The night before convocation

What a surreal moment it is. I’m feeling happy, excited and sad all at the same time. Tomorrow is our convocation and it marks the last day that we will all be together as a class. If only I could have one more class together in Amp A to hear Gerard talk about cuuuulture, to hear Dany make a funny comment, to hear Selena talk about oil and gas, to hear AK sing ‘Journey’, to see Matt B. raise his eyebrows and deliver a Jack Welch quote, to see Ricky playing on his iPhone, to see Alan playing chess, to see Sudha getting riled up about biotech, to see Vikas being an eager beaver, to see Mark T. take his time to answer a question, to hear David Atkinson ramble off a well-polished response, to see Diana and Adwoa correct the professors with the pronunciation of their names, to watch Heather make an intelligent remark, to see Samar look for water, to see Erin talk legalities, to see Jamie sum it all up, to see Zev talk ‘greed is good’, to see Rahul rap, to see Steph debate accounting, to see Sid talk banking, to see Z smile, to see Sabir say !’er, to see Flossie brew up an wicked response in case she gets called, to see Jeff talk medicine, to hear Joy-Ann talk about how cold it is, to see Jimmy serenade a classmate, to watch Waleed rock his chair, to see Pat deliver his roller-coaster speech, to see Matthew John talk politics, to hear Sebestian talk business, to hear Greg’s deep analysis of the situation, to hear Tom talk face-grinding, to hear Mukul talk cricket, to hear Garima talk India, to hear Raghu make a bold statement, to hear Neal talk numbers, to hear Sunny talk ops, to watch Jason B. trade stocks, to watch Anya talk Russia, to hear Karen talk consulting, to watch Andrew crunch some numbers, to watch Sid D. and Somea in deep discussion, to see Vanessa wearing a ‘vote for Vanessa’ shirt, to see Chris talk IT, to hear Will talk law, to hear Nolan spontaneously whip up a response, to see Ramit staring at Mukul, to hear Alykan talk about oil fields, to hear Pierre Mason crack a joke, to watch Joseph fall asleep, to hear Pier Jr. talk about the lab, to hear LP talk French, to watch Justin P. demonstrate his seeds of greatness, to watch Justin W. put himself out there with a vulnerable speech, to hear Gang deliver a perspective from China, to watch Wei’s observant tendencies, to hear Karthik offer a candid perspective, to watch Senay’s ‘Obama-ness’, to watch Mark R. play professor and teach a class, to listen to Manju’s long words of wisdom, to watch Neha’s facial reactions, to watch Somea’s strong will, to hear Khaled quote a section from the law book, to hear Anurag’s soft-spoken intelligence, to see Dev’s perfectly maintained beard, to watch Ashish snap a picture and to listen to myself ramble about Nortel. Oh – and to wonder why all those AMBAs are so smart…..

Today was a busy day. I had a number of errands to complete, and a lunch to attend before my parents, in-laws, and sister in law came into town. I managed to fit in time for a coffee with a good friend – which was really nice. It made me realize how much I’m going to miss hanging out with everyone. At night, Geeta and I cooked up a bbq dinner and enjoyed some good discussions and laughs with the family..

Dis-Orientation Week Update:

Wednesday: We attended Ivey Laundy! It’s an Ivey tradition for the outgoing class to make/show videos, demonstrate their talent etc. What a funny night. There were some pretty awesome videos with imitations, slide shows etc. Some pretty amazing performances too including singing/rapping/dancing from various classmates. We followed up with an appearance at the Barking Frog, an Ivey MBA’s most frequented club. Crazy times, very little sleep, and my body is aching - a last taste of what partying is like at Ivey.

I can’t believe tomorrow is it ;(

‘Disoriented’

‘Disoriented’

We are only a couple of days away from convocation and we have been spending most of the week getting ‘disoriented’. Yes – we are in the middle of ‘disorientation’ week; a week of decompression and social events to become unacquainted with the daily MBA work load and reacquainted with fun.

Thought it would be interesting to recap some of the highlights from this week.

Saturday: Ivey Formal, aka “prom” night. What a night! Can’t say I remember it all unfortunately ;) Good friends, good company, and lots to celebrate – enough said. I was honoured to be selected by the class as the winner of this year’s MBAA Outstanding Contribution Award. Thank you!

