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ASSIGNMENT

II














SALMAN .I
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR STRATEGIC MANAGERS

PART A
TASK 1 (a):
Introduction:
In this assignment, I would like to highlight the inbuilt personal skills and required professional skills. I
would brief on skills audit and techniques to identify the learning styles. By using skills audit doing
SWOT analysis keeping learning styles in mind a PDP worksheet is constructed. Thus I will enlighten
provide the learner with the methods and techniques to access the development of their own skills to
support the achievements of strategic directions.
Personal Skills required to Achieve Strategic Goals:
Personal skills are the ability to do something which is possessed by anyone. It is literally a person's
own skill which is benefited for a professional career goal. In order to manage personal skill it is
essential to gain and utilize some skills.
The skills are as follows. The few are listed below:
Self-Management:
Evaluate, adapt and make use of range of academic skills.
Effective time management.
The objectives should be set by keeping priority and standard in mind.
Clarifying personal values.
Inbuilt potential should be evaluated for employment.
Exhibit intellectual flexibility.
Act in professional and ethical manner.
Deal with critics constructively.
Manage your learning through collaboration by using different situations.
Problem solving:
Key features of the problems should be identified.
Have lateral thinking about the problem.
Identify the options and solutions.
Conceptualise the problem.
Plan and implement an action plan and carry out a solution.
Monitor, evaluate and adapt solutions and outcomes.
Communication:
The oral /visual information should be presented competently.
Usage of appropriate language.
Listening skills should be effective.
Offer constructive criticism.
Verbal communication should be fluent and proper non verbal communication.
Produce a variety of written documents.

Working with others:
Ensure clear goals, take responsibilities and carry out an appropriate tasks.
Respect the views and values of others.
Adapt to the needs of the team by assisting and supporting them.
Negotiate with individuals/groups.
Work to collective goals.
5 Delegate and stand back.

Method to evaluate personal skills to achieve strategic goals:
The methods to evaluate personal skills are:
SWOT analysis
Pest analysis
TASK 1 (b):
Techniques to access the professional skills required to support the strategic
direction of the organisation:
Professional skills are the specific ones related to professional career. Professional skills become the
base for a successful organisation. It is essential for everyone to increase the knowledge and skills.
The professional skill required to support the strategic direction of the organisation are:-
Leadership skills
Counselling
Decision making
Monitoring skills

Leadership Skill:
The first main professional skill for a successful organisation is leadership skills. The leader should
have good interpersonal and intrapersonal communication skills. The prior objective of leadership
skills is to plan, organize, clarify problems, support the members and set goals which make it
important skill for defining and supporting the strategic goals. One should be assertive, persuading
and motivating to achieve an organisation's objective.
Counselling:
Counselling is a process of advising .It helps in the development of the employee by giving
suggestions and ideas. Counselling is very important in many areas of a successful organisation like
disciplinary actions, performance evaluation etc., There are two ways of counselling. They are
Direct Counselling - It is a force to indentify the problem and resolve it.
Indirect counselling - In this type of counselling participation is minimal, the counsellors
pay attention to the problem and solutions are implemented only on the acceptation of
counselees.
Decision making:
In professional environment one should excel in decision making skills to support the strategic
direction.
The decisions should be made by considering the facts that,
The decisions should relate the actual want of the organisation.
It should create new opportunities and add value to the organisation.
The risks and benefits
Monitoring Skills:
The term monitoring means guiding. This skill is most essential skill for the manager of an
organisation .The team leader or the manager has to guide his fellow employees (team members) to
update the task.
The monitoring skills help us in understanding,
How well an organisation and their employees are working?
Is everything going on right in the organisation?
What difference the organisation is making?
At this point monitoring is routine and an ongoing process.
TASK 2 (a):
Skills Audit:



