Pre work for the Last Day of class

1.) If our class were to continue I would say our mission would be to learn about effective work skills in order to give us the best success down the road in our future jobs.  Our vision would be to discuss as many important topics as possible in order to expand our understanding of the important qualities of an effective worker. Our values are dedication, engagement, and quality learning.

2.) As an Individual I could have participated a little more in class while going over the presentations. I improved from the beginning half of the class but I could still engage a little more than I did.

3.) I think that the process that could really have improved the class would have been to sign a contract stating the responsibilities of every individual. I feel like this would make everyone do the same amount of work especially if there were consequences for not reaching the certain deadlines. Also, I feel like we could have been more organized with the syllabus and expectations. Personally it sometimes felt like we didn't know what the true expectations were.

4.) The one idea that I could think of that would improve the open ped model would be to enforce the use of more library books or data base articles. While Harvard Business Review articles are still scholarly, I feel like finding other sources could have been helpful as well.

Internship oppurtunity

With the semester winding now, it's almost time to start focusing on the summer internship that every junior Health Management and Policy major must complete this summer. My internship is at the New Hampshire Hospital Association in Concord and my preceptor is Kathy Bizzaro-Thunberg. I am very excited to put my foot in the actual health care setting and get a taste of what I could potentially being doing in the near future. Along with excitement, I am extremely nervous as I don't really know what to expect come my first day on the job. However, my preceptor is an excellent woman and really makes you feel comfortable while communicating with her. I feel as if she will make me feel comfortable right away and get me integrated into whatever projects they are currently working on. Another aspect of the internship that is exciting is that there is a past UNH HMP alumni that is only a couple of years older than me. This could really help because she could give me tips on what to do during the internship because she has been there for a few years.

Going into Concord, I would really love to experience as much as I can and work on any projects that will help the organization out. From the sounds of it, I'm going to be starting in the State building and learning about the background of the organization before I actually start working on any individual projects. This will get me integrated and up to par with all of the issues that the organization is trying to battle.

In my opinion, I feel like this course has really given me a handful of tools and tips on how to act in a professional setting. I learned that communication with my preceptor is very important along with the way I present myself. If I ever get stuck I know I should ask questions rather than do it on my own because I don't want to present a solution that isn't correct. Being confident in my abilities is crucial along with being polite and nice to everyone at the organization.

Overall, I am ready to start my internship in a couple of weeks and I have to gear my mind up for the switch. I'm used to working at Hannaford's all summer and this is obviously a huge jump/improvement than the produce department of a grocery store. As long as I keep the tools I learned from this class in my mind, I think I will be just fine at the New Hampshire Hospital Association.

Reflection on the class

With only a couple of class periods left, I wanted to give my personal opinion on how the class was run. Next week we have our primers, portfolios, and peer evaluations due and after that we are basically done with the course. I've never taken a course before where the students teach the majority of the time and it was definitely a learning curve for me. I thought this class was excellent and was designed perfectly for my major.

Student led presentations every class is an excellent and different way to learn new material. I feel like students pay more attention when other classmates are presenting because the information is being delivered in ways that we can understand better. Also, with all of the group activities integrated into the presentation, it forces the students to consistently stay engaged. Overall, I thought this part of the class was a great way to practice public speaking skills and get to know everyone better on a personal level.

I also really liked the blog aspect of the class as well. Personally, I liked how we could reflect on the class in a less formal way and jot down whatever thoughts come to mind. We were allowed to write about anything that we wanted which gave us a sense of freedom. Also, this was a creative way to enhance our writing skills and have something to show future bosses potentially.

Lastly, I like how a lot of the final grade is based on how the students grade you in different sections of the class. The students are the ones teaching the class, which means they should have some impact on how grades turn out to be. Peer evaluations are a great way to show students things they did well and things they could potentially improve on.

Overall, I thought this was a great class throughout the whole semester. There were only around eleven kids so we were able to get to know one another at the individual level. This class improved my public speaking skills as well as my writing skills. Finally, this class gave me a portfolio that I could show my boss and tell them what I actually learned.

Presentation on Team building

Yesterday, Shayna and I presented on the topic of teams and the making up of these groups to be successful in the health care field. While I have discussed this topic a couple of times already I thought it was a good discussion because it summed up everything that we have learned in the class. Also, having an immense amount of knowledge in team building is a crucial skill because hopefully in the long run I will be developing one myself.

We started the presentation on by discussing the different type of teams that can be created in today's world. One of the teams that I thought was the most interesting was the cyber team because in the future these kind of groups will be prevalent. I gave an example on how my stepdad is a manager of a engineering company in Portsmouth New Hampshire and he frequently contacts his manager in Wisconsin over Skype. This is very important because my step dad obviously cannot fly out to Wisconsin every time there is a problem or an issue has to be discussed. Professor Bonica also agreed that these types of teams could become the future of health care and people can be treated by doctors that might not be in the same state or region as them.

We continued the presentation by showing a couple of videos that showed the negative aspects of teams along with one that showed different group activities being performed. Also we had a group activity where we asked some individuals to tell us two truths and a lie. While everyone knows what this activity is I thought It was a good way to represent how to read individuals before you assign them to a team. Reading body language can be tough, but as a manager it is a critical skill that must be developed.

I went on to discuss the different problems that teams may face while in the workforce. One of the major problems that I found consistently was social loafing. This is the idea that people slack off or don't work as hard because the consequences wont be as severe and the others will be expected to pick up their workload. This is a common problem in every group setting whether its at work or in a school setting. Future managers must be able to keep everyone on track with everyone splitting the workload fairly.

Why is Teamwork important in the healthcare system?

While researching about team building and effective teams in the health care field I came across an interesting article that described the importance. the link to the article can be found here: http://www.hrhresourcecenter.org/HRH_Info_Teamwork. There are two broad categories of the article which consists of collaboration and the overall importance of a team, specifically in a health care setting.

