Knowing & Developing Yourself for Professional Success

This document is a Personal Development Plan (PDP) for the course LCBS5028 - Knowing & Developing Yourself for Professional Success. It covers topics such as team working skills, values, strengths, and setting future goals. The document provides insights on the importance of team working skills for future employers and how personal values can contribute to success. It also includes a SWOT analysis and specific goals for personal development.

LCBS5028
KNOWING & DEVELOPING YOURSELF FOR PROFESSIONAL SUCCESS
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN (PDP)
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PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
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KNOWING YOURSELF
MARSHALLOW TEAM CHALLENGE
Questions Responses
What did you learn from this
activity?
(Consider how the team collaborated
and worked as a team, and your role
within the team)
From the activity ‘Marshmallow Team challenge’, I have learnt team-work
skills for my future career development. While I worked with the team, I
experienced an integrated team-work and harmony within my team.
Besides, the activity has successfully taught and developed all of us the
useful attributes like collaboration, creativity and innovation. During the
activity, The Marshmallow Team Challenge reminded me for a group
project to be a career success (Hirsch & McKenna, 2008). I and my team
identified the assumptions we were making within the project as well as
test the assumptions early on so that future learning can occur. I worked as
an active learner and team-worker while my team supported me to act as
one. I have learnt how to collaborate in a team for the betterment and
development of each other.
How will this help you when working
in teams as part of your MSc?
When I am looking at MSc and group projects of MSc then I find the above
team challenge activity majorly useful for effectively working in teams. I will
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Why do future employers look for
teamworking skills?
be able to work efficiently as well as effectively with the help of my team-
working skills acquired in this Knowing and Developing Yourself
module.
On the other hand, as per my knowledge future employers will
look for team working skills definitely, and the reasons can be as
follows:
 Employers will require effective teamwork skills for success of their
business (Hirsch & McKenna, 2008).
 Team working skills offer the ability to perform effectively as an
individual as well as together with the team of colleagues or
employees for attaining personal and professional growth and
success (Pritchard, 2013).
 Employers will look for the effective team working skills because in all
aspects of a business, the different skills of team’s workers are
required for achieving success.
 Team working boost an individual’s confidence while contributing
ideas to a group project
 Team working skills gives opportunity of listening to others and
hence take everyone’s ideas for implementing an idea
 Team working kill play an active role in order to create a positive
energy and environ during any employer’s project (Rita et al., 2016).
 Team working skills support any fellow worker who requires
additional support, and hence employers appoint team leaders for an
effective functioning (Banks, 2009).
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 Team work takes responsibility for the employer’s tasks within a
project; hence they will always look for an effective team working
skill in their candidates (Beevers & Rea, 2013).
VALUES
Questions Responses
What are your top 3 values & why are
they important to you?
I take my personality values as the career motivators and drivers of the
future success. In this context, I also own distinct values and three most
important values out of them are as follows:
 Learning: the first value of me is my learning attitude. I am an
active learner which allows me to learn things easily and efficiently
in my personal as well as professional life activities. My active
learning value makes my life easier and smooth to live. It is very
important attribute which always offers success opportunities in
long-life (Chawla & Renesch, 2009).
 Work life balance: this quality of mine is an essential career value
to be successful in both professional and personal life. This quality is
important to nurture as without balancing work with personal life
nobody can get success and growth in their life (Schölkopf, 2015).
 Work with others: this value of mine allows me to work in teams.
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As upcoming employers will look for team-working skills at a large
extent hence I have started developing these skills as one of my key
values through working with other people around me (Bassos, 2016).
Team working skill of mine teaches me several other professional
things such as collaboration, supportive nature, contribution,
competitiveness, accountability, work in pressure, sociable,
energetic, active learning, friendship, help society and many more
(Conzemius & O'neill, 2009).
How will knowing these values help
you during your studies and in your
future career?
In this way, knowing such skills as team work, work-life balance and active
learning will help me during the future studies and career growth as well, in
following manner:
 My teamwork will motivate me to encourage unity within the future
workplace, thus future career growth will not be hindered.
 My value of effective teamwork will create a workplace environment
promoting environ which can foster friendship and loyalty and hence
I will study well.
 My present career values will create close-knit relationships to
motivate other employees within parallel as well as align them to
work harder.
 My career values will make me cooperative and supportive for all,
thus future career and study development will be well driven
through these values (Gibbs, 2016).
What steps could you take to ensure
you live by these values? Think of
In order to effectively ensure that I am living the above mentioned values, I
will adopt following actions as follows:
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some actions you can take?  I will set, evaluate and revise my short-term goals and missions for
them
 I will set, evaluate, assess and revise my medium-term goals
 I will set my long-term goals and work in the direction.
