Leading People and Groups

There are over 35,000 academic definitions of leadership, so basically there's no simple one. I find it hilarious that leadership has been analyzed from so many angles and probed and prodded from various perspectives, sometimes even to nearly diametrically opposed conclusions.  It might be that leadership is so situation specific and emotional that differences can only lead to these infinite subtleties.  However, that's why we study it - and I think one of the best things about INSEAD is experiencing/practicing these challenges across cultures, nationalities, etc.  Since INSEAD was founded with the concept of being a European "Harvard" its not surprising that teamwork and leadership have become part of the reputation.  But, how are our leadership skills developed here specifically?  It's a very interesting method...

I came to INSEAD, like many others, a very social person, but in addition to the partying/social pressure cooker that I'm enjoying - (but am still exhausted by) - INSEAD also divides students into 4 sections of 77 students within which they dictate smaller groups of 5 or 6 per team. These teams become your late night/Friday afternoon study-buddies, like it or not - and you just have to pray they give you cool peeps.  But INSEAD does a careful job about this whole concept...  Prior to school starting each group's members are selected and seem to cover the widest diversity of nationalities, work experiences, demographics, and personalities.  These totally manufactured circumstances force us to work through personality challenges, manage cultural communication issues, drive consensus between different work experiences, etc in order to produce quality MBA work.  

So, that's the game and my group has some interesting players.  There are 6 members of my group, including:

• A sharp and spunky Chinese girl, who could easily have pursued a berth on the gymnastics team with her short height, but intense focus.  Like many INSEAD students, I feel she's highly self-aware, which compliments her HR background and makes her insights about personalities very helpful and keen
• A highly motivated and organized Peruvian economist-turned-investment-banker, ironically also a good latin DJ, who's super reliable and hard working
• A Chilean product/brand manager who balances a focus and strong opinions with strong values for family and fun.  He seems to have the deepest work-leadership experience because he explains his decisions carefully and thoughtfully.  As a side note, I've been amazed at his patience and self-control, but I am a little nervous that he bottles his thoughts too much to reach consensus
• An Indian software engineer who seems to me to be the heart and soul of our team.  He cares passionately about his home country and family, but is very technically gifted and emotionally observant, sensitive, and supportive
• A French manufacturing and production genius, who pays incredible attention to detail, equations, calculations, and hard facts.  His focus on minutia that other group members sometimes find insane is simultaneously a saving grace for us

Since I've had experiences on both massively disfunctional teams and also high performing ones, this group is both exhilarating and scary.  I think it's equally probable that we will work brilliantly or fail miserably because its not a lack of self-awareness, coherent thought, honesty, or intelligence that we could lack.  We might lack, and therefore appreciate, an ability to bridge these differences, handle arguments, and make decisions that help us reach great results.  The key will be communicating and working through these situations, which is where I think I can help.  Viva leadership @ INSEAD!

More about traveling and activities on the weekends next... 

School - The First Week

It one week into roughly 10 months of school and I'm already beginning to understand why people say INSEAD is soooo intense.  Looking back on this week, I can see my mistake - work doesn't prepare you for 'school' work - ha.  However, if I had been doing school work these last 4+ years - I wouldn't have context or concept of real business experience.  Now at end of my first full week of classes and full-on INSEAD activities I'm EXHAUSTED!  But since I think this might be a good way to share my misery, I'm going to quickly recount the situation and agenda.  

Our year is divided into 5 periods of which P1 and P2 are supposed to be the most intense and difficult in terms of work-load, social adjustment, and other MBA stuff.  The cool thing is that after a long week of school work, I got some good sleep on Thursday night and we had a Career Services Day on Friday.  With such a short MBA program, INSEAD has to get us started early on the job search so, maybe, we can finish on time.  They did say that nearly 3/4s of graduates had at least one job offer at graduation last year and the number went way up from there over time.  Besides the stats about graduates, etc, they walked us through some personal analysis - tests, etc.  Although, I feel pretty good about the thought I've done to date re: this, I don't think you can ever get enough, and it's helping me move on to the tactical stuff about landing my dream job. 

