Manager's Recipe

Here is my little story
Of the meaning and the glory
How a manager’s success
Is achieved “à l’express”

It takes courage and belief
A lot of knowledge to retrieve
When emergencies arise
So solutions can be wise

A spoon of imagination
A dash of inspiration
Three cups of great ambitions
Instead of old traditions

A quick and open mind
An easiness to find
A team that is content
Then foster their talent

Stir in power and a vision
Here and there a slight revision
Optimism and indeed
A manager’s success is guaranteed

What Would This Class Be Like Without Blogging?

At first, I was skeptical about having a blog because I thought it was pointless to have one. However, throughout the semester I began to appreciate and understand why Prof. Kurpis made it mandatory for us to take part in the blogging experience. Communicating through the blog allowed me to learn about my peers and interact with people I never had a chance to during class. I read everyone’s first blog entry to get a general idea of who was in my class and to discover if anyone was pursuing the same career goal as me. Furthermore, reading other blogs from classmates provided me with different viewpoints on different subject matters such as decision making and the planning process. It helped me see a bigger picture than I already envision in my mind about management. Therefore, I believe that I’ve benefited from meeting others online and learning from them.

In class, we had our share of fun and meaningful class activities. Having to post a blog about what we did during class and connecting it to the corresponding lessons was a unique way to learn the subject. I had to analyze my role in the class activities and relate it to the lessons I was learning. The blog allowed me to channel my thoughts and share my perceptions with others of what we did in class. Moreover, what is special about blogging is that it allows others to give feedback.

The professor’s blogs “Monkey Business,” “The Ultimate Productivity Habit,” and Choosing the Frame that Compliments the Picture” were indeed very interesting to read. I felt that his blogs were more helpful than the textbook because it allowed us to think about the management topics related to the scenarios rather than just reading it in a textbook and memorizing it. I believe the number of blogs he posted were the right amount because it gave it a “significant feeling” since he didn’t post one up every week.

Knowing that the blog assignments were 20% of our final grade, I made sure I posted my blogs and replied to others on time. This was probably the easiest 20% you could have gotten in Baruch College. I try to do the best I can in everything so even though I believe that I am going to get the full 20% for my final grade by doing my blogs correctly, I still push myself to do well on the exams (which comes along with anxieties).

I do plan on continuing to post my thoughts and ideas on my blog after this class has ended because I feel that I can express myself better in writing that I can verbally. I think the blog should definitely remain part of MGT3120 because it allows others to learn and get feedback from each other, and express themselves without being critical of themselves.

Special Order: Burger w. 4 Pickles & Fries w. No Salt

Today I walked over to a McDonald’s directly after my afternoon class with a couple of friends around 4:20pm. Business was relatively slow at the time. I ordered a hamburger with exactly four pickles and a small order of French fries without salt right away without having to wait on line. I thought the lady taking my order would look at me weirdly but instead she did not give me any problems. She processed my order, handed me the receipt with my change, and took the next order from the next customer. I double checked the receipt to see if it was printed correctly showing a hamburger with extra pickles and fries with no salt.

After my order was processed, I observed a man preparing my burger and a woman handling the fries. I would assume my “special order” did not give the burger-maker any trouble because all he had to do was add a few pickles to a burger and leave out the lettuce and a slice of tomato. The burger was wrapped up, placed in a bag, and sent over to the woman preparing the crispy golden french fries. I noticed that she had put a new batch of fries into the fryer and waited for it to be cooked. As I was waiting on the fries, my friends got their food and began eating at a table. The order-takers seem very polite and happy. As I was pacing back and forth, the woman handling the fries reassured me that the fries were almost done. After a couple of minutes, my order was handed to me. It took about a total of 7 minutes to complete the order from the moment I placed the order to the moment I received it. I went over to the table where my friends sat; made sure the burger had four pickles, sampled a fry to taste if it was unsalted, and ate it.

In my opinion, I believe the management process this particular McDonald’s employed was very effective and efficient. Each worker did their job systematically and served their customers in a formal manner. I would rate the order preparation process excellent; excellent being the highest rank. The food was prepared and packaged neatly. I do not normally eat fast food but it tasted pretty delicious. The staff did not actually communicate with each other often besides chatting about personal stuff; therefore, I cannot rate them in this category. The staff’s coordination was very well organized such that each staff member knew what their responsibilities were and preformed them without getting in each other’s way. The order-takers took the orders of customers and processed them as the burger-makers made different burgers at the same time the fryer made the fries. I would also rate their coordination process excellent. The staff’s customer service was great. The lady who took my order as well as the other order-takers were friendly and had smiles on their faces constantly. She made me feel as if I was a valued customer.

I do not think there is anything I would change to improve how McDonald’s ran their operations during special orders because I believe they handled the situation very well. I had a pleasant time there and would probably go back and order the same thing again. One thing I would mention to the managers in this particular McDonald’s is that they need to install ketchup dispensers. (I hate packaged ketchup.)

"C" is the Way to Be

I was absolutely amazed about how accurate the Personal Profile System was about me. I am high conscientiousness, low dominance. Those who know me personally would agree with the diagnostic. I tend to focus on key details, check for accuracy, and take a systematic approach to everything I do. I usually like to work independently on my own in a reserved location but I face difficulty in making decisions. I have a tendency to overthink the most simplest problems and situations. The feeling I get when I receive awards and recognition for accomplishments is priceless. That’s just who I am.

