The Drawbridge Story

With 44 hours lecture per week and many pre-course reading, group assignments, individual papers & start-up project on hand, it's quite challenging to digest everything, not even to mention pondering upon what we've learned or debated. Thanks to our extremely efficient MBA officers, we have monthly assignments & readings bound nicely before the start of next month. My target was to write down the key learning points on the 1-page assignment for each of the 4-hour module (total 8 modules during Building Block I from Jan - Mar 2008), hopefully, I can remember & try to apply 1 or 2 of the key learnings everyday.

During the leadership class last week, Prof. Jack told us a very simple "Drawbridge Story" involving 6 characters: Baron, Baroness, Madman, Lover, Boatman, Friend. Since the leadership module is very experiential, we were asked to do a quick ranking test "who is most responsible for the outcome of the story?". Jealous baron, lonely baroness, irresponsible lover, greedy boatman, self-righteous friend & the madman, sounded interesting! After that, each study group had to reach a collective ranking based on consensus. To give an example of the group diversity, my group during Building Block I includes a Canadian, Indian, Italian (San Marino), Russian, Mexican, Swiss and myself, Chinese.

When all 12 groups returned to the amphitheatre, Prof. Jack shared with us a comment from his artist friend. "It's not surprising that most business people would agree that the boatman is least responsible for the outcome, the death of the baroness. You may argue he's simply doing his job by asking for money before riding her through the moat. In another word, the boatman is the only one in the whole story who didn't offer an help to the baroness because of economic interest. That's typical business people, b-school students and many people in this materialized world".

We might have not thought of that while defending for the boatman, but I have to admit that is probably the reason beneath and I simply thought being greedy was not the cause of the baroness' death. The reality is the same test conducted among nurses or social workers, boatman is often ranked highly responsible for the tragedy.

However, I'm not that hopeless as I've seen 5 or 6 out of the 90 class did rebuke the boatman for being greedy. Many of the rest, I believe we have taken the lesson seriously and will try to make a difference in the community we live!

Name a Wish - The GREAT Outdoor Exercises!

Wednesday morning, 12 experienced Group Behavior Consultants flew from overseas to IMD. They were introduced to the 12 study groups in the afternoon at our leadership class. The fun started!


"Gentlement's Club #1, Quest, Tangram, Bungees, U.F.O. (United Fishers Of...), The Screwdrivers, bbb7, Magic 8, 9 United, 1 World, The Country Club, 12 Monkeys", above were the names of 12 study groups presented to the entire class with a video advertising & a logo explaining the names. All the preparations were done within 45 mins! It's interesting to see how the different names correlating to each group in terms of characteristics, directions or wishes.

7:45 am, Thursday morning, all 90 MBAs met at the foyer to board on the bus leading to Outdoor Exercise Centre in an old chateau. Competitions, group tasks, each session was video-taped and followed by a debriefing with coach. Finishing the whole exercise at 5 pm, delicious Chinese dinner was awaiting us at IMD. There was a 4-hour video for each group to review & discuss which is the highlight of the day. Emotions, retrospection & questions all came out, expected or unexpected, most groups ended at midnight, some 2 am.

Understanding how drained we were, Prof. Jack Wood kindly started the class 30 mins then the usual 8 am. Each group was given 90 mins to summarize key learnings, select a video clip and present a picture metaphor. It was kinda shocking when we realized how powerful the emotions were functioning in some groups! All in all, we've tried our best to be sensitive & honest with our feelings. In the afternoon, we had the opportunity to provide feedback to group members in both oral & written forms. More than 2/3 of the class headed to the White Horse pub, due to either too many positive / constructive (negative) feedback or too much stress / psycho talks. Some even saw a few consultants there as well:-) Saturday we had the 1-on-1 session with group consultant for an hour each. They all flew back later that day.

This is our first GREAT outdoor leadership exercise and I'm happy to tell The Gentlemen's Club #1 more or less stayed true to our names with openness & solidarity.

P.S. the mokey picture is our group metaphor after the outdoor exercises & key learnings found out. We realized the problems and want to see more, hear more & talk more whenever appropriate so we can grow more in the long run!

What are you selling?

What's so unique about IMD (http://www.imd.ch/)? After the orientation programme early last week, I confirm that the slogan "Real World, Real Learning" is what being practiced here.

Career Service team shared with us their mission & passion to establish the platform between us (the 90 MBA students) and potential employers (67 companies conducted on campus recruiting events in 2007 plus many posting job offers online). Class 2oo7 has done a great job, within 1 month of graduation, 96% has at least 1 job offers (preliminary results).

An interesting question was posed to us, "since the participants have an average of 7-year working experience which means a quality network around the globe, should we focus more on selling the school or selling ourselves during networking?" Of course, marketing for IMD is mainly the MBA office (career / marketing / admission)'s responsibility. However, to let others understand what kind of training we've been through here at IMD definitely helps. So my answer would be: selling myself as an IMD 2008 MBA!

Catch up in week 2...Bonne nuit:-)