The Side

This month, I have dived into something called the MAP project at Ross, which feels like the flip side of my last post. Being in school for business has been fun in an academically challenging way- I love to learn, and it feels good to be back in the classroom for that reason. But it also distanced me from the things that made me excited about pursuing a business degree: passionate people solving interesting real-world problems. MAP is an opportunity for me and my peers to get back to the real-world problem solving, and it has been a welcome reminder of what drew me to pursue this degree.

My team has been exploring an exciting new direction for our client, which has come with a lot of challenges: what are our limits? What is the motivation for this new pursuit? What is the best avenue for exploring this opportunity? In working on this problem, we have put our academic training to use- we have broad understanding of the parts of the business, we know what questions to ask. But we have also learned that business is usually not a purely quantitative exercise- it’s about people. We can study this business’s metrics, but what will ultimately determine the right path forward is understanding the passions and motives of the people in the company.

This week, we got to meet our client in person for the first time, and we spent a day figuring out the best direction for the rest of the project. Before my MBA, I worked in strategy workshops, and I had seen how effective a workshop can be for digging into that human side of business and finding alignment. With just a few days to prepare, I drew from my experience and worked with my team to build a structured workshop for our client. It was a resounding success- by stepping away from the purely academic side of the problem and looking instead at the human motives, we were able identify the plan of approach that makes the most sense for this business.

After the workshop, we got to take a peak into the operations side of the client’s business, and then attended an industry conference where we heard from speakers from every part of the industry. Here again, we heard over and over again that business is about people: people who are passionate about solving a problem, helping people, and doing their best work. No one was doing this work for purely financial returns, or to min-max business metric. Often, they made choices that were bad for the bottom line, but good for the people they worked with or served. Revenue and profits matter, but doing their best work matters more. This is the kind of business person I want to be.

This week was invigorating in several ways. It felt good to draw from my experience and create a workshop that helped my team and our client align on a path forward. My business education provided a valuable base for understanding the problem, but ultimately it came down to understanding the human side of the business to find the solution. I now have a stronger understanding of the client’s business, industry, and their personal drivers. I was also excited to hear from so many people who were driven by excellence first, who advocated for trying and failing and trying again, and who truly believe in their work. At the end of the day, I want to be the kind of business person who builds something for people, and it’s inspiring to hear from so many other professionals who are doing exactly that. A great business education can give you the tools, but ultimately the design and passion for any business comes from the creator- in that way, maybe working in business is not so different from being an artist.

We have one more month of work on this MAP project, and I can’t wait to see where it goes from here. See you next month!