Managing High Performing Team - Experiential Learning in the BC Tradition

by Matt

When the term “High Performing Teams” is used, the initial thought that jumps to the mind of many people may be a SWAT team storming a building or a championship sports team taking the field. While these examples certainly apply, high performing teams exist in many areas of this business world as well. From the innovations at Apple to the successes of the world’s largest financial institutions, skilled, well-orchestrated teams are often the driving force behind these achievements.

I was lucky this semester to take part in one of the most interesting classes I have taken in my MBA career, Managing High Performing Teams, taught by Professor Scott McDermott. This class seeks to explore not only how these high performing teams are created, but how we as future MBA’s can leverage their traits in the everyday work place. Through the course of the semester we were lucky to have a wide variety of speakers and out of classroom experiences in addition to our case studies and group presentations, giving us a real world look at how these groups operate.

As we explored what components made up these high performing teams, we were lucky to have some excellent speakers come to share their experiences and explain how they apply what we were learning to real life situations. From mountain climbers to the crew of a U.S. Coast Guard cutter, to members of a jazz band, all these individuals had one thing in common: commitment to a shared goal and the willingness to do whatever it took to get there.

Outside the classroom, we experienced some of these adept teams in action. A night at the Improv Asylum in the North End of Boston gave us a quick tutorial in improvisational comedy and the nuances of how four people take random situations and create comedy on the spot. We were then treated to a full show to see it happen for real. Pete Brock of the 1985 New England Patriots Super Bowl team hosted us at Gillette Stadium and showed us how a championship caliber football team comes together.

Looking back on the semester, I’ve realized a few things. Although I will likely never climb Mount Everest or take the field as a pro football player, the key attributes that bring these teams together can be applied across the business world. Possessing a common goal and collecting dedicated individuals devoted to reaching it will always produce a successful outcome.

First Year vs. Second Year? The Difference is Night and Day...

by Matt

Welcome back to another great year here at the Boston College Carroll School of Management. My fellow second year classmates and I are coming back from a summer of internships, travel and a break from classes, to get the ball rolling on our final year in this MBA journey. Also, I’d like to welcome all our new first year MBA candidates to Boston College. Good luck and enjoy the ride!

My summer internship was spent in Hartford, CT, with the Hartford Insurance Group. While I was there, I was tasked with scheduling people and resources for 150 projects in their Middle Market and Specialty Commercial division. It was a great experience and gave me a look into an industry that I never had exposure to before. Now that it is done though, I'm very happy to be getting going with my final year of the MBA program.

So what’s the difference between first and second year? There are three things that stand out immediately:

1. This year is comprised almost entirely of electives. During your first year, many of your classes are chosen for you and consist of mainly the core MBA classes (statistics, accounting, marketing, etc.). During this second year, students take classes that relate directly to their specializations and have the chance to take elective courses.
2. The one required course, Management Practice III (MP III), focuses on entrepreneurship and business plan writing, and serves as a capstone for the program. In this program, student groups are paired with an entrepreneur and are tasked with writing a business plan for a product, service or other start up venture. These are then presented in the annual business plan competition at the end of the year.
3. Most of our classes are at night. We share these night classes with Evening MBA students, so it is nice to see some new faces, meet some new people, network, and get a fresh perspective. These students have the additional challenge of maintaining their full time job while pursuing their MBAs at BC, and they always bring a great point of view to the conversation. The shift in scheduling also allows Full-Time MBA students to have internships during the academic year and gain more experience.

Overall I’m excited for this year for a number of reasons. Being able to pick and choose our classes gives flexibility in scheduling and allows us to pursue specific classes we find interesting. In addition, MP III gives us exposure to entrepreneurs looking to break out on their own, and adds perspective for those of us who are also looking to do the same. And finally, like most of us, I’m looking forward to a new job (and paycheck) when my time here is complete.

So welcome back for another great year, I hope you enjoy the rest of my time here!

Leadership in the MBA Classroom

by Matt

Hi and welcome back! If you’re reading this there’s a good chance you’re either frantically completing and submitting the last of your applications to meet final deadlines, nervously waiting to hear back from schools, or have already been admitted and are relaxed and excited for the upcoming school year. Regardless of what category you’re in, good luck!

I recently came across an interesting article regarding leadership challenges facing MBA’s (read it here). One common thread I’ve seen from all of my classmates is that everyone is eager for a leadership role in some form or another, be in in class projects, MBA clubs or student government. These opportunities are plentiful and will present themselves. I wanted to take a moment and share some tips to maximize these experiences during your time in business school.

