Day One at Harvard

I'm exhausted and it's only 9.30pm (which is very early by my standards).  It's been an amazing day.  As much as everyone has been saying to me "you must be so excited to be going to Harvard," to be honest I have somewhat been daunted by today's approaching date because of everything I had to do or organise before I got here.  Even when I arrived in Boston two days ago, there was still the pressure to read all of the cases and not a lot of time to wistfully contemplate this great opportunity. However, when my cab dropped me on campus at Harvard Business School today, tears welled in my eyes.  I think the full realisation of this tremendous opportunity finally had the time to hit me.  I looked around at the grand campus and the perfect blue sky and said to myself, "I'm at Harvard!"  WOW!  It is hard to believe.  As Annie said in the musical of the same name, "I think I'm gonna like it here!"

There are about sixty women in our cohort.  Amazing ladies.  Eight Australians.  Six Nigerians. Two each from the Bahamas, Belgium, Kenya, Japan and India. Twenty-three from the United States. Five from the United Kingdom and one each from China, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, The Netherlands, Vietnam, Israel and Jordan.  A multi-cultural group without doubt.

I had dinner with 2 ladies from Nigeria.  One of them has seven children and holds a senior position with a bank in Nigeria. (I was pleased to learn she has "lots of house help")  I sat next to the Head of St Aidans Anglican Girls School in Brisbane - we had to travel across the world to meet despite working within 15 minutes of each other.  On my right hand side was a Product Manager from JP Morgans in Chicago and a consultant from Ernst and Young in Calgary. Interesting dinner conversation to say the least.

Today's case studies were Oprah and Shackleton (a 20th Century Arctic Explorer).  Our facilitator Dr Nancy Koehn was intelligent, articulate, energetic, original and inspirational. She gave us a free copy of her latest book. The theme was leadership and some of  my key notes were:

• Entrepreneurship is the relentless pursuit of opportunity without regard for resources currently controlled. 
• Effective leaders are individuals who help us overcome the limitations of our own fears and weaknesses to do things that are harder and smarter than what we've done before.
• "Stop talking about what you're going to do and take the first step." Bill Clinton.
• How good am I at taking a candid inventory of my own strengths and weaknesses?
• How good am I at knowing what depletes me and taking action to avoid this?
• Doubt and fear in an organisation are the enemies of leadership. What sort of grade would I give myself on owning and marshalling the energy of my organisation - be it positive or negative?
• We learned from Shackleton that people need time to laugh.  Are my people having enough fun?
• Many great leaders display obsessive behaviours. When does obsession stop being productive and start being sick?
• Oprah shows us that there are benefits to being candid about our own vulnerabilities as leaders (in an appropriate way).
• Some of Shackleton's strengths that we can emulate as leaders include:
• optimism
• leading in spite of obstacles (and turning them into opportunities)
• determination
• eliciting buy-in from our team
• being flexible and adaptive
• assuming responsibility
• allowing compassion for our people to be a stronger driver than the pursuit of personal ambition.

We also had our first board of advisors meeting where we were grouped in four and assigned a coach for the week.  We will meet once a day for the rest of the week where each of us has prepared a challenge statement on one of the key challenges we are facing in our professional life.  Our board of advisors is there to help us develop an action plan to address this challenge. 

So to sum it up - day one was mentally stimulating, exciting, humbling, rewarding.

Now I need to get to work on some budget preparations for my real job and get to bed. 

Tomorrow's sessions run from 7.30am-8pm.  I think I'll need my rest.

'Twas the night before Harvard

Well, as my kids would say, "it's just one more sleep" until Harvard.  I'm pleased to say it's 11pm and I've completed all of the case readings, uploaded a brief bio and completed the two online surveys as pre-requisites for the program.  And I've made notes for all of the case assignment questions too.

It was a beautiful day in Boston today - cool (temperatures ranged from 6-13 degrees celsius) but with stunning blue skies.  I had lunch at Papa Razzi - an Italian restaurant along the Newbury St shopping strip of Back Bay - Boston, and stayed there for about 4 hours doing my Harvard readings.

A working lunch at Papa Razzi Italian Restaurant

Soaking up the sunshine at Papa Razzi restaurant - almost got a tan despite the cool temperatures

After lunch I enjoyed a leisurely walk back to my hotel past some of the shops.

shops on Newbury Street - Back Bay, Boston - lots of people out and about

 I went inside a stunning 3-storey Ralph Lauren store, impressed by the history in the store created by the furnishings and the numerous portraits that lined the staircase walls (my colleagues at Spicers would have appreciated the "look and feel" that Ralph Lauren had created there).

