Reflective Essay

This is my personal reflection on how the crisis meeting went. It will look at four different aspects of the meeting which are; the process, my part within the team, the team cohesion and whether or not the solution was viable. The crisis meeting was based around the organization Marks and Spencer's, but particularly looked at the deterioration of their sales position which also affected their share prices and other areas in the organization. My team and I acted as the 'Group executive committee' and as a team we were asked to come up with a solution to present to the Managing director of Marks and Spencer.

My team and I were given a scenario of a crisis based on Marks and Spencer's. We were given 5 minutes to look at the scenario and to become familiar with it. As a group we were given 15 minutes to define the problem, discuss possible solutions and then decide on the best solution.

All of my team members were present at the meeting. The meeting was arranged for the 'Group executive committee' therefore each member of my team were assigned roles. "Committee members act as representatives for different departments"1. With that being said each member of my team held a high position in their department; Amandeep was head of security, Aaron acted as head of marketing Sheila was the secretary for the meeting and I acted as head of finance. It was evident who the chair was. Even though each of my team members took on these roles it wasn't made clear whilst the meeting was in progress since none of us introduced ourselves.

Sheila, the secretary was responsible for making sure that "rules are followed and statutory meetings are held". She was also responsible for preparing an agenda and keeping minutes.

To the most part Sheila carried out her role effectively since she had an agenda and kept minutes. As a group we decided that the minutes should be narrative meaning they would be less detailed and would only have a summary of the discussion. Sheila made sure of this and this is portrayed in the minutes she kept.

Aaron who is the marketing director was also the chair of the meeting. He was responsible for managing "live flow of messages without either stifling useful discussion or showing bias towards one or other viewpoint".

On one hand I feel Aaron was a successful chair since he kept us talking, however on the other had there seemed to be a lot of repetition over certain points. Even though our meeting lasted 11 minutes, I don't feel those 11 minutes were used wisely in that so many points were being constantly repeated. This is something that as group we would need to improve on.

Amandeep acted as the head of security but also acted as an innovator since when he was projecting his opinions he used examples from within Marks and Spencer.

My role within the team was as the finance director. I acted