Bunce, P and Roosli, F 2011, The Leaders Dilemma: How to build an empowered and adaptive organization without losing control, John Wiley Sons, United States. Korn Ferry, 2014, For Your Improvement Competencies Development Guide. The United States. Kotter, J 1996, Leading Change, Harvard Business School Press, United States. Kouzes, J and Posner, B 2012, The Leadership Challenge: How to make extraordinary things happen in organizations, 5th ed. Jossey-Bass, United States. McShane, S, Olekalns, M, Newman, A, and Travaglione, T 2016, Organisational Behaviour: Emerging Knowledge. Global insights, 5th Asia?Pacific edition, McGraw Hill, Australia. Passmore, J ed. 2014, Mastery in Coaching: A complete psychological toolkit for advanced coaching. Kogan Page / Association for Coaching, United Kingdom. Robbins, S, Judge, T, Millett, B and Boyle, M 2013, Organisational Behaviour, 7th ed., Pearson Australia. Schein, E 2010, Organizational Culture and Leadership, 4th ed., Jossey-Bass, United States. Tan, C 2014, Search Inside Yourself: The unexpected path to achieving success, happiness (and world peace), HarperCollins, United States.