The Achievers

Today I had organizational behavior class in college. Madam was to teach about team work. Generally madam gives an exercise to class and on that exercise, she explains particular topic.

Today she did the same. The entire class was divided into teams of 10 people. The exercise was common to all teams. First task was "Scavenger-Hunt". Each team had to first search for 12 objects in campus itself. Madam had already given check-list of all objects. They were Matchbox, Photos of each member, Book of Quotation, a stationary having University logo, A picture of any car, Cloth Duster, A string, a briefcase, a calculator, a CD, a bubble gum, previous year calendar.

Second task was "New Product Launch" where each team was required to select a product, give a name, create a logo, create a tag line, and prepare strategies to launch. A transparency was given to each team and we needed to make presentation of the product launch on it. Each team was allocated 30 minutes time to complete both the task. Whichever team completes Scavenger-Hunt first, had to present the product launch first.

I was the part of team formed on left wing of classroom. We were 10 members in the beginning. But two members joined as they were late in class. We initially started with gathering all objects which were with us in the classroom. We almost collected CD, calculator, string, photos, calendar on first go. Two team members rushed to library and collected Book of quotation, a magazine having advertisement of a car, and pamphlet having University logo. They collected a matchbox from security boy while returning. Other two members went to canteen to buy a bubble gum and they bought a cloth duster that generally boys keep in vehicles. We collected 11 items in approximately 10-15 minutes. The problem was briefcase. The most senior member of our team went outside the class and did some magic tricks (as it is confidential how he did it) and brought the briefcase. We completed our first part and showed all objects to madam within 20 minutes. Our team was the first to complete this task hence we were in advantage.

Around six members of team had engaged themselves in searching all those objects. The rest including me had already started second task. We decided submersible pumps as our product. We used “Jaldhara” as product name. Two of these six members started preparing logo accordingly and others started making strategies. Tag line, we preferred “Bina Barasaat, Pani Hi Pani’ (Hindi). We made two advertisement lines for it:

“Jab Unchai Pe Pahochana Ho Pani, Aur Bijli Bhi Ho Bachani,
Jaldhara Pumps Hi Hai Sab Ki zubani”

and

“Pump Se Hogi Kheto Ki Samrudhdhi, Kheto Se Hogi Desh Ki Samrudhdhi”

When we jotted down enough strategies, around 3 minutes were left. We were all happy with our efforts and entire team went for presentation. Presentation was also superb as we had good orators in our team. When a team presented their work, other teams needed to rate product launch with four criteria: Product name, Logo, Tag line and strategies.

We did one mistake in entire exercise. Madam gave us a red marker to write on transparency. We wrote and draw using that marker only rather than asking other team to share markers of different color. Hence our logo did not appear that much impressive.

But lady luck was with us and we received highest rating in product launch. Moreover we completed the task before other teams; our team was announced as Winner.

“The Achievers proved their name."

The learning from this was how mutually team members coordinated without any leader or supervisor and every member was accountable for both of the activities. That is the main difference between a group and team…