What's the Difference

Week 2 in Ann Arbor brought much of the same as week 1. As I was sitting with my management and operations team in the cafeteria on a Sunday night I felt like I'd never left Ann Arbor. The time last year my fellow MBA1s and I were neck deep in group work, case readings, and recruiting. What a difference a year can make. My group had to do a 4-page crisis write-up for a Lockheed Martin case, and this time around we all "got it", as in we all seemed to know how to sit there, get shit done, and move onto the next task. I just want to illustrate some of the group dynamic differences between this year and last because I think it's interesting.

Silence, silence, silence
Last Year: Sometimes you don't know when someone is thinking, or you want to give someone time to collect their thoughts before they talk. So last year you could be sitting around and everyone is looking at their screen on the four sides of a table and you don't know whether they are reading what they've written, or looking at ESPN, (espn), so you were patient because it was the beginning of the school year and you were trying to be nice, welcoming, warm, and a team player.

This Year: You are not looking at ESPN, and you know that the difference between silence and talking could amount to an extra half hour of sitting and staring at each other. You talk things through and then you move on to the next subject. Done.


My Country is Niiiiice
Last Year: Maybe you were in a group with someone from not the US and maybe he or she was shy and had a hard time communicating. Last year you might've been very patient, and you might've hung on every word this person tried to say. And genuinely you appreciated the effort, albeit at times it was not helpful in the least.

This Year: Okay, you've had a year of getting cold called, prepping for interviews, and hurling insults in English after drinking half a beer, so if you are international and can't get your point across in a few cogent sentences, I'm sorry, but your airtime is getting cut down by half. And the international students know this, and for the most part they've stepped it up in group work. So while last year they might take a solid 20 seconds to say, "um yes, I have a question, and I hope that you explain this again, because to me, I do not understand what this means. Yes. Thank you", this year it's more like, "ayo, I don't know what the eff ya'll mean, nah mean?".

This Ain't Le Bernardin, It's Iron Chef
Last Year: At Le Bernardin, not that I've been, but the devil is in the details, and the ingredients, the service, the plating, etc etc is apparently exquisite. The dinners are long and expensive and memorable, again, apparently.

This Year: Someone peel the potatoes. Someone butterfly the lamb. Someone reduce that balsamic. Who is reducing the balsamic! Someone needs to be reducing the balsamic, like right now. This year we divide and conquer. If you are good at something you do it and you volunteer to do it because you want to get it done. The difference is that the Iron Chefs are as good as the Le Bernardin chefs, and the ingredients are as good, but this time around we move with speed and purpose, and when we plate the thing it might look a little rough around the edges, but we just cooked five freaking dishes in an hour. We've realized the marginal benefit of spending that extra time making everything perfect is just not worth it, yet we are committed to a very very solid end product. And the result is that getting the work done isn't all that bad.

And lastly, I think the major difference is that as people start to get offers, or have offers, they can relax a bit. I am definitely feeling like someone took some weight off my shoulders as last Friday I received an offer.

"Dear 8 pound 6 ounce Baby Jesus, or as our brothers to the south call you, Jésus…we thank you so much for this bountiful harvest of Domino’s, KFC, and the always delicious Taco Bell, and a full-time job offer. Amen"