Delivery and Celebration

It has been a long and intense day. I just made it back after the latino party arranged by all our South and Central American classmates. It was an evening full of good food, home made caipirinhas, great rhythm, swinging hips and most of all good fun! Thanks to all the Latinos for a great evening!!

Today was also the phase 1 delivery of our ICP project to our client. We have been over the presentation again and again this week and today was no different in that respect. Our project is somewhat different from the rest as our client is not a company, but last year's MBA class represented by a panel of 5-6 people. We felt that the presentation went well and that we are on track before we move into the next phase, albeit there still is tons of work awaiting us there.

The MBA classes of 2003 and 2008 are having their reunions in Lausanne this weekend. We will use this opportunity to have the final football match between the 2008 and 2009 classes. It will be a match of epic proportions. Each team has won a match each, so this third and last match is of the utmost importance. I will unfortunately be missing it as I in a few hours will be heading out on a weekend motorbike ride arranged by IMD staff member Christian Steiger. We will be going around the lake and into France. I have been looking forward to this trip for weeks. I can wait to cruise through the valleys and climb the mountain passes.


Misayo Matsumoto (Japan) and Albert Schultz (Germany) enjoying South American food and a Mexican beer.


Chuks and Uche showed their daughter Isabella for the first time. Isabella was born only hours before Chuks got on the plan to South Africa with the rest of the class. Here they are flanked by Wouter Naessens (Belgium) and Natalie. Wouter and Natalie got married during the summer vacation.


So far this years IMD class have delivered nine babies and there is more on the way!



The partners entertained with a Brazilian dance.



Tonight was the birthday of Manisha Mediratta. According to Mexican traditions the birthday 'child' gets the first hit at a socalled pinata filled with candy. The only catch is that you have to hit it blindfolded. Alejandro Salcedo (Mexico) gives instructions to Manisha.

Rasmus Figenschou (Norway) ended up giving the Pinata the final blow with one of the tubes used for recycling paper cups. Then there was candy for everyone.

Ryo Abe (Japan), Oren Yehudai (Israel), Joost Mackor (The Netherlands), Yuri Vasilkov (Russia) and Valeria Pavlyukovskaya (Russia) under the empty Pinata

Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons, that was the name of a very popular game when I was a child. You could get it both as a role play and a computer game. Somehow those words are coming back to life, but with a very different meaning.

The dungeons are the dungeons, nothing new about that. Generations of IMD students have shed their blood, sweat and tears down there. And it is all still there, at least it smells that way some times. :-) We are spending the whole day in study room 7 these days, trying to squeeze some of all the ambiguity out of our ICP project on Street Children in Nairobi. We have built up a frame work to help us understand how NGOs work and we have now started calling other NGOs to plot them into the framework and get reference points. That way we can much better understand how our organization, Koinonia, operates. These days we even have some additional help as Daniel Brosseau from last years class helps us fill in the framework. Daniel spent six weeks with Koinonia back in April and May, so he has a lot of the information we need. Now that we have created the framework and understand the NGO 'industry' better, it has become much easier to understand the situation in Koinonia. When first introduced to the project in May it seemed a bit overwhelming.


And what about the Dragons? Well, I was talking about our internal ones. Such as the fear of needles. Here we are yesterday getting our vaccinations for Kenya. Gerald takes it pretty easy, though.


We kept the doctor busy for more than an hour. It was no easy task to put together the vaccination 'menu' for a Malaysian, a Romanian/Israeli and a Dane that were going to Kenya. In usual Swiss style it all worked like clockwork, though, but came with a steep price tag.



It is late August and 33 degrees in Lausanne. The picture is even taken at 5 in the afternoon, so it has undoubtedly been even warmer earlier in the day.

Thorsten

Laptop dating

Have you ever heard about the concept of laptop dating? I didn't think so. If you type 'Define: laptop dating' into the Google search window you will get the answer 'No definitions were found for laptop dating'. Wikipedia cannot help you either.

The concept of laptop dating was discovered and named by my girlfriend and I. Over the last two years we have developed and refined it to an art form. It is very simple, you have probably tried it already. You take two very people that have a lot of work to do, but who still would like to spend time together. You sit them down on the sofa, feet on the ground (or on the table) and then you just let them work. From time to time they can hold hands or ask short questions, they take turns at getting up for drinks and whoever gets hungry first gets up and cooks. Simple and efficient, pathetic and beautiful. Pathetic because your body has been reduced to something that only is there to carry your head and your hands around and beautiful because it is a means to survive. Togetherness for modern day students.


I've spent the weekend in Genoa, Italy, where my girlfriend now lives. It was her birthday, so we went out to celebrate with a dinner, but other than that we just laptop dated. She is both working and studying, so with two students in the couple this has become our way of coping. Albeit it has its charm and despite that we still can laugh at it, then we can't wait for it to be over.

