The Leadership Experiential

Truly effective leaders are also distinguished by a high degree of emotional intelligence, which includes self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill. (Daniel Goleman)

We have often heard of the debate - "Are people born leaders or can you teach leadership?" I have completed day 2 of 3 of the leadership experiential and I have a long list of unanswered questions for myself and lots to share.....I think it will take a few days for me to think about these, process, digest and reflect

I have lots to say and share but for the benefit of my classmates in Cohort B (for the leadership experiential the class is split into two groups of 45 each or cohorts), I will hold sharing these thoughts until the weekend.......until then, let me leave you with a video about leadership at IMD​

 

Regards,

Vikas Menon​​

 

Leaping into the unknown

Last  year, while applying to IMD, I had the opportunity to interact with exceptional IMD alumni and today I’d like to introduce to you Mathieu Pointeau (IMD MBA 2008). He is one of the most inspirational, positive and motivating leaders I have ever come across and a role model for everything IMD! As always, he was supportive and excited to share his story and support the IMD community.

Mathieu Pointeau, French and one of 2008’s blog writers, is the author of today's guest entry. He reflects on his experience at IMD and shares some of his first impressions as Alumnus, exactly five years after he started his MBA at IMD.

Try this next time you are strolling on a cliff. Toss a rock over the edge and begin to count. It falls at the speed of a tumbling human so will reach 200km per hour after roughly nine seconds. Keep counting. If the cliff is sheer and tall, you should be able to tick off as many seconds before hearing a distant crack. Now get ready to hop off.

This weird sport is known as base jumping. I am not an adept myself but it is the best analogy I have found to describe my year at IMD. The courage – or is it madness? – required to leap into the unknown. The aspiration to see things differently. The adrenalin rush of the first few days. The short yet intense experience that brings your world upside down. The very personal journey during which you deliberately push your limits to find out more about yourself. Everything that you thought impossible suddenly becomes reality and you start wishing you had developed additional senses to capture it all.

You need time, speed and most importantly timing for the chute to prove useful, though. Pulling the cord too late is the easier and most spectacular way to crash. Falling too slowly could equally be as fatal, as the parachute may fail to open fully. You need to leap into the void with determination and willingness to take risks. Drop your last defences, get rid of the masks. Pick the right time to jump and choose the right moment to deploy your parachute, sometimes as late as a second or two before impact.

An MBA is by no means a guaranteed success story. It does not always bring you what you had imagined. It does not grant you any rights either. It just increases your awareness. To succeed, courage, talent and effort are as much required as humility, timing and a real willingness to take risks. You need to pick the right time to jump, i.e. when to start your MBA and the best time to pull the cord, i.e. end your experience and transit into a new environment in the best possible way.

IMD brought me much more than what I had actually expected. Besides a strong business culture and a renowned diploma which undeniably boosted up my professional career, there are two invaluable assets that it has literally gifted me with: amazing friends and increased self-confidence. The recurring and everlasting feeling that there is nothing I cannot actually do. But I don't forget those [including myself] who have found themselves unexpectedly unemployed despite an IMD MBA and above average performances, or those who are somehow still unhappy at work and struggling to find their path in these difficult economic turbulences. I don't forget either how privileged we all are compared to so many. Compared to too many.

The greatest gift from IMD is probably that you are back on a very rewarding feeling of never ending learning. You start remembering all these advices, comments, feedbacks, conclusions, conversations, examples not to say theories that you thought you would never remember so intense was the pace with which they were distilled. Yet, they are coming back and you are using them. Once again. Every day.

2008 was the best year of my life. A year that keeps on opening doors and worlds I would have never envisaged before. And I sincerely hope that 2013 will bring to this year’s IMD MBA Class the very enriching and life-changing experience I had the opportunity to go through 5 years ago.

Carpe Diem.

Or in plain English: Seize and live the moment.

And enjoy the ride.

Mathieu

From MBA applicant to IMD MBA candidate

In the past few days, I have been pleasantly surprised by the number of potential IMD MBA applicants who have reached out to me and that’s when it hit me – the first application deadline of February 1^st was quickly approaching! A year back, many of us were eagerly preparing our applications and stressed about completing the 11+ essays which I believe is the most for any business school application!! This was followed by the assessment day where we were participated in group exercises, classes and interviews.