 I will take feedback from my tutor, class-mates, peers, competitors,
family members and other people around me in the context of my
personal values (Heyrup & Bente, 2009).
Download the Values Inventory from Blackboard
StrengthsFinder
Questions Responses
Name your top 5 from your strengths
profile?
1. Self-motivation
2. Critical Decision-making
3. Time-management
4. Help society
5. Work-life balance
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What surprised you when reading the
report?
Identify any specific words or phrases
that you agreed with and why?
When I read the report, some things surprised me a lot, which are as
follows:
 Communication building and strong building is an important skill of
academic development (Hickson, 2011).
 Report writing can be so important for learning and career
development
 A report carries contributions of diverse team members
 Correct and credible references or sources are very important while
writing a report
I agree with the following phrases:
 John Maxwell said ‘A leader is the one who knows the way, goes the
way and leads the way’. I agree with the words of John Maxwell as I
want to become a true leader in my future workplace and life as
well.
 Furthermore, I believe in the words by Lao Tzu who was an ancient
Chinese philosopher and writer. The words ‘knowing others is
intelligence. While knowing yourself is the true wisdom. On the other
hand, mastering others is strength while mastering yourself is true
power. I agree with these words because these words of famous
philosopher motivated me to write this PDP and reflect upon my own
learning from past events and activities.
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What can you do to invest in these
talents to become strengths?
Identify some specific actions – list at
least 3
In this context, self-reflective practice, self-analysis, self-evaluation and
assessment can easily convert my talents into strengths. For an example, if
I will pursue building my team working skills in future then one day I will
know each and every pros and cons as well as challenges of working in a
team. Hence, this will allow me to become a team-leader in organizational
scenario. In this way, following are some specific actions which I will utilise
to convert my talents into strengths:
 I will always utilize intellectual stimulation to be self-motivated at
future workplaces so that intellectual stimulation can become one of
my great strength.
 I will manage my time and goals so that management of each and
everything can become my one of the big strength. For an example,
time management is already my strength and I want to acquire
expertise in each and every area.
 I will keep learning into daily life, personal life and professional one
so that my pursued learning about my talents can allow me to invest
in my talents to make them my strengths (Harrison, 2009).
How can others see these strengths
as perceived weaknesses?
(sometimes known as basement)
As we know that, there are so many perceptions of a single view as there
are so many people in this world. In this way, other people can take all of
my key strengths as perceived weaknesses in following way:
1. Self-motivation: this strength can be taken as perceived weakness
because self-motivations promote a sole learning while neglecting
team-learning and team-work slightly. Besides, a self-motivated
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person will always be motivated irrespective of his or her team
workers’ motivation level which will affect team-learning.
2. Critical Decision-making: in this context, a critical decision making
occurs from the thinking originating from the practice of logically
gathering, analysing, and evaluating info and relevant data. In this
way, this strength of mine can be excessive time-taking step in
problem solving and decision-making process.
3. Time-management: while I am getting huge benefits from time
management, one can perceive it as a time-consuming and time-
wasting process because a lot of time is get wasted when I manage
my time for each and every important thing and activity (Harrison,
2009).
4. Help society: societal help or social work can be taken as one of my
weakness because every one cannot thing from this angle of
viewpoint. One can think that resources, time and energy are getting
diverted as well as wasted for helping society people.
5. Work-life balance: when I am balancing my work and life then I need
to segment my focus for the both the things. Hence, focus can be
diverted and divided while maintaining work-life balance. Therefore,
work-life balance will be perceived as a weakness when an individual
will be looking for sole concentration on either personal or
professional life (Banks, 2009).
What have you learned from your
strengths profile?
While preparing the first step of PDP, I have identified my all of the key
strengths and now I can easily relate me as a person with those of my
career interests. In addition, discovering myself has enabled me to relate
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Consider what you discovered about
yourself and how this might relate to
you as a person and your career
interests.
my career values with my career interests effectively as follows:
 While preparing my strength profile, I learnt that I am also good at
verbal and written communication and hence I need to work upon
non-verbal communication as it is the most essential communication
type for pursuing career interests. Learning non-verbal
communication will allow me to be successful presenter during
future business meetings and presentations.
 I learnt that my time management skills can be utilized for doing
efficient and excellent quality work as time management enables my
as an effective worker in both professional and personal life.
 I learnt that preparing my strengths profile made me identify my key
qualities as well as think over my present and future weaknesses.
Thus, making strengths profile made me reflect upon my possible
and already present weaknesses in a way that I can address all of
them timely.
