Time Management and Cultural Competence in Diverse America - Literature review Example

Management Skills Name Course Tutor Date Management Skills Management in entire organizational and business practices is the act of having individuals to accomplish the expected targets and objectives through the application of available resources successfully and efficiently. Management entails organizing, leading, planning, staffing, or controlling a team of one or more individuals, entities, or a company. Resourcing entails the deployment and control of financial resources, human resources, natural resources, and technical resources. Because companies may be observed as systems, management may as well be referred to as human operations involving design to enhance the production of significant results from the system. This observation opens the chance of managing oneself, a precondition to trying to organize others. Time management is concern with optimizing the use of one’s most valuable resources. Last minute scuttles to fulfill deadlines identify lack of time management, unions that are sometimes double booked or attain nothing, days that appears by some means to slip unutilized, challenges that loom unanticipated from nowhere. This form of environment results to undue stress and degradation of production: it should be blocked. Poor time management is usually a sign of over confidence: mechanism that applied to work with tiny projects and workloads are just reapplied with greater ones. However, ineffectiveness that was irrelevant in the tiny functions is comical in the greater ones. Just as one cannot ride a motorcycle like a bicycle nor can one control a supermarket-chain the way a market stall is controlled. The conditions, the challenges, and the payoffs for raised success are all greater as one’s functions and roles increases; and one must learn to use appropriate approaches for better management. In the article “hand book on time management skills” written by centre for good governance (CGG), it gives an appraisal of some of the fundamental skills, which are crucial for successive production and performance. The article concentrates heavily on the current organizational practices and why some companies fails in delivering their duties yet they have competent personnel. This article concentrates on the way employee in the company management may generate techniques and plans, which will allow them successfully address time management challenges in a range of contexts. On the other hand, the article “the importance of cultural competence in caring for working in a diverse America” written by Victoria Parker focus on the relationships of individuals working in an environment characterized by diversity and different age groups. This two articles stresses on the need for planning and understanding one’s environment in order for employee to maximize their time usage and achieve optimal performance in whatever they do. However, Parker in is article emphasized that the aging population have become diversified just as the people in other institutions throughout the world. On the same note, patterns such as raised female employee contribution and raised migration increase the opportunity, which people are employed in different places. This transfers cultures from one place to another, and create a big diversity in the working environment. Usually, the employees initially think of management in terms of roles, or as the exercise of measuring a volume often and of regulating some original plans. This occurs even in circumstance that planning is not necessary. From this observation, Parker (2010) takes management to comprise of six roles: planning, forecasting, commanding, controlling, coordinating, and organizing. He was among the most influential initiators of current concepts of management. In modern enterprises, management is frequently assumed what it needs to be carried out to keep functions moving. Nevertheless, for an enterprise to develop and stay competitive, one should always master some given basic management skills and leadership. Skills needed should assist one evade the challenging conditions and apply tactical measures to overcome work pressure. Daniel Goleman who wrote the article “what makes a leader” supports these concepts. Here, Goleman (2004) stated that it seeking a person with the right management skills and competence in time management is more of an art than science. He adds that individual’s management skills vary considerably and it need not be fixed. Goleman (2004) focus his article on assessing emotional intelligence in relation to time management. He argues that several organizations in the contemporary society have hired trained psychologists to create what is referred to as “competency models” to support administrators in pointing, training, and endorsing possible managers in then leadership path. In undertaking this activity, Goleman’s focus was to establish which individual abilities pushed significant performance within the company, and to what extent they did so. Just as Parker asserted in his article, CGG (2001) also supported the management theories stating that everyone on earth is given equal amount of time of 60 seconds in a minute; 60 minutes in an hour; 1,440 minutes in a day; and 526, 600 minutes in a year. Individual time management is, therefore, very essential because it will determine how far they go. In fact, whereas a number of majorities of individual admits wavering to hold it, exceedingly few may assert to have made the most out of it. The way they have it carried out it due to their management approaches on how to focus and manage their time successfully. American societies rousingly reflect several ethnic past and values. Parker (2010) argued that not astonishingly, these population alterations are also influencing the composition of facilities, which care for older adults with operational confinements. He further states that while ethnic or racial diversity among certified workers and other employees has the capability to generate greatly effective work teams, these variances can result to challenges in responses and communication, making work less fulfilling. He, however, added that when such dissatisfactions occur, there will be increased poor time management among employees and organizational performance and production will drop drastically. Parker also claimed that work groups having diverse memberships have been determined to have both higher and reduced efficiencies as compared to those without. This, therefore, implies that suitably managed team diversity may be an asset to production, but poorly managed diversity inclines to detract. On the other hand, CGG (2001) remarked that time management is higher than only managing time. They developed a model that proofs that it is about organizing the use of the most valuable – undervalued- resource. In fact, it deals with organizing oneself in association to time. This includes making priorities and taking control on the circumstance and time utilization. The institute adds that it concerns with amending those behaviors or practices, which brings waste of time. This means it is more of having the desire to accept behaviors and techniques to ensure optimal use of time. However, all the three articles agrees that with appropriate time management and having an open working environment full of diversified cultures, one is in control of all individual time, energy levels, and stress. With these characteristics, one is able to sustain