Scribbles

Merde, my French has taken an unexpected turn for the worse. My abilities in French were steadily improving back in the States, but at planet INSEAD, where I speak English 99% of the time, my French has been stunted. It’s not that surprising when you consider my lack of time to explore the country and interact with the locals. And while many other students here share my problem, it’s hardly any consolation.

Today someone from my mobile phone carrier called to inform me that my phone bill was overdue. I know I had setup automatic payments from my bank when I signed up, but somehow they screwed it up. Instead of arguing with them, I just took the path of least resistance and tried to set it up again, reading off all the relevant account numbers and codes. During the exchange, I caught myself mid-sentence speaking in half French and half Spanish. For example, when I said the number 74, which in French is actually “soixant-quartorze” (translated literally to “sixty fourteen”). I started with “setenta…”, caught myself, then blurted “soixant-catorce”, and immediately realizing I had blotched the 14. Under duress, I couldn’t remember the French equivalent and struggled for the right word. Luckily, the two sound close enough for the woman to understand, and she was extremely patient, probably more amused than annoyed. After completing my task in embarrassing fashion, I vented to my French housemate, who just laughed at me, deservingly so.

How did this happen? Well, many people in the chateau are doing French as their second language and Spanish as their third. So they’ve been practicing with our resident Español speakers. By being around, I’ve inadvertently recovered some of the Spanish I learned back in high school. As a result, we’ve all been mixing up these two languages, mostly because we haven’t achieved sufficient fluency in either. The ironic thing is, back in California when I was studying for the exam, I was accidentally throwing in French for all the words I couldn’t conjure in Spanish.

Nonetheless, I’m grateful for having some competency in English. It’s become quite clear how much more people struggle at INSEAD without English as a native tongue. It restricts their ability to follow some professors, to fully articulate themselves, and to read all our case studies and textbooks in a timely fashion. And let me just say, these students are rather competent in English (heavy requirement just to get admitted.) If I had to do this in French, I’d be in a world of hurt. For now, I’m setting a goal to strengthen my French in the latter periods when the course work lightens up a bit. Buenas noches!

One of my favorite sayings is “Sleep is for the dead.”  Why bother with sleep when I’ll be doing tons of it when they put me in the ground.  Before coming to INSEAD, I kept hearing from alumni and students on the lack of sleep as a result from all the partying and school work.  The threat of sleep deprivation didn’t really faze me, but I was curious about the numbers.

So I decided to put what I learned in class to good use and keep some statistics.  I figured that later on I can analyze the data and run comparisons between periods.  My guess is that P1 and P2 will be the worst.  But who knows, maybe in P5 all the partying will result in less sleep.  For now, just let me share what I’ve collected to this point.  The table below is my sleep durations for the first three weeks of class.  I don’t typically nap, but sometimes I’m forced to take power naps on those days where I only got 4 hours the night before.  As you can see, I do make up for a lot of sleep over the weekends.

During the week, I’m averaging almost 6, which isn’t too bad.  In actuality, what happens is I would pull 3 or 4 straight nights getting just a tad over 4 hours, and the one day where we don’t have early class, I would catch up and sleep in.  It’s during that stretch of the week when I have early classes that I feel the worst.  Another thing is the fact that we cram in so many activities into a single day that the days go by fast but feel really long.  As a result, sleep always feels short.  When I look at the numbers, I’m pretty surprised that it is that much.  All in all, I’m not complaining too loudly.  Mentally I’m fine with it, but sometimes my body just tells me more caffeine isn’t gonna cut it.

“What a totally dorky thing to do!” you say?  Well, I just wanted to give future INSEADers some hard numbers on top of the popular “you’re never going to sleep.”  Don’t say you weren’t warned…

One of the things we do to mix it up at school is having theme days. 
Today was Mad Hatter Day – coming to class in outrageous hats and
wigs.  Pictures say it all:

One of our fearless social reps yapping during Prices and Markets

Nutty Chinese Dutch Greek Indian Boys

Our Happy Section

The crazy week concluded on Saturday with the student council meeting and then party later at night. To
be honest, most of us were absolutely drained after Outward Bound. I wondered how I was going to muster the energy for all the activities, but alas who’s gonna quit now? The student council meeting, held by the December promotion, introduced us to the policies and functions of the council, including national week preparations, section representatives, and campus organization guidelines. It went fairly smoothly.

