Business Simulation Project

Individual Reflective Assignment

9880528 – Ronald Jeza Edward

Reflective Model

“We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.” John Dewey
(1933), a famous American educational reformer, once said this about reflection. This
suggests the importance of reflection before, during or after going through an experience
because the experience alone does not necessarily lead to learning, but it is the reflection
that makes sense of the experience so it will be meaningful for the person.
That is also true for this business simulation project course. During the simulation, everyone
was so absorbed with the case, working the whole day until late and trying to produce the
best results for their companies. This was an excellent learning experience in working
efficiently and effectively as a team, which was aligned with one of the learning outcomes of
the course to obtain greater insight into our own and other members’ ways of working as
part of a task in a time constrained competitive environment. However, the hectic
environment and tight schedule did not really allow us any time for a reflective process to
let all the experiences sank in. This might result to participants not able to grasp the
intended learning outcomes of the course, which is why there is the need to do the
reflection afterwards.
Reflection has been defined as the active process of reviewing, analysing and evaluating
experiences, drawing upon theoretical concepts or previous learning, in order to inform
future actions (Reid, 1993). Reflection is a useful process for professionals to undertake.
These are some of the huge benefits that can be gained from the process:
 Reflection can deepen our learning and lead us to critical self-awareness, which is a key
component of emotional intelligence.
 Reflection can help us to gain insights, find alternatives and view our learning
experiences from various perspectives.
 Reflection will push us to compare and contrast different learning strategies that we
have used or different contexts that we have been situated in so we can move forward
and take better action if we encounter a similar situation in the future.
 Reflection can also help us to improve our creative thinking skills, develop a better
understanding of others, and encourage active engagement in work processes.
There are a number of models that we
can use to structure our reflection, such
as the Driscoll Cycle (What? – So What? –
Now What?), Kolb’s Experiential Cycle,
Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle, etc. These
models can provide us with frameworks
for asking questions and prompt us to
think more deeply about the whole
process of reflection. However, the
choice of which model to adapt and
employ remains a personal one; only we
can decide which one feel the most
suitable for us and will work for our
reflective process.

Source: Gibbs, 1988

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The model that I am going to use in this reflective assignment is the Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle.
This is a popular model for reflection which includes six stages of reflection:
What, where and when? Who did/said what, what did you do/read/see
1. Description hear? In what order did things happen? What were the circumstances?
What were you responsible for?
What was your initial gut reaction, and what does this tell you? Did
2. Feelings
your feelings change? What were you thinking?
What pleased, interested or was important to you? What made you
3. Evaluation unhappy? What difficulties were there? Who/what was unhelpful?
Why? What needs improvement?
Compare theory and practice. What similarities or differences are there
between this experience and other experiences? Think about what
4. Analysis
actually happened. What choices did you make and what effect did
they have?
5. Conclusion What have you learnt for the future? What else could you have done?
6. Action Plan If a similar situation arose again, what would you do?
Source: [Link]

Reflection – Gibbs Reflective Cycle

Description: What happened?

At Liverpool train station after our trip to the Jaguar Land Rover plant, we were told that the
Round 2 results of our simulation from the previous day had been accessible. Everyone was
anxious to see the results. During the journey on train back to Manchester, I was really
curious to find out about the results but my laptop was out of battery. I could see some of
my group members managed to access the system and see the results. However, I could see
the puzzled look and disbelief on their faces. That made me worried, thinking that this could
not be good. None of my group members spoke on the rest of the journey, everyone was
deep in their thoughts. We already scheduled to have a meeting right after we arrived and
the condition made it even more compelling.

When we gathered in the meeting room and everyone opened the system, it turned out all
my suspicions were true. The result was awful, our company was once again at the bottom
of the share price ranking. What made it even more appalling was that our share price was
the only one that went down and compared to the nearest competitors, our price was only
a quarter of theirs.

We started to discuss about it and desperately tried to figure out what went wrong with our
decisions in the previous round. We reviewed each and every single decision that we made
and examined it thoroughly. Though it seemed that the mood was gloomy with everybody
still clearly disappointed, we realised that we needed to do this because we had to input our
decisions for Round 3 the next day and we wanted to improve our position in the ranking.

