Matthew Farnand

At the beginning of this program, we were given a tool to measure the way we learn. The four styles were: experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and doing. We completed a questionaire which ranked us based on our answers.

When the results were transferred to a graphical representation, I quickly saw some my areas of strength, and weakness. Generally a person of extremes, the odd shape of my graph reinforced what I believed to be true about myself. I experience, I think, and so I learn. I have traditionally restricted myself to activities where these learning strengths would be best used – most notably, the Arts.

My experience over the past six weeks has radically altered my perspective.

I have been forced to learn new things, and am finding that I am best learning those new things through methods which I have experienced and been told are beyond my natural preference.

I’m beginning to believe in DOING.

To get your hands dirty isn’t always looked upon as the best way to apply yourself to gaining post-graduate knowledge. However, it IS a great way.

Getting into an excel file to analyze some statistics, starting into a real job analysis to determine competencies, or putting yourself on the pitch to learn how to play cricket may be the best way to learn in those situations.

Don’t limit yourself to what other’s, a test, or even your own experience has told you you need to learn. Get in and get dirty. Or if that’s your natural way, get out and start listening, looking, thinking or reading.

I will not let myself be limited to the boxes I’ve placed myself in in the past.

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RIM has lost its edge. Its strategy has devolved from slick and focused market and innovation leader of mobile business solutions, to a scared follower of media consumption technology.

Yesterday, RIM announced a new product, the Blackberry Playbook. This is a Tablet device similar to Apple’s IPad.

From what I have read so far, both the product itself and its market focus are misguided.

It appears that RIM has organized itself to design products that chase after the dissatisfied (or cash strapped) customers in a market dominated by competitors instead of going back to its historical (and wildly successful) strategy of developing tools which elevate productivity to the next level.

The Blackberry was just such a device. The first “smartphone”. Designed so that you could take the productivity and connectivity of the office anywhere and access it at any time. The impact of this product was immediate and powerful. RIM was the instant leader, dominating this market (it still does – but it is slipping) to such an extent that it began winning customers outside of the business world.

These customers loved the fact that they could recieve email and surf the web on their phone. They don’t care about productivity, or relevance of technology to workplace applications. They just want to have fun.

Blackberries aren’t perfectly suited to the demands of these customers, but they won because they were the first.

Enter Apple, Palm, and Google. These companies were well-placed to serve the demands of the fun-seeking media-lovers. The screen-size, games, music and video applications instantly appealed to the vast majority of smart-phone users.

As soon as those – new – customers, started switching over, RIM decided to follow them. Instead of improving the functionality and innovating on their amazing business tool to serve businesses and businesspeople, they put on a touch screen and added an app store.

Now, RIM is scrambling to compete with Apple in the Tablet market by trying to appeal to those same media-consumers who specifically rejected RIM’s attempts to attract them with touchscreen Blackberries.

Go back to your old Playbook, RIM.

I want to see an innovative and groundbreaking Business Tablet. Not a sad imitation of the IPad. The possibilities are huge. RIM could easily have become the company which created a second groundbreaking product. A product which once again revolutionized the way we do communicate at work.

Don’t give me games, give me a new way to present.

Don’t give me apps, give me an innovative way to communicate when I’m not in the office.

Don’t give me web surfing, let me remotely access my BI tools or CRM system.

Don’t give me the Playbook. Give me a new Blackberry.

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After last week, I think I officially finished off the dregs of my tank of “new endeavor energy”.

The start of anything new is exciting in its own right, and allows us to over-perform through sheer lack of experience and wanting to start well. We like to  show off for new faces, both student and professor. Having new classes, a new school and a new lifestyle makes things immediately interesting.

All of this racks up to provide a boost of do-it-now because this-is-fun energy. We get stuff done because we thought it was important to get a good head start. We fearing that this initial energy may last forever if we just maintain momentum.

Shouldn’t it be effortless to maintain this pace and sail through to the end of the year?

Nothing can save you from losing this energy. As time moves on, things get old. Happens to us, our cat, our new laptop and to even to a new way of life (Job, school, relationship).

