Understanding your Risk Propensity

To make the best decisions you can, it is important to understand how you approach the decision making process.

For each decision you make, there are unknown elements that you can't control. Consciously or subconsciously, you evaluate these unknowns and the potential outcome of each alternative when you take a decision. However, the payoff and the risks involved are not absolute: They're estimated, and are therefore colored by your perception. In turn, your perception is strongly influenced by your propensity to take risks.

By nature, some people are more tolerant of risk than others. We all know people who thrive on big risks. People who gamble or take part in off-piste skiing are typically pretty risk tolerant, as are those who invest in new markets and emerging technologies. To them, the excitement and potential rewards make the risk worthwhile. Before they participate in these activities, though, they make a decision to do so. This then implies that decision making is affected by your risk profile. When you're amenable to risk, you tend to consider and embrace riskier options. People who need more stability and control tend to choose far less risky options.

So, in thinking about your decision making, you need first to understand your attitude to risk. Are you risk averse, a risk taker, or does it depend on the situation? The amount of risk you accept in your decisions is related to your overall risk profile. Some people are simply more cautious by nature. So what the cautious decision maker deems high risk, may have a lower risk assessment when analyzed by the "courageous" decision maker.

This is important because we all have to take risks in our life if we're to achieve our full potential, and it makes sense to try to find the middle path between suffocating caution and reckless optimism. The ability to find this middle path, to be able to take risks intelligently, is a great advantage in many business situations.

Research has shown that your Personality Type is a good way of predicting your risk propensity. therefore,before making decision, do you understand yourself well..what is the attitude of taking risk?

: 02 May 2011 23:52 |  Tags: Kbam Rdm |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

not only technique but also attitude

Kent Crookston from Brigham Young pointed out that most of the decision maker focus on the process of making decision rather than their attitude. he also said that no matter what kind of tool you use, if you have right attitude you will success.

people usually think that which option should I go for and forget about where I want to go, what I want to get, how I can afford for the result etc.

positive, modest and compose.

bad decision usually cause by angry or fear emotion, intoxicated or impatient will also cause bad decisions. for example, in the stock exchange market,those dealers will show such emotion when they see the stocks raise also when stocks decrease sharply. all those emotions definatly can not let them make a robust decision.

as this module introduced so many tools, but when we make decisions, do we ever think about we should have what kind of emotion when we discuss with our team members? or even make decision alone?

also, leaders should think about what kind of attitude they should hold for dealing with the whole process

: 26 Apr 2011 23:43 |  Tags: Kbam Rdm |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

thinking about CSR

after today's presentation on CSR, something impressed me.

I heard of the concept of CSR when I was a undergraduate student, because not familiar with it and it is not something practical, I did not pay a lot attention to this concept, maybe just know that we will have exam questions on that.

however, thanks to this module, I had a deeper understanding of CSR, what it is,how it can be introduced to companies and how actually it benefits.

I realise in EU and UK,the government try to let young people be aware of the environment, think about the future of the earth in a serious manner. they embed this concept through education and business organisations do take actions according to CSR in practise.

what about China?

though Chinese economic has been booming up,is it in a sustainable way?

I really feel sad and fear for this.

In my hometown, there are countrysides around the city, the local government raise the economic through setting up chemical processing organisation or some other kind of processing organisation which is harmful to the environment. those companies are from EU or Japan, in their country, those contaminative factory are not allowed to set up. so they move these factories to China, and chinese government is willing to accept because they will bring in profit!!!  even those facory are lack of control and administration, people live around it start to have strange disease.

My hometown is a well developed city, just think about what is happening in those poor or not developed place, not only in China but around the world?

I always feel sad when I hear about such news.

how many people will do all things right? if have choice, how many people will chose to do the right things regardless of the cost?

in the future, I hope the Chinese organisation begin to aware of the importance of CSR and really start to do some thing. Education system should consider this as well, embed such concept into people's mind, start to effect the students, they are holding the revolution power of the society. Save the unhealthy development of Chinese society.

