Assignment:
Individual Reflection: Creating Goals for the Blueprint for Professional & Personal Growth Part I
Well-thought-out plans are critical for success, both for yourself and your organization. As psychologist and author Dr. Fitzhugh Dodson said, "Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination" (Dodson, n.d.). You have spent some time this week examining resources that discuss values, principles, ethics, and goals. You have also completed a shared practice in which you assessed your values, identified guiding principles that derive from some of those values, and created a single goal from one of those principles. As you probably realized, each of your guiding principles could be realized in the world through any number of goals, and each of your goals will likely lead to others. Take a moment to imagine how your blueprint can shape your vision for professional and personal development.
This week, you begin to prepare the BPPG for the Individual Reflection that will be due on Day 7 of Week 7. This week, develop at least two more goals to add to the one you developed in the Shared Practice. You will draw from a number of sources to develop these additional goals, including personal experience, Learning Resources from throughout the course, and possibly your own research. As you draft these additional goals for your BPPG, be sure to consider all you have reviewed in this course and your growing understanding of who you are as a leader.
The goals you have developed this week will become the starting point for the summation of this course, your Blueprint for Personal & Professional Growth (BPPG). You will submit your BPPG for the Individual Reflection in Week 7. Since you will be completing activities based on these three goals for the remainder of this course, be sure to think carefully about this Individual Reflection this week.
Note: There is nothing to submit this week. You will submit this Assignment in Week 7.
• Forward Thinking: Career Goals
If one of your professional goals for your BPPG includes career changing, career advancement, or even just changing jobs, the Career Boost Forum is available for you in every classroom of your Walden MBA. This resource is here for you to develop your career goals, should you choose to use it. In the Career Boost Forum you can access content developed by the Walden Career Center exclusively for Walden MBA students. You can also use the discussion forum to post ideas for your colleagues, network with peers, or even post a request for advice. This space is not graded, so feel free to interact informally and collegially with your peers!
Through CareerBoostTM, you will have the opportunity to engage more closely with Walden's Career Services Center, which offers:
o Resources for job opportunities and career information.
o Résumé and curriculum vitae tips.
o Guidance on networking and branding.
o Strategies to help you prepare for interviews and land the job.
To explore this forum, click on Career Boost Forum on the course navigation menu.
Unit 7
Discussion Question:
Discussion: Shared Practice: Clarifying Your Goals With a Plan of Action
In Week 6 of this course, you examined your ethics, values, and principles to develop at least three goals that you will strive toward throughout your MBA program and in your professional life. With these endpoints determined, you will now develop an action plan to ensure progress toward one of your goals.
While you might take many paths to reach a goal, the Shared Practice this week will help you to determine the most efficient and reasonable milestones for you to measure your progress toward one of your goals. Examine the goal you posted in the Week 6 Shared Practice. What types of tasks and activities will you need to do to accomplish this goal? Will you need to find a mentor or take a course in a particular subject in order to have the knowledge to achieve your goals? Will you need to attend networking events and establish contact with certain people to accomplish your goals? The process below will help you develop an action plan for accomplishing your goal. This action plan will become part of your BPPG.
Select the goal you posted in your Week 6 Shared Practice using the Personal Values Survey. You will use this goal to develop an action plan for achieving your goal. The interactive media presentation from this week's Learning Resources, "Action Plan," will provide you with more clarification regarding how to develop objectives, milestones, and time lines to achieve your goal.
To prepare for this Shared Practice, use the "Action Plan Worksheet" provided at the end of the interactive media piece Action Plan from your Learning Resources. Your post for the Shared Practice should be in the range of 3-5 coherent paragraphs and should cohesively present your action plan to achieve your goal.
Use the "Action Plan Worksheet" from the interactive media piece to:
o Draft your goal and state a reasonable time line to meet your goal;
o Specify at least two objectives which will help you reach the goal;
o Identify at least two measurable milestones you will need to complete to meet your objective; and
o Determine a time line to ensure that progress on individual milestones can be measured. (Hint: As you determine the time line to meet the individual milestones, it may be necessary to reconsider the time line you established for the greater goal.)
When you have completed the "Action Plan Worksheet," you are ready to draft your goal in paragraph form for your Shared Practice. Your post for the Shared Practice will likely be in the range of 3-5 paragraphs.
Post by Day 3 your action plan to the Week 7 Shared Practice discussion thread. Your post should include the following:
o Your specific goal for professional and personal development with an explanation as to why you selected this goal. Your explanation should address how the questions your colleagues posed in the Week 6 Shared Reflection helped you refine and clarify your goal.
o A reasonable time line for achieving your stated goal.
o At least two objectives you have identified that will help you reach your goal with a rationale that explains how your objectives support the goal.
At least two measurable milestones for ensuring progress for each objective you identified as well as the time lines you have established for each milestone.
To complete your Discussion, click on Discussions on the course navigation menu, and select "Week 7 Forum" to begin.
Unit 7- Paper
Assignment: Individual Reflection: Creating Goals for the Blueprint for Professional & Personal Growth Part II
As you recall from the Course Outcomes listed in your syllabus, this course requires you to develop strategies for becoming a more effective leader, creating preliminary plans for professional and personal growth, and integrating your personal values, ethics, experience, and goals into leadership decisions. The Blueprint for Professional & Personal Growth (BPPG) is designed to assist you in meeting those outcomes and has two components you need to complete: an executive summary of the course and action plans to achieve the professional and personal goals you have set for yourself.
