Just read about  a very interesting study: Some physiotherapists in the US were worried about the lack of sustained compliance to the prescribed exercise regime among their clients (mainly sufferers of stroke). After some interviews with patients, they found that while the stroke sufferers understood the basis of their physicians’ expertise and authority, they didn’t know the physiotherapists’. In response, the physiotherapists displayed all their diplomas and certfifications on the office walls, and compliance jumped by 34%.

The lesson from this is that for expertise to have a persuasive effect, it must be exposed clearly, otherwise people simply don’t know to give you any creedence. (I’m assuming the article I wrote made valid conclusions) I think this phenomonen is especially important for those working outside the tradiitonal professions without recourse to diplomas and certificates. When I look at a biography or profile, I make assumptions about expertise based on things like length of experience in a particular sector or a particular function. But I have little concrete validation.

I think the MBA has a role to play, as a signifier of expertise. (It has other roles too e.g. a testament of your commitment and work ethic, practical vocational knowledge etc.) I suffer from an English trait of minimising my expertise in a matter. I have a tendency to speak about something without mentioning the depth or quality of my experience and knowledge, instinctively shying from what might seem like self-aggrandisement. It looks like if I am to increase my persuasive power, I need to find ways to expose my expertise while still not seeming like a self-important prat – it’s a fine line.

Ever since I can remember I have pronounced my name in two ways, depending on who I am introducing myself to.

People from Muslim countries, or countries with lots of Muslims like India, call me by the ‘proper’ pronunication i.e. ‘nar-sirr’. You need to be able to pronounce the final ‘r’ (so southern europeans seem to manage it too). To other people I am ‘Nasser’, pronounced like NASA, or the former Egyptian leader. Even my wife calls me ‘Nasser’. Both ‘Nasser’ and ‘Nar-sirr’ are my names. I started introducing myself as ‘Nasser’ a very long time ago – before the age of five – to avoid massive variations in the way my name is pronounced and make it easier for English people.

A lot of people on the MBA come from different countries and have non-English names. Some are easier to pronounce than others. I’ve noticed a lot of people retaining the ‘pure’ pronunication of their names – the equivalent of me introducing myself as ‘Nar-sirr’.

Some people (mainly from China) have adopted a new name entirely. Others have names that when seen written down on paper are easy enough to pronounce (in a bastardised way at least). However in a few cases it’s just been difficult for me to hear the name when pronounced in the authentic accent. It’s only when I’ve seen it written down that I’ve worked out what people are called. Exactly what you’re called doesn’t matter that much, but being able to communicate your name easily comes in handy.

And just to give you a taste of the diversity of the full time MBA cohort, here’s our group picture:

A pathological condition characterized by a consistent tendency to minimise time spent doing things despite no significant time saving.

I just made it up but I definitely have it. My symptoms are various:

Imperial has high capacity revolving doors at the main entrance – they’re the ones where you stand inside the door area waiting for the doors to revolve, rather than the ones shaped like a cross that you walk around. By edging along the shortest route to the exit I save approximately 4 seconds a day.

Even better, sometimes one of the doors is reconfigured to be a normal automatic door that opens from side to side – by walking to that door I remove the need for any of that waiting in the door – approximate saving 4 seconds a day.

Pressing the close door button in the lift  – the lift doors in the business school close about 3 seconds after you press the floor number – by pressing the close door button I save that 3 seconds. I can exploit this time saving device approximately 4 times a day – total saving: 12 seconds a day.

Now things start getting really clever: by only drinking bad coffee from machines I save approximately 3 minutes per day queuing in line.

Eating only cold food so I get to queue in the shorter, non-hot food queue in the business school café: 2 minutes.

Standing in the right place on the platform to be closest to the exit: I save at least 40 seconds a day this way.

Taking the bus instead of walking to the tube station: at least ten minutes per day.

