Statement of personal achievement

Example 10 – Alison Art, Pin: 12124411Z

Overview

I have worked for my present employer since 1986, straight from school, and progressed from a filing clerk to middle management within that time.

By 2003 I held the position of Team Leader at our Glasgow office in charge of a Motor Team of 14 people. I was starting to outgrow the role and felt that I wasn’t really learning very much. I researched further education possibilities and decided to do a BA Honours at Napier University in Edinburgh.

I had considered the Fellowship programme after I qualified as an Associate in 1995, but felt that I did not have the ability to produce a dissertation, so I was pleased to see that if I qualified with a BA Honours that this would qualify as my personal achievement. By then the Fellowship programme seemed more “user friendly” and I felt that I had the ability to complete it. I had the time in my present role as it was not very demanding. I started my degree in February 2003 and applied for the Fellowship Programme in March 2003.

In September 2003 however, I was promoted to Operations Manager at the company’s Leeds office in charge of 5 Team Leaders and 35 claims staff. My job, location and home changed in February 2004 when my husband and I moved to York. My husband had to resign from his position in Glasgow and look for alternative employment in Yorkshire.

I have kept to my plan so far and will hopefully be successful.

Fellowship plan

My plan was to complete my degree in 15 months, when it was a 27 month course, and then complete my Ethics Programme and finally my Statement of Personal Achievement.

I decided to study 2 subjects at a time rather than 1 and broke down my degree into sitting 2 exams in May 2003, completing my Reflection on Learning project towards the end of the summer of 2003 and sitting my final 2 exams in February 2004.

I had initially anticipated that if my final dissertation was to be submitted by May 2004, allowing me to graduate in the July, that I would be able to submit my Business Ethics Programme by the middle of 2004.

I knew that the degree course would provide me with a lot of the material I required to learn and that I could also attend the Saturday morning tutorials, which I did even from York.

I had the Business Ethics Programme book to read and specimen questions and answers to refer to.

Changes to Fellowship plan

I am pleased to say that my Fellowship plan only changed slightly considering the massive change I was undergoing.

I stuck rigidly to the plan I set out for my degree even though I was moving house and job only a few weeks after my exams in January 2004. I started my new role on 1st March 2004 and my dissertation deadline was the end of May 2004.

I found it difficult to find the study time for my degree as my new job was very demanding and I had very little time in the evening to myself. My husband’s father had been diagnosed with lung cancer and we were spending almost every weekend travelling from York on a Friday night after work to Glasgow and back home on a Sunday night so I used my travelling time in the car to study as best as I could.

My company did allow me 2 hours per week to study but I was not always able to take that as I was trying to settle in to a new role and getting to know my staff.

My promotion arose out of a process review the company had gone through and as there was a lot of change introduced during that time the company arranged for their Team Leaders and Managers to attend “Change Management” courses in order to assist them and their staff through the process of change. As I had been promoted to a management position I attended 2 Management Development Programme courses and a Leadership course, all of which contributed to my learning and was unexpected at the time of my initial plan.

Key learning points

Whilst I initially felt that my timing in studying the degree and moving location couldn’t have been at a worse time it actually worked well for me in that the subjects in my degree related directly to my new role and would have been less relevant to my old one.

My present role as Operations Manager is a non-technical role. Having come from a technical position as a Team Leader I had to learn new “operational skills” in order to be a “people manager.”

When I started my degree the first 2 subjects I studies were Risk Management and Management of Financial Institutions. The Risk Management subject did give me an insight technically to the business but has had less of an impact on me in my present role.

Management of Financial Institutions covered organisational behaviour, development and design and was extremely helpful in getting me to understand how teams develop and work well together and how I will be able to understand some of the issues my staff will have. It is extremely helpful that I have worked through my career having hands-on knowledge of the majority of the tasks that my staff carry out and being able to understand how they feel. Having obtained the theoretical knowledge, allows me to better understand the reasoning behind their thoughts and feelings.