When discussing collaboration, the goal Is to expand the purpose of traditional roles of workers and to make decisions as a unit to work toward a common goal. A study done by the Canadian Health Services showed that teams function better when they have a clear purpose with the goal of implementing protocols and procedures. Health care is a multidisciplinary profession in which nurses, doctors, and administrators must work together in order to deliver the most efficient care to patients. Each profession in health care have their own specialties and knowledge based on what their job is and what they learned in school. These different professions have to collaborate with one another to bring all of the knowledge together in order for the patient to be satisfied. With many different minds coming together discussing a patients health conditions, the most efficient solution can be implemented.

When discussing the overall importance of a team the first important aspect is that primary care is becoming more advanced and specialized which makes the workers have to perform complex tasks and learn new methods quickly. Also, with obesity, diabetes, and addiction being common themes in the United States, these workers also have to work on preventative measures and teach patients the importance of how terrible these diseases are. Lastly, many doctors have to manage patients with MANY different conditions which involves a team of health care workers tending to these people. These three reasons are why a team setting is so important in health care to enforce quality of care for the patients being treated.

Overall, I thought this article did an excellent job summing up what we already learned about team work in the health care field. The first step is having collaboration, involving many different doctors with different specialties coming together to treat a patient in a safe and healthy way. With many different diseases and personal decisions being made in the United States, Doctor, Nurses, and administrators must come together to treat the patient.

Having Effective Meetings

On Wednesday, my class got a presentation on how to have an effective meeting and what types of people are the best fit for these groups. The two people presenting were business majors in this topic directly related to what they do in the Paul School of Business. This topic was especially important to me because down the road I will have to be doing the same exact thing at my future place of employment.

In the beginning of the presentation, they talked about some "bad" people that can sometimes negatively affect the team with their actions and personalities. Some of the examples of bad individuals are the ones that are always late, leave early, on their technology all the time, the interrupter, and the one that drags every idea out. These types of individuals can really impact the team whether its due to being late or not prepared to discuss the topic at hand. To combat this, there has to be a good enforcer/leader. This individual has to always stay on topic and make sure the other teammates are sticking to the agenda. Also there has to be an individual that makes sure the team is on track and have the skills to bring them back onto the topic being discussed.

After we discussed all the negative types of people that could impact a team, we did an in class activity where we had a short amount of time to fill out an agenda that would typically be used during meetings. Some of the categories on the sheet were objective, start and end time, duration, and individuals attending the meeting. Whoever could fill out the greatest amount of the sheet accurately one a little prize. I really thought this was an interesting way to demonstrate how tough and stressful meetings can be, especially when everyone isn't on the same page.

Lastly we watched a video that showed how some of the personalities discussed above can affect the team. While it may have been over exaggerated, the video really depicted some of the issues that managers face today. During the clip, people were late, on their phone, discussing ideas that were off topic, and the leader didn't listen to anyone's ideas besides his own. This video summed up why a team that works together makes an organization run smoothly. A successful manager will be able to sort through individuals in order to find the ones that fit the team the best.

Crisis Leadership overview

Yesterday, we learned about crisis leadership and how an effective manager communicates and acts in these types of situations. The presentation was excellent in my opinion, and really showed us real life examples on mangers who have effectively and ineffectively acted in times of crisis. The first part of the presentation went over the steps on how managers should act in times of need. A manager who acts well in stressful situations will remain calm, announce plans on how they plan to fix the situation, and than act accordingly. On contrast, a manger cannot panic and cause the population to freak out with them because the situation will only become worse.

One of the situations the group showed us was how a mayor (I believe, cant quite remember his name) acted when the planes hit the twin towers. When asked in a news conference he remained calm and told the people that they were working on a plan to save as many people as possible. Also, another thing that really struck me was that he never mentioned the number of deaths from the attack because that would cause the United States to go into a frenzy. In my opinion, he was a perfect model of a higher end individual acting in the most appropriate way during an ultimate time of crisis.

On the other hand there was controversy on how the president, George W. Bush, acted when he heard the news of the attacks in New York. Mr. Bush was at an elementary school reading a book to a classroom of children when he heard of the attack. Instead of acting, he waited seven minutes until the book was finished before he acted on the situation. Many people were infuriated that he didn't respond immediately and address the nation in a time in need. Mr. Bush argues that he waited the seven minutes because he didn't want to scare the young kids. This was a major controversial issue and many people have differing opinions about it. In my opinion, I think that Mr. Bush should have quietly announced that he had to leave early to deal with an issue. He didn't have to mention that it was about the twin towers but could have instead said that he had a major issue to deal with.

The last thing we did was practicing scenarios by breaking up into groups of board members and people addressing the board. There were four scenarios ranging from internal scenarios in the organization to personal problems that individuals could face while working. I thought this exercise was a great way to portray this topic because we only had five minutes to come up with a plan to address the board. While this may seem short it does portray how quickly individuals have to respond in times of crisis.

Crisis Leadership pre work

In today's class were going to be learning about crisis leadership and what type of leaders we are in the workplace. One of the pre work assignment was to take a ten question quiz that will give our leadership type based on the results that were provided. I had personally never seen this quiz before but I thought it was interesting because the questions were presented in a different way. For example, one of the questions asked us to pick an animal and another one asked us to finish the sentence "Rules are meant to be.." I thought this was an interesting way to determine what type of leader I am and how I think through different situations. The type of leader that I received was a democratic leader. This means that what's best for everyone is best for me, and I would offer every employee the chance to offer input and share ideas. This creates problem solving and leads to overall employee satisfaction. Unfortunately, the quiz stated that when there is little time for deliberations, the work is not as good, and sometimes deadlines are missed. In my opinion this doesn't reflect my style because I rarely ever miss deadlines, especially when school assignments are due. It would have been more appropriate to state that these types of leaders may tend to procrastinate which tends to reflect my personality in a more accurate way. Overall I thought this quiz was an excellent and unique way to show what type of leader I am.

