Football finale

I had a Friday that was quite unusual. I got up at 3.30 in the morning to get on a 4.20 train to Geneva in order to reach the 6.30 EasyJet flight to Brussels. As I was sitting there waiting at the gate, feeling sorry for myself for being awake as such inhuman hours Fill Niu [China] from the class walked in. He had been up at the same time, been on the same train and was going on the same flight. He looked as fresh as he always does, so there went my excuse for pitying myself.

We slept all the way to Brussels and a little before 8, the time we normally walk into the classroom, we were walking out of Brussels Airport. Fill was picked up by the company he was visiting and I took the train to Antwerp, where I had two meetings. Mid afternoon, I got on the train to Rotterdam for another meeting in a café right next to the Rotterdam train station. Two hours later I was back in the train, now heading towards Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. Everything was going according to whatever little plans I had made......until a passenger on the train got sick and had to be picked up by an ambulance. That took 30 minutes and now time suddenly was in short supply! I ran through the airport and made it to the gate just as they started to board. Back to Geneva, on the train back to Lausanne and at 00.30 I was finally home again. A nice 21 hour work day, good meetings and I avoided staying overnight. It is great to have these high-pace high-energy days from time to time..... as long as you get your rest in between.

Saturday and Sunday have been passing at a much lower pace. More and more signs of the closing of our MBA experience is starting to appear. One of them is the arrival of parents, brothers and sisters that are coming in for the graduation on 8. December.

Today was the last round of football in Parc de Milan. Our Sunday morning football is one of the things that I will miss the most. There were weeks - particularly during the building blocks - where is was the only thing that kept me going, the only short-term reward I had in sight to get through the week.

There was a great show of people today, so we were playing 11-on-11 or something like that. After the game our fearless and tireless football captain of the year, Joost Mackor, had invited us all out for a beer. The Sportsbar was closed, so we ended up at the White Horse, having beers and burgers. The team presented Joost with a picture of the silver-medal-winning MBAT team duly signed by the team members. Both on and off the track Joost has been the driving force behind the team. Thanks Joost, from all of us!!

Thorsten

We had a great game today!


Today's orange team. It is Yury's dad in the back with Yury's daughter.


Sometimes you can shake a camera so much that the picture actually becomes good. I was just about to delete this picture when it occurred to me that it somehow pictures a memory. The blurred but good memory that our Parc-de-Milan days eventually will become.

Of course this diary entry must finish with the team's grand achievement.
The MBAT 2009 Silver medal, Paris 9 May 2009.

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.

Reunion and Rematch

If you thought things would slow down after we had the last class on Friday, think again. At least it has not been the case so far.


Saturday morning was kicked off with a Career Services session where four alumni told the stories about their job search and answered questions from the class. From left it is Patrick Wang (MBA2007), OJ Skjelten (MBA2007), Mathieu Pointeau (MBA2008) and Thomas Buus (MBA2007). The overall message of their experiences were: 'Be focused and be prepared!'

The afternoon was spent doing mock-up interviews with a number of alumni who had volunteered to act as interviewers. The aim was to practise our skills of being interviewed and get some feedback, so we know what to improve in the future. And so we did! I had my interview with Dr. Peter Walti from the MBA class of 1979! Although his class is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, Dr. Walti still attends the interviewing session every year. That is the commitment of the IMD network.



Until this point we had occasionally met alumni or had contacted them using the alumni database in connection with our startup projects, but we had as such not really felt the proclaimed strength of the alumni network. That changed completely Saturday evening, where the school hosted a networking event for our class to meet the alumni. More than 200 people showed up! Time flew by until my back and my feet started telling me that I had been standing around talking for five hours straight! For many of the alumni this was also a small reunion with many of their old classmates. Judging from the many hugs that were exchanged they had clearly made friends for life during their year at IMD.

Today Sunday was the day for the long awaited rematch between the 2008 and 2009 classes. On 16 April this year the 2008 class had suffered a humiliating 5-0 defeat so there was much at stake.



The 2008 team including some reinforcements.



The 2009 team including reinforcements from the 2003 and 2007 classes.


The game is on! It was very even and after one and a half hours of play the score was 2-2. In the last minutes before the whistle the 2008'rs attacked with a quick rush to the goal line by Janislav Marinovic [Chile]. Janislav put in a cross to Paul Holmes who scored the winning goal to 3-2. There are, however, witnesses that claim that the ball was out of bounds before it was sent across and that the goal therefore should be annulled. In the spirit of the game the 2008'rs were given the benefit of the doubt and thereby the victory.