Continued…
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DEVELOPING YOURSELF
Setting Future Goals and Aspirations
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
1. Self-motivation
2. Critical Decision-making
3. Time-management
4. Help society
5. Work-life balance
6. Supportive and collaborative nature
7. Active learner
Areas for Development
8. People management
9. Work alone
10.Personal relationships
11.Influence
12.Power and leadership
13.Initiative and responsibility
Opportunities
14.Becoming a manager at future workplace
15.Becoming a team leader at the future organizations
16.Becoming a good businessman
17.Becoming an entrepreneur
18.Setting medium-term, short-term and long-term
goals
Threats
21.Inability to work in pressure
22.Inability to deal with stress
23.At times over-confident
24.Helping others
25.Critical decision making
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19.Pursuing talents and qualities for converting them
into strengths
20.Strengthening my strengths profile
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Create at least 5 specific goals – these can be a mix of Career Ambitions, AcademicAchievements,
Personal Development, Starting a Business
What do I want to
achieve?
(short / long term
goals)
How am I going to
achieve it?
What additional support
and resources will I
need?
What strengths can I
use to help achieve
these goals?
By When?
I want to achieve
high distinction in
each and every
future module
I will assign
specific and
enough time per
module for
studying,
evaluating and
revising
knowledge.
I will regularly follow
up with tutor for
getting feedbacks to
improve further
Based on
(Conzemius & O'neill,
2009), Enhanced
focus and
Disciplined nature
Next 6
months
I want to develop
leadership skills in
my personality
I will try to grab
leadership
opportunities
during academic
activities and
modules.
I will read and grab
learning from past
great leaders from
internet and
autobiographies
I will always be an
active team worker
while resolving my
team’s every
challenge by
knowing them well
Next 2
years
I want to be a
graduate with new
technological skills
I will learn all new
modern
technologies
I will update my skill-
set timely with the
help of attending
I will read all
academic and non-
academic journal
Next 3
years
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which are
essential for
sustainable
marketing and
promotion for a
successful
business
university seminars
and tech-workshops
and inter-universities
conferences.
articles and news
to be updated from
the technological
perspective
I want to achieve
mastery in
communication
skills (verbal, non-
verbal and written)
I will improve and
cultivate my
written skills
through report
writing and tasks
writing given by
my tutors
I will practice my
writing and verbal
skills with interacting
to peers and other
intellectual people
around me
I will read and
practice on how to
have non-verbal
skills to be
successful in
professional and
personal life
Next 2
years
I want to become an
entrepreneur
I will study hard
and get good
grades while
acquiring every
possible
knowledge during
the lectures,
activities and
modules over
doing business
I will practice skills
such as negotiation
and management,
critical thinking and
analytical thinking,
leadership and many
more from videos,
practical and
academic activities
and achievements.
I will learn power
and influence,
addressing
challenges,
addressing
competition,
accountability and
introducing
innovation in
business.
Next 10
years
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Continued…
Outline the key challenges you might face in the next few weeks and months?
 Communication while doing academic writing
 Communication challenges while interacting with diverse cultured friends and team-mates
 Achieving short-term goals
 Re-evaluating my short-term goals effectively (Gibbs, 2016).
How can I go about managing these?
 I will learn cross-cultural communication
 I will an effective academic writing and referencing the material as well
 I will learn reflective practice for my self-assessment
 I will consult with my teachers and tutors
 I will learn to be culturally intelligent person
Knowing my strengths what can I do to overcome these challenges?
 Knowing that I am also good at communication , will help me out to overcome challenges related to
communication activities
 Knowing that I am a good time manager, will aid to my management portfolio and hence help me to
become an efficient manager as soon as possible
 Knowing that I can be self-motivated, I have found a source of motivation within myself (Chawla &
Renesch, 2009).
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Continued…
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PROMOTING YOURSELF
Personal Branding
Questions Responses
What is a Brand?
To me, a brand is a whole experience of a consumer which distinguishes a
firm or product from its rivalry in the views of the consumer. In addition,
brands can be utilised within business, marketing, as well as advertising
(Chawla & Renesch, 2009).
Why do we buy one Brand over
another?
We buy one brand over another because our requirements are usually
driven by brand name and image oriented. Moreover, there can be number
of reasons behind why we switch over another brand include:
 As per our budget and basic requirements switching seems logical
 As per the required quality level, switched brand seems best
 As per the present market condition, another brand is going good
than first one.
 In whole, brand image and value in terms of customer service makes
us switching from one to another brand.
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What do we expect from our brands?
We expect following basic things from a brand:
 Fulfilling our basic requirements and exceeding them as well
 Recognition, trust and loyalty
 A relationship based on trust
 Seamless interactions
 Personalized experiences
 An emotional connection
 Brand’s accountability and timeliness
 Brand’s respect for our preferences and changed demands
Why is this relevant to my job
search?
