Teamwork – strengthening the chain

There are numerous idioms in English that refer to the importance of teamwork: ‘A chain is only as strong as its weakest link’ - the phrase that spawned an international TV quiz sensation. How about ‘a whole is the sum of its parts,’ and another famous one: ‘there is no I in team’.

Yet teamwork is one of the most elusive topics in business, and theory divides opinion, ironically, more than any other. It might seem like such an obvious point: surely it’s easy to get a great group of people, get them all to work together, give them all defined roles, make sure they’re well rewarded and then reap the results as the project comes to fruition?

However, like many things, it’s not that simple and there are hundreds of books and countless opinions available on how to get the most from the team; How to create the best team? How to motivate them? How to provide direction? This manifests itself across the spectrum of human experience, not just in business: sport and theatre are two areas that spring to mind.

What is generally agreed is the importance of teamwork to progress business. It seems blindingly obvious to anyone who has ever been involved with sports or even amateur dramatics that successful teams will improve any number of different facets of the task in hand, such as creativity, efficiency and morale. In business terms this translates into increased commercial success; happier staff, happier clients or customers and, ultimately, increased profitability.

This is not to suggest that individual leadership or efforts are not relevant or important, but that even more can be achieved when several individuals are working towards the same goal. Andrea Maietta works in the insurance industry in Milan, Italy: “A good team can be much more than the sum of the individuals forming it; it has a better creative potential and can better tolerate efforts, it is highly motivating for the team members and allows them to achieve results that individuals cannot reach by themselves.”

Russell Boren, a plant manager in Alabama, USA, agrees: "True teamwork means no team member is more or less important than the other; they just have different jobs. It may be an absence, training, illness or lack of understanding of a problem. If any one member of a team is affected, the others will pick up the slack and continue the process.  In my opinion, without teamwork no company will ever reach its potential.”

But what exactly is teamwork? Susan Heathfield in “Trust rules! The most important secret” (available at http://humanresources.about.com/library/weekly/aa041401a.htm), provides five helpful teamwork tips and puts the onus firmly on the manager and not on the team:

1: Form teams to solve real work issues and improve real work processes

2: Hold departmental meetings to review projects and progress

3: Build fun and shared experiences into the organisation's agenda

4: Use icebreakers and time-limited fun team-building exercises

5: Celebrate group successes publicly

The key figure in all of Susan Heathfield’s tips above appears time and again in speaking with executives about teamwork: The leader. In almost all examples, and this will resound very strongly with MBA graduates: the leader of the team is ultimately responsible for that team’s success. The leader must be part of the team; driving it and providing direction, yet retaining a distance from the team in order to evaluate it, identify its problems and steer it towards its goal if it strays off target.

This ambiguous role, as so many have learned, can be extremely difficult and most MBAs spend a great deal of their time picking up those skills. Steven Hall, a senior Supply Chain Manager with a background in the US military, supports this: “It all boils down to executive vision and leadership. The boss who wants to hire people to run the show, but doesn't allow them to make decisions and second guesses every decision when they do allow you to make them, doesn't really want to let go of the reins.  The company will never grow beyond what it is today and it will never get more efficient.  If you hire the right people, give them direction, the tools to do the job and let them go do it [then] you will be amazed at how far they will take you.”

Hall goes on to specify four key areas that business leaders are regularly missing:

1: Lack of clear communication of a business plan to the organisation

2: Lack of understanding of what a good employee is

3: Lack of ability to set an expectation and hold people to it

4: Lack of understanding of where cost is

For MBA graduates who spend so much of their courses in teams and learning to be leaders, this advice is essential. The balance is extremely delicate, yet spending as much time as possible learning how to maintain it could be the most important quality of all.

- Ross Geraghty

Now is the time to take that MBA

 

The author Mark Twain, noticing his own obituary in an 1897 newspaper, famously wired to the editor, “The report of my death was an exaggeration”, and went on to live for another 13 fairly productive years. The anxious glances by professionals considering an MBA or Executive MBA (EMBA) are similarly exaggerated. Despite the gloomy front-page stories a mere 12 months ago, the economic downturn will not be the death of MBA recruitment or business school applications.

 

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In fact, the opposite is true - the MBA culture is countercyclical. This means that many professionals who have lost their jobs and received a payoff, or perhaps are simply feeling insecure in their positions, are sensibly viewing the downturn as the perfect time for business school. They rightly feel they can ace the MBA and hit the ground running when the upturn happens.

