We completed the famous integrative exercise! A complex case and 6 people to provide a solution to a management board in 2 days. Thirty-eight hours of team work, endless coffee and several packs of snacks, red eyes, head aches and some, but very little, broken hearts and… we are the champions!
Wednesday evening. Excitement is growing, we have read blog posts from previous participants and many of us are stressed and try to build up scenarios to determine survival rules and overcome a feeling of chaos. The next-days events showed that a very small part of those predictions turned out to happen. Conclusion: scenario planning is helpful in managing anxiety, but one shouldn’t too much rely on impression of others – individual experiences are truly unique.
Thursday – here it comes! Who is the first to understand the case? You have a solution? Five others challenge. Time flies. No solution yet. I am tired. A strange noise in the dungeons corridor as if an asphalt roller is approaching. We are looking at each other – what’s up? A neighbor group chills out riding rolling chairs. Come on, tomorrow morning we deliver our presentation! And we need to sleep. We seem to have found our solution. “I don’t trust your numbers”. It’s early morning and other four bent over backwards to reconcile debaters.
Friday after the presentation. We are on the right track – fine-tune here, adjust there and we are done. Let’s finish early! Discussion. Oh, we are tired and slower than yesterday. Let’s split and divide the tasks. Several a-ha moments. After dinner we still have white spots in our story line. Group skids. Group dissolves. Group reassembles.
Friday, 9 p.m. A cake party to celebrate B-days! What a unique celebration spirit! I love our class! Back to my team. Someone challenges the basis. Oh, no! Two short rhythmic stamps, one long clap – “we will, we will rock you”. Group reassembles again.
Let’s make slides! Close the window, it’s cold. Open the window, it’s stuffy here. We need to help you! Go on, we are almost there!
Saturday morning, team dry run. You need to see those handsome smart guys! I know we are well prepared and it’s gonna be fine. But I am nervous. “Calm down, take my banana!”. “No, can’t eat now”.
Saturday after the presentation. Yes, we did it! Why didn’t we consider the other side of the coin? We leveraged our internal expertise, we were great. However, we had some blind spots due to our professional inclinations. At some point during the preparation stage I though I wasn’t contributing, but now I see that I actually did a lot. How much contribution is too much? Would I contribute if I were 100% passive? Definitely, yes, but in a negative way. Did we have fun? Incredibly, yes! I am blessed to be in this team.
From left to right Xu, Jonas, Gianpaolo, James, me and Edison.From left to right Xu, Jonas, Gianpaolo, James, me and Edison.
Till soon,
Aysylu
Flora commented on Sunday, March 06, 2016 8:10 PM