Professional Development Plan

Table of Contents: Table of Contents: ...............................................................................................................1 Introduction: ........................................................................................................................1 What is the Professional development Plan (PDP)?............................................................1 Motivation: ..........................................................................................................................3 Stress Management:.............................................................................................................4 Study and Academic Skills .................................................................................................5 References:...........................................................................................................................6

Introduction: In the Beginning when I read the assignment for the First time a lot of questions began to run down into my brain, I started wondering why should I spend so much time creating my Professional Development Plan! , why should I be so concerned about planning my Future career and developing my Professional identity! , but then I started to read more about these topics and I started to realize that if I dont take responsibility for the success of my career, no one will do that for me, I started to dig deeper into my self to find out what are my strengths and how to enhance them, on the other hand I looked into my weaknesses and how to improve them and turning them to strengths with time. I tried to link that with my previous working experience in the hospitality and Tourism industry where I used to work as events Executive and to focus on the skills I need to acquire , I started to think how to develop my working personality , Norms , Emotions and values and make the best out of what I have What is the Professional development Plan (PDP)? The main Goal of the personal development plan to me , is that as students and future managers I need to reflect My own strengths and weaknesses, and direct My own learning process by establishing personal learning goals (Reynaert et al. 2006) , This Model proved to be successful in increasing and measuring job performance , also it is important asset to career planning and personal motivation as per (Kneale, 2002) Professional development Plan provides chances for every student to develop skills which will be essential and required in the workplace . In this Assignment although as an individual I need to improve many aspects and characteristics of my PDP which can be shown in (Diagram A below). I have decided to speak only about three points which are according to my personality provides a great interest both in the academic and future working parts. These points includes motivation, stress management and academic skills specifically writing skills which Also can be shown in (Diagram B below) 1

(Diagram A: Self Reflective and PDP)

Motivation Evaluating skills Study and Academic skills

Leadership skills

Self Reflective

Stress management

Communication skills

Time Management skills

Strategic Thinking

Problem Solving Skills

(Diagram B concentrates on motivation, stress management and academic skills)

Motivation

Self Reflective

Stress management

Study and Academic skills

Motivation: Many social and business authors tried to Identify Motivation, however I found this definition to be the simplest but still the easiest to understand, Motivation can be defined as combination of Needs and wants that affects our actions and the way we behave (Kressler, 2003). I believe that being motivated is a vital element In order to accomplish any task given to me successfully, In addition a very important thing to understand about Motivation is that it can be attracted to situational and personal factors also the things that motive us differs according to our unique personalities and the situation that we are facing (Wiley, 1997). one individual can be motivated by feeling that he is related to the Value system and business objectives in his working environment which can be a company , educational institute or any other organization in addition other individuals are motivated by the need to please other people (Kressler, 2003) . In his Book a Theory of Human Motivation, From 1943 Abraham H.Maslow was able to develop the first complete Theory about motivation at work (Kressler, 2003). Abraham H.Maslow presented five different levels of individual needs and one human can not move to a higher category before satisfying and achieving the needs in the lower category, however the highest top category can never be reached and Maslow argues that the desire to fulfill unreached categories is what motivate people. (Figure 1 below represents MASLOW'S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS) (Figure 1: MASLOW'S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS)

On a personal level each individual is driven by the Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivation. While Intrinsic motivation concentrate on internal factors that exists within in the individual being such as personal interest and to do a task and finding cretin tasks challenging , Extrinsic motivation concentrate on external rewards and these rewards can either be materialistic such as money and personal gifts or psychological such as recognition . Intrinsic motivation exists from the individual drive for self-determination or proficiency however extrinsic motivation is the pursuit of some results or outcome for doing a cretin task or job (Oliver and Anderson, 1994).

Stress Management: Several terms have been used to identify the term Stress However one of the many definitions of stress is Stress is a dynamic condition in which an individual is confronted with an Opportunity, constraint, or demand related to what he or she desires and for which the outcome is perceived to be both uncertain and important. (Robbins, 2001, pp. 563), in his Book Robbins argue that two requirements are essential for likely stress to be turned to a real stress either there are uncertainty over the outcome of certain action or the result of certain action or behavior is important, another definition of stress was found by Mosley et al. (2001), A condition arising from the interaction of people and their jobs and characterized by changes within people that force them to deviate from their normal functioning. (Mosley et al. 2001, pp. 423).

