Aleksandr Ryzhakov

​When I was studying at Ivanovo State University in Russia, we had different types of projects and assignments. One of them was very challenging and it happened during my last year of studies. That time we had a task to create a well-detailed business plan.

This task had to be made in groups of 4 students. It was probably the most difficult project I have ever done in Russia. It required to be proficient at many different skills from creativeness to analytical ones. Expectations were very strict and the final grade for that course depended just from this project that worth was all 100% of final mark.

I had an excellent team for that project but all other three members were rather reflective types. It is possible to describe them as people who preferred reading a lot of information but they were not ready to take leaderships and initiatives in their hands. It was my first time when I had to motivate all team members, I also was responsible for the whole creative part of the project, leading negotiations, defining objectives for marketing research etc. I had to be a leader for my team and help them find the right direction. I had to motivate them, find energy, enthusiasm and it was a very big challenge for me.

That time I understood that I had all opportunities to be a leader and that I could do that successfully. I was very enthusiastic because of a very interesting task. This energy helped us create an awesome business plan for potential company that made a tremendous impress on our professors. Moreover, I found a business plan competition that was organized by High School of Management at the Saint Petersburg State University. We decided to participate at that contest but we me met another problem. This competition was in English language and we had just one weekend for translating the whole 35 pages work into English. However, I was only the person who could speak English and I needed to use all my energy and enthusiasm to solve this problem. Finally we managed to all problems and became one of the best at that contest.

I am absolutely sure that the success of participating at this project was only possible because of big energy and drive to this contest and the leadership helped to keep the high level of enthusiasm for the whole period of the project.