Kolb‘s Experiential Learning Cycle: Managerial Skills- Essay Writing Assignment Solution

Kolb‘s Experiential Learning Cycle-Essay

Individual Learning Review

Your task is to select 2 skills from an incident in your work experience or experience outside work; to describe

how you confronted and handled the situation; to reflect on this event; to analyse and assess the effectiveness of

the managerial skills in terms of the concepts you have covered in the course; and to consider ways of acting

more effectively in the future. It is advisable that you consider 2 specific managerial skills that you have studied in this course that need improvement.

The following are examples of possible managerial incidents (these are only examples):

• miscommunication between you and a colleague
• poor delegation of workload for your team members
• inability to identify the problems or issues in an incident
• managed individual differences poorly
• inability to provide clear change strategies for other team members
• inability to apply cross-cultural concepts to manage others

Write in essay style including an introduction, main body, and a conclusion.

The main body should consist of 4 main headings using Kolb‘s Experiential Learning Cycle:

1. Concrete Experience (approx. 100 words)

Provide a brief description of the specific incident. Don‘t get too lost in the detail of the event. What happened? How did you feel? What were the causes and consequences? It is essential that you clarify the 2 skills (chosen from the first 5 topics) you will be addressing by the end of the introduction.

2. Reflective Observation (approx. 400 words)

Reflect on the event and observe the experience from many different perspectives, using the skills assessment results (i.e. Personal Style Inventory - MBTI, PAMS, Learning style, or/and Values).

3. Abstract Conceptualisation. Create concepts that integrate your observations into logically sound

   theories (approx. 500 words)

Show that you have read and understood the relevant concepts. Discuss the insights you obtained from using the concepts to understand the event and the implications for being more effective in the future.

4. Active Experimentation – Your Improvement Plan (approx. 500 words)

In this section you need to demonstrate that you are able to use these theories to make decisions and solve

problems. Outline the plans and actions that you could adopt to manage the situation more effectively in the

future.

Discuss the obstacles and resources that are likely to occur (e.g. lack of time, lack of resources for training, lack of confidence etc.) and how can they be overcome.

Kolb‘s Experiential Learning Cycle

Introduction

The personal experience of working as a Bank Manager in a stressful year-end situation has been analysed in alignment with the Kolb’s Learning Cycle and various other concepts of effective management and working in stressful environment. The forthcoming content initiates by giving a quick glimpse of the personal experience that occurred while working as a Bank Manager with a team of four, where the act of poor delegation and lack of planning in a tough business situation led the entire team to a state of demotivation and negative impression about the business. The situation had been supported by the skills and attributes that were analysed by various assessments and personality tests. Starting with the overview of the issues, the report analyses the traits required in an effective Manager for managing stress, along with providing another set of recommendations for a better handling of the work-delegation.

Concrete Experience

The incident that has been taken for this assignment presents two issues that were handled by me as a Bank Manager in the past bank I worked with. In the time of financial year-end, two issues occurred, which have been analysed in this document. The first issue included the resource crunch, where I was left with four resources out of the previous number of six without the workload been properly distributed. The second issue included the inclusion of retail credit in addition to the commercial credit at the last minute due to overload of work. As the leader of the team and a Manager, I faced the extreme stress on myself as well as my team, which at last might have given a good performance scorecard on the business-level, but did not leave me and my team with a motivational and positive impression about the work and the systems.

Reflective Observation

The experience of undergoing stress and poor delegation highlighted the fact that the entire incident and resulting issues had a chain of events leading to the team and the Manager being stressed. The disturbed work-schedule and improper assignment of huge workload had various reasons due to which they occurred.

1. There had been low intensity of pre-planning when looking at the role of the Bank Manager in the entire business picture. As a Bank Manager, my role was to be ready to handle stressful and unforeseen events that usually happen or might happen towards the end of the financial year. Four things were expected to be part of my strengths and personality in order to manage stress at the workplace better:

• Proper knowledge transfer (Kraut et al., 2005) from the two employees who left the team
• Re-scheduling of the entire work to leave gap for additional work that is usually foreseen towards the end of the financial year (Halachmi & van der Krogt, 2005)
• Parallel selection of new resource in order to fill the gap, by timely hiring and training (Pansiri, 2008)

2. With new nature of work, i.e. retail work been added to the team in addition to the commercial credit work, the personality traits of a Manager were to identify the right set of people from the team who had the expertise to handle the kind of work quickly and effectively rather than the entire work been delegated without any talent-

   identification. In addition, my preferences should have been planned and streamlined. A few aspects of my strengths included discussion and meeting with the entire team to understand their point of view regarding the new delegation strategies (Chapman, n.d.).

3. Another required trait of personality for a Manager is to think out-of-the-box and come up with a new set of work-pattern which not just gets the work done but also leaves the entire team lesser stressed (Randall, n.d.). In this case, the team was not taken into equal ownership in the time of crisis, resource crunch, time crunch, work

   pressure, and unplanned schedules.

The skill assessment results derived from PAMS theory, Kolb’s theory, Value theory and Personality Inventory theory helped in identification of my strengths, weaknesses, preferences and personality traits, which finally helped in managing stress during the tough business situation and complete the emergency workload. The below mentioned are the derived set of strengths and personality traits I possess, as per the assessment test results:

1. Powerful and influential among the team members for effective delegation of work
2. A good communicator with strong convincing strengths for getting work done at stressful times
3. An independent leader, and broadminded Manager in terms of collecting ideas and feedback from the team in the stressful time
4. A good administrator with the collective skills of being an extrovert, assertive thinker and quick judge
5. A pragmatist for application of new ideas, theories and techniques in a practical work environment

The experience of the stressful live situation as a Bank Manager assessed the two issues: (1) stress could have been better managed (2) emergency work could have been better delegated, and (2) rescheduling of existing tasks to the new set of available resources could have been done. These two issues had been further analysed with respect to the managerial skills required, but missing in the situation.

