Project Firenze

Jeang-Won "The Teacher" Chai, from Seoul National University writes about her Firenze|China experience...

On her experiences ...

This was my first case challenge so I had no idea about what lay ahead of me when I sat on the plane that Sunday afternoon. But I experienced new people, cultures, ideas, challages and the consequences of curve balls! All put together and dealt with in two days was an incredible experience and even though I only spend 3 hours at my 5 star hotel - I would definently do it again!

On her learnings...
I have learnt so much, I don't know which end to start!
First thing I learnt is about collaboration, I had no idea who these new people were but I was well aware of that we needed to get our act together and produce a good and doable idea within the next 34 hours. We had different backgrounds and ideas and all of us had different perceptions about what was possible to implement and not. Our group of eight had a total experience of countries like China, USA, Korea, South America, UK, Germany and Sweden.

I also learnt that the saying about executives having an attention span of 5 minutes is true! We started you presentation and after just 2 minutes and 3 slides we were questioned. After 30 minutes we hadn't even finished our 16 slides but questions were still hitting us like a maelstrom. And it's not only true among executives but all people, if you want to convince them something you have to be convincing from the first second you start to talk. The fact that students and audiences are still listening at you after 15 minutes of nonsense is not because they think you will deliver something smart in the next 20 minutes but that they are polite. Too polite in my meaning. The skills in delivering concise messages in ppt's, speech or essays is something I think us MBA students need to practice and consider a continuous area of improvement in the future.

In addition to this lesson given to me during the case challenge I also realized that its not always about finding the best idea or the genius invention, sometimes its about just choosing one of your ideas and develop it into perfection (or as near as possible). That idea might just turn in to a great invention in the future. Being stuck thinking and rejecting ideas you don't consider perfect is just time consuming and inefficient.

On what Firenze|China meant to her (Why was this so unique for her) ....

I got a chance to share experiences and thought with people from totally different backgrounds but in the same situation, we were all MBA students. My network grew and I met people who I honestly would look forward to work with in the future. As a future MBA and former high school teacher I realized that the possibilities for me to utilize my former experience are great. As mentioned above the ability to deliver a convincing message in just a few minutes is very much reality in schools. Also making different minds and opinions cooperate and reach a result is critical in both areas.

On how it will make her a better leader for the next generation ....

The demands on leaders of the future are different from the demand put on leaders so far. In a world constantly changing and globalizing we must not only understand the market in our closest vicinity and be charismatic towards our own employees and customers. A charismatic and appealing leader in one culture may stand out as dull and rude in another, we must meet the challenge of understanding and adjusting to different cultures both as global citizens but also as progressive future executives. I think that the background that many of us shared, being born in one place, educated in another and working in a third results in such fundamental abilities needed for the next generation.

How can we make things better? By understanding that we are parts of a global community, that we always have been but that we didn't have to tools to communicate before. Actions taken in New York may have huge impact in Oslo. Even though environmental damage caused by humans have been a fact during the last century we didn't have the tools to inform eachother and measure them until recently. Now, being able to do that we need to build the society of the future. I believe that contests like Imagine Cup can align the struggle for a better future with the capabilities to create the inventions to make it happen.

Jeang-Won Chai Jeang-Won Chai is 27 years old and one of four members of the team from Seoul National University, Global MBA. Born in Sweden with Korean parents Jeang-Won is a mix of European and Korean culture. Before enrolling the Global MBA program, Jeang-Won used to be an upper secondary school teacher, teaching political and social science, religion and accounting. At the same school she also had the role of second vice principal serving as one of the supporting and planning persons in the organization. Jeang-Won holds a bachelors degree in Religion and Applied Ethics and a Masters degree in Education.