Teammate 2020 and the era of remoteness
Studying Marketing and Communication at Panteion University, we as students have been introduced to several working fields related to our studies throughout the years. From building startups to bringing them to life, dealing with real clients, we could say that AdandPrLab managed to introduce its students to the industry in the most efficient and realistic way. AdandPrLab’s program is completed in the 8th semester with the Leadership & EQ Lab.
This lab’s aim is to become a hub of creativity and innovation, preparing future leaders to develop crucial leadership and emotional intelligence skills. Students learn to communicate in an open and clear way through experiential learning, which aims to help them work and collaborate effectively. To achieve that, we go through different procedures such as self-evaluation, 360 feedback questionnaires, individual and group exercises for emotional and social awareness, role plays, and peer to peer and expert coaching. As the final stage of the lab, a real-life project is also organized and implemented by the students every year, which aims at delivering positive change to our society.
The content of the final project is derived from the global or local current affairs in order to be useful and relevant. This year, no other news concerned the public opinion globally more than the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. With almost every country closing their boundaries and millions of people being self-isolated, almost every balance of the modern world got disrupted. Schools closed, as well as most shops, businesses were forced to adopt remote working business models in order to be productive and the implications of the facts above on the global economy are yet to be discovered.
The outbreak of this pandemic indicates one of the biggest crises that humanity has ever faced. The transformation of reality as we knew it comes as no surprise. People now more than ever before need to show agility towards those transformations made globally, in order to overcome the crisis’s economic, social, and political consequences. One of the key factors to this agility for individuals and businesses alike originates from cultivating emotional intelligence skills (self-confidence, self-management, stress and time management, empathy, assertiveness, team collaboration) along with leadership ones (strategic thinking, decision making, motivating others, creative problem-solving.
By doing research and conducting interviews we had the chance to realize to what extend those skills helped people during these difficult times. As we all know, during periods of crisis threats are very likely to appear and this is the reason why being able to control your feelings is helpful in order to recognize them. What is more, being in control of your feelings and thoughts not only helps in detecting threats but opportunities as well. Those opportunities and threats may have to do with our personal life, our working environment, or social or financial situation. It is clear, that none of us can do something to efficiently prevent them from happening, but it is in our hands to come out of them with as few losses as possible.
For this reason, the leadership and EQ lab became of great importance to all of the lab’s members. Not only did we learn to deal with the present crisis by cultivating the skills needed, but we also managed to produce useful content for individuals and businesses. Through interviews, infographics, podcasts, articles, and other forms of content our team took the chance to contribute to society as well. We also learned to build strong relationships with our teams through constructive dialogue and group exercises. But the most important thing we learned through the lab is how to empathize with others making the most out of human relationships.
We worked every week on projects that focused on how Emotional Intelligence can push boundaries in leadership methods, social and workplace environments, and how we can educate people on its beneficial aspects. Through research and by following worldwide studies on Emotional Intelligence we managed to construct wholesome articles on how to use emotional intelligence as a soft skill to smoothly manage upcoming crises. We learned things such as the benefit of cooperating and working together to reach a common goal.
“Teammate 2020” was created when remote working came to the forefront of people’s everyday lives in 2020. In a series of articles, we take a look at how this all came to be, how it works, and where it is going. We also cover how remote education is changing schools and the impact remote working has on vulnerable social groups.
In conclusion, the whole experience became a life lesson for all of us. The whole team came closer working under a common purpose, creating a real-life example for others to do the same, proving that all goals can be achieved if teams remain strong and close to each other. Each one can contribute in a unique and different way while everyone is learning from others. When we are together, we are stronger, wiser, and capable of achieving great things.
Our team consists of :
