The end of Cloud #9

This morning we were back in the dungeons and back in our old study groups for one last time. The purpose was to give each other feedback on our behavior the past three months. The basis of the discussion was an online survey that asks you to rank both yourself and each individual in your group. The result gives you a picture of how you see yourself compared to how your group sees you. I guess that it is no surprise that we all tend to rank ourselves higher than our peers rank us, but what is really interesting is to learn where the big gaps are, the so called 'blind spots'. This also include unknown strengths, meaning areas where your peers actually thinks higher of you than you do of yourself.

It is amazing to see what a transformation 'The Group formerly known as Cloud #9' has gone through the past three months. I cannot help smiling when I think back at our first group assignment. We were all so intensely trying to convince each other with hard facts and loud arguments. Within minutes the group split into pieces: Two people were heavily debating and writing on one white board, another person was writing on the white board on the other side of the room, one person was eagerly drawing his thoughts on the flip chart, two people were on the laptop looking into the databases and the last two were sitting behind looking somewhat lost. None of this was coordinated and little of it was ever used in the final solution.

Three months later we are sitting around the table again. We take turns at speaking. The tone is direct but respectful. We explore the differences in our most fundamental beliefs but we never judge. I believe we have had some very unique challenges to bridge and I believe we have every reason to be proud of the way we have handled it. Although there has been very intense moments, we have always had the courage to continue the talk. Along the way we have produced excellent results and some that were less excellent. Much have been learned from analyzing these ups and downs.

We are only one week into the new study groups, but it has already given us a lot of perspective on the old group. I don't think anyone ever forgets their first IMD study group. I for sure will not.


Today's Career Service workshop on writing motivating letters was partly held outside. Here it is (left-to-right) Andres Akamine [Peruvian], Jodie Roussell [American], Chuks Onunkwo [Nigerian] and Slava Raykov [Russian] giving each other feedback on their work.


My own workgroup for the afternoon consisted of Johan Jansén-Storbacka [Swedish/Finnish], Cathinka Scheie [Norwegian], Fadi Sbaiti [Lebanon/USA], Ilya Syshchikov [Russian].



Back: Stefano Giussani [Italian], Stelious Vytogiannis [Greek]
Front: Seif Sieshakly [Saudi Arabian/German], Misayo Matsumoto [Japan], Kornelius Thimm [Germany]