Ethics Pre Work

The first question that was sent to us for pre work was our opinion of what ethics personally means to us. When I think of ethics I think of doing the right thing when people aren't around or watching you. Ethics has a lot to do with morals and the way certain individuals were brought up early in their life. Doing something that is wrong with people watching is different because the problem will be seen first hand. Ethics doesn't have to be a legal issue, it could just be reporting a problem to a supervisor before they have to find out on their own.

The second question asked about a personal experience at work where ethics may have come into play. Personally, about a year ago, there was a major ethics problem that happen at Hannaford's that I was involved in. My night manager was messed up on drugs or alcohol and everyone in the store could easily tell that he wasn't in his right mind. One of my co workers ended up calling the STORE manager who had to come in and terminate him on the spot. I ended up having to write a written statement explaining the incidents that proved he was high or drunk. There were two different ethics issue in this example, one being good and one being bad. My co worker did the right thing by calling the store manager because he could bring a negative impact to the organization. My night manager obviously did something ethically wrong by consuming drugs or alcohol while working on the job.

The third question asked about ethical problems that could potentially occur in the workplace. There are a lot of problems but a few are harassment, stealing, drugs/alcohol, poor time management, and inappropriate relationships with co workers. As I mentioned some of these are crimes and some are moral issues. Poor time management could involve someone abusing their ability to take breaks without their managers hovering over them. Also inappropriate relationships aren't illegal but it could make other co workers uncomfortable around them.

The last question asked about some ethical problems that could arise in a health care setting. Some of the problems could be misdiagnosing a patient for more Medicare money or finding a loophole in the benefits program which results in gaining more money. In my opinion ethical problems in health care settings are really bad because it personally could impact a patients well being.

Reflection on Chris Armijo's Presentation

During Monday's class, we had a guest presentation from Chris Armijo and I thought it was very interesting. He explained a little bit about his background and how he got involved with the health care field in general. One of the first things that was intriguing was that Mr. Armijo wasn't even interested in the health care field to begin with. When explaining this, he mentioned that he was a "party kid" growing up and that he knew that this type of lifestyle would never land him a good job in the future. This led him to join the army because they paid for schooling and it was a way out of the party scene. I personally thought this was very interesting because it shows how careers and interests can spark up out of nowhere and that you never know where you going to be years down the road. After he introduced himself and explained some of his background, he went on to explain some of his personal experiences with organizational behavior.

The first topic that really caught my eye had to do with relationships within an organization and how crucial it is not to ruin these bonds. Mr. Armijo explained how there would be times when higher ranking officers would scold him and he would have to accept it in order to maintain that relationship. This would work the same way in a health care organization compared to a military/army setting. Sometimes mangers ask individuals to complete tasks that they don't think are important, but finish them anyway because they don't want to anger the boss. Also, having relationships with people that might not be your favorite can be helpful because they might know other health care professionals who could open up better opportunities down the road.

The second point that I took away from this conversation was that an individual should never view a manager or individual with a higher role in the organization as a superior to you. As a team everyone has a role and the right to voice their opinion on a topic that is being discussed. If someone constantly just agrees with the manager than they could be labeled as a follower rather than a leader. Also, depending on the personality of the manager, agreeing all the time could lead to an individual being used by the "superior" boss.

Overall I really enjoyed Chris Armijo's discussion. He had a great personality and background on the topics that we have previously discussed in class. I learned to always keep relationships with people because they could know individuals that could present me better opportunities down the road. Lastly, don't view individuals in an organization as superior because everyone has a role to keep the train moving on the track.

My presentation on listening

Last Wednesday Shayna and I presented on the topic of listening in the workplace. To start, we discussed our three pre questions that I'm going to personally reflect on first. The first question talked about a personal time when bad listening caused a problem in the workplace. Ironically, I had an incident a couple of weeks ago that could have been prevented by active listening. I've been working at Dover Fields Hannaford's for four years now and have developed an excellent relationship with my manager. She approached me one day and told me that there was a thief problem going on in my department. After the conversation I mentioned what she said to a couple of kids that I know have stolen items in the past and they decided that it wasn't worth listening to. Unfortunately a couple of days later one of my co workers got caught red handed and the whole department got in trouble for it. If this individual would have listened to me in the first place than this incident could have been avoided.

The second question was asking how to effectively communicate with someone that struggles with listening. In my opinion, I would take this individual to a room that is quiet and rid of distractions to make sure that they can actively listen. Whenever I have a problem listening it usually comes down to outside factors distracting me from the conversation

The third question asked about the factors that can effect listening. Like I stated before, the environment can cause a distraction to anyone trying to listen. However, I feel like body language and tone of voice can effect listening as well. If I'm talking to someone that constantly tries to show they are smarter than me, I automatically shut off and have a hard time focusing on what they are saying.

After the pre work, we had a telephone activity. The activity didn't go as well as planned because there wasn't enough people in the room to mess up the message but it did show how listening is important. We also showed a Ted talk that discussed how learning can impact the workplace. The overall message from the video reminded me of a passage from one of the articles I sent in the pre work. Most people think good listeners are like a sponge and absorb all of the information when in reality a good listener is like a trampoline who can bounce information off to the other individual. I thought this statement really summed up the message we tried to deliver in our presentation. I always thought that a good listener looks someone in the eye, acknowledges what the other person is saying, and acts accordingly. In reality, a good listener should ask questions that clarify the points being presented and than act accordingly once they feel confident that they understand what is being said.

Difficult conversations in the workplace

Last time I wrote about the differing perceptions that lead to difficult conversations in the work place and today I'm going to write about the overall topic as a whole. Difficult conversations happen in any organization and I learned that it is crucial to have the tools in order to have these talks the in the correct and appropriate fashion. These type of conversations can occur for many reasons, some being the lack of background on the other individuals role in the organization or a common belief that one is right and the other is wrong. During this class I learned a few different techniques that could really help these conversations become easier to have.

