Monthly Blog - November

For the month of November I received a couple of good lessons on how to price and organize product that we sell in stores from my mentor, Sara Timberlake. She's taught me how to price and get the most value out of the items we sell in the store. In store management, both for profit and non-profit, the goal is to ultimately make more than what you previously spent before on something. She's told me to look at things through a customer's eyes. Do they want something sturdy? What brand is the product? Does the item for sale have a set it could match with? Is the item in a sellable condition? (very important for non-profit organizations. This question would be out of the context for a regular store) These questions are good. I'll go into a bit more detail on how pricing and sets work at our store below.

So looking at the above kitchen cupboards and draws, what do you think? Is it visually appealing? Is it clean? Does the items above appear to be brand-spanking-new? Do they match? Would you want one of these in your home?

The answers to the above questions may vary depending on the buyer. Selling merchandise from a store could be as simple as just having the product in a clean and neat manner. Sets of items always tend to catch the eye of customers and I know that from my experience at Habitat for Humanity. In terms of selling home-improvement based goods, people tend to want uniformity, for everything to look the same. It's a no brainer, but for a store to sell these types of items it's a lot more important than some people realize.    

Blog 10: EQ

1. Review this. Confirm by stating "I reviewed the rule of three for writing an EQ."

I reviewed the rule of three for writing an EQ.

2. Review the following EQs and tell us if each meets the rule of three. Tell why they do or why they don't.

EQ#1: What is the most important factor in healthy weight loss? 

Question 1 easily provides a framework for research as it is a general question that could be many different answers. No direct stance is taken when it comes to the question above, however a stance could be taken AFTER doing all of your research and finding out what are important factors for healthy weight loss. Wording makes sense. All-in-all, the question above is a decent EQ.

EQ#2: What is most important to securing a conviction in a criminal investigation?

Question 2 doesn't appear to be too bad of a question, but it could be worded a little better, for the formatting is awkward. Example: What are the most important factors to securing a conviction in a criminal investigation? 

EQ#3: What is most important in creating a hairstyle that best satisfies a customer.

Question 3 is not an optimal EQ because best satisfying a customer is extremely subjective, therefore, the research behind it would have too many variables. I guess it could be said that great service and listening to descriptions given by the customer is a good start, but it's just too broad at the start.

EQ#4: How can an anesthesiologist best treat chronic pain?

Question 4 is fine. Wording is okay. You can research many different sub-topics under anesthesiology for it. It's debatable if it takes a stance, but with more research a side could easily be taken.

3. Based on your review of the rule of 3 and your experience with assessing four EQs, please write another draft EQ for your senior project. 

DRAFT EQ: How can a store be managed most effectively during the busiest hours of the day.  

Blog 9: Lesson 1 Presentation Reflection

1. Positive Statement

What are you most proud of in your Lesson 1 Presentation and why?

I knew all of my topics and sub-topics for my senior project. That without a doubt I could say confidently. For not having props, visual aid, or an interesting activity, I felt that orally I did extremely well in explaining what my topic was and all of the things needed to be an effective store manager. The main idea was there and I felt that I truly had my audiences' attention. I showed no nervousness and the milestone of eight minutes didn't seem to be too hefty in terms of remembering what I needed to present.

2. Questions to consider

What assessment would you give yourself on your Lesson 1 Presentation (self-assessment)

In a way, I felt I deserved an AP straight up for one very important component I left out during my presentation... My props. I was going to previously bring a clipboard and a bucket with different sized nails inside of them, showing when I had to organize shelves containing nails, screws, etc. at my location of mentorship. I hardly physically referenced anything during the presentation, which would undoubtedly lower my grade. I did dress professionally, but I really felt it wasn't enough and it wasn't very evident. Everything else on the contract, however, I was able to get down and explain, I personally feel.

3. What worked for your Lesson 1?

My presentation itself. I could speak well. My volume was perfect. I could feel people were actually paying attention to me. I felt I made great eye-contact with everyone. I talked like I knew my stuff. That's what worked well for my lesson one.

4. (What didn't work) If you had a time machine, what would you have done to improve your lesson 1?

