Good morning, the weekend community, for the dynamic related Learning, curiosity and mysteries proposed by @galenkp Link Here I have decided for option number 2 :
Learn
Tell us about a time you learned a very valuable lesson. What was it, the circumstances around it, how did the learning process go and what was the result?
It was 1992, I was looking for a job and at the age of 24 I was selected to be part of an Integral Training Program for Executives in a Bank that by that time was already more than 100 years old in the Venezuelan financial market, its name was Banco Caracas. It was a very prestigious Bank, the public perceived it as very elite, due to the type of clientele it handled.
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The duration of this program was one year, and consisted of several modules, such as: Financial Analysis for individuals and companies, Accounting, Financial Mathematics, Cash Flow Analysis, Working Capital Analysis, Quality of Sales, Quality of Services and Money Laundering.
Regarding the participants, I must say that it was a large group of 25 people among which were lawyers, economists, administrators, accountants, and engineers.
At the beginning we were told that the program was free of charge, and that while we remained in the program we would be paid a monthly fee of more than the minimum wage, which would be credited to our recently opened bank account. The study materials and books provided were also free.
But there were rules: each module had to be passed according to the established evaluations, with a minimum grade of 17 points and a maximum of 20 points; whoever did not pass this condition unfortunately had to leave the program.
Additionally, our dress had to be formal, starting the entrance to the bank at 7:30 A.M, and leaving at 4:30 P.M. If you arrived after the established time in the morning you were sent back home and that counted as an absence. If there were three absences, you were out of the program.
As in any group or work team, there were many classic typologies: the pretty one, the intelligent one, the toxic leader, the skinny one, the fat one, the collaborator, the informer, the shy one, the handsome one, the ugly one, the extroverted one, the defeatist one, the clueless one, the problematic one, the deficient one, the questioning one, the lazy one, the manipulative one. We were a nice bunch.
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Our instructors were the Vice President of the Credit Area, her assistant and three Banking Executives who graduated the previous year from the same program.
They helped us to get into the banking world, to know what is a Business Analysis in depth, to know what is financial intermediation and what was the origin of banks, to measure the economic environment that affects each sector of Finance, they helped us to really interpret the economic and financial section of a newspaper.
The demands were high, we exposed many economic issues, real analysis of companies, always with a Bank manager present which, despite feeling intimidated, forced us to express ourselves properly. The questions that were not asked always had a double meaning, they were asked with the purpose of seeing where we were wrong, in the expositions we were interrupted and corrected. Many colleagues were upset by this and responded to our evaluators in a bad way, each one had a different approach to the same topic, seen from the perspective of each of our professions.
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There was a lot of pressure, some cheated on the exams, and when they were discovered they were immediately expelled from the program. Enmity began to form between us.
Taking advantage of this enmity we were forced to do group work with other people who on a personal level were not compatible, and in very unfortunate cases the teams below a score of 17 points were expelled from the program. They were really mean in this program.
With 12 participants left out of a total of 25 people, 6 of us decided to join forces, share ideas and analyze what mistakes we were making. We started to: share more with the instructors, show more interest in our studies, correct each other.
After an internship in the Banking Agencies helping the Agency Manager and the Assistant Manager, we presented a final case of a real client to the President of the Credit Area and only 6 people were able to pass the course and work in the bank, among them myself.
We were assigned to different areas of the bank, in my case to the automotive area where my job was to analyze the financial capacity of vehicle dealers to obtain a revolving line of credit to be used for the purchase of automotive units in their headquarters. I prepared my reports and had to present them not to a jury to pass a course, but to all the Vice Presidents and Area Presidents of the bank.
When I prepared my reports, all the technical knowledge came to my mind, it was as if it expanded and fit into the context of my financial analysis which included cash flows and financial ratios.
There, the environment was replicated as it was very similar to that of the program, interruptions, questions, diverse points of view, I had to be prepared to answer even the most absurd question and defend my position before everyone, always supported by the Vice President of the Automotive Area.
Three months after my arrival, I was promoted to Supervisor of the Automotive Credit Area, helping to create the product called Crediauto Bancaracas, aimed directly at financing vehicles for individuals.
The typology of my coworkers was also very diverse, and did not differ much from that described when I was in the Executive Training Program.
Each of us has a way of being, and therefore we must be resilient and adapt to adverse situations, we must respect other points of view and be kind to others, thus demonstrating that we are good people in the eyes of others and earning a good working reputation.
I know that perseverance in the Integral Executives Training Program made me gain more knowledge, which helped me a lot in other companies since they are applicable in areas such as planning, budgeting, auditing, finance, accounting.
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If we practice every day what we learn, we gain experience and wisdom.
The pictures are my property and were taken with my Iphone4 cell phone.