I wish I could be a little more toward the domiant side. I dislike taking action when a problem arises so I become passive. I take on my problems indirectly instead of taking them head on because I hate the feeling of being “knocked down”. However, I do believe I have the ability to take authority and overcome any challenges that comes my way. I took on some leadership roles this year and made an effort to step out of my comfort zone.

I think it is very helpful to determine people’s management “type” to better understand them because you cannot expect someone who is conscientious to be domiant or vice versa. It’s just not part of their persona. We should adjust our actions to make them feel comfortable in their environment. Everyone’s personality is unique in their own way and we should embrace it instead of going against it.

A test like this would probably be useful when I start working in the near future to evaluate my manager, boss, or just people in general. By knowing their personalities, I can better understand their needs and desires.

Past, Present, and Future

After seeing the video “The Power of Vision” I started to understand that whatever I do now will shape my future. Off the top of my head, here’s a list of what I would like to accomplish in the future:

-Travel the world
-Get my MBA in Finance and Investments
-Be financially stable
-Learn three new languages (excluding English and my native language, Cantonese)
-Have a big family (wife and five kids) and a gigantic house or condo

From these five choices, the one that’s most meaningful to me is having a family. I believe this is the case because I grew up in a family-oriented household where we did everything together; ranging from watching movies to going on vacations. A few years after graduating from Baruch and landing a full-time job with a prestigious financial firm, I would probably want to settle down. I have been in a relationship with my girlfriend for a little over two years and someday I plan on making her my wife. When that time comes, I should have a stable job which pays a high salary so that I won’t have to worry about being unable to support my family. With that said, I plan on putting a down payment on a spacious house or condo around the Brooklyn Heights area with a view of the city skyline. It has always been my dream to live over there. Soon after, the kids will enter our lives one by one …or two if we’re lucky.


To turn this vision into a reality, I am willing to stay faithful and sincere, fun and exciting, loving and caring, and much more till that day comes…

good decisions also have consequences

In the midst of all the chaos that sprung about during the class decision making exercise, I actively collaborated with a couple of groups to come to a general consensus of what the next exam would be like and what to do with the exam that was handed back to us. I did not perform too poorly on the test but after hearing that the class average was roughly 68%, I realized that many of my fellow classmates probably did badly on the exam. In that aspect, I felt that I accommodated my fellow classmates by going along with decisions that would help improve their grade. I chose to collaborate with others and accommodate people around me because I felt that it would benefit me and the class as well. The agreement that the class came up with were curving the first test, adding extra credit to the first exam, dropping the lowest of the two exam grades, and stating the number of correct answers that would be on the multiple multiple choice questions for the next exam.

An alternative way to better conduct the class decision making exercise would have been choosing a leader or figurehead from the start to facilitate the class and have the class collectively decide what we should do with exam one and how to treat the second one, just like we did in the last 15 minutes of class. I believe this strategy would have been a better idea because as a group we would have been more productive with our time and perhaps we could have came up with more potential decisions that could have increased our chances of doing better on our next exam. Moreover, conflicts and confusion would be minimized; animosity and personality clashes evaded.

EGG .. DR0P .. C-r-RACK !!

Despite the fact that our egg cracked, I believe our group gave a great effort to meeting our objective.

After witnessing the outcome, I took a step back to see where we might have went wrong described as follows:

Step 1: This was given by Professor Kurpis. Our goal was to construct a contraption to protect and prevent a fragile egg from breaking after a 10 feet drop. We were all aware of a couple of time constraints: 25 minutes to plan and 10 minutes to build the device.

Step 2: The resources provided were 8 plastics straws, 2 feet of tape, and an egg. A pair of scissors was also provided but we never got our hands on it (we didn't think we needed it). When the clock started counting down, everyone in my group was hyped and ready to work. A few us went up to the desk to examine the size of the egg, the length and flexibility of the straws, an the material of the tape. One of the members of my group actually had seen this project done before with success but with more resources.

Step 3: Each member of my group contributed to brainstorming ideas towards the development of the contraption. No leaders emerged in our group, but collectively we were able to come up with a plan by combining the best parts of our alternative strategies to come up with the final blueprint of our protection device. We drew out the device and with the agreement of each member, we were ready to move on. (Given the time limit, we did not have time to come up with a back-up plan.)

Step 4: We assigned roles at the beginning of the second time constraint where we began to build the contraption. Two members were involved in structuring and shaping the straws, two other members were in charge of taping the contraption together, and one person had the responsibility of securing the egg while the other members built and taped around it leaving 50% of the egg visible. Here is where I think we went wrong. When our plan was put into action, it did not come out the way we pictured it. The structure was coming out weird and with time running out we just taped everything together.

Step 5: We had the shortest member in our group volunteer to drop the egg. Unfortunately, the egg was dropped and cracked as it hit the trash bin.

It turns out we went wrong during step 4 in the planning process. Although our contraption failed to do its job, as a group we grew stronger. I'm looking forward to working with my group again and the next project that we will take on will surely have a better outcome.