My journey to find a team

‘Well that’s sorted then’ – I raised a glass to Luka and Nicolas as we agreed that we would form a team. Easy, I was partnering up with my new friends from Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship and we had complementary skills and experience. It didn’t take us long to realise that our management team was missing one vital ingredient – ‘A Girl, We need to find a Girl’ We lowered our voices as we were getting strange looks from the next table but we had a plan. What could go wrong?

I bumped into Janja and told her that we had the basis of a team – me, Luka and Nicolas. She looked me in the eye, told me that was not going to happen and left me with a feeling that I was an idiot for suggesting it. Too many guys, too many from Innovation and Management, get real – something like that. This was a major road-block and we sensed that Janja wasn’t the type to change her mind no matter how many beers we bought her.

So 3 guys, one had to go. A couple of days later we came up with a traditional management technique of resolving the 3-into-2 won’t go issue, with the toss of a coin. We nervously flipped and out went Luka. He handled it with complete grace, wishing us luck and saying we would stay friends. Nicolas and I even managed to keep the smirk off our faces as we said bad luck.

So that left 2 guys and we now knew that we had to find a group from MACE and quickly before we got left in the cold, the sad losers with no friends . We were looking for experience and skills that would complement our commercial, brand and engineering back-ground. The search started and after a couple of days we found Lulu, Rana and Nora – they were looking for a couple of guys, we were looking for a couple of girls and bingo we had found 3. The chemistry was right, all wanted to make the project a success and there was an interesting mix of nationality, experience and skill-set. And we all seemed to make each other laugh. What was there not to like?

We relaxed, started to discuss products, prototypes, how we would divide the first prize and formed a WhatsApp group. This lasted about 24 hours until our next class and that road-block, the bump in the road called Janja. ‘No way, no 5’s, its unfair to everyone else’. 5 had to go down to 4, and I’m no mathematician but I felt that the odds of winning another coin toss was unlikely. We were well and truely f***ed.

We agreed that the five of us should meet on the Monday evening to work out how to clear the mess up and so began what is now known as ‘The Night of the Long Knives’. I made it clear that as a gentleman, I would be happy to step aside and Lulu, Rana and Nora fell into the trap of believing this. I had their sympathy and it was not going to be me being shown the door. I left the others to work out the details, went off to the cinema feeling relaxed about the outcome. Nicolas  messaged me to say that all was good but then over the next couple of hours things seemed to change – underhand deals, double-dealing, unfair pressure, ageism, sexism, every kind of ism.

Guess what? Nicolas and me were out in the cold again, unloved, unwanted and with time running out. As a double-whammy we then learnt that the coin-toss loser Luka had joined their team. I’m not saying we were bitter but we both took great pleasure in removing ourselves from the WhatsApp group we had set up 72 hours earlier.

But this journey has a happy ending -out of darkness comes light, after betrayal comes friendship, we met our saviours, Kirsty and Nika, brilliant designers, ideas-people with flair, charisma, loyalty and they laughed at my jokes. The team was formed, a new WhatsApp group was created, we’re still together 48 hours later and Janja even said ‘nice mix’.  Onwards and upwards.

Based on a true story and with thanks to my friends Nicolas, Luka, Kirsty, Nika, Rana, Lulu and Nora.