Here are some of my favourite memories from the night: when Gerard Seijts was awarded professor of the year, the crowd chanted ‘cuuuulture cuuulture’ over and over. Here’s the background on this one: Professor Seijts’ most used word during his Leadership course is the word ‘culture’….add on a Dutch accent and you’ve created an Ivey MBA’s favourite phrase; ‘cuuuulture’. At the end of the night, we found a video camera that had been left behind. We got excited and a few of us began filming some pretty interesting videos at a late hour. We had a good laugh watching them the next morning. One particular Doctor (let’s call him Dr. Ethical) tried to convince me to pawn the camera in exchange for some shawarma at Barkat’s. Barakat is a popular shawarma joint frequented by Ivey MBA students.

Sunday: Ivey Circle Goodbye/Hello Lunch + Bowling: Geeta (my wife) was President of the Ivey Circle during the school year. The Ivey Circle is a social group for the partners of those attending Ivey - It’s a support network for our partners and they do all kinds of things ranging from social events to charitable drives. We spent Sunday afternoon socializing with Ivey Circle members; saying bye to those of us leaving and hi to those that are just joining the new May class. Sunday night was all about bowling. Team 5 met up for an early dinner, reminiscing on our year, putting together bowling 101 summary notes for the class and discussing our bowling strategy ;) – Just kidding! Fun times, fun times!

Monday: Paintball + Pub Crawl. I haven’t played much paintball (only once before), but I must say that it was quite the experience. I have a few war wounds like many others. It hurts when I sit ;) We pubb’ed it up at night hitting three locations in as many hours. Pretty crazy night to say the least. I can’t say I was expecting it to be a super-fun night after a long, tiresome day of paintball in the forest, but it turned out to be a lot of fun.

Tuesday: Golf + rest time. We played a round of 18 at Forest City National – best ball format. It was awesome being out for the first time this year. I can’t say I played exceptional but I hope to play a lot more during my summer break. Following golf, I came home and fell asleep and I guess that’s why I’ve got energy to write this right now.

That’s my mid-week update. Stay tuned for the rest of it after convocation.

Bitter Sweet: What a year!

Today marks the first day of my post-MBA life. That’s right – I’m done and it’s bitter sweet.

My value investing team finished off our very last MBA project last night. Ramit, Justin, Heather and I effectively hammered though a demanding final project, pulling a couple of very long tiresome days. It was symbolic of what the MBA was all about: hard work, collaboration, passion, and a sense of accomplishment.

So how do I feel?

I am excited, I am happy, I am relieved, but in all honesty it has been an emotional week for me. I’m sad that the MBA is over. It’s been the most incredible, life-changing year of my life and I’ve made so many amazing friends that I will see less often and will miss dearly. Change has never been something I’ve enjoyed. The MBA has made me far more accustomed to it but I know it’s harder for me than some others. I have one more week of nothing but free time to enjoy with my MBA colleagues before we say adios; we call it ‘disorientation’ week. A number of events are planned including a prom, golfing, bowling, paintball, clubbing, dinners, parties and of course convocation. I am not leaving here without my degree ;)

Most surprising changes in me during the year:

-I’ve become a Facebook addict along with the rest of the class. Prior to the MBA, I never went on Facebook more then once every couple of months. I wonder if this will last?

-I’ve become an SMS texting monkey like everyone else in the class. I never texted much before coming here. I’m proud to finally say that I discovered the iTAP functionality on my phone and can text just as fast as everyone else now. Ok – maybe not as fast as those ‘crackberry’ addicts.

-I’ve gone way more grey than I ever expected. Yup – even the top is going grey and so are some of my beard and chest hair too ;) I know you didn’t need to know that!

-I’m going bald. I was in denial for so long but the receding hair line is here to stay and probably will grow over the coming years.

-I went through that party phase that everyone generally goes through in their late teens and early twenties - at the age of 28 ;)

-I feel like my age again. Prior to the MBA, I always felt like I had to act way older than I was. I’m comfortable with being young again. I know I’m still uptight and intense, but I’ve learnt how to have fun again.

Most important learnings from the year:

-Effective leadership is about so much more than you’d think.

-The power of collaboration and team work.

-Put yourself out there; make yourself vulnerable.

-This quote from Nelson Mandela sums one of my key learnings:

“Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the Glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.”

Favourite quotes from class during the year (names kept anonymous):

“assets are something people eat”

“a large % of criminals come from and go to Toronto”

"why develop a website in Canada for a bunch of farms to click and order lubricant"

“I feel like I’m in a Petri dish of male testosterone”

“errors are ok in general hospitals”

“I wouldn’t perceive BMW as a value but it’s valuable”

“the really smart people either burn out or become crooks and go to prison”

Team 5:

In closing, I wanted to make a special mention of my first learning team from the year. When I look back at this year, I realize how critical those first few months were. It was a time of anxiety, sleepless nights, and stress. Those first few months really set the tone for the remainder of the year and I was blessed to be a part of ‘Team 5’. We wrote a blog about our team earlier in the year in an effort to share our story with the hopes that other teams could benefit from our positive experiences – have a read if you get a chance. What was truly amazing about our team was that it was about more than school and academic achievement. It was about friendship, collaboration, mutual respect, common goals, and having impact. Thank you Garima, Heather and Matt for an amazing year.