Bring my props. Easily. I won't go into detail why I couldn't exactly bring the necessary materials, but lets just say if I could go back I would have brought the props mentioned above. I would also reference my mentorship a lot more.

Monthly Blog - October 

October has generally been a slow month for myself and mentorship. Lots of changes in employee workforce has been taking place at my location of mentorship (Habitat for Humanity ReStore Pomona Valley.) At the moment, being understaffed is a huge problem and throws a wrench into the entire mentorship experience altogether. Currently, I'm learning one of the biggest problems of management the hard way. My mentor has had to fill in the roles of our past truck driver so I haven't been able to see him as much.

However, on the flip side, we've done some wonderful organization projects around the store lately! One of the key aspects of store management is to make your product to be as enticing and organized as possible in order to sell it to paying customers. Customers ideally want to be able to look at an item on sale and say, "wow that looks really clean, I'm thinking about buying it." It's not rocket science. People want to buy nice and clean things. Going on that note, people are more likely to buy from well-organized and polished stores.

Below is a before and after picture of making products look presentable and organized to customers. The above picture represents before, where I and a few other volunteers unloaded and plethora of school desks. As you can see, the truck is loaded and we had to get the delivery of chairs out ASAP so the truck can go out again. On this picture, we can clearly see logistics (the flow of goods from one area to another) taking place.

The after picture is the rows of desks within the store, organized in neat rows and in the same place as all the others. Lots of space had to be made for these desks, for our store always has product and donations coming in by the hour. It's quite a hefty task to do all of this. It takes hard work and staying on top of daily store activities to make this go as smoothly as possible.

                                    

Blog 8: Research and Working EQ

1. What is your working EQ?

How does organization, leadership skills, and prioritization play a part in managing a store?

2. What is a possible answer to your working EQ? Please write the answer in thesis format.

EQ: What's the most effective way to synergize organization, leadership skills, and prioritization when it comes to managing a store.

• Organization, leadership skills, and prioritization combined should be adjusted and tuned based on the situation and status of your current store.
• The most effective way to synergize organization, leadership skills, and prioritization would be to train your staff accordingly to the follow the previously stated aspects.

3. What is the most important source you have used that has help to come up with an answer to your working EQ? 

By far, my best source would be the book titled, Getting Things Done by David Allen. This book goes into a giant explanation of using prioritization and leadership skills to your best effect. Easy to follow and grasp. David Allen also writes from a worker prospective of productivity and a manager's prospective.

4. Who is your mentor, or where are you doing mentorship, and how does what you are doing relate to your working EQ?

My mentor is Manager Andrew Johnson of the Pomona Valley Habitat for Humanity ReStore, Claremont. What my mentorship revolves around would be to organize products, make sure customers are fully serviced and satisfied to the best of my ability, and last, but not least, to hone my leadership skills by leading other teens like me within the workplace to success.

Blog 7: Independent Component 1 Approval

1. Describe in detail what you plan to do for your thirty hours?

With store management, there are four rules that I generally view as important. (as does many other experts who have written books, articles, etc. on store management.) Two of those, I plan to highlight and go in-depth. My independent component 1 will be centered around organization of product and logistics in the context of stores. Organization of product is extremely self-explanatory, but very important to dig deeper and explain exactly why it's so crucial in order to run a successful store. Now logistics is an entirely different subject, but can tie in with organization of product. To get the the main focus of the question, within the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, I plan to reorganize a variety of items to a point where it can be organized, easily accessible, and labeled by field of product. Example, if I'm running a Home Depot store, I want lumber related products and plywood next to each other, nails and screws in the same department, toilet components next to toilets. Very simple when you look at the surface, but not in practice. It takes quite a bit of manpower and planning to actually do simple things like that, especially if you haven't organized product in a long time and things have just accumulated overtime.

2. Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing thirty hours of evidence?
At the moment, my ReStore on a daily basis receives incoming goods and it takes a while to completely clear up the indoor loading dock area, where we receive our products and merchandise. Putting it simply, it's usually always packed with things that need to be priced and taken out on the floor. By using photographs, I'd say it's very easy to document over time my personal progress. As I take the photographs, the pictures will be documented by days, and I'll take two pictures, one before and one after, in order to track the daily progress I've made. The hours will be documented by my volunteer sheets. Example, I may finish my thirty hours by going in ten times for three hours each. I'd say that's the most logical way to document this.