1. Before you can lead, you need to be able to follow.

I know what you’re thinking here, “Matt, I’ve been following for (however many years you’ve been working) it’s time for me to take charge”. On one hand, you’re completely right, this is the time for you to take charge and be a leader. On the other hand, you will be working on a lot of projects with a diverse set of individuals, and there will be times when you’re the subject matter expert, and times when it is someone else. The key is knowing when to step back and play a supporting role.

2. When you are in charge, don’t be afraid to assert yourself.

You will quickly find that there are a lot of type-A personalities with impressive resumes in your business program, and at times it can be daunting. There will be lots of discussion and consensus building, but ultimately a decision will need to be made. If you’re the group leader, don’t be afraid to make a decision and run with it. You’re generally better off trying to fix something after the fact rather than spending hours agonizing over the “perfect” choice.

3. Keep a sense of humor.

Ultimately, there will be long hours and long nights with the same people. Things will get tense. Occasionally there will be tears. If you’re steering the ship, its your job to keep it on course, and that means keeping the mood as light as possible. Just remember what you’re doing may seem like life and death at times, but its only school and you’ve done it before. Have fun with it and try to help everyone else do the same.

Well, that’s it for another quick blog post. Hope all is well and good luck with the rest of your application process!

On the Home Stretch...

by Matt

Hey everyone! It's down to the wire here in the MBA program. Five weeks left until the end of our first year, and we're gearing up for summer break and internships. For most first year MBA students, the summer internship is a way to gain some additional insight and experience into their chose field. Luckily for us here at BC, our Career Services office does a great job of bringing in companies to recruit from our program. So instead of hearing more from me today, I wanted to hand it off to some of my classmates and let them tell you about their upcoming experiences for the summer:

Siobhan S. -

This summer I will be interning with Fidelity Investments in Boston in their Financial Leadership Summer Internship Program. I will have the opportunity to work with Fidelity's finance and business leaders, participate in development activities, and learn about Fidelity and Fidelity Finance. The intent is to provide me and the other interns in the program with the necessary exposure, development and training to potentially begin a successful Finance career at Fidelity. Although I don't yet know my assignment for the summer, past assignments have included pricing, product, competitive, cost and business driver analysis. Since my background is in the nonprofit sector, where my roles had elements of finance infused into my day-to-day functions, I am excited - but nervous at the same time - about leveraging the quantitative skills I have developed over the first of the MBA program at Fidelity. I'm looking forward to working on a strategic project that is guaranteed to have an impact on the business and can't wait to show myself how the skills I've learned over the last year will be instrumental in my future professional success.

Peter S.-

Eaton Vance is one of the oldest investment management firms in the United States, dating back to 1924. Eaton Vance and its subsidiaries offer institutions and individuals investment products and wealth management services. In my Summer Role with Eaton Vance's Investment Operations Business Unit, I will primarily be working in the middle and back offices providing functional support to portfolio managers, traders, and portfolio administrators for Eaton Vance’s portfolio and order management systems, monitoring trade affirmation and settlement of market transactions. I will also be working with brokers and custodian banks to resolve trade settlement problems and to identify opportunities to improve transaction processing.

Kelly C. -

This summer, I was able to find two internship opportunities. The first will be an internship with PwC in Boston working in the audit department, focusing on financial services clients. The second will be in Shanghai, China for five weeks working for a start up cookie company. The owner moved to China for her job after graduation, and she found that she really missed American desserts, especially cookies! She decided to start her own cookie company in Shanghai but has no finance or accounting background. I will be responsible for setting up her accounting system, working with her new investors, and creating a framework for her to use after I return to the U.S. I have started to do research for my internship projects, and my education at BC has proven to be extremely valuable already!

Welcome to Second Semester!

by Matt

“Back to school, back to school, to prove to Dad that I'm not a fool. I got my lunch packed up, my boots tied tight, I hope I don't get in a fight. Ohhhh, back to school”
- Billy Madison

Happy New Year and welcome back to my blog! I hope everyone had a happy and safe holiday season. Here we are after a 4 week winter break, gearing back up for another semester starting Monday. While the initial semester for the first year class was pretty intense, it’s looking like the pace will not slack at all for the second semester.

In addition to beginning electives towards our concentration, we begin our semester-long consulting project. This project is a yearly event where local area companies have teams of BC MBA students come into their corporation and act as an outside consulting team. A few of the things teams in the past have been asked to do is install a new business process, developing business plans and evaluating investment opportunities.