This incident has certain similarities to the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final where England met West Germany. In extra time Geoff Hurst hits the crossbar and the ball bounced down on or just behind the goal line. England was awarded the goal by the linesman, but despite much subsequent technical analysis and discussion the two nations have never been able to settle the issue. You can read about it here or watch the video here.

The 2008 and 2009 classes do not want any ambiguity about the results, so a new date was immediately set. On 28 August the two teams will thus face each other again in what likely will be the final showdown!


After the match the partners had arranged for a lunch around the ping-pong tables in Parc de Milan.


Here it is Ryo Abe [Japan and MBA 2009] getting a bite.


3 x MBA2007! In the middle is Sergiy [Ukraine] who plays with us every Sunday. I unfortunately never got the names of the other two gentlemen.


Angela Akamine with a tired son!

Thank you to all of you that coordinated, cooked, transported and in any other way helped make this event so great:
Andres Akamine
Angela Akamine
Barbara Martin (MBA office)
Angelika Vytogiannis
Myriam Vacher
Aude Tavernier
Beate Gensel
Kanika Lakhwani
Chris Eaborn

Any given Sunday

9 hours of sleep at night, football in Parc De Milan at 9am, three rounds of laundry and another two hour nap in the afternoon. Sundays are about recuperation, about repairing the damages of the past week and preparing yourself for those of the coming week. It is not just about your body, but also your apartment, your dirty laundry, your emails and your list of assignments. It is your one chance per week to bring things down from completely chaotic to just overwhelming.

You never get to the bottom of things, but you can get it to a level where you have an overview of what you need to do. That is very good for stress levels in general. This weekend I didn't get quite as far as I wanted, though. Partly because we had a full day of Career Services yesterday and partly becuase of a meeting today with the company from our Startup Project.

The startup project has reached its very final phase. We have delivered several recommendations to our startup company over the past months, which they generally have accepted and implemented. We delivered another two recommendations today that also were very well accepted. We agreed with them that it now is time to stop collecting and analyzing data and start preparing the final handover to them.

We will be delivering our handover to the company on 29 May and we will be doing our final exam presentation on 30 May. The 'jury' in that exam will be a panel of experienced Venture Capitalists that will measure us on how much Real Value we have added to company. The exam will be held in the form of a 15 minute presentation.

15 minutes to present 4 month of work is not a lot, so we better be sharp. Razor sharp! We have tons of information, findings and recommendations. The trick is to destill it into a heavy, but clear, substance that is easily digestible. We have 12 days to do that and to write the 20 page report that goes with it. It has been made very clear that consultancy-like presentations with high-level strategic recommendations will not be accepted. It needs to be down-to-earth, concrete and real value added to the company. Real World, Real Learning!


Daniel Porot held yesterdays Career Services workshop on job hunting. Daniels is a bit of a guru in his field and you clearly felt the many years of experience that were behind his recommendations. I very much liked his fast paced course with a lot very concrete and actionable advice. There were no 'it depends' answers here.
Daniel presented by making drawings on his laptop, which then were projected on the screen. I have never seen this method used before, but it was very effective. He made more than 100 drawings during the 8 hour course. Here you see he his 'Bermuda Triangle of job hunting'.


MBA student at work! I do not have the view of the lake and the Alps that some of my fellow students do, but whenever I can I move out on my balcony. That gives me some fresh air while getting some work done. A good combination. It is warm enough in Lausanne now to sit outdoor all evening and I really enjoy to just sit there and listen to the sound of the rain hitting the trees.

From Enron to Biofuels in a day

It is past 2.00 AM and the lights are still on in most of the study rooms. No, it is not another Integrative Exercise although it feels like it. We are working on a presentation for Strategy with Professor James Henderson. The subject is Biofuels and we will presenting to a company in the industry in 6 hours. We are all at point where we mostly are thinking about our beds, but it will be a while before we can realize those thoughts. My group has nevertheless been kind enough to let me spend some time writing this diary entry.

It has been another one of those days. Marketing and Strategy in the morning, Accounting after lunch, a company presentation and then down in the dungeons to work on the Strategy presentation. Today's accounting class was about the fall of Enron back in 2001. Another fascinating story of just how bad things can go, even in big corporations. It is only a couple of weeks ago we learned how a single man in 1995 brought London's oldest bank, Berings Bank, to collapse.

