Entrepreneurs can sing!

You might say that there’s nothing common between entrepreneurs and singers and perhaps before our Entrepreneurship class with Prof. Benoit​ I would have agreed. But this morning, while exploring the concepts of Valuation and Crowdfunding, we had an opportunity to see Crowdfunding and its benefits at its best!

Our guest speaker (or may I say singer) was Licia Chery (http://liciachery.com/) who not only amazed us with her fantastic voice and talent but also spoke to us about her passion for music and her struggle to achieve her dreams. In a music industry where it’s becoming tougher and tougher for new artists, Licia bravely followed her dreams and with the support of her fans was able to use the Crowfunding site – My Major Company http://www.mymajorcompany.com/ - to launch her first album. And while crowdfunding and her fans (investors) may have provided her the financial support to launch her album, I learnt that she is not very different from an entrepreneur who in essence has to develop an idea/talent, brand, find investors, manage day to day operations while focusing on your passion and also ensure that investors/fans are happy with your performance.

This was followed by a marketing simulation which stared at 2:30pm and ends tomorrow afternoon. I got home at 11:30pm and was about to crash after being at school from 7:30am when I realized that my blog entry was pending and it’s way too early in the program for me to miss a blog! ( I know this day will soon come given the racing intensity of the program but I will fight it as long as I can)

In the words of Licia Chery - “You are the designer of your destiny and you are the one deciding how your reality will look like!”

Goodnight!

Vikas Menon

 

Self-Reflection: remembering the fish we fried in the mountains…

Most of us are knee deep in our leadership essays due later tonight. The goal of the exercise is to “explore group dynamics” within our study groups. Now exploring group dynamics after 2 months in the group is not necessarily rocket science; however, the real challenge is becoming mindful and trying to understand why we behave in different ways within groups or as our Prof. Ben Bryant​ and our leadership coaches would phrase it “dig deeper”!

Thanks to the leadership experiential we were able to start this exploration and identify not just our conscious actions within the group but also our unconscious actions and let me tell you – the unconscious is not pretty J  so recollecting and documenting (sometimes painful) stories of all the fish we fried in the mountains (aka leadership experiential) can be quite an intense experience for many of us. It is also one of the reasons I put away the task until this weekend.

Having spent the past 48 hours writing this paper, I’m slowly beginning to see the value and power of this self-reflection exercise. Leadership is not simply about managing people and how you portray yourself but is a lot about how people perceive your actions and the way you behave. So imagine if you could study why you unconsciously do certain things and the impact these actions have on other people – you could in effect start becoming more aware and mindful of everyday situations and be able to tell why people react to you in different ways. This is why this exercise is so much more powerful than reading texts or following lectures about leadership….in this exercise we are the subjects, we are the case and indeed we are the teachers and students as well!

Until next time……

Vikas Menon​

Japanese exercise & the ICA

​We started our Economics class this morning with Prof.Ralf​ Boscheck with a Japanese exercise routine led by our very own experts – Koji & Takeo – and man did we all need the stretch! most of us had slept for 3-4 hours last night with our group Industry Analysis presentations due today and a mid-term quiz on Economics...

 

Through our various presentations, we were able to learn about the Energy, Healthcare, Food Security, Material Science and Executive Education industry covering topics as diverse as Nuclear energy, Renewables, GMO’s, Fish farming (Norwegian Salmon for Japanese Sushi!), Disease Management, Carbon Nanotubes and MBA programs! A month ago, most of us had a very different perspective on Economics and probably predicted a more quantitative approach but IMD teaching and our professors are anything but predictable! And Prof. Ralf keeps us on our toes by showing us that Economics is a lot more than pure quantitative analysis and the sessions we have had so far have been quite interesting in terms of analyzing markets, competition, monopolies, regulation, welfare, etc. albeit challenging for someone like me with no background in Economics! 

It's hard to believe that we are already in the middle of module 1 which will culiminate at the end of March. My fellow blogger Natalia spoke about class diversity "A diverse bunch" and one of my classmates today was discussing the diversity in personality among our professors…..every session is entertaining, challenging and different in every possible way and while IMD professors are some of the smartest people I have come across, they are also some of the funniest and most entertaining people!

Later in the afternoon Prof. John Walsh discussed Market Research and today’s treat was a surprise visit by senior leaders from Nielsen and company, the leaders in Market research. It’s always great to see how theoretical practices are applied in the “real world” to be able to understand the bigger picture…

I have a lot more to talk about but I am running on 4 hours of sleep and I think our hardwork on the quiz and ICA presentations must be rewarded with a quick beer at our favorite watering hole, White Horse….followed by some work on our leadership paper and hopefully some sleep later tonight!

Ciao!

Vikas Menon

Homecoming?

