Throughout my internship, I had the opportunity to work on an exciting project that not only gave me the chance to discover more about the business and developed research skills and competencies. It also allowed me to become more aware of my soft skills and the hierarchical functions of a company.
I was working for H&A Motivation Company, an Italian firm that operates in the event management sector, and I was part of the communication team. I arrived at H&A a few weeks after my tutor, and as soon as I arrived, I was confronted with the reality of a rebranding process within a company.
H&A wanted to change its strategic position in the market, from a company that operates extensively at a lower quality to one that operates specifically, offering a higher quality service.
Moreover, the firm was keen to evolve in the market by playing on its name, especially the word “motivation”. Therefore, when I got into H&A, everyone was trying to familiarise themselves with everything related to motivation.
I was pretty excited at the time; I had just finished the module “Role of emotions in political communication”; therefore, I was familiar with that word. Moreover, I am genuinely interested in psychological processes and glad I could work on researching psychological theories related to the topic.
Within a couple of weeks, I was very familiar with their briefs and found a great piece of research that perfectly fit their needs. A group of scientists in China extensively examined the event and incentive travel market and extracted the motivational levers that managers tried to improve when bringing their employees on a trip or to an event. Moreover, event and travel organisations could also use these levers to present their corporate clients with tailored services that would motivate their employees more and increase their commitment to the company.
It was perfect for H&A! This was what they were looking for!
Therefore, I was super excited to present my findings to my tutor and the rest of the team, and they were excited to receive my explanation. Although I could tell they were not too convinced about it, they proposed to dig a bit more and develop a translated version of the report.
I was pretty disappointed, I found a great solution, but they didn’t seem to rely on me that much. They made me feel incompetent and not ready to participate in company decisions. I took it quite personally; I was convinced to be on the right track, and I decided to focus more on my communicative skills to make them listen to me.
I started by observing their behaviours, trying to understand how they reasoned and what was triggering those thoughts, and I noticed incredible insights. Italy is quite a conservative country, if you are a student, you are not very knowledgeable, and if you are a woman, you tend to remain at lower levels.
The first few weeks have been hard; I was so annoyed by this culture that I kept thinking about why I chose it for my internship. However, after a while, I decided to twist the situation. I started viewing it as an opportunity to improve my communicative skills and make people listen to me no matter their pre-judgments.
By the end of the internship, my method was the one that the company is now using to build their services, I was always allowed a word in the managerial meetings, and finally, my tutor kept asking me questions even when I was gone from the company (cool but not terrific for my travelling schedules:)).