Develop critical thinking in others
Complete the following activities:
Task 3.1 Monitor and improve thinking practices
Assume that you are now three months into implementing initiatives to develop critical and creative thinking skills in the management team.
The following scenarios occurred:
SCENARIO A
The CEO informs you that the Marketing Manager submitted an issue report about a seminar for education agents that his team is organising. The CEO is disappointed by how the Marketing Manager is handling the issue because he is not proposing any innovative solution: ‘He is simply not going to use the show bags. What are we going to do with 500 show bags made specifically for this event?’ he says.
See the report filed by the Marketing Manager below:
| Issue Report | |
| Date | April 23 20XX |
| Department | Marketing |
| Issue | Delay – show bags delivery for the Education Agent Seminar on Sunday, May 16, 20XX |
| Issue Register I3520XX | |
| Issue reported by | Mark Lawson – Marketing Manager |
| Issue description | The show bags for the event will arrive two weeks late and be delivered on the Saturday before the event. The event set-up is scheduled for Friday at the event venue. There is no budget allocated to pay staff to work after hours on Saturday to fill the show bags with the merchandise and information material. |
| Recommendation – remedial actions | Use plain paper bags. Do not use the show bags. |
| Decision Maker | CEO |
| Approval | CEO |
| Approval date | |
| Signature for approval | |
| Issue resolution responsibility, timelines and allocated budget as identified by the Program Sponsor | |
| Closure date | |
You have received the following feedback about the Marketing Manager:
- Works long hours and starts working again very early in the morning
- Low productivity
- His team does not feel supported
- He does not consider process improvement a priority
- The marketing team is not involved in the decision-making
- The Marketing Manager is jovial and engaged when working with the other departmental manager
SCENARIO B
You have followed the organisational policy and procedures and introduced the departmental managers and their teams to the training programs listed below
You collected the following feedback:
- 1- Online induction for newly appointed team members
Feedback: The online induction is well structured; however, it is generic. It does not address the specific needs of the individual teams.
- 2- Engaged guest speakers to meet with the teams every two months to address different topics such as:
- Design Thinking
- Decision-Making
- Communicate effectively
- Active listening
Feedback: Participation in these events is low (45%) because teams prefer to stay back and work on their daily tasks.
- 3- Monthly ‘Think Tank’ meeting with the departmental managers, CEO, and the CFO to discuss issues and improvements.
Feedback: The initiative has been successful; however, it runs for too long (3 hours rather than 2 hours).
- 4- Established a reward program with a budget of $1,000/months to reward the best team (criteria: adherence to policies and procedures, the achievement of monthly milestones, meet budget, have the lowest number of issues reported).
Feedback: Teams welcomed the initiative; however, they think that the criteria do not reward teams that succeeded against challenging circumstances by applying critical and creative thinking skills.
Develop a report (Template 1) in the form of personal notes to evaluate the two scenarios, determine lessons learned and provide recommendations for improvement.
(150-200 words in total)
Template 1 -Report
| Report |
| SCENARIO A · What support does the Marketing Manager require? · What solution would you propose for the issue described in the issue report in Scenario A? · What advice would you give the Marketing Manager to improve his critical and creative skills? · What advice would you give the Marketing Manager to improve his work relationship with the team? · How could the Marketing Manager better support his team? · What learning arrangements would you organise for the Marketing Manager? · What lessons can be learned from this scenario? |
| SCENARIO B · What would you improve in each initiative? · What lessons can be learned from this scenario? · What recommendations would you give for improvements in future learning arrangements according to relevant legislation and organisation policies?
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