The personal branding as well as knowledge about brand management is
essentially relevant to my future job search for the following reasons:
 Without knowing brand’s definition and brand’s image significance I
cannot be a business man
 Without knowing brand knowledge and importance in this
technological era, I cannot be fit in future workplaces
 Without knowing customers’ expectations from a brand, I cannot
become an effective employee at business firms as I will not be able
to fulfil my future customers’ expectations and demands.
 A future job in famous brand organization will add to my CV and
professional skill set for the future career development.
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In the box below write down three words you would like someone to use when describing you, and why?
1. Learner: as I want to keep learning in any situation, condition and context of life.
2. Team worker: as i can work as a good team-worker having skills like support, collaboration, active
engagement and contribution.
3. Challenger: I can be a challenger for anyone who is energetic and keen to learn for being
successful.
What do I do Next?
Write down below all the different ways you will be promoting Brand You.
The different ways in which I will promote me as a brand, are as follows:
 By introducing me through my creativity and innovation in each and every scenario
 By respecting others’ views, knowledge and personality
 By nurturing personal relationships
 By introducing me as an expert of my key strengths
 By introducing me as an entrepreneur
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PERSONAL REFLECTION
What did you learn from this module? What did you discover about yourself and others? How can you put
this into practice?
I have learnt a lot from this ‘Knowing and developing yourself module’. My learning has occurred in the
form of self-development and self-realization. With the help of completing this module, I have identified
my strengths, weaknesses and challenges in the context of future career development.
I have discovered career values, personal attributes and self-motivators for the future development
and personality development as well.
While completing this module, I got to know a lot about my team partners and tutors as I had to
interact with all of them.
In this way, I will integrate all of the learning acquired from this module into achieving my future goals
and objectives to become a successful entrepreneur.
Actions you will take to achieve your goals
My future action plan will be as follows:
 I will learn cross-cultural communication
 I will an effective academic writing and referencing the material as well
 I will learn reflective practice for my self-assessment
 I will consult with my teachers and tutors whenever I will face challenges
 I will learn to be culturally intelligent person
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 I will evolve my personality as per the results of SWOT analysis conducted during this module.
 I will achieve and re-assess all of my goals and personal objectives as soon as possible efficiently.
 I will become a better person from the perspective of society, family and peers.
Conclusion
In conclusion, while preparing this PDP I have identified the importance of career values, and
motivators effectively. I have discovered myself from finding my key strengths like creativity, effective
communication, accountability and team working skills. Thus, I have successfully created my strengths
profile for evaluating my own personality in order to develop the future career plan. Besides, I have
successfully completed the module for my own professional and personal success. During this module, I
got to know what a PDP is and why it is required to made for an individual student. In whole, through
knowing, developing as well as promoting myself, my PDP has been successfully made in order to
achieve success at future organizations.
References
Banks, S., 2009. From professional ethics to ethics in professional life: implications for learning, teaching and study. Ethics and Social
Welfare, 3(1), pp.55-63.
Bassos, B., 2016. What is reflective practice? In The reflective practice guide: An interdisciplinary approach to critical reflection.
Oxon: Routledge.
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Beevers, K. & Rea, A., 2013. Learning and Development Practice. 2nd ed. London: Charted Institute of Personnel and Development.
Chawla, S. & Renesch, J., 2009. Learning organizations: Developing cultures for tomorrow’s workplace. New York: Productivity
Press.
Conzemius, A. & O'neill, J., 2009. The power of SMART goals: Using goals to improve student learning. London: Solution Tree Press.
Gibbs, G., 2016. Learning by Doing: a guide to teaching and learning methods. London: Further Education Unit.
Harrison, R., 2009. Learning & Development. 5th ed. London: Charted Institute of Personnel and Development.
Heyrup, S. & Bente, E.B., 2009. Reflection: Taking it beyond the individual. New York: Routldge.
Hickson, H., 2011. Critical reflection: Reflecting on learning to be reflective. Reflective Practice, 12(6), pp.829-39.
Hirsch, P.L. & McKenna, A.F., 2008. Using reflection to promote teamwork understanding in engineering design education.
International Journal of Engineering Education, 24(2), p.377.
Pritchard, A., 2013. Ways of learning: Learning theories and learning styles in the classroom. London: Routledge.
Rita, R., Neda, M. & Nasrin, S., 2016. Team-Based Learning: A New Approach Toward Improving Education. Acta Medica Iranica,
54(10), pp.678-82.
Schölkopf, B., 2015. Learning to see and act. Nature, 518(7540), pp.486-87.
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