: 23 Feb 2011 23:30 |  Tags: Le |  Comments (11) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Hotel exercise

being a leader is under a big pressure. today we had an exercise on running a hotel, started from bidding for hotel and run it for 6 quarter.

I was served as a leader and really enjoyed the tasks.

all team members give positive feedbacks on my performance, of course, advise for improvement.

introduce the problem at the start and make sure everyone understand what we are going to do for this exercise.

I let each team member read through the basic information and ask them what skills they are familiar with?

divide four people into 2 department: human resource and markerting.

every decision we made based on the voting results of the whole team, and confirm with each one. this actually let everyone involved and engaged as a team.

however, it will be better make a detailed time plan to aviod getting lost and mass up. and team members suggest me to relax, maybe my body language and the way of talking shows Im under pressure.

actually this is the problem I strive to improve for many years. thanks for them made that honest point.

: 22 Feb 2011 22:58 |  Tags: Le |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

leadership exercise

today we had two exercise on leadership. i was behaving as followers both times.

problems are easily shown up in real practise.

for the first exercise, leader of out team did quite good at beging-brief objective well and mind the time.

however, more people voted for 'highest' than 'artest', we finally went for 'artest' because of leader and member with strong personality voted for that. as process went on, we keep changing our objective and didnt make a plan.

this problem let me realise that how important a plan is! before i always thought that plan is useless because i never do things follow my planning. than problem raise, eg time managing, achievement of objective and results.

another exercise we start a meeting with our leaders. Leader was good at focusing on objective and didn't lose the direction.

however, the way we talked about the problem was not nice somehow. leaders tended to be aggressive sometimes and not at good listenning.

here one thing has to be pointed out, leaders assume followers know all information ,in fact, they don't.

because of this, I was misunderstanding during the discussion and can not agree with the option which actually would work out.

Leaders listen to people seems nice and on her side , not actually listen to those negative or have opposite ideas.

this will cause serious problem. if advises can not be heard in all, leaders just can lead in the way agreed only by himself. no improvement or correction will happen.

: 21 Feb 2011 21:30 |  Tags: Le |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

managing cultural and organizational diversity

A good understanding of diversity issues enables employee teams to communicate more effectively and work through challenges. business organisations should open to the idea that the diversity of the members of their workforce can act as a catalyst for the firm's capacity to innovate.

Creating a diversity training program typically provides examples of how diversity may impact interpersonal relationships that are necessary for project work. Including examples that demonstrate how different people manage common tasks help to illustrate that there are many approaches depending on cultural difference.

sometimes, we do not need to like someone. when we have a common goal, share benefits. treat them like friends not as enemy, build relationships base on mutual respect, positive regard and co-operation. Leaders must learn to separate the person from the problem, genuinely want to help the other party and avoid negative responses to attacks or intense emotions.

At all times it¡¯s important to keep the conversation relevant, stay focused on a positive outcome and remain aware of the common goal. The next stage is negotiation, in which we add bargaining to the dialogue. Talking, dialogue and negotiation create genuine, engaging and productive two-way transactions. We need to use energy from the body, emotions, intellect and the spirit.

however, when problems comes out, coversation is important. we should bring everything onto the table and discuss together. make it clear and fair. meanwhile, respect is still important. we can not slap the third party in the face, should hold back a little space.

Diversity at all levels of the organisation is an imperative that is recognised by the majority of European companies. But at the same time, the ever-increasing diversity of the workforce brings with it a whole new set of problems and conflicts which managers in the future will have to be able to solve if they want to create flexible, diversified organisations that are capable of creating and innovating within a single vision and unique strategy.

