We live in a noisy world. Increasingly in our lives there seems to be less time for a quiet moment of reflection. According to the Greek tragedist, Euripides, Silence is true wisdom’s best reply, yet it appears that the contemporary world is one where noise prevails and where the loudest is the carrier of the truth. Avatronics is a courageous startup company based in Lausanne. Their aim is to introduce predictive active noise cancellation in the communication and media reproduction devices industry. Continue reading “AVAtronics Start Up”
Spring is here!
Spring has arrived, the sun is out and summer is on it’s way!
Dare and Care
The Courage to Act is the memoirs of Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Research from 2006 to 2014. The book records how a Princeton professor changed himself to become a leader of the global financial market and acted with courage to fight crises. Continue reading “Dare and Care”
Leadership petri-dish
Featured image: The MBA 2018 class with George Kohlrieser
Last year when I was accepted into the IMD MBA program, I received a welcome book, from the MBA office , called “Hostage at the Table” written by George Kohlrieser. Besides having a tremendous influence over me at that time, book had a certain symbolic meaning to me. I was choosing not to be hostage to a traditional career path by embarking on the MBA program. Little did I know that I’d be learning from the man himself for an intense and enjoyable couple of days.
Module 2 kicked off with a bang. We had Richard Hahlo, a stage actor teaching us how to deliver a message and own the stage. We had Ina Toegel teaching us the importance of shared leadership and bonding in high performance teams. Learning from her research on the Beatles and their complementary leadership styles was fascinating. We had another business case protagonist come over to deliver Change Management 101 disguised as an accounting case.
And to cap it all, we had 2 fantastic days with George Kohlrieser. George took us on a roller coaster ride to discover our true motivations, griefs, fears and joys. All throughout those 2 days, we learnt how to let go, understand the other person and lead with an appropriate mix of caring and daring. We learnt that conflicts are something that as leaders we should learn to like. We teamed up several times with our classmates, practicing effective negotiation and bonding with them in the process. At the end of it all, the whole class came out as a tighter unit and a much more emotionally aware bunch.
We were also assigned a new Module 2 team and we chose our own innovation team for the “Innovation Challenge” next week. In the middle of this all, we also managed to squeeze in sometime with a brand new country analysis team for Economics. In essence, the last two weeks were spent working with 4 different teams. Although constraining in time, this opportunity has provided us with a training ground to apply newly learnt leadership concepts and experiment with different leadership styles.
Its been enjoyable transitioning from a content rich Module 1 to a petri-dish for leadership these past few weeks. Can’t wait for a deep dive into innovation next week.
Module 2 Group (Shingo, Mathieu, Candice, Maksim, Marco and I)
Innovation Group (Joyce, Rafael, Oriane and I)
A tale about geese and salt
André Cepêda from MBA 2018 class talks about his transformation throughout the IMD journey so far. Featured image of the scenic expanse of Itacoatiara beach from his beloved home city of Niterói, Rio de Janeiro.
The path down the hill of Itacoatiara’s beach led me back to the salty waters where my ordinary worries had been drifting harmlessly since my first dive in the morning. The corruption and violence that pervades my beloved Rio de Janeiro would – only for a minute – be diluted in a glass of cold mate tea, instead of in an everyday that can no longer be swallowed. An ancient indigenous legend says that sharing the mate herb spreads the good among neighbors. “Let there be mate” – I thought, focusing my eyes on the case. The interview would happen in a couple of days. Professional development, for outsiders. In my heart, though, a primal drive to fence more nurturing soils to the family I wanted to grow. Everything I love would soon be left behind, but for the moment, Itacoa’s sunset was still above… still illuminating my way back home.
“It’s the lack of salt” – I wondered, floating on Lake Geneva. I had just left my psychoanalysis session, and the bubbling insights on my mind refused to be washed away, preventing me to dive deeper. Or maybe I went deep enough already. The last days were all about group work. Supercharged, round the clock, with a team as talented as diverse: a Swiss-made experience to tear one apart. Suddenly I sink, inasmuch as an unknown piece of my personality arises to my consciousness.
