Assignment-02

Identifying Aspects of Personal Culture

-Developing Managerial Skills

Step-1:

The Unsung Hero of Nepalese Tourism

Being born in a middle-class family where the father is jobless, and mother is a house-wife, I was told only
thing my whole childhood; “You have to read well”. I never knew why I was supposed to read and pass
my exams. I used to fail exams and be notorious to the point where my friends were told that,” Do not
play with that guy, he will spoil you.” But I never changed. I was very high on my own opinion. I was the
master of my thoughts. Mathematics was my worst nightmare followed by science and every subject was
my nightmare. There was no subject that I liked. Then, my father called upon my cousin brother who had
just completed his high school and was so-called the brightest in family.

He came to my family and started staying with us for teaching me for better grades. I was rigid. I never
thought of studying. He started from my worst nightmare. I was never fond of that subject and now my
cousin too. I started hating him even more. He used to teach me from the very basic, but I never wanted
to learn. So, my grades were consistently poor. My cousin started getting furious and as every Nepalese
guardian does, he started giving me physical punishments. Now, my cousin was bigger nightmare than
Mathematics. But I never thought of learning.

After my exams were over and my father was getting busy with his new factory in Chitwan, I went there.
I used to sit in his office and seeing the electricity bills, I started to calculate it. No matter how hard I tried,
I never got the exact amount printed in the bill. So, I asked my father and he taught me about the minimum
and surplus charges. Then I realized how important Mathematics was. My nightmare now started to be
my favorite subject. Slowly and gradually all subjects were familiar now. I was a changed man.

Slowly and gradually, I completed my Bachelor of Business Administration from India. From my early
adolescence, I was fond of travelling. I used to trek once in every six months. I had now trekked almost all
the major routes that the foreigners used to visit. I always had a dream of having my own business in the
trekking industry. After my completion of BBA in India I came back to Nepal and I was once again
unemployed. Doing nothing is one of the major accomplishments. I did that when I started to do meditate.
Meditation had become vital part of my life.

The second major change came in a party of my relatives where I met my brother-in-law after years. He
was in the travel industry. I always used to love his job and business. Meeting him, I found that he had
also left the previous company and was thinking to start his own. I was interested and stated my interest
in the field. He was happy as-well and we started our Tour and Trekking company with the name,
“Northstar Voyage Pvt.Ltd.” We were happy about the opening but for 4 months we never knew what we
were supposed to do. However, our marketing and my contacts in India while I was studying started to
give fruits. It was the first season of our company and we were already in our Break-even Point. As our
company was in transition period, I thought of joining MBA and joined as-well. While pursuing my MBA I
learned many things and one of the greatest projects started in my company. The Trekking product with
the name Trek with Yoga. I had a friend from Colombia who was a yoga instructor in USA. She had a Yoga
Studio there. She too liked travelling a lot and together we started to sale our service “Trek with Yoga’. It
was a huge success. Slowly Northstar started to focus in internal tourism. We started building our portfolio
with MICE tourism and team building programs. We came up with another Company for Internal Tourism
called “Weekend Escape”. That too was a huge success. Now with good PR and relations with people from
almost every sector, we started to build our chain hotels across Nepal.

Within the past 15 years, our company has a total Net Worth of Rs 200 billion. We have 13 four-star hotels,
2 five-star hotels, 13 companies associated with travelling and 1 airline company. I am currently the CEO
of Northstar Group of Companies, President of Hotel Association of Nepal (HAN) as-well-as Nepalese
Association of Travel and Tour Agents (NATTA). We give services to 600,000 foreign nationals and 1 million
Nepalese per annum. We have now become a pioneer in Tourism Industry with highest growth rates in
South Asia. If a foreigner comes to Nepal, he must have availed one of my services while his stays in Nepal.
From the very moment of landing in Nepal, we provide transport services and have hotels too. If they had
not taken my service in both transport and accommodation, we too have airlines that most of them would
use. We are now in talk with Thomas Cook to have a new venture to work in other countries.

Step-2:
According to the plot, I am satisfied with Self Awareness Assessment. However, I must improve Locus of
control the most as I scored the least and quite disappointed with the score of Locus of control. It seems
that I have a huge difference between internal locus of control and external locus of control. However, I
am happy with the level of intolerance of ambiguity. It shows that I am very tolerant, and I am quite happy
with it. Even more, I am happy to see my score on Core Self-evaluation i.e. level of positive self-regard. I
must improve Emotional intelligence as-well-as Defining Test issues. They show I am not emotionally
intelligent and have low level of values maturity. These tests have quite helped me learning myself from
view of others and I will improve myself on various grounds and excel in the grounds that I am good at. It
will be one of the ultimate tools for my self-development and towards the achievement of my goals.

Step-3:
Interview done with: Krishna Prasad Parajuli (Dad)
Q.1: Who do you know that you admire a great deal because of their success in life? What capabilities
and attributes do they possess?

