Introduction
It has been 2 months since the start of the MBA, and I am noticing how my thinking has started changing gradually. Didn’t consciously notice each change, but I would catch myself doing something and think to myself “did I always do that?”.
I have learnt a lot in these past two months. If I didn’t have access to a calendar, I would have sworn it was 6 months at least since I set foot in Lagos Business School. The amount of content crammed in such a small time frame is actually amazing, especially because you are kind of tricked into learning. Even if your brain was resisting the knowledge, if you do the work assigned to you and read the cases; you end up mistakenly learning a lot.
Ethics
Before coming to the school, kept seeing in the various guidelines and publications that ethics is at the core of everything in the school. Actually, thought it was exaggerated, but it definitely wasn’t. Ethics is sewn into so many parts of the coursework in creative ways.
I would not tag myself as an unethical person, but I generally made decisions based on if they would work or not. I obviously would not make a decision that would bring profit but kill a few workers; that is just a quality of being a normal human being. What happens now is that I see myself thinking, “would these help the people involved reach fulfilment?”; a thought I guarantee you, would never cross my mind. I may have considered things like staff satisfaction or motivation to work; but not fulfilment in its raw form.
In truth; ethics should form the core of even undergraduate studies. It just makes sense; you want people to be ethical right from a young age. Not just understanding right and wrong, but knowing why an act is right and why another is wrong. This would push the entire community in a better direction over time.
Management Communication
Before the Management part even came into play; the communication aspect alone was an eye opener. I thought that I had a good grasp of the English language, but the course started to slowly reveal gaps one by one. Now the quest is plugging each gap as a new one is revealed.
Now that we are much deeper into the course; I noticed it has also been woven into me. I start to talk and do a mental check; thinking again “is this an informative message I am trying to pass across or am I trying to persuade?”.
Of course, ethics comes to play here too, as I identify that I need to persuade; but I must not try to manipulate or even consider lying. The key thing with communication is that you can be the most brilliant person in the room; but if you cannot communicate your ideas, what is the point?
Conclusion
Looking forward to the courses ahead, I know it would be an interesting journey. Just wish I had a time machine to compare the me who started this journey to the me who comes out at the other end of this ride.
Thanks for reading and have a lovely day ahead
LEADERSHIP AND LOYALTY