Last of them all

For a 6 week crash course on management I feel I have come a long way, expanding on what may seem to be common sense for others but what is truly necessary to run an operation. From ideas on leadership to the schools of thought when it comes to rational thinking, these core principles will always be in the back of my head. I think it’s safe to say I’m able to consider myself to be educated on basic management

Last point before I go: after watching how McDonald’s turned the concept of capitalism into a lifestyle, one that makes others happy, it has only reinforced my dislike towards the private corporations and the artifice of those at the highest of the chain. I do realize that success among these corporations includes expansion but the idea to setup shop in Moscow was, just, unbelievable.

The video was instructional, I agree, it’s just I can’t process how much of an impact a mass chain-food restaurant has made.

Mickey D's

The video regarding Hamburger Diplomacy was very instructional to me. I was interested in seeing how we were able to spread capitalist ideals and management to a vulnerable country in a transitional period. It was quite fascinating to see how ready the people of Russia wholeheartedly embraced the arrival of a multinational corporation. It has been said that the Russians have always preferred to be ruled by autocratic rulers but I do not think that they foresaw the effects that capitalism would have on their society. McDonald's is probably the most benign form of capitalism they have experienced since the beginning of perestroika. They act as a corporation that is beholden to the corporate ethics laws required of American companies whereas the oligarchs and insiders have no such rules or oversight. I think the video itself was a very good marketing tool for McDonald's that works as well today as it did in the early 90's. McDonald's is bringing democracy and downer cow meat to all!

            The past six weeks in Introduction to Management, have been a fusion of fire and ice.  There have been good and bad times.  Although I do feel it is good to be overall familiar with some of the terminology used in this class, I do feel as if it was more of a guide to a human resources class versus and restaurant management class--which I feel would be more beneficial in our case.

            I do feel it is rather monotonous and somewhat unnecessary knowing the word definitions to things like humanistic management, or what TQM means.  Are these things important when it comes to demonstrating them in the work force... yes.  I do not necessarily agree that we should be learning all of the human resources based terminology for the field we are going in; I do not think that these key terms necessarily relating to what is on the need to know information, and should possibly be saved for the Human Resources Course in the bachelors program.

            However, I do feel that it was imperative learning about diversity, and seeing how a business like McDonalds in Russia could start from just a plain of land. I agree we need to know the laws when it comes to labor, and how discrimination can be argued.  Overall, I thought the class was useful, but maybe should consider some reconstruction of the class to benefit those in the culinary industry more so than it does at this point.

Final Blog

After taking this management course, I feel as though some day I could make a competent manager. A lot of managerial skills are instinctual, common sense things, but to be an effective manager requires the educational foundation as well. I believe that this class has given us the foundation to go out and be leaders in the industry and develop our own managerial styles.
In this industry, passion and determination will get you far, but the knowledge gained throughout this course and the others we have taken during l block will only further our successes. We can now critically observe managers or supervisors and learn from them and assess their skills as managers. Additionally, being more aware of the various laws that protect certain groups will hopefully encourage us to think before speaking and be more socially aware as employers. A certain degree of empathy is involved when being a manager, and I hope that we have all learned that it is important to take necessary corrective actions prior to firing people who may be valuable employees, and I will definitely think twice before I raffle off a $25,000 car. Overall, I enjoyed this class, and I have learned many valuable life skills as a result.

Final Blog

I must say that class has been fun.  I really enjoyed myself.  For my final blog I have decided to write on decision making.  As a woman, I am often stereotyped as being indecisive.  This stigma often carries over as I enter more and more leadership positions.  One thing my father taught me, was that people want to be led, people want others to think for them and this is why your life will never be easy.  True story.  I was brought up to be a natural leader and at times, the responsibility of making decisions for others can be taxing.  Mostly because I am afraid of failure.  If it all goes wrong, odds are great that they will blame it on you.  

I have made tons of bad decisions.  I have also made some innovative decisions.  As I become more comfortable with myself and my surroundings, I have learned to trust my gut feeling in addition to weighing it out with the logical facts.  Decision making is not a skill that you are born with, it has to be nurtured and developed.  I took a leadership position too early and did not have the skills to lead a group of others.  But it takes the good and bad decisions and positions to help everyone become great in the end.    