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We analysed what our competitors did and made comparisons of their products to find the
difference with ours. Initially we struggled to get any clue since in general we had almost
the same products with our competitors but when we assessed all the specific features and
details, we discovered some of the things that we thought had affected our previous result
such as the specifications, promotions and market perceptions. After that, we adjusted the
models and worksheets that we had built to support our decision making based on the
newest reports and findings.

We thought we already had a clear strategy of segmenting, targeting and positioning the
market, however it was obvious that it was not working as well as we expected. We realised
that we had to attempt another strategy if we wanted to get out of this slump. For Round 3,
we changed our strategy from targeting low-mid range customers to targeting premium
customers in the segment by replicating some of the product specifications from our
successful competitors and sold it with lower price. We took higher risk by entering luxury
segment which we did not have any prior experience to increase our margin. We also
prepared some scenarios of what we were going to do if out trials using the change
decisions button did not show a good result. We did all of this because we did not want to
accept being in the last position all the time and we believed we could do better.

When the results of Round 3 were going to be announced, we waited eagerly to find out
whether our “gamble” was going to pay off. In fact, it did. Our share price soared about
eight times higher and we rose to the runner-up position on the ranking table. We were
delightfully surprised with the result considering our terrible condition on the previous day.
Yet, in the end that condition made our teamwork to be more solid and motivated us to
perform better.

Feelings: What were you thinking and feeling?

At first, when I saw the Round 2 results I was disappointed, quite devastated actually. I
never expected that our team would be left behind so far compared to the other teams.
Thoughts like “What did I tell you?”, “I told you so”, even the temptation of blaming others
came across my mind because there were some of the decisions in the previous rounds that
I was not really comfortable with, such as the decision to targeting over 55s, but I just
agreed because I did not want to disrupt the team’s harmony. However, when I looked at
how equally frustrated the other members were, I dismissed all of that thoughts. I realised
that everyone was feeling the same, they were all upset. I recognised that I almost fell to
the “fundamental attribution error” trap (Edmondson, 2011), which I downplayed my
responsibility and place excessive blame on external factors (or people) when assessing my
failures only to do the reverse when assessing others. I also thought there was no point in
making everything worse than it already was. This was not the time for the team to collapse,
instead this was the time to consolidate. It was a test of our teamwork and we must get
through it.

I encouraged the others to stop feeling down and concentrate more on our tasks ahead. We
could not change what had happened in the past but we could aim to improve in the future.

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I reviewed all my work and tried to find anything that I could improve. I also changed my
approach to the team by communicating any disagreement that I might have and opened a
healthy discussion about it, because I did not want to ever think about any decision as
“theirs” again but as “ours”.

Evaluation: What was good and bad about the experience?

I consider the experience was good in terms of providing our team with the platform to
make a recovery, a turnaround point of our fortune. I was pleased with the attitude of every
team members. Everybody wanted to fight, not just gave up and accepted our situation. The
most important thing was that it made our bond stronger and our cooperation better.

I am just a bit discontented with how we managed to get ourselves tangled into that
condition in the first place. We could have avoided it if only we had better preparations,
more effective discussions, not just compromise or being impulsive.

There were several difficulties that we faced: the limited time for discussion, getting kicked
out of our meeting room, and one of our team members unable to join us at the class. Still,
we managed to overcome all of those.

In hindsight, it is easy to say this was an excellent learning experience because it worked out
well in the end. But with all the speculations, it can simply be the other way around. One
thing that can be improved is how to convert those speculations into more calculated risks.

Analysis: What sense can you make of the situation?

This experience reminds me of the Environmental School, one of the strategy schools in
Mintzberg et al’s “Strategy Safari” (1998). This school discussed strategy formation strategy
formation as a reactive process in which the initiative lies not inside the organization, but
with its external context. This is what happened in our experience. The external conditions
changed with our competitors managed to improve their share prices and increased their
market shares, the pressure of being in the last position for two rounds in a row, and the
fear of being “selected out”. We knew we must respond to these forces, we had to adapt
our strategy in order to survive and possibly thrive in the future. Hence, that is what we did.