The settling-in period has begun. Classes aren’t new anymore. We can see assignments and exams coming due on our calendars. The excitement of shiny newness has gone away.

And I am realizing that this is good

It is good that the energy I had from all things new has passed away. It is good that I’m starting to dread the upcoming deliverables. It is good that things have begun to settle in and things which I may have glossed over last month (difficult teaching styles, a boring class, group tensions, general tiredness etc.) are now making themselves abundantly evident.

It is good because now the energy I need can come from a new place. The Will.

It’s time to rely not on newness but on desire, not on excitement but on heart, not on showing off for new faces but on hard work.

It is time to show the world what we are really made of, not just what it can expect from you at the start.

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In my last post I mentioned the value of having like-minded people surrounding you. One of the additional benefits of this shared vision is easy friendship. The value of these friendships will be measured over time, but a shared experience like such an intense program has the potential to forge strong and lasting relationships.

In the same vein, I attended my first “Competition Class” on Friday. A team of ten from our class have been chosen to work towards competing in business case competitions which take place in January. The people who tried out and made the team are by and large friends.

Our first class was a blockbuster. Many of us not only have classes together, but are part of the MBA Student Association, and have spent time together outside of class. The nervousness and breaking-in period that new teams require to become effective was significantly reduced. We are able to drive each other to work hard, and our collective desire for victory is clear.

I believe this trend will extend further as we move along. We are comfortable with each other because we spend time together. We are happy to keep one another accountable because we trust each other. We work hard because we have fun together.

Translate this to our future careers – creating connections with your team will allow it to compete at a higher level within your organization and against your competitors.

Comradeship boosts competition. So go out, make friends, and compete hard.

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I am extremely happy that I decided to do my MBA full time. My initial feelings about this decision revolved around personal preference, priority-setting, and work habits. Essentially, I wouldn’t have anything else to worry about, so I could excel at this one thing using the methods that I choose.

What I did not expect was the result and effect on me of 63 other people making this same decision. Everyone has their unique reasons for taking a “break” from their lives or careers to go back to school, but the collective outcome is marvellous.

Where undergrad is a mixed bag of effort/passions, graduate school is an organization of peers who share the same goals and whose intentions are to achieve them with excellence. We are immersed in a culture of passionate leaders. The why we work is all around us.

Further to this, even the way we work is being refined. We are assigned to small groups of 4-6, whose constitution we were not in charge of, nor can we change, and who will remain constant for the duration of the program. All classes have deliverables for which group effort is necessary and the results submitted in common.

It is necesary to adapt to the personalities and work habits of your group members. Even more so than in working life, we have little freedom to “do our own thing” or “do it my way” when it comes to group work on cases and projects. We each offer our input and exercise resistance against the other members and the collaborative process.

These two realities, immersion in a group with common goals and passions and the imperative of teamwork, are working together to transform us. How we think about our careers and how we achieve our personal goals is influenced by the crowd. And we are privileged it is so. The way we work with others is challenged, and our preferences for how we get things done are experiencing change through the small groups.

Working full time at an MBA will be better for me – I knew this before – but only now do I understand deeply why.

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Startegy - The most common misspelling of the word strategy.

Also, perfectly sums up how every class, project, business case and chess match should begin.

Start with Strategy.

The very first class of our program is “Strategic Management and the World of the General Manager”. Article after article, business case after business case, we were exposed to the big picture.

Having limited strategic experience coming into this program was not a problem. As I intimated in my last post, no one has the required experience. Having the confidence to just go for it, to tackle a problem that a seasoned businessman or manager struggled with was essential. And fun.

Getting into the heads of managers faced with tough decisions, and reasoning out a plan of action lets you step back, get outside of the separate issues (silos), and take a stab at the central isssue which ties it all together.

I’m realizing that this is not just applicable to business cases, but to life in general. Step back. Examine the big picture. Are you career planning? In a tough relationship? Are you making a decision about a major purpose or life change? Step outside of the narrow details you’ve been stuck on. If you begin this way, you’ll gain the perspective needed to see that key element that you need to address to take on the whole decision.

