F.G.H. = Finally Going Home

Transitting at Dubai Intl' Airport - the city I came more than a month ago, probably the most global city in the world with aournd 90% foreigners in the city. You do feel want to go home because everybody is going home:-)

Finally, Going Home!

Home is not where you live but where they understand you. ~Christian Morgenstern

He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.” ~Maya Angelou

E - the END

IMD campus in snow

“There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go.” - Tennessee Williams (American playwright, 1911-1983)

Prof. George Kohlrieser introduced this quote to us at the beginning of our Leadership Finale Day on 2nd Dec 2008, just one day before the graduation. It was quite an emotional day filled with thanksgivings, public appraisals, reconciliations, reflections and surprises. He also kindly gave each of us an English copy of his award-winning book “Hostage at the Table”. Being in a Catholic seminary for 8 years, a Ph.D. in psychology, a Police Psychologist and Hostage Negotiator, 10-year hosting of “Matters of the Mind" - a radio call-in talk show in the US, and a past president of the International Transactional Analysis Association, he drew a lot of examples from his rich experiences in this fascinating book. I highly recommend it to the readers, even your non-English friends & colleagues (it is now available in French, Romanian, Hungarian and Chinese with German, Russian and Korean editions to be published soon).

On a personal note, I just finished my last interview and am now on the train from snowy Zurich to warmer Lausanne. Since 6 months ago when we first attended On-Campus Recruiting company presentations before discovery expedition to Kenya, each of us has gone through numerous interviews, followed by Dings, hiring freezes and of course offers. In fact, these six months at IMD (ok, we’ve officially graduated two weeks ago:-) had been an even more practical and more challenging part compared to the hundreds of real business cases studied through the building blocks. During expeditions, ICP and job searches, we have been exploring new geographical territories (for me – East Africa, East Europe, North America, Middle East) and we have been exposed to the tough macro-environment (my six final round interviews opportunities in different countries were killed one by one within 10 days due to the crisis). However, with the professional assistance of career service team (Katty, Celine, Julia & Barbara) and our individual career coaches, mutual supports from within the class, constant encouragements by family & friends around the world, we made it – so far so good! In the midst of economic crisis, IMD 2008 MBA class still had a very high percentage of job offers upon graduation and the number has been going higher and higher each day as some of us are still in the process of interviews. Now we all deserve a good break and I am confident that we will all get there, sooner or later.

On 16th Dec 2008, as many faculty and staff of IMD paid their tributes to the longest serving full-time faculty member Prof. Xavier Gilbert (37 years with IMD) during his “graduating ceremony”, one colleague shared the following “bon mots” (good words) of Prof. Gilbert, “It is precisely during times of adversity that companies cannot afford to neglect their people. Look at it this way: Why is a company in trouble in the first place? Is it really only the fault of the economic environment? Were the employees perfectly competent? In reality, being in trouble points to an urgent need to learn.”

Even the last two weeks post-graduation, there still have been a lot of happenings: round after round interviews, round after round farewell dinners, house after house hand-over inspections (I went to four apartments in a single day receiving and giving helps) and of course the Christmas parties. Together with Mathieu Pointeau (French), I also attended my first IMD MBA Info Session as an alumnus. But as we say in Chinese, “the most glamorous banquet will also come to an end” and Mathieu has already introduced you the new diary authors from MBA 2009 Class. Like movie sequels, you never know what does the new episode like until you go and watch it. Of course, you can learn some real options techniques from Finance Prof. Arturo Bris for better forecasting!?

A Time for Everything – by King Solomon from the Book of Ecclesiastes (Old Testament):

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,
A time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,
A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
A time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away,
A time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak,
A time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

D - Dubai, Desert, Deflate

I was in Dubai a month ago, my first visit to the Gulf Region. During the flight, I already saw massive yellow coloured the navigation map after Istanbul. Indeed, that's the theme colour of Dubai - the booming hub between Europe & Asia. Desert is seen everywhere, even the green plants are dusted by the sand. One of the interesting experiences we had there was "Desert Safari". I was expecting to see animals running in the desert. Instead, we were put on a jeep and driving towards the centre of desert.

After arriving at a stop point, the driver double-checked everything and began to deflate all tyres. "What are we going to do?" "Oh, we're going to enjoy the sand surfing!!!". That's the essence of a desert safari. Somehow, I related it to the leadership development approach during IMD MBA. The course was built in such a way to "destroy" you first, from inside out, challenging you on where you're most proud of and then "build" you up, through reflecion, counsellig, practcing. It's also a good analogy to the current economic situation. In a crisis moment, we'd better get back to the core, down-to-earth and be releastic.

