In my previous (second) post, I had spoken about 4 things I wish I knew at the start of my MBA journey.
On this piece, we come to the final 4 points to take note of when starting out your MBA program.
Be humble in learning, organized with time and be prayerful: time management is of the essence; hence your focus should be on working smart and strategically to achieve outcomes i.e., individual assignments and group-based assignments. Being organized with every second is of great value owing to the workload and timelines required to submit tasks, hence sufficient time would be needed to understand concepts and their applications. It is also necessary to read case problems and reading notes ahead of time, to ease flow of learnings and knowledge sharing between both executives and facilitators.
It is also key to come with a humble mind to every MBA gathering especially classes or group sessions. Many new concepts would be shared from lecturers/facilitators to reshape your thinking, philosophy, and approach to business concepts you are familiar with.
Also spend time praying as you would need spiritual support and solitude to recover, regain strength and navigate the terrain of this new journey.
Rest, Rest, Rest, Rest: This cannot be emphasized any further. Balancing an MBA program while working and being consistent with other commitments can be extremely tiring. Your health is of great value and should be well maintained by having sufficient rest periods integrated into your on and off-campus academic journey.
It is easy for one to get into bad habits such as not sleeping well (while trying to meet up with submission deadlines on Turnitin plagiarism checker), poor eating habits and so on. When rest and sufficient health self-management is not applied adequately, then it becomes difficult to navigate the MBA program and its commitments owing to symptoms of low immune systems, poor eating and so on. This also ties in to work life balance while juggling several responsibilities. Ensure you have time for yourself to de-stress and enjoy yourself.
Expect to meet people smarter and more intelligent than you: coming from the safety, quality and environmental engineering career path, I commenced the EMBA program with persons from several walks of life i.e., accountants, finance professionals, investment bankers, stockbrokers, business owners/entrepreneurs across several industries (educational consulting, oil and gas, e-commerce and mobile payments – fintech, construction and civil engineering, mechanical and related gadget sales, mobile tele-communications and devices sales and so on).
The diversity of people in my group made it easy for me to navigate group assignments with ease. I was (and still am) inspired by how they think and solve business case problems. As the bible says – ‘’iron sharpeneth iron’’ – I expect to be a completely new person with a completely new approach to life and business by the end of my 2 years in Lagos Business School.
Know your why: growing up (between the years 1997 – 2001) I heard these words from several Nollywood film actors – ‘’the bible says heaven helps those who help themselves’’. Even though that quote was never in the bible when I checked it in 2010, it creates an image of resilience and not giving up. The MBA journey would stretch you as it is an intense journey full of its own challenges while also dealing with the challenges of life (life never gives us prior notice before showing up).
It had happened to me severally (in addition to my colleagues at school) where we wanted to stop the journey and re-apply to another school, change our part-time format to full time and continue the MBA journey elsewhere.
When we got counsel from MBA alumni and other MBA alumni from other business schools, we found out that the challenges were similar, hence we calmed down, and had to re-visit our aim and foundation for commencing this journey.
Defining your why and sticking to it, keeps you focused on the journey, and enables you stay on the path despite the challenges you face.
Part of the learning curve is building resilient executives, and this also forces you to create structures in your life (if they never existed before) to enable one to fulfill the goal of the EMBA program.
This journey is a self-transforming experience as it stretches you into the new version of you that is required for global advancement.
Allow the process of the journey to have its full effect and stay true to being an improved authentic version of you. The world and those around you deserve the new you.
Having come to the end of these series, one can only expect the best once you apply yourself to the 12 points (from parts 1 – 3) on lessons learned thus far.
See you at the top.
#MEMBA 12