Afterwards, us Monty gang quickly returned to the chateau to refresh for the party. I took my shower bath, got dressed, and performed a series of food swallowings that I can barely describe as eating. Despite our fatigue, we were excited about the party. We’ve been told that it’s one of the largest ones of the year and our eagerness to unwind was brimming. To add to that, the preparations for the party seemed rather elaborate. The corporate sponsor, a top consulting firm, sent out official invitations to join in the festivities at chateau de Vaux Le Pénil in Melun. Buses would ferry us from campus to the party, and private shuttles would run all night taking us home. This was mainly to prevent drinking and driving. After all, what self-respecting party would dare to not offer an open bar?

As a side note, INSEAD has done a tremendous job spreading the message about the perils of drinking and driving. Given the few tragedies in the past, the school pushed hard to avoid any repeats. Driving under the influence is dangerous everywhere, and for us in Fontainebleau, when you throw in fog, wild animals (boars, deer, etc), empty forest roads with alcohol clouded judgement, you get a sure recipe for disaster. In the first two weeks of the period, all us students participated in the “Drive Safe” campaign, led by one of our top marketing professors. Each group submits a poster and marketing ideas to promote safe driving for students. The top ten entries (including out group) would be displayed the following week and then a cash prize rewarded to the top winner. The forces that be actually allotted a big time slot for this activity in our official schedule, highlighting its importance valued by the administration. I believe they were successful in reinfocing the notion in our minds by our actively working on it. When I arrived at Monty, one of members was quite forceful about this issue, and made us all swear to never drink and drive. For me, the school campaign was just icing on top.

At the party, we finally wound down for what felt like an eternity. Surrounded by the friendships forged throughout the week and the December promotion folks, we P1’s danced the night away. The energy and vibe at the chateau were simply fantastic.

The only take away from the whole night was the shuttle service. Because they didn’t properly anticipate the number of people leaving towards the latter part of the night, many of us waited for hours before getting on. When our gang finally got on, the driver refused to take us home, citing that his contract had expired at 5am. I offered to pay him and he refused. I then asked him who was in charge, and he said his boss went to sleep already. After 10 minutes of negotiation between us and two other drivers, they reluctantly opted to drive us back to campus instead of home (which was closer too). In my half-druken broken French, I berated the driver the whole way back, expressing my disbelief at the sordid display of unacceptable service. Luckily, those of us that drove had sobered up over the long wait between the party and arriving back to campus, and dutifully brought our exhausted group home safely.

On Sunday we had the “random dinners” event, a series of dinners hosted by P4’s to treat us P1’s. Too tired to even bother signing up, I took the day off to rest and recover. Nonetheless, the week was the most intense welcome week in any educational or professional institution I’ve been part of. Intense, exhausting, fun – an extraordinary jump-start for the year to come.

Outside of the busy course work from the introductory modules, we had a whole set of activities lined up. One of them was the Outward Bound activity, a day long team building outing in the nature.  Our destination – the forests of Fontainebleau. Our section of 73 students was split into groups of two or three teams and accompanied by an experienced Outward Bound guide. So not only did we get to spend time getting to better know our team (banded together for the next two periods), we also had the opportunity to connect with other folks from our section (which I think is set for only one period). Luckily for us, we were assigned to a group of three teams. I say the more the merrier.

After a short walk from campus, we found ourselves in the forest, enjoying the morning in nature and beautiful weather. The previous week was cold and rainy, and the forecast threatened rain, but the sun shined the whole time for our outing. Our most affable and competent guide, Ellen, led us through a series of challenging activities that required strategy and planning, teamwork, and some level of physical aptitude. Most of the exercises we did as an entire group, and others we performed as individual teams in a competitive spirit. After each exercise, Ellen would probe us with questions designed to help us learn about our behaviors and approaches. The lively discussions clearly benefited us in learning about one another.

