MBA journal writer - On a stick?

It IS in my stars to write for Bloomberg BusinessWeek for 2011! I am honored and excited to share my experiences at IMD. I believe the last representative for IMD on BusinessWeek was for the class of 2006, it's time to give another boost to the IMD brand. Well... I will try anyway.

So immediately after I received an email from Francesca this morning about the news, I sent a text to my wife about it. The return text was a "Sweet!" and a row of corn layed neatly next to each other. No, it's not an inside joke between us, she is spending the day at the great Minnesota State Fair and secretly giving my subconscious a craving for some beautifully roasted sweet corn. The state fair has been a tradition for many minnesotans and in my view, all about food, on a stick!

I'm going this evening and I ate a salad for lunch. Bring It On!!!

Big dog, small dog, no dog, hot dog

The meeting took about 5 min. It seems we can have as big a dog as we want! Unless of course there are complaints. Seems fair enough. Now we have 3 potential leads: a couple with a big dog, a dude with a small dog and a international visitor with no dogs. Which of these will pony up and sign the lease?

On another note, we have been finalizing our vacation trips in the next few months and that has been fun. The dates are drawing near and the anticipation is building up. In the mean time, the 2011 class has also been filling up. About 60 students (33%) in the class already and 8 months (33%) have gone by in the year... talk about swiss precision!

Next week, a trip to Nathan's hot dog in NYC? A friend of mine also mentioned a Kim Chee ladened deep fried hot dog at PDT (please don't tell) pub. I don't know about that one.

GEM #5

John Maxwell does an incredible job boiling down the "laws" of leadership, 21 to be exact. After reading this book, it definitely seems to me that only a handful of leaders in the world are practicing every law and great leaders are definitely hard to come by. A clear, succinct book with numerous examples that show you the way to being the best leader you can be.

GEM #5: The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership
SPECIAL BONUS! My top 5 quotes:
1. "Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less"
2. "Leadership is developed daily, not in a day"
3. "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care"
4. "You are the message, people buy into the leader first, then the vision"
5. "A leader's lasting value is measured by succession"

Use this as a guide in all your future leadership endeavors and I know you will be successful. I'm preparing for the day that followers will look to me to steer them into the clear, are you?

Sneaking up on you

It's been a flurry of activities trying to get ready for the move, and the weeks are just flying by at this moment. There are a couple of big rocks to move before the trail gets smoother. The 2 big things are the Condo and Financing. Other little ones include insurance, visa and storage.

The trick is to keep our focus on the big rocks and still enjoy the anticipation and excitement of it all. It's never easy, but constantly stepping back and looking at the big picture always helps to bring us back to the ground. Little distractions will continue to pop up and try to steer us away from our main items! IMD activities have slowly started to gain momentum. Enthusiastic MBA candidates are planning a ski trip in January and perhaps a new year party. Pre-program courses have been suggested by IMD on Finance and Finance Accounting. I anticipate more TO-DOs will pop up shortly.

In the mean time, reading about current students continue to prepare me for the next year. The second half of the year seems to be more dynamic and less structured. No more big lectures, traveling to different countries for the International Consulting Projects, just a more flexible schedule in general. I have a feeling the second half of the year zooms by pretty fast and that is the part most students will miss.

On a different note, but related, our big dog meeting has been moved again! Alright, time to buck up and flyer the town this weekend. I have 80 flyers waiting to be posted and I know there is a potential renter out there waiting to be found.

To rent or not to rent

To our dismay, the one showing we managed to score did not pull through for us. Even after listing our condo on the MLS ($400 down the drain), we did not receive any hits. We are finally open to the idea of renting and perhaps, it may be the better option after all (only option?). We have a good candidate as a renter, but the only problem is that our friends that want to rent our place has a Bernese Mountain Dog. It's a 100 pound dog, that's affectionate, good natured and stable, one big friendly giant!

The problem is our association has a weight limit on dogs - 35 pounds. All we have going for us is that there is a dog that's about 75 pounds that is living in the building and it was allowed for special reasons. I think helping us get good renters is a special enough reason! Maybe we can get the dog to lose about 20 pounds...

The verdict comes August 20th, let's hope it's a good one, if not, it's time to cast a wide net and hope we nab some fine renters.