Topic: Consulting In Organisation

Order Description
*3.500 word Individual Learning Review
Essay (50%)
THIS IS THE TASK YOU HAVE TO CONDUCT, I UNDERSTAND IT IS A PERSONAL ESSAY ABOUT THE PERSON BUT YOU WILL HAVE TO IMPROVISE AND MAKE UP EXAMPLES AND TO DESCRIBLE WHAT SKILLS AND WHAT I DONE IN THE CLASSROOM, I WILL PROVIDE YOU WITH EXAMPLE YOU CAN USE AND WHAT TO WRITE WHEN IT COMES TO FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS,TEAM WORK, THE CLIENT.

This ILR essay is a reflective piece of work that requires you to evaluate how
successful you have been in achieving your module learning objectives
something you must make evident at the beginning of this essay. These
objectives are the reasons why you decided to enrol on this module regarding
what you wanted to learn or develop. For example, your reasons for enrolling
might be; 1) to learn how to become a consult, 2) to improve your
presentation skills and 3) to work in a diverse team. You should not describe
more than three learning objectives, as it would be difficult for you to produce
a robust piece of work with the word allowance allocated.
For this essay you are required to describe, review, reflect, discuss and
analyse in some detail what you learnt while enrolled on this consulting
module. Reflecting means to look back on for example what you did, what you
observed and what you understood as a result. You must provide evidence of
a range of different experiences drawing on examples to demonstrate what
you learnt and how you have and will continue to apply your learning in the
future.
You are expected to describe how you were able to develop your skills and
competencies since enrolling on this module. You must give some thought to
how you think you might have been perceived by others in your team, and
how you might have perceived them. However, although we require you to be
honest, it is important that you adopt a constructive and objective writing
approach so that you do not come across as too personal or critical. You
should describe how these perceptions changed over time while explaining
what happened to make them change if this was the case. For example, was
something they did, what you learnt in class or something you read about their
team role, learning style or culture.
Remember that this essay is about your learning, so if you discuss your
colleagues or team activities, then you must describe how this relates to you
personally. You are also required to draw on relevant theories to write this
essay, which should not contain graphs, figures, tables, models, numbered
chapters (page numbers are the only exception), or sub-headings as it is not a
report. You can refer to a range of learning perspectives to help you describe
in detail what you learnt. These can include some of the learning perspectives
presented below:
In-class activities:
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These can include individual and team presentations, discussions and
debates feedback and tutorials or insights provided to the module
topics and the assessment requirement.
Team-work:
This involves the work you did with your team regarding the consulting
task, preparing assessed work, or conducting other team related
activities that had a significant impact on your team’s learning.
The Client and the nature of the business:
This relates to the things that you learnt about the client that informed
you of their practice or their work that you found interesting or
fascinating. It could also have something to do with the nature of their
business that provided you with insight to their business industry, their
competitors or the requirements of the job. It could be things learnt that
you did not know beforehand or something you thought you knew
about the industry that you now realise was only a small part of what is
really involved.
Feelings and Emotions:
The focus here is how you felt about the variety of experiences you
endured while on the module and the impact that these emotions had
on you and others, regarding the way they perceived you or responded
to you. These emotions might include feelings of anger, joy, sadness,
nervousness etc. To explain the impact of these emotions, you would
need to describe what happened to make you feel the way you did and
how these emotions changed due to other experiences or attitudes etc.
You should discuss how you learnt to manage these feelings in a
positive way. This can be achieved by describing for example, how
instead of avoiding experiences, which usually result in you thinking
negatively, such as oral presentations that usually make you feel
nervous so you prefer to avoid them, reducing your learning
opportunities. Explain how instead, you decided to become more
involved and how you learnt to deal with the situation and your
emotional response to it in order to benefit. You should then describe
how this made you felt and how your emotions changed for the better.
Theories
This relates to the things that you learnt from the literature read
regarding core and recommended reading materials. You should
discuss how these theories (such as Peter Senge’s `Five Minds
Theory`), and literature written about the theories you have decided to
draw on, provided you with new insights and renewed your
understanding of the topics that they relate to. Discuss how the
literature informed you in a way that helped to you to i.e., change your
perception of self or others, the consulting task or the industry, or how
it helped you to better focus on or identify a career etc. You should
explain what you found interesting and why and how insight to these
theories has helped to widen your perspective and understanding of a
range of different things such as, what you learnt previously on other
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modules, from experience of working with others or how to manage
different situations.
Competencies
This can relate to skills that you were able to develop such as,
presentation, communication, conflict dealing, creative or I.T skills etc.
You would need to describe how you were able to develop these skills
while explaining their impact on you and any other outcomes. For
example, because you were expected to do presentations in class on
your own and with others, you were able to conquer your fear of
presentations and as a result you became more effective at it hence
the compliments you received by your tutor and your team colleagues.
Knowledge
This relates to the range of things that you learnt as a result of your
experience on this module. This can be your knowledge of the
consultancy process, other peoples’ backgrounds, their values or
cultures, the research knowledge, team-working, knowledge of a
particular industry or a range of different theories etc. You should
describe how you gained this knowledge i.e., was it from something
you read, was it something discussed in class, was it from what you
saw or what you did?