Sometimes I agree with my dad in the fact that people want others to tell them what to do, and other times I like to believe that with a highly motivated group of people, the decision making responsibility can be spread around. I will say that this class has given me other things to consider when leading others.  One thing I have affirmed, is that training is very important and that management encompasses many aspects.  I have enjoyed this class.  It has been a pleasure.  

6 weeks of Intro to Management have come and gone. There were techniques to be learned, rules to be sure to follow, and obstacles to be reviewed. However, in the whole, I personally do not feel that a management class is a class that can be taught in a school setting. A lot of the things we've learned can be broken down into intuitive reactions and, as long as the individual realizes what he/she is doing, can be seen as practically common sense. Sure, my grade for management might not reflect this, but it's hard to have the urge to study for something that should be obtained through trial and error, through experimentation, and through experience. Of course there are subjects such as TQM. Asking someone what TQM means, they most likely may have no idea. However, ask the individual what some of his standards would be for his/her own hospitable establishment, and a "continuous quality improvement for guests" is almost not worthy of mentioning due to it's common sense. That is where my grade fails to be a good one, applying names and labels to techniques, that, frankly, seem obvious and, well, not very teachable unless through trial and error.

Last Blog

Intro to management has taught me a lot of things. It has reinforced all of my opinions about good managers. It has shown me many ways to lead and how to evaluate employees. It has shown me the ways to become an effective leader and how to treat people with respect.

As of recently Training has been something we have been focusing on and i think that it is definitely one of the most important things we have learned in class. Personally I find it to be one of the most important things we have learned in class. Knowing how to train an employee is extremely important. And knowing the process of training I'm sure will help me be trained better in the future. I now also know the importance of evaluation. It is the only thing that will give true assessment to progression, and it will help with employee moral and motivation. Even talking to the manager at TGI Friday's reinforced that, even in the real world, evaluations motivate and raise moral for employees.

Blog #3

After going through the Intro to mag.. class i now have a better understanding of everything that makes up being in a ledership roll. I will be able to take everything that i have learnd from this class and aply it to my next job once i leave the CIA. There is much more to being a leader in restaruant then just telling people what to do and how to do it. There are many thing in wich you must do other then just hireing and fireing people. I now know many diffrent ways to talk to people to get them to do things. I now feel that once i am in the job and have many diffrent task throuwn at me i will be able to handle them in the best way.

Blog #3

Now that Intro to Management class is coming to an end I am glad I had the opportunity to take this class. The secret diner project especially helped me better understand the industry. I think this assignment helped me see things in a different light. Also since our experience was not so great, it was easy to pinpoint on the negative aspects and learn exactly what not to do as a manager. I also learned that decision making and problem solving is very important as a manager. Leaders need to be good at both of these to receive the respects of both their superiors and co workers. I also think that training is very important in any industry. I do not agree with leaving people to figure things out on their own. Although at times this might be a good learning experience, most of the time this is not a good idea. It costs money in the long run and lowers the morale of the employee. I think if training is happening it should be done the correct way. It should be done efficiently the first time around so the new employee knows exactly what to do and how things should be done. The things I learned in this class I feel will be very helpful to me in the future. I will continue to remember these things for when I go out in the industry.

Sehjong's Final Blog!

We have learned about Decision Making, Problem Solving and Control with a last lecture. It was really interesting. I specifically agree with that solving people problem is the most difficult. I was so glad that I could learn how to solve people problem, because I’m not really good at people problem. The most effective strategy to solve people problem was Win-Win. That was what I learned and I liked it. There are no people defeated. Everybody wins and is happy. In addition, I want to mention about Non-verbal communication that we’ve learned in ITM class. Non-verbal communication is very helpful for me. As you know, I am an international student who is not good at English. Thus, whenever I get a trouble with communication in English I used to use Non-verbal language. Apparently, space-distance discourages my listening and speaking English. In this case, Nonverbal language also works well. As long as we do understand each other, it is not big deal even if I don’t speak English. I can use fingers, eyes, and anything else. I think Non-verbal language is a precious gift. Anyhow, we are almost done for Introduction to Management class. I really enjoyed this class. Thank you.

