October 2004 Archives

The first real lesson from business school isn’t about supply and demand or Net Present Value. Forget Adam Smith and Milton Friedman, even, because it’s with French existentialist philosophy that B-school truly begins. Jean-Paul Sartre’s notion that “Hell is other people” is the inescapable starting point of the curriculum, here.

Other MBAs will recognize, I suspect, that I’m talking of ‘Group Work’, a method of learning and assessment rather unique to B-school. Sure, everybody works in groups, in almost any discipline, but business school takes the practice to a whole new level.

Do I dislike my group? Hell no. Dislike my classmates? Uhh, negative. (In fact, I just wrote a fawning little piece about them for Cambridge’s student web diaries, and was being remarkably honest throughout.) But the tortuous fact is that all these initial projects assigned to our five-person ‘study group’ can really be done faster and easier on one’s own. There’s that adage about how one farmer can build a barn in a year, two working together in six months, three in four, and so on - but that heartwarming model doesn’t apply to five students poking and grabbing at a laptop crunching Excel spreadsheets. The law of diminishing returns in action? Recipe for disaster is more like it.

The school admins wickedly love this stuff. They’ll readily confess that they engineer study groups to be as fractured and as contentious as possible - and with 104 students from 33 countries, the Judge Institute operates with a massive advantage over its peers in its ability to assemble volatile mixtures of geopolitical / social / cultural / professional backgrounds. I suppose that, for them, the entire exercise is a thrill not unlike high-school chemistry - mixing and shaking all sorts of stuff, hoping it will go boom.

‘Course there’s no swapping or shuffling of teams allowed - the mantra is always ‘Work with it’. And so you do.

Mostly.

My group has actually been quite the breeze to work with. We’re a surprisingly good crew. There’s rumors, though, talk-in-the-hallway about other groups less fortunate. Some have gone begging and appealing right up to the Director, searching for a mediator. As for myself, I’ve watched other groups out of the corner of my eye, especially during high-pressure, time-constrained assignments, and spotted, here and there, dynamics like Tom and Jerry in a tussle - just a twirling, indecipherable blur of conflict, radiating cartoon stars, smoking squigglies, and technicolor exclamation points. (Almost.)

I’d congratulate myself on avoiding this, but I’m just lucky, so far. Conflict is unavoidable when working under pressure. But I suppose the whole ‘learning to work together’ bit will be equally inevitable, for all of us. Meanwhile, be glad there are no pots, pans, rolling pins or gigantic wooden mallets hanging on the walls of our study area.

That would be a bad scene.

Friday marked my first formal hall at Magdalene. It’s a tricky event to describe without dipping into Harry Potter comparisons - I mean, where else do you find long rows of gown-bedecked students, dining by candlelight? Sure, the hefty silver candlesticks at Magdalene don’t exactly levitate in mid-air, but there are still enough of them to serve as the only light source in the stretching hall.

I realize, of course, that Harry Potter is a cheap cliché for describing Cambridge. It’s like bringing up Blade Runner when talking about Tokyo - the simile is spot-on, but all too easy, more atmosphere than reality. Nevertheless, I’ve found Harry Potter remains the finest template for describing how the whole University - College relationship functions. For graduates, at least.

For instance: I got strange looks when I first told friends I was studying at the University of Cambridge, and then explained I’d be at Magdalene College. (And the Judge Institute for Management, as well.) How could I attend three schools at once? Now I tell folks it’s like attending Hogwarts School for Magic, but having the Sorting Hat stick you in Gryffindor House on your first day. (Or Slytherin, as some have slandered.) Harry Potter’s school has just four Houses; Cambridge has 30-odd colleges. But you get the gist of how it works.

I never actually requested Magdalene. It’s old (576 years), small (a few hundred students), and home to the likes of C.S. Lewis and proto-blogger Pepys. But I knew its reputation from tour books — the college is still notorious for being the last to admit women, in the 80’s. (That would be the 1980s, not the 1880s.) Sounded suspiciously crusty, a Porterhouse Blue kind of place.

It’s not anymore, not far as I can see. Magdalene these days is like anywhere else in Cambridge - which makes sense, considering that most grads are placed there by chance, like me. If anything, Magdalene’s old stubbornness in clinging to its other customs, like the anachronistic formal hall, is considered charming and special, now.

So what about dinner, you ask? Well, it’s supposed to take a while to get to it, you see. To begin with, there’s the dressing up - black tux or suit and tie, plus a gown on top of that. Post-arrival, sherry might be served (in another hall, mind, not the main one), and then, once you’ve finally meandered into the dining area, there’s a grumbling period of waiting until the High Table (Fellows, professors, etc.) finds their seats. The buildup continues with a large gong being rung (swear, I’m not making this up) to signal the start of the Grace being recited… all in Latin, of course.

And then (only then) you get dinner. First course, white wine, Main course, red wine, Dessert, Savoury trifle, right on to petit fours and port or coffee. Last of all, another Latin benediction. Just like home, non?

Yeah. Having both dined and worked in the U.C. Berkeley cafeteria system, I gots to say dinner here is a serious step up. (I’d say the same about the schoolwork, too, and would catalog all that in detail, but that’s not nearly as fun to write about…)

Punting is tougher than it looks. It’s certainly harder than the guides ferrying tourists up and down The Backs make it seem.

Arrive in Cambridge on a warm, sunny weekend (happens every few years, I hear) and you’ll see punting’s gnarlier side: the ‘self-hire’ crowd. Once these all-too-literal boatloads of amateurs take to the water, the whole British notion of a ‘jolly riverboat jaunt’ is replaced by a tourist blood-sport that’s more akin to log-rolling or demolition derby. It’s best to watch from the shores of The Backs, I think - you might wince occasionally, but between the crashing, splashing, and multi-lingual shouting, you’ll at least remain dry.

My own punting skills are no better, likely worse. But last weekend, I managed to elude the rent-a-boat crowd, at least, by punting away from Cambridge, towards Grantchester. (Actually, I rode down, then punted the way back.) It’s a 90-minute push either way - plenty long enough to leave me cold, soaked, and pretty well tired. I lost the pole twice (the river bottom is like clay, in parts), and then got rained upon, to boot. Happy I went, of course, but I’m done punting ‘til summer returns.

I completed another journey this week, and one which took me far longer - sixteen years, if I count correctly: I finished Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, the very week the last installment was published.

Can’t complain about the time - after all, it’s taken King 30 years to write those books, and he’s said this final volume heralds the end of his massive writing career. I can believe that - almost every book he’s written ties, somehow, into the nexus of The Dark Tower, and now that it’s done… where can he go?

So how good was it, at the end? Tough to say - his yarn was obviously good enough for me to read one after the other, and year after year; I’d also agree with the author’s own conclusion that the tale was ‘not entirely successful’. The big concern, of course, was the ending, including the author’s sudden, interjectory warning not to read it. (I’ve read a lot of books, and never have I seen an author pop into the narrative and lecture me against turning the page.)

King was right, of course. I should’ve closed the book. The journey is the reward, etc. - and any ending would have to be more bitter than sweet. This ending, though - man, after thousands of pages, a decade and a half… it just left me crushed. King says endings are heartless, and so this was. Almost.

No spoilers, here. All I can say is that choice facing the reader and Roland were one and the same - dare you enter the Tower, to finally see and know what lies inside? Or would you sit on the doorstep, deep in that field of roses, knowing there that the quest is good and true, and already complete?