BTEC EXTENDED DIPLOMA

LEVEL 7 STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP

UNIT 2: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR STRATEGIC MANGERS

ASSIGNMENT TITLE
SKILLS REVIEW
AND
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLANNING
UNIT CODE: F/602/2061

JUNE 2012

Submission Date: 28th September 2012

Assessor: Yahaya Alhassan

Submit by:
Shyam Hari Maharjan
Student ID: 4481

Table of Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 2
1.1 Methods of evaluating personal skills to achieve strategic goals ........................................ 3
1.2. Techniques of accessing professional skills ....................................................................... 4
2.1 Skill Audit to evaluate strategic skill ................................................................................... 4
2.2 Preferred Learning Style ...................................................................................................... 6
3.1. Personal development plan ................................................................................................. 7
3.2. Methods to assess the outcomes of personal development plan ......................................... 8
3.3. Impact on learning against achievement of strategic goal Error! Bookmark not defined.
Summary.................................................................................................................................... 4
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................... 11

Introduction

Mark and spencer PLC (M&S) is one of the UKs leading retailer and over 78000 workers working
across 700 stores in the United Kingdom. It offers stylish, high quality, great value clothing and
home products, as well as outstanding quality foods from around 2000 suppliers globally.

In this current situation, it is most important to clear understanding of organisational vision, mission
and long term objectives by strategic manager. To carry on the all functions properly his/her own
personal and professional skills must be reviewed and if necessary participated in various training
and development organised by M&S. This skills is very important for mangers to operate daily
activities and handle unfavourable situation to achieve its objectives. As a operation manager of
M&S, I can use different tools and approaches to analysis and interpret skills I have and finding out
the skills needs for future development.
1.1 Methods of evaluating personal skills to achieve strategic goals
Personal skills are important requirement for every managers because the personality of manager
plays a role model for other employees working together. (Riddle, 2012), describes some of the
personal skills are:

Time Management
Time Management is important tools needs for every team members. To achieve setting objectives
and goals of M&S, the manager must capable to direct its staff in timely manner to accomplish in
scheduled time. Managers can able to supervise the time wasters in organization and deal with them
wisely which will help to direct them toward designated task.

Communication Skills
The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our
lives Anthony Robbins
Effective communication is most necessary skills. It is important to communicate about M&S goals,
objectives and demands with its employees on time. So, manager must able to well communicate
with employees to deliver correct information (objectives, responsibilities and decision) in various
level. Manager should capable to handle conflict gently and listen their subordinates is the good
examples of communication skills.
Stress Management Skills

In the organisation, plenty of unseen issues are arises in various level, which is stressful for
employees and managers too. M&S was faced 0.9% of sales decrease cause of highly competitive
market creates stress among the people within the organisation. To handle this situation managers
must have develop new marketing strategies to recover its position get back in the market will
provide relief to employees and management from stress. Manager must able to make right decision
at right time to handle stress among its staff and stakeholders.
1.2. Techniques of accessing professional skills
A manager of organization should use different techniques to assess professional skills according
to organizational needs to achieve its objectives. (W. David Rees, 2008)Some of the professional
necessary for managers are explained below:

Coaching and Counselling:

At the workplace of M&S, there are so many small issues arises during a working period, which
are facing by employees and this reason can affect productivity and performance of organisation.
To solve this issues, managers should able to use counselling, mentoring and coaching skills on
time, using is skills to provide full guidance to employees will helps to come out from the situation.
In this way, lots of issues arises in organisation can be solved on the spots. Gently given advice has
motivated and inspired toward work can long run of business.

Mentoring: Manager should use this skills to support their staff for learning new systems
implemented in the M&S. This can be done by face to face short teaching on the job site, which is
more comfortable to learn about new systems.

Leadership Skills: Change is important process of organisation which can be accepted by

organisation due to various factors behind its environment, such as change of IT system, divisional
structure and centrally controlled budget. Organisation come over from this situation, managers
should adopt good leadership style to lead the M&S can adopt new strategies. Leading the M&S in
right direction in current situation depends upon the managers so leadership skills is most important
for managers.

