A month after returning from the MIT Sloan School of Management seemed like the opportune time to reflect on the impact it has had on me. What better way to do this than through a LinkedIn article to share a summary of what I learnt and how this can apply to my career.

Ready to Launch

Having the right mindset can change everything. When commencing the MIT Immersion, Stu Krusell did this on Day 1.

“The sweetest melody is the one you have never heard” (U2, 2009)

On the day I thought this was a trivial way to kick-off the immersion, but in reflection this one quote set the context for the two weeks ahead. We simply do not know what we don’t know. However, don't shut off an stop learning.

"Be curious, not judgemental"

Idea, Team and Customer

Regardless of the project, build a multi-disciplinary team. Choosing the right customer can lead to your success, choosing the wrong can lead to your failure. In the client setting, this could be choosing to service a sector which eliminates you from other sectors depending on the views of that organisation. Similarly, choosing the right customer, could lead to a significant uptick in opportunities if that customer increases your reputation and thereby increases your exposure, leads and subsequent contracts.

"Great Artists Steal"

The phrase "great artists steal" highlights that truly great creators do more than imitate; they take existing concepts, rework them, and make them their own. It emphasises the value of adaptation, transformation, and innovation in art and creativity, rather than simple replication. Bill Aulet 's book, Disciplined Entrepreneurship, is a truly epic framework to make informed decisions to make you a better entrepreneur, or even business leader.

Paul Cheek introduced us to the “Mouse Trap Model” – A simple yet very effective tool to obtain customers this really opened my eyes to an approach to obtain customers which I simply had never thought of before. Ultimately, it helps you determine if there is market demand before building then product (can you sell the product which therefore justifies investment into the product).

Mens et Manus

Mind in hand. Not only MIT's motto, but what they live by day-to-day. We are gifted and privileged to be on this planet. We have a responsibility to take what we know and bring it to the world ( Rachel Peters Card )

• Trust is an action word, something you work on, something you earn, something you give
• Transparency
• Collaboration - if you see paddles in the air and you feel that you can help by grabbing an oar - grab it and help (this is true collaboration).

We can't do it alone

Within a team, when rolling out a new strategy or initiative. Get the whole team to write it down. When they write it down, they may find that they don’t share the same vision for the company. Just writing down the hypothesis can significantly increase the chance of success.

4 Capabilities Leadership Model

• Leadership is not a position, it is an action
• Leadership is not about the authority you have or the position you hold, leadership is how you show up, exercise it in practice, work with others, inspire them, and work through difficulties/challenges
• Effective leadership - you know it when you see it and you know when it's not there
• There is no shared vision without personal vision (Carl Rogers), the best way to get people excited and motive others is if you are excited about your vision.

Global strategy

"Be curious, not judgemental" - the only way to stay relevant/current in a forever changing and innovating world ( Stu Krusell ).

The "hummingbird fire" analogy tells of a small bird trying to put out a forest fire, carrying tiny drops of water while larger animals stand by, doubting its impact. The hummingbird replies, "I'm doing the best I can," showing that even small efforts matter in the face of big challenges.

Be the hummingbird - little impacts matter!

Future Ready

We need to break biases when looking to form a team: people are often overlooked for a variety of biased reasons and perceived flaws.

Take consideration of how I would move my team to “future ready” I could place an initial focus on increasing our efficiency in our time-consuming tasks to minimise the overall time spent. This would cause increase time availability to spend on the more strategic tasks which lead to greater overall outcome, but are at times completed in a time constrained environment given the large amount of time spent in the time-consuming area.

Be Like Toyota

There is no silver bullet to organisational change, you need to ‘tinker’ with all the ingredients.

An organisation that effectively implements and excels at organisational change is Toyota. Toyota’s Kaizen approach involves continuous, incremental improvements at all levels of the organisation. Encouraging everyone in your company to regularly suggest small improvements creates a culture of innovation.

Leadership Philosophies

These are the leadership philosophies I will carry forward from my time at MIT:

• Be curious, not judgemental: Be in a mindset where I am open and willing to absorb and process new information and learnings
• “Great Artists Steal”: take existing concepts, rework them, make them your own/better, transform and innovate
• Reciprocity: Reciprocity really appeals to me. In my day-to-day work I apply this through: Being proactive in offering help, advice, or resources to your team or stakeholders. Whether it’s lending expertise or support in a challenging situation, people will be more inclined to reciprocate by supporting your initiatives, providing information, or stepping up when needed
• Leadership: Leadership is not about the authority you have or position you hold; leadership is how you show up, exercise in practice, work with others, inspire them, work through difficulties/challenges etc.
• “Be the hummingbird”: Little impacts matter.

Implementation Strategies

The following are three key implementation strategies (at a high level) that I intend to implement within my team, following the experience gained from MIT:

• Multi-disciplinary teams: Regardless of the project, build a multi-disciplinary team. A team should be like a good dinner party, everyone brings something different
• Breaking biases: We need to break biases when looking to form a team: people are often overlooked for a variety of biased reasons and perceived flaws
• Organisational change: There is no silver bullet to organisational change, you need to ‘tinker’ with all the ingredients.

Business Implact

The experience at MIT highlighted three clear business impacts that I see as having the greatest impact on the continued success or demise of my organisation:

• Right customer: Choosing the right customer can lead to your success, choosing the wrong can lead to your failure
• Shared hypotheses: Within our team, when rolling out a new strategy or initiative, get the whole team to write it down. When they write it down they may find that they don’t share the same vision for the company. Just writing down the hypothesis can significantly increase the chance of success
• Large-language models: Already have significantly impacted my workplace, and have the ability to go further. Ultimately assembling the right, trained people to harness LLM’s has the ability to revolutionalise our offering to clients.