Yes, its all about landing a dream job.  I have to highlight that when I think of the school schedule and how painful it is to do statistics homework and finance review again.  Wow, but here's the list of my classes:

1. Prices and Markets (micro-econ)
2. Uncertainty, Data, and Judgement (UDJ, stat)
3. Leading People and Groups (LPG, org behavior)
4. Financial Accounting (accounting)
5. Financial Markets and Valuation (FMV) 

Honestly, looking at it I don't feel too bad since I studied much of the material in undergraduate, but there is definitely a different slant here.  There's a much more advanced focus on the applicability and usefulness of the info.  Using statistics to make informed general management decisions that relate to financial valuation and pricing is some how more interesting now that I've seen some of the actual decisions managers face. 

At any rate, I've survived the first week and I know how crazy it can get - so, now I'm on top of it... right?

Le Vivier - Housemates and History

There are so many reasons why relationships matter.  My first week here at INSEAD has definitely highlighted that they can determine the amount of fun you have here at INSEAD...  Needless to say, I've done my part as a social butterfly, meeting classmates continuously this first week.   I think, however, either by value of proximity or other, my moments of laughing the hardest are largely thanks to my housemates at Le Vivier.  We all ended up at housemates by accident, which I'm scared to attribute to some crazy-unknown forces, but you never know...

About INSEAD and "Le Vivier," my house - First of all, housing here is quite different than for most MBA programs.  INSEAD, as an international business school without a broader university affiliated with us, the school side-steps any implication regarding responsibility/assistance with housing.  The way people find housing here depends mainly on alumni contacts, a local hou

sing website (geared towards INSEAD though, I believe), and plain old student ingenuity.  But also, there are places of deep reputation and storied history with INSEAD students, including several chateaus and villas.  One 'country estate' is called Le Vivier and has four homes (one occupied by the landlords).  

In total, there are 9 of us living at Le Vivier (the picture to the left is from the top floor of the "Grand Maison").  Le Vivier's history is pretty long since students have been living here for over 20 years - and there are definitely some interesting stories to match.  

To highlight things, the "Grand Maison" is where I'm living with three others, including:

• One wild Singaporean guy, a proven and fun ring leader already, who's never washed a dish in his life and can't boil water (this just seems funny to me...)
  
• An equally entertaining Lebanese-American guy, a little more on the sensitive side, and painfully funny when intoxicated, but wickedly sharp regardless
  
• A smart and sassy Taiwanese-American girl, a fellow bay-area native previously a chemist, who has a sharp wit with brutally hilarious insight to match
  

The "medium" house is the bachelor pad, including:

• The funniest Indian guy, a former McKinsey consultant, that I've ever met - classically, bringing consultancy to the Le Vivier "table" (another guy who's never boiled water)
• A quite, but completely charming Italian who's cooking talents are decidedly overworked 
• A Belgium, tall and handsome, but humble and understated like an entrepreneur-type - he actually still managing a start-up he recently launched

In the "small" house is a recently married Swiss couple from Zurich.  To highlight some noticeable characteristics, you can't miss commenting on their height - roughly 6'7 and 6'3... I'm not sure I've ever met a more perfect couple before they ever said a word.  Now, with slightly more insight, I can say that they might be the sharpest (and craziest) of the bunch of us, but that's still TBD.  

More on INSEAD, my first week of classes, and my study group next.

Ciao

Whatta Class!

My first introduction to my classmates via e-mail was quite a shock.  "Wow," I thought.  "When these people are bored they are way more productive than me.  I can only imagine when they're excited about something."   I thought this when I opened a spreadsheet developed by a certain INSEAD July 09 classmate, known as "very entrepreneurial" by school administration, emailed us our "stats."  It's pretty insane - so here goes:

• Over 35% of the class has at least a masters degree (if not a PhD)
• We speak over 67 languages (ave. # of languages is 3.6!) 
  
• There are over 70 nationalities (our ave. age is 29.5 and our class is 70% guys)
  
• No one nationality makes up more than 11% of the class
• Roughly a third of us had a manager title

Pretty incredible to start with a group of people as diverse and motivated as this...  I have to say motivated because coming here and getting started has not been easy.  It's been pretty funny that basically the only communications I received from INSEAD were - "You're been admitted" and "Please send money."  Otherwise, its my new network of classmates that have sustained me and my sanity moving to France including - what time to get started on campus (registration, laptop configuration, driving directions, communicating, healthcare, etc).  