Her parents were there as well, so I was welcomed with Spanish tortilla and croquettas, my favorite Spanish food. I even got some to bring home, but I have eaten them already. They were just too good!

The train ride between Lausanne and Genoa is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. It zig-zags its way between lakes and mountains, through tunnels and over bridges for four hours straight. The Italian part of the trip is even more beautiful than the Swiss part, which I didn't think was possible. You should give it a try if you are in the neighborhood one day.

Two days with Uncle Ralf

It has been two very intense days with Uncle Ralf, a.k.a Professor Ralf Boscheck. We have been working on setting up a framework for this somewhat peculiar 'industry' called 'NGOs' or more specifically 'Human Aid organizations dealing with street children'. Based on what we have learned so far we have defined the 'market', the 'competitors' and so forth. As with businesses we need to look at how the money gets in and how it is spent, but that is also the end of the similarities. For example, for a Human Aid organization it is not the 'customers', i.e. the street children, that pays for the services, but instead it is the donors who often have a different aim than the children.

On the 'operational' side we are looking at how different visions affects the choices an organization must make: 'Do you want to give as many children as possible the minimum that is required for them to move on with their lives' OR 'Do you want to create a heaven for a relatively small number of children, that then gets all the help you can provide'. Your brain will tell you that the first option is better, your heart will go for the second option if you are in Kenya where it all is happening. If there is one thing that has become clear so far, then it is that this project will be a battle against the dilemma of balancing brain and heart. The people that work in these types of organizations are there because of their good hearts, so we must be very careful not to come with a super rational mindset.

Ralf is a fountain of knowledge and a Duracell rabbit with new batteries. We worked full days, but frequently and intentionally sidetracked into other interesting discussion. He never ran out of energy. It is fascinating to hear these views and have a person of his caliber one-on-one (or one-on-five). He loves to provoke, to rattle the cage and see what comes out. Unless you are really trained and used to academic or political debates, it can be very hard to keep up, though. Nevertheless, it has been a couple of incredibly insightful days that drained me for every drop of energy I had. I have been sleeping very well the last couple of nights. And so I will tonight!

Sov godt!

Perfect morning

It is the perfect morning on my balcony. Birds singing, a cup of coffee on the table, the air still cool, no noise from the road because it is Saturday, feet up, laptop in my lap, ready to write.

It has been a great week. Presentation technique, Advanced Finance and Negotiation skills. All of it very relevant, all of it very well taught. There are naturally different preferences and perceptions by the people in the class, but to me the Negotiations workshop stood out. It is probably the best training I have received in my life! Ted, Tom and Eric from CM Partners led us through 'The ladder of inference' and 'The Strategic Compass', the most important tools when negotiating. Simple, but very effective. The sessions were illustrated with rich examples and role plays played out in front of us.

All three of them have done lots negotiations at the top-top level, between governments, between major international corporations and in hostage negotiation situations. It was incredible to see how much they were in control of every situation. They would put the heat on each other in the role plays, but still they would evade the tough questions gracefully and redirect the conversation to where they wanted it to go. Impressive, very very impressive.

I have always thought that being a professional negotiator was someone doing hostage negotiations, and that mostly in Hollywood, but now I see how these gentlemen and their skills are the make or break of a deal, also in a business setting. Our personal impact will be enormous, if we can just do a fraction of what they can.

There was an incredible aura around these gentlemen. You had a feeling of being around someone that was absolutely world class in their field, someone who possessed an enormous natural authority and who was so much in control in the situation that you felt they could get you to do anything. In the words of classmate Simon Brunner (Switzerland): 'Could you imagine negotiating you salary with these guys? You would end up paying to go to work!'

Thorsten

What does sun look like for a whale?

What does the sun look like for a whale?

This week the class divided in three. One group does Presentation Skills, another is working on their Negotiation Skills and the last is learning Advanced Finance. Each course is two days and then we swap. That makes the usual six day week.

I have been working on my presentation skills this first week. The course is run by the one-man army Steve Knight. Journalist by training and broadcaster by heart Steve has done broadcasting for many different people and institutions, amongst others the British Forces in Gibraltar and The Discovery Channel. The course in itself was excellent, but the presentations that people gave were intriguing themselves despite that the content was not the main aim. The course started with everyone delivering a one-minute presentation about a subject they were passionate about. I did my speech on motor biking in the Swiss mountains. The subjects otherwise included subjects such as
- making omelet with passion (courtesy of Peter Griesmayr, Germany),
- getting married on Bali with your whole family around you (Sylvain Cabalery, France),
- making a real Brazilian barbeque (Bruno Portnoi, Brazil),
- taking time to enjoy the local beverages when you visit new places (Ryo Abe, Japan),
- seeing the sun from the point of view of a whale (scuba diving) (Vladimir Korobkin, Russia) and several others.
Allegedly Brad Moldin (US) did a speech on the subject of 'Bullshit'. Unfortunately, I did not hear it myself, so I will have to get him to repeat it at the White Horse one of these days.

