Study Skills for Business and Management

How to Succeed at University and Beyond

Patrick Tissington, Christos Orthodoxou

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781446293058
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Skills
• Index: Business

Want to stand out from the thousands of other business and management students when you graduate from university?

This comprehensive study skills book gives you all the tools and techniques needed to graduate with a better degree than you thought possible. Study Skills for Business and Management is written in an entertaining and non-patronising way and isfilled with examples and case studies. With chapters on efficient and effective reading, working in groups, managing and writing essays and succeeding in exams, this textbook is written specifically with business and management students? needs in mind.

Key features:

• Written by an academic and a recent business and management graduate who are in touch with what it is like to study Business and Management today and the challenges students face
• Based on primary research in to which study skills are the most effective, providing an evidence-based approach that you can trust in and saving you precious time
• Contains a wealth of current examples from recent business and management graduates, highlighting examples of good practice as well as common pitfalls to avoid

Student Success is a series of essential guides for students of all levels. From how to think critically and write great essays to boosting your employability and managing your wellbeing, the Student Success series helps you study smarter and get the best from your time at university.

1

Planning and goal setting

1.1 Chapter summary

By the end of this chapter, you should have an idea of the goals you want to achieve at university and a rough plan of how you are going to achieve them. More specifically you should have a list of goals across all areas of your life, the benefits of achieving these and the associated challenges. You will also have devised action plans.

1.2 The end goal

What do you want to achieve in your time at university? This is the central question behind this chapter and we hope it is one you have asked yourself already. However, many students go through university without really working out what it is they are trying to achieve. Time at university is actually very short and most of us only ever do a degree once, which means it is crucial to answer this question. Pat went to university late in life – when he was 29. Many friends who went aged 18 said they envied him going when he was older because when they had been at university, they didn’t really know why they went and so didn’t get anything like what they could have done from the experience. Setting goals is not easy to do and it is even harder to actually achieve them once you do know them. But first, to clarify, our definition of a goal is something you wish to achieve, see the examples given in Figure 1.1:

FIGURE 1.1 Examples of goals

These are all examples of goals and a few examples illustrate that we set goals all the time. Sometimes though we need to set more important, larger goals and these are the ones that require the effort of a more thorough approach which this chapter will help to explore.

1.3 How do goals work?

[Goal] theory is based on what Aristotle called final causality, that is, action caused by a purpose. (Locke, 1996: 118)

Essentially, goals work by directing what actions somebody needs to take. For example, if somebody wishes to pass their driving test, then they need to take a number of actions such as learn the Highway Code, pass the theory test and undertake lessons. In more detail, ‘Goals affect performance by affecting the direction of action, the degree of effort exerted, and the persistence of action over time’ (Locke, 1996: 120). However, just like most things, creating goals does have drawbacks:

• Having goals can become daunting and boring.

• You can become too focused on the final result.

• Goals can create a fear of failure by believing that if the goal is not achieved you will be unhappy.

The important thing to highlight is that all these drawbacks can be overcome, which allows goal setting to become a powerful tool. In fact, the immense value of goal setting is well acknowledged. Research has even specifically proven that students who set goals end up with better grades (Zimmerman et al., 1992).

Backed by years of research data supporting its viability, goal-setting techniques work and work well. (Rubin, 2002: 26)

1.4 Creating your goals

Think of it this way: you need to figure out exactly what you want to achieve from university because you are only there for three or four years at the most which is not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things – and these days, in most countries, it will cost you and your family a lot of money. So, the pressure is on to make sure you get a good return on this investment. Just as importantly, you need to decide what the meaning of your university life is, what you want to spend your time on and what will make you happy. The absolute key behind goal setting is to begin with the end in mind. Stephen Covey explored this really well in his best-selling book, The 7 Habits of Effective People (2004), and Pat regularly recommends this as being the most important habit to learn. Just think about it for a moment: what is the ideal situation for you to be in 12 months from now? Tracy (2003) discusses that everybody has great potential within them and writing goals allows them to realise this by focusing their efforts. Without knowing the end in mind, you will never know when you get there (Cairo, 1998).

The most obvious goal is what grade you want to achieve by the time you finish university. From the research we did in preparing for this book – and through a general understanding of students – most aim for a 2:1. It is interesting to highlight from the research that those who achieved a first wished they spent more time socialising; whilst those who achieved a 2:1 wished they worked a little harder to get a first. It seems then that there is a slight dilemma. Do you work your socks off and try to get a first or do you work pretty hard, enjoy yourself and get a 2:1? Deciding upon this comes down to what you want out of university other than the final grade.

1.5 Areas to set goals

So how do you get started? Figure 1.2 shows the areas we think you should think of when deciding on your goals. You may well have others, but these form a good starting point.