Nunzio Quacquarelli, Managing Director of the QS World MBA Tour, which visits Johannesburg in March, says: “We feel we have the best place to start researching those business school options, meeting the world’s most influential admissions officers face to face.”

 

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For Quacquarelli, the spike in interest and applications to business school is happening for a number of reasons. “Some young professionals are choosing to try and sit out the downturn in business school while for others it’s a more calculated decision. Either way, during tough economic times, getting an education will put you in a fantastic place to get ahead into a strong management position during the upswing.”

Although now may be the perfect time to embark on an MBA, how do prospective candidates go about choosing the right business school and the right MBA program for them? One good strategy is to adopt the following five steps in making a decision. These steps encourage candidates to take their time, assess their own personal strengths and objectives, and do their research to ensure they make the right choice.

Step 1: Career goals and feasibility

Try to narrow down the types of career you might like to pursue. Understanding what employers want and where opportunities will be plentiful should figure in your thinking. Are you geographically mobile? Do you have a strong first degree and two or more years of successful work experience? Do you have a vision of how you can progress in your current industry or function, or are you just hoping an MBA will help you to do something new without any real plan (risky in current markets)? Talk to HR managers at target companies to gain their input.

Step 2: Self-assessment

Why do you want to take an MBA? A realistic self-assessment of your abilities and skills base will help you to make a more focused selection of schools. Analyse your motivations. Do not take an MBA just because you have recently graduated and cannot find a job. Most applicants opt for an MBA to improve career prospects, learn new skills and create a personal network. Other motivators are bringing about a career change, increasing salary and starting a business. If you have lost your job in the downturn, you may choose an MBA to ride out the economic storm. But for most, it is a more strategic decision. Perhaps you see that in a year or two a recovering economy is going to need more business leaders of your profile, and an MBA will equip you to take advantage.

Step 3: Study mode

The full-time MBA is still by far the most popular program. Executive MBAs, which require a minimum of five years prior work experience and allow modular study periods while you carry on working, are growing in popularity. Part-time and distance learning MBAs are also options.

Step 4: Research and selection criteria

With so many schools to pick from, you need a rational selection approach. Decide what criteria matter to you and aim to identify five schools that match up and for which you believe you can meet the entry criteria. Many candidates pick a school because of a specialisation. For example, someone seeking to start their own business should look for a school with a strong entrepreneurship faculty, incubator facilities and access to venture capital.

Step 5: Meet schools face-to-face

It is important to meet school representatives and alumni to make sure there is a personal fit and to confirm your research findings. Ideally, visit the school campus. If this is not possible, the QS World MBA Tour is an alternative.

For thousands of young professionals, now is the time to get moving, get that necessary MBA education and advance your career in time for the rebounding economy. It is one sure way to show that career atrophy is an exaggeration. Mark Twain would have been proud.

QS World MBA Tour – www.topmba.com           

The QS World MBA Tour has, since 1990, been the world’s leading careers and education expert, bringing together hundreds of business schools from around the world to 35 countries each year and was visited by 65,000 MBA candidates in 2009.

The Africa Leg of the MBA Tour - 2011 Calender  

Thursday 24 March Ghana - Get free tickets here

Saturday 26 March Nigeria - Get free tickets here

Tuesday 29 March Johannesburg - Get free tickets here

Thursday 31 March Kenya - Get free tickets here

Innovations in IMB's MBA programme

The world is changing. So is the IMD MBA program.

An intensive, international one year leadership and general management program, the IMD MBA is limited to 90 experienced participants (this year’s class represents 45 different nationalities). Consistently ranked among the top programs by international publications, the program will be introducing a number of innovations in its 2012 program design with a particular emphasis on integrated classroom and real world learning and leadership throughout.

Developed and enhanced based on input from recruiters, alumni and academic research, the new IMD MBA program incorporates a pioneering new continuous “action learning cycle approach” through the careful integration of classes, live business cases and projects to allow participants to apply what they have learned in the classroom to real leadership situations. This begins from day one.

The new program has three specific innovations:
1) Program content that directly integrates classroom work, live cases and real world projects (with start-up companies, SMEs and multinationals) together throughout the year.

2) Personalized learning and individual coaching, including a personal learning plan, an individual project and electives sequenced through the year.

3) Structured pre-program preparation through IMD-guided online learning, reading or a pre-program immersion to achieve a basic understanding of accounting, finance and statistics before the program starts.

