After the “interesting” experience that the Spring 2021 semester at Pitt offered, it is finally coming to an end. While a lot of changes occurred mentally, physically, socially, and academically, I learned a lot about life that I will hold close to me as I move forward into my final year in Pitt Business. With the global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, our lives have been changed forever. For starters, the switch to online classes was a major adjustment for us all to take in and learn how to use Zoom in the moment. Regardless, with the challenges Zoom brought, my group was still focused on delivering to our client. It was extremely difficult to deal with clients remotely from home, but especially in an entirely different country than the United States. The majority of our work for Nature Seekers in Trinidad and Tobago was based on personal research and initial knowledge, as we greatly struggled with connectivity issues.
Like I just mentioned, although it was a new and challenging experience, I learned a lot that I believe will allow me to be a better leader, student, and consultant in future endeavors. There were a few key lessons that stood out to me during my reflection of this past semester. To start off, a lesson I learned is that nothing is certain. Anything can change in an instant so it is important to keep communication open, as best as possible, and adapt to situations rather than giving up. On a similar note, this adaptability and flexibility is key in any project or situation one is put in. Additionally, it was interesting to compare what the United States has been through compared to the culture of Trinidad and Tobago regarding business operations. It is necessary for one to come into a situation like this with an open mind and with no preformed judgements to truly expose oneself to a new culture. Regarding the project team, strong team communication and a mutual understanding of goals is necessary to complete a project efficiently and effectively. Additionally, I had to learn to consider how everyone was influenced by this sudden change in lifestyle, not only how it affected me. I used to struggle with putting myself in other people’s shoes but with this class that is something I have naturally started to do. Not only in the project team is this important but looking at it from our client’s perspective. In Trinidad and Tobago, and across the world, economies have been shutting down leading to problems with running a business. For Nature Seekers, being a nonprofit, it is especially difficult currently to acquire the proper funding to stay in operation. Since their main efforts are around ecotourism and animal conservation, it is challenging to think of ways around the situation that will still comply with the regulations set in place in their country.
A transferrable skill developed during this course despite, and especially from, not being able to travel is personal motivation. After everything exploding with the virus and not being able to travel, we all lost sight of what that would mean for the rest of our college experience. In all honesty, it became difficult for many of us to find the motivation inside of us to carry out our assignments and projects to the full potential we have. However, after thinking about the prior relationship with our client, reminding ourselves that we are just one stage of the 10 year plan (and we cannot mess up previous work/effort or offset future groups), and remembering the promise we made with Pitt and with our clients in Trinidad, we were reminded of why we wanted to do this project in the first place. I personally found the motivation to execute what we had started to the best of my ability. This skill is extremely important in my future professional life as we will always be faced with challenges, and my mom has always told me that life is all about how you handle Plan B. The hurdles and obstacles in our way will not move, but it is our job to get over them to prevent giving up. Having that personal motivation will always make one stand out from others as they will have the determination to attain the unattainable and strive to do better. Employers want an individual who can problem-solve and who can always improve upon their skills, and that all starts with having the motivation to combat problems one is faced with.
Developing relationships is essential in conducting group work, especially that of which deliverables must be met. In working with any client that you are executing any sort of deliverable for, establishing a relationship with them will tremendously help understand their areas of concern and will educate you more about their organization as well as create a foundation of trust and communication. Pitt’s existing relationship with the in-country client held many strengths including the previous execution of promises/deliverables, familiarity with clients, and a formed an understanding of changes in expectations and abilities to provide deliverables. These helped our deliverables as we were able to adjust them to what was feasible at the moment without having to worry about upset clients or messing up the 10-year plan. However, there were some vulnerabilities present. Trinidad has a less developed technology network than in the United States, especially in Matura, the location of Nature Seekers, so stable communication was hard to maintain. This is not a fault of the Pitt-Client relationship but affected our deliverables as we could not be updated/get information since we were unable to get in contact with Nature Seekers. However, this allowed us to focus on social media marketing and building a secure online presence for Nature Seekers to expand on. Continuing with the project helped the relationship as it shows Pitt Business’s commitment to carry out/work with their promises to clients to help them reach their desired business goals. Likewise, it shows the CPLE student’s professionality in adapting to the situation and still carrying out the project. This builds trust and shows how much Pitt cares about our clients even when they are in different countries.
Just by reading the description of the International Consulting Projects, this program is already an attractive experience to bring up in an interview to a potential employer. Due to the cross-cultural component of the project as well as the continuing client consulting relationship, it presents any participant with the opportunity to acquire the ability to fluidly work with students and faculty to deliver to overseas clients. Especially given the worldwide roadblock, this became even more interesting of a project. Although the in-country portion of the program was removed this year entirely, the fact that we were all still able to complete our deliverables and presentation from remote locations shows incredible professionalism and dedication. I would explain ICP as a cultural consulting project with a non-profit organization in a different country where my group and I worked to resolve varying business needs in a changing environment. With the constraints faced, I would pitch this as an opportunity to test and develop our adaptability, problem-solving, and quick reaction skills as even though we were given the opportunity to drop out of the program, many of us stuck to our original promise to the client. We learned how to work with limited resources, communication, and connectivity to still provide an effective plan for our clients to implement for their business. Overall, while it was a challenging experience, it gave me a great learning experience to share with potential future employers.
The three most important things that future groups should know is to communicate, be prepared to adapt, and be familiar with the project early on. It is important to communicate with your professors for clarification, with your clients to keep up with expectations, and with your group members to plan/execute project as well as adapt to any random changes (like a sudden global pandemic for example). Likewise, one should be prepared to adapt; not only to a change like the one we experienced but for any random occurrence (ex: scope changes, changes in client needs, new info from professors) and do the proper research to be able to bounce back from it. Lastly, it is essential to familiarize yourself with the project expectations, clients, and organizations early on as it helped me to form new ideas on the spot from having information engraved in my mind. Overall, this was a great experience that I would recommend to any Pitt Business student with a passion for global consulting and getting a more personal experience with the other students in the CPLE program, outside of the required classes.