Organization Behavior Project

PROJECT 1: Personal Skills Assessment

The assignments for this class are related and seek to complete a job candidate portfolio that will be presented at the end of week seven. Students will be expected to present a draft of each assignment on the milestone date given. The faculty will review the draft and give feedback along with a grade for the draft. The papers will be combined into one document to submit as the final portfolio in week 7. When the portfolio is submitted complete with revisions in week seven, the faculty member will grade it as a completed portfolio at which time additional points will be assessed on the changes made, the quality of the portfolio and its chances for getting the job.

This is the first assignment in the portfolio.

Purpose:

The purpose of this assignment is for you to develop a clear picture of the skills that you possess right now to qualify you for likely success in the job for which you will apply.

Outcomes:

· Students will accurately assess their critical thinking skills showing areas of improvement.

· Students will be able to evaluate the skills of greater to lesser weakness so that they can improve for future work assignments or job moves.

· Students will have personal knowledge of the skill set that employers desire in a career capacity.

The Portfolio Scenario:

Rainbow Paints has five people retiring soon, and they want to give their existing personnel first chance to fill the jobs. You are anxious to move up in the company to a management position and happily apply. The candidate portfolio, given to you by HR, contains two parts: a self-evaluation so you can determine your candidacy for one or more of the positions (project 1).

This Assignment:

This project 1 contains a series of tests which will help your employer, Rainbow Paints, in assessing what position you are best suited to fill.  It also contains a short job description for each of the positions that will open. Since you are familiar with these positions and their roles, you think that the types of test they ask you to take will not only tell HR what job is best for you, but it should tell you as well. This may give you a better idea of your chance of getting the position.

Steps for Completion of the Assignment:

Step 1. Take all the quizzes found in the list located with the chart below the project instructions.

Step 2. Using the Word document template provided for your paper, complete your report. Answer the implication questions typing them into the table given in the report template.

Type of quiz	Quiz Taken and results	Implication Question Answers

Assessment Links (self assessment Quizzes to be taken):

· Cooperation/Collaboration  – DISC profile  https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/ODAT/  

· Emotional Intelligence - MindTools EI Test  https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/ei-quiz.htm

· Cultural Intelligence  – Earley and Mosakowski’s Cultural Intelligence test   https://hbr.org/2004/10/cultural-intelligence

· Personality Traits –  Big Five (OCEAN):   https://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/   

· Personal Preferences  -Myers-Briggs/Jung Type Indicator -Open Pyschometrics  https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/OEJTS/   

· Personal Values  - Rokeach Values Survey  www.unhas.ac.id/rhiza/arsip/arsip-macam2/Value_Survey.pdf

· Career Orientation - Holland Occupational Themes  https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/RIASEC/

 

Step 3. When you have completed the table, in a 2-3-page summary explain your results and select the position or positions for which you will be the best fit. Explain why. The total document will be approximately 1000 words in length. It should contain a brief introduction, the completed table, a discussion of quiz results, and the analysis of the job for which you are applying.

Points to be covered in the summary are:

· A general evaluation summary of the quiz results;

· The implications for the jobs available;

· The job or jobs that best fit you and/or the one you want;

· The reasons why you made the selection;

· How the test results help to influence your conclusion: and

· The effectiveness of your selection for the organization (in reference to CASE STUDY ).

Step 4. Completing the Paper 

· Read the grading rubric for the project.  Use the grading rubric while completing the project to ensure all requirements are met so as to earn the highest possible grade.  

· Approach and perspective: Keep in mind this is an analytical business report not an academic writing assignment. In a typical academic paper, you would research the library and summarize the articles about the topics studied. In contrast, a business report is analytical. Do not summarize article after article. Instead, get to your point, make your point, and prove your point. You will state your point (the point sentence in a paragraph). Explain it (this is where using key facts from the case are helpful) and then prove it using our required course content from the classroom. Give in-text citation.

· Voice: In this assignment, you are presenting yourself as an objective, reasonable professional. You will need to use first person "I" when appropriate to speak about yourself. At all other times, write objectively in third person voice.  There should be no opinion statements such as "I think" or "In my opinion." Write objectively and analytically, yet refer to yourself ("The results indicate I...") when you are the subject. Third-person means that there are no words such as “I, me, my, we, or us” (first person writing), nor is there use of “you or your” (second-person writing).   

· Contractions are not used in business writing, so do not use them.

· Use of case study material: Do note that you will at times need to take phrases or sentences from the case being analyzed to explain the point you are making. It is important that any phrases or sentences are set off with quote marks. The phrase or sentence should begin and end with “. Give an in-text citation for the case study and full reference in the reference list. An acceptable reference list citation for a case study is:

University of Maryland University College. (2019) BMGT 464 Name of scenario (e.g. Project 1 scenario). Retrieved from (give URL to the course content access for this scenario).

· Sourcing:

· You may NOT use books as source material, ONLY USE COURSE MATERIAL FOR IN TEXT CITATIONS AND REFERENCES.  