Ans: I admire my nephew the most who is currently the Senior Sales Executive of Uniliver Nepal. He was
one of the deprived students but after given opportunity, he completed his BBA and MBA from KUSOM
and has accelerated to one of the senior officials in a reputed multi-national company. He is very hard-
working and is capable to work under pressure. He is a confident person and can motivate others easily
which is required in his job.

Q.2: Who do you know that has failed to achieve their potential? What do you see as the most
significant causes of their failure?

Ans: I see my brother-in-law as a person who has failed to achieve his potential. He was a brilliant student
in his school days. However, after starting his higher studies he started getting lazy and was unable to
deliver any task on time. He never learned time-management. He was very careless towards his studies
and his daily activities. Hence, he could not reach his potential.

Q.3: What do you see as the distinctive and notable capabilities that I possess?

Ans: Being able to have own startup and aiming it to take the utmost level with education is a work of
dedication. Hence, I see you as hard working, dedicated and a good time-manager. However, the most
distinctive capabilities that you possess is balance of work-life, student-life and personal-life.

Q.4: In what areas do you think I should focus my improvement and development efforts?

Ans: You should focus yourself on identifying and reading other’s emotions. You simply agree to other’s
promise. You must be technical and have more of inter-personal skills.

Q.5: What do you see me doing in 15 years?

Ans: I see you as a successful entrepreneur who is widely known in your field and support the nation for
its development simultaneously.
Step-4:

Q.1: What courses will you take?

Ans: I will take MBA for the better management of the business with specialization in Entrepreneurship.

Q.2: What people will you get to know?

Ans: I will be knowing various people from the service industry starting from the driver, Tourist Guides,
Government officials to the CEO of hotels, airlines companies as-well-as my clients from various nations.

Q.3: In what extracurricular or life-balance activities will you engage?

Ans: I will try to improve myself on every managerial field and make myself socially aware and help the
societies through various platforms such as, NATTA, NTB, Rotract and many more.

Q.4: What will you read?

Ans: I will be reading the various motivational books such as: WE by Robet Johnson.

Q.5: What spiritual activities will be most meaningful?

Ans: For the self-development and be in peace and calm from the stress of professional life, I would be
engaged in Meditation. Even though I am currently engaged in Meditation, I will further continue it for
my own betterment.
 ACTIVITIES FOR DEVELOPING SELF-AWARENESS

Q.1: In Journal

Q.2:

Q.3: Write down the comprehensive, consistent and universal principles that guide your behavior
under all circumstances. What core principles will you rarely violate?

Ans: The principles that guide my behavior are:

 Live and Let Live: I would like to live my life under my own idea and assumptions. I too do not
interfere in other’s lives even though it is life of someone very close to me and respect their
decision.
 Appreciating differences: I know that I am different from others and appreciate that other
people are different from me.
 Value Family above All: I value my family to the most. Whether the society, community and my
peers agree or not, I always respect my family and its values. For e.g. We always have dinner
together. Hence, no matter I am stuck in my other chores, I always have dinner even if the time
spent on dinner with my family costs me a huge loss.

I rarely violate my principle of Family and Live and Let live. These are the principles that has helped
me to overcome most of my problems and have a low stress life.

Q.4: After completing the personal assessment instruments and discussing their implications with
someone else, write an essay responding to the following four questions: (1) Who am I? (2) What are
my main strengths and weaknesses? (3) What do I want to achieve in my life? (4) What legacy do I
want to leave?

Ans: I am Aswin Parajuli who is religiously, culturally and socially aware of my existence. I am currently
the owner of company called “Northstar Voyage Pvt.Ltd”. I am also pursuing MBA in KUSOM. I am
confident and hard-working person who values culture, tradition, appreciate differences and have a
well-balanced personal and professional lives. I have a clear set of goals and work hard to accomplish
those. I want to take my company to the utmost point where I can help my nation and its people. I want
my legacy to be known as one of the most influencing persons who revolutionized the Travel Industry in
Nepal. I too want my country to develop with the most promising and sustainable way i.e. Tourism
which will be initiated and implemented by me.

Q.5: Spend an evening with a close friend or relative discussing your emotional intelligence, values
maturity, cognitive style, attitudes toward change, and core self-evaluation. You may want to have
that person complete the instruments, giving his or her impressions of you, so you can compare and
contrast your scores. Discuss implications for your future and for your relationship.

Ans: I went to my cousin for the discussion of core aspects of self-awareness. So, as per our discussion,
the following are the conclusions.
Emotional Intelligence is one of the major elements for inter-personal skills. It helps to respond
appropriately to the emotions of others. It would help me for managerial success and helps to
understand each other and have a good relationship by knowing each-other’s emotions without
speaking.