The first method I learned about was creating a calm environment for everyone to be comfortable with and have the ability to voice any concerns that they might have. Before this class I would have thought that this would make no difference, but in reality a comfortable setting is crucial in having an effective conversation. Personally, I have had difficult conversations with my manager and I wouldn't want it to be in an environment that someone could overhear us or distract us from the topic at hand. The brain is wired to detect different noises and have the ability to differentiate them. Unfortunately in this situation the brain doesn't have the capability of having an effective conversation with a lot of background noise going on as well. In my opinion, going into an office with all technology turned off would be the best environment to have a difficult conversation in.

The environment isn't the only factor that could make or break a difficult conversation. The way you present yourself, and the tone of voice are variables that could effect these conversations as well. If an individual has a stern face and their arms crossed, than it could make the other person uncomfortable. To correct this, I would always try to make myself as approachable as possible and create trust that I will listen to any topic that is being presented to me. An effective manager cannot have a difficult conversation with an employee if he's not trusted to listen or looks like he doesn't care. Also I believe that a person's tone of voice could really effect a difficult conversation. No one that I know wants to talk to someone that constantly shows that their smarter than them or comes off as hard to converse with. Personally, I have lost friendships due to someone's "demeanor" and overall tone of voice.

I presented my topic yesterday in class on listening to people in the workplace. When I researched this I was shocked at how similar these two subjects are to one another. I will share what my ideas were on listening in my next blog post.

Differing Perceptions for Difficult conversations in the work force

In class today, two of my peers are presenting on the topic of difficult conversations in the workplace. I'm going to focus on one part of the article that my classmates sent, and that is differing perceptions in the workplace. Personally this topic is very interesting to me because as future managers, we need to know the tools and tips on how to appropriately have difficult conversations with co workers. The first thing I found intriguing in the article that was sent to us was revolved around the phrase "assumptions about intent." This basically means that in a difficult situation, we think we know the intentions of the other person, while in reality we truly don't. Most of the time people don't explicitly state their intention during a situation, causing it to be unfair to truly think we know what their purpose was. This could cause a divide in the organization because the worker is going to feel like he is being judged by his manager. Individuals tend to assume they know someone's intent because they feel the impact of the actions of the other person. In other words, individuals might feel hurt by the difficult situation causing them to think that the other person had a malicious intent. This statement sets up the next important piece which is the overall feelings of individuals. Situations, especially difficult ones, can cause a person to become extremely passionate which can affect our ability to think and problem solve in an appropriate fashion. In the article my classmates sent, one of the quotes was," when we are very upset, and have not successfully communicated our feelings, it is not possible to listen." This quote meant a lot to me because I have witnessed this happen numerous times while working. Personally, I've seen customers upset me, which causes me to forget what my manager asked me to do before she left. Controlling your emotions is vital in having any conversations with managers, but it can be hard when the situation is difficult. In many bad situations, feelings tend to be the nucleus of what caused these instances to occur. Unfortunately, people have become really good at masking their emotions which can lead a manager to having a difficult time reading the true feelings their colleague is expressing. In my opinion the worst thing to do in a difficult situation is to blame the other person without knowing the true intent or story. The article states that focusing on blame is very ineffective because it blocks our ability to learn what really happened in the situation and most importantly how to correct it in the future. As stated before, blaming someone is making judgments on their intent in the situation. An effective manager cannot be known for casting blame during a situation because the co workers are going to feel vulnerable. Instead, the manager should sit down with the individual and talk out the situation with him, as well as truly listen to his side of the story. These three points really show how difficult situations arise in the workplace. In class today, I'm hoping to learn some tools on how to correct these three points and I will reflect on it in my next blog post.

Listening in the workplace

While researching for my presentation next week, I came across an interesting article about listening and how it can impact the workplace. If anyone is interested in reading the article the link can be found here: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/listening-can-improve-workplace-performance-13262.html. The first important quality of listening in the workplace is that misunderstandings are reduced, resulting in improvement of overall quality of care. Misunderstandings can potentially impact the workplace significantly depending on the topic that wasn't understood correctly. Also, if employees don't feel like their being heard than it can lead to a decreased sense of worth, builds resentment, and can potentially lead them to seek other job opportunities.  Listening is a basic quality that allows people to know that you are truly grasping the information that is being presented. As a manager, listening is essential to communicating effectively with employees. Employees might have concerns, ideas, or problems that they want to discuss with their managers, which shows how important effective listening truly is. An effective way to improve listening skills is brining an employee in a quiet room in order to reduce the amount of distractions that could potentially impact the conversation. Another important quality of listening is showing an overall caring attitude toward other employees. As mentioned before, listening shows that a manager truly cares about what their employees have to day. Employees will respond better to the manager if this person is showing a caring attitude toward them. This could lead to overall trust between managers and employees to increase and improve quality as well. Listening to other employees when discussing how to accomplish a task can increase the rare at which it is completed. Doing this allows clarity and focus to be maintained while completing the task. The last important quality of listening is that there are less "do overs" or retakes. If an employee was barely listening when giving instructions on how to complete a task, than there is a strong chance there are going to be mistakes, leading to a do over of the task. Fixing mistakes can cost money and take time which can negatively impact the organization financially as well as the overall quality. I thought this article was a good starting point on researching for my next presentation because it shows four broad categories on how listening can positively impact the workplace. Also I think this relates to our class well because most of us want to be future managers and listening is an important aspect of that position.