Skill / Competency
Current ability rating
( 1-5 )
Action to be taken
Photography
and
Animation
Skill
Adobe
Photoshop CS6
2 To hire art director.
Adobe Illustrator
CS6
1 To hire an animator.
Adobe After
Effect CS6
3
To hire someone experience
in handling after effect.
Adobe Premiere
Pro CS6
4
To further learn and
undertake short courses to
enhance editing skills.
Technical
Skills
Computing Skills 4 Excel in handling computers.
Shooting Skills 1
Buy and study the book about
shooting skills.
Personal and
Professional
Skills
Leadership Skills 4
To do a good job, keeping
everybody in team.
Time
Management
1
Try to commence work 10
minutes before time.
Listening an
Comprehension
5
Listen more to the way
people converse with each
other and pick up whatever
necessary.
SWOT Analysis:
SWOT analysis uncovers the strength and weakness of an organisation and the opportunity
and threats faced by it.
Strengths:
By knowing our strength we can focus our efforts on the things we are good at. The goal here is to
uncover what sets you apart from most other people. While thinking about your strengths don't limit to
work skills think of all the experiences in the past, and the opportunities that you have to grow and
develop. It includes your education, aptitudes, personality factors and interest.
The following questions answer your strengths:-
1. What are you really good at?
2. What skills do other people recognises in you?
3. What do you o better than most people you work with?
4. What do you get recognised or rewarded for?
5. What, about yourself, are you most proud of or satisfied with?
6. What experiences, resources or connections do you have access to that others dont?
Weakness:
By understanding to your weakness you know, what to avoid, what to improve and where to get help
from other people who does those things better.
The following questions answer your weakness:-
1. What do you try to do that you just can't seem to master?
2. What do you do only because you have to in order to satisfy job requirements?
3. Are their one or two aspects of your personality that holds you back?
4. What do other people most often identify as a weakness for you?
5. Where are you vulnerable?
6. Where do you lack experience, resources or connections where others have them?
Opportunities:
Taken together your strengths and opportunities help you to identify your potential long term career
goals.
The following questions answers your opportunities that can be explore:-
1. In what ways can you maximize your strengths?
2. What opportunities are open to those who do these things well?
3. What would you love to do that you are good at?
4. How can you minimize your weakness? If your weakness no longer helps you back what
could you do?
5. Where do you see the most potential growth for yourself?
6. What trends are having an impact on your current career or one you are thinking about
pursuing?
Threats:
Your weakness and threats you face are those things that determine likelihood of success and that
need to be mitigated, or plan for, to ensure your goals remains achievable. Threats are the things that
can derail your success. Threats can't be directly control, they can be plan for.
The following questions answer your threats:-
1. Do you have weakness that need to be addressed before you can move forward?
2. What problems could your weakness cause if left unchecked?
3. What setbacks might you face?
4. What obstacles have other people over come to get to where you want to go?
Samples SWOT:
Strengths :
an ability to get on with people
reliable
hard-working
able to take initiative
research skills
attention to detail
analytical skills
honest
Opportunities :
gain experience of dealing with people
get experience of the world of work
work abroad
work in a team
earn money
Weakness :
foreign language problem
no work experience related to academic
studies
Threats :
being unsupported at work
fitting into the company culture
transport problem may result in
unreliability

The skills audit identified the skills and the SWOT analysis was successfully done.
TASK 2 (b):
Learning Styles:
Peter Honey and Alan Mumfords Learning Model:
The two British psychologist developed a popular learning styles which categorised people by their
preferred learning styles into :
Activists:
They involve themselves fully and without bias in new learning experiences.
They are open-minded, confident, they tend to act first and consider the
consequences later.
Reflectors:
They stand back and ponder experiences and observe them from many different
perspectives.
They collect data and prefer to think about it before coming to any conclusions.
Theorists:
They adapt and integrate observations into complex but logically sound theories.
They think problems through vertical, step by step, logical way.
Pragmatists:
They are keen to try out ideas, theories and techniques to see if they work in practice.
They positively search out new ideas and take the first opportunity to experiment with
application.
They tend to be impatient with ruminating and open ended discussion.
The following are the behaviours of pragmatists,
I am seek a logical explanations for everything.
I prefer structured situation.
I prefer dealing with facts and rather than feelings.
I am learning well when I have to analyse an activity and so on.
Niel Fleming's VAK/VARK Model:
It is one of the commonly used models. The learners are categorized as:
Visual Learners:
They have preference for seeing. They learn through looking at things.
They don't prefer learning in written form or listening to an explanation.
Pictures, visual aids, graphs, charts, diagrams are tools for visual learners.
Auditory learners:
They have preference for listening. They learn through listening.
They are good at remembering things they listen.
Lectures, explanation, discussions, music are the tools for auditory listeners.
Reading and writing learners:
These learners prefer to read the information or write the information given in a lecture or in
discussion.
They tend to easily grab the information by writing what they listen or see and also if it is
displayed as words.
Papers and pens are the tools for reading and writing learners.
Kinaesthetic learners:
They prefer learn via experiences and by doing activities.
They learn the best by hand on experiences.
Moving, touching and doing (active exploration of the world) are the tools for kinaesthetic
learners.