Values are the foundation for developing one’s attitudes and personal preference. These are the most
for crucial decision, life directions and personal tastes. However, these are the most rigid to change. One
does not realize 1that they hold some values as being more important than others. Hence, we have to
open freely and share our views to our close ones to find out whether we are on track or not. This helps
to build our character and make us strong among others.

Everybody has different ways of thinking. One has to find out their inclination to perceiving, interpreting
or responding as per their habit. Hence, one need to find whether they are knowing style, planning style
or creating Style. Finding own style helps to be choose our field and plan goals accordingly. We too can
be efficient in the part that we take accordingly.

Changes are a part of life. In twenty-first century one has to prepare for the world that cannot be
predicted by the experiences of the past. No manager or a businessman in the present world would
boast of being stable, constant, or maintaining the status quo. We must be positive towards change
even though it is against our values because in the long-run it is always good for organization and the
person himself. Hence, we should always have positive attitude towards change and be open-minded
towards it.

Everybody is different from each-other. Hence one need to find own trigger point about the strength
and weakness and the motivation they need. It helps to have a positive self-regard and help to develop
ourselves for optimum satisfaction.

Q.6: In Journal.

Application Plan and Evaluation

Part 1. Planning
Q.1: Write down the two or three aspects of this skill that are most important to you. These may be
areas of weakness, areas you most want to improve, or areas that are most salient to a problem you
face right now. Identify the specific aspects of this skill that you want to apply.

Ans: The most important skills that are important and I want to apply and improve are:

 Inter-personal Skills: This is one of the most important skills in daily life. It helps both in
personal and professional lives. I would want to improve in this field as knowing other’s
emotional cues is the most essential in life as it helps to know the pattern of second person and
act accordingly.
  Motivation: In service industry, motivating subordinates is one of the best ways to get your
work done. It helps to get maximum output from your peers and team. Hence, I too would like
to improve in this aspect as it too is very important is both personal and professional lives.

Q.2: Now identify the setting or the situation in which you will apply this skill.

 Circumstances: Arriving of Customer for a Tour.

o Who else?
 Driver
 Guide
 Hotel Representative
 Guest

o Where?
 Driver- Airport
 Guide- Airport and sightseeing
 Hotel Representative- Hotel Check-in
 Guest- After landing in Airport

o When?
 Driver- After landing
 Guide- After coming out of Arrivals
 Hotel Representative- After reaching Hotel
 Guest- In the evening for dinner.

Q.3: Identify the specific behaviors in which you will engage to apply this skill. Operationalize your
skill performance.

Ans:

Inter-personal:

 Office
 Hotels
 Meetings with Clients
 Meeting with Partners
 Seminars
 Tourism Workshops

Motivation:

 Motivating Sales and Marketing Teams

 Inspiring Drivers and Guides
 Persuading Clients
 Bargain with Hotels
Q.4: What are the indicators of successful performance? How will you know you have been effective?
What will indicate you have performed competently?

Ans: The indicators of successful performance are:

 Satisfied Guest: If the guest mark us above good in the feedback form, we regard ourselves as
our successful performance.
 Trip Advisor Review: The most prominent tool for choosing a travel agency for a tourist is
reviews of Trip Advisor. Hence, being rated above 3 is regarded as a successful performance.
 Customer Retention: If the client that once took our services would like to take our services
again after visiting Nepal once again, we would consider it as successful performance.
 Recommendation: If the customer recommends our company to their peers, family and
relatives, we would even consider it as a successful performance.

Part 2. Evaluation

Q.5: After you have completed your implementation, record the results. What happened? How
successful were you? What was the effect on others?

Ans: After the implementation, I was very successful to satisfy and increase the customer satisfaction
with the overall performance of our team starting from Driver, Guide and the whole management team.
Everyone was positively motivated towards their task and we could see the results in the feedback
forms as-well-as Trip Advisor. We are however yet to see the long-run benefit.

Q.6: How can you improve? What modification can you make next time? What will you do differently
in as similar situation in the future?

Ans: I could have improved by further motivating my team. It could have been done if the reward
system was implemented for the motivation purpose. Bonus could be given to each new satisfied guest
for the whole team.

Q.7: Looking back on your whole skill practice and application experience, what have you learned?
What has been surprising? In what ways might this experience help you in the long term?

Ans: Looking back into my assessments and tests, I have now come to the conclusion that even though
we think high of ourselves, there are lots of areas where we might be weaker than we had previously
thought of. The most surprising for me was my internal versus external locus of control that I was always
proud of. However, I can now focus on its improvement. The experience here are everlasting. These
remains for our whole life and will help us each and every step of our life whether it is personal or our
professional life. It will always start from our own home where managing family determines one’s
success. Then comes our office and other people that we have to constantly use these skills. Hence, the
whole skill practice and application gave me the idea about my position and helped me find rooms for
improvement.