Stressful business situation leading to the ineffective delegation of new set of tasks cumulatively had resulted due to various skill, strengths and personality traits of me as a Manager, not effectively used.

1. Interpersonal Skills

• Communication: Communication and timely networking are important to maintain the platform where the entire team is aware of the plans of the leader, work schedule, the objectives to be achieved by the team, and the challenges

  they are likely to come across (Simpson, 2008). Initiation of proper communication channels was the skill required in the Bank Manager, which were not effectively present in time. However, due to various assessment tests, I was able to understand that communication is required to break the ice and make the entire team get ready with the set of challenges coming ahead, and I do possess strong communication and convincing capacity to do the job.

• Collective Planning: Planning makes risks lesser uncertain and reduces overlapping of common tasks (Pujari, n.d.). In the given live experience, there had been lack of planning in terms of identifying right set of people to do the new set of job related to retail credit. In addition, I had not done any pre-planning in terms of getting help from internal employees from the other teams or hiring new employees.

2. Conceptual Skills

• Assertiveness and Creativity: A capable Manager needs to be assertive in foreseeing the issues that might come ahead (Huang & Shah, 2012). As a Bank Manager, it was my role to do a risk analysis and mitigation planning in

  order to enlist all the probable challenges that I and my team could have come across during the financial year-end. Once the role of being assertive was missed, and the team entered into resource crunch and heavy workload, my

  next role should have been to design creative ideas and try to solve the problems in a new and innovative way. As a Bank Manager, I could have come up with new plans of handling the challenges. I could have introduced a temporary work-shift pattern and reward systems to motivate the employees.

• Training and Mentoring: In the situation of too much work with less number of resources, my role as a good Manager was to identify the resources as per their best skills and knowledge sets, and train them to fill any performance gaps (Nolan et al., 2008). In addition, the entire team needed an additional set of motivation, where I should have provided help and support as a mentor.
• Knowledge Transfer: With two employees leaving the team, there was a need for a planned knowledge transfer. This would have helped in understanding any gaps in the performance of the rest of the team members before really

  entering into the stressful situation of financial year-end.

Active Experimentation

The experience of the year-end situation due to unforeseen workload and resource crunch not just led to extreme stress, but the derived results of the assessment tests also led to a revised set of strategies to be followed in the future. To highlight, the problems faced by me as a Manager of the Bank were related to (1) managing stress, (2) delegation, and (3) resource planning. There are numerous actions that were temporarily taken at the time of the situation, but they need to be correctly implemented in the future to avoid any further events of stress. The issue of managing stress by delegation of new set of tasks and resource planning at the last minute could be addressed by following a few steps.

1. Introducing the new tasks: This is important to not leave anyone in instant shock at the rear end. As soon as the information of additional work is received by the Manager, it is best to quickly roll the information over to the team to give a message about the challenge that is most likely to come ahead (McLeod, 2010). This gets the team ready to play their individual parts while avoiding the negativity created due to lack of entire information. Introducing the new tasks: This is important to not leave anyone in instant shock at the rear end. As soon as the information of additional work is received by the Manager, it is best to quickly roll the information over to the team to give a message about the challenge that is most likely to come ahead (McLeod, 2010). This gets the team ready to play their individual parts while avoiding the negativity created due to lack of entire information.
2. Allocating authority: Sharing ownership or allocating the authority of the revised team goal makes success of a project an element of mutual interest. If the Manager keeps the authority to take major decisions to him/herself, the team does not feel connected with the new role to play and finally, does not perform well. On the contrary, sharing the ownership with all the team members makes it an important affair for each one of them (Honey & Mumford, 2006). As a result, each one of them takes equal interest in planning, strategizing, and working in the time or time and resource scarcity.
3. Periodic Assessments and Mentoring: It is always better to keep a regular check on the performance of the revised role time-to-time to avoid any failures at the end. It is important to quickly undergo project-performance checks in order to identify any gaps in the performance. Using that information, the Manager could then design a

   module to train or mentor the members(s) who need support to pull their performances in the situation when no additional resources could be hired.

4. Periodic Applauds and Rewards: While the situation of resource crunch and heavy workload comes into existence, it might get easier for a Manager to get an additional budget sanctioned for rewarding the better performing team members. Such rewards leave a positive impression about the Manager (Kosir et al., 2008) and the company in the eyes of the employee, who, later, would take higher initiatives to handle any further odd situations.
5. Resource Planning: When a few employees are moving out of the team due to various reasons, it is the role of a Manager to understand all the likely situations that might arise as a result. The Manager must do a thorough resource planning in order to identify the total available work, the amount of work that might flow in, and the total available resources to handle that total amount of work. If there is a gap between these factors, hiring new people or training the same team members to perform the new set of job is also an important skill that a Manager needs to possess.

Conclusion

The live experience of extreme stress, ineffective delegation of heavy workload and inappropriate resource planning at the time of emergency gave me a learning that it is important to plan for foreseen issues in advance. In addition, there are various skills that a leader or a Manager possesses, which need to be identified with the use of assessment tests and nurtured with the use of trainings. From the analysis of a situation to the identification of the required skills, there are managerial concepts that are practically helpful, when implemented in real.