Sonic Migration

What are you?

Are you a taker or giver?

First let me explain…For the last 3 years I have been quietly thinking about collaboration and how important it is to accomplishing great things. It was set off by an interview with Mark Moffett, the ant guy. He talked about ant communication and collaboration. Ants are tiny but they get together and do tremendous things for their small size.

I continued to think about collaboration when came across different articles related to it like Jonah Lehrer’s New Yorker piece “Kin and Kind” on the debate over the role of altruism on evolution and Martin Nowak’s Scientific American article “Why We Help”.  Maybe it is all about the survival of the fittest and most cooperative.

Then this past March I read an article in the New York Times called “Is Giving the Secret to Getting Ahead?” I didn’t get the chance to finished the article but I was fascinated by the piece’s description of Adam Grant. He is a young highly productive professor who makes the effort to help students and colleagues or connects them with others who can help. It turns out that giving (with some healthy boundaries of course) is beneficial, motivates and can lead to greater personal success. Would the possibility of a big payoff encourage more people to collaborate with others  as well as connect others? The comments by readers are interesting and insightful. Women and men with children point out the problems with his theory while others share their work experience that contradicts his studies.

Below is a NYT video interview link with Adam Grant talking about his book “Give and Take” and explaining what is a giver, taker and matcher.

What are you – a giver, taker or matcher? Were you a giver but got burned so now you help no one or you require immediate payment – quid pro quo style? Or did a bad giving experience it turn you into a taker?

http://nyti.ms/Xdin6r

Damn! I have been accepted…

You have been accepted to the Intensive One Year MBA and yes, that would be the appropriate reaction.  You have just signed yourself up for a ton of work – not only did you volunteer but you are paying to have a fire hose of information crammed down your throat in one year. Congratulations! You are a smartypants and a masochistic.

Enough of my sarcasm – the MBA program can be a roller coaster ride but it can be less stressful if you do your best to follow the advice below.

Reduce your stress

1. Be organized – whether it is on your calendar on your laptop, phone or old school paper, know your deadlines.
2. Time management is the key and is part of being organized. You will have competing deadlines looming over you for individual and group work. There will be times when you have deadlines for 2 individual papers and 2 group projects in the same week.  You have to find the tools that work best for you to help you manage your course work, reading and deadlines. Use whatever you are more comfortable with – it could be a big paper calendar on your wall to set up your study routine or an intricate study schedule on your smartphone calendar application.
3. Make sure those around you are supportive. Whether its friends or family make sure you have their support. It is a good idea to have someone to talk to when things get hectic and stressful.  It helps to have a support outside the program to provide an outside perspective especially when you gets so immersed in the program and the rest of life fades into the background.
4. Balance course work with maintaining a healthy lifestyle. It is important to take care of your body and drag it (if needed, kicking and screaming) to the gym or outside for a walk.
5. Eat brain food. Although stress can drive some of us to binge eat, it is important to eat good healthy nutritious food. Yeah, I mean veggies.’ What?!! I everywhere I turn someone is telling me to eat my damn freaking veggies.’    Yeah I know I find it annoying too. I hated to admit it but eating those damn stupid veggies make a freakin difference. A quick sauté of any green item of your choice with olive oil, onions, salt and chili (if you like your food spicy) is easy and tasty.
6. Try to complete your assignments several days before they are due. This will give you time to step away for a day or two before you review and revised one last time or 2 or 3 last times or give to your professor for feedback.
7. Pay attention in lecture. It can be tough to sit in a lecture for three and half hours so take notes. It helps to write the notes down.  It is an activity to help you stay focused when the professor’s lecture style is a bit dry.

Group Work Advice

8. You need to learn how to work in a group. First start by understanding your individual work process. This is important for working in groups. You can’t figure out how to work with people if you don’t understand yourself.

9. Eventually, you will take a class that provides a framework for how to work with a team. Instead of waiting for that class, I recommend you establish within your team agreements on how to work with each other.  Are there rules for how to express criticism of a teammate’s idea without offending the teammate? Is everyone comfortable with giving and accepting criticism?

10. Break up the group project into steps or pieces that can be tackled one at time. It can help make the project less daunting.

11.Set up different deadlines for each phase of the project.  Make sure everyone agrees to the time line and is committed to meeting the group deadlines. See advice #2 and #6

12. Finally, it is a good idea to do your reading so you are prepared in case a professor calls on you.

I think that is enough advice. It can be tough to implement just 2 two of the items listed above much less 12 but that is grad school and life – juggling competing priorities and deadlines.