Final PDP

Husam Zarrouq

MBA Student, 

University of Liverpool.

XYZ, 

Life Coach, 

ABC Consultants,

London.

December 19, 2017

Dear Sir.

Re: About Me 

Am appareled by the kind of services you have been delivering to your clients. For this reason, I also choose to be among those that you impact. Am a middle-aged man of Arab origin. Am married with kids. As at now, am pursuing my MBA in the University of Liverpool and from the look of things, am gathering pace though the start was not that rosy. 

Am a highly ambitious individual who aims to have a company of his own soon. To this end, I have decided to undertake an MBA to make me competent in terms of personality and knowledge. At the end, I will leave my day job and venture into self-employment. I have attached a gap analysis as well as an action plan for closing the gaps. I hope you will play a critical role in assisting me reach my goals. 

I look forward to our collaboration. 

Yours faithfully, 

Husam Zarrouq. 

Mind Mapping & Gap Analysis

In life, progress to me means everything. I always call it upward mobility. Yes. One cannot remain at the same place for a long time. It is an indication of poor artistry and little or no intent to be better. To avoid this described scenario, an MBA became paramount. The famous ‘one size fits all’ is the description of this MBA. It will affect my life in all spheres, personally, professionally, and in life. How is this likely to happen? Please read on. 

I don’t know what parameters you use to measure progress on a personal level, but for me, it is somewhat direct. Personal development is being able to have better perspectives about daily happenings both in the general world and in the professional world. These new views don’t come without knowledge, knowledge that I am gaining from this MBA. The ability to understand how different people, from diverse backgrounds and in various parts of the world understand and interpret scenarios is personal development. It inculcates in me the ability to reason out issues with the perspectives not central to me. Above all, I am pursuing something that has a higher meaning to me when it comes to the Maslow hierarchy of needs. 

Professionally, besides the recognition and maybe a pay rise or a promotion, the MBA will be of utmost importance in the way I interpret situations as well as handle them. At my workplace, I find it interesting about how each of us understands a problem and the kind of response that they suggest. For the proper understanding of issues as well as putting such matters into their proper perspective, I figured out, and I still believe that this MBA will come in handy. 

Every time a vehicle is going uphill, any sober driver presses the accelerator harder than before. The same should get replicated to life. Life comes with a new list of demands and responsibilities every new day. As such, one needs to have an extra coat of cover to take in the additional heat and punches. The extra jacket that I decided to put on is an MBA. Life goals are particularly tricky in that they can always get procrastinated. This makes their achievement sloppier, but with an MBA, which is a life goal in itself, everything gets moderated as well as accelerated.  

When it comes to having a proper focus on goals, it is often essential to have grey areas identified to facilitate timely and efficient achievement of such goals. My three areas that need enhancement include attention to detail, time management, and delegation. With the increase in roles, I sometimes overlook some aspects of an assignment which ends up hurting my artistry. This ends up demanding more time from me which is not productive, I, therefore, need to have proper mechanisms that should allow me to read in between the lines and delivering quality work. Second is time management. At times I spend much time than necessary doing one duty at the expense of another. The third aspect that I should focus on is delegation. I in most cases believe that I have to personally attend to duties for them to pass as satisfactorily done. I, therefore, consume a lot of time trying to go through a lot of responsibilities in person. I will be aiming to have roles distributed among my juniors in a bid to reduce my workload. 

There are various opportunities that exist in my realm that would enable me to develop my ability to pay attention to detail, manage time more profitably as well as delegate. Such opportunities include; ability to make firm resolutions, great support from home and work, and the freedom to explore possibilities. To properly reach a particular destination, one should be in a position to identify and exploit their potential. The aspect of making firm and resolute ideas about anything that I find the fit is remarkable. I consider this to be an opportunity worth exploiting. I always find fun and joy in pursuing decisions I have made to prove to myself that I am worth the metal. Second, I enjoy relative support from my colleagues, family members, and friends. This leaves me with the opportunity to have peace of mind as well as not bother myself with seeking of approval from people. Third, I work in a relatively open place where everyone is at liberty to do what they think is right and beneficial to the company. 

There are some elements of my personality as well as those in the external environment that comes to levels dangerous enough to halt my ascend to places close to the achievement of my goals. These factors include; procrastination, indiscipline in prioritization, workload. The concept of procrastination is a serious internal problem that I should work on to ensure that I am marching towards my goals in a manner that is consistent. That said, I will be providing that I shall be in a position to handle issues that arise without keeping them for another day. Prioritization of duties will is also an internal problem that I need to focus on. When problems get worked on in a pattern that allows them to come in order of priority, peace is often guaranteed in that there will be no conflicts as well as competition for attention. The last issue that is mostly external is my workload. I always have my hands full and working on this aspect requires that I escalate the question to my bosses who will see how the problem will be handled since it affects my performance. 

