that I was able to contact through phone with. From my experience I do believe all involved were given the proper instruction based on their assigned position. The three skills required for effective management are Technical, Human, and Conceptual skills. An area where I applied technical skill was when I used excel to create a food distribution chart. I applied human skill when communicating with my volunteers the day of the event explaining and showing them how things should be done. An area where I applied a conceptual skill was when I transferred food from a venue that had plenty to a venue that ran out of a certain food.
I think as a manager I would utilize human skill the most. Communication is the most important skill in life. Problems often occur when there is a lack of communication. The theoretical approaches to managing people are the Scientific approach, Human relation’s approach, and the Process approach. An area where I applied the scientific approach was when I went to each venue to check on my volunteers. The volunteers knowing, I was in charge kept up their hard work seeing they were being supervised.
An area where I applied the Human relations approach was by making sure my volunteers felt comfortable. This helps workers knowing the person in charge wants them to feel comfortable. An area where I applied the process approach was when I made sure the food would be on schedule. Not being on schedule would’ve affected other events, ultimately hurting the whole organization. I would use the human relations approach most. I think praising your workers constantly and showing them a sense of belonging is the best way to keep them motivated to continue to work at a high level.
Mintzberg characterizes management using three categories and ten roles, each of which exhibits critical managerial skill sets useful for business leaders in a variety of contexts. The first category is interpersonal. The Interpersonal roles are figurehead, leader, and liaison. The figurehead performs a number of routine duties of a legal or social nature. The leader motivates and activates subordinates, performs staffing, training, and associated duties. The Liaison maintains a self-developed network of outside contacts and informers who provide favors and information.
The informational roles are monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson. The monitor seeks and receives a wide variety of special information to develop a thorough understanding of the organization and environment. The disseminator transmits information received from o or from other subordinates to members of the organization. The spokesperson transmits information within and outside of the organization; serves as an expert on the organization’s industry. The decisional roles are entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator.
The entrepreneur searches the organization and its environment and initiates improvement projects to bring about change; supervises design of certain projects as well. The disturbance handler takes corrective action when the organization faces important, unexpected disturbances. The resource allocator allocates the organization’s resources, makes or approves of all significant organizational decisions. The negotiator represents the organization at major negotiations. Formal roles are given to help structure the organization, and are needed to reach goals.
For example, a coach, instructor, and captain are formal roles. Informal roles are given based on how you intersect with your team members. They are not needed, but can definitely help an organization. For example, an enforcer and mediator are informal roles. There was role clarity and acceptance throughout the Special Olympic process. it’s important that your employees have a solid understanding of their role, what your organization’s expectations are for them, and the behaviors that lead to success. We all understood our own roles and of each other.
With job roles clearly defined, each of us knew what to expect from the other and understood how each role supports the other. I do believe I was involved in role conflict during the event. After finishing up with the food services I got asked to help clean up the bocce courts. I did not know the correct way to role up the bocce mats at first, because I was not assigned to the setup group the day before the event. I caught on after others stepped in to teach me. The different forms of communication that I used throughout the process were verbal communication, non-verbal communication, written communication, and visual communication.
Good verbal communication is an extremely important part of running an organization. It includes sounds, words, language and speaking. A lot of verbal communication was used throughout this whole process. The day of the event a lot of verbal communication was used through the radio’s we were each given. Non-verbal communication involves physical ways of communication. For example, tone of voice, touch, smell, and body motion. A way! used non-verbal communication was when I was taking direction from someone, I made sure that I was making eye contact and head gestures.
I did this to show that I was listening and understanding what was going on. Written communication is writing the words which you want to communicate. For example, E-mails, reports, articles and memos are types of written communication. I used written communication pretty often. Whenever I needed to ask someone a question I texted them. Also, I sent out emails to my volunteers. Visual communication is visual display of information that you want people to see. For example, signs, symbols and designs are types of visual communication.
I personally did not use any visual communication, but I did see a lot of it. There were flags put up to provide direction for the long distance runners, which was very important for that event. I learned that effective communication is essential for the success of running an organization like the Special Olympics. Throughout this whole process it was important that I had a high level of professionalism. I showed responsibility, respectfulness, and commitment. I learned that the higher level of professionalism you show the further it will take you in your career.
Participating in the Special Olympics as chair of the Food Services was a great learning experience for me. I have never been given this important of a role in my life, such as head of food services for this big of an event. When planning the event, I first struggled to get volunteers. I realized that I needed to promote the Special Olympics to others, volunteers don’t always hear about the opportunities you need to throw it out there. From my experience I learned it is best to start looking for volunteers as soon as possible.
A mistake I made was not being able to find two volunteers to go with the driver Jean to load the truck from Sheetz. This caused me to cover that job, which gave me a lot more work being I had to load the truck by myself. Having made clear guidelines for my volunteers made it easy for them and me. My volunteers all did a great job they worked very hard. The food was served at the venues on time. One concern about the food venue in the Koehler field house was that the line was very long. I would recommend in the future to have an additional food table setup in the field house.
This would cause less of a clutter. Parents of the athletes were very thankful to us as volunteering and running the event. It was truly fascinating talking to some of the athletes and seeing how the smallest things put a smile on their face. Management by walking around was something that I did a lot, which I learned from the course material after the event happened. This was the best way to go about, because I was responsible for volunteers at four different food venues setup at the same time. I rotated to a different food venue about every ten minutes.
When lunch ended I left out extra food and water for the athletes that still had events going on. After all the events were completed a lot of was extra food was left over. I had Michelle drive me and a volunteer to the salvation army to drop off all of the extra food. I contacted them a week before verbally letting them know. Having the opportunity to organize an event like this was a great experience for me. Putting this on my resume is something that will stand out when applying to a sports organization. This event is something I will never forget and always be able to look back on.