Reflection on conflict between physicians and administration class

On Monday, my two classmates presented on the topic of conflict between physicians and administration. I thought the class went very smoothly and I was able to take away some key points from the presentation. There actually is an issue between physicians and administration, and the center piece seems to be that the two sides don't truly know what the others do on a day to day basis. Administrators usually focus on the money side of the care and how the departments are running financially. On the other hand, physicians focus on the patients and the overall quality of care delivered by the hospital or different health care setting. This causes an obvious divide between the two because they cant truly respect the skills and hard work that they each bring in order to create a well functioning hospital. I believe one way that this problem can be solved is for physicians and administrators to possibly have lunch in a neutral setting in order for them to discuss the issues that one another are facing and how they can potentially be solved. Work can become stressful at times and competition can spark up, which is why I believe that a neutral setting would really be an efficient way for the two parties to come together to discuss things. Also, I think that these two different parties should have to take some background courses in college in order to get some basic facts about one another. This could cause the conflict to decrease because physicians and administrators because they would each know the role that they play individual as well as together as a team. Another key point that I took away from the presentation revolved around the concept of making checklists during surgery or any other medical procedure. During a Ted talk, the speaker whose name I cant quite remember, said the number of medical errors while using the checklist was significantly lower than when a checklist isn't used. This may seem simple but today's medical world revolves around specialists, who may think that they know how to do everything without taking the appropriate time to make sure everything is going smoothly. Some errors are caused by lack of attention such as poor sanitation. With a checklist, these errors can be reduced because the doctors will take more time to focus on them. Lastly, this Ted talk mentioned the idea of "pit crews" in the health care field. A pit crew is a team that works efficiently to get the race car driver in and out of the pit as fast as possible. In the health care field, the concept would work well because the specialists could all work together to get the patient healthy as fast as possible. This would allow health care quality and efficiency to increase immensely in my opinion.

Pre work for performance evaluations

1.)  What characteristics make a good performance evaluation?
    
       In my opinion I think that passion, communication skills, goal oriented, detail focused, adaptable, and creative are characteristics of an individual that would have a good performance evaluation. Passion shows that an individual truly cares about the organization and accomplishing the goals that have been set in order to succeed.  Communication skills show that effective conversations are occurring which lead to less errors because more people are on the same page with what is going on. An individual that is goal oriented will strive to accomplish these tasks, showing managers that this person is willing to go above and beyond. Being detail oriented is a huge part of a successful performance evaluation because it shows that this person isn't flighty or not paying attention but rather can listen to directions. Health care solutions are never written in stone, showing that adaptability is huge because an individual has to learn how to solve problems even when he solution may not be noticeable. Lastly, being creative puts an individual in front of the rest of the team because it shows that he is engaged with the work and wants to find a unique way to solve problems.

2.) What characteristics make a poor performance evaluation?

      In my opinion I think that poor conflict management skills, lack of drive, poor communication skills, and coming unprepared are characteristics of an individual that will receive a poor performance evaluation. Having poor conflict management skills doesn't look good, and shows managers that when problems arise, these types of individuals shrink and handle it the wrong way. Being lazy, or having no drive, makes an individual stand out in the work force and will most likely draw a lot of negative attention to them. Poor communication skills are a red flag in any organization because problems, ideas, and solutions can not be effectively passed from person to person leading to additional conflicts. Lastly, coming unprepared shows that the individual doesn't care how he looks like to the other people in the work place.

3.) What types of categories do you think should be on a performance evaluation?

      In my opinion the categories should be "Are you meeting the goals?" "Are you coming prepared?" Are you meeting the customers needs?" "How's your overall personality?" and "Are you working well with the team? I think these five categories hit most of the bigger qualities of running a successful organization. If an individual is exceeding in these categories, than he is most likely doing very well in his profession.

4.) Personal experiences with performance evaluations?

     Every year in April I get a performance evaluation for the year from Hannaford's super market. This is a very basic form of a performance evaluation but some of the categories were showing up on time, looking professional, customer satisfaction, team work, amount of work, and overall rating. I've been at Hannaford's for four years and have received four different performance evaluations and it has really showed me how much managers do watch their employees performances.

Class Interpretation

This Monday, my partner and I ran our first class together and I thought it came out to be pretty successful. We began the class by splitting into groups that fit similar personalities and discussed the MBTI results that our family member and friend gave to us. Splitting into groups with similar personalities allowed us to compare and contrast how we think of one another compared to what our friends and families do. After we discussed our results with people of similar personalities, we split up into groups with individuals that had opposite personalities from one another. As mentioned before, we also discussed our results that our friends and families gave to us and compared it to the results we received from ourselves. Personally, I thought this exercise did a great job of really showing how different people think of you compared to the self image you have of yourself. This also reflects to management because a future manager could perceive you as something completely different than how you see yourself in the organization. Personality becomes a huge part of the health care organization and I realized it the more time I put researching it. A big challenge that came up consistently was revolved around the idea of how to properly critique and communicate with individuals that have low self esteem. We asked the class this question and received a lot of interesting feedback and ideas on how to possibly deal with this problem.  The answer that I thought would work was constantly giving positive feedback when the individual does a task successfully and always being straightforward when communicating. Also, an effective manager should never put an individual with low self esteem in a situation where they know there going to fail which leads to even lower self esteem. Halfway through the presentation we showed a TED talk where the individual discussed how the aggressive givers are the most important part of the overall team. He thought this because these are the type of individuals who will give to others but bring up the topics that many people would feel uncomfortable mentioning. I thought this was pretty interesting because many people hate being in uncomfortable positions but sometimes this can lead to a positive change in the individual. After the video, we discussed many of the qualities of the MBTI and how there implemented into the health care field. One of the questions discussed was, "Which quality in the MBTI would be the most important in the health care field?" I answered by saying I believe openness is the most important because the health care field has answers that aren't written in black and white, and having effective communication skills is important in solving these problems. There were also other questions mentioned but they weren't as interesting as the one mentioned before. Once we concluded the presentation, we had to figure out what topic we wanted to present for the second part of the class labeled "two." We came up with the topic of listening which I overall think will be very interesting to research.