Managing change was covered in this subject and this was extremely important to me as I was about to go thought tremendous change myself and it was vital that I understood how my staff would feel and the stages they would go through in dealing with it.

Leadership was another area that I found very valuable as initially I did not understand the difference between a manager and a leader. In the past I had seen people promoted to managers because they were very good at what they did and this was the next natural progression. They were not always very good with people and this always confused me as I saw some managers as needing to have people skills. I could see that some managers could make you feel very motivated and you really wanted to please them whereas others would demand respect because of their position but not always earn it.

It was like a breath of fresh air when I eventually understood the difference and could see that my position required me to be both a manager and a leader. I have since set up Leadership meetings with my Team Leaders in order that they can start to understand the difference and can actually start to make changes which allow them to be good leaders.

The second part of my degree covered the subject of Money and Finance and the Economics of Business Strategy.

I found Money and Finance an extremely difficult subject purely because it did not interest me. I worked extremely hard to overcome this and do have a better understanding of the Monetary Policy and Interest Rates but I will never be an Economist!

The subject covered Financial Regulation which I did find extremely interesting and this in turn, quite ironically, led me to deciding on the subject of Regulation for my dissertation.

I found the subject of Economics of Business Strategy very interesting, as part of my new role involves me in budgeting and covering this subject gave me good insight into the things you need to take into account when running a business.

To finalise my degree, I produced a dissertation on Regulation and the subject was extremely topical at the time as the Financial Services Association were taking over regulating the insurance industry from 14/01/05. Working on this dissertation allowed me to have a clear understanding of the reasoning behind the changes and what my company, and me as a manager, had to do to make sure we were compliant. It also allowed me to get to know some of my staff better as I discussed what it meant for them and what their understanding was.

Key skills and knowledge acquired

I feel that I have gone through and extremely steep learning curve since I started my Fellowship programme and am now reaching the peak.

I have learned what is required to run a successful claims operation by taking into account the work that is required to be done, the number and type of staff I need in order to do it and how much money I need to do it. I would call these my management skills.

A number of years ago I would have thought that this is all that is required but one of my main learning points is how to lead people as opposed to manage them. I know that they go through stages when change is implemented and that most don’t like it. I have learned to be available to them as much as I can in order for them to be able to speak to me so I understand their issues.

Communication is very important to me and this is an area where I am not always successful. The message coming across doesn’t always come across the way I want it, or when it should. This is a way I can get my staff to be more successful if I get this right with them.

Working closely and coaching my Team Leaders is also something I have learned as they have direct access to the staff and have a very strong influence. I now know if I get the wrong person in the job or they don’t understand clearly what is expected of them then my teams may not be successful. – These are my leadership skills.

The Business Ethics Programme was very useful to me as one area that I take very much to heart is decision making. I still think I should always have the answer and be able to solve all of the problems, and this is something I will have to work on improving in the future – understanding that it is acceptable not to always have the answer but to be able to access someone who does.

This programme allowed me to see clear steps to breaking down complex issues and will be extremely helpful to me in the future as I feel comfortable with the other issues I have to face.

Intentions for the future

My manager is leaving for a 6 months secondment and I will be taking over in her role so the future will again be extremely challenging for me.

Now that I have a clearer understanding of my role and am comfortable in it, I am very keen to progress on to the next level of management.

I have a vast amount of learning theory being me, and some practice, and it is now important that I continue to use it in my every day role and develop it further. I also want to pass this on to my Team Leaders in order to develop them for the future.

It is important to me that I develop the leadership skills with my team further as I believe this to be a key part of a successful future. I am prepared to take a short break from any further study to allow myself to be dedicated to my new role and have the time to get closer to my Team Leaders and staff. I will have a number of new responsibilities now and will also coach some of my Team Leaders to do part of my role.

I am very excited about the future and having initially felt that I would be unable to complete the Fellowship Programme, I can honestly say that I have enjoyed it very much and am very pleased that I have had the ability to do it.

My long-term objective is to look at developing myself further with the Chartered Management Institute.

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