If you look from a distance, we could not be more different. A marathoner from London, a young father from Zurich, a former auditor from Hong Kong, a football fiend from Japan with many years spent in sub-Saharan Africa, and, well, me.

Somehow, after our final client presentation for the International Consulting Project (ICP), seven weeks after we buckled down to achieve challenging targets in a nebulous space, I felt as though I was saying goodbye to dear friends who shared my life values.

“Remember, teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.”
–Patrick Lencioni

I suppose it began in our first meeting as a group. We set ground rules, and beyond the usual promises of timed meetings and work/life balance (though honestly the older I get the more the lines are blurred; work is life, life is work), we committed to supporting each other in the most testing of processes, the job search. I felt comfortable in the knowledge that we would have each others’ backs while juggling project tasks with impromptu interviews. Preparing for interviews is stressful enough. Within the first week, we generated trust with schedule transparency on a shared calendar. When one of us was not around, the rest would seamlessly work through other tasks and catch our colleagues up when they returned. We gradually opened up to each other, shared our concerns and aspirations, and soon enough, we felt vested in everyone’s success.

And then there was the project itself. We were tasked to create social media strategic recommendations for a medical aesthetics portfolio. While understanding the needs of the client in the initial days on-site in the UK, we were quickly given a second project because we as sharp, analytical MBA students should be able to churn through what felt like a data tsunami and generate meaningful insights for the firm. Bringing in a diverse group such as ours proved to be incredibly valuable to the client. It can bring a unique blend of optimism, can-do attitude, and external perspectives that are rarely possible for internal employees to provide, no matter how smart they are, simply because they have been at the company for many years.

We’ve had our tough moments. Not against each other, but with each other. I’ve heard of high-performing teams debating ideas and pushing each other to move beyond the obvious to the truly valuable insights. I’ve seen glimpses of this in previous teams, but more often than not, the balance of “care” and “dare” goes off quickly and risks descending into personal attacks. For the most part, our team kept discussions and disagreements centered around the benefit of the project and the client’s goals. Oftentimes we helped each other after finishing our own tasks. It wasn’t about getting individual credit. It was about making the team shine. And shine we did. Our client sponsor, a senior executive, commended our unity as a team in the final presentation. Each team member got time to showcase their work, how it fits into the overall solution and we supported each other through the Q&A session. “No one was pulling the attention towards him/herself. There was a flow within your team that is rare to see.” High praise, and so true, we just wanted to pull attention to the recommendations we had garnered over two months of painstaking research and analyses.

I thank my team for sharing their brilliance and rigor to make this project a success. It was a high point in my IMD MBA and will stay a fond memory, as we begin our dash to the finish line. I am always going to remember singing karaoke with you in a mall in Shenzhen, and our bowling night in London where Daniel was reigning champion.

Thank Yous

Professor Goutam Challagalla, for nudging us along the right digital marketing path, for aligning and reassuring us when things got disorienting. You’ve been an amazing mentor and coach. Angelina, for being stoic and persistent and always smiling despite taking on the daunting role of treasurer. Daniel, for your attention to detail, your kind nature and your willingness and flexibility in adding value to all parts of the project. Maisie, for always being calm under pressure, embracing evolving workstreams, and for bringing your UK expertise to the project. Satoshi, for steadfastly getting through to the core of any matter, for your sincerity to your work, your honesty, and openness.

It has been an honor, and I am so excited to see the amazing things we will accomplish in the years ahead. And for our fondue night next week 🙂

Yours in nostalgia,

Surbhi

“It is exactly what we expected from this project. On top of that, the practical action plans appended with the business models will help us to move forward with the pilot phase”, were the appreciative closing words from our ICP client during the final presentation.

Yet, the journey to get there was everything but an easy walk.

Mid-October, the project seemed to be as dismal as the rainy days in Lausanne. It is only during the first presentation, the client and we concurred on the final project scope.  To make things worse, our team dynamics were confidently entrenched in the so-called “storming” phase, which is, according to the theory, the much-needed step before reaching the “performing” phase of teamwork …. The five of us, totaling 43 years of cumulative work experience in various industries, got stuck for days. After designing a bunch of occult graphs (our NDA, but also our pride, prevent us to disclose those here), the most serious man of the team started self-mockery: “We’d better prepare some AEDs for next presentation. Either the client or our faculty may need them.”

However, thanks to the experiences acquired during this year, every one of us knew how to navigate this situation. Rounds of argument shaped our prototypes of new business models. Following the tradition of leadership streams, we took frequent feedback sessions which helped the team moving out of the storming stage. Meanwhile, continuous and subtle guidance from faculty coach, Professor Ralf Seifert, helped us to maintain ICP on the right track. Nemawashi, newly taught in the ICP preparing sessions, was applied to build consensus between clients and us (Yes, we avoided using AED during client meetings).

When looking back at the ICP journey, we think our team performed like the sailors of Odysseus, confronting a series of unknows and challenges. Everyone experienced frustration, confusion, and pressure. The support and specific expertise from each other made the team stronger, and hence we finally passed the whirlpool and sailed to the destination.

Soon, we will leave the IMD campus and re-enter into the real world – real jobs as well as real life. Like the ICP, the only certain thing in our future life is uncertainty. But we will not freak out. We have experienced ICP. And more importantly, we have ICP teammates who are friends and secure bases for the future.

Finally, thank you to Vivekanand Pandey and Olivier De Liedekerke. Their commitment and optimism are the true inspiration for our ICP. The team’s success would not be possible without their contribution (as well as tolerance on my demand for MECE).

Chaoyi

 

What lovely days…

“What lovely days we had, walking to school, chatting with classmates every morning in Lausanne!” said Peter. I didn’t think about that until he said so, but yes, I also feel a little homesick. We are now in Abu Dhabi and commute by car from our hotel to the office because it is still too hot and sticky here to walk outside, even in October. Maybe that’s the reason we miss our beautiful walk to IMD.

Our team is in the UAE (Abu Dhabi and Dubai) for the full seven weeks of our International Consulting Project (ICP), engaging in retail strategy in a financial industry. The ICP is comprehensive learning opportunity where we leverage what we have learned over the year to contribute to the client project.

Impactful Classes

Structured Thinking helped us to analyze the company issues using a logic tree, taking care of MECEness: what was the issue, why we needed to think of it, how we would solve it, etc.

Change Management, taught us how to transform an organization. Of particular help, was the simulation exercise we did, where we had to recognise the different perspectives of each stakeholder in the company. We’ve had a lot of interviews with internal stakeholders to map the current situation: heads of each product, Relationship Management, and functional teams such as Marketing or Digital. Once we could see the situation objectively, we followed the Scope of Work and listened to the opinion of the project owner, so that we could suggest a tangible plan for the final presentation.

High Performance Teams, classes that fell under the Leadership stream, helped our team to work collaboratively and deliver an innovative result from the multiple perspectives.

Our team is diverse team of five: a South African from a start-up, a Polish from a consulting firm, a Portuguese from an investment bank, a Russian from a private equity fund, and a Japanese from a trading and investing company. Each colleague has different viewpoint, so every moment we discuss takes a certain amount of time and patience, before the long but constructive discussions help us to reach the best joint idea.

I need to add one more comment. We have also been enjoying some sight-seeing such as Louvre museum, Grand mosque, Burj Khalifa, etc. and playing squash with our teammates! I truly appreciate this precious experience and chance to learn more about the cultural difference and team dynamics. If I had not had this opportunity, I might not have had the chance to come to the Middle East. In the future, I’ll be thinking “What lovely days we had working in the UAE” …

Atsushi