3. And explain what you will be doing will help explore your topic more in depth.
As I've said before, product organization and logistics are very important in running a store. Right off of the bat, I plan to cover two topics and put them into practice. I could get the leadership topic done if I have other people within the store help me, but I'd prefer to start with the former. By organizing product and managing exactly what I get on the loading dock, it can help give insight on what happens behind the scenes in just stores in general. All stores have to receive, document, and organize their products. It's a never ending cycle.

 

Monthly Blog - September

September has been a time where my skill of professional communications are being put to the test. Throughout this month, six days to be punctual, I have been volunteering and working at the fair for the organization of where I perform my mentorship hours. Without a doubt, this has been one of the greatest and most meaningful actions I've performed during my entire mentorship and possibly this entire year. I had the opportunity of communicating and telling people all about what our organization did and what we stood for. Many people hailing from both local and distant cities in California came to our booth. Relating to these people on a personal level was not only fulfilling, but also an excellent learning experience.

What does communicating with people have to do with "store management," my senior topic? Well, it's all quite simple. Easily, as a manager, you talk to a wide range of people on a daily basis, and each one of those people have traits, characteristics, way of speaking, etc. Point is, everyone is different and you need to be able to be an effective communicator should you wish to be a high-quality manager. Knowing how to talk and present yourself is very important. An example at the fair would be the elderly. The elderly fair-goers, have just a distinctive way of speaking and softer tone of voice as compared to someone who's middle-aged or an average adult. They would ask questions, I would answer sincerely and clearly. They would walk towards the booth kind of nervously, and I would approach them cordially, hoping to reel them in and tell them all about our organization.

Reading people effectively can also tie under communication. Example, we've had teenagers just like myself who are just interested in learning about work opportunities and how they could help us out in order to earn hours. Without a doubt, I have the confidence to say I can communicate effectively with both the elderly and people who are my age. I've been in their shoes, looking for volunteer work. By reading what they wanted judging by the way they approached the booth or answering the questions they asked, I could easily steer them towards the right direction and make them comfortable in knowing that I was here to be a resource. It helped to let them know that I was under control. I knew what I was talking about and doing, and in turn they trusted me, thanked me, and walked off. Easy. It's all about being as helpful as possible.

Below is a picture of the booth I worked during my volunteer time at the fair. Very good learning grounds indeed.

Blog 6: Second Interview Preparation

1. Who is your mentor and where do they work? 

I have two mentors, and both of them work at Pomona Valley Habitat for Humanity ReStore. One of my mentors, Andrew Johnson, is the main manager and works mainly in the office doing all of the administrative work behind the scenes. My other mentor, Sara Timberlake, is the assistant manager of the store, and mostly works on the store floor, helping customers with finding certain items and answering phone calls at the front desk when they happen to come in.

2. What five questions will you ask them about their background?

These questions will be asked for my mentor, Andrew Johnson.

1. At what point in your life did you decide to go into store management?
2. When the Pomona Valley Habitat for Humanity ReStore was handed down for you to manage, how was the transition?
3. What major did you take at your college? Briefly, can you tell me a little bit about it?
4. Where was your hometown? If it was previously far from Pomona, what made you want to manage a store out here?
5. Did you have anyone in particular who was an inspiration for you? Did they play a part in where you are today?  

Blog 5 - Mentorship Reflection

1. Mentorship question: Describe your experience in how you found your mentorship?  If you haven't found one yet, describe your experience so far in the search of a mentor.

I found my mentorship at the volunteer place Pomona Valley Habitat for Humanity ReStore. Previously, I wanted to do something along the lines of logistics and supply planning, but no one was willing to mentor a high school student who wasn't eighteen, so I just shrugged that off. Going back to the finding of my mentorship, I found myself in a good, friendly, supportive environment where I learned lots of things such as basics on customer service, how to tie certain knots, how to properly lift heavy furniture and appliances with minimal effort, and how to respect other co-workers in a productive environment. Learning life skills at the ReStore is one of the main reasons why I was reeled into considering the managers as future mentors. The two of them other other co-workers taught me so much and I learned, which is why I only thought it would make more sense to do a project involving them and the things they personally taught me how to do.