· You are expected to use the facts from the case scenario paired with the weekly course readings to develop the analysis and support the reasoning. For this reason, you are discouraged from seeking external sources. Your primary sources must be the learning materials provided in the classroom content area.  The expectation is that you provide a robust use of the course readings.  If any material is used from a source document, it must be cited and referenced.  

Step 5.  Review the Paper 

Read the paper to ensure all required elements are present.  Use the grading rubric to ensure that you gain the most points possible for this assignment. 

Proofread the paper for spelling and grammatical issues and third-person writing. 

Skill Assessment Chart to further help figure out the best job position to choose based on your character traits and attributions.

Self-Awareness	Ability, Personality or Preference	Tool To Be Used	Implication
Cooperation/ Collaboration	Ability to recognize one’s own behavioral patterns	DISC	What are my ‘default’ behaviors when interacting with others? How would these affect the manner in which I collaborate with a team?
Emotional Intelligence	Ability to recognize the emotions of others and self to use information productively	Mind Tools EI Quiz	Do I understand and use emotion to make effective decisions? Can I relate to people well because I can read their emotional state?
Cultural Intelligence	Ability to function well in the context of differences	Cultural Quotient Scale (CQS)	Am I aware of important cultural differences? Do I act in ways that show I value those differences?
Personality Traits	Personality characteristics that remain stable over one’s life	Big Five Inventory	What are my dominant personality traits? How do I maximize my traits to best fit with others?
Personal Preferences	Preference for the direction of energy, decision making, information acquisition, and orientation to the outside world.	Myers-Briggs Type Indicator	How do I like to work with others and process information? What do I look for in others to complement my preferences? How will I best act in team situations?
Personal Values	Preference for desirable ends or goals and the process for attaining them?	Rokeach Values Checklist	What do I value most and seek in others?  What will I not bend or compromise on? What to me is negotiable?
Career Orientation	Preference for particular types of work environments and occupations	Holland Occupational Preference Scale	What occupational elements are most important to me? With what types of people will I thrive?

Adapted From Table 1.3 page 29 Baldwin, Timothy T., Bommer. William H., Rubin, Robert S., Managing Organizational Behavior: What Great Managers Know & Do, 2013 McGraw-Hill Irwin, New York NY

 

Candidate Positions:

Position 1: Sales Director Middle East

Location: Morocco

Answers to: Executive Sales Director, Asia Division 

Rainbow Paint’s Asia Division will be opening its first Middle East location in Morocco in the next 12 months. A Sales Director will be needed to head up this new division. A team of local salespeople will need to be recruited, hired, and trained by this manager. It is expected that this sales team may be primarily men, young and English speaking. You know little about this new job, but you have been a member of many new project teams. Most of which have been successful.

Position 2:  Director of North American Residential Sales

Location: Headquarters, Detroit Michigan

Answers to: VP of Headquarter Operations 

Residential paints have been the backbone Rainbow Paint sales since its inception. Residential sales in North America are still strong, but sales seem to be running flat in the last two years, and you have heard that the current Director is being pushed into retirement so that new ideas can come to the sales force. The North American sales director’s position, while located in the company headquarters, interfaces with the rest of the company globally. It requires a great deal of virtual work coordinating with all other departments and divisions. The current North American sales team is highly diverse and has predominantly women who are “high-flyers.” This is a high-profile position.

Position 3:  VP of Headquarter Operations

Location: Headquarters, Detroit Michigan

Answers to: President and CEO

The Headquarters houses R&D, HR, IT, Purchasing, and Finance. Each of these departments has its own “subculture,” and each department is distinct from each other. The young, youthful subculture of IT often clashes with the conservative subculture of the Finance department, for example. Many of the members of the Finance and HR teams are baby boomers and are near retirement. This leader oversees the smooth operation of all these departments and ensures the coordination of these departments with each other and with each of the four geographic divisions across the world.

Position 4:  Assistant Director of Human Resources, North American Division

Location: Chicago, Illinois

Answers to: Director of Human Resources, North American Division  

In this position, you would assist the Director in HR. This division is seen as the “flagship” by all other divisions because it creates all the policy and sources employees from all divisions of Rainbow Paints. This Executive Director has the “ear” of the CEO and spends a lot of time with the executive staff. This leader is faced with spearheading the future direction of HR and is challenged with filling openings throughout the United States and Canada caused by fast growth and a retiring Baby Boomer population. You have heard that this director is a Type A personality and can be very demanding. This Director has his finger on everything and is vying for the CEO position should it become vacant in the future.

Position 5:  Director of Production Europe

Location: Headquarters, Wiesbaden, Germany

Answers to: VP of Headquarter Operations  

This leader oversees the day-to-day operations of the residential paints production department. This leader is expected to aid in strategic planning with the executive team. This person is expected to bring a conservative approach to the strategic planning table, to balance out the high-risk tolerance of the rest of the leadership at Rainbow. A “big picture” perspective is needed here. It is rumored that this position may merge with commercial paints production due to low sales in Europe.