NUMB3R THREE

TRAINING!!!!

Ahh, the hated first few days of work where you spend most you time learning people's names you can't remember and exchanging fake smiles and shaking hands. But who would have known that it was so important?

I never took training seriously, maybe because every time I was trained for a job position, it was for something that I liked doing. And throughout my stay with whichever company I was with a the time, I was always the person to complain about everyone else's performance. Once we went over training in class, I get it now, most people who are not trained properly will have absolutely no clue as to what is expected of hem, and then have to rely on everyone else's bad habits and their own mistakes to somehow put together a clue on how things are supposed to work.

This whole concept is new to me, but once I understood it, it all makes sense. all the steps from orientation, tracking progress, retraining, evaluations, etc... That is how companies are fortunate enough to keep most of their employees.

Now that I think about it, i actually trained a ton of people while at The Cheesecake Factory in California. I never really took it seriously, I just wanted the person to understand what is expected of them and at the same time know what to and what not to do in order to not get into trouble. i was expediter at the time and all the training i did was around food, i think the passion took over after a while and iended up being the person who yells and screams at everyone and everything if it didn't go my way. i had no problem ripping a server apart in front of everyone else. even my friends we targets, they all hated me throughout my shif, but the food came out perfect each and everytime, the managers were happy, and the poor new server, all he wanted is is to not get yelled at, so as long as he knew how to not get on my nerves, everything went well. they knew i was nice, but just not at work.

i think the next time i'm put into a situation where i have to lead and train, my view of the whole situation will be completely different due to the training in class!

Blog # 3

There are multiple things that I can take with me from this class and apply later in my life. Some of the things that stuck the most were, planning, organization, training, and much more. While on externship at restaurant Daniel training was one thing that I though could have been a lot better. My training lasted about 15 minutes. I was trained by an extern that was leaving in which I was to replace. It went a little like this. There’s the fridge, there are the cutting boards, this is your station, and this is your prep list. The problem with that was not that I did not know where stuff was or who people were, but rather not knowing any of specifications on the items from my prep list. If I got to do that over I probably would have asked a couple more questions to help avoid myself all the yelling I was soon to get.

Organization, planning, and delegation of tasks were other things I also think could have been a little better at restaurant Daniel. There were many occasions where too much work was given to one person in too little of time. On the prep team at Daniel, there were three of us and in the event that anyone got a day off or call in sick there would be two of us. They never added another person to the prep team which easily resulting in the prep team in the weeds for the whole day. The chefs and line cooks would still expect us to get everything done at the same time while adding another prep list on our shoulders. Moments like that at Daniel made me just want to leave. Events of which could have been avoided by dividing the prep list amongst the line cooks, and or scheduling some one else on prep time.

Jose Frayre: 3rd Post

Organization, many times is left aside because we "don't have time", but it is a vital part of any organization, especially in the food service industry. The simple fact that one has to manage, should scream out for the need of organization. One has to keep track of everything. Nothing can be so insignificant to forget or not document. While there are major occurrences that one will have to document, most of the happenings in a food service establishment will not be too major, but still it is absolutely essential to document them all. The worst thing in my opinion, is asking a supervisor a question, and that supervisor not being able to answer it because they don't even know where their head is.

Supervisors should not get lost in the abyss of their own pile of junk they call an office. A supervisor must be organized at all times. There is no excuse for poor organization. One must know where everything is, and be consistant with organization; keeping all documents that are related to each other together. If one is organized, then that organization will allow for the caring out of other tasks in a much smoother manner.

The supervisor will also be able to make more rational decisions, concerning the kitchen and the staff, because the supervisor will have the information necessary to make good decisions, organized and easily accessible. So in turn the decision making process will be made easier because of organization; the decisions will not be impulsive or indecisive, and will be less intuitive and more rational.