Great Lakes Institute of Management Essay #3
Explain with 1 or 2 examples how you displayed a team spirit by placing organization’s/team’s interests ahead of your own personal interests. (min 200 max 400 words)
I believe that placing group interests over personal interests is essential for team success and have personally demonstrated this quality in my professional life.
My company manufactures and sells medical imaging devices for capturing 3d models of human teeth. A sudden spurt in demand in late 2008 was welcome news in the middle of the economic recession, but sustained lay-offs had left the organization significantly understaffed. Furthermore, many employees were in the midst of vacations in the Holiday season. It soon became clear that the under-resourced manufacturing and logistics team would be unable to meet delivery deadlines before the New Year, which for a product relatively new in the marketplace would have meant a significant loss of credibility. Following a request by the management for employees to spare extra time for the effort, I volunteered for the task. Over the following two weeks, spanning Christmas and New Year, I assisted the manufacturing and logistics team in testing, packaging and shipping the products out. Thanks to the efforts of volunteers like myself, the organization as a whole was able to meet all delivery targets on schedule.
In an effort to create a buzz around the launch of our product, my company planned to make a substantial presence at the International Dental Show at Cologne (Germany) in March 2007. From the R&D team, a co-worker and I were offered a chance to visit the show enabling us to explore the competing technologies available in the marketplace. However, shortly before the scheduled visit, we were informed that due to budget constraints, only one person from the R&D team would be allowed to fly. Although disappointed myself, this development affected my colleague more because he had made plans for his wife to visit him in Germany and to take a vacation and travel around there. Cancelling his trip would mean incurring loss on the travel bookings they had already made. I then told my supervisor that my co-worker could represent R&D at the Show this time, and that I would wait for the next opportunity. This incident created a sense of camaraderie and we went on to cooperate closely on a number of projects.
I believe that flexibility and accommodation in team work are greatly beneficial to the members involved as well as to the organization as a whole.
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