I use many ‘time saving’ devices each day that actually have a negative net effect on my time:

Mobile email: I waste at least 3 minutes per day checking email that could have waited and I inevitably end up reading again on full screen.

Using my laptop to write notes: I should be working right now but instead have been diverted by the joys of the internet and the numerous other distractive powers of computers. I would say this is a biggie – maybe one hour per day lost this way.

This list is not exhaustive but so far I’ve totalled savings of 16 minutes per day and losses of 63 minutes. What am I going to about this? I might look for other micro savings – perhaps running up the stairs instead of getting the lift (saving: 30 seconds a day), or drinking less water so I don’t have to go the toilet as often (saving: 2 minutes per day – maybe not). Or I could just get on with my work and stop worrying about any of this.

We had a session where we worked out our Myers Briggs personality types. The lecturer started with the question:

Have you ever got irritated with someone because they aren’t doing things your way?

If you have, then Myers Briggs can help understand how you and other people work. You fill in a questionnaire and you are assigned to a type. I’m ENTP – Extraverted Intuition Thinking Perceiving.

“People with ENTP preferences constantly scan the environment for for opportunites and possibilities. They see patterns and connections not obvious to others and at times seem able to see into the future, They are adept at generating conceptual possibilities and then analysing them strategically. ENTPs are good at understanding how systems work and are enterprising and resourceful in manouvering within them to achieve their goals”

Sounds good eh? However the session also set out “potential areas for growth”. For example, if I neglect my non-preferred Sensing and Feeling parts I may:

• Not take care of the details and routine required to implement their insights.
• Not give enough weight to the impact on others of their ideas and plans
• Be excessively and inappropriately ‘challenging and stimulating’

These ring true for me and I have spent much of my career addressing these either by developing skills or working with others who complement my skills. It’s great to be aware of these and have tactics to sort them. Myers Briggs is extremely powerful when interpreted correctly and it’s always good to be reminded of pitfalls.

One good lesson from Myers Briggs is the difference in the way Introverts and Extroverts think.  Extroverts think aloud and Do then Think then Do. Introverts think internally and Think, then Do, then Think again. It’s worth remembering if you’re an introvert getting frustrated with an extrovert apparently talking before he’s decided what to say (I’m guilty of this).

Of the 51 (out of about 70) Full time MBA students who attended this session, 16% shared my personality type, the equal top personality type (with ESTJ).

This table below shows the distribution across different types.

As an indicator of what the types mean here are the keywords associated with each type:

ESTJ: Decisiveness
ESTP: Energy
ESFJ: Affiliation
ESFP: Enthusiasm
ENTJ: Drive
ENTP: Initiative
ENFJ: Responsiveness
ENFP: Imagination
ISTJ: Dependability
ISTP: Ingenuity
ISFJ: Commitment
ISFP: Sensitivity
INTJ: Vision
INTP: Logic
INFJ: Integrity
INFP: Idealism

My type apparently says initiative, though I scored quite closely to ENTJ as well: “Drive”(!)

It’s got very busy. Half way through the first term we’ve  started four new courses. For strategy, we have to prepare a different case study before each class. In any of those classes there may be a surprise test that counts for 30% of our overall assessment. Before every finance class we need to have completed an online test (also assessed). As well as keeping up with the reading we have three exams at the end of this term, then another four at the beginning of the next. Oh and two major coursework deadlines just before the four post new year exams.

Why is it so much work?

1) it’s good to learn stuff! Why else would we be here? It’ll be useful and good for its own sake too.

2)  One year MBAs need to assert that their courses are just as credible as the two year ones.

3) It’s a badge of honour – at the end of it (hopefully) we’ll be able to say we got through it.

But at this point I have to decide on my strategy – do I just want to pass, do really well, or somewhere in between? What do employers care about? Will breaking my back to try and get a distinction really make a difference? Is it worth it considering the very high probablity I don’t get one? Could I spend the time I save by not going for a distinction on something useful like learning a language or careers development or networking?

