organizational behavior

Organizational behavior, or OB as it's known around here term 1 of the IE IMBA, is a really important subject. How we deal with our relationships by "managing up," out, or down really does have an effect on our motivation to perform. While our cases studies cover people's people management issues in professional work settings, I find the principles applicable to all sorts of group work. Today we delivered an important group presentation on a case about career choices and dealing with frustrating colleagues... and I can't stop thinking of some of my own relationships in terms of the characters we've "met" in our OB cases. I tell myself "I have to be less like Mike, be less cocky and self-assured," or "I have to be less like Lisa, such a big cry baby." The analysis is a little superficial, but the point is that I've managed up and down in my previous job sometimes with success and sometimes with no visible results, but without the vocabulary I'm learning now. Learning these terms, frameworks, and then the strategies of how to actually evaluate and resolve certain types of situations doesn't necessarily make my relationship frustrations less acute, but it definitely gives me more confidence about how to solve them in ways that are neither passive aggressive, nor too abrasive. 

On a different note entirely, good luck to my work group member who has jetted off to London for an internship interview!

midterm madness

IE doesn't have a set mid-term week. In fact, I've only had one actual mid-term exam this past week. However, in these two weeks we have a number of major projects to hand in, so it feels like mid-terms, and that's what we're all calling this hectic period. It means a multiplication of group meetings that have spilt over into the weekend. It means even more need for excellent time management skills. My peer Miguel has written about this in his blog this week, click here for the post. 

While the time pressure has mounted, and the anxiety about grades has become a little more real, what I'm starting to take away from this process of finishing big group projects is a sense of having learned something. I'm trying to apply the frameworks we've used to analyze other cases; I'm thinking about our business plan for the entrepreneurial management class in a completely different light than I did at the beginning of the term thanks to material I've learned in all my classes, particularly marketing; I'm gaining confidence in some of my newly learned financial and quantitative analysis skills. But, I'm also increasingly struggling to retain additional information as we are starting to delve into the nitty gritty of financial accounting. As my classmate who sits next to me said this week "I'm saturated." What am I going to do about that? Go buy some flashcards. When it's tricky and detailed, I need to start memorizing certain facts so that I avoid getting lost when we're looking at complicated issues. 

Time management fairy is telling me my time is up to blog! Back to accounting!

back to school

Today was the first day back to school after Christmas break! I felt refreshed and energized, even though most of this "break" was spent studying, it felt good to start back with two week's worth of full nights of sleep and happy memories from seeing friends in Italy and traveling this past weekend around Spain. 

This past weekend, my boyfriend and I took a road-trip to Rueda, a small town 30 minutes south-west of Valladolid, about 2 hours from Madrid. We stayed in an amazing little hotel set up by the Felix Sanz Bodega right in the middle of town. The quality of the room was great for the price, and we got to try two bottles from their bodega for free! We rewarded them by filling our suitcases with purchases the last day. We also visited a few other local bodegas. They all seemed very professional and despite the crisis, trying to expand their market share internationally. We had some interesting conversations about the growing market for wine in China. The Rueda area is known for its white wines, but we tried some great tintos (red varieties) as well. I definitely recommend this weekend trip to anyone in the Madrid area. During our stay, we were also able to visit Salamanca, Valladolid, and Tordesillas. 

Although we started at 11am today instead of at 9, since mid-December my Mondays now include a 3-hour Spanish class in the afternoon. The classes are on-campus and free, offered by IE through the International House. So it's been a long first day back and I need to get my beauty sleep so that I have the energy and mental power to stick to two of my New Years resolutions: 1. wake up and go to the gym, 2. don't forget things (especially my aluminum water bottle) in my desk!