When we learned it in theory, it seemed simple, adjusting our strategy when circumstances
changes. In practice, it was hard to implement. First, there was the challenge in
acknowledging that we were wrong. That itself need a lot of courage for someone to admit.
Not everyone is brave enough to do it. There are lots of examples when companies failed to
survive because their leaders were complacent and too stubborn to change (Kodak comes
to mind).

Moreover, our emotional condition at that time was at an all-time lowest during the week.
We were tired because we just got back from a field trip and did not have enough sleep the
previous night. Seeing our team being in the last position again was a further blow to our

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motivation. It was so easy to just give up and do nothing rather than made an effort with no
guarantee of success.

Furthermore, we needed to take a risk in executing the strategy. There was no option in
playing it safe because we were already far behind. Some people might be the risk-averse
type who is reluctant to do it. In this simulation, it was easier because there was really
nothing at stake if it failed. But in reality, there are so many stakeholders related to a
company that would be affected by the risky decision made by the board.

Another thing that I just realised while doing this reflection was actually at that time my
team and I was doing a reflection of our own! Prior to that we just went on with the
simulation without giving any time to reflect then properly plan and discuss what we were
going to do, even though we just read an article “How to Spend the First 10 Minutes of Your
Day” about mise-en-place. After that, we learned to develop a more efficient way of
planning and decision making.

Conclusion: What else could you have done?

This experience has taught me the dynamics of a company that I might encounter in the
future and how I can evaluate and adapt my strategies to the changes around me so I can
further develop myself as well as the company.

It has also confirmed some of the things that I learned in the past, such as keeping a positive
mind-set even when faced with difficult challenges, spending more time and effort to
improve in the future rather than dwelling on the past, and coping with stress and pressure
is essential in decision making.

In regard to the MBA journey, I enjoy the opportunity to implement some of the learning
from other courses in the MBA programme like strategy and marketing.

Personally, I really like the chance of being in a group with people that I have never worked
together in a project before. I find it interesting to learn about other people’s ways of
thinking and working because I think it can enrich my own.

One thing that I could have done was to be more assertive when expressing my views in the
team. Thoughts of not wanting to disrupt the team’s harmony or avoiding to have a
disagreement with someone should not hinder me from voicing my opinions in a discussion.
As long as I do it with good intention and in the right way, the others will surely accept it
because they understand that we have the same objective to improve and achieve our goals.

Action Plan: If it rose again, what would you do?

This course has warned me there are still some areas of improvement in my skills and
knowledge. Therefore, I have established a couple of action plans to address that issue.

I was quite confident with my analysis skill, however the fact that we failed to sufficiently
analyse all the reports and got caught into the mess means I need to further enhance it. I

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need to learn more analytics techniques and their applications in business. One action plan
to do that is by taking the big data analytics elective in the autumn term with the aim that at
the end of my MBA journey (April 2018), I will be able to analyse more complex data such as
business intelligence reports and use it to solve various business problems.

Another point that I need to improve is my communication skill, which has always been an
issue for me. From now until the end of the year I plan to involve myself in more discussions
and group works so I can practise to express my thoughts to other people, even to the more
public environment. That way then if a similar situation rose again (almost definitely during
the International Business Project) and I believe that I have a solid argument, I will be able
to communicate my opinions in a more confident and convincing way.

References

 Dewey, J (1933). How we think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the
educative process. Boston, New York: D.C. Heath and company.
 Edmondson AC (2011). Strategies for Learning from Failure. Harvard Business Review,
89(4), pp. 48-55
 Gibbs G (1988). Learning by doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Oxford:
Oxford Further Education Unit.
 Leeds Beckett University (2015). Using models for reflection. Available at:
[Link] [Accessed
19 Jul. 2017]
 Mintzberg H, Ahlstrand B and Lampel J (2009). Strategy Safari. Prentice Hall, Financial
Time.
 Reid B (1993). "But we’re doing it already”. Exploring a response to the concept of
reflective practice in order to improve its facilitation. Nurse Education Today, pp. 305‐
309.