Proakatemia From An Outsider View

Blog by Francisca Andrade Arellano, Universidad Diego Portales/FEE, Chile

Proakatemia has a different method of education that makes this school special. As everything, it has pros and cons, but I will try to give my point of view from the outside of the community to make people understand how it works.

For the last two weeks I’ve realize that the work they do is really good for you to learn how it is in real life and to learn by your mistakes. Here are a few things that I’m going to talk about.

Teamwork

What they do in teamwork is something that surprised me a lot. Having the time to know each member from your team, knowing their weaknesses and strengths and trust them to let your feelings out, gives the whole group an environment to grow up together and to make them stronger. When you know how the person next to you is feeling, you can understand that person better, and why they act that way. You can also understand the context that the person is involved in. The whole team can be a support to the person that is having a bad time. And because of that, they can work in a better way. Research on trust in teams suggests that trust increases the ability of group members to function together, with higher levels of trust resulting in better team performance, high team satisfaction and high commitment [1]. That is something that caught my attention because is the best way to work together as a team and to succeed.

Common Goal

What I realize the moment I met some groups, is that they all have in common the fact that they start with small projects to earn money easily to start bigger projects in the future. But the thing is, that each group doesn´t have a common goal. I know it must be hard to have 20 people trying to agree on every aspect of the team, but if the whole group doesn’t go in the same direction, it will be hard in the future to get head of a big project. What’s the mission and the vision of your team? What is the image you want to project as a team? What are your values and objectives?

Leadership

Each team must have a leader, and I’ve noticed that the leader they assign is just a person that organizes everything to works out. But the thing is, that a leader is more than just that. A leader must motivate the whole team to give more than they can, to explore new things, to take risks, to help the group grow up, to inspire other people, to guide the team and to generate enthusiasm.

Innovation

Something that I expected is that innovation was a part of the projects. I know that it must be hard to ask for that to each team because Proakatemia only lasts for 3 years, but that is something that they can impulse to their students to do. Innovation is a real important thing in these days in order to have value added to their projects. What I’ve seen is that teams only do ordinary projects. It sounds rational if you don’t want to take risks and to play it safe.

Maybe that occurs because having the money to finance a big project must be hard, and when you have it, you might be scared to lose it if things don’t work out well. But the thing is, that teams must take risks. It’s part of the business, and if you don’t try it, you will never know. Teams get stuck in just small projects and getting the focus just in earning money, and that’s not a bad thing at all. But if you want to be more than just that, go for innovation, take risks. Innovation is defined as adding something new to an existing product or process. All innovation begins with creative ideas. Creativity is the starting point for innovation. Creativity is, however, necessary but not sufficient condition for innovation. Innovation is the implantation of creative inspiration.[2]

Proakatemia uses sells as a financial indicator, and want the teams to make that number grow by 20% each year, which is a good thing for the teams because it means that you’re doing things well but they shouldn’t just focus on that. Innovation in teams and in their projects is something that must be boosted by Proakatemia to encourage their students to go beyond the limits and to celebrate new ideas that can help to motivate them.

Maybe not everything I wrote in this essay is like this, but as an outsider, that is how I see it. There are some things that can be improved like thinking outside the box.

Proakatemia makes the students feels like they’re in a safe environment, is like a bubble wrap and sometimes the outsides business world works in a different way. All these things are just suggestion that can help Proakatemia to upgrade and make a better place for everyone.

[1]Value Creation Through Trust, Decision Making And Teamwork In Educational Environment  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042810000479

2 The Value Of Creativity And Innovation In Entrepreneurship http://www.asiaentrepreneurshipjournal.com/AJESIII2Okpara.pdf