Question

Sample Essay No.10

Question: Write about the role that a certain activity (sports, theater, band, etc.) has had on your life.

Since childhood, I was a very active person, always ready to go outdoors and cycle, run, play hockey, climb trees, and many other activities that would involve me being out of the house under any pretext.

In high school, I was selected to become a part of my class athletics team, where I was required to be a part of the relay race crew. After a few lukewarm attempts, I started to master the art of relay racing, putting my mind to it since I felt that it was not only a physical challenge but equally a test of mental strength and pre-planned tactics.

Now that I have completed high school, I reflect on how my relay race tactics and thought process played a positive role in my personal and academic development, not just strengthening my stamina and speed.

Some of the key learnings which I took out from this sporting activity are:

• The person who is the recipient of the baton starts working by running much before the baton reaching them. Including the recipient of the baton in advance of the actual transfer is a critical element of success.
• If the recipient is not competing at the maximum pace when they take the baton, then the complete process has been decelerated.
• An effective handover ensues when the recipient does not need to look behind them and stays with his eyes fixated on the course ahead.

To be able to accomplish this, the receiver knows at exactly which point to extend his hand and believes with complete confidence that the baton will be there for him to grab. From a corporate perspective, this is about uniformity and reliability.

1. Uniformity of individuals. When the same group of people works collectively on a routine basis, they tend to enhance the effectiveness of handovers.
2. Uniformity in work procedures.

• One handover is devised to enable the next.

The receiving runner extends his hand in such a way that when he takes the baton and starts to run, he holds on to the rear of the baton and not the front. This enables it to become simpler for the next handover. In simpler terms, your work does not come to an end when you’ve completed a single task; it completes only when you have created a successful handover to the next person. This rule should pertain to all kinds of handovers, whether assignment to assignment, a multi-dimensional project, or consumer management.

Some final thoughts - an additional characteristic of the relay race is that there is a single common goal. One person cannot succeed if the team fails. This tells us about how we manage specific individual performance indicators against team goals. In a relay race, the only two probable solutions are – either the entire team wins, or the whole team loses, and personal success is ultimately tied to the outcome of the team’s performance.

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