Reflection: Learning from your mistake.

On March 13, 2017, Monday, our group interpellated the group who was reporting their assigned case before our Lassallian Leadership class. On the same day, we also made the presentation of our own case right after their group’s report.

I felt that our professor was disappointed but I was doubly disappointed for the performance and for the “double-whammy” we had got in just one class session:

1. We were the interpellating group to the other reporting group and we were supposed to have come up with our own analysis of the case, have our own findings and recommendations so that we could have compared with the reporting group. Unfortunately, no one in our group was aware or had forgotten, for whatever reason, that it was a requirement in the class presentation.

What we prepared was just a list of questions that we expected to throw at the reporting group. So after a few seconds of discussion with my group mates, I decided to admit our failings. I could immediately sense the frustrations on the face of Prof. Pia Manalastas. I was so embarrassed. I felt like I was melting and want to burst and disappear like a bubble in thin air. That was one of the longest 15 seconds of my life.

2. During the turn of our reporting, the group that was assigned to interpellate us clarified how our recommended course of action on the case was going to be implemented. At the back of my mind, I was telling myself, Oh Yes, that should have been included in our Implementation Plan as part of our recommendation, In fact, when I was doing our case analysis and preparing the powerpoint slides it somehow crossed my mind. Having been in the MBA program for four (4) terms already, I should know the standards and formats, right. But that part (Implementation Plan) was nowhere in our presentation slides. Even during our group discussion when my two group mates were reviewing what I had done so far, they too never noticed. Gosh, we were infront of the whole class. At that moment I wanted to instantaneously shrink to a microscopic level so that the class wouldn’t see me.

We might have valid reasons, but the fact remained, we were remiss in our expected deliverables in this class. Situations like this however should serve us some lessons to improve ourselves the next time around. Besides, learning the hard way is more effective, life-changing and life-long as opposed to just learning it the easy way and forgot about it in a matter or short period of time.

After all what happened, I can only reflect now on the scenario and analyze the lessons that I should recognize and apply in other real world situations:

1. Dependence/Reliance/Confidence – By this I mean, I should not allow other people to be too dependent, excessively reliant or too confident on someone particularly in a group dynamic or a team project because it violates the very essence of a team which is supposed to be a group working together towards a common goal and not a single member towards the shared objective of the team. And it works against what should have been a better performance of a group in favor of a less desirable output of a single member because it goes contrary to an old cliché, “Two or more heads are better than one”.

This is exactly what happened to our case analysis report. A few days before the date of our presentation, I had the chance to focus on it and took the liberty to do the case on my own and never bothered my two group mates knowing fully well that they are also coping with their hectic work schedule.

After I finished our initial output, I emailed it to them for their inputs and comments, and for them to do the scoring of the Alternative Courses of Actions (ACA). They were so thankful that I did the case analysis. Unfortunately, perhaps too confident on what I did, they just rephrased a few statements and scored the ACAs. There were no major changes or revisions or additions ever introduced. The case was for most parts an output of a single team member.

2. Complacency – complacent attitude towards everything that we do is really costly. Items in our deliverables that we forgot consciously or unconsciously could have cost the group some percentage point in our grade. So ensuring that no stone is unturned in every step of the way is as important as the ultimate objective.

It’s sad that our group somehow displayed some complacency during these two group activities. Firstly, we were not diligent enough to check the course syllabus for the requirement of the interpellators which resulted to an embarrassing situation of being told upon by the professor. Secondly, the group was not thorough enough to complete the presentation according to the standard format which caused us to be unable to answer a very valid clarification from the interpellating group.

I am only human. I commit indiscretion or reckless imprudence. But what is important is that I learn from the mistakes.

So I might still commit many blunders, but learn I will.