谢谢楼上几位的Comment,我把Essay重新修改了一下,请继续拍砖,哈..... Essay Question B A central theme of the MBA program at the ABC Graduate School of Management is 'hands-on leadership.' We expect our students to be future leaders and to begin using their leadership skills while in the program. Please describe what this means to you as a potential student at the ABC School. Limit your response to 750 words.
In early 2006 when just promoted to be the country representative of China, I was assigned to develop a new market. Our headquarter (HQ) in Bangkok planed to formally launch our brand-name copy paper in China market. As the most senior Chinese staff with 3 years paper business experience at that time, I was eligible to travel in China for two months to develop trial market-Nanjing, a city nearby Shanghai, with total budget around 100K USD. At first beginning, I set a plan and timeline of what the first priority KPIs I had to achieve within two months-set up a sales team, conduct market survey and appoint new distributor. There were too many details when I led a team to develop new market.
However, things did not always go smoothly. I met a lot of challenges both inside and outside of team during my lead. For instance, 3 management trainees were all fresh graduate. They were very active and passionate, but with little sales experience. Although they could learn from first hand experience while visiting customer, it took long time. HQ gave me only two months to build a solid team. How can I complete the mission impossible? Under this pressure, I believed that they needed more training. Then I came out an idea: every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening, I bought a free dinner for 3 new staffs. During the dinner time, I trained them how to be a professional salesperson, how to dress decently, how to speak politely, how to negotiate with customer, and how to be humorous in the business conversation etc; I coached them just like father and baby, because I talked a lot but they kept quiet; after 2 months training and on-job experience, our relationship became brother and sister. They grew up and could handle sales issue independently. Each of them could handle 5-6 key account customers. Moreover, when our business just started there, we have a lot issues to handle. I used my pocket money to buy 3 organizer books to distribute to my team. I coached them time management by noting down the top 5 tasks that must be done in that day. I have learned from this hand-on lesson that, as a leader, you must know how to share your experience, and knowledge among team, and how to grow a team just as how a planter grows a tree.
Another challenge was that my team my team felt frustrated during 2nd month, when 80% stationery shop refused to display our paper product in their shop because HQ rejected the budget of paying the displace fee in the stationery shop. The situation lasted a few weeks but still no any progress. One female trainee wanted to resign, and the other two guys’ lost confidence too. The morale of the whole team was sinking lower every day. I tried to comfort them that “don't lost confidence. We must come out other way to resolve this issue rather than complained that HQ is cheeseparing” Then we successfully convinced distributors to give 60-day credit time to those stationer shops by showing that distributor can gain high distribution coverage, products turn over faster, and distributor can gain more profit. Eventually, during two-month teamwork, our copy paper product display rate increased from 20% to 50% of total stationery shops. After this case, my team’s confidence has been built up and team morale had been motivated again. I also felt I was more respected and trusted. That girl trainee who planed to resign has been promoted to be sales supervisor now. I have learned from this hand-on experience that no mater what challenge you meet, where there is a will there is a way. To be a good leader, I must know how to encourage team in the tough situation.
Judging from my working experience, “Hands-on leadership” is crucial for me to succeed toward my career goal. Simulating contexts of real business world, ABC Business School’s Team Leadership Lab, the Financial Analysis Lab, the Supply Chain Lab and other innovative lab provide indispensable “hands-on” practices that allow me to play a specific role in dealings with tackle complicated business matters. Case competitions will definitely shape my sense of strategic thinking, problem-solving and presentation skills, which are capabilities required to be a preeminent leader. I invariably regard “hands-on” experiences a fundamental key approaching success, because I have acquired a lot leadership technique from numerous cases of in-field experiences.
PS:请勿抄袭,以免雷同。 |