X-Culture: Taking the Lead

Guest Blogger: Gregory Herman, Nathan M. Bisk College of Business student

When I first learned the premise and guidelines of X-Culture, I was completely pessimistic towards the group experience. After all, most teams or groups are usually strategically chosen by a boss, based upon credentials, interviews, and a resume. My thoughts were that one or two group members (one being me) would have to carry weight of the rest of group because some people just did not want to do any work. However, after contacting my team and exchanging multiple emails, I now feel confident that we will be successful as whole. I do stress it is difficult, not exchanging physical expressions, and most importantly not actually meeting the team members, but I still feels that we will connect on many levels that I would not be able had I been paired with my friends in my own class. Obviously the time differences have made emails delayed, but not enough to delay decisions. My group has been really quick to get back to each other, and everyone seems to be able to make educated decisions together. I made the first effort to ask the group if they had any suggestions for the team choice. Jan offered multiple options that we could choose, all of which were very intriguing to me. I then chimed in and offered multiple options and gave Jan some feedback towards his choices. Then everyone in the group got involved all at once and started voicing their opinion towards some of the options we presented. After much deliberation we were able to narrow it down to two choices which both presented great opportunities for the project. I’ve really enjoyed working with my group so far, we are all willing to get to know everyone and say what we feel even if everyone might not agree at first. I’m looking forward to what the project holds for our team!