Our class has been broken up into 15 teams of 5 to 6 people each. Each group is assigned 2 companies to interview with, learn about what specific issue they will address, and toss out a few ideas on how they would plan to attack the problem. My team has had both of our interviews and is waiting to see which company we are chosen to work with. These projects are time intensive, and it will be a challenge ensuring we deliver a quality product to our clients. However, I’m sure I speak on behalf of everyone in class when I say I’m excited for the experience and can’t wait to find out which company we will be working with.

And on a final note, the Divisional round of the NFL playoffs is going down this weekend with the Pats taking on the Texans… GO PATS!!

Election Day and Group Projects

by Matt

Hello again! As I'm sure you know, today is election day. Luckily, our class schedule this semester let me get to the polls early this morning. So if you haven't done it yet, get out and vote!

I wanted to share a little today about the group projects you will find yourself involved with at BC. As I previously mentioned, we are placed into groups that we work with the whole semester across all our classes. Each project brings with it a unique set of challenges. For instance, our managers lab class has us picking a product or process and thinking of innovative ways to improve it (which none of us had done). Our marketing class is a little more straight-forward, we are given a relatively new product from a real-life company and told to create a marketing plan for it. Many people in our class have experience in marketing, so we can rely on their background for a way forward.

Beyond the academic challenges that each of these projects brings, managing the dynamic between individuals and leveraging each persons strengths is the biggest take-aways. I would encourage you to keep an open mind as you take on these projects during your MBA career and learn from your classmates as much as possible.

Second Quarter, Post-Sandy, and Flag Football

by Matt

Welcome to the second quarter! My classmates and I all survived the first quarter finals and are rolling along into our next round of classes. For the next seven weeks headed into the holidays we will be taking Finance, Marketing, Information Technology and Economics.

Our marketing class in particular has given us a great real world opportunity. Divided into groups, we are tasked with coming up with marketing plans for real world clients. My group in particular was given a tasking from the toy company Hasbro to help market a mobile app they have turned into a board game. It's looking to be an interesting and fun experience and these kinds of real world learning experiences are what separates BC from other MBA programs.

As I'm sure most everyone knows, Hurricane Sandy just hit us pretty hard here in the northeast but it looks like everyone in class managed to survive Hurricane Sandy relatively unharmed. Compared to some other areas on the East Coast, Boston got off pretty easy without too much damage. Aside from some downed trees and branches, the campus is in pretty good shape. However, we did make some BC history as the first students in a long time to miss classes for weather. I hope the folks reading this are doing well after the storm as well.

On a lighter note, the flag football season is in full swing. We have our games on Sunday mornings and they've been pretty competitive. Our full time MBA class has two teams, one for each section. So far my team for section 2 is in a good spot for the playoffs, 3rd place at 3-2... I'm feeling a championship this year!

That's about it for now, have an awesome day!

First 7 Weeks at BC

by Matt

Hi and welcome to my blog! First, let me introduce myself. My name is Matt and I am a full-time first year MBA Candidate at the Boston College Carroll School of Management. About 7 weeks ago, my classmates and I began what will be 18 months of rigorous study, culminating in the award of an MBA in June 2014.

These first few weeks have been extremely busy. My situation was unique from my other classmates. I am an Air Force Reserve officer and recently returned to the US from a deployment, arriving a week after the start of classes. While arriving in the US from Afghanistan on Saturday morning and sitting down in class on a Tuesday was a quick transition, the first thing I’ve learned about the BC community is that everyone, from the faculty to my classmates, was incredibly helpful and went out of their way to ensure I had a smooth arrival and was setup to succeed.

The 1st year of the BC MBA program is broken up into 7-week quarters, essentially scheduling the coursework of a full semester into 7 weeks. Needless to say, the workload is substantial, but everyone works together to get things done. Between collaborating on our weekly group accounting projects, studying together for exams, and bouncing ideas off each other for our other classes, I’ve gotten to know my classmates very well, very quickly.

Of course, all work and no play makes Matt a dull boy! The MBA program sponsors weekly Thursday meet ups at local bars and BC’s home football games provide a great chance to meet and socialize in a relaxed environment, introduce classmates to significant others, and generally blow off some steam on a Saturday afternoon.

Overall, this last month and a half has been a whirlwind of meeting new people, learning new things and settling into a new lifestyle, but I know I’ve made the right choice and chosen the right school. As the next quarter begins, I’m looking forward to the challenges that lie ahead.