Prepping for and working through an Executive MBA

It's reputed as the "divorce degree" that disrupts and reshuffles the lives of executives aiming to complete it. Personally, I think it's got a bad wrap! It's up to the individual to prepare for and keep on track with the workload in order to experience it as more of a positive life-changing event. There are 5 things that can be done to smooth out the path (that is guaranteed to push boundaries and extend you beyond your perceived abilities) and prepare you for this personal and professional marathon.

1. BUILD YOUR DEGREE TEAM

Believe it or not, your partner/girlfriend/children are part of your degree team. Without their support, you are going to battle to get through the next 2 years without added stress. How does one work around this? You're going to 'brief' them on your ambition (the MBA) and allocate dedicated time for them :

- Make a list of all of those whom you spent time with before doing the degree. This includes life partners, children, friends, family. Running partners. Golf partners. Sunday lunch at your parents. Anyone that you spent social time with.

- Review the amount of time that you spend with them each per week/month, and assign weighted priority accordingly. All of the people in our lives are important, but some are obviously more important than others. Eg: it is more important to spend time with my daughter than my running partner.

- Have a chat with your "stakeholders" (partners/girlfriends/children). Explain how important it is to do this for you, and that it will mean spending a little less time, but more focussed time together.

- Assign dedicated time for them and stick to it. They need your commitment if you're going to have their support. Tell them when you are going to be available and plan nice things to do together. Never ever cancel their time. Here are a few examples:

- Make a dedicated "date night" for your partner, eg Wednesdays from 8 pm are for us only, no work will be done on those evenings. Arrange nice things to do on those nights to make them memorable.

- I have lunch at my parent's place every Sunday. I'll tell them that I will make it every second week, and that I can be available from 12h00 until 14h30.

- I usually run with my running partner on 3x per week for an hour. I'm going to reduce this to 2x per week.

- All my time is usually with my partner and child on the weekends, so have breakfast with them in the morning, then work for 3 hours in the morning. Have lunch with them, and then work another 4 hours. I make sure that I'm finished at 17h00 and then we spend the evening together.

- Share your wins with them. If you find interesting information in your research, share it with them. When you've done well on assignments, share it with them.

- Check-in with them regularly to make sure that they are handling the change of relationship. It's an opportunity to grow respect in the relationship through mutual reflection.

2. BREAKING DOWN TASKS INTO MANAGEABLE CHUNKS

- Look at the big picture. Each module has a start (when info is available) date and end date (last assignment due). Look at each module in this way. How many weeks in total? How many weeks of preparation before lectures? How long are the lectures? How much time do you have for assignments? When is the first possible time you can start assignments? What will be required (reading / lectures to attend / research time / assignment writing / group meetings / group assignments)?

- Examine the parts of the task, and "prep" your brain. How many pages do I need to read? What are the topics for research? Connect with your team members and have a quick run over requirements.

- Think about the logical order of completing the pieces. What should you do first, second, third, etc.? This is usually done for you by the professor in the "modules" section on Canvas.

- Estimate the amount of time each piece will take. This takes practise to know how much work you can do in a certain amount of time, eg for a paper of 2000 generally I use about X hours to write it and X hours for research if it's a topic I am not familiar with OR for teamwork, we'll need 3x weekly meetings of 30 mins each plus time apart to work on the material. Realistically, this evolves and you'll get better at estimations with time. By limiting the WIP, you will feel less overwhelmed, and more productive. You can increase workload incrementally if you feel you can handle more.

- Create a timeline for completing your tasks. You can simply make a note of it on your calendar: reading pages X to Y, meetings, dedicated time for research, dedicated time for writing. Review the calendar as a whole and make sure that you have not over-committed yourself and that you have no conflicts.

- Take regular short 5-minute breaks. Do 45 mins to an hour of work and then spend 5 mins taking a short break. Make something to drink, walk in the garden. Try moving your body even just gently in these 5 mins. The blood flow helps the brain reboot and increases concentration levels. Drink water - not just coffee!

- Have a plan to help you stay on track. Have work rules: phones off or on silent. Have a dedicated space to work from. Review your calendar daily and keep track of where you're at. If you miss work, spread the workload over the days that follow as will be reasonable to complete. Keeping on track reduces stress and panic.

- Track your progress. Look at your calendar at the end of the day and see what you were able to get through. Mentally registering that you have completed tasks pushes productivity higher. Also, if you were not able to, you can honestly assess whether you have overloaded your calendar, or whether you need to work on procrastinating.

- If you can, complete your task early enough to have some time left for a final review.

3. REVIEW YOUR AVAILABLE TIME

Are you a morning or an evening person? When do you work best? Schedule extra time to work at the time of day when you are most productive. Wake up earlier or go to bed 1 hour earlier makes up for 5 hours in the week. That's a lot! Check out this article to help find your productive sweet spot:

Use in-between time wisely. eg, do you use public transport to get to work? Read then if you can. You can add up to 10 hours of reading time here. Lunch break? Spend 30 mins reading = 2.5 hours per week extra.

Be realistic. Don't overload your available time, otherwise, you'll not stick to it. If you’re finding that you’re not sticking to your schedule, review it and lighten the load where you can.

4. DO A RETROSPECTIVE OF YOUR MODULE

Ask these questions after every module to take stock of how it went and how to improve going forward:

- What went well? Why? Keep this as part of your practice for the next module.

- What didn't go well? Why? How can you improve in this area? How can you adapt to make it work for the next module?

- Were there any blockers? Can you remove them for the next module, or change the way you do things to avoid having these blockers?

- What can you improve on for the next module?



5. BASIC GUIDELINES FOR TEAM MEETINGS

There are basic guidelines for team meetings that can make your groups work efficiently together:

- Choose a time that suits everyone and schedule regular meeting times. Regular is important: try at least 2 times per week.

- Try to make meetings 15 minutes or less. If more is required, decide ahead of the meeting how long that should be and stick to it. Other peoples' time is important. Be respectful of that.

- Be on time. Always. Again, respect for others' time and schedules is important.

- Agree on the list of things that need to be covered on the call and make sure that everyone has the list. Make sure that you cover all items on the call. Make notes on what was discussed in the meeting so that it can be referred back to if necessary.

- Speak up! Your voice is important. You need to show up at all the meetings and contribute verbally and on the written tasks. This is good practice for the real world and a safe place to practise in the small groups, so put your introvert aside for a bit and give it your all.

- Turn on your camera. Being seen is as important as contributing to the group.

- Don't interrupt others while they are talking.

- If you expect to have interruptions (eg children), prepare your group for this. We are all used to family life mixed with work-life thanks to the pandemic, and your group will appreciate your honesty. Still, do your best not to have these interruptions.

#mba #mbapreparation #leanleadership