MBA: Day One

Today was the first day of the UNBSJ MBA Program. The first day, and in fact every day of this first week, is part of the MBA Orientation. If I can use today as a baseline, this week should be very... special. The days are long, but many of the meals are provided, somewhat making up for it.

Before we got started the Dean welcomed us and then the Director spoke with us for a good long while. It was an amusing speech, but I need not repeat much of it. The only thing I will repeat is that he said that this year is to make us better. This year is for all of us a chance to invest in ourselves. He compared it to climbing a mountain without training. The Professors and Staff are our Guides and Sherpas, but it is the skills we develop on the way up that will foster who we become.

This lasted until lunch. After said meager lunch we had in some business coaches whose focus is leadership, more specifically, vision. I have heard about vision related exercises from many people and had some idea of what to expect. Having taken a Masters level Human Resources class I was prepared for many of the activities that we undertook today. They asked about vision. I knew at the start a basis for where my vision might stem. I have thought about it and through finding ideas that I can relate to, thank you Ayn Rand, I was able to take a gander that my vision would be to produce at the best of my ability, knowing full well that it is not so important what I produce, as to how. This is where I started. It seemed like many people started with blank slates, in not being familiar with these exercises.

So, I did learn some about vision, and about other people's vision, but I took some other things away from today's class. The coaches said that all people can become leaders. This was later refined in pushing that in general, not all people can be leaders, but that all people can exhibit qualities of leadership. They also said, in reference to the MBA class, that "we" are all leaders.

I find this interesting. They cannot very tell us that some of us are leaders and some of us are not! I would guess that almost everyone in that room today believes that they are a leader. As for myself? I would certainly love to fall into that category, but there is not way to know. Not yet at least...

I would like to amend that statement from above:

All people can be leaders, but some people are leaders.

Another thing that came out of today is that managers are not necessarily leaders. This is something that I think many people know intuitively but that should be brought to mind every once in a while... especially the minds of some of those managers out there...

Please do not read this too critically. I enjoyed the seminar today, but those things stuck out for me.

Actually, something did come of today's activities. Well... two things.

The first is the following diagram. This will make a little more sense to mathematically inclined people in the concept, but I can explain it. There are two types of quantities in general. Scalars, and vectors. A scalar is a quantity without direction, like money, or like speed, and a vector requires both a magnitude and a direction, like velocity, or acceleration.

Effective Leaders are a vector. The direction is the vision. Without vision the leader shoots off aimlessly into space, ne'er to be seen or heard from again. The length of the vector, or the magnitude, is the leader themselves. A better leader would be a greater magnitude, being able to accomplish more. Together the two components make up an effective leader and demonstrate the relationship between leadership and vision. I will probably refine this idea later, but this is what had popped into my head.

The second thing I took from today's session was what I saw during our attempt at Guided Imagery. I say attempt, because I do not think that everyone accepted the concept. I must be honest, I thought it was quite ridiculous when I heard of it the first time too...

Guided Imagery is intended for the participant to be in a meditative like state where their mind is free of conscious thought. A guide then gives you instructions for you to follow in this state. Your eyes are closed and your mind/sub-conscious is free to do whatever it wants. The idea is to steer your mind in a general direction and for your body to pull on whatever it has available to fill in the Imagery where the Guide does not.

In this case we were told to leave the room and to leave the planet. We were then told to fall back to the planet in five years time. We were told to fall to find ourselves in that future. We were told to look at the house we were living in, and when going to the door, we were told that it would be our future selves to greet us. We were told to enter, and to ask our future selves what were the most important events of the past five years, and what did I need to do to get to that place. We were then able to ask our future selves any questions we wished. Following that we were asked to leave the planet again, and then return back to this very room. For many people they saw interesting things, for some people they saw nothing. I do understand that it is a hard thing to give an honest try but I believe that those who did benefited. It is a quick way into the subconscious at the very least.

Like the first time I tried the exercise I was able see something that I believe to be important to me. I would surely like to share what I saw, but it is too near to me, and being that it is near, it will remain near.

Coming out of the seminar I did find that my vision changed. True, my initial vision will still hold true for my career, but the vision of my life is different. It is once again quite clear that in all things I seek one of the only things that I truly believe to have eluded me: happiness. Many would argue that I have found happiness in one adventure or another, but those nearest to me know that I battle for it still.

We did one more thing. We were to cut pictures from magazines and glue them onto big pieces of poster paper. The images were meant to represent our visions. My paper is quite clear. You will not find the clutter of rolexes, or cars, or pictures of money, or faraway places, but instead a simple scene that is truly what I seek.

It appears on the surface that I could have that scene now, but, there is something that my pictures do not show; there is a man who is capable of smiling with his eyes... I am not yet that man.

Not yet.