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!

Some more undergrad on steroids

The main part of our marketing course this semester was doing the “markstrat” simulation. If any of you guys took upper-year marketing classes in undergrad you probably know what it is and can skip the below paragraph.

For those who don’t: the class was divided into 6 teams. All of the teams operate in a fictional wold competing against each other and each team represents a company in that fictional world (well the marketing dept of that company to be precise). Markstrat is essentially a brand management simulation game. So if you love brand management like me, you will enjoy this! You compete against the other teams on all of the marketing 4Ps (products, pricing, promotion and place). On day x all teams input their marketing mix into the simulation for your 1^st “year” of business (i.e. what products you will include, at what prices, how much to produce, etc). After you input that info, the simulation runs against everyone else’s inputs and spits out your results for your 1^st “year” of business. Based on those results, you plan for yr 2 and so on.

Whoever has the highest share price by the end of the game, (sort of) wins. I’ll get to why I say “sort of” in a minute.

Anyways, so in undergrad I did the exact same simulation. However because you are playing a game against other people, a lot depends not on experience playing the game but on how the other players play too. The big difference between now and undergrad was I think in undergrad the decision-making timeline was something like this:

-On Monday we’d get the results from “year 1”

-On Friday we would have to input our plan for “year 2”

-On the following Monday, our results were made available for “year 2” and the cycle continued for the whole semester

In MBA school the timeline is this:

-At 11:15am on Tuesday you get the results from “year 1”

-At 1:15pm (that same day) you have to input your results for year 2

-On the following Tuesday 11:15am you get your year 2 results and continue

So the decision making timeline has gone from 5 days to 2 hours!! So this was another of the many learning experiences we’ve had about:

-Time management

-Analyzing and interpreting market trends

-Making $$ ;-)

Also while in undergrad we were evaluated based entirely on our outcome by the end of the game, in this case we were evaluated not just in the context of the game, but long-term as well, even after we finished playing “officially”. What was really interesting about this was as we played, a certain team was absolutely murdering every other team in the market. So one might figure they were set for the long term given how well they are doing now. Well after we finished playing, our prof showed us the results if we played 1 more “year” and this team was on a nosedive.

This demonstrated a few good lessons:

-Why it is important not to rest for too long on your laurels..there is always someone else (or in this case 6 others) ready to take you down

-You need to think long-term for business success!! (even if shareholders don’t always think that way…haha)

Evaluating the U of T Athletic Facilities

Not too much exciting going on in school as of late (same spiel every day- class, job search, class, job search, etc) so I figured I’d take some time to write about another aspect of the Rotman experience that people might be wondering about (I know I was before arriving!): athletic facilities.

As a Rotman student you are basically a U of T student meaning full access to all U of T athletic facilities. There are 2 gyms on campus: one at hart house, one at the athletic centre.

You guys can go to their websites:

Hart House
Athletic Centre

To see what classes and such that they offer. I want to tell you about the stuff you won’t learn from the websites.

Hart House
This building is OLD. Like really old (built in 1919). As such, the ventilation sucks and the layout of the building sucks. It feels like each room in the building used to be used for some other purposes and one year they decided to put exercise equipment into a bunch of random rooms in the building and leave it at that.

If you are only going to exercise for 1 specific purpose (i.e. JUST going for a run, JUST doing free weight exercises, JUST doing a dance class) it is fine. Besides the fact that the building is super old, you’ll get what you need. But as soon as you want to mix things up (i.e. for me in 1 session I like to do some free weights, some exercise on machines, some matwork, etc) things get super annoying. From having to do matwork in the tiny hallway outside the freeweight room to having exercise machines in a completely different part of the building from the free weights, one’s exercise session becomes way longer than it needs to be. The hart house exercise facilities are basically always open to students though so there are never scheduling conflicts which is good!

Athletic Centre (the AC)
This I would say is more like the Goodlife fitnesses of the world and such. The gym (weight room) is huge with tons of varied equipment (free weights, machines, mats etc). Although there are only like 3 exercise bikes here so if you want to mix cardio machines exercise with weights, forget about it here. You’ll have to go to one of the studios in the AC or back to Hart House. There is also a huge pool in the building though, which is cool for swimmers.

This building also has some quirks- It has a “field house” which is the top floor of the building and should just be a track with the various track & field pieces of equipment. However, the field house also has a super random set of exercise machines (different from those in the weight room in some cases) placed in seemingly random spots that should probably be in the weight room instead.

While this building is more of an athletic centre than hart house is, ironically, hart house has newer weights and machines. It is not to say that the AC’s machines suck- because they don't- I just thought it was kind of ironic. Put your best equipment in your best gym, no?

The HUGE bummer about the AC is that the gym closes itself off at random hours of the day for:
-“Programming Hours” – which I guess is when kinesiology students need to use the gym for their studies or something
-Women-only hours- which you girls will probably love but is an inconvenience for us guys!
-Being at capacity- A few times upon leaving the weight room, I noticed a few people weren’t being allowed in as there was a sign saying something like “we are at capacity…please wait.” I’ve NEVER seen that in a fitness facility EVER. That being said, I only noticed it like 4 times ever (and I am in the gym at least 3 times a week every week) so the odds of you running into this problem are super low but it was something I thought would be worth to note anyways.

In summary, I’d say if you are only doing one specific exercise activity, AC and Hart House are about the same in what they offer. If you want to mix things up at all, the AC wins hands down. (although remember to check the schedule so you don’t arrive only to find out it is “programming hours”!).

To those looking to do exchange here at Rotman…

Prior to the start of our 1st semester we of course had orientation camp which everyone was invited to- including all of the exchange students. So this was a great way for everyone to get to know each other and our school. However this semester with no camp, I was wondering, “how do the international exchange students here know us non-exchange students and all the fun and exciting stuff we have going on?” Turns out they didn’t.

To my surprise, we have no one in the student body who helps integrate the exchange students into Rotman and Toronto. Nor were there any events to this end either. I love helping out newbies to Canada and making sure they have an awesome time here so I figured I’d just take this responsibility on myself!

This semester we have apprx 8 students here from all over the world. I met one of them the other day and here are some things she told me:
-“Besides the people in our classes and the other people on exchange we haven’t met any of the other Rotman students”
-“It seems like all you guys ever do is study”
-“You have a club for Asian students and another club for sports fans?”
I was shocked….SHOCKED! For those who have read my blog, you can probably appreciate the above perceptions couldn’t be farther from the truth.

So the big lesson here is our school has a loooooooooooooooooong way to go in integrating exchange students into the Rotman community. Apparently other schools do an even worse job than us too. That is bad. If students go back to their home institution feeling like Rotman sucks, how could we ever hope to improve our relationship with those other institutions? So, I am trying to fix this, getting our exchange students connected to our facebook community, events eblasts, etc so they know more about what’s going on and can get involved and have some fun. When they get back home, I want them to tell their friends: “ROTMAN AND TORONTO ARE AWESOME!!!!” I know the 1st semester exchange people thought so and sincerely hope the above is a 1st step to getting our current and future exchange students feeling the same way.