The year in a flash........
Lifelong learning! That is how Cranfield MBA is described. While it has not been too far away in the past when I was on campus, so many incidents continue to happen in work life which take me back to the courses and lessons that I was absorbing in the class room. It was one such situation some weeks ago when I experienced the MBA year coming back in a flash.
The scene: a meeting room with at least 6 nationalities sitting around a table
Representing: a supplier and its client (myself included)
Objective: Future business relationship with the supplier
I won't bore you with the mundane contents of the meeting itself. However, practically every second minute, I was going back to the MBA days. The flash back was reminding of diversity and global cultures and Steve Carver jumping up and down and speaking excitedly in an animated manner, "I'm your client! I'm your client!"
It was intriguing to see that so many MBA's forget simple things so easily. That room had at least 4 MBA's. Yet the realities that stared in my face included:
- tossing off a business card given by the supplier onto the table
- talking / interrupting while another person spoke
- forcefully waffling
- preconcieved biases and closed minds
- and above all, the timing of the meeting.
If one had decided in advance not to continue the relationship with the vendor in future, how do you expect that supplier to remain motivated and committed to the existing projects that are still in execution stage!! No marks for guessing what the outcome of that meeting would lead to on the running projects. Time delay; cost over run; quality downfall - in other words, a recipe for disaster.
Three hours later I was still clueless what the meeting was achieving. All I could think about was the negative impact this discussion will have on my project. X months later, when I will sit down to explain why the project did not achieve the success criteria, I am sure no one will agree that this very uncalled-for meeting had its share of influence.
Common sense is indeed, not so common.
The scene: a meeting room with at least 6 nationalities sitting around a table
Representing: a supplier and its client (myself included)
Objective: Future business relationship with the supplier
I won't bore you with the mundane contents of the meeting itself. However, practically every second minute, I was going back to the MBA days. The flash back was reminding of diversity and global cultures and Steve Carver jumping up and down and speaking excitedly in an animated manner, "I'm your client! I'm your client!"
It was intriguing to see that so many MBA's forget simple things so easily. That room had at least 4 MBA's. Yet the realities that stared in my face included:
- tossing off a business card given by the supplier onto the table
- talking / interrupting while another person spoke
- forcefully waffling
- preconcieved biases and closed minds
- and above all, the timing of the meeting.
If one had decided in advance not to continue the relationship with the vendor in future, how do you expect that supplier to remain motivated and committed to the existing projects that are still in execution stage!! No marks for guessing what the outcome of that meeting would lead to on the running projects. Time delay; cost over run; quality downfall - in other words, a recipe for disaster.
Three hours later I was still clueless what the meeting was achieving. All I could think about was the negative impact this discussion will have on my project. X months later, when I will sit down to explain why the project did not achieve the success criteria, I am sure no one will agree that this very uncalled-for meeting had its share of influence.
Common sense is indeed, not so common.
posted by Sandeep Gupta at
5:51 pm
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