More than conquerors...

Cake Sale 1 was a real challenge for our group as we were a newly formed group and we were still

discovering our strengths and building our team dynamic. After six months our ”group” has grown

into a TEAM.

Earlier this week I spoke about preparation, between then and now I have learnt that you can never

really prepare enough something always slips through. Expo day saw a well organised team coming

together and launching our product. However, we faced a few challenges:

- we had not actually tested the “look” of our stand as a result it started off looking a little

bland with no posters and white walls with a few reindeer heads

- we had no batteries for the TV remote to play our video which we needed to add finesse to

our space,

- we had not thought of how our coats would look on the display that we had or how we

would really display them although we had a plan for our bags,

- Our stock of coats was not as varied as we had hoped with us having only one medium/large

sized coat with a hood (which we thankfully sold)

- our card machine did not arrive

How we dealt with the unexpected…

This brings back lessons from last semester around bricolage – loosely defined as making the most of

what you have at hand to create value. Our group used a combination of bricolage and

improvisation to get through the day.

Our team approached the challenges by taking charge, we fell into a natural pattern of delegation.

We had team members take charge of printing posters close by and filling up the space on the walls,

we had another team member solve or card machine problem by making a deal with a group next to

us to use their card machine, we had member’s source batteries and got our TV running. All the

while we had team members focussed on displaying, selling and speaking to customers.

From the Expo day I believe we reinforced our different talents and how they come together in our

team. We met the challenges head on and our team members took initiative to solve the issues that

we faced. In doing these things the importance of delegation and taking responsibility for different

roles in a business and leveraging ones talents for the good of the business really came to light. As a

result we had a successful launch day and I believe we are a better team for it.