What will your legacy be?

Business Ethics is one of those classes that most people expect to be a total fluff class, where you just talk about how business isn't all about making money because that's what you think you're expected to say.  What you say in Ethics class about a business decision may be very different from what you say about that same decision in Finance class.  But one of the reasons I came to Darden is the curriculum's focus on building an enterprise-wide perspective.  And that means not isolating decisions in one class, but considering any business decision we're faced with by bringing in the perspective of all of our classes.  

The first year Business Ethics course is a great example of how Darden operationalizes this.  Not only do our Ethics professors make guest appearances in our finance and decision analysis classes, but we're also pushed to develop a consistent point of view across the decisions we make in all of our classes.  So if you said you would pursue an oil drilling project in a finance class, it's because you've not only considered your shareholders' likely response to the outcomes of your decision, but also because you believe it will have a positive (or at least not negative) impact on your customers' perception of your brand, on your employees' trust in your management, and on your ability to act according to your own morals.

To that end, our most recent assignment for Ethics class was to answer the prompt below about what we hope our personal legacy will be.  At the end of our careers, what aspects of our characters will have governed our decision-making?  It wasn't until writing this paper out that I truly valued the fact that we were given the time (and accountability of a grade) to focus on this.  I wanted to share it for a few reasons: first, to show a little of who I believe I am; second, to spark some debate since I believe that a few of my goals are in opposition to each other; third, to create some public accountability for what I hope to hold myself to; and fourth, to encourage others (outside of other Darden FYs, like Kenny, Shaheli, Michael, Jenny, Jon, Rohan, Rachel, Genie, Gloria, or Yachna, who also had to write this same paper) to explicitly think about what legacy they hope to create for themselves.

What legacy of responsible leadership will you hopefully leave behind? What will those closest to you – your family, your trusted colleagues, your friends, your business associates – have learned from you?

When I look back at the end of my career, I want to be able to say that I stayed true to my core beliefs. That I wasn’t afraid to raise my voice when I saw something I didn’t agree with. That I didn’t just walk away from a situation I felt uncomfortable about, but stayed and fought to fix it. But that I would have walked away from a situation I did not believe was resolvable.

And I want to be able to say my opinion was sought after exactly because of that. That I was known for making the tough decisions, but for doing so only after carefully considering all possible angles and outcomes. That I was not known for rash decisions or blindly following my gut.

But I also want to be known for my moxie. That I took risks, had fun, was spontaneous, and truly enjoyed what I put my mind to achieving. That I inspired that excitement in others around me.

I want to be known for not being afraid of making mistakes and for always trying to learn from those ahead of and behind me.

I want to be respected for my compassion, and my desire to help others around me to learn and to improve. That I went out of my way to become a mentor to those who came after me.

And finally, I want to be known for being a successful business woman. Not a business person, but a business woman. That I found a way to challenge our societal and institutional norms that currently make being a successful mother and a successful business woman a trade-off.

Snow Lessons

A few weeks ago I went on the Outdoors Club's ski trip to Snowshoe, West Virginia and when I got back, I knew I wanted to write a post about it.  I had a great time and met a bunch of fun people, but I failed to think this through because I didn't take ANY pictures.  Turns out no one else really did either, except for one person who had a GoPro camera on his helmet.  And his photos are a result of someone (I won't name names...) accidentally setting the camera to take photos every 5 seconds instead of taking a video.  So there are some awesome shots of waiting in the lift lines and riding the lifts, but not too much else.  To spice them up a bit, I played around with some filters (filters turn everyone into artists...) and you can see those lovely shots below.  But seeing as those really show nothing of the weekend, I'll have to rely on words to prove that even first year business students live and learn outside of spreadsheets.  This is what I learned:

• Painfully cold below-zero temperatures were balanced out by pretty awesome conditions on our first day.  We woke up to ~10 inches of fresh snow, which made getting there the night before a little rough, but made for some pretty fun times that first day.  However, it also made my face raw for a solid week.  I need a face mask.
• Yet another advantage to being short:  almost automatically get to be an inside penguin.  As we stood in that below-zero weather at 1 am outside the then-closed bar waiting for the shuttle to take us back to the hotel, somebody--in a stroke of pure genius--arranged a penguin huddle.  Along with the other girls, I was pushed to the middle and some poor, selfless tall guys (without hats, I might add) shielded us from the wind and snow.  Thanks for your sacrifice, guys.  I hope I never have to be an outside penguin...
• The years of my brother complaining about snowboarders (i.e., me) slowing everyone else down paid off (although I hate to encourage him).  Armed with a one-strap binding and some hopping skills (I guess you could call me a snow bunny. ha.), I'm proud to say I held no one up while strapping in and out of my board and while navigating the flat parts of the runs.
• West Virginia clubs attract very weird clientele.  I was glad we brought our own party.  Although to be fair, our neon/flannel theme and Lil Jon singing must have made us look a little strange, as well.
• I should have gone on the club ski trip to Park City...next year, I won't be missing any trips.  Or leaving my camera at home.

Slamming to a Stand Still

I finished my exams on Tuesday, December 4th.  Classes don't start again until January 22nd.  That's SEVEN full weeks of vacation.  I haven't had this long a break from school or work since the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college when I left finding a summer job until the last minute and ended up spending my time off learning to knit instead.  I'm close to being at a loss for what to do.  I even started reading my cases for next term.  (If anyone has suggestions for a good book to read, I am clearly in need...)  After barely having enough time to eat during the first three terms of school, having this much free time is just weird.  I've ended up getting a little slap happy.

But I'm aware that talking about how bored I am won't make for a very good blog post. Especially, I would imagine, for prospective students reading this who are still slaving away at work and feeling a bit murderous towards someone complaining about having too much free time.

So...I'll spare you the view into my internal dialogue in which I debate with myself about getting off the couch and going for a run or doing the myriad of life administration chores I've been putting off since August.

Instead, I'll tell you about the one week during this break when I was plenty busy.  During the second week of December, eleven other Darden first and second year students, one operations department professor, and I went down to Miami to Beckman Coulter, one of Danaher's operating companies.  Danaher invited us to participate in a kaizen event, as they have 12 other times in the past several years.  For the uninitiated, a kaizen event is a week long activity to analyze a process, come up with recommendations to improve it, and implement the changes, involving everyone from management to the people who perform the process on a daily basis.  (Check out wikipedia for a more comprehensive/eloquent explanation.)  This was a fantastic opportunity for us students to apply some of the concepts we had learned in our Operations class, and also learn more about managing and improving operations in real life. 

Beckman Coulter develops and manufactures blood testing machines for academic research and medical applications.  My team of five students, two operators, a team leader, and a few Danaher kaizen experts was tasked with analyzing and improving the assembly and testing of a sub-component within one of the blood testing machines.  I learned a ton during the week, but the biggest thing I learned really surprised me.  When an operator is performing a process over and over again, they don't have much time to stop and think about what the best way is to organize tools, parts, and process steps.  But when you  have a kaizen event, it gives everyone involved in the process the opportunity to think through how to do it best.  What I learned during this week is that small organizational changes like how you organize tools and parts at a work station can drastically improve productivity. Yeah, ok, seems simple, but I'm not talking about small changes to productivity.  I'm talking about massive increases. Like 50%-reduction-in-cycle-time increases.

And this is where my nerd-ness takes over.  I am OBSESSED with organizing.  No really.  I got binder clips for Christmas (one of my favorite presents).  I get beyond excited going to The Container Store.  At my last job, I created an organization system that a coworker told me was seizure-inducing it was so comprehensive.  My aunt used to invite me to her house just to clean her closets.  My family actually calls me the "Organizer Bunny"...

So when I had the opportunity to organize this assembly work station, I went for it.  I won't go into all the details of what we ended up doing, but I will tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed it and that, as I mentioned before, it dramatically increased the operator's productivity.

I initially applied to participate because I felt that understanding operations better would make me a more effective HR professional.  However, the experience also made me realize that a career in operations would be really interesting, as well.  So all in all, it was a really fun and productive week.  And as a result, I want to be sure to thank the Danaher University Relations team and the team at Beckman Coulter for the time and energy they put into making this a learning experience for us so outstanding.

Learning Team Love

On Thursday, we had our last learning team meeting of 2012.  Since meeting for the first time on August 15th, we have met every Monday through Thursday night, excluding two dedicated internship recruiting weeks, two exam periods, and Thanksgiving break.  54 meetings at two hours a pop on average.  That's 108 hours we've spent together in the past four months.  Without their help, I have no idea how I could have made it this far.  And now, after taking two of my four exams for this term and actually feeling pretty good about them, I am certain I couldn't have done it without all of their help doing the cases for our classes and the shared stress ranting.  So thank you, guys!

For our last meeting, we surprise celebrated one of our birthdays with Mellow Mushroom pizza and tiramisu.   Feeling pretty good about the cases for the next day, we actually just hung out talking for a couple of hours.  It was exactly what I needed to take the edge off the recruiting and finals pressure.

LT 50

And just because it's hilarious in looking back, here are our best photos from our get-to-know-your-learning-team photo scavenger hunt in August.  We somehow came up with the idea that one of us would dress us like a vampire and slowly kill the team off in each photo...with Mr. B killing the vampire in the last photo!  (I believe we took 3rd place thanks to that zany idea!)

Birdwood golf course

at Arch's

in front of the Rotunda

North Grounds Rec Center

Darden's TJ statue

being killed by Mr. B

Gelato Adventures

I’m proof that you can live in Charlottesville without a car.  Although I should note that my last trip to the grocery store was quite interesting given that I hadn’t been for the past three weeks thanks to a packed end to Term 2.  I ended up walking my bike home from the store with a backpack, and two large bags stuffed with what felt like the heaviest load of groceries I’d ever bought.  So I’m not going to say it’s easy, but through a combination of walking, biking, Zipcar, cabs, and getting rides from friends, I get by just fine without the added expense of a car. 

However, after being stuck in either my apartment or a learning team room for the four and a half days of exams, I was itching to get out and enjoy the beautiful fall weather and the gorgeous foliage and views around Charlottesville.  Without a car, I was relegated to walking around Darden and the rest of UVA.  Even though campus (or rather “grounds,” as I’m supposed to call it) is pretty spectacular, I had seen most of it already on my morning runs.  I was dying to get out and see the Blue Ridge Mountains and Skyline Drive, a famous road along the ridge of the mountains that offers amazing views, especially as the leaves are changing.

  

Then my classmate, Andrew, came to the rescue.  I met Andrew in our pre-matriculation accounting class, where he provided some real-world explanations for the concepts we were learning based on the gelato shop he owns and operates in nearby Staunton, VA.  One of my favorite parts of our classes is hearing about my classmates’ work experiences.  Invariably someone in the class has had an experience with the concept we’re learning about and hearing how they handled it provides some really valuable and relevant perspective for how we as a class might consider approaching the case at hand.  But back to the rescuing…

Trolling the class Facebook group, as I’m wont to do almost hourly, I noticed that Andrew had offered to take anyone interested on a trip over to his gelato shop, which involved a drive over the mountains.  I jumped at the thought of the beautiful drive and delicious gelato at the same time!  Twenty minutes later, Andrew, Ken (another classmate), and I were on our way to the picturesque little town of Staunton.

Downtown Staunton, VA

Ken and Andrew

 Andrew first took us to an awesome toy store, owned by the mother of his business partner.  I had a hard time not buying everything in sight.  In the end, I couldn’t resist this awesome purchase:

My favorite new running accessory

Awesome little toy store

Then Andrew walked us over to his shop, The Split Banana.  It’s got a really cool vibe that combines a classic, small town ice cream shop with a modern and trendy twist.   

From inside The Split Banana

After tasting several of the flavors, I settled on one scoop of pumpkin pie and one scoop of espresso biscotto—the perfect combination of fall in my mouth. YUM.

So many possibilities!

On the way back to Charlottesville, the sun began to set and light up the already orange trees.  We pulled off at a scenic overlook so I could snap a few pictures.  I was very thankful for the opportunity to explore outside of the Darden grounds.

  

Ahhhhh, fall!

Exam Haze

Taken on the first morning of exams...beautiful even in the gloom of fog and finals:

Flagler Courtyard

Since exams ended, the weather has been absolutely spectacular.  More photos to come!

FOMO

So I said last time that Darden keeps us pretty busy. I’m not enrolled at any other business school (obviously), so I can’t give a firsthand comparison.  However, I can certainly confirm The Economist’s claim that Darden is “well known for…its high workload in the early stages of the full-time MBA.”  But hey, that’s one of the reasons I came here.  I’m paying to be pushed hard so I can learn as much as possible.  (And apparently, I’m not the only one that thinks that, since The Economist ranked Darden #3 in their global list of full-time MBA programs!)

This is all great, but there’s one pretty big side effect:  faced with classes, nightly learning team meetings, recruiting for summer internships, clubs, Darden Cup*, and other social events, there’s a pervasive fear of missing out.  FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is perhaps one of my favorite memes that’s come out of the last year, because it so accurately describes the feeling I have constantly.  Finish preparing the Marketing case for tonight’s learning team meeting or go to a meeting to hear about the Global Business Excursions?  Call an alum at a company I want to work for or go to the Decision Analysis review session for the exam?  Go to Cold Call** to unwind after a long week with a free beer and dinner “light snack” of lasagna or take a nap before TNDC?**

The most common time I’ve had FOMO this fall has been on Friday nights.  For the past several months, I’ve been training for the Baltimore Marathon.  That means that every Friday night, I go to bed by 10 so that I can get up the next morning at 5 am or so to meet with a group for a long run around Charlottesville or the surrounding counties.  Even though I’m normally exhausted by the time Friday night rolls around, I would normally much rather go out with classmates than go to bed early. 

But training for this race is really important to me because I’m running it for my Grandpa.  A few years ago, he passed away after a very painful battle with Leukemia.  I am fundraising and training with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training to help find a cure to blood cancers.  Every four minutes, someone in the US is diagnosed with a blood cancer, and every ten minutes, one of those people loses their battle with one of these cancers. 

Tomorrow, I will run the Baltimore Marathon and while I’m struggling up the hills of the last 9 miles, I will be thinking of my Grandpa.  Together with the other 500,000+ Team in Training volunteers around the country, I will be fighting to prevent the pain my grandfather experienced and the immense grief my family felt from his loss.  And for this, I will gladly go to bed early.

If you’re interested in learning more about my training or donating to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, please visit my training blog.

*One of my favorite things about Darden.  All five sections of the first year class compete in events throughout the year, including softball, flag football, trivia, and a men’s high-heeled race (sponsored by the Graduate Women in Business and Gays, Lesbians, and Allies at Darden clubs), to name the competitions we’ve had so far.  There is FIERCE (but friendly) competition and everyone gets really into it.  Section E, which I have been lucky enough to be randomly selected for, is the reigning champ, having won for the past four years.  Section E alums, second years, and professors have been clear from the beginning about how much pressure we face (from them) to continue the dynasty.  We won’t let Section B get in our heads with their weird traditions surrounding a ragged stuffed bird or their wildly inaccurate comparisons of Section E to Slytherin House.

**Just a few of the social events put on by the Darden Student Association.