Personality and the class im directing

Next Monday my partner and I are directing our class in a topic based around personality in the workplace. As we are almost done with the power point and class activities, I realized how much research and information there  actually is revolving personality types in the work place, especially in the health care field. While researching, we found many different group activities that have been conducted in the past but we wanted to come up with something original and unique. I'm not going to give up what activity we came up with until Monday when I reflect on how the class actually went. On the other hand I wanted to discuss the pre work we sent out to the class to arrive with completed and ready to discuss come class time. We sent out two articles, one that my professor sent to us and one that Harvard business review conducted, to really set up the basic building blocks that my classmates need in order to engage effectively in the class discussion. Also, we sent out six different questions/activities that we think would be a unique way to learn about personality as a whole. The first step is having someone close to you, a parent or family member, take the MBTI test for you and see how the results compared to what they came up for themselves. I think that this will yield some pretty interesting results because individuals can perceive themselves completely different than what other people close to them might actually think about them. For example, my parents would definitely view me as even more introverted than the results that I personally took gave to me. Also, they don't see me at school and how I interact with my peers, which could produce some interesting results based on how they THINK I would act in those situations. The second step is very similar to the one mentioned above. Instead of a parent or family member taking the MBTI test for you, we thought that having a close friend complete it would be intriguing as well. After both tests are completed we want our peers to compare the results and see what matches and what doesn't. I think it would be pretty eye opening to see how a friend or parent thinks of you, compared to the actual image you have of yourself. The third step we have is for our classmates to look up their horoscope and see if the traits that the MBTI gave them matches up with the message they were given. I'm a Scorpio and the horoscope I was given today was "You may feel hemmed in by the role models society currently offers. As you struggle to reach your own definition of the truly innovative achiever, other people sometimes criticize your rather liberated attitude. Just because your ideas aren't in sync with theirs in no way invalidates them. If your ideas are too radical, theirs are too conventional. There's room for both viewpoints." This horoscope doesn't match up identically to the traits that the MBTI gave me but some parts of it are true. I tend to have differing opinions on topics compared to other individuals, but as mentioned above, it doesn't mean that I'm wrong, it just means  there's room to argue both sides of the opinion. The fourth step is asking our peers what statements we provided with them match the best with their personality type. The two statements are "I feel like I control my own destiny and what happens to me is my own doing" and "I feel like things happen to me because of fate, luck or a powerful being." Personally, I relate to the first statement the most because I've always believed that good or bad situations are brought to me based on destiny and that they were going to happen anyway. The fifth step is asking what big five trait is most desired in the workplace and why they think this trait is the most important. If I had to answer I would choose openness as the most desired trait in the workplace. I believe this because communication with other co workers is crucial and the health care field isn't written in black and white which means being open to others ideas is crucial in running an effective health care business. Lastly, to have a little fun we found an activity that had us state whether we relate to Flanders, Stewie, House, Or Darth Sidious. I relate to Flanders the most because I'm fairly easy going and tend to go with the flow more than I should sometimes. Overall I believe this pre work will really help the class engage in the topic of personality in the workplace.

Introverts in the workplace

Article: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/work/15-things-introverts-dont-work-that-makes-them-excel.html

While researching for a topic to reflect upon in my blog, I found an interesting article describing Introverts and how some of the qualities they possess that are viewed as negative are actually positive in the long run. This article really stood out to me because I was listed as an introvert in the first day of class after taking the sixteen personality test and the big five survey. I was eager to find out some of the qualities and surprisingly there were many more than I originally thought there were going to be. I'll describe a few in detail due to the fact that there were fifteen different qualities mentioned in the article. The first trait that I found interesting was that introverts don't speak before they think. This is a positive attribute because an introverted individual would take their time and listen in order to reflect on the person their communicating with. In the health care field this attribute is significant because managers don't like to get interrupted and want to see that your interpreting the information. First impressions and communication skills are key to becoming an effective manager and interrupting people ahead of you in the organization might not the be the smartest idea. Another crucial quality I discovered was that introverts don't patronize those who they lead or are below them. In class we have discussed the importance of effective managers walking around the whole organization and talking to all of the individuals about aspects in the workplace or even factors in their outside lives. One of the quotes from the article that summed up this idea was," it is second nature for introverted bosses to listen, appreciate and validate great ideas, and highly unlikely for them to treat those they lead condescendingly." When I thought about this quote, it finally clicked to me that introverted managers can be just as effective as extroverted managers. The last quality that I found really interesting was that introverts tend not to care if they work long or extended hours in the workplace. This might not sound that impressive but in reality it can be very useful. This attribute means that introverted individuals can focus on one activity for an extended period of time without losing focus. Focus is a key for an effective manager because no one wants to work for an individual that constantly lacks attention to detail. Overall this article did an excellent job summing up how introverted managers can potentially be as effective or more effective than extroverted managers.

Emotional Intelligence

During our last class we discussed the topic of emotional intelligence, which most of the class seemed to really enjoy, including myself.  We started off by taking a quiz that rates an individual on different traits related to emotional intelligence and I scored very well on the emotional self control but fairly low on empathy. Having high emotional self control means that I'm able to control my emotions very well, which includes scenarios when temptations are thrown my way. On the other hand, having low empathy means that I have a hard time sharing emotions with another individual or knowing how that individual feels based on the feelings their expressing. Personally, I believe this was more revolved around the fact that I tend to be to laid back and sometimes have difficulty expressing emotions with other people. Overall, I thought this quiz was very effective in calculating the strengths and weaknesses of individual's emotional intelligence.

The second part of the class was intriguing because the group presenting had us do a charades activity which had eight different people acting out different emotions with the rest of the class guessing what their trying to express. Some of the emotions, like happiness and sadness, were easy to distinguish because the feeling is common in every single individual. Emotions such as stressed out and confidence were harder to distinguish because different people show different signs when their experiencing these feelings. I thought this exercise fit the overall presentation really well because it represented that emotional intelligence is key in the work force and future managers need to be able to read peoples emotions based on the signs their showing. Also I thought this exercise showed how people judge each other all the time depending on the emotions and feelings their expressing. This relates directly to me because I had an interview with the New Hampshire Hospital Association and they probably judged me within seconds depending on how I presented myself and the emotions I showed.

A big bulk of the rest of the class was focused on a TED talk talking about emotional intelligence in the workforce. One of the biggest statements that I took out of this video was the fact that the presenter,  Brene Brown, said that vulnerability could be a strength of an individual in the workforce rather than a downfall. At first, I was skeptical about this being true bus as she continued through the lecture I started to believe her more and more. Every single person on the earth hates to feel vulnerable, but these types of situations really makes an individual learn from the experience and improve on it. Also, one of my classmates shared an interesting statement that one of her professors had made in the past and it stated that individuals that are scared to feel vulnerable usually don't want to ruin their pride and reputation. I believe this is spot on and I had never thought of it that way which really made me see stressful situations in a different way. The biggest takeaway from this video was that vulnerability will make an individual grow in positive ways by giving them confidence and takeaway skills that will help them improve down the road.

