First Intensive Week – Part 2

The intensive week started on Monday, March 7, 2022, at exactly 9 a. m.

As I said in part 1 of this blog, this was my first time physically joining a class.

Fortunately, I was in class early because the first class started at exactly 9 a.m. at the GTB classroom.

Thanks to my days at one of the oil and gas multinationals, where timely arrival to duty was as important as the job.

For the first seven years of my career with this company, I worked offshore, although not deep offshore. The only means of transportation to the field location was a helicopter. The helicopter cannot wait for you because you are late and scuttle all the flight schedules for the day.

To take part in the pre-flight safety briefing, every passenger arrives at the helipad thirty minutes to one hour before the departure time. So, the need for adequate time management cannot be overemphasized.

Moreover, I never knew some of the salient class rules in LBS, which include the rule that a student does not enter the class after the lecturer has started the class, which implies that you are not expected to be late to class. Besides, if you leave the class after it starts, you are not to return.

Considering our usual ways of doing things in Nigeria and our African-time mentality, these rules may seem cruel, but on second thought, they help the students be more disciplined with their time and adequately prepared for the classes. Sometimes, I wish the LBS culture would be replicated in Nigerian universities.

The intensive week changed my mindset about the EMBA programme. It gave me a true picture of the work required to survive on this glorious adventure. Honestly, I underestimated the challenges posed by the EMBA programme. I now have a better understanding of the requirements to succeed in the programme.

I am happy I didn’t go the usual way of joining the classes online.

It was an opportunity to meet my EMBA 27 classmates that I last met on the orientation day. So, it was a time to reconnect with them, and I got so much important information from them about the EMBA programme that I never knew about.

It was also an opportunity to interact facially with my group members. We had done most of our group assignments over Zoom, so we used the group-work periods to complete outstanding group work.

One of those assignments was our Analysis of Business Problems (ABP) group case analysis and presentation.

Harnessing the different strengths of the group members helped us to complete the work within the short time we had.

We successfully made the presentation, with a lot of positive feedback and a few areas of improvement that were identified.

Understanding the best way to tackle ABP has been a major challenge for me. However, the group work, with the varying opinions, helped me to understand the process better.

The group work also helped me improve my ability to listen more to others without any bias, and allowed them to air their opinions without interruptions.