Wk4, Day 4 (n-1) @ Harvard Business School: Compressed zip file....

Snow snow then, snow snow now !!

About four weeks ago, Sandy storm had paralyzed north east America while I was hopping from city to city to finally land into a snow covered white city of Boston. It would seem that in preparation of our imminent departure tomorrow, nature has conspired again to bid interim farewell. How else, would you explain the Winter Storm Warning in Massachusetts, that coincides to the hour - of our GMP program. (Friday 1pm) !! This is amazing precision work. If you would look at the two images - taken four weeks apart, (other than the depth of snow) it would appear, not much changed... 

And we lived a life time in between !! 

Image #1:  on the day of arrival

Image #2: on the penultimate day - snow flakes still coming down.

Counting the hours....

Baker hall is not sleeping tonight... As I write this blog, well past the midnight, doors are opening and closing - lot of discussion in the living rooms - ofcourse.. tonight is the last night in this module - before we break for about 4 weeks.

We had our interim (ya it's interim, because we will be back soon) send-off reception tonight, and as the rounds of liquor progressed, so did the rounds of toasts across the room. Every few minutes, we had someone standing up proposing a toast - to a fellow participant, who would be married by the time he is back, to women's day, to friends around and to HBS world at such, elements of earth, joy of life and the works. Heck, we even had a toast for "Show me the money" :) A class joke, that most participants of GMP14, will identify with.

In the last couple of days, we have been attending several lectures that will potentially help us in 're-entering' our normal lives for the coming four weeks. One of the elements - that is quite natural is for us to prepare, what would be our 30 second elevator speech - when it comes to answering the question "So, what did you learn at HBS".

Here are abridged versions of some of the quotes I got over the cocktail reception tonight.

"It is a great experience to work in a diverse environment"

"It has shown me how to see life in a new perspective"

"I learnt how to lead smart people"

.. and so on and so forth.

The one, that I really resonated with, went something like this.

"It feels like we have been given a zip folder of knowledge, we now need to uncompress it and put it to practice". I couldn't have articulated it better... (This came from Hakan Şahin, a fellow participant from Istanbul, now in Bulgaria). It really feels like, we are taking with ourselves a trove of treasured thoughts, ideas, concepts. It now needs to be applied to real world, to derive the full benefits.

Key learnings

1. Normally operational efficiency is the mantra. But too much focus on operational efficiency can drive out Innovation.

2. Exit clause is one of the key items, to conclude when entering into a JV. I would extend the same to a long term service contract as well. (Uggh.... it almost sounds like a pre-nupital agreement)

3. Whatever be the mean age group, whatever be the average designation - the volume of voices in a large gathering is directly proportional to the rounds of liquor that has already flown through !!

Alok