: 20 Feb 2011 17:30 |  Tags: Le |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Apply medicine according to indications

firing can not actually solve the problem, organisation should do something make the employees 'hide' their personalities.

leaders should strict their own behaviours firstly because they always be seen as an example in the organisation. leaders' behaviour will influence the employees, if the leader himself can not obey the rules or principles, how can those followers do?

the organisation should run business legally. it happens when employees know the scandal of their boss, they will become 'take over control'.

as metioned before, principles and rules are needed. During the intial training process, let the employees know what they must not do and basic principles of the organisation. if they do not agree with it, the organisation may consider whether ot employ him or not.

increase the employee satisfaction of the organisation is also important. if the employee feel happy when work in this organisation, he will be willing to stay for long time. because of this, he will make his effort and 'hide' his strong personality to adapt to the organisation. this depends on how leaders treat their employee.

leaders should develop a healty enterprise culture. empowerment is essential. when all employees have a share goal, they can make effort toward it through good cooperation. leaders should consider how to let those employee with strong personality cooperate with others. A positive enterprise culture will work better than principles.

: 19 Feb 2011 23:31 |  Tags: Le |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

control strong personality?

I believe everyone has strong personality and has potential to be a leader, however, some people will unfold their personalities some will not.

before we think about how to manage those ones with strong personality, we should think about why they unfold their personalities.

some employees are proud and haught because of their abilities and outstanding achievement. Maybe they have a better place to go even get fired. therefore, they become hard to be managed.

some problems caused by employer or leaders. there always exists problems between employer and employee because they look into problems on different sides. if a leader can not solve a prolem in an effective way, the conficts will exist or even get worse until the relationship of employee and employer finish.

however, employees will be working dead or unfold their negative personality because of that they lose confidence of the enterprise. they think the company do not need them or the enterprise cannot make contribution to either society or itself, they do not care stay or not.  they will become never care about their behavior. lacking positive enterprise culture or well management system or the power of leadership dose not work will cause this kink of problem.

in my opinion, the personality of employee can be 'flexible'. they need principles or guidelines. An enterprise can not run business without principles. employees should know what should be done and what must not be done, they at least know the basic principles. After that, they will restrain themselves somehow.

if the leader want to employee respect him, he should show the esteem first. some employees never stay for working over time even they can not finish their job within standard time. leaders should not blame them without understanding the fact. leaders should care about their employee, show the esteem and solicitude to their employees first.

: 19 Feb 2011 22:55 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

change thoughts?

why leader can not change people's thoughts by using position power?

according to the strict university/high school entry level, all our teachers giving us a busy and hard school time, all weekends have exam exercise, no break for a week. they are our leaders and using their positional power. We all have a hard time, hates the examination and homework. However, we love our teachers. we respect them, we know we can learn knowledege from them and they help us to achieve our goal. or we do not that like them because they give out so much work to us, unless we have a shared goals and we all put effort in.

its same in the organisation, employee work for their earning and have a shared goal with their boss. leader may strict and full of positonal power rather than be friend with you, offer help, not blame you allow the mistake. I believe the results still wont be bad, the employees will not work hardly actually.

: 12 Feb 2011 16:08 |  Tags: Le |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Culture barriers

Yesterday we had a discussion on the leadership in western country and eastern country.

of couse because of the culture background, the way a leader behave in an organisation is different.

people in western country have a strong awareness of holiday and break. though the wages for over work is high, they do not want to spend their life in hard working and no break. However, Chinese people born at a hard working spirit? i dont think so, due to the high population, it is a creer war, a rat race. like KPMG or PWC, the world big four accounting firm, the treatments of employee are quite different. in China, you can never get out the office until 12 o'clock in midnight, this is your job and you have to finish it, manager only cares about the result you've done not the effort you put in.

you will say its unfair,yes it is. but if you do not want to do it, a long queue outside is waiting to take over your job. if you want to earn your life, keep doing it, though in an unfair way. Actually, in such circumstances, no dead working worker. leaders use their position power their employee and get job well done.

compare to western countries, may be come to company at 9am,10am have a tea break, 11:30am have lunch, 2pm a tea break angain, 5pm finish work. policy for preventing firing people and redundancy, in such circumstance, i believe more dead working workers will come out. leaders here will swith to those to other department or make them know you are not suitable for this job. however, in this working environment, how can you expect they will behave better in other department or at another job?

: 12 Feb 2011 15:42 |  Tags: Le |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem