Of Eggs and Dragons

Its been 2 weeks and 1 day since my last blog. I apologise. As the utter, total and complete incompetence and sporadicity of my fellow bloggers Acipiter Nisus (is this an anagram?) and Phathu will also show, INSEAD draws you in and leaves no time for anything else in life. Iv'e been busily avoiding my wife, kids, pets, aunts, uncles, girlfriend's best friends ... so that they dont lay enormous guilt trips on me...(this is a cunning ploy to make you think I'm married with kids and a girlfriend.... Of course I might be...)

So where should I begin?

Week 4 zipped by with the 2 brutal quizzes destroying our spirits and leaving us weak. But no more of that because it reduces me to tears. The highlight of that week was the class on Leading People and Groups. Here our assignment in groups was to build a "vehicle" out of newspaper, string, plastic cups and sponge such that when a raw egg is placed in the vehicle and thrown off of the 3rd floor it lands safely and intact. Somehow our group didn't quite believe that 3rd floor meant 3rd floor, we thought it was a metaphor for "off the top of a table" and built an elaborate space buggy type device with several cushioning devices built in. These "cushions" worked a charm when dropped from the top of a table. However 3 floors was quite another story. Surprisingly our group was one of the thickest in coming up with the right idea. I wont ruin the result for future INSEADers but suffice to say, 60% of eggs landed in perfect condition. However our group still remains tight knit and friendly despite us victimising the engineer in the group and telling him/her how utterly lousy he/she was. He/she was though, seriously, totally crap, if only he/she were an economist/poet/poodle they would have been almost as useful as I was in the session.

Unfortunately this tight-knit, encouraging/safe space concept of a group that our group has created is not true for all groups - some are beginning to fray a little and cracks are emerging. The following week we were told by the Professor for Leading People and Groups that infighting and managing distress and conflict was what made teams strong and this was an expected result. Strangely our team has resorted to no infighting whatsoever and has been surprisingly accommodating and understanding of the objectives of each other. Perhaps we are lucky, or just extremely talented leaders and team players, or arguably just not functioning to our maximum potential as a team. Because apparently if we were, we would be fighting. This is an interesting theory and one that I largely agree with in work settings where not everyone is pursuing an MBA and where serious liabilities/monetary incentives are at stake.

The week 5 class in Leading People and Groups was even more interesting - it focused on a discussion of the 1950s movie 12 Angry Men where 1 juror convinces the other 11 to change their view through a series of strategic leadership ploys. This was excellent food for thought. It offered a model of a leader and certain traits/techniques through which one can influence and lead people. I have started to incorporate all these techniques and am probably manipulating most of you already without you knowing it. No, I'd be more subtle than just tell you about it. Maybe.

Week 5 was a really short week due to Chinese New Year holiday in Singapore - although there were some interesting guest speakers from McKinsey and an INSEAD professor who spoke about the Sub-Prime crisis. The slightly calm/holidayesque feel for this week gave us the opportunity to play a number of classroom games including Professor Bingo, where we distributed bingo sheets with words that the professor is famous for using. The first one to get a row or coloumn of words had to get up and say "Bingo". We also all wore ties to the class of a professor who had previously complained that students just didnt have the same respect for teachers that they did when he was teaching in 1980. We each took in a beer for the 5:30pm class in Economics and gave one to the professor and finally we incorporated a Beatles song title into every interaction with our Accounting Professor for a whole class.

We also did a lot of work and a lot of us went to a lot of interviews with Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank etc. BCG created real commotion by hijacking a full day in the consiousness of INSEAD and BP said something about Beyond Petroleum in a convoluted, long winded, entirely upright, British, sorry, Beyond way.

A lot of travelling happened in the last weekend, INSEADers invaded pockets of Bangkok (yes, Khao San Road and Chatuchak market), Malaysia (Langkawi, Tropical Forests and Tropical Islands), Bintan (losers), Singapore Night Safari, Zoo and Nature Reserve (uber losers) and Clarke Quay (there is nothing left to say). Some first timers in Asia went and admired the Chinese New Year fireworks. As an old China hand, I knew they would be beautiful but I also knew I was infinitely less likely to suffocate and suffer chlaustrophobia by sitting in my living room. Now this may seem like a cop out - but its actually just what locals do. They are wiser than tourists and leave the tourists to jump around in Chinatown. There is cosmic karma in this - because lets face it when I go to New York I go and click pictures in Chinatown and Central Park like a complete jack%$# too. So its all good.

We are now in week 6; Dragon Week. Now Im hoping for some intense food and flavours, themed days and an exploration of Xinjiang, Tibet, Sichuan, Shanghai vs Beijing face off, exploration of cultural nuances of Taiwan, HK, Singapore. However it seems none of this is planned. This would be a shame if true as China is a world in itself and needs to be done full justics in a national week. And of course Dim Sum would a pleasant change from the food in the restaurant at INSEAD.

I'll let you know how Dragon Week was on Sunday.

Zai Jian.