What are my core Values?
- Whānau & Friends
- Growth
- Gratitude
- Loyalty
These are a few of the main values that influence how I live my life and the decisions that I make. Values essentially are beliefs and opinions that are important to an individual.
A Situation where I had to make a Ethical Decision
In recent years due to Social Media I have become more aware of certain companies and the ethics they practice. More specifically fast fashion brands and their reputation for running unethical sweat shops in third world countries, having extremely poor working conditions and trading/paying workers unfairly all in the name of profit. When I was younger I was very ignorant to the practices of these brands simply because it provided me with materialistic items I wanted at reasonably low prices. Specifically the companies I used quite frequently were Nike, Adidas, Amazon and Boohoo.
I then had to decide if the products I was receiving was worth my financial support to these companies that ethically my values did not align with. Before making a decision I did my own research into these companies to find information that was not just from social media in order to get a fuller picture of the issue. After researching I found that not only were these companies unethical in all the ways mentioned above but also learnt about how disastrous fast fashion is on the environment. I also learnt about the purchasing power we have as individuals and that where we choose to spend our money and the things we spend them on reflects our values.
In the end I chose to no longer support these types of companies with my money and that I would no longer purchase anything from or through these companies as my values simply do not align with theirs and I could no longer ignore that. Instead I would invest my money on slightly more expensive pieces that would have a longer lifetime and support smaller local businesses and companies that have ethical practices
The main consequence of this decision was that when I am looking to purchase something new my options can be quite limited and usually more expensive.
How my culture has influence my Values & Identity
My culture has hugely affected my values and identity and the biggest way would be the importance I place on Whānau.
In the māori culture and in our home nothing is more important than our people. Whānau is placed above everything including financial wealth and success.
his was shown and influenced mainly through my parents and their behaviours and the way they placed importance on these values and in turn taught that to us. My parents showed us that no matter what they always do anything they could when it came to our people and also spending time with them was always a priority. Now because of my upbringing I value my whānau and friends above all else.
One of my favourite whakataukī is
“He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata”
which translates to
“What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people”
My Strengths and Limitations in terms of my Learning and Career Development
Some of my strengths that I think relate to my learning career and development are my ability to adapt and pick up new skills and information, my easy going nature, my love for learning new things, my hardworking nature and my practicality.
In terms of limitations the flip side of being very adaptable and welcoming change means that at times I can find it difficult to focus as the initial excitement of change wares off I sometimes can easily lose interest which will result in my focus lacking.
What Strengths of mine do I think will help with my learning journey?
Some of my strengths that I think will greatly benefit my learning journey are that I am a quick thinker. I can think very quick on my feet and can usually move between different ideas with relative ease.
I am also quite knowledgeable on a broad variety of topics and will never pass up an opportunity to learn something new. I believe that everyone you meet will know something you don’t so every interaction with someone is a chance to learn something new. I love learning new things to add to my database of knowledge as this is never ending and we are forever learning.
I am also very adaptable and can pick up new skills very quickly. I don’t mind being outside of my comfort zone so I welcome change which also relates back to learning new things.
I am also quite charismatic and energetic and get along with people very easily.
My Experience with tension within the workplace and what strategies were used to overcome it
In my previous role I worked in a team of four. We all did the same role but looked after our different resorts that we had assigned to us.
The great thing about this dynamic was if any of us were away for some reason there was always others on hand who knew how to do your job and could cover your work whilst you were away. It also meant that we all did the same work, used the same processes and were aiming for the same outcomes. An important part of our job was communication with the other members in our team and our manager should any change happen or something occur that would affect our whole team.
Unfortunately we had a member in our team who would constantly keep important things to themselves which at times would be a huge detriment to our team.
The first strategy used was to simply have a discussion with the team member regarding the issue in the hopes that would be sufficient. However after all of our team members talking to her individually did not seem to work we then went to our manager with the issue which resulted in us having a team meeting and when that didn’t seem to affect any change our manager spoke with the team member individually.
Our first two strategies were not effective at all as the team member continued to keep things from the team and it was not until it was escalated to the threat of a warning that she stopped.
In hindsight I think it would have been helpful had we started with a team meeting to openly discuss any issues and discord we had within the team as looking back I believe those were the underlying issues behind the team member being resistant and approaching the team member by ourselves most likely made the discover worst rather than better.