In life, as in business, we end up mired in one or two details, rotate them over and over again, and find ourselves stuck with the same bad answer we’ve always had. Or none at all.

Get perspective first. Find the main issue. Tackle it head on.

Use Startegy.

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This was originally handed in as a paper, but is emminently appropriate here. I got an A. (I don’t know what I got – haven’t recieved it back yet.)

“This is the greatest challenge of my life. It will be tough as nails. It will be competitive, but I will win. I will be the best.”

I began the first day with this thought in my mind. I spoke these words to myself as I walked through the doors of the Desmarais building on the first day of my MBA. It may be that I had the wrong impression of what the MBA atmosphere would be like, or perhaps inattentiveness to the academic nature of my undertaking, or maybe a projection of what kind of attitude I felt I needed or was lacking to achieve success.

My surprise upon reflecting on my first week of the MBA program was that many of my expectations were surpassed, in ways which were totally unexpected.

Rather than a rigid and uptight regimen and expectations, I found a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere. Instead of a focus on competition and personal achievement, professors and instructors spoke of collegiality and the absolute necessity to trust each other and work together – or my goals would be impossible to achieve. I was surprised at the research focus, forward thinking in program direction and materials, dovetails with current trends in business and leadership thought, and overall excellence I perceived from the faculty and school of business.

My reflection has led me to re-examine my expectations, and found them, lacking. I have amended my daily mantra, walking through the doors. This one will be repeated many more times than the first, and reflects what I have newly learned in the first week of this program:

“This is the greatest challenge of my life. It will be tough, but I am supported in rising to the challenge, even in small failures. I will help my peers succeed, and they will help me. We are the best.”

If I were a manager in a high performance organization would I want rigidity or freedom for my employees? Would I like them to be intimidated, or accepted? Would I want competition amongst peers, or commitment to the goals of the organization? The very things I expected from a business school, were the things I would not accept in a business.

Some older re-learnings have surfaced this week as well. The first is that meeting new people and networking towards a common experience is tremendously fun. It is even more exciting that many of these people are from locations and bring experiences that I could never dream of having myself. We will learn from one another. The second is that there are very few tasks for which people have the specific experience to accomplish better than others. Confidence in oneself and stepping out to lead will far more often than not lead to success, and even failure in these instances is a valuable learning experience, and not a defeat.

Some perceived struggles for the upcoming year have to do with my natural areas of weakness. As a (P) type in the MBTI I “perceive” the difficulty in keeping straight all of my obligations and deliverables to my studies. I must keep myself very organized, I don’t want to slip up and miss a deadline, or be scrambling and produce work that I am not proud of. In doing so, however I do not want to miss the big picture, and get too wrapped up in the process, ignoring the real learning I am experiencing. My second struggle revolves around my group. I am afraid that our storming won’t turn into norming.

My goals and objectives revolve around these perceived struggles. I have committed myself to organization and excellence as habits which will persist well beyond my time in school. I have a daily and weekly personal check-in which I began during my career, and am re-instituting. To keep track of the major changes, I have committed to a daily tweet and weekly blog post, to review and record the more intangible and valuable learning points I experience through the MBA. @matthewfarnand is up and running, and mattfarnand.com launches this weekend! My most serious goal is to emerge from this program with a career and a direction, and taking these learning and branding steps I hope place me on the right path.

After one week, I struggle to keep my reflection to one page. I can only begin to imagine the effects that this program and my peers will have over fifty-two.

(Editor’s Update: Ok, I got an A-… close!)

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Welcome… to you and to me.

This is my blog.

I am Matt Farnand.

I will be posting my thoughts as I journey through the MBA program at the Telfer School of Management in Ottawa, Canada. Expect a weekly post with a main theme and some of the things I’ve taken home that week.

I needed to write a reflection paper on my first week of the program, it is perfect for a post, so I will start with that.

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