2.1 Skill Audit to evaluate strategic skill

A skill audit is a review of existing skills and identify the skills required for future leadership
requirement such as changes in technology, merging and acquisition etc. This evaluation finds out
the skills required to perform the present role and plan to develop necessary skills for future
leadership requirement. For example, as an operation manager I need to set up necessary strategic
goals such as increase sales, profit maximization and high market share.
The steps to identify my skills
a. Identification of my existing skills and knowledge
The existing knowledge and skills, consider being important for the current position. I
should write down the different skills I have and need to improve or develop accordingly.
b. Identification of my future skills and knowledge
The skills and knowledge need to accomplish my current and future career opportunities
within the organization.
c. Rating my ability
Rate the both current lists on the scale of 1 to 5 describing my current capability.
The following symbol represents my capability.
1 = Little competency
2 = Not sufficiency competent to use
3 = Some Competency
4 = High level of competency
5 = Fully competency.
d. Review my ability ratings
I can ask my subordinates and senior managers evaluate and review the rating score. They
provide me appropriate feedback, which helps me to understand my level and able to take
appropriate action for further improvement.
e. My Future Development
By analysing the whole information related to me, where I will get the low score need to
improvement for better performance. (Hull, 2012)

The following table is evaluating my current skills and skills need to develop for future roles.

Knowledge and skills which I consider to be Your Ability Rating (1-5) or strong /
weak / somewhere in between
important for my current role
Communication skill

Mentoring Skill

Self-development Skill

Technological skill

Knowledge and skills which I consider to be Your Ability Rating (1-5) or strong /
important for my future career
weak / somewhere in between
Problem Solving

Application

Self-learning

2.2 Preferred Learning Style

Learning styles can be defined as a set of cognitive, emotional, characteristic and physiological
factors that serve as relatively stable indicators of how a learner perceives, interacts with, and
responds to the learning environment (Keefe 1979).

Honey and Mumford developed the learning style, based on the work of Kolb, and describes four
learning preferences Activist, Theorist, Pragmatic and Reflector. These are the learning approaches
that individuals prefer (Mobbs, 2013).
The Neil Flemings VARK model is most common and widely used learning styles. It contains four
learning preferences which are Visual, Aural, Read/Write and Kinesthetic (Fleming, 2013). Both
of these learning styles have a similar characteristic of learning preferences. I decided to use the
VARK questionnaire to identify my preferred learning style. After filling up the given questions,
read/write shows the highest scores of 8, means my preferred learning style is reading/writing.
Though I always like to learn various skills by following certain instruction, reading relevant
theories, models and participate in group discussion. However I feel comfortable while writing
script is medium of communicating and I can share necessary information very effectively.

Furthermore I can learn quickly and develop some important skills by reading textbook, guidelines
and relevant information.
Please find the attached VARK questionnaire in a separate page.
3.1. Personal development plan
A Personal Development Plan (PDP) enables to identify key areas of learning and development
activity that will help me to acquire new or develop existing skills. The table below shows my
personal development plan for 6 months.

Table 1.1 Personal Development Plan for 6 months (July-December 2012)

Skill

Current

Target

Development Criteria

Proficiency

Proficiency

Opportunity

Evidence

for
Judging
success

Problem
Solving

Good
knowledge in
planning and
organizing

Be
an
excellent in
conflict
management
and planner
organizer by
the end of
September
2012

Participate in
group
discussion
with expert
facilitator

Report on
successfull
y manage
the
problems
wisely and
develop the
best
plan
for
team
mobilizatio
n.

Indicate in a
self
assessment
template

Applications

Moderate skill
in calculation
and
interpretation
of budget and
project
presentation

Achieve
100% capable
in
forecast
budget
and
good
interpreter by
the end of
2012

Organize
sharing
program with
Senior
Finance
director and
international
team leader

Success to
prepare
budgets of
new project

Look
indicator in
selfassessment
template of
application

Self-learning

General
knowledge
about
selfawareness,
effective
learning and
study skill

Expert
in
effective selflearning and
study skill by
October 2012.

Using leisure
time in office
library
and
visit
the
central library
to
collect
relevant
books
to
enhance skill

Ability to Look selfgain

assessment
adequate
template
knowledge
about selflearning
and study
skills

Source: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/43096344/Personal-Development-Plan-Template

3.2. Methods to assess the outcomes of personal development plan

Personal Development plan is the important tools for professional development which helps me to
assess my skills and abilities to achieve personal goals. With the help of PDP, I can easily assess
the strong capabilities and high competencies of personal skill and taking necessary steps to
improve in weak areas.
The personal development plan in table 1.1 shows that all these skills need to be achieved by the
end of 2012. Which is very important to obtain personal work objectives (such as increase the sales,
team development, profit maximization etc.).
The following methods are suitable for assessing the outcomes.