Second and third round presentations were done in groups and again included intriguing subjects such as 'France and the burka' and 'Swiss Banking secrecy laws under pressure'. Steve was cheering us along in his positive and energetic way, while improving the way we put the message across:
- 'Don't chase around like a tiger in a cage',
- 'You are standing like you are about to start a gun fight',
- 'Keep eye contact with a person in the audience for 5 to 8 words at a time',
- 'Don't turn your back to the audience, do the weather man instead',
- 'Slow down!'
- 'Speed up!'

It may sound harsh, but it was done in a very positive atmosphere and I think we all needed to hear these things. We have probably heard most of it before, but you forget once you are in front of the crowd and your heart starting pumping faster and your hands get sweaty. Of course everything was video taped for us to review.

From the present to the future

It has been a relatively quiet weekend with beautiful weather and friends visiting. Still I have had quite a bit to do, so I have not really been the good host that I would like to be. I have been blessed with very understanding friends, though, and I have apparently managed to lower their expectations to a level, where it is not a problem that I am not much around. They just use my place as a base and stroll around Lausanne or drive around Switzerland on their own. It is great we can work it out that way!

Thinking back on the first week of 'part 2' of the IMD program, the thing that strikes me the most is the mental switch from worrying about the present to worrying about the future. It used to be the everyday stress of the class that would keep us pre-occupied. Now it is the search for our dream. CVs and cover letters go out by the dozen and interviews are being planned both on-campus and away. It is now that the game starts, the game that Career Services have been warming us up for the past six months.


Professor Jean Pierre Jeannet (standing far right) took us through four cases on world class football teams and emphasized the many things that modern business leaders can learn from these teams. To mark the event some wore the team jerseys of their own favorite football teams.

Global mindsets

We have had a relatively soft landing after South Africa. We have been in the class room all week with Professors Cyril Bouquet and Jean Pierre Jeannet working through the subject of 'Managing within global companies'. We have been through two cases each day that have stressed the importance of approaching problems with a global mindset in today's world of business. Today we had a really interesting case about the Swiss America's Cup team, Alinghi. It was the story about how they in a period of 37 months build both a team and a boat in landlocked Switzerland and moved it all to New Zealand to bring back the most prestigious trophy in the world of sailing.

Most of all the case was an example of how much building a high performing sports team resembles building a high performing business team. Tomorrow, we will continue down the same road with cases on Manchester United, Juventus, Real Madrid and Ajax Amsterdam. I will be wearing my AaB jersey tomorrow. Never heard about AaB? I don't blame you. It is my club in Denmark.

I have my apartment full of guests this weekend. 5 of them, actually, if you include my girlfriend. They have chosen the perfect time to come. I took this picture when I was out biking in the vineyards east of Lausanne the other day. The picture is taken with my phone and does not at all justify the amazing colors; the vineyards are completely green and the lake has a very deep blue color. It is an absolutely breath taking view. It is equally breath taking trying to climb these hills by bike. Eventually I had to give up and walk. Anyway, if you have been considering visiting some of you friends in Lausanne, NOW is the time to do it. I am afraid that in a months or two nature will start preparing its winter coat again.

Bye Bye Mandela

Old man, you did well.

The country that you have fought for is amazing and the direction in which you have sent it brings more than just hope - it brings firm belief – that a glorious future awaits South Africa.

Over the past two weeks we have visited the sites that tell the story of South Africa, the Apartheid Museum, the Hector Pieterson Museum for the Soweto uprising and your own house, which – whether you like it or not – has become yet another symbol of freedom and the fight that it took to get it. We have lived in fancy Sandton City with its shopping malls and posh hotels that few can afford. We have seen the unfortunate souls in townships and squatter camps and looked the HIV children of Cotlands in the eyes. Despite the sad sad circumstances, we saw nothing but big bright smiles. We were welcomed by thousands of singing, dancing and smiling souls in Soweto’s Grace Bible Church and we saw the roots of the country - its amazing nature and wildlife - in Pilanesburg National Park.

Not least, we have worked closely with the entrepreneurs of South Africa who produce anything and everything from diamonds and tractors to beds and hydraulic fittings. As much as soldiers and politicians are the heroes of the past, these passionate business men and women are the heroes of the future. They are the ones that will bring South Africa to the next level. We were told the huge success story of MTN, Africa’s first true multinational company, and we know that many more will follow.

When asked to define South African leadership my team quickly agreed on the three words: Forgiveness, inclusiveness and optimism. Forgiveness for the pain of the past, inclusiveness of all races, religions and colours in the prospects for the future and an incredible and forceful optimism that cannot be held back.

You will show them all of this in the FIFA world cup next year, where you have invited the whole world to your home. We know that you are preparing hard and we know that will do great. Just be yourself.

See you soon!