The first component of the BPPG is an executive summary of the course to date. The ability to write an executive summary is a valuable business skill. To get the in right frame of mind for writing an executive summary, imagine that an executive from a company for which you have always wanted to work has called you and told you the following:
Hello, I hear you are getting your MBA. Well, we would like to hire you and reimburse to you the costs of your course. But before I bring you on board and pay for the course, I need to know two things. First, how have the content and assignments in this course helped you understand the roles of leadership and followership within business organization? Second, how do you intend to apply the content, theories, and topics addressed in this course to your career? Oh, and if I like what you are learning in this course and how you intend to apply what you have learned here at our organization, I will contact you and ask you when you would be able to start and what you would like your salary to be.
Ok. No pressure, right? While it is unlikely the above scenario will happen to you soon, the above scenario is a useful framework for writing your executive summary. It lets people who are important to an organization, such as executives and investors; know the central ideas of the topic you are discussing and convince them why they should pay attention to them. Your executive summary of this course will help you organize the resources and learning experiences from this course that you have found most meaningful for your professional and personal growth. As you progress through the program, the executive summary you write this week will help you recall important concepts and help you reflect on the goals you have created for yourself. For additional guidance on preparing your executive summary, please review the document How to Write an Executive Summary, which can be located by clicking on the Learning Support
Docs link in the course navigation menu in the online classroom.
For the second component of your BPPG, you will submit action plans for at least three goals. Recall the three goals you created in o In the Week 6 Shared Practice, you created one goal to share with your colleagues that derived from your experience using the Personal Values Survey. You used this goal to develop an action plan for the Week 7 Shared Practice.
o You created at least two other goals for the Week 6 Individual Reflection from the Personal Values Survey or sources related to the course content.
Now that you have gone through the process of developing an action plan for one goal, you will develop action plans for the two other goals for the BPPG. As you prepare the action plans, you might consider revising your action plan for your first goal, based upon the feedback you received from your colleagues in the Shared Practice. Then select at least two more goals you created in the Week 6 Individual Reflection and develop an action plan for those goals. For each goal, be sure to provide concrete and specific examples of why the goal is important, the personal or professional value you expect from achieving the goal, and how the goal relates to the resources you reviewed in the course up to now. (Hint: If your action includes career goals, consider visiting the Career Boost Discussion Forum and using the tools and resources the Walden Career Services Center developed exclusively for Walden MBA students. In this discussion forum you can also share ideas with your colleagues, network with your peers, and trade advice.)
The Assignment:
As you begin this assignment, review the broad range of topics presented throughout the course related to leadership and followership. For this Individual Reflection, select concepts or topics that resonated with you during this course and commit to learning more about them. Consider the following:
o What can you do now to integrate the experiences and insights you had in this course with your personal and professional development goals?
o What are the most important things you are taking from this course that will shape your future and enable you to make a positive difference?
Both components of the assignment should be turned in as one document:
o The Executive Summary:
Write an Executive Summary of the course to date (2-3 paragraphs) that addresses the following questions:
? Which content and assignments in this course most helped you better understand the roles of leadership and followership within your organization (or one with which you are familiar), and what impact have they had, or do you anticipate they will have, on the value you will bring to your role within an organization?
? How have the content and assignments changed the way you think about leadership and followership and the way you will practice these skills?
? How have the content and assignments shaped your goals?
? How has the content help you appreciate the role leaders and followers have in achieving positive social change within an organization, a community, or on a larger scale?
o Your action plans:
Write a detailed action plan for at least three goals. One of the goals should be the one you submitted for the Week 7 Shared Practice. These action plans should include the following:
? Your three specific goals for professional and personal development with an explanation as to why you selected each goal. For each goal, be sure to provide concrete and specific examples of why the goal is important,; the extent to which each goal enables you to be an agent for positive social change; the personal or professional value you expect from achieving each goal, and how the goal relates to the resources you reviewed in the course until now.
? At least two objectives for each goal you have identified. Provide a rationale that explains how your objectives support the goal.
? At least two measurable milestones for each objective you identified as well as the time lines for ensuring progress for each milestone.
? A reasonable time line for ensuring progress toward your stated goals, with an explanation as to why your time line is reasonable. (Hint: Revisit the interactive media piece Action Plan and use the "Action Plan Worksheet" to help you develop the action plan for each goal. You may also want to review the CareerBoost Forum and Resources for this course as you think about your goals, objectives, and milestones. If you have not visited the MBA Resources link within the Career Center. You can find this by clicking on the Career Boost tool link found in the Forum.)
Be sure to include appropriate citations in your executive summary and action plans. Both components should be submitted as one document.
Refer to the Weeks 6 and 7 Individual Reflection rubric found under the Course Information tab for specific criteria for this assignment. Your instructor will use this rubric to assess your work.
Submit your Assignment by Day 7.
Guidance on Assignment Length: Your BPPG, including the Executive Summary (which should be 2-3 paragraphs in length and no more than one page single spaced), your action plan should be 3-6 pages total (1.5-3 pages total if single spaced). Refer to the Weeks 6 and 7 Individual Reflection Rubric for grading elements and criteria. Your instructor will use the rubric to assess your work.
To submit your Assignment, do the following:
o Save your Assignment as a ".doc" file with the filename "WK7Assgn+last name+first initial.doc". For example, Sally Ride's filename would be "WK7AssgnRideS.doc".
o To upload your Assignment, click on Assignments on the course navigation menu, and then click the "Assignment Turnitin - Week 7" link.