Is it worth doing really  well on some papers? (and badly on others) Will I care? Will employers care?

I have to admit to being very lazy during my first degree (9.5 years ago). I think my main driver to do well is wanting to do it differently this time. In subsequent years after my first degree I felt a bit silly for not making the most of the opportunity to learn from some very clever and learned people. So that’s why I’m going to do as well as I can.

I’ll let you know if I actually follow through on this. (clue: it’s unlikely)

A few years ago I attended a charity event where I set a new world record for apple bobbing. For those of you who haven’t heard of apple bobbing before, it’s a game where you have to remove apples from a tub of water with your teeth.

The world record stipulates an average weight for the apples, and minimum size for the tub. Over the course of the night the apples became softer which made it easier to get your teeth into them. My technique involved vigorously thrusting my head into the water, suppressing the feeling of drowning and using the sides or the bottom of the tub to get a grip on the apples with my teeth.

Someone else also set the same record that night - 17 apples in a minute. It has since been broken by a much more dedicated and deserving record breaker I think. I appear half way through the video and because I was wearing a black shirt and have black hair, it just looks like a disembodied head is dipping in and out of the water…

This is the blog entry I submitted which the nice people from Imperial Comms used to choose me to be one of the Imperial student bloggers. I find it cringeworthy now…

Memories of my last stint at university nine years ago make me feel old, especially when I’m sitting next to the MSc students in the café. Every time I check my email with my smartphone using the Imperial wireless (thanks Anas), or plug in my laptop under the lecture desks, I suppress the urge to sound like my Dad: marvelling about how things have changed, but I do find myself drifting off and pondering just how I’ve ended up here.

My first degree was in English Literature and frankly I was a stereotypical English student. I attended very few lectures and generally woke up when the medics were getting back from morning classes. But this time round things will be different (I tell myself).

For starters, the expected rate of learning has accelerated. Instead of spending a week or two pondering the drama of Christopher Marlow or William Blake’s madness, I have to cover several subjects at once and at high speed.  Remember that bit in the Matrix when Keanu Reeves aka Neo says “I know Kung fu” – well now “I know multiple regression”. Twenty hours of teaching in the first week, 26 next week, with approximately 1.5 hours personal work required for each hour of teaching. Along with careers events, eating, sleeping, feeding my cat, and commuting, there literally isn’t enough time.

I’ve also realised that being a ‘mature student’ is not just a euphemism for being old, it means having a motivation made strong because it is borne from experience. I arrive with seven years in my chosen field: public sector management. I’ve been a consultant and worked inside a local authority, as well as developed and sold software to public sector managers. I am excited by the prospect of taking the best business knowledge in the world back to the public sector, and ultimately tax payers and service users, and that drives me to get the most out of the opportunities for learning and networking.

Another thing about the MBA and Imperial as a whole is that it’s all about the real world. People don’t study or research at Imperial to preserve the past, they do it to make the future (ding ding, cliché, sorry). The ambition is sky high, and our pep talk from the head of the business school, David Begg, was to the point, even a little brutal. He said to this year’s MBA cohort that Imperial is about using science and technology to face the world’s toughest challenges, and if you’re not here to do that then you’ve chosen the wrong place. A little overstating it I think, but I see his point. The point was made a little more frivlously later in the day, when we made home made rockets and launched them in Prince’s gardens across the road.

But perhaps the best thing about going to university second time round is the people you’re doing it with. I’ve heard a lot of the MBA clichés but Imperial’s mission to change the world through science, technology and healthcare attracts a diverse bunch with an intimidating array of achievements, not limited to the usual set of blue chip companies and consultancies. I’ve met students who’ve started primary schools in their spare time, quite a few who’ve started and sold businesses already, and lots who’ve moved continents to do the course. I think the trick will be to absorb and reflect as much as possible – I hope this blog let’s you absorb some of that too.