2. Research question: What has been your most important article you have read so far and why?

"The Power of Conversational Leadership" by Carmen Nobel from Harvard Business School is hands down my most important article read. This article is just extremely insightful on how to talk to people on lower ranking. The quote written in this article, "having communication that goes bottom-up is just as important as having communication that goes top-down" stands out to me because it's basically saying employees should be able to converse smoothly with their managers and vice versa. It's perfect when you have a synergy of lower employees opening up to their bosses sincerely and expressing their views without repercussions. The article further goes into four key points: intimacy, interactivity, inclusion, and intentionality. Intimacy, in a nutshell, is all about trust and in the manager viewpoint, instilling trust in your workers and having them trust you is just powerful. It shows an investment of emotion. Interactivity is about being able to speak to multiple people through multiple outlets effectively. Networking is one term for this. The more you network, the more knowledge and resources you have access to. Inclusion outlines that you are giving your workers the freedom to give their opinions and go from there. Intentionality explains that it's all about telling your workers the vision you have and keeping everyone focused on the goals ahead. Power in unity is truly an amazing thing in the world of management. 

Monthly Blog - August

The month of August has been a brief period of time where I have taken baby steps in learning about my senior topic. So far I've obtained three articles, one book, and already looked up two other books on the internet. During this month alone, I've done 13.5 hours of mentorship. Ten were performed at Pomona Valley Habitat for Humanity ReStore, and 3.5 were performed at the Pomona Fairplex. There was one good management lesson that I had learned at the Fairplex: taking initiative if you have a great idea of your own.

Three other volunteers, a staff member, and I were getting very few people coming to our informational booth. About an hour has passed and I just started to get annoyed of standing around and not doing anything due to the fact no one came or had any questions. Ultimately, I told two other volunteers we were going to run out of our booth into the Fairplex to advertise our booth and try to receive donations while informing the public about what our organization was about. We had a stud (a large, wooden 2x4 that is placed in homes), and we took it out there and had people sign it for a dollar. All-in-all, we picked up about fourteen dollars in donations and a bigger crowd started to come over to our booth, curious on what we were doing.

It was a good feeling to bring people in like that. I was bored out of my mind to be honest, but I really was skeptical about the entire idea at first. It goes to show that even when you are bored and out of your mind good ideas can flourish. A wise man once shared this nugget of wisdom, "insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results everytime." If your plan doesn't work at first, try something fresh and new!

Blog 4: Interview Preparation

1. Who do you plan to interview? Why?

My plan is to interview one of my mentors, Andrew Johnson. Andrew Johnson has been a ReStore manager for over three years and has worked with both customer relations and the organization aspect of management. Additionally, he works very closely with both staff member and volunteer alike and has firm visions and ideas on how stores should be ran and how workers should communicate with one another.

2. The Five Questions I plan to ask...

1. In a brief explanation, how exactly would you describe your management style?
2. How do you go about solving problems within the store when it comes to customers? Assume that a customer is quite angry with an employee. How would you go about dealing with that?
3. Can you explain in detail about one of the more frequent setbacks that happen within the work place when it comes to being a manager?
4. In what way should someone present themselves as a manager? Think along the lines of demeanor, stance, and tone of voice to start.
5. How does one as a manager keep workers in line and on task?

Blog 3: Topic Choice and Working EQ

1. List your topic here:

Store Management (Habitat for Humanity)

2. Write a question that helps to focus your research this month.

How can a store manager effectively divide responsibility among workers in order for their store to be as efficient as possible?

Summer Mentorship Component

Blog 2: Summer Mentorship

1. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-1zSl9SlZa7pf0DuCJkqTlP3QAbdMbKCopA-z5DPF18/edit?usp=docslist_api

2. The contact name of my volunteer place for my mentorship is Pomona Valley Habitat for Humanity. The contact number is (909)-399-0202.

