What the heck is integrative thinking??

If you have been on the Rotman website or read anything Rotman-related you have probably seen it plastered all over the place and you are probably wondering what it is. Most of us had no idea when we started school. This qtr we are taking a class called “Integrative Thinking Practicum” (ITP for short) in which we are supposed to take the concept of integrative thinking and practice it in case studies.

Apparently there were a lot of complaints with how ITP was being taught last year so to figure out how to fix it, who better to teach the class then integrative thinking’s inventor (and the Dean of our school), Roger Martin! So Roger Martin is teaching us a class. Despite his stature in the business world, he is actually a super down-to-earth guy and of course speaks very well. Also, thus far, I really like how the class is being structured. First we did a few cases that happened in the past, so we could see how to use integrative thinking to come up with solutions. Then, we are given a bunch of cases of situations happening right now in the real world and asked to solve them. It’s cool knowing we can use what we learn in class to make an actual real world impact.

But now to answer the question in the title of this blog entry. According to Rotman’s website, integrative thinking is: “instead of choosing one (model of how to run your business) at the expense of the other, generate a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new model that contains elements of the both models, but is superior to each.” I dare define it in a much simpler form: creative problem solving. That’s it. Basically instead of thinking in terms of very strict set of alternatives that are common in your industry, come up with some wacky new one that suits your needs.

Because I am naturally a pretty creative guy, this is not really news to me. I think like this every day. However, for people with backgrounds working/studying in fields that are very “black and white” I can definitely see the value in teaching how to be more creative problem solvers. So, people with creative backgrounds, this stuff should be easy for you. Engineers, accountants, etc, have fun expanding your problem-solving horizons!

A happy end to recruiting season

One of the big things I wanted out of my MBA was to get a job where I can get much more strategic marketing experience, working on major global brands (ideally not in Canada). I was determined to make this happen. So I:

-Met with countless people- Corporate Connections Centre, 2^nd yr students, people in the jobs I want to do- to build strong relationships and to do resume reviews to ensure people knew me and I could give them exactly what they want

-Researched the crap out of the companies and industry I was interested in…So much so that when companies I was interested in came to campus, I won prizes for my knowledge of those companies and industry

-Learned from those who got the jobs in the areas I was interested in and those who didn’t get the jobs in the areas I was interested to get a sense of best practices (and not so great practices) and ensure I would nail my interviews

-Did countless mock interviews with the people who have or had the jobs I wanted

-Ensured that in an interview situation I would be prepared, polished and perfect

And I am a super personable guy on top of that (important for marketing jobs). You’d think this would be enough to nail the job I want, right? WRONG. I got shot down from some of the organizations I was most interested in. Knowing that even when I do everything right (according to my interview feedback), it is still not enough, I got super depressed. Like, really, really depressed. And angry at pretty much every administrator at Rotman. How could this happen??

Every now and then Rotman posts jobs in other countries. I was always reluctant to apply to them because usually those jobs go to the “rockstars” of class (you know, the people that go to school, get straight A’s, are the captain of 8 sports teams and save puppies with their free time). I am a pretty smart guy but I am by no means someone like the above. So when a marketing strategy and business development job in London (England) came up, I thought nothing of it.

The CCC emailed me though and asked me to consider applying. It turned out the job was only open to Rotman students, not the population at large, which would improve my odds considerably. So I figured I’d apply. Two interviews later and I got the job.

So this summer I will be moving to London, England to work at Rainmaker Global Business Development (http://rainmaker-gbd.com/) as the Business Development/Commercial Partnership Intern.

I can’t begin to express how excited I am!! I am pretty sure I will have zero free time but the job should be absolutely amazing. So excited for it.

So after all of the stress and frustration of the last few months, I can safely say that if I can be successful in my job search, you can! Work hard, stay focused and you will be rewarded. :-)

Canadian Marketing Association Mentorship Program

The Canadian Marketing Association (CMA) organizes a “marketing mentorship program” with MBA schools across Canada. Rotman is one of said schools and I had the opportunity to get in involved in the program this year.

The name of the program is a bit of a misnomer though. When one thinks of a “mentorship” it is usually a relationship you have with someone who you look to for advice on various things over time. This program is not that. In this case you have to apply to the program and in your application, talk about the things you are interested in learning about/doing in the marketing world. If your application is successful, you are matched with a company that fits the interests you stated in your application. You (with a few other people from other MBA schools that are participating in the program) then spend at day at the matched company and meet their directors and learn about marketing (and business in general) at the company.

I am interested in working in marketing strategy and got set up with the agency, Carlson Marketing (soon to be AIMIA). I have absolutely no interest in working at an ad agency (which I thought Carlson Marketing was), ever. So you might think this would therefore be the worst day ever for me, right? Wrong! Luckily, the woman at Carlson Marketing that organized our day set up an amazing agenda for us. We had meetings with all of the leaders of the company, who were very experienced in areas unrelated to standard account services at an ad agency. So I had an opportunity to learn a ton, especially in the function I am most interested in, marketing strategy.

It is worth noting that some students do not get so lucky. Depending on who organizes your day and what company you visit, you might end up only meeting more junior people or company lifers who can’t shed insight on the world outside of their organization. So I was pretty happy I got to meet the people I did.

Because I was meeting such high-level people, it was almost like an unofficial job interview, as most networking events are. Like typical networking events, you should ask questions about the person, the company and industry but never straight up ask for jobs. However one of the other MBAers from another university who came on the site visit with us, was constantly asking everyone we met for jobs. Directly. Not cool, man! Also when we were asked to “tell me about yourself” it was very clear that my peers hadn’t prepared their stories specifically for our day at Carlson Marketing. However, anticipating we would be asked these sorts of questions, I prepared in advance and was ready to rock. Regardless of a lot of other drama that ensues with Rotman and its career services, it certainly does a VERY good job at helping us prepare for networking activities...

End of the 3rd quarter of school!

On Thursday was our last exam for the 3^rd qtr (Q3) which meant my 1^st year of MBA school is officially 75% finished! Some reflections on the quarter:

This is BY FAR the easiest quarter of the 3 we’ve had so far. Not many assignments and a huge % of our grade was based on just getting involved in class. Two classes didn’t even have final exams. We just had to write enormous essays for the end of the qtr. Although it’s not like the essays were that easy; they were very time consuming in their own right.

The exams we did have were another story. Because I am not a finance guy, things that might be common knowledge for our soon-to-be investment bankers and such are completely unknown to me. I feel like 2 of our 3 exams for this quarter (finance II and macroeconomics) gave a distinct edge to anyone with a finance background. Finance for obvious reasons and macro because a lot of the material we learned related to movements in the financial market, which finance guys would have already known and understood. We also had an exam for Strategy II (the ones we had no exams for were marketing and leadership). Strategy was challenging but mostly because it is a class at Rotman and everything in this school is challenging. But whatever, the exams are done and behind me now.

Another challenging aspect of the quarter was the fact that it is recruiting season. As I alluded to in a very early post, consulting and banking jobs get 99% sorted in January. Marketing drags on for 4 months. So besides dealing with school I’ve had to do cover letters, interviews, etc again and again... Very very time consuming. I am looking forward to getting an internship so I can move on with my life.

With Q3 over, we get a week off. I am spending half the week on my job search and doing networking. The other half, I am going home to Ottawa. I am looking forward to seeing my Ottawa friends (and family, of course) again. It was been a while!