What is on most of our minds now (apart from tomorrow's presentation) is the upcoming MBA Tournament (MBAT) in Paris. The first bus leaves late tomorrow evening and arrives in Paris Thursday morning. We will be a total of 70 students and 17 partners attending. The MBAT is a mini-Olympics between all the major European business schools. We will be competiting in a large number of sports from football and fencing to basketball and babyfoot (miniature football). I have the honor of being Captain of the Tug of War team.



Sylvain's dog, Kizomba [France], helps out with the Strategy presentation. Left it is Ruslana Zbagerska [Canada/Ukraine], right Alex Rubio [Brazil].



With a background in consulting Satoshi-San is amazing at setting up frameworks for our group discussions. Here we are discussing the potential consolidation of the biofuels industry.



Sunday in Parc De Milan. Joost Mackor, Captain of the football team, with the team strategy for the MBAT. We like to keep things simple at IMD!

Meeting the 2008 MBAs

Today was the day for the long anticipated match of the generations. The 2009 MBAs versus the class of 2008. The 2008 class had apparently suffered some casualties at the party the night before but was nevertheless strong in numbers and on the field. We had to use almost the entire length of Parc de Milan as we were playing 12 against 12 or something like that. It was a great match played in the spirit of the game.

For me it was particularly interesting to meet last year's diary writer, Mathieu Pointeau, who's shoes Kristin and I are trying to fill this year. It was also interesting to hear to old class' stories about the life both during and after IMD. It was clear that they had experience IMD very differently between themselves. For instance, some of them thought that February was the hardest month to get through, whereas others thought it was May. To me the week we just have been through have been the toughest so far and I sincerely hope that we have peaked now.

It was also interesting to learn that more than a third of last year's class have stayed in Switzerland after graduation and more than half of those are in the Lausanne/Geneva region. You can't really blame them. Life is so convenient and the nature so impressive around here.

We should be seeing much more to them in the coming month. Several of them will come to present the companies that they now work for and many apparently intend to join the IMD networking event on June 6th, where this year's class get the chance to meet all those that now can call themselves IMD Alumni, whether from 2008 or before.

And for the results of today's match, I will just let the numbers speak for themselves: We won 5-0. Thank you, 2008 class, for a great match. We look forward to you coming back for a rematch.


The Latin Express on the move. 09'er Andres Akamine [Peru] in pursuit of 08'er Janislav Marinovic [Chile].


Game over and a 'Great game' handshake


Line-up of the players of today's match. A good mix of the 2008 and 2009 classes.

An MBA Sunday

I am back in the foyer at the school again. We have just finished a good meeting in my ICA group; ICA meaning 'Industry Competition Analysis'.

I am part of the 'Transports & Logistics' group together with Alexandre Rubio [Brazilian], who has been working for the Brazilian railways, with José Luiz Mesquita [Brazilian], who has been making logistics services in the port of Santos in Brazil, with Myriam Vacher [French], who has been doing distribution and logistics services for the global paper industry and with Simon Sundboell [Danish], who - like myself - is from the container shipping industry. We agreed to scope our ICA project to the Brazilian container shipping market as this will allow us to leverage the knowledge of all five group members to the maximum extent. We also agreed on how we would move forward with the project.

I think most of us still are trying to keep up with all the good advice we got from Jogi Rippel during Wednesdays lecture on how to sustain high performance: Drink a lot of water, exercise, quit the coffee, get some sleep, do powernaps and so forth. Needless to say that this is much harder said than done. I am now on my second cup of coffee since I started writing this entry.

One of the things that Jogi also mentioned was that 'professional athletes get up the same time every day, including saturday and sunday, as the body works best with set routines'. So I set the alarm to buzz at 7.00 this morning. I heard it, turned it off and got up at 10.00 instead. I guess I still need some practise....

This morning was another round of football in Parc Milan. A group of people has gone skiing for the day, so we were only 11 players, but it was still good fun and even greater exercise. I have set myself a goal of exercising twice a week: Football on Sunday and either some running or fitness during the week. Just to keep a minimum level of physical well being. More than that is probably not realistic as things look right now.

Other than that we have the usual pile of assignments and readings to do, so I know where I will spend the rest of the day.

Thorsten