I would like to go for Niel Flemings VAL/VARK learning model. I prefer auditory and visual learning
style rather than reading, writing and kinaesthetic. My perception of leaning information easily is by
seeing and hearing. When information is conveyed in a visual form like pictures or videos its very
easy to grasp it and also can remember the information very easily by picturing the visual in the mind.
The learning information through reading and writing is difficult when it comes to me because one
may lose the content or forget some points. Itll also take more time to learn things where as an ample
of information can be conveyed in a small video. So, I prefer auditory and visual learning style to learn
information easily and effectively.


TASK 3:
A Personal Development Plan (PDP) that meets professional and leadership
skills development requirements identified in the skills audit. This will include:
the skill to be developed; the resources needed for development; a target date
(mm/yyyy); actual date (mm/yyyy skill development achieved). This can be
conveniently presented in tabular format.
Personal Development Plan Worksheet
Name : Current Position : Date Started :
Career Mission Statement ( what you indent to accomplish and why )

Major Career Goals ( what you need to accomplish in the medium term to further your mission )
Goal : Target Date Goal : Target Date
Goal : Target Date Goal : Target Date
Goal : Target Date Goal : Target Date
Skills Audit :
A : I have accomplish C : I need to improve
B : I have but some improvements could e made D : I need to put considerable work to develop
E : I need to acquire
Skill / Competency
Rank
Skill / Competency
Rank
Now 6m 1y Now 6m 1y








Action Plan for the next 6 / 9 / 12 months
Development Goal Action Steps
Complete
By (Date )
Success criteria


I am committing to these goals and will review this Personal Development Plan on a regular basis and
update it as necessary
Signature:
Date :
TASK 4 (a):
A PDP for students community action project:
Goal Action Steps Success Criteria Target Date
To improve my
presentation skills
Attend
presentation
skill course
through Guild
Practise
presentation
and get
feedback
Improve
technique and
resources
Conduct a
presentation to
get feedback
To have made
two presentation
to councils and
gained positive
feedback from
both.
To have made
one presentation
to a local
business resulting
in funds for sports
kit.
May





June
To identify and extract
appropriate written
information to support
assignments
Watch a video
on study skills
To practise
skimming key
texts to answer
questions
To identify clear
research
question for
next economics
assignment
Watched video

Written questions



Faster at
extracting
information.
May

June




June
To be able to use excel
spreadsheets effectively
Attend
introduction to
excel courses.
To produce a
budget for kids
club using excel
To use excel
with
assignments
Attended Excel
course

Budget produced

Excel used for
assignments
Jan



Feb

Mar
To identify, use new
activities with children at
Talk to and
shadow
New activities
introduced
Mar




kids club experienced
volunteer.
Plan, deliver
and review new
activities.
Positive feedback
form experienced
volunteers.

Children
interested.
To develop team work
skills
Assist project
leader by
organising half
term kids event.

Successful kids
event without
hitches due to
poor
communication

Feb
To be able to comply
with appropriate
legislative and health
and safety regulations
Research all
relevant
legislations.
Attend health
and safety
training.
Attend children
protection
training.
Have an update
knowledge about
all legislative
activities.
Comply with
legislative
requirements
ASAP

Task 4(b):
The impact of the learning against the achievement of skill goals set:
I will constantly work hard to gain knowledge, experience it and making my skills at its best. I will
constantly strive towards showing myself distinguished among others. I will completely commit myself
in life time learning process .For personal job satisfaction And to total utilisation of opportunities in
professional career it is essential to sustain the growth and develop continuously throughout my
career .Employers value those who strive to expertise in their respective field and I will definitely work
hard towards my skills to create an image and increase value.
I have very well learnt to design a Personal Development Plan (PDP) which will effectively help me in
identifying my skills, planning and implementing my time bound long term and short term goal. In
short a PDP provides the structure of a schedule facilitates motivation and offers a framework for
monitoring and evaluating achievements. So from now I would revitalise my technical and personal
skills, build up transferable skills, lifelong learning, gain satisfaction from a sense of achievement and
ensure my employability and take advantage on the opportunities that may arise or I create.
Conclusion:
Thus the personal and professional skills were identified and I have started working towards my
personality development towards my strategic goals.

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