This Illiad Global Assessment challenged my perceived view of the knowledge that I have about various other cultures and about myself. I enjoyed taking the Global Mindset quiz because it showed me that even through my extensive travels and through my various international classes, there is still a lot to learn in the world and about the world. I would have appreciated if the Global Mindset results highlighted exactly which questions you got wrong so that you can see if there is a pattern of knowledge or a region of the world that you are not particularly well-versed on. Lacking that, I can see that I am above average on most of the metrics, with my Knowledge of Cultures and Systems and Passion for Diversity particularly high. This is no surprise as I have actively sought out global mindset classes–such as the Global Mindset Colloquium–and international experiences in order to develop this global mindset.
On the other hand, the “Day in the Life of a Manager” posed a great challenge to me as I like getting everything done well and on time. In my goal to always be prepared, I read the packet ahead of time to focus on other more important things. When I arrived at the class however I was not aware that I needed to write the speech ahead of time. I assumed that there would be a proctor that would give directions once in the meeting. It is likely because of this that my communication and organization assessments suffered greatly. In order to improve in these areas, I should take more care to read all of the instructions in order to simply skim through them to be able to get to every single thing on my list. On the other metrics–initiative, decision-making and teamwork–I was well-within the assessment gap and seem to be around the 70th percentile.
As is evident from Section 2 of the assessment results, my three minute speech was in fact the one that suffered the most. I believe that I am very good as speeches and presentations as I have done multiple speeches and presentations, including several at my summer internship at Wunderman, and have consistently received very positive feedback. Nonetheless, the benefits of this assessment on the development of my managerial skills is that it highlights the importance of knowing exactly what you are walking in to. During my career, whenever I go to a meeting, I will make sure that I know exactly what is on the agenda and that I know exactly what is expected of me.
I do have to say that I don’t agree with some of the scores in the List of Detailed Behaviors Exhibited. For example, I received a -1 for “focus on irrelevant handwriting”, when it was clearly a joke to lighten the mood. From my professional experience at my various internships, I have learned that there needs to be some small talk and some playful joking around in order to make the environment enjoyable and to foster positive relationships. While this should of course not take away from the main purpose of the meeting, lighthearted topics of conversation are necessary to encourage employees to be happy at the company that they work for. Otherwise, most of the scores are pretty accurate, with the Speech portion again shown to pull down my communication level.
I was not at all surprised at the positive results on the Performance Rating for In-Basket Activity as that was definitely my focus during the assessment. Given all of the classes, clubs and internships in which I have participated, I have learned to have a fast work pace, high prioritization and high attention to detail. While I agree that based on the criteria specified, I deserve a score of the 70th percentile, I do not believe that the criteria really pertain to the workplace environment. Whenever I write a formal letter to someone I do not know, I will of course “write in paragraph form with complete sentences.” At work, though, when I am writing to people that I know and work with, a few words or a few short sentences are enough. There are other more important things to focus our time on than to follow all of the e-mail writing conventions. In fact, I have heard my boss get annoyed at long emails that may convey the information much more quickly through a bullet-pointed list. Nevertheless, I do understand that one must first learn all of the rules before one can choose to break them. As a result, I understand why those criteria were chosen. That being said, I will continue to write short (but respectful) emails in order to be able to get to as many as possible instead of focusing on the details of a properly formatted email and running out of time to reply to the other emails.
Finally, on the Results for Ethics and Leadership I again mostly agree with the results. I consciously skipped one of the ethical memos because it related to finance and I was unsure of what the right thing to do in that category was. I was pleased to see though that my “relative ethical focus” and my “ethical sensitivity” were both around the 90th percentile. I strive to always do the right thing in life and am proud to see that it is reflected in my behavior. As for the last metric of “leadership emergence” I understand the score, even if I might not agree with it. Personally, I prefer to be a silent leader, one that provides guidance and support but that doesn’t tell people exactly which question they need to answer. I believe that fostering leaders is the only way that I will not have to micromanage my team. As the group that I was with was a self-starter, I did not feel the need to offer a lot of input. Bearing this in mind, the assessment is correct in suggesting that I should be more aggressive. In order to be recognized as a leader by my superiors, I will need to be more outspoken in order to not look as if I am timid.
To conclude, my area of strength is more or less tied between teamwork, initiative and decision-making. I plan to leverage these strengths in work-study masters program, where I will go to work three weeks out of a month and will go to classes for one month. The teamwork skill will relate strongly to my class projects as the classes are expected to be heavily case-based and to have multiple team breakout sessions where we discuss the case. Over the course of my several internships, I have been told that I take initiative and that I do not require any hand-holding. I will make sure to continue exhibiting those skills in my internship next year. When it comes to my organization and communication, as I mentioned before, I believe that the low scores were a result of having skimmed the memo as opposed to having read it. Thus, I plan to pay closer attention to memos about meetings where I might be presenting something. I also plan to make a larger impact on meetings by participating more instead of by simply waiting to fill the cracks left by others.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed going through this assessment exercise. I think that it reinforced my strong points while encouraging me to be more out-going and more detail-oriented in order to be noticed in the workplace.