Reviewing and monitoring: Self reviewing is important method to evaluate the exact performance
of the proposed plan, when review indicates some weakness behind outcomes develop a new plan
which can be achieved. Suppose the self-learning skill is not completely achieved because of
engaging in other activities. Therefore time period is extended for next 3 months for gaining that
skill. Regularly monitoring the working pattern and create the working document where every
single activity are recorded. That worksheet shows what is achievable and what need to be achieved.

Evaluation: Using the appropriate table and listing out skills needs for development and
continuously keep records of improvement in different stages. Then compare the latest competence
with old one. Suppose I can able to construct good planning for new product development and
prepared budgetary process is as a standards requirement, indicates the achieved skills is met the

organisational standardized for that level or role. However increase the sales by 2% and
performance of team members is higher than before also determine the outcomes of my skills
development is satisfied.

Portfolio: The evaluation of the personal plan for working strategies, the portfolio is the best
method to assess my PDP. This indicates my personal skills are improved in certain level and in
some sorts of skill still need to be improved. It indicates the weaken area and provides me necessary
suggestions to improve required in specific areas related to my work objectives. This is the form of
working document which helps me to enhance my skills for new careers (Pearson, 2011).

3.3. The impact of learning against the achievement of strategic goals

(Rodrigo, 2012) has described learning is essential for the long-term achievement of the
organisational strategic goals. The managers understand the learning process to ensure that not only
the needs of individuals are met but that the store of wisdom and know how can flows effectively.
Theories of learning can act as a framework for managers to help in the identification and analysis
of problems (Mullins, 1999).

It gives me broad ideas and understanding the usage of techniques in an implementation of changes
in M&S. The impact is that I was able to create a better environment where employees were
understood and accepts the changes such as IT system, organisational structure, role and
responsibilities.

Therefore it helps me to plan effectively for achieving strategic goals of

sustainability in the current situation and technological changes in the stores.

By self-learning I realised that employees of M&S have not sufficient customer service skill.
Although I recommended management for organising comprehensive training on customer service
for staff members. The effective completion of the training staffs is more aware about customer
services and dedicated to serve best possible services for customers. The changing behaviour with
customer impacts on increase sales of M&S. However M&S achieved its strategic goals of increase
market share and profitability.

It teaches me how to improve the efficiency and performance of employees for maintaining the
quality of services and productivity. It directly impacts on reducing the product cost heading toward
the achievement of M&S strategic goals.
It helps me to increase my capabilities of sales forecasting skill. By implementing that skill,
organisation sales are increased by 2%, these measures the achievement of its strategic goals of
increase sales.

The Learning helps me to understand my strength and weakness which need to be improved. The
good development plan of skill improvement enhanced my qualification. Therefore I can make a
quick decision for business opportunity links with strategic goals of organisational growth in the
global market.

It helps me to learn methods, ideas, concepts and theoretical knowledge about problem solving.
Thus I can manage issues diligently and solve the conflict raised in the organisation. This impacts
on development of good relationships between stakeholders, employees and management.
Summary
The main purpose of this skill review is analysis the personal skills and professional skills requires
for strategic mangers of any organization. That enables them to identify the requirement of skills
and doing audit skill evaluate the level of skills exist with managers. All these development process
are impacting by peoples learning styles. So learning style should be determined for develop
personal plan.

However it is one of the important parts of development process. Personal development plan helps
to construct skill development plan for fix period and that shows the clear picture for need to
achieve. After completion of study, I understand my learning style and capable to identify my
required skills and success to develop personal development plan.

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Bibliography

Barney Erasmus, H. S. (2008). South African Human Resource Management (4th ed.). Formeset.
Cambridge, U. o. (2012). skill.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 09 17, 2012, from
www.skills.cam.ac.uk/staff/pdp/pdptemplate.doc
Fleming, N. (2013, 09 98). VARK a guide to learning style. Retrieved from http://www.varklearn.com/english/index.asp
Hull, T. U. (2012). Skill Audit. Retrieved 09 17, 2012, from
http://www.hull.ac.uk/php/cesagh/documents/SKILLSAUDIT.rtf
Jon M. Werner, R. L. (2012). Human Resource Development (6th ed.). Mason: Erin Joyner.
Mobbs, D. R. (2013, 09 12). Honey and Mumford. Retrieved from
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Mumbord, A. (1994). Gower handbook of Management Development (4th ed.). Aldershot: Gower
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Riddle, J. (2012, November 23). 5 Personal Management Skills for being awesome. Retrieved 09
18, 2012, from workawesome: http://workawesome.com/management/personalmanagement-skills/
W. David Rees, C. P. (2008). Skills of management (6th ed.). Lonndon: Geraldine Lyons EMEA.

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