Idyllically placed between Geneva and Montreux, Lausanne lies on the edge of Lake Geneva, 80 minutes' drive from the ski resorts of Verbier and Chamonix. From the town there are stunning views of snow-capped peaks and the Lausanne marina. Between April and September, you can eat outside almost every day. Not a bad place to spend a year. Trouble was, I would be spending most of that time, nose to the proverbial grindstone, at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), having given up a promising job and uprooted my family from Melbourne to study for an MBA.
My reasons for going were twofold. Having spent 10 years in the chemical industry in a range of international sales, marketing and business management roles, I wanted to extend my experience across a range of industries. Secondly, we had decided to return home after spending the past three years living and working in Australia. The longer we stayed in Melbourne, the harder it would become to find an equivalent job – and comfortable lifestyle to boot – in Europe.
One solution to this dilemma was to do an MBA. I took the gamble of applying to just one business school, the IMD, which ranks among the top three business schools in Europe and runs a full-time one-year MBA for candidates who cannot afford to take more time out of employment. The average class age of students was 31, compared with 28 at most other schools. Since I was 32 at the time, this meant that I would be with a class whose experience was commensurate with my own. If I was dragging my wife and two children into uncertainty, I also wanted somewhere that was going to involve them rather than keep them on the periphery. I was heartened, then, to learn that the school ran a partner programme and a kindergarten.
The hardest things about the IMD were getting in and surviving the first four months. More than 38 nationalities were represented in our class of 85, (of whom 16 were sponsored), and entrants were expected to have strong managerial experience, preferably on an international level. A strong score in the graduate management admission test (GMAT) was helpful, but more important was the interview performance, which involved two presentations on unprepared and prepared topics, and a soul-searching one-to-one interview. Typically, only one in 10 applicants wins a place.
Lasting the course
The first four months were tough: I frequently worked a 16-hour day. The course was split into eight modules based on different management themes. In the first three modules the routine revolved around three case studies a day, which we would prepare individually, discuss in a study group, then debate with the whole class. Each class and study group lasted 90 minutes each, and reading a case took anything from one to two hours. In addition, there were projects to complete and the odd accounting or finance exam.
e managed to reduce this formidable workload by sharing out cases among the study groups. Any competition between us rapidly diminished as it became clear that co-operation and teamwork were the best ways of ensuring that we finished end-of-module exercises before 2am. This was reinforced by the school's grading system, which placed great emphasis on participation and co-operation, by judging class input in terms of whether it developed the debate, and by grading the team performance for each end-of-module exercise.
My head was usually too close to a desk to appreciate the beauty of Lausanne during those first winter months, when a soft mist hung over the lake. However, I vividly recall one afternoon when we were enjoying post-exam drinks in April on the balcony of a Lausanne bar. The sun was out, the snow glistened on the mountains, Lake Leman was calm and inviting. Suddenly, the stress of the past four months rolled away. Now, it seemed, I had the confidence to handle any of the challenges thrown at me.
From this point, the work style changed, too: we learned to apply the knowledge taught in the early modules to new fields such as change management and managing globally. Then after a delicious month off in July, the accent changed again. The next part of the course involved an international consulting project – which saw some of us working for a well-known brewer, with assignments in Italy, the US and the UK – and electives, which allowed each of us to pursue areas of interest, such as negotiation, advanced finance, or managing creativity.
Family values
What made the year complete was the happiness of my family. The IMD went to some trouble to arrange a partner programme in the first two months. Many of the partners had given up top jobs to support their "other halfs", often going through the burden of relocating the family. They arranged a variety of activities to suit the needs and interests of the partners, as well as wonderful parties, such as Indian and Scandinavian evenings.
I particularly enjoyed being able to see more of my children (both of them at kindergarten), watching them learn better French than I could speak, and being able to invite the family to lunch at the IMD. Coupled with skiing trips and visits to France, the lives of the different families became interwoven in a way that would not be possible in a normal working environment. Some partners also became involved in the MBA programme, by attending occasional lectures, teaching Spanish and helping with interview training. Somehow, they also had time to have children. On numerous occasions, the MBA day was kicked off by an announcement from a participant that they had a new son or daughter. The applause that followed was testament that the class was not simply the 85 people in it; it also included their families.
And what now?
From day one, the strategy for job search, and its execution is an integral part of the programme. In the second half of the year, weeks are set aside for recruitment. Larger companies tend to recruit on campus, but the one-off roles need to be pursued offsite. By the end of the year, most participants have several offers in hand, but have not necessarily decided which one to accept. When interviewing is at its height, one is envious of those sponsored candidates who have employers to return to, but by the end of the year, my sense was that is was preferable to have the choice of companies from which to choose.
My year at the IMD has allowed me to change job and country: I'm now back in the UK working for Marakon Associates, a strategic management consulting firm. Having completed an MBA at 32 rather than 28, the financial payback tends to be slower. There is, however, a more qualitative payback in the shared experiences and friendships built up between fellow students and faculty staff.
The quality of the education was not so much what I learned, but the way I learned to approach problems. On one occasion one professor identified a particular case study as a type of situation that we might encounter only once every 10 years, when, at a critical juncture, only the “right decision” could save a business. If learning the way to approach problems, by learning what questions to ask, is a prerequisite for this “right decision”, I am confident my year at the IMD will indeed prove to be as career-defining as it was unforgettable.
About the author
Hugh Thorneycroft was formerly at Orica Chemnet in Melbourne. He joined management consultancy Marakon Associates in April.
For information about copying, distributing and displaying this work, contact permissions@spencerstuart.com