Motivation

1. I expected to learn before class was simply how to better motivate ones employes while acting as manager of the unit. How to motivate them in good times an in bad times. 

2. What I actually learned was the importance of truly getting to know your staff and know the different things that actually motivates each individual. I also learned the different that motivate most employes such as recognition that they are doing a good job. 

3. I will try to get to know the people that I work with better and know the things that motivate them so that we can have a better unit. 

4. I thought the material that was covered was good. Its important as a manger to really get to know your employes so that you don't act like everyone is the same and needs the same thing. And once you do that you should be able to motivate them much better. 

Risk Management and Legal Responsibilities of the Nurse Leader

1. I expected to learn some of the roles of risk management and legal responsibilities in the medical world and how it related to nursing. 

2. I learned that risk management plays the role of trying to help prevent unnecessary negative or harmful events in the healthcare field, wether it was in a hospital or out. I also learned what some of things we can do as nurses to avoid a lot of these problems.

3. In the future I need to be more aware of my surroundings and be aware of potential complications and disasters that could occur. 

4. I think this information is important so that we are all responsible for the work that we do. 

Leaders as Educators/future of nursing

1. I had expected to learn some of the things that are affecting the future of nursing. What some of the good things might be and what some of the bad things might be.

2. What I actually learned was quit I opening. I didn't realize how much of the healthcare industry was made up by nurses. Then I also didn't know how little power and influence nurses actually had. Also how disorganized we are as an organization. 

3. I hope to be able to make a difference in my sphere of nursing as I go throughout my career. Hopefully I can make people more aware of this problem and then together we can make a difference.

4. I think the material was really good and important for all nurses no matter who they are or what kind of nursing they do. We need to spread the word and start making a difference in the medical world.

Quality

1. Going into class I expected to learn how we as nurse managers can make things on our floor better for everyone.

2. What I actually  learned or more so what was confirmed to me was that whats most important when we try to fix things or make them better we actually find out what is the real cause of the problem not just fixing the out ward appearance of things. If we are just trying to fix the burnt toast and trying to make that better we are either doing nothing to make things better or we are only making things worse. And also its also important to remember that just because something may be a little off doesn't mean that we should try to fix it. Most of the times we just end up making things worse when we do that.  

3. I think this material was great and it could be applied to all people in all spheres. Everybody in some sort of leadership or decision making role could benefit from this material. 

4. Now in the future when I see a problem I am going to first ask myself does this problem really need to be fixed or will I just make it worse. And if it does need to be fix what is the true root cause of the problem so we can fix that and not just dress up the burnt toast. 

Strategic Planning

1. What I expected to learn before the class was how we as nurses and managers could better plan our days and schedules and things like that.

2. In the end I learned that there is a whole lot of things that go into a planning session, and that if your not organized and you don't have good planning skills there can be a whole lot of things affected by that.

3. I think that I can utilize this information right now with better planning out my days were I work and that should in turn help me be a better nurse to all of my  patients.

4. I think the material that we cover was really important since we are all involved with planing. Being better at strategically planning things will only help us out in the long run as nurses. 

Budget Interview

1. What is the hardest thing when managing a budget?

2. How do you assess what needs to be covered in your budget?

3. How do you develop a plan for your budget?

4. How do you implement that plan?

5. What is the process of evaluation of your planned budget and its success?

I had the opportunity of interviewing the owner of a small accountant firm. It is just him in the company so his budget planning and keeping is unique in the sense that he has only him to rely upon actually making and keeping that budget.

I first started off by asking him the question of what is the hardest thing when making a budget. He felt that due to the fact that it was only him working in the company that he had to be self disciplined with actually sticking to the budget that he sets out for himself each month. When its only him he has to be extra careful that he is actually sticking to the budget in order for him to not start losing money each month.

I next asked him the question of how does he assess what needs to be covered in his budget. His response to this question was a lot of the basic things like rent, utilities, paper supplies, gas for traveling, phone bills, and things of that nature. And then if he knows ahead of time that something extra or big needs to be bought like maybe a new printer or something like that, then he will plan a couple months in advance for those extra expenditures.

The next question that I asked was how does he develop a plan for his budget. Again a lot of the budget that he makes each month are already built in things that have already been mentioned. But what he will also do is analyze at the end of each month up coming events and situations that should occur and then he plans according to those things. It also greatly depends on the time of the year. During tax season he knows he can be a little bit more flexible with the budget because he will be bringing in much more money than at other times of the year were he needs to be more frugal and careful with his budget.

The fourth question that I asked him was how does he implement his planned budget. Again with him being the only one at his work it really is just up to him in implementing the budget. He makes sure that he has sufficient funds each month to be able to take care of his monthly bills then he tries to make sure that he has a surplus of cash as well in case unexpected things come up so he can cover them.

Finally, the last question that I asked him was what was his process of evaluation of his planned budget and its success. This as well was a pretty basic and easy thing for him to do. Really if he was able to stick to that budget and not go over it he felt it was a success. And if he went over it and it was for unnecessary reasons then he felt it was not successful and he tries to go back and figure out what he can do better in the future.

In the end I thought it was nice to be able to see the perspective of a small business owner that he was the only employee, and the things that he has to deal with instead of a large corporation. I certainly think that there are pros and cons and different things that he has to deal with that the larger companies to have to deal with.

Mock interview

I did my mock interview at the LDS distribution center were they do employment services. It was a really good experience. We had two days of intense training with how to better sell yourself during the interview process. On the second day I had a chance to do a mock interview, and during the interview they taped the interview so that we could go back a see the things that I could do better. The interviewer asked several generic questions that one might ask in an interview, and because of the video I was able to see the things that I did well and things that I did poor. The overall experience was very valuable and a I learned a whole lot of things that I never knew before.