My thesis

I finally finished my thesis: 180 pages, some sleepless nights, some unproductive nights and some moments where I impressed myself, some others when Nassim impressed me a lot. All this has been done with Nassim, a good friend and my a co-thesis colleague.

We had good moments, but also big arguments. Especially at the end, where lack of sleep and stress increases our reactivity to smaller things.

My internship in Europcar was one kind of experience: what we’ve done, and the impact we made in that company was quite meaningful. We really didn’t expect such a thing. When I think 4 months back from now, I didn’t know anything about the rental market, neither how such a company works. Now, I can analyse their financial situation, interpret their forecasts, assess the allover situation of the employees and understand why it is like that. … I think I could have a manager position in that company without a problem :)

Writing the thesis was a different process. In fact, it was going more in depth into the subject, write down everything we know about it, but in a structured way and clarifying the process of the internship, the company, the strategy and all the analysis which made them take the decision of merging. The fogg of the details disappeared.

Also, I realized that writing something requires more discipline and structure. Doing an internship requires something else: you produce something tangible, you create. A thesis is only relating your experience and what you know about this and that aspect and analysing it in different ways and points of view.

This 4 months experience taught me how to get along on my own (even if I did it with Nassim, this required lot of proactivity, since we did most of the things separately then “merged” them together), how to build links between the different actions I observed and identify them. I had some problems in creating a structure regarding the problems aroused in the company. All these problems were essentially linked together and we cannot take one issue into consideration without the others.

Mostly however, I learned to work with someone else. Coordination, respect, listening, guiding and be guided.

The best achievement of these last months was seeing the evolution in the minds of the people in the company. I also think we were part of this change process and even triggered it in a way.

The first days in the company, mentioning the word “merger” triggered an awkward reaction in people. They felt like this subject should not be raised. Some directors didn’t want us in the company. With our determination we managed to get where we wanted, but really, some directors were shocked of seeing two students take such a challenge.

The HR director didn’t want to talk about mergers, as if people just needed to forget about it. But the fact is that the problem WAS there. And they have to deal with it. Not mentioning it will not make it disappear! And slowly people started to discuss the subject. And the more they talked about it in a natural way, the more they accepted the situation in which they were.

My personal big achievement was the organization of a company World-Café, during the official dinner of the whole company. 120 employees, executives and non-executives talking about subjects which matter to them, and connecting with the others, especially those of the other company who they never met before or had pedjudices about them and never took the initiative to start a discussion. Also, the questions of the different rounds forced them to dicuss things they would never discuss with their colleagues. This was a big challenge and we weren’t sure of their cooperation. The feedback of this exercice was brilliant! They liked it, and they are started to open up. They even asked for more World Cafés tackling more work-specific subjects. We really saw their implication in this and their will to contribute to the company’s best evolution.

Looking back, they were completely frustrated, and not a single positive energy was flowing through the office. Except the directors that have to show the example… but this wasn’t enough. The trigger has also to come from the others.

Happiness is contagious, so as sadness. If you hang around with happy people, you also tend to be happy. But imagine a dull person, bored of life that is complaining all the time. I’m sure you wouldn’t like to hang around all the time with them. So, even if you’re in a really down moment, act as if you feel great will already help to make you feel great. I tried it and it works! (even if sometimes complaining helps to get the pressure out of you, it never helps to make you feel better: complain is negative, so it brings negativity.)

My learning points of this experience was: if you have a problem, deal with it. Leaving it there doesn’t help. Confrontation makes it disappear. You get always what you put in a situation. So, giving your best makes you get the best out of it. And if not, I’m sure it will be better next time.

Perseverance, positivity and determination and focus are the keys for achieving our goals.