I am currently in the fifth week of my MBA program at the Lagos Business School. So far, it has been a good ride; sometimes wild and sometimes solemn. In all of this, there has not been any event that struck me as much as what happened today. Your question at this point would most likely be: “What happened today?”
Before I go into that, let me provide some background. One of the most interesting courses at the Lagos Business School is Analysis of Business Problems (ABP). I would even say that it is the most exciting. ABP forces you to think, and pause, and think some more. It forces you to question everything you believe in a good way, and it teaches you to think without restrictions.
Now we have had eight sessions of ABP, and we have looked at several cases so far. I remember the first case we got and how I thought it was a walk in the park as the answer seemed glaring. I (and the rest of my group) discovered that we had barely scratched the surface. As we listened to the presentations from other groups as well as feedback from Dr Yetunde, we saw how narrow our thought process was.
So we went back to the drawing board because we were determined to get it right, but case after case revealed that there was something fundamentally wrong. We did not know what it was, but we were determined to get to the root of it in order to ace our presentations.
Recently, a new case was assigned to the class. The focus of the case was Micoderm, a medication for the treatment and prevention of diaper dermatitis, developed by LIDERM, Spain’s leading pharmaceutical company. This case has a lot of numbers, meaning that we needed to pay careful attention or risk missing it. One of the problems we identified with the way we approached cases was that we spent too little time discussing them. So for Micoderm, we had two sessions to discuss it; the first session was for an initial review and just putting ideas out there; while the second was a full review of the case (analyses, considerations, and other information). This second review lasted four hours and remains our longest group session to date. The following morning, we continued to source input from group members, pushing to get contributions from everyone. We reasoned that someone could point out something that others did not see and thus help us better frame our problem statement and/or arrive at a decision.
Guess what? It worked! For one, we were the only group that went ahead on solving the full assignment as opposed to just creating the problem statement. Also, we had left nothing to chance and our attention to detail was commended. Our analyses were robust and well-founded, and we also tried to look for any possible loophole.
The facilitator, Dr Anibaba was so impressed that her approval was palpable. She complimented our work and called our analysis excellent, a word I had never heard her use before. The rest of my group was extremely excited about the feedback we got and how we had set a precedent for other groups. Truthfully, it was a thrilling experience especially because—as I had mentioned to Dr Anibaba—we had waited nine classes to get this kind of positive feedback. In light of what happened today, the adage “If at first you do not succeed, try, try again” has never rung truer.
As I write this, the road ahead in our MBA program seems both tough and exciting. Our recent success with ABP taught us that persistence, working together, learning from mistakes, being flexible, and paying attention to detail are vital. These lessons will guide us through the rest of our journey.
In summary, our experience today showed us the power of not giving up and working as a team. Our MBA path is full of twists, but it iss worth it for those ready to tackle the challenges. So, dear Dr Yetunde, bring it on!
Being Human