Hello again! This past week was another incredible stretch of both personal growth and professional reflection. With only a few weeks remaining in my summer term with the Berlin Adler, the countdown has officially begun, prompting me to maximize every single weekend.
This past weekend, my friends and I decided to take a quick weekend getaway to Prague. The city was absolutely beautiful and filled with amazing history and breathtaking architecture. We spent hours walking through the historic streets, crossing the Charles Bridge, and soaking in the unique atmosphere of the Czech capital. I also got to experience eating authentic Czech food for the first time. Although I can’t lie, it was a little bit bland for my taste, but the late-night McDonald’s runs we made definitely left us all very satisfied. Above is a picture of my friends and me at a live music event we went to. It was an amazing night, not only because the music itself was great, but also because the environment was a true melting pot; we got to meet and converse with so many interesting people from around the globe. I definitely recommend going to Prague to anyone studying abroad and experiencing everything the historic city has to offer.
As I close out these final few weeks in Berlin, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on this entire international experience on both a personal and professional level. It has been a massive learning curve, particularly when it comes to understanding how organizational hierarchies function overseas. As I mentioned in my previous posts, the structural leadership differences I have encountered throughout my internship experience have also closely coincided with massive communication differences.
In American business classrooms, we are taught that professional communication should be highly structured, heavily documented, and continuous. However, in the fast-paced front office of an international sports team like the Adler, I have discovered that there are actually a lot of room for grey area. Directions are not always clearly defined, and tasks are often handed off with minimal operational guidelines. Because my supervisor gives me so much autonomy over my schedule and my financial modeling projects, there are vast stretches where I am left to my own devices.
To survive and deliver high-level value in this environment, I have had to learn how to “read between the lines.” When instructions are brief, I have to use my own professional judgment, cross-reference my corporate finance foundations, and try my absolute best to understand the implicit expectations behind what is being communicated to me. It has forced me to develop a sharper sense of intuition. Instead of throwing my hands up when a project guideline is ambiguous, I look at the broader strategic goals of the club, whether that is reducing organizational debt or optimizing matchday cash flow, and use that context to fill in the missing pieces.
While I have had to learn to navigate the hands-off, ambiguous environment coming down from leadership, I have chosen to take a completely different, hyper-structured approach when communicating up to my supervisor, Noah, and the club president. I want to ensure that my autonomy is backed by transparency, so I have established a strict, professional cadence for how I present my research, projects, etc.
Whenever I am locked into my projects, I make it a point to be incredibly punctual, professional, and concise. I provide them with consistent updates on my progress, so they are never left wondering where a financial planning and analysis (FP&A) model stands. Then, once a macro-level project is fully completed, such as our updated sponsorship tracking database or the matchday cost projections, I execute a formal handoff procedure. I send a direct, streamlined email to both Noah and the club president containing a comprehensive executive summary.
Navigating these communication dynamics has been one of the most beneficial aspects of my summer in Germany. It has directly expanded my global business competencies by forcing me to adapt to an unstructured operational environment while maintaining an ultra-disciplined personal standard of professional reporting. This week, whether navigating the historic streets of Prague or finalizing financial models in the Adler front office, has been all about mastering that exact balance.
Until next week!