So, from time-1 (aka. arrival), the best thing about INSEAD has been the networ

k.  The flow of information is incredible and Facebook has been sent from above.  Even now I don't know how many Facebook groups I'm part of on Facebook, but its by far been the best method to disseminate information and learn about activities, social and otherwise.  Not to spend too long on the various benefits of Facebook, but I also think its been one of the best ways to share my experiences with friends back home.  

But enough on Facebook, and more about my 'friends' that make it awesome.  From those I've talked to, maybe about 1/3 of the class so far, we've had similar experiences in many ways and share many motivations in common.  Generally speaking, people seem to be humble, fun, relaxed, fun, very smart, fun, socially flexible, fun, motivated, fun, resourceful, fun, witty, and, did I mention?, fun.

Well, in case I'm not clear - the INSEAD Class of July 2009 is awesome and I'm excited for what's ahead! 

PS. For my visual readers, attached is a picture of my home, Le Vivier.  More on the infamous LE VIVIER! in my next blog...  Adieu

Proud Moments - Ironically

On a more personal note, there are several issues to explain re: moving to a foreign country to study business.  

1. It's not easy

2. It's been great fun

3. I can't imagine being anywhere else

To the third point, it's been very exciting and frightening to show up to a international campus without knowing anyone, without transportation, or even a functioning mobile phone.  However, there is a very gratifying feeling when you figure some things out.  For example, I was, maybe, too pleased with myself to get a good deal on a car (see included picture of my trusty - I hope - new steed), a 1995 Opel Corsa with 165km+ mileage.  In the end, all the logistics regarding phones, internet, school, languages, etc are working out great and I feel brilliant without having started any school.  Ha!

Okay, more on my classmates and INSEAD later...  Adieu  

My Arrival - Getting Started on my MBA

If I keep thinking that I've got to have a perfect concept to outline for everyone (or anyone) who might read this blog, I'll never get this started.  So, here goes, generally:

My purpose:

Chronicle my MBA experiences (of course, including some pictures - here's the main entrance to the school)

My audience:

Friends, family, and others interested in getting their MBA or INSEAD, in particular

My policy:

Write when I can, what I want, my way (typically stream-of-consciousness, followed by bullet points, pictures, and quirky phrases, ha!).  However, also including, responding, or not, to questions/suggestions/concerns

Otherwise, that's it.  I'll summarize the "real" beginning and move quickly to where I am today @ INSEAD. 

The "real" beginning is when you decide to get an MBA (51% of your brain says "go").  And then it's like a weed, once planted, that grows.  However, the speed that people decide why, when, and where differs dramatically and is totally personal.  (Also an important side-note, I definitely have to give a "Thanks" out to several people who pushed me, helped/informed me, and also listened when I swore this was a bad idea).  Even with great support and encouragement, for me, it felt like a slow tipping point, but finally one that I couldn't ignore.  There was a big push in my brain, maybe even a shove, at a point when I got sick of reading a popular tagline "MBA preferred."   For those of you who know where you see that, you know what I'm talking about...  Two words, that solidified that I needed an MBA to take my next big step - ex. broaden my business experiences and move toward greater responsibility/opportunity.   Once made, this decision was like a thorn in the back of my mind persistently prodding me to research schools, talk to alumni, and generally organize a "story" for applications.  Talk about stereotyping and categorizing myself - that's what the "story" becomes, despite my best efforts to be an individual.

So, what did I realize?  Lots, maybe even more than I needed.  But, yes, that's the idea.  After wrapping that up, I paired me with some schools (ex. fast-paced, diverse, challenging, fun) just like wine and cheese.  Finally, I went to work on those applications, and, voila, roughly $1,100 spent applying to four schools - which caps about $3,500 spent in total studying, testing, visiting, etc in preparation to spend even more actually going to school.  Ha! 

And without further adieu, I'm at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France - tagline - The Business School for the World.  And really, one of the top business schools in the world with some AWESOME classmates.  More fun on that...