In one event, our team came up with some questionable (but legal) tactics to beat out the other two. My French teammate said that normally he would never have imagined such shady tactics, but was elated to be a part of it (hahaha). I’ll chalk it up as an eye-opening on business subterfuge and guile for him. And while I won’t describe our tactics here, just in case you do the activity some day, I will say that given a short list of rules (as in life), there is a lot of room to exercise one’s creativity. So when we executed on these strategies, some buttons got pushed and we invoked some rather emotional responses. The others, clearly displeased, voiced their discontent and disapproval in no unclear manner during the debrief. The conversation was animated and contentious. Even Microsoft’s unpopular path to dominance was referenced, its achievements being an argument for doing whatever it takes to win. While there is no clear answer to this debate, the concluding result was that it forced the getting to know each other, warts, approaches to winning, philosophical disagreements and all. And even though it was heated, instead of creating a rivalry afterwards, we learned to deal with each other and maintain our collegial friendship. Within our team, we reflected on which of our values dictated certain behaviors that could create negative perceptions among others. It made me realize that under competitive scenarios, I can betray my own values. My takeaway is that my awareness of this will prompt deeper consideration before taking action.  Nonetheless, the conflict-induced exchange among the team had an exponential effect on accelerating our knowing one another, which later in the day, fostered better comfort and teamwork.

The remaining activities were done as a while group.  Some were challenging to the point that we would’ve certainly failed without our previous bonding. One task was to climb a huge wall that I estimate at 10-12 feet tall. Another one involved teams spread out throughout the forest, rendez-vous’ing a designated point, crawling through a tunnel withing a large rock and climbing down the face of it to our final destination – all blindfolded. Don’t worry, we were given helmets in case we bumped into trees, rocks, or just trip out of sheer blindness.

The last activity, the Mohawk Walk, was the most challenging one, requiring some tricky tightrope walking and planning. There were ropes tied to several trees and all 13 of us had start from one side and reach the other. If you fell, you had to start over. But the hardest part was the end, when people who reached the destination could no longer participate. That meant that some had to tightrope a respectable distance, necessitating some mad balance and agility. Fatigued and hungry, we somehow managed to summon every last drop of energy and concentration to complete the task. What really got us through it was sheer will, belief in each other, and a touch of luck. And even though before this, the day had brought us much closer, this particular activity cemented our gelling.

The final debrief was feedback and comments within the individual teams and then to the group and guide. I’m certain none of us felt that it was not a valuable experience. We were all very satisfied that INSEAD had organized this for welcome week.  Satisfying not because we got to know our classmates better, but rather we realized we actually like each other and look forward to learning from one another in the upcoming days.

(I’m lagging a bit in my articles.  Outward Bound was during welcome week and I already finished the first real week of class at this point.  The next posting will describe the student government meeting and huge party – yes, on the very same day.)

The fine folks from the December promotion invited all Chinese-affiliated students to a welcome dinner tonight. Akin to the national weeks, students host the incoming promotion all week this week based on various nationalities, just to get to know each other better and offer sound advice and tips to the incoming students.

We had dinner at Ko Sun right in downtown Fonty. Our contigent of Chinese people from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, and many other unexpected places occupied the entire restaurant. A non-insignificant portion of us were not pure-bred Chinese (whatever that means), and the host did a great job making everyone comfortable. What struck me the most was when she said we're still here to celebrate the diversity that INSEAD is so famous for, regardless of the fact that it's a Chinese welcome dinner. The conversations were in Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, English, whatever. Most importantly, it didn't feel anything like high school, where ethnic groups would only congregate and associate only with each other. The diversity of (mixed) backgrounds made me very comfortable – our common link was not our ethnicity, rather our open attitudes towards making friends and having the best INSEAD experience.

I want to extend a huge thanks to the December promotion for extending such a warm welcome and treating us to a wonderful Chinese dinner.  I'd also like to mention the owner of Ko Sun who cheerfully served us for our gathering and provided for many of us, our first Chinese meal since arriving in France.  We will surely continue the tradition for the next batch.

