Team Hollywood Studios!!

 

What's smart, kind, intelligent, patient, brilliant, and suuuuuper cool???

Uuuuh....Team Hollywood Studios!! Duh?!?!?

One thing I can say is that I learned a whole heck of a lot of stuff from my team members.  From communication skills to servant leadership to learning how to organize a pretty good set of surveys to ask customers. 

I learned how to listen first, then respond in a way that benefits both the team and the overall objective. I learned how to quiet my ego so that our goal is accomplished and the team is what is successful, not just me or the ideas that I  wanted. I learned how that at times I would have to follow and at other times I would have to lead. It was always about focusing on the goal and keeping in mind the bigger picture.

Finally I really learned what it meant to be a supportive friend and colleague in tough and stressful times. The extent to which each of us felt exasperation, confusion and a bit perplexed seemed to happen more often than we would prefer. We prevailed though. Through support and patience and playing to each of our strengths which ultimately supported to whole final presentation effort. I honestly could not have been with a more Rockin Rollercoaster crew! 

#teamhollywood!!!

Rasul

Creative Discontent

I really liked the idea of creative discontent.  There is something to be said about people that have the humility to recognize that they, too, have room to grow.  Only after recognizing our shortcomings can we initiate change.  We can accomplish great things and pretty much anything we set our mind to by fostering our creativity and seeking excellence in everything we do.

I see creative discontent as a good thing because it forces us to continually assess how we do things and figure out new ways to make them better.  That’s where the creative component comes in; it encourages us to constantly innovate and to never settle for mediocrity.

-Jeymi

Poto's Recap of Team Magic Kingdom (MK).

I learned a tremendous amount from Team Magic Kingdom this past week. Our group had a very robust and eclectic amount of work experience that was extremely beneficial to the overall team dynamic. With the different career backgrounds among our team, I was able to gain valuable insight about social media tools that can be used to analyze different channels and mediums. The two tools that I was most excited about were hoot suite and social mention. I am very excited to apply these platforms to my future work experience in the sports industry.

 One of our strongest attributes as a team was organization and time management. In order to work towards a shared vision, we first decided that organizing our work schedule and setting deadlines was one of the most fundamental aspects in order for us to achieve success. The theme parks and various attractions around Disney World are an obvious distraction and if we hadn’t broken down our daily agenda, we probably would have not seen as much success with our project.

To Adi, Mel, Amy, Helen and Cecily- I had such a great time collaborating with you all. The work ethic that everyone brought to the table was impeccable. I really have never seen anything quite like it, and I was truly honored to be a part of such a hardworking group of ladies.

As we have learned in our course readings and the YES workshops, the ability to listen to each other, provide feedback, and value each member’s role in the group are just a few ingredients to the recipe of success. Thank you to my MK teammates for fulfilling all three of these steps. Below I have shared a link, which will walk you through our Disney experience and a few of the fun highlights Team MK encountered during our journey together. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6MEExrqe6grbnRKMmoyanBOQlE/view?usp=sharing

Team MK facilitating a Q&A session after our presentation

Team MK in front of the castle at Magic Kingdom 

-Poto 

We Arrived as a Group; We Left as a Team

In the final preparations for our  presentation for Stuart and Disney leadership, our group spent countless hours together. Delirium was achieved, the giggles were caught numerous times; at some point I even ended up with 2 laptops trying to do only God knows what.

Originally, parts of the project were delegated, and it was our intention to put everyone's piece into a presentation and call it a night. Yet as we started to enter the presentation in, everyone became interested and invested in all of the parts of the presentation. We were feverishly proofreading each other's parts, helping when someone else got stuck articulating their findings, and asking each other for suggestions to make individual sections succinct. As tired as we all were, each of us wanted to everyone to feel good about their parts and vice versa. This "phenomenon" of sorts (and I call it that because it just happened naturally without discussion or conscious awareness) ties back to the first blog I wrote, when James mentioned a critical characteristic of a high-functioning team... There is an element of care that transcends personal glory or recognition. I truly felt this with my team, and only hope that I can experience this feeling when I'm working to achieve a goal with others. - LT

One small step for mankind, one giant leap for Disney

The technical innovations happening at Disney World right now are nothing short of transformational. Our team joked it’s “a whole new world”, but it truly is. Hearing that the FastPass system evolved primarily as a way to increase operational efficiency explained so much to me. When I visited Disney World over 10 years ago, I remember standing in line to get in the park and for what seemed like ages to get on rides. The best enhancement at the time was misting fans to help with the Florida heat. Cut to today, I experienced no more than a 1-2 minute wait to get in any of the parks at various times of the day, and when I stood in line for rides, I knew what I was getting into as a standby guest.

The Team Experience

While I found the group project/presentation considering the time allotted very challenging as well as rewarding.  First, I met an amazing group of people, which is not just limited to Team Hollywood.  All of my classmates were awesome as well as Stuart and Sharon.  Our time at Disney was filled with sleepless nights, but gratifying results.  As it pertains directly to Team Hollywood, we worked well together utilizing our individual strengths, while challenging ourselves in areas we are not as comfortable to accomplish a common goal.  That is the definition of vision and teamwork.  We discussed all of the elements it takes to access the customer experience

I really enjoyed working with my team, the entire class and Stuart and Sharon.  Thank you!

- Marc

Leadership

Our two amazing Bretts (1.0 and 2.0) exhibited incredible leadership skills throughout this entire process and I could not be more grateful for everything I have learned from them and the rest our amazing team.

I was fairly impressed at how Brett (1.0) exhibited robust leadership skills by keeping us focused and motivated the whole time we worked on our group presentation.  During this past week time was of the essence, stress levels were high, but Brett kept his cool and gave us a sense of reassurance.  He developed a process, communicated expectations clearly and succinctly, and instilled a positive energy by cracking jokes and encouraging hard work and collaboration, but also building in a little fun and bonding time.  

Likewise, during an exercise at one of the workshops Brett 2.0 pushed the envelope by combining two great ideas into one and inspiring us to work together to integrate them seamlessly and somehow make them work. He also acknowledged the work that everyone put into coming up with great solutions and commended the team for our efforts.  Once we had figured out a solution that was feasible, he surprised us with additional resources that we did not consider.  The limited resources we were working with originally forced us to be more creative and come up with solutions that would fall within our constraints.  It is truly remarkable what we can accomplish with the support of great leaders!

-Jeymi