I won’t stop writing quite yet. I’ve got a long summer break ahead and I’ll need to fill in my time. I’m not sure what my plans are for blog writing but I won’t call it quits yet, at least until convocation and disorientation week are complete.

Until next time.

Sacha Gera, MBA

You can learn a lot from a pig…

Yeah – I know it’s a weird title but very true…. I’ll get to that in a minute. Here’s the background on this blog: I am taking an elective right now called High Impact Presenting (as mentioned in my last blog entry). It is one of those courses that has had a big impact on me. Our professor, Dennis Shackel, is a gem. He is truly one of those professors that pushes you to your limits and allows you to explore new territory. How far does he push your limits? Well in the last class, every classmate was asked to recite poetry or sing a song of their choice. Over half the class sang a song! I find this remarkable because I think it’s one of the hardest things to do, but it is proof that he’s pushing us MBA candidates out of our safety zone.

I didn’t think I’d be getting much more out of the MBA program this late in the game, but I was wrong! I’ve gotten a lot out of this class and I’m becoming more comfortable with taking risks and making myself vulnerable during presentations/speeches… which typically leads to a more engaging and captivating performance. Further, I’m learning how to communicate and work more effectively with the four different personality types: Dominant, Consciousness, Influence and Steadiness. Personally, I am in the dominance category and I guess I already knew that. I’ve made a conscious effort over the last couple of years to become more comfortable with not having to always lead and to become more comfortable with delegation and trusting my teammates. I’ve come to realize that a successful team needs all four personality types to excel.

As another exercise we were asked to draw a pig – no joke. Apparently, there is a lot you can learn from drawing a pig. For example, research shows that if it you draw it in the centre of the page you are an optimist. If you draw it on the bottom of the page, you are generally more pessimistic. Based on how many legs you included, how big the ears were, how long the tail is etc….you can determine a lot about your personality type. Below is my pig – I was never an artist as you can probably tell. In fact if I recall correctly I was always a ‘C’ grade art-student in elementary school. Guess you can see why. Here’s what my pig (or perhaps better described as a wolf) tells me about me: I am an optimist, am active, am creative, have a strong sense of detail, don’t remember dates very well, like security, am stubborn and apparently I’m a good listener ;) I admit the listener part is not always true.

On a more personal side of things, the last week has been really difficult in some ways. Geeta and I still haven’t found a place in Toronto, my Value Investing elective has been a bit of an academic stretch for me, I’ve been busy on the personal front and I’ve come to realize that I need to work on my ‘crucial conversation’ skill sets. Crucial conversations is a pretty famous book about how to handle/communicate effectively during those critical moments when your emotions are interfering with your ability to say what you want to say in an appropriate and effective manner. A few years back, I used to feel confident in my abilities to face tough situations – I felt that my ‘crucial conversations’ skills were a strength of mine. Over the last couple of years, I seem to be having a lot more of these moments both professionally and personally, and many of those conversations haven’t gone as I wanted them to. I feel like I’ve lost a bit of confidence in my abilities to conduct these conversations and I know that I need to work on it. I took a course on developing ‘Crucial Conversation’ skills about a year ago and it was really helpful. It takes practice and I know I’m going to be spending some time this summer improving upon this.

Until next time…

Sach

The Party is Almost Over

I’m two weeks away from completing my MBA at Ivey and I’m starting to feel like the party is over. In reality the party is just starting…literally – the next three weeks are going to be filled with lots of social events as grad is quickly approaching. In fact, we have our very own disorientation senator (i.e. to help us get disoriented with the MBA program :)). She’s done a great job organizing a fun-filled week to cap off the MBA program in style and amongst good friends.

So how do I feel? Well a week ago I would have said tired and stressed. I was writing my very last two exams for two finance/accounting’ish courses – not necessarily my strengths. I worked fairly hard and I think I did ok in both. I definitely don’t feel like screwed up either of the exams and I feel proud of myself for taking on two electives that were out of my comfort zone.