Overall, I thought this was an excellent presentation that really integrated the class and allowed everyone to participate. One of the biggest factors I learned was that individuals judge each other every day depending on the emotions and body language they are witnessing. Also, being put in stressful situations is really good for an individual, especially me, because it allows them to improve on their skills in the workforce. This topic was really interesting because I related extensively to most of the topics that were discussed.

Motivation

Our first real class that is run by the students is revolved around the topic of motivation, specifically self motivation and what factors influence it in a negative and positive way. We did a short quiz that asked a few questions about self motivation and asked us to rank them from a 1-5 scale on how applicable it is to our everyday lives. The score I received on the quiz was a 39, which was right in the middle of the pack. This score reflects that I'm self motivated during some scenarios, but less motivated when it comes down to other situations. I think this a pretty accurate reflection on how I motivate myself to perform in situations because I always have a strong drive when it comes down to getting school work done compared to the drive I have when there is a situation that doesn't directly affect me as much. Also, the first group asked us to write down the five things that motivated us the most and the five biggest distractions that cause us to lose that drive. My top five motivators are family, friends, future jobs, personal goals, and overall success. I remind myself everyday that these are the factors that keep me going in life and that I have to follow them in order to have a successful life. My top five biggest distractions are the weekends, friends, work, TV/Computer/Xbox, and sporting events. These are events that have consistently challenged my motivation to complete tasks because these are my outside factors that also play a critical role in my life. Learning how to balance the distractions in my life are key to increasing self motivation and I need to realize that these factors could potentially affect my life in a negative way. Motivation is a critical aspect of individual performance in organizational management due to the fact that a good working team starts with well prepared, hard working, and self driven individuals. A good working team cannot have individuals that have an issue with motivating themselves to perform at the highest level that they possibly can.  If  individuals in the work force aren't motivated, than mistakes could possibly happen due to the lack of focus and drive to complete the task in a quality manner. An organization doesn't want problems associated with their work force because it could cause the patients they serve to switch health care providers, leading to less overall profit gained. Also, if the problems come down to one certain individual that wasn't self motivated to deliver the highest quality of  care, than the organization is most likely to take some form of action in delivering an appropriate punishment. A health care worker does not want to have the reputation hanging over them as being lazy because it could affect future job offers by different organizations or promotions to new job titles. I believe that the topic of motivation is an excellent choice for the first class run by the students because that is the first step in having a quality and high functioning health care team. Overall I've learned that I need to work on balancing some of the distractions in my life to become more self motivated, no matter what the situation is. Motivation is the key to becoming successful in the work force at an individual level as well as a team level. Individuals without motivation will drag the team down and affect the overall quality of healthcare being delivered. Motivation is the engine on the team and needs to be consistently fueled with individuals that have the drive to be successful.

Individuals in Different Health Care Settings (week 2, post1)

Last week I got in contact with my mentor that our professor assigned to us on the first day of class and the experience went really well. We began our discussion by reviewing our backgrounds of one another. I went on to explain a short background of myself, where I grew up, my interests and so forth. My mentor started describing his career and the different opportunities that have presented themselves to him over his thirty year experience in the health care field. One of the things that stood out to me was the fact that he delivered health care for the navy and the setting was pre dominantly on a boat rather than a hospital. This was very intriguing to me because I've learned, for the most part, health care delivery in a hospital setting and I was curious on the similarities and differences compared to the navy. My mentor described how he was in charge of one hundred people on the naval boat, and how he moved up in the system to become the overseer of all those individuals. This made me think about all of the challenges that could come possibly come up, especially when the navy is in the middle of the ocean. When I presented the question to my mentor, he had a very interesting answer and he made it seem like it was the most important/frequent challenge that occurs in the delivery of naval health care. The problem he described was the difficulty of communicating with all of the different health care individuals when he was out at sea with the navy. This man knew how to deliver health care, but he obviously had to acquire the supplies from some health care professional on land in the United States. He described the difficulties of communicating with different health care individuals, and it revolved around the fact that he could never tell them an exact time on when he would be back to receive the goods based on the ever changing schedule of the navy. He went on to describe that having good relationships with these health care individuals was key to having a good delivery of care, especially when the navy has to cancel due to a schedule infraction. I was very intrigued that my mentor was involved in navel health care rather than traditional, hospital care because I learned all of the difficulties/problems associated with it. This made me think about communication between all kinds of health care settings and how crucial it is for individuals to have good relationships with one another. For example, a primary physician who administers a prescription medication to a patient must have a good relationship with the pharmacy in order to make sure that the drug is ready and on time. This comes down to effective relationships between the doctors, patients, and pharmaceutical workers in order for the quality of care to be as high as it could be. Ineffective communication between different health care individuals could really hurt people, whether it is a patient who wasn't given the correct care or a health care professional who makes a mistake prescribing a drug or diagnosing a sickness. These thoughts bring me back to my sophomore year when I took Health Management Systems because we learned how different health care settings communicate and transform information to one another through things like electronic health records. We went over people trying to breach the information and how these settings offer authentication protocols in order to keep the information safe, which keeps the relationships between everyone at a quality and healthy level. Overall my mentor did an excellent job describing his health care system and it really made me open my mind on how challenging it is for different health care systems to effectively communicate with one another.

