A Unique Perspective

For the Capstone Project, we were assigned to explore something that encorporates what we've learned from our major and our time in the Minor in Writing program. I am an Organizational Studies major at the University of Michigan. Organizational Studies is an interdisciplinary program that melds different aspects of the social sciences to study how organizations and people effect one another. Specifically, I have chosen to focuse on positive leadership and managing change in a for-profit setting.

 

For my project, I conducted a case study on my family business, Ronnie's Quality Meats. I set out to find quick and effective procedures my parents could implement into their business in order to relieve their stress as owners and help our business run more efficiently. 

 

My "unique perspective" has been signifigantly shaped by our family's business and as a writer, I wanted to challenge myself to present our business to an audience that does not know my family, and find a way to make them care about it as well. Also, I wanted the challenge of presenthing these findings to my family. As the youngest of three children and therefore being the one with the least experience, I wanted to create a project with components that my family would respect and consider implementing.

 

I never considered myself a leader in our family until I came to the University of Michigan and completely reconsidered what a being a leader actually means. One of the most helpful tools in reshaping my view of leadership and gaining confidence in my ability to make a change is the work of James Kouzes and Barry Posner, authors of "The Leadership Challenge." A video of their main concepts is featured below as well as the link to my project!