Both Robbins and Mosley agreed that the effect of stress can be categorized in three different blocks physiological, behavioral and psychological symptoms ((Robbins, 2001; Mosley et al., 2001). Physiological symptoms caused by stress might include; headache, high blood pressure, increased apatite and in some cases loss apatite. While Psychological symptoms might include nervousness, bad temper, anger, boredom and increased tension as per Robbins (2011) this will decrease satisfaction from work and lead to low performance. Finally some of Behavioral symptoms may include absence, restlessness, increased smoking and consumption of alcohol and developing other bad habits, in addition to decrease in productivity (Robbins, 2001). Robbins (2001) also argues that a moderate level of stress can have a positive effect and increase the commitment to work and it even might be one of the company strategy to keep the stress level as productive as possible but he also argues that what can be determined as stimulus to one individual may be seen as pressure to other individual depending on the degree of experience that the individual obtains and the personality of the individual. When it comes to Individual strategies while dealing with stress it was found that exercise, time management methods, widen social network and relax training proven to be very effective to reduce the degree of stress. Regular Exercise or at least two times a week helps to better handling of pressure and release the stress it is the same case when it comes to relaxation training and techniques in fact Researchers confirm that exercise and relaxation techniques if practiced regularly will create calmness and other positive physical changes for example lower blood pressure and better Cardio which reminds me of an old Arabic saying which indicates that a healthy mind and soul should be contained in a healthy body . With regards to a well balanced social networking and time management methods, Close friends and family can listen to the actual issue and challenges and perhaps come up with a better objective view of the situation also these relationships between friends and family proven to be of great importance for pleasure, wellbeing of individual as well as a solid base for mutual support and sign of sympathy (Robbins, 2001). On time management (Robbins 2001) argues that each and every individual needs to schedules his day an addition to prepare what to do list for the next day. Study and Academic Skills According to Cottrells (2001, p. 46) study Skills can be identified as part of a broader process of personal, academic and professional development which will extend beyond university to the actual working life experience. For post graduate students the essential study skills can be divided to three categories which are critical reading, critical thinking and critical writing (Watson, 2010).

Since this is a personal reflective assignment in which to focus on my personal points I decided to concentrate more on the Critical writing part which is an important key tool for all the students in passing or failing the courses, since the writing part represent how students engage and responds in all the academic written Tasks (Lillies, 2001, p. 20). Before started writing it is important to gather the relevant information from different sources in the library or the internet therefore to know how to use the library different systems and making to most of the available technologies in the library provides a great support in finding and gathering the needed information within the best time. After that it is important to know how to evaluate and understand the gathered information. Another critical point is referencing which will acknowledge other people work and provide evidence for that work in addition to avoiding plagiarism. The technique of referencing consists of the conventions of the discipline, For example using brackets for the authors name, publication year, and Providing the page numbers for quoted sentences, Final Point is to start with the actual Writing in a coherent structured text, in the writing it is essential to use the correct language skills such as using the correct grammar, spelling and writing strategies in addition to using the appropriate terminology.

References:

-Kneale, P. (2002) Developing and embedding reflective portfolios in geography, Journal of Geography in Higher Education -Kressler, H. W. (2003). Motivate and Reward: Performance Appraisal and Incentive Systems for Business Success. U.S.A.: Palgrave Macmillan. -Lillis, T. (2001) Student writing (London, Routledge). -Mosley, D.C., Meggisson, L.C. & Pietri, P.H. (2001) Supervisory management. Cincinnati: Thomson Learning. -Oliver, R.L, Anderson, E. (1994), "An empirical test of the consequences of behavior- and outcome-based sales control systems", Journal of Marketing, Vol.58 pp.53-67. - Reynaert W., Admiaal, D., van Haasteren, M., Mans, D. and Reekers, M. 2006. Careers guidance and assessment, Groningen/Houten: WoltersNoordhoff. -Robbins, S. (2001). Organizational Behavior. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall

-Watson, G (2010). Developing Skills for Business Leadership. London: Charted Institute of Personnel and Development -Wiley, C. (1997). What motivates employees according to over 40 years of motivation surveys? .International Journal of Manpower, 18(3), pp. 263-280