Last week, I was busy preparing my final presentation, which was about Toyota Motor Corporation. I searched many websites to find out about the company. I found a lot of useful information related to the topic and I was busy with the preparation even on Saturday morning before I left for the class.
After sending the first draft to my teacher, I went to UCLA for my eighth class. The main agenda of that class was Problem Solving.
We face many problems in our daily lives, including that of business, family and friends. Whenever we face those problems we have to tackle them. Today in the lesson we took a look at solving business problems.
Before the problem solving we role-played interviewer and interviewee for a job interview. Its main purpose was to go over the stuff we did in the sixth session. Our goal was to select the right person for a full-time English teaching position at a trading company.
We had three candidates to choose from. All the groups tried to select the best candidate for the position It was not so easy a task. All the groups selected the same person and provided reasons for selecting that candidate. Unfortunately, that was the wrong one for the position according to the teacher.
After that, we practiced a dialog which was about solving a problem. We were in twos and each practiced the dialog.
How do you solve problems when you face them at work?
We face many problems at work and there's bound to be a best possible solution for every one of them. We took turns playing roles of a customer and a supplier in different situations.
Of course, I have faced and dealt with problems before but it's rather different when you are representing a company as you need to have a holistic view so this session was very meaningful.
After that, we looked at sample actions a project manager took to solve a problem he faced during a company meeting. It went like this – A project manager wanted to discuss about an agenda so he called for a meeting which he scheduled for 11 o'clock but no one turned up because everyone thought that was a waste of time. What kind of actions would I have taken if I were the manager?
We then discussed what kind of troubleshooting techniques would be applicable in our own groups and told the class the solutions we came up with.
I don't think I've ever faced such problems while working in Japan. I think Japanese companies are more institutionalized and well-mannered.
That's all for now.
Thanks!
