Coming to London for an MBA course in International HRM at CULC, I was quite confident about my teamwork skills thanks to a lot of practice from my undergraduate course and one-year work experience. However, now at the end of Term 1, I realized that I’ve learned so many new precious lessons about collaboration, especially from doing group works with my team AMASALA.
In Week 1, the first task I had with my group was in Marketing in which we were given one week to make a 10-minute presentation. We seemed to have no difficulty collaborating with each other because we quickly make friends, had lunch together chatting about our cultural differences, and got our work divided to each member with a specific deadline. Moreover, we created a Whatsapp group chat and it helped a lot in informing changes, asking for support and reminding deadlines. However, the actual presentation turned out to be unsuccessful because we far exceeded the time limit, which was because we did not rehearse. It was partly my responsibility because despite knowing rehearsals were important, I did not make effort to arrange one for my group. From that experience, I learn that to deliver the best group result, each member has to ensure the quality of not only his own part, but also of his teammates’ part and the overall combination.
Then, Week 6 came a big assignment of Strategy presentation. This time we got started early for better preparation, and I volunteered to design the slides and encouraged everyone to read and comment on other parts to have agreed content for the slides. Surprisingly, at the end of Week 4, we welcomed a new British member to our initial group of six international students. What’s more special is the considerable age distance between her and the rest of us, which did cause some problems. To be specific, I designed the slides in a creative way because our topic was Google, but from her perspectives, they were a bit childish. Honestly, I felt undervalued at first, but then I realized it was due to our generation gap. Therefore, we solved it by asking the whole group and following the majority’s opinion. The experience taught me that there are always potential problems due to differences of any kind, and the solution is to always show respect and prioritize the group benefits.
The latest experience of our AMASALA collaboration journey was the APS (Academic & Professional Skills) presentation. After the previous storming period, we became much more comfortable and effective together. We sat down to view through all the slides and give comments for each other, and had two rehearsals to make sure we could be within the time limit. As a result, we made a successful presentation and won the certificates by our teacher Aaron Taylor.
My team in APS presentation – It’s show time!
Hopefully the above stories help describe my journey so far with my beloved team, through which we have learned something more about how to be collaborative, regardless of how experienced we have been. Although being collaborative is not just about academic group works, I believe the lessons of trying my best, supporting teammates, keeping each other up-to-date, prioritizing mutual benefits and showing respect for others can be applied in any other types of co-operations, especially in my future working context.
culcphamkhap 