Columbia business school mba application - Admission/Application Essay Example

Lessons Learned From A Team Failure Introduction I have always experienced working with a groups of people. I have enormous experience working withpeople with various characteristics and I found out that working in a team is always a worthy learning experience. Out of these experiences, there are some that are successful, and there are also some which proved to be a failure. Main Body One of these team activities which I consider to be a failure was in my business communication class. In that class, we were taught the best ways to communicate with our target market.

Thus, one day, the teacher asked us to divide into several groups. Each group was given a piece of paper, a short rope and 3 clips. The teacher told us that we have to make a good Christmas decoration out of these materials and then later present it to the class. Our presentation will be for one minute and within that duration, we have to present our product in the best way possible. We have to present it to a committee which is composed to 3-5 students, randomly selected by the professor. The committee will play the judge so that they will decide which groups is the best.

We were given 7 minutes to do everything prior to the final presentation. That includes making the decoration and preparing for our presentation. We were so focused on making an excellent decoration. We made a Christmas tree with a shape of an earring. We had a very good idea and a very creative output as well, but we were so focused on the detail that we lost track of the allotted time. We concentrated much on making everything perfect so that we failed to follow the time limits. And so we came up with a very beautiful decoration, but we were not able to make a good speech and power point presentation.

Out presentation lacked excellence and creativity, so that no matter how great our design was, we still failed to convince our audience of the beauty of our product. We failed to realize that all parts of the process of selling are equally important - the design is as important as the market process. As a business student, we have to be reminded that all the steps in product selling must be done in the best way. Thus we have to plan the use of our time and spend it wisely. Indeed, sometimes we get to focused with the detail of one aspect of our lives, and fail to see the bigger things and the more important things.

We tend to master one aspect when in fact, one of the aspects of our lives are already being left out, only to realize that they are so essential. The business processes - the design, the production and the marketing are all necessary and essential parts. The entire business will not do well if one of them is left out. This is true for life in general. We must continuously juggle the different aspects of our life so as to achieve balance. Conclusion Working with a team is always a difficult but rewarding experience.

It is sometimes painful as each of you represent a different character as individuals, and your characters might be contrary to one another, but in the end, if you were able to iron things out, it will be very rewarding. Aside from being conscious of the time and putting equal efforts on the part of the business process, I have also learned from out team activity to always be on the lookout for what the team lacks - and this is where I should help and fit in.