Caught Off Guard!

Crazy day today! Attended a simulation workshop where I was supposedly the MD of a Hospital tasked to turn around the business via convergence of existing business units and expansion into new areas of opportunities.

Super tight schedule and we were even assigned an "assistant" each who'll remind us of our meetings with COO, CEO and Board of Directors (BOD)! And if that wasn't enough, they even had psychiatrists observing us in all our one to one meetings with COO and CEO as well as our presentation to the BOD! Plus, everything's captured on video for our personal reflection tomorrow with the psychiatrist!!!

Halfway through the preparation of our plans, I was "summoned" to meet 2 "reporters" who were there to interrogate me about a patient who turned PINK after drinking the prescribed cough mixture by our hospital! I was expected to provide an official statement there and then and these "reporters" even came with an audio recording device to record my statement!!!

Then out of the blue, my "assistant" reminded me of my meeting with the COO. And this happened nearly immediately after we got our brief i.e. no time to even finish reading up!!! And the biggest mistake I did was not checking with my "assistant" on the org. structure of the hospital and it's subsidiaries!!! Where I came from, a COO is the 2nd in command after CEO but here... this COO supposedly reports to me but was secretly eyeing my seat!!! The meeting was disastrous and I had to cut it short!!!

Then just as I began to deep dive into our plans, my CEO sent me a nasty email asking me to sort out a bad publicity from a patient who died from wrong prescriptions! I was whisked away to a corner with laptop; away from my team to draft a press release to address the negative publicity!!!

Just when I thought there were no more surprises, came my meeting with the CEO this time round! Luckily, we had slightly more time to prepare and the subject of discussion; strategic long term plans that I have in mind for the hospital was an area of my functional expertise! Again, the psychiatrist was also present and I was sweating profusely!

The last meeting of the day was the presentation of our plans to the BOD and boy were we bashed to the max!!! The day was supposed to end 5 sharp but thanks to the severe thrashings from the BOD, both teams had to stay back till 10.30pm at night to polish our decks!!! Why? Cos the final round of presentation to the BOD along with our real-life senior management team will be tomorrow at 10am SHARP!!!

I'VE BEEN CAUGHT OFF GUARD NUMEROUS TIMES TODAY!!! AND I AM SO TIRED AND EXHAUSTED AND BRAIN DEAD!!! HELPPPPP!!!

- Posted from my iPhone 4