Communicating with individuals

While in class, my professor had an exercise where he split us into four different groups and asked us to list things that would make a spring break vacation special to us. After the four groups finished jotting down their examples, he went on to explain that he split the four groups up based on how they scored in the 16 results test. Two of the groups where extroverts and based their decisions off either emotions or senses. The other two groups were introverts who also based their decisions on the same criteria listed before. Personally, I was in the introverted group that based most of their decision off their emotions or the spur of the moment. This exercise, for some reason, really made me think about how I've communicated with other individuals in the past, especially ones that are extroverted or have completely different personalities than me. Also, this exercise made me think of a possible discussion topic for this class in the future. Communication is a crucial part of management, and an effective manager needs to have the tools to be able to communicate with all types of people, no matter what types of personality they have. Personally, I live with six other roommates, and before I did this exercise I didn't even notice that I communicate with each of them in different ways. There are two people in my apartment that stick out to me the most that have completely different personalities and qualities from one another but still are able to communicate. The first individual has an extroverted, and aggressive type of behavior. Being in the marines might have helped in the shaping of his personality over the past couple of years, but communicating with him can become difficult. This exercise made me realize that I don't get as fired up when talking to him because I realize that he will become angry due to the emotions he frequently shows. Shouting back at a person with an aggressive behavior will get you no where because it will cause the situation to escalate quickly. Communicating in a calm and laid back style seems to be more effective due to the fact that this individual notices that the situation isn't as extreme as he foresees it. On the other hand, my other roommate is very introverted and doesn't seem to voice his opinion when people ask him questions or a situation comes up that causes him to make a radical decision. Communicating with this individual is just as hard, but in a completely different way. I try to communicate with this individual by being more stern and persuading him to tell me how he feels in certain situations, otherwise I would never know what is running through his mind. This group exercise made me realize how effective communication styles with different types of people are effective, and the lack of these skills can become detrimental in a work place.

The Health Management and Policy Field doesn't revolve around individual work. This field is driven by teamwork and ideas thrown out by multiple people in order to find the right solution to a health problem. I think the topic of effective communication skills/management techniques with individuals or groups of people could be an interesting future topic for my HMP 722 class. I believe fifteen out of the sixteen people in the class are HMP majors and management is crucial to the field. Learning about these different skills and communication techniques could really help us out in the long run if our goal is to one day become a manager of a department or hospital. Personally, I have had a manager who was terrible at communicating with her employees. This made the job unbearable and forced me to put my two weeks in after just seven months of being on the job. The manager is the engine of the team and the role model to their employees. If the employees don't feel like they can effectively communicate with their manager, than the quality of work will go down as well as their overall respect. Overall, I believe that this would be a very interesting topic to discuss in this class due to the fact that the majority of the people want to be future managers and learn the most effective communication skills that would be effective for individuals with different personality types.

Personality and Behavior Traits

During our first class of Health Management and Policy 722, which revolves around management techniques, our professor assigned us two personality tests to determine the type of person we actually are. The first test that I took was the 16 personality traits test. This test took me by surprise because I had never completed it before and it made me open my eyes to the personality I had developed over the span of my lifetime. The test gave me the role of "the adventurer" with the strategy of constant improvement. I agree with this placement because I'm always excited to try new things and try to improve on them due to the fact that I tend to be a perfectionist at times. This test showed me many strengths and weaknesses that I have and what I should really focus on to improve my behaviors. The test labeled me as introverted, which is spot on in my opinion. I definitely need to improve on this personality trait because I tend to shy away from social interactions when it comes down to group projects or assignments. If I want to have a successful career in health management than I need to learn how to work better with my peers. I always get along with my group members and contribute to the projects but I would much rather do it all on my own. Having more than one mind trying to complete a project can be beneficial because it allows many ideas to come together to form a complete answer to the problem being addressed. The other weakness I observed through this test was that I tend to be a turbulent person. I agree with this to an extent because I do get stressed out very easily, but would not label myself as self-conscious. Throughout my whole life I have always been very confident with my abilities to be successful, no matter what the situation is. This includes communicating with people, performing well in school, and any other situation that is thrown my way. This test made me realize that I have to learn how to deal with stress in a healthy way rather than bottling the emotions in, leading to sleep deprivation. The strengths that this test showed me that I have are that I'm good at improvising, spotting good opportunities, empathetic, regard other peoples feelings, and tend to have a strong focus on what is going on around me. These strengths really make me feel like I belong in the Health Management and Policy field. Having the ability to improvise when a situation goes obscure is key. Situations are not always written down in fine text and improvising allows myself to find an alternative way to solve different problems. I also believe that having regard for other peoples feelings can become very crucial in the work force. Personally, I love when people seem to care about what I have to say about a certain topic because it makes it feel like it is truly important. No one wants to feel like their irrelevant or not contributing to the task at hand. Overall I was very impressed on how accurate the 16 personality traits test was and it opened my eyes on the true weaknesses and strengths that I bring to the tables day in and day out.

The second test that I took was the Big five personality test. I have taken this test before, around three times for previous classes and it usually gives me the same results. As mentioned before the test stated that I enjoy spending time alone. In this case I didn't agree with the test because I like to be social with peers outside of school. The only time I tend to be antisocial is when it comes to group projects. The test also showed that  I tend to become anxious and stressed more often than others. Again, I already knew this from the previous test and it didn't go into as much depth as the 16 Personality Trait survey. The one placement that really stood out to me was that I'm neither organized or disorganized. I disagree with this statement because I always have everything organized whether it revolves around my school work or personal belongings. Also, I was intrigued when I scored very low in the openness to experience/intellect category. The test states that low scores tend to be conventional, down to earth, and uncreative. Thinking about this made me realize I do tend to lack the skill of being creative and that I'm usually down to do whatever. Overall, this test was correct for the most part but I thought that the 16 Personality Trait survey was more accurate.

As I review these test placements I realize what I have to continue to do and work on to be successful in the management field. I have to learn how to enjoy working with my peers on projects and being able to have the ability to brief audiences even when I feel anxious. I also cant be down to earth about everything and voice my opinion when the time is necessary. Regarding other peoples feelings, and focusing on the task in hand can be beneficial traits that I can bring to the field. Working hard has never been a downfall of mine which I am thankful for. Overall I was extremely satisfied with these two tests because it opened my mind on the person that I truly am.