These innovations are being introduced based on comprehensive research demonstrating how the world has changed – and so have today’s learners.

“In designing this new program, we conducted considerable research with a broad spectrum of stakeholders,” said IMD Professor Martha Maznevski, IMD MBA Program Director. “Tomorrow’s leaders must have three linked skill sets. They must be able to operate an organization based on classic business fundamentals, to lead themselves and their organizations, and to navigate through the uncertain and complex waters of today’s global environment. Developing the intuition and judgement to act with impact requires an approach where participants can learn, test and reflect in rapid, real world learning cycles.”

She added: “The new program design will better equip learners to compare and contrast their different experiences, developing the ability to read situations and draw from a repertoire of responses. It will in essence mean ‘guided on the job leadership training.’ Our small class size and deep connections with business make this revolutionary approach possible.”

IMD’s comprehensive leadership stream remains an important foundation for the program. The leadership stream includes high-intensity outdoor exercises and group work, peer reviews of personal strengths and weaknesses, and a unique personal development elective, all thoroughly integrated with the rest of the curriculum.

“The world today is more complex and turbulent than ever, and tomorrow’s business leaders will need new skills – in addition to the traditional ones, not instead of them – to lead us responsibly through this century,” noted Professor Maznevski. “We saw this first-hand in the most recent financial crisis, also a crisis of naiveté as many managers failed to understand how their decisions impacted other functional areas and parts of the world. We believe carefully combining knowledge-building, action and reflection in multiple contexts is the only effective way to develop judgement as well as the ability to take effective action.”

The IMD MBA 2011 progam will benefit from some of these new program innovations. The IMD MBA experience retains the elements that have made it a trademark throughout the decades: business fundamentals, contextual learning and a leadership focus. 

-press release  

Meet with the alumni and admissions staff of IBM  at the QS MBA Fair in Lagos Nigeria on 26 March at the Eko Hotel & Suites. Free online registration http://www.topmba.com/mba-tour/Lagos?partnerid=4508

 

Leadership challenges facing the MBAs of today

Business today is unruly, complex and unpredictable. With instant networking across companies, industries and borders, economies are dynamically inter-connected. Across a maze of global markets, business legislation, regulation and policy are in constant flux.

With the stunning growth of social media people anywhere have the unprecedented ability to influence other people around the world. And with the rapid, unstoppable pace of technological and market innovation, competition is increasingly intense.

As a result, strategies that worked in the past probably won’t work in the future.

Crises often emerge in an instant and are usually unexpected. There are no fast and easy answers, no simple rules to guide actions, and no pat solutions to the myriad of evolving issues that face organizations on a daily basis. In this vibrant and volatile environment, the need for effective leadership has never been greater.

Traditionally, most managers have focused their attention on their own company and traditionally, business education has focused on how to understand, make and execute decisions within an organization. But, in today’s business environment, the value a company creates and how it succeeds depends on much more than simply ensuring all the parts within an organization work together. It depends on working effectively within the ‘enterprise’ – or the rich complexity of interdependencies both within the organization and between the organization, as well as the environment in which it operates.

In other words, to build and sustain a high performance organization, a leader must not only point his or her people in the right direction. Rather, a leader must also have vision and the ability to connect with and continually nurture a network of relationships with other companies, organizations and people.

This enables leaders to see the big picture and understand how it is evolving. They become adept at anticipating the impact of economic trends, competitive challenges and global-scale market issues. And they know how to capitalize on the synergies that result from gaining this fulsome perspective.

Such leaders are cross-enterprise leaders with the competencies, character and commitment to build and sustain the profitability and growth of their firms.
 

Leadership in the MBA classroom
 

At the Richard Ivey School of Business, we strive to develop leaders who embrace the complexity of doing business today, who are decisive despite the uncertainty, and who can foster the commitment of their employees, partners and other stakeholders to the best course of action moving forward. Basically, our approach is to help prepare today’s MBA student to think, act and lead in the cross-enterprise way now required for business success.

The cross-enterprise approach is reflected in Ivey’s case study approach, where students are presented with real life challenges faced by actual companies. Like business today, these case studies are not limited to a specific business discipline, like finance or marketing. Instead, they depict situations where analysis and decision-making involve a variety of multi-disciplinary issues at any given time.

