Monday, October 13, 2014
Good morning,
I recently made the decision to go back to business school to get may MBA. I interviewed with several schools and heard a lot of the same about the quality of the professors, how the classes were taught, what differentiates the school from others, etc. Important to me was also the ranking of the school, the school’s reputation, location and cost. The one thing that the school I choose kept expressing to me during the interview process, was how strong and impressive the quality of the students, my peers I would be attending with were, and how important that would be to me throughout my time there. I really didn’t grab on to the “why” of it at the time.
We have spent the last two weeks heads down studying for mid terms, and the conversations and emails begin. In the hallways at break “hey who wants to get together later to study” emails “sending study guides for midterms to classmates in case you can use the help”. And getting together to study is helping each other learn where you might be stuck, not sitting in silence studying; and sending study guides is sending templates that were developed to help you learn problems and formulas so that you get the answers and achieve your goal.
They call this “we share because we care”. What a concept, huh?
I have been in the business world for a lot of years, a lot, and I was thinking as I was beginning to write my MMC, how great it would be if our business would adapt this concept. We are competitive and most times very selfish. So maybe today, for one day, it can be easy to adapt a “we share because we care day”. Well, it is a holiday and a lot of your peers will be out, so give it a try!
So, at Southern Methodist University (SMU), where I chose to get my MBA, we may not have a great football team (ok, we may not have a football team at all!), but we are all looking forward to basketball season. We have a culture of professionals in the Executive MBA class that stand above the rest.
They want their success to depend on their classmate’s success. That’s a win/win for everyone!