The last few days felt like weeks. Class officially began last Thursday, along with a jam packed schedule of activities: club fairs, team building activity, presentations on networking, math, and consultancy, a student government meeting, a huge party on Saturday (kindly sponsored by a big consulting company), culminating on Sunday night with “random dinners” conducted by the January promotion students. The classes were actually two short modules taught over 2 days, whereas the official set of 5 courses for the period begin on Monday.

The first module, Introduction to General Management Problems, was taught by professor Gareth Dyas in 3 lecture sections spread over 2 days. We spent a few hours the night before reading the Arthur Miller case study, about a Scandinavian dress making factory back in the 60’s. The background of the case study was that Arthur Miller’s company bought out the factory in Boxholm, Sweden and sent him there to run the show. When he arrived, he discovered that the factory was in horrible shape; it had to deal with a competitive market, horrible production issues, unmet deadlines, legacy practices, and a serious cashflow problem. Our task was to role play Miller, identify the issues, come up with a solution and turn the ship around. This process would expose to us a slew of general management concepts and scenarios.

Immediately after class, our team of 4 hit the study cubicles to tackle the assignment, a mock presentation to the company’s board of directors proposing Arthur Miller’s plan to handle the critical situation. Subsequent to the presentation the rest of the class would role play the board members and grill the presenter with questions and probe the feasibility of the solution. The professor pointed out that our chances of being selected were slim (only 3 of 15 groups would present), and then reminded us of Murphy’s law in case we considered partying in lieu of working. Even so, it’s not as if we would start our MBA program by skipping out on our first assignment. We stayed on campus until 11:30pm to finish, pushing the envelope on our physical and mental limits the very first day, wondering if it portended our future workload. The next day, professor Dyas executed his selection process: he wrote out the group numbers on the chalkboard in random order, turned around, walked 5 steps, and repeatedly threw a piece of chalk over his shoulder at the board. You’ve probably guessed by now that our group won the chalkboard lottery. Not only that, we were selected last, just narrowly not escaping it. Since our team had previously decided that the two presenters would be my chateau mate and yours truly, I wasn’t quite rooting for us to win said lottery.

So there I was, on my second day of class, presenting our proposal in front of the entire section. Even though I’m not afraid of public speaking, I admit that I felt somewhat nervous to go up there in front of 75 of my peers presenting my first case study analysis. I loathed to consider the possibility of screwing up and establishing a poor impression with the section that would be in all my classes for the entire period. Happily, we did a good job, and afterwards many folks came up to give us props, something I really appreciate. It showed to me that our class was more supportive that competitive.

For the remainder of the class, professor Dyas went over what Arthur Miller did in real life and taught us various aspects of GM through the case study. The man was quite effective in sharing with us his knowledge and insights of general management issues. All the peers I talked to expressed in agreement with me that this course reaffirmed our expectations of high quality of the program.

The other module, Management Culture and Value, taught by professor Bruce Kogot, was a much shorter one, taught in a single 4-hour session (the previous one totaled 7 hours). In this module, we studied 2 different case studies that portrayed ethical dilemmas. The prof also showed us how the different values within different cultures affect business decisions. Professor Kogot encouraged us to learn from the diversity of our student body and carefully consider the consequences of business decisions in light of our own ethics and values. He parted with a simple litmus test for us to use, which he calls the 4-tests: sleeping test, mirror test, newspaper test, and child test. Always consider our actions in the context of those tests, can we sleep at night, can we look ourselves in the mirror, can we live with it being published on the frontpage of the newspaper, and can we sit our 16-year old child down and tell him or her about it.

I think that program succeeded through the 2 modules to give us (on top of the course material) a good feel for the format of the classes to come – preparation, teamwork, discussions in lecture, and the lessons to be learned. I got a taste of working with my team and interacting with my classmates, and so far I have a very positive impression.

As I said, the past few days have been nothing short of intense. I’ll tell you all about our day long outdoor activity, sleep deprivation, and the party in the next article.