Reutlingen, Germany
Reutlingen is a smaller, southwestern city in Germany. This leg was a stark contrast to Prague. Where Prague's city sprawled for miles, Reutlingen's main square for shopping and dining was about a 10 minute walk from one end to the other. We navigated the city on foot or by bus, and were forced to adjust our fast-paced routine we had fallen into in Prague.
MIE 430: Teamwork in Organizations
This class was an opportunity to be introspective. We took time to learn more about ourselves as individually before applying that knowledge to a leadership scenario. We took numerous personality tests through this program, but our MIE 430: Teamwork in Organizations is where we completed the bulk of them.
Working with Germans
One of the most impactful experiences of this trip was the ability to work alongside German graduate students at Reutlingen University. These students were ambitious and hopeful leaders who, despite age differences, had similar aspirations and work styles to us.
Mercedes Tour
This tour offered a different perspective of European business compared to our experience at Bomma. Mercedes was highly structured, with 3 different shift schedules in the 24 hour day to maximize productivity. Work was delegated between humans and robots, which made me question whether humans would be needed in this industry in the coming years.
It was fascinating to see the beginning stages of building a car and then see doors and handles installed on cars by the end of our tour. Human-powered operations were performed smoothly in small teams throughout the assembly line, proving that even a company with over 35,000 employees could not function without teamwork. The contributions of each individual (and robot) were necessary to make a perfect car in the end.
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Our tour guide emphasized the group culture at Mercedes, consistently highlighting the skill and efficiency of employees referring to them as colleagues, and never implying that he was superior to them.
Blind Shapes Teambuilding Exercise
One of the most interesting exercises we did in this class was an activity where we were in a circle and blindfolded attempting to describe odd shapes to each other. This was difficult at first in a large group of around 16 people because we weren't able to see various social queues to see when someone wanted to talk or had an idea. We were tasked with figuring out how many different types of shapes there were, how many of each type there were, and which shapes were lesser in quantity. Although we didn't get to complete the activity in time, this was a great lesson in communication and problem-solving, and proved to us that we could effectively work even with obstacles in place.
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We were able to apply various concepts we had learned including:
- allowing others to take the lead
- inclusivity --> creating a space where everyone is comfortable to speak up
- cross-cultural communication and problem-solving (it took us numerous attempts to figure out who had the same shapes because everyone had different ways of describing it)
- sharing new and different perspectives
- adaptability and reflection
- delegation of responsibility
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