Goal Oriented...I Am... Are You?
Background
For the past 4-5 weekends, I've been sacrificing my Sunday mornings to meet with my classmates on a Strategic Planning case-study and presentation. Tuesday night was our show time where we present in front of our class, as consultants to the company board, our recommendations on how the company strategy should change.
Sounds kind of boring, huh? But in reality, it was one of the most intriguing piece of team work I have done. This is the class where the entire class got BOOTED out, literally! The professor is just very determined to challenge your every comment and every move. So everybody was on the wire about this class.
Little Rewards You Look For
I was mighty nervous when we presented and felt as if we didn't prepare enough. BUT we thought of all the little professional details that a team could think of. It's the soft skills that really made the 1st impression (name tags, the way we dress, etc). We were a visually eye-pleasing team. So as a result, our professor gave away (just a little bit) that he was pleasantly surprised at our preparation..He walked in...and saw the Starbucks Coffee & Cookies at the 'reception' table...and all he did was 'raise a small eye-brow'. That's it!
Presentation Resultsu
It took the 5 of us over 30-40 minutes to present. At the end, we thought it was over...but NOPE. We had over 40 minutes worth of Q & A. I tried to stop the QA session by setting up a hard attitude by challenging a classmate to analysis preparation...but was immediately reminded in a subtle way by my teammates not to. So it was my 1st time being a hard-ass and right after the presentation, I walked up to my classmate and said no hard feelings because that's what I was doing...just following our professor's lead.
However, the 'guilt' of being mean to somebody in front of class...Was weighing in my head, while all my classmates laughed at the other classmate's expense. I'd hate to make somebody feel like that. So does that mean I don't cut it in the management world? Am I just way too nice & friendly? Hell no! If I need to stand-up for my team, I can take it ;-).
Afterwards, as the prof read out the feedback...it was clear that he was impressed. Although we did miss some minor points and could improve in our presentation (who couldn't?!)...He stated "this was more than I expected in the 2nd presentation". AWESOME!
Goal Oriented
I found out tonight that my personality has slowly changed from being a people conscious to being goal oriented. By my single action of getting the result I wanted from my prof (a good grade) at the possible expense of another classmate. It was quite clear. My personality has changed. I would have never done it if I was still in Undergrad or maybe just a couple years ago. I would have been too worried whether people would still like me afterwards. Now I am starting to challenge and question everything from work to school because if you don't...you'll never get the real answers. But at the same time...I still went up to my classmate to apologize. Hmmm....
Is this a good change or is this bad by not caring as much of what others think?
For the past 4-5 weekends, I've been sacrificing my Sunday mornings to meet with my classmates on a Strategic Planning case-study and presentation. Tuesday night was our show time where we present in front of our class, as consultants to the company board, our recommendations on how the company strategy should change.
Sounds kind of boring, huh? But in reality, it was one of the most intriguing piece of team work I have done. This is the class where the entire class got BOOTED out, literally! The professor is just very determined to challenge your every comment and every move. So everybody was on the wire about this class.
Little Rewards You Look For
I was mighty nervous when we presented and felt as if we didn't prepare enough. BUT we thought of all the little professional details that a team could think of. It's the soft skills that really made the 1st impression (name tags, the way we dress, etc). We were a visually eye-pleasing team. So as a result, our professor gave away (just a little bit) that he was pleasantly surprised at our preparation..He walked in...and saw the Starbucks Coffee & Cookies at the 'reception' table...and all he did was 'raise a small eye-brow'. That's it!
Presentation Resultsu
It took the 5 of us over 30-40 minutes to present. At the end, we thought it was over...but NOPE. We had over 40 minutes worth of Q & A. I tried to stop the QA session by setting up a hard attitude by challenging a classmate to analysis preparation...but was immediately reminded in a subtle way by my teammates not to. So it was my 1st time being a hard-ass and right after the presentation, I walked up to my classmate and said no hard feelings because that's what I was doing...just following our professor's lead.
However, the 'guilt' of being mean to somebody in front of class...Was weighing in my head, while all my classmates laughed at the other classmate's expense. I'd hate to make somebody feel like that. So does that mean I don't cut it in the management world? Am I just way too nice & friendly? Hell no! If I need to stand-up for my team, I can take it ;-).
Afterwards, as the prof read out the feedback...it was clear that he was impressed. Although we did miss some minor points and could improve in our presentation (who couldn't?!)...He stated "this was more than I expected in the 2nd presentation". AWESOME!
Goal Oriented
I found out tonight that my personality has slowly changed from being a people conscious to being goal oriented. By my single action of getting the result I wanted from my prof (a good grade) at the possible expense of another classmate. It was quite clear. My personality has changed. I would have never done it if I was still in Undergrad or maybe just a couple years ago. I would have been too worried whether people would still like me afterwards. Now I am starting to challenge and question everything from work to school because if you don't...you'll never get the real answers. But at the same time...I still went up to my classmate to apologize. Hmmm....
Is this a good change or is this bad by not caring as much of what others think?
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