You should consider critical learning experiences. These are experiences that
you would regard as being most memorable, with the greatest impact, which
were most significant to you. You should discuss how you addressed or
coped with work pressures, team conflict or personality clashes, and compare
your attitude and feelings at the beginning of the module to how you were
feeling at the end. You should refer to what was covered in the module to help
you describe what you learnt. You should also identify those situations which
you became aware of that you were not aware of beforehand. Remember to
include quotations drawn from your team and individual learning log as
appropriate to provide evidence of your claims to learning.
We would advise you to keep a team learning log and an individual one too.
Learning logs provide you with an opportunity to review the process and
identify your learning from activities in the consulting process. Do take the
trouble to conduct a process review after each team/consulting meeting or
activity, as this will provide you with the raw data from which you can draw
evidence in support of your claims to learning. The ILR guidelines will provide
further insights for writing your ILR essay.
Guidelines for Writing the Individual Learning
Review Essay
What to do during the course of the module
1. Set your individual learning objectives based on your reason for
enrolling on this module such as the things you wanted to learn or
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develop. This can also relate to the things you wish to improve while on
the module and should be identified as early as possible.
2. Check that these individual objectives are in harmony with the group
objectives. This clearly does not mean that they have to be the same
as the group objectives, but that they should not contradict them.
3. Keep a learning log during the course of the module, which you can
complete from week-to-week, recording your progress, or lack of it with
regards to achieving the objectives. Record the occasions when you
developed your learning in relation to the objectives you have set
yourself.
Structure and content of essay
1. Your Individual Learning Essay must include a clear
introduction/rationale confirming the purpose of this assigned piece of
work and what you discuss in it. You should organise the essay around
your learning perspectives such as in-class activities, the client and
nature of the business, your feelings and emotions etc. Do not merely
submit your learning logs – these are just a record to help you write the
essay as an aide memoire that will enable you to produce a logical
thoughtful piece of work.
2. Record your progress at the beginning of the module, during, and at
the end, within each of your learning perspective domains.
? Remember to be honest and tactful.
? Make sure that you give situated examples – that is, examples of
occasions when you progressed, or otherwise. Examples during team
meetings, in lectures, during meetings with client, when doing own
individual tasks, when giving the presentation etc.
? Be clear about the knowledge you have acquired. Include theoretical
knowledge based on core reading material and other theories read.
? Include comments on the usefulness of the understandings you have
developed. How have they contributed to your development as a
student, as a prospective employee, as a person etc?
3. Include some comment on the usefulness of setting objectives.
Sometimes one has to modify one’s objectives in the light of
experience; sometimes new objectives present themselves during the
course of a module – ones that you had not thought of when setting the
original objectives.
4. Although the word allowance for this essay is 3,500 words you have a
10% allowance over but not under this word allowance.
(I WILL SEND YOU THE MODULE HANDBOOK FOR YOU TO READ AND UNDERSTAND STEP BY STEP EVERY WEEK OF WHAT I WAS DOING IN CLASS FOR YOU TO USE AND DELIVER EXAMPLES AND THEORIES RELATED TO THE MODULE.)
REFERENCES THAT I WOULD YOU TO INCLUDE ARE:
Wilson, D compilers (2012): “Professional Consultancy: Practice and Theory”
McGraw Hill
o Martins, D. & Roberts, S. compilers (2011): “Business Management: Developing
Effective Management and Leadership” McGraw Hill
o Wilson, D., & Martins, L compilers (2010): “Effective Management of Organisation
Consulting” (MBS3012) Sage publications
o Wilson, D., Prouska, R. and Roberts, S. compilers (2007): “Consulting in
Organisations” Pearson Custom Publishing UK
Wickham, P.A. (2004): “Management Consulting: Delivering an Effective Project”
Prentice Hall UK
Saunders, M., Lewis, P., and Thornhill, A. (2007): “Research Methods for
Business Students” 4th ed Prentice Hall UK
Senge, P.(2006): The Fifth Discipline.”`The Art & Practice of The Learning
Organisation” Random House Business Books UK
Senge, P., Kleiner, A., Roberts, C., Ross, R.B., and Smith, B.J. (1994): “The Fifth
Discipline Fieldbook” Nicholas Breasley UK
Have, S., Have, W., Stevens, F., Elst, M. & Pol-Coyne, F. (2003): “Key Management
Models (Prentice Hall, UK).
Burnes, B, (2004): “Managing Change” Prentice Hall UK
Armstrong, M. and Baron, A. (2004): “Managing Performance” CIPDSelected articles
(identified by the tutor in the Module Handbook)
(EVERYTHING WILL BE EXAMPLED IN THE ATTACHMENTS AND THE MODULE HANDBOOK THAT WILL GIVE YOU WEEK B WEEK OUTLINES ON WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT AND USE RELEVANT THEORIES TO BACK UP).
WHEN IT COMES TO USING PERSONAL EXPERIENCES PLEASE MAKE IT UP BUT RELATE IT TO WAYS IN WHICH CAN COLLABORATE WITH CONSULTING.
USE ME AS THE IMPLEMENTER AND DESCRIBE WAYS IN WHICH I DO MY WORK. WEEK3-( I AM CONFIDENT, OUT SPOKEN/GOING, WELL SPOKEN, OPTIMISTIC, DIVERSE)