In my earlier blog​, I mentioned bumping into an IMD MBA alumnus and since I’ve had many of my classmates ask me who this mystery alumnus is…here’s a blog from the man himself - Today’s guest entry is by Aman Modi (IMD MBA 2012) who was one of the bloggers last year and also a great advisor to many of us during the application process. Aman always has some great insights to share and I am glad we all have the opportunity to hear from him through his guest entry! It was great seeing him and other MBA 2012 alumni on campus and I hope we get to bump into many of them again in the future!

Homecoming…?

As I drove into Lausanne on 7 February, 2013, I couldn’t help but notice that it was exactly two months since graduation. 

But for IMD, Lausanne would have been a rather unremarkable place for me and I wouldn’t even have batted an eyelid on passing by. But because of IMD, it became “home” for a year, a place where I experienced a life-changing year and formed lifelong friendships.  I saw some of those friends on Thursday night, and it felt like a homecoming of sorts.  Since I was only going to be in Lausanne for a few more hours and there were a few more friends to meet, we decided to meet for lunch, and naturally, IMD restaurant was chosen as the venue, since it is the place we all knew best, and would allow us the chance to greet a few more familiar faces.

It was odd, then, that walking on to the IMD campus was as awkward as it was.  There was nostalgia, of course, and memories came flooding back, but what made me uncomfortable was that I wasn’t sure I belonged there.

To be honest, I don’t even know if I belong on this blog anymore, and so, I must thank Vikas, Hammad and Natalia for the enormous privilege of allowing me to share my thoughts.  When I saw Vikas, I mentioned to him that walking into the dungeons was surreal and it was like seeing my ex-girlfriend be someone else’s wife.

A short word for the class for 2013 here: while it’s tough, enjoy every moment, as the year will be gone before you realise.  As I discovered, even the smallest things matter.  I saw someone else’s name on was used to be my locker (the one just to the left of Study Room 11 – you know who you are!), and I honestly don’t remember feeling so possessive about a functional item before.

Having said that, I saw a number of familiar faces; faces that I recognised and faces that recognised me back.  And as that happened and the smiles started appearing all over the place and we shared the happenings in our lives since graduation, I felt a lot more comfortable.  I sat in the cafeteria for the whole afternoon with a friend, and Mireille treated us like we had never left the place.  People kept dropping in all afternoon saying hello, and we were even offered a beer at the Friday staff drinks. 

Now, indeed, it felt like a homecoming.

Aman

IMD MBA 2012

The “I” in IMD = Intensity!

You can probably tell by our recent posts, the pace is picking up and moving from fast to INTENSE!

Earlier this week, I was pleasantly surprised when I bumped into an IMD Alumnus 2012 during lunch. I was complaining about the intensity of the program and the lack of sleep when he said “it feels so weird to be here, it’s like seeing your ex-girl friend as someone else’s wife”( and yes he was referring to the MBA program J )….so I said “you can take her back because we are exhausted” …jokes apart, I asked him if it was normal to have days when you are absolutely exhausted, surviving on 4-5 hours of sleep and hoping for the program to be over with!…….his response was that it would be surprising if we didnt have days like that! He added that it’s important that we enjoy the highs and lows of the program….the intensity, pressure and the learning that comes with it…..later that day, my wife shared the below article with me  “Why High Stress Breeds the best leaders” (Steve Tobac, Inc.)

http://www.inc.com/steve-tobak/high-stress-breeds-great-leaders.html

and it basically highlighted how today’s leaders work in environments of stress, intensity, adversity and competition and how this brings out the best in them…….yes, citing examples of successful CEO’s, Nobel prize winners and entrepreneur’s definitely helped boost my morale in addition to that conversation with the alumnus!

It’s around 11 pm and I have been up and running since 6:30am and I still have a few hours of reading to go but I’m slowly beginning to realize that I can do this and much more….and it’s the fact that 90 of us keep pushing our limits every day that gets me going and gets me convinced that “When the going gets tough, we IMD’S(aka the tough) get going!”

Best regards,

Vikas Menon​​

Gong xi fa cai

​Happy New Year everyone! What an interesting week of activities it’s been for us at IMD…..so much has happened that I find it hard to talk about just one thing…so let me try to give you a run-down of some interesting events or at least my highlights for the week

Tuesday - MBA Roundtable - Facing Globalization: A Chaotic Transition to Uncertainty?. This event organized by The Evian Group, encourages us IMD MBA students to think about our global responsibility as leaders. We had the opportunity to hear from IMD MBA 2012 students who bravely ventured to Bangladesh to see how the country has promoted Social and Economic Inclusion and to understand the socio-economic factors that are fuelling the rapid growth. We then heard from Bangladeshi entrepreneurs who in their businesses were able to combine corporate social responsibility along with profitable business by focusing on the development of underprivileged citizens and segments of society. For the first time, many of us saw how the private sector can truly make a difference without jeopardizing profitability and shareholder agendas. We also got to hear from Peter Wuffli (Chairman of the IMD Foundation and Supervisory Board, former Chairman and CEO of UBS) about his experience and efforts to help develop companies and ventures that promote social inclusion and development.