In effect, the classroom becomes a ‘business simulator’ where students can test their thinking and judgment in a low-risk, supportive environment, receiving instant feedback from professors with diversity of insight and knowledge. Equally important, students gain the opportunity to hear and benefit first-hand from top executives who share their experiences and the lessons they learned during these experiences in the classroom.

This hands-on approach enables students to learn the specifics of functional disciplines while also experiencing how each of these functions affects one another. This provides students with the opportunity to think holistically about the enterprise in tackling the delicate and often complicated work of a cross-enterprise leader.

Leadership initiatives

Beyond the classroom, an effective management education should also give MBA students the opportunity to act on the knowledge and capabilities they gain in the classroom. At Wharton, for example, students have the opportunity to spend several weeks of the summer in Asia, Africa or the Americas through the Wharton International Volunteer Program. Meanwhile, the Centre for International Business at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth organizes spring break trips for Tuck students to selected host countries.

At Ivey, our MBA students can learn to act in a cross-enterprise way by participating in the LEADER Project, a student-driven overseas economic development program, where MBA students teach foundational business skills to students and entrepreneurs in the newly developing economies of Eastern Europe and Russia.

A second student-driven initiative is the Ivey China Teaching Project, which offers MBA students the opportunity to volunteer their time to teach a case-based course to business undergraduate students at Tsinghua University in Beijing and the Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade. These rich exchanges benefit both the overseas students and the volunteer instructors, who gain a better understanding of how leadership differs in other cultures while securing valuable international experience.

While it remains true that companies exist primarily to create shareholder value, the best business leaders today see their companies as part of an ‘enterprise’ – a rich, growing and continually evolving network of mutually-beneficial relationships. They value the role that their organizations can and should play in enriching that enterprise and as a result, they consistently gain positive results for their companies.
 

- Gerard Seijts

About the Author

Gerard Seijts is an associate professor, Richard Ivey School of Business and executive director of the Ian O Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership.

What’s a good GMAT score?

What’s a good GMAT score?Top of Form

Valid for five years, GMAT (Graduate Management Admissions Test) scores are used as part of the application process for business schools, and are usually the most feared part of the MBA admissions process. The reason for the test is that, while admissions essays and interviews can prove difficult to compare, business schools use an applicant’s GMAT score as a common gauge to judge many applicants on paper.

GMAT preparation

During your GMAT preparation, if you have chosen to use one of the many ‘GMAT prep’ companies, then you should have a rough idea of the GMAT score you are capable of. However, you should always keep in mind that preparing for the test, and actually taking the GMAT are very different.

Whatever you have scored during your ‘GMAT prep’ phase, it is unlikely that you will achieve the same grade. This is partly due to test day pressure, but also as a result of the differences between the practice GMAT questions and the real ones. For instance, some preparation companies will purposely make their questions more difficult, in order to prepare their students for every eventuality, while others may make them easier in order to encourage students to stay with them.

Your GMAT score

Students currently receive four scores on the GMAT: An overall score, ranging from 200 to 800, a maths score ranging from 0 to 60, a verbal sub-score ranging from 0 to 60, and a score for the analytical writing assessment (AWA), ranging from 0 to 6.

While participant’s scores for the AWA section will be available to the business schools they apply to, they do not count towards the overall GMAT score. Instead, the maths and verbal results form the overall score of between 200 and 800.

Percentile rank

All four GMAT scores are given a percentile rank, which highlights what proportion of test takers scored lower in each part of the test. The higher the percentile rank, the higher your GMAT score when compared to other test takers. For example, a percentile rank of 55 means that you have scored higher than 55% of other GMAT test takers.

This method of scoring will also be available to business schools that you choose to apply to, and will allow them to see how respectable your score is when compared to everyone else’s.

Analytical writing

On the analytical writing section, each essay is given a separate grade on a zero to six scale by two different graders, one human and the other a computer. This means that the examiners marking the GMAT essays are more likely to adhere to the strict rules in the GMAT, as they are aware that a computer will be checking their scoring.

If both the computer and the human’s grades for an essay are the same, that score will be assigned. If the two scores are somewhat different, then a person will read the essay to determine the grade.

What is a good GMAT score?

The simplest and most accurate answer to this question is the higher your percentile, the better your GMAT score. However, it really does depend on which business schools you plan on applying to, and even then, your application will not rely entirely on your GMAT score.

Information on the average GMAT scores that successful applicants have at different schools is available on TopMBA.com’s business school profiles. Find out what the average GMAT scores are for the business schools you wish to apply to, and then develop a preparation plan to achieve it.

