Putting the "I" in "T.E.A.M": Collaborating to win

Let us return to January 2008.  The event was the East-West MBA All-Star Case Challenge. It was the first international business case competition ever held in China, hosted by the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing. Invitations went out to Cheung Kong, Carnegie Mellon, Chicago, Ohio State, National University of Singapore, Tsinghua University, Virginia and the Foster School.

All the teams were assigned the same real-world challenge: devise a new US marketing strategy for Tsingtao Beer, a Chinese company with weak American sales. Students had a month to prepare (instead of the mad 48 hours that are typical of such competitions).  

The Foster team—full-time MBAs Josh Holt and Carrie Pedersen and evening MBAs Ryan Cassidy and Adam Martin—won the Best School Team prize. It probably didn’t hurt that Pedersen, who had worked for several years in Taiwan, closed the team’s presentation with some graceful remarks in Mandarin Chinese.

“But that’s not what won the prize,” says Ming Fan, an assistant professor who coached the MBAs. “The judges really admired our students’ presentation and communication skills. ‘They look so professional,’ they said. ‘Are they really students?’”

That’s how the Foster School puts the “i” in “t-e-a-m,” by developing teams of complementary leaders who know how to take initiative, how to support the overall goal, and most importantly – how to win.

Carrie Pederson, now a product manager at Microsoft, understand this dynamic almost intuitively.

After spending her junior year of college in Taiwan and China as an exchange student, she returned after graduation to develop her Chinese language skills. Pederson says that living and interacting with the locals for so long made a huge difference in how quickly she was able to assimilate into the local lifestyle and business culture.

“I always knew I wanted to work abroad after experiencing life overseas,” she recalls. “But I also knew that if I wanted to continue in the business world, I’d need to get an MBA.”

That notion became apparent through her business experience in Taiwan. Starting in 2001, Pederson worked as a special consultant for the Council of Forest Industries where she helped facilitate business development for the Canadian lumber industry, including regulatory issues, training and promotion. At the same time she helped establish “Language Canada,” a Taipei company providing North American-style ESL classes. She led the expansion of operations—including administration, marketing, customer service, human resources and program development. These experiences spurred her back to academia to further her professional growth.

“Because I have spent most of my adult life in Taiwan, I often process things from more of a Chinese perspective without realizing it,” Pederson explains. “After being away for nine years, adjusting to life here and going through ‘reverse culture shock’ took much more energy and time then I anticipated!”