How could I have ignored it for so long? Am I missing something else? How much further could I have gone, had I known before? Do I still have time? The gloomy waters around answered silently… and nearly drowned, I followed that light to the other side.
A goose squawked, waking me up. Am I still alive? I opened my eyes. The light was still there, and I recognized Itacoa’s sun shining timidly above me. Five hours late and tired from the trip, it looked just like Lausanne’s. Gosh, it was Lausanne’s sun. It doesn’t matter. it dredged me from the lake humbler and wiser, and I felt in love with it. I came to the IMD MBA program to become a better leader, and what I found would enlighten new ways across every dimension of my life
The video below provides a glimpse of Rio’s natural beauty and peek into André’s experience
Fred’s testimony on a start-up project: Lighter. Better. Faster. Smaller.
When designing aircraft components, weight and size matter. On your last flight, you might have noticed flaps moving up and down on the wings. And hopefully at some point prior to hitting the runway, the landing gear was extended. What makes these critical parts move are actuators, which take information from control systems and provide the required force that acts on the part. Everything matters in an aircraft; a reduction in weight directly impacts fuel efficiency and a reduction in size can allow for more design flexibility. The need for a lightweight actuator in this field inspired Komp-Act, a local Swiss startup firm, to design a new solution.
By the time Komp-Act CEO Salvatore DeBenedictis teamed up with my IMD MBA Startup Project team, he had a prototype and a strategy to take his new proprietary technology to the market, starting with owners of industrial machines, for which their use is ubiquitous.
I am on a team with five other IMD MBA students. We are privileged to work with Komp-Act. We are diverse, representing six countries on four continents. Our professional backgrounds include law, finance, engineering, and consulting.
The task is to perform both data-driven and hands-on market research and analysis, among other things, based on which Komp-Act will directly take action and benefit. The process has been fun, challenging, and a great learning experience. We have been adding value to Komp-Act by bringing insights from experienced executives of the largest companies in the market. Yet the job involves much more, and the end-goal is to translate the insights into an actionable and pragmatic go-to-market plan, create tools to support the companies in further ventures and, perhaps, help the team in commercial prospects.
Dedication to this project has its perks, most notably, a visit to the electric motors laboratory at EPFL, the astute research institute whose high-tech Lausanne campus includes a concentration of varied knowledge, employs a “latest thinking” approach, and is an incubator for successful companies. There, we met the esteemed Prof. Marcel Jufer, inventor of a Swiss hyperloop technology development. He is a co-founder and an active member of Komp-Act’s development and management teams.
Komp-Act has recently filed for their patent on the technology. We look forward to continuing our work with the firm through May to help them take off full-throttle!
Fred Farella on behalf of Group 9
More about the Swiss hyperloop project can be found here: https://hyperloop.epfl.ch/team.html
IMD MBA “Create our Future” Challenge
The admissions team is gearing up for an exciting new admissions event in Mumbai, India.
We’ve been brainstorming with alumni, participants, faculty and leadership coaches to come up with a unique event to attract the very best in an area that is home to such a strong pool of talented professionals.
Applicants will need to complete and submit an event-specific application by May 1st and our admissions team will then pre-select those who will be invited to take part in a one-day challenge. A chance to brainstorm on how society could and should address some of its most pressing challenges. Those who make the most impact, who contribute most to the idea generation and who demonstrate leadership and potential for greatness will be shortlisted by our selection team.
The top applicant will be awarded a CHF 40,000 scholarship for the IMD MBA Program, up to four others will be offered a place in the IMD MBA class of 2019.
We’re really looking forward to being inspired by the innovative thinking of future-oriented optimists and their ideas.
The “Create our Future” Challenge will take place in Mumbai on 20th May with networking the night before. Winners will be announced on 21st.
Suzy
P.S. More details can be found on our Events page if you’re interested!
