My Very First Post!

So, here it is. My very first post! I have been prolonging this for a long time, partly due to laziness, but also due to fear that my blog wouldn’t be very useful to anyone.

So here goes. I was inspired to write this blog after being addicted (yes, addicted) to other mba blogs as I found them really useful in the application process. So, the main reason for the blog is to provide some insight into the Rotman MBA and perhaps some guidance. There aren’t too many Rotman blogs out there, and I have not found one that chronicles the part-time MBA. I might digress into my opinions about life and random thoughts once in a while...

Reader be warned: This is going to be a long post as it’s the first one, and it’s been a month since I have started mba school part-time.

So far what have I learned? Well, MBA part time is just as hard as MBA full time. In fact at Rotman, they don’t call it ‘part-time’, they call it ‘3 yr MBA’. All the MBA students are just as eager to make friends and bond, and just because you have to go to work the next day doesn’t mean you can’t drink till the wee hours of the morning.....

We started off the MBA with Negotiations. It was an intensive course that ran through 1.5 weekends, and it was a lot of fun. The prof was surprisingly one of the most soft-spoken men ever! Some things were fairly intuitive – like play nice, everyone wins if you negotiate a bigger pie, etc.. Some weren’t –Did you know that draught stricken Ethiopia gave money to Mexico when Mexico was hit with an earthquake? We listened to renowned Stanford psychologist Dr. Cialdni’s ‘Principles of Persuasion’. Biggest takeway: The Reciprocity Principle: When you do something nice for someone, and they thank you, what do you usually say? ‘Don’t worry about it, No problem, It was nothing’ What you are supposed to say is “I know you’d do the same for me”. This works because the person instantly feels that they need to reciprocate the good behaviour. Hence the anecdote about Ethiopia helping Mexico. It turns out Mexico had helped Ethiopia when the Italians tried to invade Ethiopia way back when.

Next class was Managing People. We just finished this class. It was alright, we learned some models and theories. However the best part of the class was the case studies. We learned about Ogilvy & Mather, and Lincoln Electric. The last one still intrigues me. Apparently, this company is studied in b schools around the world because of its unique ‘compensation as motivation’ theory. I was shocked that this company is still in existence some 100 years later. Lincoln’s motivation theory is one of ‘piecework’ pay. The more you make, the more you get paid. Seems fair right? However people don’t get health benefits or sick leave. Somehow, it really works! Interestingly enough, this motivation ideology didn’t work in Europe. Figures - given our fascination with money in N.America.

I think this post is long enough, more in the next post. Please post comments!