a balance between individual work and personal life where they will get extra flexibility to react to disclosures or new chances. This is not determined by how much time a person has, but instead the method one applies in it. Daniel Goleman (2004) also analyzed some data and had some interesting results on evaluation of emotional intelligence in relation to time management. He emphasized that intellect was a force of excellent performance. In time management, cognitive skills and concentration are certainly essential. The assessment indicated that emotional intelligence have increasingly crucial role at the greatest levels of an organization, where variances in technical experiences are of little significance. In most organization, when one becomes a manager they gain control of work even though not entirely. One can also change things as it is indicated in all the three articles through positioning and orientation or initiation of some other projects. The articles also emphasize the time management in an organization depends on corporate laws as well as individual dedication. In addition, CGG (2001) add that while working in a diversified environment, there are several opportunities and one needs to plan on how to seize them and use accordingly as a manager. For instance, Parker (2010) argued that there are three main roles done by a manager while leading a team. These roles include being an organizer where a manager has to take a long-term perspective, for indeed the higher one rises, the further they will have to look. Normally, while a group member works towards determined and known objectives, the manager should see further in front in order for the objectives to be selected timely and wisely. The manager also has to be a provider where according to Goleman, this entails being accessible to materials and information that the group requires. He adds that in time management, one should have influence or authority to achieve things that no one among the team can. This function of a manager is fundamental because no one may have the courage to undertake the job: there is certain influence that the manager have distinctively within the group, and the manager should practice this to assist the group work. Lastly, the manager should be a protector just as they will be managing their time; they need to protect others from dangers. This is because when a team member gets hurt the work that would have been done will remain unresolved. This will waste time and once wasted can never be recovered (Goleman, 2004). Signs of poor time management are also discussed by CGG, and they illustrated that this aspect is a combination of distinctive detectable signs. They stated that managers would operate well to appear and reflect on whether they are under any of the established signs. Some of the illustrated signs of poor time management as per CGG (2001) are regular rushing, constant delays, low performance, motivation, and energy, frustration, persistent indecisiveness between alternatives, impatience, and difficulty making and attaining goals. A number of factors, which include poor planning, procrastination, crisis management, interruptions, unnecessary meetings, not delegating duties among others, causes this signs and symptoms. To solve all these problems, Goleman (2004) stated that one needs self-awareness as the initial element of soul searching. Self-awareness implies holding a firm knowledge of individual strengths, emotions, weaknesses, drives, and needs. Individuals with firm self-awareness are neither exceedingly grave nor impractically hopeful. Instead, they are sincere with themselves and those around them in terms of management and working with others in a diverse environment. Goleman proceeded to assert that this is because individuals with great level of self-awareness realize the way their feelings and attitudes influence them, those working with them, and their work performance. Therefore, a self-aware individual who understands that fixed deadlines brings out the worst in him organize his time cautiously and ensures his job is carried out appropriately in advance. Parker on the other hand, moves on to explain what are the consequences of cultural competence functions and their implications to the society and organizations. He illustrated in his article that cultural competence has essential implications on the way manager deals through workforce growth. However, the inadequacy of standardization in cultural diversity is one of the obstacles to the growth of company’s strategies to encourage cultural diversity (Parker, 2010). He further gave the definition of cultural diversity as the suitable behaviors and attitudes between and among employees, clients, and other stakeholders for long-term organizational objectives. He gave example of a medical field where the stretch presents a challenge in terms of offering direction for those willing to promote and evaluate cultural change and diversity. This requires concerns not just personal level such as behaviors and attitudes, but also to structural interests involving policies. It carries the discussion over cultural competence as something suppliers have to be aware of to associate to customers, to comprise interactions among suppliers, as well. Unfortunately, Parker claimed that several companies initiate a much narrower statement of workers diversity. In fact, one incident where this is portrayed is stress placed on interaction services while associating with other employees. People need to understand one another, and be close to other leaders to understand the good and bad things in an organization. With all the information provided in these three articles, what needs to be remembered is that management skills should have long-term objectives that the manager should attain especially to the support, growth, and encouragement of work mates. Nevertheless, long-term goals have issues of being fundamental but not urgent, they have no deadlines, and they are further away and remote. For this purpose, it is all largely simple to assume them in consideration of immediate and urgent ones. Openly a balance should be struck. The goodness of management skills is that the balance may be selected objectively (without alterations from the current deadlines) and self-inflicted through the application of the plan for time management. Once one has initiated appropriate management skills, it is worth applying some of that deal to enhance one’s career. Throughout one’s life, there are a number of challenges and situations, which calls for quick actions while others need tactical analysis and evaluation before coming up with a strategy. All these require management and experiences. It is, therefore, worth noting that management skills are just a necessity in company or at individual organization. Management is central to attaining great successes and development in whatever field, but it needs patients and application of common sense planning. It needs little force, but it supports effective work practices through marking wastage and results to efficient application of time through concentration on the selected function. References: Centre for Good Governance (2001). Handbook on Time Management Skills. Journal of Communication, 5(2), p. 67-88. Goleman, D. (2004). What Makes a Leader? Harvard Business Review, 2; p. 1-18. Parker, V. (2010). The Importance of Cultural Competence in Caring for and Working in a Diverse America. Journal of the American Society, 34(4), p. 97-102. Read More