I’m now taking two more electives to end off my MBA, neither of which have exams ;) One of those electives is Value Investing, one of Ivey’s most famous or shall I say infamous courses. Value Investing is taught at only three schools in the world; Columbia, Ivey and I can’t remember the other one. It’s about teaching students Value Investing methodologies and philosophies (i.e. Warren Buffet style of investing; looking for undervalued stocks). I took the course because I am an active stock investor and would like to better my investing performance.

The course is ‘infamous’ because it has a reputation of being Ivey’s most demanding course. I’ll let you know if that’s true in a week’s time. The other course that I’m taking is High Impact Presenting. What a course! It’s the only course I’ve ever been in where you’re sweating the entire duration of the course + experiencing non-stop laughter. It’s one of those courses that pushes you to your uncomfortable zone; where you can be called to the front of the class to recite an impromptu speech, sing, dance or even rap a song. Yes – I said rap a song. In fact one of my classmates had to rap and he was asked to do it three times; each time with more enthusiasm. I don’t think I would ever have had the courage to do that and I was truly inspired by this classmate’s courage. We’ve had others come up and sing and recite poems. Want to know what it’s like? – Check this out. Very cool class and highly recommended for those that aren’t afraid of being pushed out your comfort zone.

Over the last couple of weeks, Geeta and I have been struggling to find a new place to call home in Toronto. I think we have the neighbourhoods picked out but we still haven’t found what we are looking for ;) We are hoping to get the apartment hunt out of the way sooner than later so that we can focus on planning a trip to Europe or the Caribbean post-grad. Geeta is also actively looking for a job and we are both fairly busy these days. We are itching for a trip to perhaps Spain or Morocco.

With a couple of weeks to go, I’m excited. I’m excited about starting a new chapter of my life. I’m excited about seeing everyone reach their full potential over the coming years; I’m excited about leaving this program with so many new friends. In the mean time, with only two weeks left I’m gong to make an effort to spend as much time as I can socializing with my soon-to-be ‘alumni’ colleagues and to soak in the Ivey bubble for just a bit longer.

By the way…I’ve started running again now that the weather is improving. Time to get in shape again!

Until next time…

Sacha

The Secrets of Effective Leadership (Part 3)

In my opinion effective leadership is partially learnt, partially something that you're born with, and very much something that you can improve upon by learning from others - what I like to call the ‘Secrets of Effective Leadership'. The following is part three of my blog series on ‘The Secrets of Effective Leadership'. Part two can be found here.

"Knowing how to get visibility and give it"

I've seen so many talented individuals who do incredible work, but fail to get the recognition that they deserve. Perhaps they are being modest and don't advertise their accomplishments, perhaps they shy away from the spotlight, or perhaps their boss and colleagues aren't good at creating that visibility for them? Nevertheless, an effective leader will learn the ropes of how to get and give visibility and do so without coming across as arrogant.

Gaining visibility is critical to increasing influence and leverage amongst your peers and subordinates - essential for effective leadership. How do you gain visibility? There's no fixed answer for this because it really depends on the environment you're working in and the type of people that you are working with. Sharing and broadcasting successes, especially when it's a team-oriented accomplishment, is one way of gaining visibility. Taking on high profile projects is also another way. Informing your boss and upper management about your wins, in a manner that isn't considered brown-nosing, is another method. My old manager always used to encourage sending an occasional status update to upper management on a project that was going exceptional in an effort to gain visibility - this always seemed to be good advice. What was interesting was that my boss would always follow-up with an email of encouragement and praise, with my upper management copied on it - those emails would always fire me up and make me want to do better and more.

It's not all about gaining visibility; it's also about giving visibility to those around you. Effective leaders create visibility for those around them. It's not easy for an individual to advertise his/her accomplishments, but it is easy for a leader to advertise it for them. Creating visibility is something that is easy to do and is very much appreciated by others - an easy way to develop a good reputation and following. Further, it encourages others to do the same.

"Managing expectations/Managing your boss"

In part two of this blog series, I talked about quality versus quantity and the importance of not spreading yourself out too thin. Managing expectations and especially one's boss, is critical to getting the right quality versus quantity mix. In my experience, effective leaders are good at managing expectations; they under-promise and over-deliver. They know how to say ‘no' without burning bridges and hurting their reputation, and when they over-deliver on their promise they are praised. How do they do this? I definitely still have a lot to learn on this one but here's what I do know: when you're at that critical moment when your boss is piling on an additional tasks, take a minute to think about things before committing. Think about how it's going to impact your ability to perform on other tasks and whether you have the physical capability and resources to deliver up to your own expectations. A former mentor of mine always used to tell me that it takes a long time to develop a strong reputation, but only one screw-up to lose it all. Under-delivering and failing on a commitment can easily be considered a screw-up and have undesired effects on one's reputation. Another mentor used to tell me that a good leader will protect their reputation at all costs. The point being that effective leaders seem to manage expectations well in order to protect their reputation, and are a good at developing relationships with their bosses such that they can say ‘no' without disappointing them.

