Reality bites
We got bitten - severely - by the hounding press reporters. Today's assessed press conference left us realizing what the phrase "resting on past glory" means.
What can be worse than waking up early morning, get dressed in business suits, be at the school reception at 8:30 am to pick up a case for Press conference, run through it, face the press and then criticize ourselves at 10:00 am? Yes, nothing else can truly be worse than this.
We were given a real life case from the health sector in UK and we worked our way through the team discussion and division of roles during the 60 minutes. At 9:30 am it was time to face the music, literally. After the initial statement is delivered by the Chief Executive of the board, if the press asks you on why is the press conference called, I call it a googly. Because at that moment, I suddenly lost my thought process and was left thinking, "this is a trap, this is a trap". And soon enough, we all realized that Christian Wards (New Zealand), a doctor in real life, who was playing the role of Chief Executive had got stuck in a maze of tough questions. One thing lead to another and our performance and control on the proceedings kept sliding down. We had muddled up. Adding oil to fire was my mistake on a factual information that I had totally missed reading in the case given to us. Clearly, we were under prepared. And the doctor couldn't have resurrected us alone.
The clock kept ticking away and my heart beat gave full company by synchronizing itself. With a pulse rate of 60 per minute, you can easily imagine what must be happening to my mind. Things were even tougher this time compared to those practice sessions - the panel was nastier and even bigger in strength this time. We were facing five cannons today.
Time over. Feedback session began and as expected we had much to hear from them. Top piece of advise to us- we forgot who our customers are; we also were found inadequate on the use of 3R's principle: Regret, Reason and Remedy.
As we trudged out of the TV studio towards our syndicate area, I was sure one of my team members would have wanted to kick me for my faux pas. I too wanted to do something similar to another team member. But of course, none of us did any such thing. After all, it was a collective responsibility. Now a few hours later, I am coming to terms with our performance and am looking at the lessons of a lifetime. I even wonder whether corporates prepare their executives for facing such situations. Good that Cranfield is preparing me to face crisis.
With today's Press conference, the core course of Presentation and Communication Skills (PCS) comes to an end. Keeping aside the assessments, PCS is the most enjoyable, relevant and learning course that one can experience. It is sad that we won't have more of PCS during Terms 3 and 4. While I will definitely miss PCS, I intend using the learning's not only in the remaining part of the MBA, but also during my lifetime.
What can be worse than waking up early morning, get dressed in business suits, be at the school reception at 8:30 am to pick up a case for Press conference, run through it, face the press and then criticize ourselves at 10:00 am? Yes, nothing else can truly be worse than this.
We were given a real life case from the health sector in UK and we worked our way through the team discussion and division of roles during the 60 minutes. At 9:30 am it was time to face the music, literally. After the initial statement is delivered by the Chief Executive of the board, if the press asks you on why is the press conference called, I call it a googly. Because at that moment, I suddenly lost my thought process and was left thinking, "this is a trap, this is a trap". And soon enough, we all realized that Christian Wards (New Zealand), a doctor in real life, who was playing the role of Chief Executive had got stuck in a maze of tough questions. One thing lead to another and our performance and control on the proceedings kept sliding down. We had muddled up. Adding oil to fire was my mistake on a factual information that I had totally missed reading in the case given to us. Clearly, we were under prepared. And the doctor couldn't have resurrected us alone.
The clock kept ticking away and my heart beat gave full company by synchronizing itself. With a pulse rate of 60 per minute, you can easily imagine what must be happening to my mind. Things were even tougher this time compared to those practice sessions - the panel was nastier and even bigger in strength this time. We were facing five cannons today.
Time over. Feedback session began and as expected we had much to hear from them. Top piece of advise to us- we forgot who our customers are; we also were found inadequate on the use of 3R's principle: Regret, Reason and Remedy.
As we trudged out of the TV studio towards our syndicate area, I was sure one of my team members would have wanted to kick me for my faux pas. I too wanted to do something similar to another team member. But of course, none of us did any such thing. After all, it was a collective responsibility. Now a few hours later, I am coming to terms with our performance and am looking at the lessons of a lifetime. I even wonder whether corporates prepare their executives for facing such situations. Good that Cranfield is preparing me to face crisis.
With today's Press conference, the core course of Presentation and Communication Skills (PCS) comes to an end. Keeping aside the assessments, PCS is the most enjoyable, relevant and learning course that one can experience. It is sad that we won't have more of PCS during Terms 3 and 4. While I will definitely miss PCS, I intend using the learning's not only in the remaining part of the MBA, but also during my lifetime.
posted by Sandeep Gupta at
9:48 pm
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