Thursday – Entrepreneurship – Prof.Benoit had a treat for us in the form of a“surprise” guest speaker - Martin Velasco, Entrepreneur & Business Angel. Mr.Velasco not only spoke about his experience as an entrepreneur and investor but also about the importance of actually contributing to a bigger cause as an entrepreneur and in his case, the cause of Healthcare.

Saturday – HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK!!! - My Chinese classmates stole the show. The class was dressed in a sea of red to celebrate the Chinese new year and at 8am we danced to Gangnam style and enjoyed the lovely personalized messages, greeting cards and candy our classmates had left for each of us at our desks. The festivities continued after class into the evening with a class dinner, karaoke, pubbing and of course no party can come to a close without us dancing our stress away until 4am!

Oh wait and did I tell you, that apart from the above, we also had 8 hours of classes everyday and an average of 2 case studies to read, 2 hours of group work most days, individual assingments, fitness, etc…..and yes, we find the time to sleep too….

I’m told it’s going to get busier and more intense but with interesting weeks and fun classmates, I say bring it on!

Best regards,

Vikas Menon​

The Operations of People

We had an entire day with Prof. Ralf today for Operations. On a given day, you tend to learn a great amount at IMD and almost all our classes are structured around the case study method. It’s amazing how much one can learn about any business discipline by analyzing case studies, brainstorming solutions to real problems and then eventually hearing what the companies ended up doing.

I’m always amazed by the new concepts we learn everyday – for instance, today we learnt about designing supply chain strategies, revising them, contemplating centralized vs. decentralized methodologies, alignment between product types and the supply chain capabilities, etc. However, today was special for me because in both the cases, there was indeed a common element – “The Operations of People”.

In the first case, a large European company faced with competition had to restructure their supply chain operations to stay profitable and had to make key decisions regarding location, sourcing and overall supply chain strategy. In the second case, another large corporation (a leader in the world of toysJ) had to reconsider their newly devised supply chain strategy (suppliers & logistics) due to major problems in the execution.

In both cases, what amazed me the most was the focus on people – In the first case, the company focused on ‘Social responsibility towards employees’ as a key decision maker even though there seemed to be better financially justifiable choices. In the second case, the leadership worked with their suppliers/partners to fix their current problems and together decided to make a difference ….so much so that they not only established record sales growth coming out of the hurdle but also won major accolades for their supply chain strategy.

The learning for me was that when you are in the thick of things surrounded by problems, it’s not always easy to stick to plan but it’s important that we don’t get blinded by temporary hiccups and try to focus on our core strengths and strategy (after all there must have been a sensible reason we started down this path in the first place, right?). The most important learning for me was that business is about people and that human capital and corporate culture are still valued as major performance drivers.

"Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy. Your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products." (Jack Welch, FT 2009)

 

A new pair of glasses

​When Prof. Ben Bryant stated that the leadership experiential would be more mentally exhausting than physically tiring, I didn’t think I was ready to buy it! To be honest, I expected the usual run of the mill leadership/team building excercises  many of us have encountered at work.

It began with a leadership class about group dynamics and about the idea of “authority” in a team. As a precursor to the class we all watched a 1950’s movie that highlighted group dynamics and dealt with leadership in a group. Does consensus really mean consensus, what does voting mean, what does 100% agreement mean, how genuine is agreement, what does a leader do in a group?

This was followed by a group exercise in our study rooms where we were video-taped and put under pressure to come to some sort of a conclusion. In one of my earlier posts “Real World Real Learning”, I was proud to brag about the diversity in nationalities, cultures, professional backgrounds and experiences that make a IMD study group but can you also imagine the complexity these "diverse perspectives" could lead to and what if you don’t put all your fish on the table? what if you are not completely honest with your team?

Don’t you worry, there is nothing like the 3 day leadership experiential to help/force/encourage you to put ALL YOUR FISH on the table…..at least this was the experience for our group. What started as a casual day with group hugs and huddles, quickly wound up into 2 days of discovery, debates, heated arguments and intense emotional dialogue between our group members. Was it comfortable all the time – Of course not! But do we now understand how we perceive each other and why people react in a certain way to our behavior or why we tend to do certain things consciously and subconsciously – Yes. Can we make sense of all of this – No!! Yet, we can begin our learning by trying to become mindful and aware of these situations and understand how we react and what effect our reactions have on others;  hence moving from autopilot to a more self-conscious mode. 

It’s not going to happen overnight and I’m still trying to make sense of all the fantastic up's and downs of last week but I can tell you – Its like getting a new pair of eye glasses – you are extremely happy that you can see so much better now but you are also equally overwhelmed with this new perspective you have! And there are times you even wish you could go back to the 'normal' or old pair to avoid the discomfort or uneasiness. 

But the initial discomfort is fading and I now realize that I am absolutely stimulated by this new perspective and ready to explore and dig even deeper!

Best regards,

Vikas Menon