1.5.1 Career and financial – including income, part-time jobs, summer internships

This is the most popular area where goal setting is used, especially as many organisations see the value of creating goals for employees. Undoubtedly, within your career degree, you will have some idea of your career goals. Examples might be:

• secure a placement for the third year of university

• secure a summer job

• network with people in the accounting industry

FIGURE 1.2 Areas to set goals

1.5.2 Family, friends and partners

This is an area of life where it may seem somewhat strange to set goals, however, most of us do set goals here in a subconscious way. For example, most people will say that they want to have the best possible relationship with their friends and family. The power in this area comes from moving from just having a vague subconscious idea to explicitly thinking about it and writing it down. The fact remains, we are social animals and developing social relationships has been strongly linked to happiness (Myers, 2000), so be sure to make the most out of it. Examples might be:

• make as many friends as possible

• maintain a good relationship with family

• enter into a relationship

Chris recently set himself the goal of spending more time with his family as he realised he was getting too caught up with work and other matters, which resulted in him neglecting precious time with his family.

1.5.3 Personal development – including skills, spiritual and mental health

Personal development is absolutely key. Whatever you want to achieve, developing your knowledge and skills will help. Examples might be:

• learn how to write a CV

• keep fit

• become more dedicated to your religion

I always think that I should aim higher in life to live my mission. My main goal in life is to leave a mark – I am satisfied when someone is inspired by my actions, when I recommend something to them and that changes their life. This desire has driven me to set a number of goals which include getting 70 per cent in my dissertation as part of my wider goal to achieve a first class degree, live at least a year in another country, gain a qualification from the Chartered Institute of Marketing and learn the Russian language in a fluent manner.

Monika J. Čiurlionytė, BSc Marketing

It seems that Monika had a clear set of goals. When you read this, did you think she sounded driven? Focused? We certainly did. And it is no accident that having set out these very specific goals for herself, she achieved them.

1.5.4 Fun and recreation – including hobbies, interests, travel and sports

Strategising includes your social life. You will get bored and university is an amazing experience that you will want to enjoy. The techniques in this book will allow you to free up your time to enjoy a social life. Examples might be:

• develop your tennis skills

• establish a new society for students interested in poker

• travel across South America

1.5.5 Service/community

We thoroughly recommend students to set goals around service and community. In short, giving something back creates a sense of satisfaction and allows students to develop their skills and realise what areas interest them, e.g. HR or finance. Examples might be:

• establish a new charity

• raise £500 for charity

• become a voluntary youth worker

Charity work has been a large and important part of my life since a young age. Through the years I have been involved in various different social projects and have always tried to set achievable goals in my work. For example, I have recently set myself the goal of helping young homeless people to get back into employment and find their footing again in society. Having lived in Paris where homelessness is a very prevalent problem, I became highly sensitized to it and wanted to do something to help in areas of the UK where homelessness is a major issue. My specific aim is to grow my company, PeopleMind, with my business partner in order to create jobs and support specifically for homeless people in the Birmingham area. PeopleMind aims to create products through upcycling and involve homeless people throughout the entire process; from sourcing the materials to making the products, to manufacturing them, to selling them on.

Devon Parker, BSc International Business and French

1.5.6 Possessions

This is an area in which a lot of people do set themselves quite high goals, for example, to own a big house or a Lamborghini. However, there is a substantial amount of research to suggest that these goals are not of value (Kasser and Ryan, 1993). The problem is that possessions do not create happiness because they only provide a short-term buzz and people then want something bigger and better.

You may think it is weird to set goals in some of these areas of your life, what goals can you set around your family and friends? The key is to remember why you are doing so, which is to ensure balance. It is so easy to get caught up in one area of your life and neglect others which are just as important. The balance of achieving these goals should allow you to be happy and just as importantly give you a sense of direction and allow you to nurture relationships with those that are close to you. This is all in the aim of realising your true potential in life and subsequently your satisfaction with life (Ryff, 1989). Balance is also a virtuous circle. For example, if you really want to secure a good degree, then balance in the area of fun and exercise will help you to achieve it. Once you have set goals in these areas of your life, you can then go back to your degree and ascertain what grade to aim for.

Knowing what areas to create goals, how do you actually go about generating them? The general advice is to think about what you wish to achieve and then write it down. This would be fine if everybody knew what they wanted, however, as you probably know, most people do not. This problem is well recognised and so a few methods have been created to help people create goals. We suggest that you maintain an open mind to these methods and have a go at all of them.

1.6 How to set goals that work

So, having explored the areas you should focus your goal setting on, we now move on to how you go about actually setting the goals.

1.6.1 Envisioning

This method involves defining a vision and working your way back to set manageable goals. By a vision, we mean what would make a perfect life. You can really use your imagination in this approach: if there were simply no limits, what job would you like? Who you would like to be friends with? What would you like your body to be like? For example, to be happy by securing a good education and maintaining fun and healthy relationships with my friends. Taking this example, the goals coming out would include:

• a grade to achieve at university

• what types of fun to have

• a few goals regarding friendship

1.6.2 Happiness approach

This involves identifying what makes you happy and goin...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle
• Advertisement
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Planning and goal setting
• 2 Mind Maps
• 3 Effective and efficient reading
• 4 Lectures and lecturers
• 5 Fear and stress
• 6 Making time work
• 7 Leading and being led
• 8 Working in groups
• 9 Coursework
• 10 Essay writing
• 11 Presentations
• 12 Succeeding in exams
• 13 Business communication
• 14 Securing your career
• Index
• Advertisement