So today when an applicant asked me for advice about applying to IMD, I figured it might be a good time to share few things that helped me:

1.       Reach out to alumni and current students - Before you apply to any school, try to develop an understanding of the “school dynamics”. When I applied to IMD, all I had to do was email the MBA admissions office and in less than a week I had a list of alumni in the Middle East. BUT, what really surprised me was the fact that every alumnus I contacted (and most were at VP level or above) replied to me in less than 48 hours! If you want to talk about a close knit alumni network, IMD says it all!

2.       IMD has a really unique application tool  – “Assess your chances” – which helps you get feedback from the Admissions office regarding your strengths and areas of improvements based on a short profile you submit

3.       Try to schedule a conversation with the MBA Admissions office to gain better insight – here at IMD they treat applicants as individuals and not another number in a sea of applicants. Better yet, if you are in the area, try to schedule a campus visit. Trust me you won’t regret the opportunity to attend our classes – they are simply spectacular and thought provoking!

4.       Now on the topic of the essays – lots to be said, but my advice – “be yourself” and don’t be afraid to share, discuss your story and your life! Remember that’s what makes you unique and that’s why 89 other people would love the opportunity to learn from you!

Good luck Round 1 Applicants and remember we all have been in your place but I can assure you that getting accepted to IMD makes all the hard work worth it!

Who is an Entrepreneur

​As my fellow bloggers have mentioned, it’s been an intense week that’s already felt like a month at IMD……we have covered everything from marketing in the health care sector, product segmentation, corporate bonds, balance sheets, valuating companies, career services and of course, one of the most anticipated sessions – Entrepreneurship with Professor Benoit and the famous start up projects.

As Benoit puts it one of the goals for this session is to help us understand Entrepreneurs and their world better…how do we do this – by working with 15 start ups to help them evolve their business to the next stage. We met our entrepreneurs over the weekend and many of us made distant trips to visit their offices in an effort to better understand their businesses.

Most of us tend to believe that the average entrepreneur is some sort of dare devil who thrives on risk. My moment of discovery during the class was when we were told that statistics show that Entrepreneurs are actually risk averse and take great cautionary measures to mitigate risks. I am still trying to digest, reflect and perhaps come to terms with this reality check!

So who are these brave people – After spending some time with our entrepreneur over the weekend, I realized that you don’t have to be born an entrepreneur or have an entrepreneurial background...What really keeps these individuals going is their drive, passion and belief in their ideas and their quest to translate their ideas to reality. Nothing matters to them more than the fruition of their ideas and the success of their “babies”. I asked our entrepreneur how he was able to leave his well-paid, successful career at a large multi-national to venture into entrepreneurship and his response was that he was tired of living someone else’s life, someone else’s dream and wanted to live his own life and try what really mattered to him. And even if none of his ventures eventually succeed, he would look back happy and satisfied that he had lived his life on his terms!

I’ve spent most of the weekend trying to digest this entrepreneurial spirit…I don’t know if I ever will venture out in that direction post IMD but I do know that the next 10 weeks will give me a close and deep look into the life of an Entrepreneur and help me debunk the many myths of this mysterious creature, “The Entrepreneur”

Know yourself

We had our first career services session this morning and as a class I believe we were happy to know that our career search will be guided by such a fantastic team! Apart from being phenomenal at what they do, they are also really pleasant and an absolute pleasure to work with. The career services team had also invited IMD alumni to share their perspectives which was of course a treat for all of us!

During the session a few themes were repeated - Start early and “know yourself”. Now starting early was not a problem but “know yourself”…I wondered through lunch and my many discussions with classmates what that meant and more importantly – how do I know myself?

Over the past weeks, we all have been busy writing the first drafts of our PPIN – Personal and Professional Identity Narrative – and perhaps had an opportunity to think about our life's, the people who have impacted us, our decisions, choices and values. Soon we will begin our leadership stream and have the opportunity to work with psychoanalysts, coaches and mentors who will perhaps help us further understand or reflect on the same.

In my case, I realize that I have been rushing through life always in search of the “next best thing” with little or no time for self-reflection and I hope through this year, I will have the opportunity to think about who I really am and what I really want to do when I grow up J

As Mark Twain said “I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can’t find anybody who can tell me what they want.”

