MT106 Unit 2 Self-Assessment Example

Conventional, Enterprising and Slow to Push Back: A Unit 2 Self-Assessment

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

MT106: Foundations for Success in Business and Management Careers

Unit 2 Self-Assessment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The writer, his results and every workplace example are composite and illustrative; the instruments and sources cited are real.

Purpose

I am using these two inventories to inform one decision: which business concentration to declare. I am not trying to describe my personality in general. Each result below is set against two things I have done at work in the past year, and each ends with what it suggests for the decision.

The O*NET Interest Profiler

The Interest Profiler, published through the Department of Labor's O*NET program, sorts interests into the six Holland types, from hands-on realistic work to the orderly, records-based work Holland calls conventional. Holland (1997) holds that a good match between a person's dominant types and the setting predicts staying power and contentment at work. The profiler measures what I like doing, not what I am good at, and it cannot tell me whether a job pays enough or exists near me.

My highest scores were conventional, enterprising and realistic, in that order. Two behaviors support the conventional score. I rebuilt our dock door schedule into a spreadsheet that assigns every carrier appointment to a door by trailer type, and I enjoyed tuning it for weeks after it worked. I also keep a temperature log for every frozen load even on nights when nobody checks it.

The enterprising score is less clear. During the dock appointment rollout last year, I persuaded the transportation office to give carriers a fifteen-minute grace window instead of a strict cutoff, and that felt good. But that was one argument in a year, and I avoid most others.

Nye et al. (2012) found in a meta-analysis that interest fit is related to job performance and persistence, not only satisfaction, so a conventional-enterprising profile is worth taking seriously. For the decision, both concentrations involve structured work, but project management leans more on persuasion, the enterprising side, while supply chain work leans more on systems and records.

CliftonStrengths

CliftonStrengths, described by Rath (2007), identifies a person's most dominant talent themes from thirty-four. My top five were Arranger, Discipline, Responsibility, Consistency and Achiever. The instrument describes talents I use often, not skills I have mastered, and it says nothing about weaknesses directly.

I took it through the code included with the book and read the descriptions for each theme twice, once quickly and once with my last year at work in mind. Three of the five felt accurate at once. Achiever described the satisfaction I get from finishing a full trailer schedule before midnight. Discipline matched the routines I keep without being asked. Responsibility fit the way I treat a late trailer as my problem even when the carrier caused it. The other two needed more thought, and those are the ones worth examining below.

Arranger fits the dock closely. Moving trailers between doors when one arrives early and another breaks down is the part of my shift I am best at. Consistency is the more complicated result. It describes a preference for treating people the same and following clear rules. It explains why I apply the receiving checklist the same way for every carrier, but it also explains something less flattering. Last spring a driver from a large carrier argued every week about having his load counted, and I kept counting rather than raising the problem with his dispatcher. I followed the rule and avoided the conversation that would have fixed it, for two months.

Both inventories describe someone who builds good systems and avoids the conversations that keep them working.

Where the Results Point

The two instruments agree on structure. Both describe someone who likes clear processes and steady routines, which fits supply chain work well and fits the planning half of project management. They differ on persuasion. The interest profiler shows some enterprising interest; my strengths and my record show a habit of avoiding hard conversations. A project coordinator's day is full of requests to people outside the coordinator's own chain of command. That is a genuine risk for me in that concentration.

Adjustments to Test

Before declaring, I will test the risk directly. For the next month, when a carrier or another department causes a recurring problem, I will raise it with the person responsible within one week instead of absorbing it. Each case goes into a notebook with the date raised and what happened next. If I can do it and the log shows problems getting fixed, the project management concentration becomes more realistic. If I keep avoiding the conversations, supply chain work may suit me better, at least for now.

References

Holland, J. L. (1997). Making vocational choices: A theory of vocational personalities and work environments (3rd ed.). Psychological Assessment Resources.

Nye, C. D., Su, R., Rounds, J., & Drasgow, F. (2012). Vocational interests and performance: A quantitative summary of over 60 years of research. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(4), 384-403. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612449021

Rath, T. (2007). StrengthsFinder 2.0. Gallup Press.