Happy Orthodox Easter everyone! Thank you to my Greek and Romanian classmates for enlightening me about their Easter celebrations!
I was talking to a friend from home today and he was surprised to hear that I have my exams again in a week from now…it feels like the previous integrative exercise finished only yesterday and we received our previous exams results barely 2 weeks ago!
And now, here we are juggling the initial ICP meetings, our Economics presentations for the week, the Economics quiz, our leadership paper which was due today, the usual finance assignments and an OP-ED for the GPE class on May 19……oh yes, did I forget to mention the minor detail about the E X A M S starting on May 13 ending with the two day integrative exercise on May 16 and May 17!! Things always move at lightning speed at IMD and we are finally beginning to accept that fact of life and deal with it…
When I met with IMD alumni last year, a few of them mentioned that the IMD experience helps you think about “how you want to spend the rest of your life?” and hence, they said that it was typical to find a lot of IMD grads focused on their career growth for the first few years post -graduation and having highly progressive careers but then quickly ‘’dropping off the grid”…don’t get me wrong, IMD has a fair share of famous leaders and CEO’s who were once IMD MBA students like us….however, for a vast majority, it seemed like at some point, they asked themselves how they wanted to lead their life’s and if career growth/work was the only thing that motivated them…they sought out a work life balance and decided to live their dreams sooner than later rather than life on the “deferred life plan” (i.e –“ Once I have enough money or a certain role in my career, I will do what I have always wanted to do”)…anyways, my point is this intense schedule at IMD sometimes makes me wonder if this is how I would want to live my life in the future…because it’s a fact that becoming a senior leader in the corporate environment is demanding and will require time away from the family, time away from doing what we enjoy doing...and at what cost does all this career growth come?
“Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and integrity. And you're keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls...are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.” – James Patterson
Enjoy your week!
Vikas Menon
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