3. The following questions were raised during the mentorship experience: how can I, as a worker, interact with a customer effectively to better enhance their shopping experience. Which of the following is the most effective way in leading a team: improvision and adaptation or following order by protocol? What exactly makes an effective team leader?

4. The most important thing I gained from this experience of mentorship was that interacting with customers on a polite and professional level made the sale go easy and effectively as opposed to just being quiet the entire time.

5. My senior project topic is going to be Habitat for Humanity, a non-profit organization that centers on building homes for low income families. In regards to the topic, I intend to teach exactly what a volunteer and team leader does at Habitat for Humanity. Simply put, I love this organization. Habitat for Humanity has a noble cause, and I, as a volunteer, am happy knowing that what I do will possibly help benefit a person or a family. Additionally, I have been volunteering since November of 2013 so I have a bit of leverage and two mentors who agreed in advance to help give me the necessary resources required to successfully finish my senior project.

Blog Assignment #1: 2 Hour Presentations

1. What presentations did you see? 

The presentations I observed during the two weeks of viewing senior presentations were the following: Ski Patrol, Basketball, Goalkeeping, Plant Science, Military Leadership, Software Development, Soccer Coaching, Computer Science, Warehouse Operations Management, Volunteering to Help the Homeless, Electrician, Soccer, Information Technology, Strength Training, Automotive Repair, and Money Lending.

2. What questions do you have that haven't been answered about the senior project? This can be about the senior project in general, any components or about a presentation topic you saw or what they said?  

My most important question that pertains to the Senior Project Component is the following: what exactly is the hook activity supposed to be? I get that it's supposed to "reel" your audience into the topic, but many seniors had different ways of doing it. Some seniors asked tiny questions in the beginning and others had went over the top with it, such as examples or interesting stories relating to their project. For a secondary question, I would ask, "is this project supposed to extremely formal or can it be interesting and informational?" Reason why I asked this question is that people seemed extremely stiff while doing their presentation and they passed, whilst others tried to make it more relative and connect with the audience by being interesting and breaking things down, yet fail altogether. Those two would be extremely critical for myself to know next year.

3. What has the most important part of the senior project based on what you are seeing in the 2-hour presentations?

To be fair, I don't understand this question based off of the wording. However, I'm going to take a stab at it and say the most important part of the senior project is most definitely tied between finding a mentor and the preparation before the senior presentation. At iPoly, it's extremely easy to talk about a topic for hours upon end, provided that you have the sufficient resources and information to do so. However, I've talked to some seniors, and they tell me about mentorship and all of the prep needed to actually go up there and perform. Personally, I could talk for hours on end about a certain topic, especially one I feel passionate about, but learning the knowledge in order to do so takes so much time. In order to be an expert, you must put up quite a large portion of time into the topic.

4. What topic are you considering doing and why?

There are very few topics in which I could personally dedicate time to in order to present it to an audience. However, the most likely of my topics would fall under the lines of Public Works Maintenance. City management and maintenance have always interested me. Example: if a tree falls in the middle of a road, who picks it up? That may seem like an extremely vague reason to do it, but for me, it means quite a bit. Public Works does a great thing for cities such as infrastructure maintenance and improving the quality of city life overall. It takes great effort and organization in order to maintain a city, especially more populous ones such as L.A or Sacramento. These workers have to be ready to respond at any minute in order to perform their jobs and aid the public by fixing broken roads, repairing bridges, and clearing obstructions on streets and freeways. Of course, Public Works is a broad topic, so I'm mainly referring to the organization of Public Works rather than the general idea.

5. What are you doing for your summer mentorship? 

As of right now, I'm looking to see if I could get a mentor from Public Works or a logistician, which would be my second choice for a senior topic. A logistician has proven to be a hard one to find though, so I'll end up finding someone from Public Works should I not be able to find one for logistician. All-in-all, I'm still in the planning phase and gathering info about each one. Ideally, I would like to have three backups which would include the following: Public Works maintenance worker, logistician, or creative writer. Creative writer is a long shot, and still I haven't found a suitable mentor for that field.