As an example, below are the top ten business schools for finance according to the 2009 QS Global Top 200 Business Schools Report: The Employers' Choice and the average GMAT score that their successful applicants have:

Top European business schools arrive in Ghana to recruit African candidates

According to the latest QS TopMBA.com Applicant Survey 2010, there has been a 19.9% rise in the number of MBA candidates from Africa and the Middle East selecting UK, Germany, France, Spain and Switzerland as their preferred study destination from 2009-2010. In the same year, the number of candidates choosing the US - traditionally the most popular MBA destination- as their preferred study destination dropped considerably from 71.1% to 60.4%, narrowing separating them from UK (58.8%) in 2^nd place.

Ross Geraghty, MBA expert and managing editor of the TopMBA Career Guide says: “What is surprising about these MBA study destination preferences is the disparity between MBA applicants in different regions. The US is no longer dominant and more and more European countries are at the top of people’s lists.”

Why is the US less popular as an MBA study destination for African and Middle Eastern MBAs than ever before? Geraghty adds, “Difficulty in accessing visas, uncertainty about being able to stay in the country after graduating from an MBA program, concern about the short-term health of the US economy, some political and cultural concerns, particularly among Muslim applicants and an increasing trend towards returning home after an MBA combined with the global preference for shorter courses”

To meet this growing demand for European MBA programmes, some of the world’s best business schools in Europe such as ESMT European School of Management and Technology GMBH , Ashridge Business School, University of Stellenbosch, Business School, Henley Business School, The Robert Gordon University Aberdeen Business School Faculty of Mgmt, Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School, Hult International Business School, University of Edinburgh Business School Scotland, IE Business School among others from around world will be travelling with the QS World MBA Tour to Ghana on 24th of March to meet and recruit some of the country’s best candidates. Candidates can register free online

Reading around your MBA: book recommendations

While studying for your MBA course you should learn about finance, marketing, accounting and many other business topics. These are the hard skills that will help you to become an effective manager once your program is complete.

However some of the most important lessons you will learn during any MBA program are not focussed on finance and marketing. Many consider the most important lessons to be on working effectively in teams, communicating your ideas clearly through presentations, and working in an increasingly global business environment.

If you want to gain a head start on your MBA program, I’d advise taking some time to explore the popular books that focus on developing these soft skills in business. Remember that while the hard skills will make you a good manager, the soft skills will help you to become an excellent manager.
 

Beyond Bullet Points by Cliff Atkinson

How many PowerPoint presentations have you sat through in your life? How many have you given? How many can you honestly say were effective in communicating a message to the audience, or that considered who that audience was and what they needed to hear?

Most presentations are very wordy, vague and to be honest, dull. They are an opportunity to communicate an important message, and an opportunity that is all too often missed.

During your career, and your MBA program you will be asked to make countless presentations, and this resource should help you to communicate your ideas effectively. Beyond Bullet Points shows how to combine classic storytelling techniques with visual media in order to create clear, interesting and engaging presentations. It explores how to create visuals that send a strong clear message and that support your speech.

Atkinson’s book outlines a structure that will help. Start by setting the stage for the story, covering the where, when, who, why, what and how, before expanding into the use of logic to convince the audience to approve the solution offered. Finally end the story, recap and resolve the conflict.

As an added bonus, the CD that comes with the book provides lots of additional information, including templates and tips on how to make the most out of your presentations.
 

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

 Carnegie’s book is a classic, having sold in excess of 15 million copies. Despite originally being published in 1936, the lessons taught have not changed in relevance.

The ability to interact and understand people as well as work effectively in teams are key points in gaining any MBA, as students practice the key skills they will need to become successful. However, a lot of the lessons in this book will be more useful post graduation.

How to Win Friends and Influence People provides an overview of effectively dealing with common human behaviour, before explaining methods of working with people effectively and how to communicate efficiently. Throughout, Carnegie covers all the bases, looking at techniques involved in ensuring a happy professional life as you work your way to the top, before covering the importance of ensuring your time outside of work is just as joyful.

Some may find that the information in this book is common sense. I feel that the challenge is how you choose to put the lessons into practice.
 

-          Giselle Weybrecht

About the Author:
Giselle Weybrecht graduated with an MBA from the London Business School, and is the author of  The Sustainable MBA: The Manager's Guide to Green Business.