Somewhat to my excitement, I then noticed across the street was a Victoria's Secret store!!  I've never been into a Victoria's Secret store and haven't seen a catalogue for years, but I have to say I was extremely disappointed.  The store experience was not that different to a Bras n Things shop in Australia and didn't meet any of my expectations about the mystique, quality or service that I'd formed from previous encounters with the brand. I didn't buy anything :-(

The gates to what I thought was going to be an expensive shopping experience.  Sadly I was disappointed.

When I got back to my hotel room the urge for sleep overtook me again and I settled into another 3hr afternoon nap - how divine!  It seems I'm following in my father's footsteps...  (when I was a child, my darling, workaholic father would sleep during most of our holidays, somehow catching up in those two weeks on the sleep he'd deprived his body of  throughout the rest of the year due to his demanding work habits)

I did some work in my hotel room and in need of a change of scenery made my way to the in-house bar for a casual dinner... clam chowder and a glass of Australian(!) Shiraz (Innocent Bystander).  This became my evening workstation and I was quite productive despite the background music which included Queen, Dire Straits, Fleetwood Mac and one gentleman in the bar who insisted on whistling along to every song. LOL

My working dinner.  Are you seeing a pattern here?

Anyway I finished off my Harvard readings and I'm looking forward to the week's program and then returning to Back Bay next weekend with a bit more time to explore the city without the pressure of study.

So what does the first day of my Harvard program look like:

11am-1.30pm

• Registration, including check-in to my on-campus accommodation

2-2.30pm

• Opening Session

2.30-3.45pm

• Oprah Winfrey Case

4-5.15pm

• Leadership in Crisis - Ernest Shackleton and Epic Voyage of the Endurance (to Antarctica)

5.15-5.30pm

• Group Reflection

5.45-7.15pm

• Board of Advisors Meeting

7.30-9pm

• Dinner

A great day ahead, but a few hours of work for my "real job" before I get to sleep.

I'm filled with an incredible sense of anticipation and gratitude for this opportunity.

How this Harvard thing all began...

The special moment of receiving my award from Governor General Quentin Bryce

My mentor Christine Moody and myself, at the dinner where my scholarship was announced

with Governor General Quentin Bryce and St George MD Martin Barrett (sponsor of my scholarship)

I'm an alumni of QUT's MBA program.  I got so much out of the QUT MBA program that when I completed it, I wondered what else I could do to continue investing in myself.  I found out about an alumni group for QUT women called FEW (Fostering Executive Women).

In addition to entertaining networking events with topical keynote speakers, FEW offers about a dozen mentorships each year to female alumni. Mentees are matched with mentors (most often female) and the six month, loosely structured mentoring agreement offers as much or as little in return as the mentee and mentor are willing to personally invest. Fortunately for me, both my mentor (Chris Moody from brandaudits.com.au) and I were both driven to make the most of the opportunity we had to work together and in the six months we spent talking and problem solving over monthly lunches, I secured my dream job as CEO of the Gainsdale Group and somehow managed to win FEW's coveted international scholarship to Harvard Business School.

Each year FEW awards an international scholarship to one lucky member of their program.  Of course as soon as I heard about the opportunity, it became a clear goal for me. The award was generously sponsored by St George and includes full tuition fees, flights and accommodation for the one week executive program at Harvard.  This year St George and FEW also offered a half-scholarship to Harvard and this was awarded to Marie-Clare Grady.  The opportunity to attend this Executive Program at Harvard is open to women from all around the world.  You can pay your own way there if your application is accepted.  I believe they accept 50 applicants and with the Aussie dollar so strong against the USD at the moment, it's no surprise that I know of at least one other Brisbane woman attending the program too.

So, now the time has almost come.  Two days ago, I made the 21 hour journey to Boston from Brisbane (via LA) and here I am preparing for the exciting week that stands before me at the Harvard Business School Women's Leadership and Innovation Forum. I spent most of yesterday doing prerequisite reading of the case studies for the five day program and that's how I will spend most of today as well. (it's a good way to try out the great restaurants, cafes and parks here in Boston too) Then tomorrow morning I will check out of my hotel and make my way to Harvard Business School for what is no doubt going to be a challenging and very exciting week!  Stay tuned...