Author: Joan Daly is a current Luxury & Retail MBA Student and Graduate Ambassador for the program. On campus, she is an involved member of Stern Women in Business, the Luxury & Retail Club, and the Graduate Marketing Association. Joan specialized in global business and luxury marketing during her one year program, and will be moving into a strategic brand marketing role upon graduation this spring.
In the fall semester, I had the opportunity to travel to Paris, France as part of the Stern Solutions Project (SSP) I was enrolled in! Myself and eight other NYU Stern students kicked off a semester-long project in collaboration with graduate business students from Institut Français de la Mode, a fashion school in Paris. Together, we formed cross-cultural teams and aimed to address our client’s questions and problems over the course of the semester. Our client, MANE, a fragrance manufacturer that produces scents and flavors for companies around the world, tasked us with helping them identify the cultural shifts that may lead to emerging trends in the fragrance industry as well as broader generational changes in tastes and consumption that could help them maintain their competitive edge as a leading company in the industry. This project was a favorite of mine for many reasons – the client, the subject matter, and of course, Paris! – but mostly due to the collaboration needed for us to complete the task with students from different cultural and academic backgrounds. I walked away with so much insight into how I can prepare myself to work more intentionally and effectively in future projects heading into a globally connected and conscious world.
Navigating Cross-Cultural Collaboration with Team Norms
In most, if not all, NYU Stern experiential learning courses, you are expected and required to set your team norms and expectations at the beginning of the project. Of course, this is typically done between Stern students, who have an understanding of the code of conduct and general group project expectations. However, while working with students from different backgrounds and educational systems, it was clear that everyone was bringing different norms to the table and valued different things. We took a long time to define our team’s norms and made sure every voice was heard. This effort resulted in our team having strong communication habits and made us more efficient in our work in the long run.
Insights from the Intersection of Business and Creativity
Although both groups of students in the project came from business school backgrounds, we still had slightly different approaches to problem solving and solution ideation. The students from Institut Français de la Mode brought a creative-thinking framework to our project, while NYU Stern students had strategy-fueled frameworks and structures for solving the problem at hand. Our complementary skill sets blended together to form a well-rounded, academic yet strategic approach to solving MANE’s problem, which was one of many positive outcomes of working on this project on a global scale.
Personal Growth Through International Teamwork
Participating in this SSP allowed me to step outside of my cultural and academic comfort zone, greatly influencing both my personal and professional growth. While working with different cultures and backgrounds can sometimes be challenging on a communications front, it is incredibly rewarding to learn from others and challenge your own ideas and perceptions of a topic from a new global perspective. What surprised me most during this experience was the ways I stepped up to demonstrate leadership and understanding within my team, particularly when working with students from Institut Français de la Mode. Collaborating with them to navigate challenges not only helped our team deliver our best work but also allowed me to recognize my own leadership potential.
This project at NYU Stern has been pivotal for me in shaping my perspective on global collaboration and teamwork. I see working with different cultures as such a value add for any team looking to broaden their perspectives and dig deeper into solving problems. This project solidified my goal of working for a global reaching company in my next role, collaborating on brand marketing plans across different cultures.
