Oh Prof...

He started off organizing the group like Shamrock organization

He used intellectual capital to help him mark the glass ceiling.

In an attempt of establishing a free agent economy, he created multi level pyramid like Maslow’s hierchy.

In which talked about ethics and social responsibility

Then he got confused among utilitarian and individual perspectives
He tried getting help from Weber and Taylor, but they lead him to the talk of morality and justice.

Then he tried establishing a culture with visible but deep values.
He got confused with what should be his vision as a leader.

He called upon a group meeting, in which he faced conflict due to classical and behavioral thinking.

Then he figured why we don’t use innovation, for which he tried brainstorming that created lack of communication, for which appointed out a leader, who showed lack of motivation

Then he tried improving the whole structure and creates a whole new network through blogging.

And finally, he realized it was a little too much attempting and he decided to let the class decide their own future through creativity.

Poet Irfan Mazhar

Now, what I think about management?

Before, I took any class on management, I always thought it was the ability of one individual to be able to exercise some sort of control over the other and one's ability to make an efficient use of given resources. Now, that I have learn about management, I think that I was completely wrong.
The term management does mean being able to manage things, but not so that you can exercise control over others. Its one's ability to get all of the given resources together and blend them in a way each is performing it's best. A good manager is not who can get things done, but the one who exercises his powers in a manner that is does not hurts the systems but unites the system to achieve its very best. It about planning, organizing, implementing and control. Not simply implementing and control. I never had considered planning was in any form part of management. Another thing is that a good manager is not born with skills, they are developed through experience and learning. A good manager is not the one who understand its resources and utilizes them to perfection, it is the one who understands his or her limits and their place in the process and then combines all the good and bad towards a greater good for all.
I don't regret that I was wrong about management, what matters is I learnt it my mistakes soon enough.

The effectiveness of the blogging process....

This was the first time, I used a blog as a way of communicating with others. My psychology professor did use blackboard discussion board as a way to make people interact and share their opinions on specific topics. But it was very limited to the topics that were discussed in the class but by using blogs we were able to talk about certainly anything without limitations to each other and discussion our views on the topic of management. I think this is a very helpful tool to keep people in contact. I replied to many people without knowing who they were in person. This did give me freedom to openly share my viewpoint with others. In a way, it was very effective as compared to other tools used by my other professors.
But it did had a problem. Majority of the people did not used blogs with an intention to communicate with others but to fulfill course requirements. Meaning they only did it because they had to, that was not were encouraging. If people were allowed to freely speak about anything they wanted they may have performed better while communication via blogs. It definitely was not annoying because it was designed to improve our network, which will play a major role in future as managers.
We are about eighty people in classroom, it is impossible to get everyone involved in conversations during the class time, which is only seventy five minutes. So communicating through blogs does really give everyone an opportunity to discuss their viewpoint on subject matter discussed in class. Another thing not everyone is good at communicating openly in class, by having an online communication they also get an opportunity to share their points.
It definitely did allowed me to openly think about the class activities and relate them to my personal life experience. This way not only I understood the point of all the inclass activities but also how they relate to my life. Also this helps improve learning by allowing students spend more time on certain subject matter and learn it in more detail.
The professor blog entries were interesting and random but were quite rare indeed. I barely remember responding to the professor blog. So it would be a good idea to expand the number of entries. Even though they were limited they were interesting to think about and write about. I think the professor has done a good job by bringing together different subject matter and allowing us to relate that to the different management topics.
I also think blog is a place where you can place your ideas every once in a while and then keep checking back on them to make sure your thoughts align and make sense in the long run.

Sometimes I wonder....???

Sometimes, I wonder what really is management
Should I call it an art or science.
Then I realized it is both art and science
It is an art of making people more effective and science of how it is done
Now I wonder how to do it
Do I need to plan, organize, direct or monitor.
Then I realized they are all part of the process, I need to do all of these to be effective.
Plan in a way my goals are understood, organize in a way that my goals are achieved, direct so that people understand how to achieve them and monitor so that they are achieved right.
And finally I wonder how good a manager am I.