"What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery (French Pilot, Writer and Author of 'The Little Prince', 1900-1944)

A.B.C. - Andover, Boston, Cambridge

After 4 weeks of industry & company analyses, 2 weeks of first round On Campus Recruiting, we have finally travelled to the market where our issue analysis focuses on – the USA. Our client is a global leader in the dental industry and our mission for the International Consulting Project is to improve the Sales & Marketing effectiveness in the US market. Although two of our team members have healthcare industry experiences, it was still quite a challenge to understand at the beginning the unique business model, complicated multiple stakeholders and fragmented diverse customers. Our hard work paid off and we gained enough credibility from the client to carry on the field research in Andover, Boston for 7 days. All the planning was communicated during the stressful interview weeks and we got almost everything settled by lunch time Wednesday 1st October: logistics, agenda, working approach and visas – yes, Natalia and I are visiting the USA for the very first time.

By taxi, train, airplane and rented car, the team of 5 safely arrived at the Residence Inn after 18 hours of travel from Lausanne. There were only a few hours for rest before the busy schedule starting Thursday morning. Despite the jetlag, we decided to meet at 7:30 am to quickly discuss the first day agenda. Driving to the company US headquarters, which is located in the same industry park as the hotel, we were amazed by the beautiful colours of autumn reflected onto the glass buildings, very different from what we used to see in Lausanne. Arriving in the office, first thing we were informed of: change of agenda! The team was asked to present our Phase II – Company Analysis and discuss it with the Business Unit VP, Marketing VP and Senior Marketing Manager. This sudden change eventually turned out to be a very fruitful and long interaction with the client’s US management team to build a good foundation for our remaining days here. In the afternoon, the team interviewed managers from training, sales and we started first round brain-storming to identify sub-issues and possible solutions. The jetlag effect kicked in around 6 pm (which was 12 am Swiss time) so we called it a day.

The second day which was Friday was even busier. We started from a WEBEX meeting with managers from different functions and then participated in a Sales teleconference. In the afternoon, the team had to split for multiple tasks, calling dental labs, meeting VIP customers, discussing Sales & Optimization, etc. We had to finish the team debriefing by 6:30 pm because there was a client dinner planned at 7 pm. It was a great opportunity to know more about each other at a personal level. As our Faculty Director Prof. Ralf Seifert shared before, in a consulting project team, the manager’s main task is to communicate with the client and continuously align the objectives and outcomes.

Over the weekend, we had some time to visit downtown Boston which is famous for its Harbour, Harvard Business School and Happy shoppers. So some of us went for whale watching, some went for Sunday shopping [which is almost impossible in Switzerland], but we all went to the Harvard Business School in Cambridge. It happened to be the 100th anniversary of the business education here and we walked around in the night campus [see photograph above].

Someone once summarized the difference between school and life as follows: “In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson.” I would argue a successful school could combine both – Real World, Real Learning – a perfect explanation of the philosophy of our ICP or International Consulting Project, since 1980!

The Straumann team from Massachusetts, USA.

No. 1

IMD tops Economist Intelligence Unit's MBA rankings, but are the good times about to end for business school graduates? http://mba.eiu.com/index.asp?layout=2008rankings

IMD has been ranked the first in the world in the Economist Intelligence Unit's latest survey of full-time MBA programmes. It is the first time the Swiss school has topped the annual ranking. IMD took the number one slot from the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business, which drops to third, while Spanish school IESE claims second place. Stanford and Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business round off the top five. The highest ranked Asian school was Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 11th.

IMD is one of the most international business schools in the world. Ninety-seven percent of its students come from abroad—with around half of those from outside of Europe. One of the reasons for the school's triumph has been the success of its careers placement service. IMD students can expect to earn a basic salary of US$130,000 a year on their graduation—compared with pre-MBA salaries of US$79,000.

Indeed this year was a bumper year all round for MBA salaries. Columbia in New York, for example, reported an average leaving salary of US107,000, while London Business School's graduates can expect US$120,000-a-year. But with the banking crisis leading to job losses in financial centres around the world, this might be the best it gets for business school graduates for some time.

Bill Ridgers, editor of Which MBA? commented: "The financial services industry has for some time competed with consultancies to be the leading recruiter of MBA graduates, offering huge salaries along the way. But with recent failures, a lot of talented bankers are suddenly out of a job. It is likely that current students are likely to find themselves graduating into a buyers' market and salaries will start to reflect this."

To add on to this press release, we just had a 2-week first round on campus interviews with some 60 global companies in altogether 822 interviews for the entire MBA class. A big thank you to our fabulous Career Service team. Bonne Chance!