At the end of the career services session, I was a bit relieved when the IMD alumnus stated that Self-Awareness was a key trait of IMD MBA graduates. I certainly hope he is right! but until then, Finance and Accounting case studies await me this evening!

Real World. Real Learning

A lot can happen in 48 hours…..we completed orientation, were introduced to our study groups, received our Startup projects, completed a fun and challenging scavenger hunt across Lausanne and together built an arch in record breaking time and were also assigned our first assignment for class on Monday morning!

 

I often wondered what IMD’s motto “Real World. Real Learning” meant and perhaps our first class on Monday morning will be an introduction - we will be dealing with a “live case” – It means that we will be tackling a real time current business problem for a multi-national organization and a senior director from the organization will be at class to talk to us about the problem. We are expected to work in our study groups of 6 and collectively develop recommendations and solutions.

 

And speaking of study group, I think I ought to tell you about my brave classmates and the people who make this IMD MBA 2013 class before we dive into any discussions about assingments and cases!The IMD MBA class of 2013 represents over 40 nationalities, speaks an average of 3+ languages and comes from every industry you can think of. I cannot begin to tell you about all the interesting experiences and stories I have come across but to give you a flavor of the IMD MBA class, let me tell you about my study group.

 

We hail from China, Canada, Russia, Italy, South Korea, Mexico, India and Dubai. Individually, we have lived and worked in more than 2 countries and in some cases the list is endless! Together we represent a plethora of backgrounds including Pharmaceuticals, Oil & Gas, Teaching, Research, IT and Telecommunications. But what makes our conversations even more exciting is the experiences – volunteering for FIFA World Cup 2002, representing your country at an International Championship for Magic(The gathering strategy card game), migrating from China to Canada at a young age, being recruited to elite leadership programs in multi-national organizations, travelling across the world for SAP implementations, being awarded an elite scholarship in Germany, representing the Middle East at the World Championships of Public Speaking, developing a new oil and gas curriculum and and being one of the youngest teachers in a world famous university!

As you can see, I can go on and on but amidst all this, the one trait that holds us all together is a desire and quest to be Global: to learn about new cultures, to speak new languages, to understand the history of other countries and a deep rooted respect for people from all backgrounds. And this is only a group of 6,I still need to learn more about the other fantastic 84 people in my class and learn from them over the course of the year and this is indeed  "Real World.Real Learning"

Best,

 

Vikas Menon

Would you believe me?

Bonjour tout le monde! Je m’appelle Vikas and along with my fellow bloggers Hammad, Natalia and our classmates, I welcome you to the IMD MBA blog for the class of 2013! This is our attempt to share our stories, highs and lows and document this IMD rollercoaster experience for 2013!

Let me introduce myself, I grew up in Dubai and moved to the US after high school…nearly 8 years after that, I happened to find myself back in Dubai and 4 years later, voila here I am in Lausanne not simply to learn about business but learn about people and discover myself somewhere in the process!

My wife and I moved to Lausanne last week and would you believe me if I told you that in a matter of a day we were able to register ourselves at the city hall, complete our biometrics, open a bank account, get new cell phone connections and also get our internet connection at home?!  This was not simply due to the famous 'Swiss efficiency'' but this was only possible because of my helpful classmates who are faster than Google to respond to every question on the Facebook page(Thank you Mazen for connecting all 90 of us) and our super negotiator – Hagit – for setting us up with a great mobile plan and of course IMD support services.

As if I wasn’t surprised enough with the above, I walked into our first class gathering on Friday organized by Anastasia and was immediately greeted with warm felicitations, hugs and best wishes from all my classmates and their partners congratulating us on our recent wedding in November.  My wife couldn't believe that everyone knew about our wedding and thanks to Emanuele the festivities progressed into the early hours of the morning. I shouldn’t brag but I don’t think I have ever met a more international group of people with some of the most wildest experiences!

Would you believe me if I told you that the IMD partners and families have already met a couple times this week and were taken on a tour of the campus today ahead of our orientation tomorrow?!

All I know is that the events of this past week have been nothing short of amazing and with the support of my classmates, partners and families, I can surely say that 2013 is going to be a year of new beginnings and you better believe me!

Best,

Vikas Menon