Action Planning: Closing My Gaps

Objective 1 Narrative:

Business Development: I would soon want to expand my business to become a full-time job for me. The transition from the salaried life to a life without a boss is highly risky but it comes with responsibilities and far much personal commitment. As such, I have identified three main steps to this effect, commit to discipline, investing in professional opinions, investing time into the business, and learning some marketing basics. I will aspire to attend at least 2 entrepreneur workshops and read one book related to the concept of entrepreneurship and business development. 

Objective 1 Resources:

• Attending conferences related to the concept of entrepreneurship, business, investments and personal development.  
• MBA resources 
• Reading books (entrepreneurship and business and personal development books)
• Signing up for online journals, for instance, the Harvard Business Review

Objective 1 Timeline:

The activities are highly progressive and have no definite timelines. 

Step Number	Step Description	Target Date
Have discipline	This is a critical requirement for any entrepreneur. On this, I plan to get accustomed to financial discipline and time management discipline. I will engage a professional accountant as well as get to an accounting school. A budget and a tentative timetable will be necessary. Use of strict budgets will be an objective too.	Within the next 6 months, I want to be business ready discipline wise.
Invest in professional opinion	For my business, I will be seeking professional opinion from relevant people. For instance, financial matters, will be advised by a financial strategist, marketing issues by a marketing consultant, import export by a seasoned importer/exporter. This is to reduce guess work.	As need arises
Invest time into the business	Businesses are very jealous of attention. When I hit the ground running, I expect to be attending to the business fulltime. Other things not in tandem with the objective of personal development and business improvement will need scheduling.	Immediately after going to self-employment

Objective 2 Narrative:

Personal Development; these are the activities that I will undertake to develop my personality and character in order to be relevant in the business and social world that will require some degree of professionalism as well as social openness. In a paper by Kuh (1995, p.130-155), personality has been explored and how it develops. Many things beyond the classroom often shape one’s personality. If personality is aimed at a specific direction, the paper has shown that it can be premeditated and learnt. On this note, I want to have the personality of a businessman who knows what he wants with himself and his business. The meetings described in Objective one can suit this aspect too as well as reading. To properly inculcate a proper business mentality, I will aim to get books written by prominent business people and psychologists regarding behaviour modelling. 

Objective 2 Resources:

• Professional meetings, 
• Readings. Personal development books are available for purchase online
• Extensive internet research

Objective 2 Timeline:

I expect to see development signs in the next three months. It is other people who should note the same and say it to me. This is the mechanism I will use to evaluate my progress. 

Step Number	Step Description	Target Date
Reading a book	Books are an important source of information. Books tailored for specific occasions is what I will aim at.	One book every month.
Get the MBA done	This is a critical possession and undertaking. The MBA, I hope, will give me the world view of businesses and also how to solve important problems.	Before end of 2019
Promote my spirituality	The spiritual well-being of me as a person is important. On this, I will be attending religious meetings faithfully. Make the life of other people better by making donations and visits as planned with religious authorities.	At least twice every week

Objective 3 Narrative:

Promote my Health and those near me. Health is a mainstay factor that needs constant review so that it is stays in tip top shape. The absence of health often leads to a stall of many aspects of life, for instance, business, career development, schooling, family and many others. It, therefore, remains a top consideration for me that my health and that of my family and friends if possible. I will have my spouse come in to assist in a healthy diet for our family. If help from a nutritional specialist will be required, I will be happy to bring them in. I will also encourage my spouse to register in a gym and be active in the lessons. We shall encourage each other to develop and hit targets. 

Objective 3 Resources:

• The gym
• Nutritionist 
• Gym instructor
• Health magazines 
• Internet 

Objective 3 Timeline:

Having a healthy body is the wish of all us. I therefore wish to hit my targets in the next three months. 

Step Number	Step Description	Target Date
Join the gym	I will register and make concerted effort to be in the gym. I can also weigh the convenience of having the same in my house. In the next three months I should have reduced my weight by 20%	End of February 2018
Promote healthy eating	Put concerted efforts towards the choices of foods I take especially while outdoors.	Immediately
Reduce my nightlife	Staying out for long into the night is a favourite habit and it affects my performance during the day. All the objectives there up can be ruined by this one habit. As such, It needs to be worked on.	Immediately

Works Cited
Kuh, G.D., 1995. The other curriculum: Out-of-class experiences associated with student learning and personal development. The Journal of Higher Education, 66(2), pp.123-155.