Of the four perspectives of the 4-lens models I am most comfortable with the systems perspective. I appreciate set ups that have a logical flow and process of doing things. In my life, most of how I live it is well planned, with time frames and benchmarks to measure milestones and achievements. I admire organization and having a sense of stability within my life. Stability for me is achieved through consistency and having control measures that ensure that things never get out of hand.
On the other hand, I am least comfortable with the strategic perspective. I do not like jumping into things without planning well for them. I support the saying that goes, “failing to plan is planning to fail.” The strategic perspective advocates for adventures and being able to combine multiple things at the same time. This creates unwarranted pressure for me and I do not appreciate it. This approach is also prone to making decisions that have errors and are costly due to the spontaneity in making such decisions.
As a professional leading in the next wave, this suggests to me that I have to ensure that I am aware of all other aspects of the other three perspectives. I need to have a clear understanding about their points of view and their paradigms. It also suggests to me that I have to be prepared for major paradigm shifts as I move along my profession, and encompass and embrace the changes that are occurring towards the next change wave. Things are constantly changing and as they do, people also need to be consistent and remain relevant so as to keep up with these changes.
b. What do your personal competency sort results mean to you?
My personal competency sort results show that I like being on the forefront and taking charge of situations. It’s almost as if I don’t believe that there is nothing I am not capable of doing once I put my mind onto it. The results seem to show that I almost prefer to make decisions and work on them with minimum support. This is seen by my perceived confidence to be able to do lots of things by myself. The results also mean to me that I know exactly where I am in my point in life, and have a clear vision of where I want to be. That is possibly why I don’t seem to acknowledge weaknesses in my life, because these translate to me that I am not capable of performing or achieving a certain goal.
c. Describe a situation in which you demonstrated emotional intelligence.
A situation in which I demonstrated emotional intelligence occurred at work when one of my juniors made a wrong decision that was contrary to company’s policies. From his point of view, it seemed very logical. The only point was that the action chosen was not in accordance to laid down procedures. I agreed with him that his angle if perceiving the problem seemed logical, but stressed out that the primary reason we were at work was not to deviate from procedures, but to first and foremost adhere to them. We raised the new concept to our managers, who suggested that we right a formal report on the new way of doing a task. This demonstrates my preference to first and foremost respect systems, laid down processes, and a preference for purposeful, considerable and reliable approach to problem solving.
d. What other information related to Week 3 assignments did you consider to be of value?
I particularly valued the results and understanding of the emotional intelligence style profile. What amazed me was the similarity my results had in comparison to my HBDI results. This comparison has made me understand myself more and my preferred style of thinking and addressing issues. Many of the decisions that I make with regard to my life and development are very consistent with all the results that have shown my preferred thinking patterns and problem solving.
e. Describe a situation in which it would have been helpful to seek the 'third alternative' as defined by Covey.
As described by Covey, a situation in which it would have been helpful to seek the “third alternative” was while I worked with a bank. There was this one incident, where a client was furious that they had not yet received their check book and debit card within the period of time we had promised they would arrive. What happened next was that the client had actually given our staff member wrong details, and both documents had gone to another branch. This was a situation where the client wanted to close their accounts with the bank. On an honest note, many of our staff members would rather have waited for the client to close the account, than having to imagine to constantly having to deal with them again.
I empathized with the client and told them that I understood exactly how they felt, and wanted to get a solution that would make each one of us feel better. You can bet that at that point, I would have wished the ground to open up and swallow them alive! This was a customer who had the habit of always coming to the branch and complaining about all our services. If we really were that bad, why then did they never close their accounts with us? Ironical, isn’t it? Well, I made them sit down and pretended that I was just rushing to the next building to get something for them. In actual sense, I had to rush the branch where their documents were and get them back to my branch. This was something I did not have to do considering the way the client was dealing with everyone at the branch. At the end of the day, the client was happy and from that day on, we became friends and the relationship we had thereafter was a good one. I had to look at the complaint from the client’s side and come up quickly with an amicable solution even though I really did not have to do it. But since it cost me nothing and I knew that it would help both of us finally, I had to come up with a quick third alternative to salvage the situation.
No comments:
Post a Comment