Prague, Czech Republic
Prague was the first location on our trip. We attended class at the NC State Prague building, located in Old Town Square, just feet away from central attractions like the Prague Astronomical Clock. It was crazy to spend the morning hours as students, isolated in our small building, and then step outside for a lunch break and be amongst a crowd of tourists walking around the square.
Courses
Intro to SLC 475: Capstone for Global Leadership & Team Decision Making
This was our first class in Prague and lasted five days. In this class, we started to define leadership and our goals for the program. We made a team charter as a group, took the Global Mindset Survey, and did small group assignments to understand best practices in leading a global organization.We also had a couple excursions this week. We had a tour of Prague and visited Terezin, an old military fortress, ghetto and concentration camp.
City Scavenger Hunt
My team was comprised of Jake, Jacob, Katie and me. This was my first time working in a small group with these peers, and I was immediately impressed by our teamwork.
Our challenge was to take as many pictures in front of a given list of iconic Prague places, but we had to ask someone else to take the picture for us. We also had to ask them where they were from and what they liked most about Prague. We ended up meeting people from the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, the United States, Austria, Korea and Portugal!
Aside from being a great team-building exercise, this helped me appreciate the diversity that Prague has to offer, and what impact it leaves on other people. We got recommendations for pubs, castles, museums, restaurants and more! We also covered a lot of ground during the scavenger hunt, which helped me get more familiar with the landscape.
FTM 484: Strategic Management and Decision Making in Textiles
Week 1:
This was a very content-heavy week where we learned about internal and external scanning, financial and cost-benefit analysis, strategic planning and other core concepts of operating business on a global scale.
Aside from lectures, we visited the Prague Airport and Boma glass company to get a better understanding of management and business strategies in the Czech Republic.
Bomma glass company
Bomma glass company specifically was an excellent example of a smaller Czech business navigating a global industry and customer base. It was fascinating to tour the entire factory and see each step involved in making a glass lamp or light fixture. The casual work environment caught me off guard, as I didn't expect to see employees wearing slippers or Birkenstocks and casual clothes in a glass factory.
It was hard to grasp that a relatively small production facility in a small town outside of Prague would be responsible for elaborate light fixtures in hotels and offices, or for exclusive Louis Vuitton and Chanel. Bomma demonstrated the necessity for a strong global mindset and cross-cultural awareness among leaders in order to effectively make a company that can operate internationally.
Week 2
While our first week of FTM 484 was heavily focused on lectures and application through excursions, the second week focused more on team-building and reflection. We reflected as a group and individually and learned how to overcome conflicts as a team. Our professor Vaclav did this through games that we played as a class, with a reflection aspect throughout or after the rounds. By the end of the week, I think our cohort had gotten closer and respected each other more because of Vaclav's methods.
Visit to Czech University of Life Sciences
We visited our professor's home institution, the Czech University of Life Sciences. We were tasked with making a presentation about our program, the primary goals, classes, itinerary and the value of studying abroad for students in the US.
We presented this to a group of students in the university's entrepreneurship program. After a Q&A session with them, we were able to draw parallels between their program and ours. We also enjoyed a couple drinks together at the campus pub, which was an excellent bonding activity and opportunity to learn more about Czech university student culture.
Tuckman's Team Development
Although this was only a two-hour activity, I felt as though my group experienced each stage of Tuckman's theory of team development
Forming:
unfamiliarity among group members, gender division, unsure who is going to be committed and "all in" for doing the scavenger hunt, overwhelmed by the amount of locations given the time available
tasks: established how much we wanted to get done in a short period and what area of Prague we thought we could cover, started to go to places near campus
Storming:
hesitation to take the lead and get the group going so as not to be seen as overbearing, one person navigating and others following, unsure how to react when we couldn't clearly find a location
tasks: asked where people think we should go next, asked for help when someone was unsure about directions, team developed a more detailed idea of what we could do on the map and what our route would be
Forming:
Delegation (had two people navigating at once to double check, another team member writing down answers from interactions, other person asking stranger for photo) got in a flow of getting pictures taken and having good conversations with people, started to relax around each other and talk amongst ourselves
Performing:
People became comfortable in their roles, limitations to our abilities become clear (we knew how much more we could do in the time remaining), comfortable and relaxed atmosphere, members looked out for each other and did not separate from the group, trust among team that we were going to accomplish what we had strategized to
