Preparing for My Career
A new video game has come out to market. Named “six days in Fallujah”, and the employees at Atomic Games claim that they have created the screenplay and the story from real life accounts of returned war veterans. After four years of hard work, the 75 members of the development team boast of its hyper realistic game environment and a documentary-style story line which takes the gamers through the experience of how it was like to be in Fallujah, November 2004.
This, in turn has angered the relatives of the dead soldiers, who argue that the death of their relatives in the line of duty is being trivialized by being made into a cheap imitation for fun. Many have signed petitions for the game to be banned.
Although the company executive Peter Tamte relied on the info provided by his own team of veterans, how would you solve this problem? What are the ethical issues at play? Explain what you would do in Peter’s shoes and why.
How creative are you?
The life of a manager is chaos. Every moment a new problem presents itself, and every one of them require decisive and out of the box thinking. Dynamic organizations of today don’t require people who will blindly follow orders; they need innovation and creativity. In the renaissance period of business, managers are often celebrated and recognized by their creativity and daring to make unconventional and successful decisions.
Anyone can be creative- if he desires. It is like confidence- you have to feel it in yourself for others to feel it in you. You have to think out of the box to be out of the box. Here are some ways to help you practice the art of creative thinking:
- Believe in yourself: if you don’t, nobody will. Self-confidence and belief in one’s ability is the key to creative thinking.
- Listen to your inner voice: everyone has that voice that is constantly talking to us, telling to how to do things. Many psychologists argue that it is actually our subconscious mind. Listen to what the voice is telling you. Keep notepads nearby and dream journals to jot a quick idea whenever one comes to you.
- Step out of your comfort zone: if you don’t do things you won’t normally do, but that is the point of being creative- approaching a problem in a way no one would even think of.
- Challenge yourself: always keep your ego in check. The moment you start being supercilious, know that you have lost your creativity. Challenge yourself, second-guess your work, and be like no one.
- Be a doer: thinking about ideas all day long and writing them down in great, but you have to put them into action while you’re still interested in them. Procrastination is the kryptonite to creativity.
- There is always another way: if you have already solved a problem, think about other ways you could solve it. Come up with new ways and compare with your original one to find the optimal solution.
- Don’t get in a rut: becoming a slave to the corporate juggernaut can be taxing on your peace of mind. Take the time to recluse from society, and take breaks which will rejuvenate your mind.
- Find strength in numbers: creativity is infectious. An idea can spread faster than a forest fire, if the crowd is right. Find the people who are in simpatico with you, and brainstorm.
- Have faith in the idea: if you don’t believe that your plan won’t work, it most probably won’t. So keep calm and have faith.
- If you would like to test yourself, find as many anagrams of the word brainstorm. (Hint: there are 94 of them)
Work with your team on this one
Discuss the various decisions you have made in your life in groups. Share the decisions that you thought were good, and the ones that went horribly wrong. Find out what happened while you were making both of these decisions. Analyze the evidence you collected from your past decisions. What did you learn about your thinking style and decision-making approach? Make a bulleted list and share with your class.
Your turn to manage
- Observe your decision-making process based on the things learned from these chapters. How did you make up your mind? Did you check the facts or go by your gut? Were you rational or intuitive? Make detailed observations and note them down.
- When a decision goes bad, reassess the situational report. What could you have done differently for a better outcome?
- Make a clear and understandable policy, a rule, and a protocol to be implemented in your class.
- Share two examples of a policy, a procedure and a protocol with your class.
- Find three examples of managerial decisions and discuss them in your class.
- Interview two managers on how to be a good manager.
- Google “101 dumbest moments in business” and write reports on the latest three to be read in your class.
- Write how you learned to be a better decision-maker from this chapter, in your own words.
Links of Previous Main Topic:-
- management and organizations a managers dilemma
- Understanding managements context constraints and challenges
- Managing in a global environment
- Managing diversity
- What is social responsibility
- Managing change and innovation
Links of Next Fundamentals of Management Topics:-
