Critical Thinking Skills
Management skills in a critical world
This new job turned out to be an exciting opportunity to expand my knowledge by operating a business. This business apparently has some issues that require critical thinking skills to help resolve. We will identify and work to solve the problems through the use of the tools and techniques of decision-making. Once complete, we will have a clear picture of the problem, the associated risks and expected outcome that will hopefully lead to a successful achievement of our goal.
There were several problems that were identified. One dealt with the opening of a new store down the street which can threaten the business. Another dealt with low morale in the office from what appeared to be a pay scale problem. …show more content…
Our final problem was concerning product surplus and how this could affect the profit margains. There were some others identified, but we chose to attempt to address these as a first effort.
When we think of a competitor setting up shop next us, the thought can provoke unsettling thoughts.
We chose to use cause and effect as a technique to begin looking at this scenario. Thoughout this process, we determined the fact that we did not specialize on specific branded products, rather a more broad selction for customers to chose from, we should be able to handle the onset of the new store. We might lose business from the specific products, but we would balance from the variety.
The rumor was that the sales were quickly on the rise and were said to be twice of ours. Being a new store, the competitor had to spend money to not only lure our employees away, but also advertise to create interest in the new location. We chose to use structured internal surveys with the employees to help identify where their thoughts were with regard to both the current operations within our walls and also the potential for uncertainty with the new competitor location.
With these results, we are hoping to use the brainstorming technique to collectively come up with a strategy to help maintain a strong presence and continue to offer an attractive incentive to work here. This data will help identify the gaps in our current business processes. The objective is to solidify the concept of the employees being the most important to help drive every other initiative. Without happy and productive people, the rest doesn't really
matter.
We really feel that we have discovered that the employee problem is more of a symptom of of problem which we will try to turn around with bonuses and more incentives which will produce money in the pockets of the employees. This will hopefully help to solve several symptoms.
Speaking of symptoms, the WAN problems could be turned around with the employees being more happy with their role and their compensation. The net result would be the local IT person has a sense of urgency that prevails over the problems. If the WAN is more of a priority, the productivity could go up and the problems could go away. Crashing the network will become a thing of the past.
In this reading assignment, there were many points of interest related to critical thinking and the decision making process. We read the scenario and the initial concept or key point was to identify what problems were visible and what symptoms were effects of the problems. We also had to frame up the issue. We used various tools and techniques to help create alternatives in hopes of steering the store in the right direction. Lastly, we suggested concepts to help achieve the goal which as to drive up sales. With happy employees that all help to drive efficiany, market the goal and stay genuinely happy with their role, the target can be achieved.
We deal with situations on a daily basis that require structured decision making and even explicit critical thinking skills. Being in an freight company that constantly measures the bottom line, the tools learner in this course help realize to value of stepping outside of the box to maximize the energy put into projects. In our role, we have to evaluate many pieces of technology to help achieve the various goals the business puts in front of us. The decision making process fits in almost every task.
This new job turned out to be an exciting opportunity to expand my knowledge by operating a business. This business apparently has some issues that require critical thinking skills to help resolve. We will identify and work to solve the problems through the use of the tools and techniques of decision-making. Once complete, we will have a clear picture of the problem, the associated risks and expected outcome that will hopefully lead to a successful achievement of our goal.
There were several problems that were identified. One dealt with the opening of a new store down the street which can threaten the business. Another dealt with low morale in the office from what appeared to be a pay scale problem. …show more content…
Our final problem was concerning product surplus and how this could affect the profit margains. There were some others identified, but we chose to attempt to address these as a first effort.
When we think of a competitor setting up shop next us, the thought can provoke unsettling thoughts.
We chose to use cause and effect as a technique to begin looking at this scenario. Thoughout this process, we determined the fact that we did not specialize on specific branded products, rather a more broad selction for customers to chose from, we should be able to handle the onset of the new store. We might lose business from the specific products, but we would balance from the variety.
The rumor was that the sales were quickly on the rise and were said to be twice of ours. Being a new store, the competitor had to spend money to not only lure our employees away, but also advertise to create interest in the new location. We chose to use structured internal surveys with the employees to help identify where their thoughts were with regard to both the current operations within our walls and also the potential for uncertainty with the new competitor location.
With these results, we are hoping to use the brainstorming technique to collectively come up with a strategy to help maintain a strong presence and continue to offer an attractive incentive to work here. This data will help identify the gaps in our current business processes. The objective is to solidify the concept of the employees being the most important to help drive every other initiative. Without happy and productive people, the rest doesn't really
matter.
We really feel that we have discovered that the employee problem is more of a symptom of of problem which we will try to turn around with bonuses and more incentives which will produce money in the pockets of the employees. This will hopefully help to solve several symptoms.
Speaking of symptoms, the WAN problems could be turned around with the employees being more happy with their role and their compensation. The net result would be the local IT person has a sense of urgency that prevails over the problems. If the WAN is more of a priority, the productivity could go up and the problems could go away. Crashing the network will become a thing of the past.
In this reading assignment, there were many points of interest related to critical thinking and the decision making process. We read the scenario and the initial concept or key point was to identify what problems were visible and what symptoms were effects of the problems. We also had to frame up the issue. We used various tools and techniques to help create alternatives in hopes of steering the store in the right direction. Lastly, we suggested concepts to help achieve the goal which as to drive up sales. With happy employees that all help to drive efficiany, market the goal and stay genuinely happy with their role, the target can be achieved.
We deal with situations on a daily basis that require structured decision making and even explicit critical thinking skills. Being in an freight company that constantly measures the bottom line, the tools learner in this course help realize to value of stepping outside of the box to maximize the energy put into projects. In our role, we have to evaluate many pieces of technology to help achieve the various goals the business puts in front of us. The decision making process fits in almost every task.