It's so easy to forget that we are only on day 3 of Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Program. That's because of the voluminous number of cases that we have to read, prepare for individually and that we need to discuss with what is called "Living Groups".
 |
| Living Group 52's conference facility flanked by our pantry |
The way Harvard has designed the program is to first allow the students to review the case on their own - to maximize and enhance individual learning. This is immediately followed by a meeting with the Living Group where each one shares his thoughts about the case. In this context, the Living Group discussion further enhances individual learning as the student is now able to incorporate the views of several individuals. In my experience, this is also the appropriate venue to seek coaching from the subject expert in the group. In so many respects, the Living Group discussions have more flavor than the plenary case discussions since the Group allows for a more thorough discussion of the various angles and possibilities of the case.
It comes then as no surprise that we dedicated the entire day to nothing but improving group dynamics. We had a workshop on rules, norms, expecations, feedback and effective facilitating. It might sound so fluffy but over dinner we all agreed it was a valuable exercise and an investment in the right direction for it allows us to be more efficient moving forward.
Tomorrow we will being tackling Account and Finance basics. Again, we have 3 cases to discuss over breakfast but before I go, I'd like to share with you a couple of quotes I got from todays session.
"We always teach others how to treat us."
"80% of all problems at work are caused by conversations that never happened."
