Collaboration

We have a famous saying in Bahrain that says one hand cannot clap; only two can.

Rowing team collaborating to win

 

My 10 weeks experience in CULC gave me the ability to reach an effective result while collaborating on group course-works with people from different cultural backgrounds. Firstly to build and maintain good relationships with my class-mates until the end of this journey, secondly to achieve the objective I came to London to pursue and complete my degree program. As for week 5 of Marketing seminar, my team and I had to create a product that does not exist in the market and work on an entire marketing plan for the chosen product and present it in front of the entire class in 30 minutes time.

Working in a group with people from different backgrounds and being able to make use of the differentiation of each party is not easy for a person that does not know how to adapt nor collaborate. Luckily, all my group members from Ukraine, Oman, India, and Vietnam are extremely collaborative. Therefore, we managed to create a product that links all our origins and satisfies the needs of enormous market segments which helped us win the challenge against our other class mates. We firstly divided the work according to each person’s capability, helped each other to maintain focus, support each other’s needs, and we ended up finishing before time and presenting in such an impressive way.

After each presentation is done, I like to give and receive feedback from my classmates in order to enhance my performance for future tasks. Moreover, I make sure to share credits for any good idea i have with my team members, as well as acknowledging their skills and contributions. I also learnt during my studies that it is important to support any decisions made by the majority of my team members even if I tend to disagree, to help complete our task in ease.

Going on our first field trip to London Excel with our APS tutor was a nice experience that made me observe how each one of my classmates are collaborative and helpful. From how we all waited for each other to leave the university’s premises together, offering seats on the tube, taking equal turns in the interview questions we had for the head of HR, and the support we gave each other on the final presentation day before going on stage.

Finally, since one of the main duties of any head of HR is to engage with employees and build good relations, it is necessary to have good teamwork and collaboration skills within you for effective performance of our future role.

Curiosity

The holy curiosity, as Albert Einstein named it, it is in every genius manners and hard to find any great master without a curious character. This great trait I have in my personality grants me an active mind and not a passive one, which I found very useful during my studies in both my previous university and now in Coventry.

My curiosity was the key driver to make me change my career path from Accounting and Finance to International Human Resource Management. I learnt what I needed to know about numbers and how to manage the costs and revenues within the organization. But it was time to understand how the organization sets its goals, objectives, and position.

My first week in CULC particularly my first lesson in Strategy Planning, gave me a brief idea on how micro and macro environmental factors have major effects on the company as a whole. It increased my curiosity even more when I started working on my first course work on GOOGLE, to want to learn about the appropriate frameworks such as PESTEL, and Porters 5 Forces that should be used to detect these factors.

Moreover, I learnt in Marketing in the Global Age lectures that marketing has evolved to be based on building a profitable relationship with customers and meet their expectations.   I became more curious about how to change the way I view products and services I receive in my daily life, from grabbing a simple cup of coffee to staying at a 5 star hotel, and to achieve that; it was mainly by paying careful attention to every word my tutors say in lectures with never hesitating to ask for further clarifications. Especially, choosing to work on Premier Inn’s marketing plan for my final course-work, I enjoyed the challenge of learning about a new industry and how to relate what has now became obvious to analyze a proper SWOT/TOWS analysis, market segmentation, targeting, and positioning.

As for my third module in my first term, APS Academic and Professional Skills; I decided to take it as my personal guideline for my future success in all the other modules and develop my skills as a future HR professional. I found the opportunity to meet the Head of HR of London Excel highly valuable, and I was very keen to put as many questions as I wanted Adam Chircop to clarify about the main duties and challenges I should be expecting in my future role.

Furthermore, during my 10 weeks in CULC I trained my mind to always relate theories to practices, facts, and most of all logic. And to do so, I find it absolutely crucial to be a good listener, and an excellent observer to generate new ideas, which made me always question myself and others and seek for logical answers for my doubts and curiosity. Likewise, collecting information is also beneficial for future opportunities and better probability of success.