"Communicating for your audience"

I am convinced that good communications skills are imperative for effective leadership. What I've noticed is that good leaders not only communicate often but do so with their audience in mind. I always find it humorous when a presentation is made using technical jargon and acronyms that are not understood by 75% of the crowd. Sure, complicated verbiage sounds great and may make you look smart but you may be missing the boat with most of your audience. Effective communication is about getting the message across, about energizing your audience, and about earning trust. Effective leaders understand their audience and will find a way to reach out to everyone - They will tweak their communication accordingly from a content and delivery perspective. What I've noticed over time is that the good leaders communicate in multiple ways, are visible and are accessible via email, town hall meetings, open-door policies, casual drop-by's etc. My old boss, whom I look up to very much, used to walk the floor at least once a day spending at least an hour chatting with all his subordinates; it was a perfect opportunity to voice concerns, give a quick status update, and develop a relationship. My upper management was always captivating at the monthly town hall meetings because they used language that we all understood, and they made sense of complicated business slides in layman's terms. Further, they always understood the morale level of the room and made a conscious effort to find a suitable way to get everyone re-energized.

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As I mentioned at the start of Part 1 of this blog series; perhaps it is premature based on my limited years of experience and young age to have such strong opinions and beliefs about leadership - but I do believe that it is easy to spot out an effective leader because they stand out like sore thumbs. The points mentioned throughout this blog series are my opinion of how and why they stand out and are surely practices I will be carrying forward in my leadership journey.

The Secrets of Effective Leadership (PART 2)

In my opinion effective leadership is partially learnt, partially something that you’re born with, and very much something that you can improve upon by learning from others – what I like to call the ‘Secrets of Effective Leadership’. The following is part two of my blog series on ‘The Secrets of Effective Leadership’. Part one can be found here .

“Having the guts to not follow the herd”

Do you remember a time when you were confident that everyone else had it wrong, or that everyone else didn’t have the confidence to voice an opposing opinion? Humans love to follow the herd. We gain comfort by advancing in numbers. It’s not easy having the confidence to go against the grain, because you know that you if you’re singled out you may be put on the spot and be completely wrong. In my short career, I have observed that effective leaders have the guts to voice an opinion that is contrary to the masses. Even when they are wrong, their discussion and arguments in support of their view often benefit the rest of the group in some shape or form and are therefore value-added.

“Responsiveness”

It is not uncommon for a leader to be flooded by emails, voice mails and other requests. It’s tough keeping up with it all and not realistic to respond to it all in a timely fashion. What I’ve observed however is that effective leaders are responsive – even when they can’t find the time to respond they send a quick note back acknowledging the message and they provide an estimated time for a response. This ensures the receivers’ comments are valued, and generally a delayed response is not minded if the receiver knows when to expect a response. There’s nothing worse than not hearing back. Being responsive is an easy way to build credibility, trust and respect.

“Priority versus urgency”

Time management is such an important skill as one climbs the ranks – you’ve got so much more to do with so much less time. A former director of mine used to tell me that it was all about priority versus urgency. He was a firm believer in Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and would label every task with an urgency (high/low) and a priority (high/low). I admit that I’ve never read the book but he used to tell me that effective leaders would spend most of their time in the high priority/low urgency quadrant avoiding the temptation of constantly fire-fighting tasks in the high priority/high urgency box. He told me that ‘fire-fighting’ was addictive and often necessary but that it was the high priority/low urgency projects that would gain you the visibility and that would allow you to add value to the organization as a leader.

“Following through on a commitment”

There’s nothing worse then failing to follow through on a commitment – you lose trust from those that depend on you and you lose credibility; a leadership nightmare. Many leaders spread themselves too thin and take on too much. Quality is better then quantity in my opinion and effective leaders realize this and will not be afraid to say ‘no’ to a request knowing well that it may take away from the quality of executing on something else. Taking on too much is often the cause of why many leaders fail to deliver on commitments. It’s also a common reason for why leaders lose their energy and passion and even burn themselves out – which is doing no one any favours. Of course saying ‘no’ isn’t easy and it’s really about managing expectations in my opinion (i.e. managing your boss) – described in part three of this blog series to follow.

Stay tuned for part three…