There is no balance, its only trade-offs

In my reading for my "Managing Growing Enterprises" class this quarter I came across the following quote by a CEO who attended the Harvard Business School "New CEO Workshop":

"There is no work-life balance. There are only work-life trade-offs."

With my time at the GSB coming to an end that quote actually made me think. In eight month I will once more have to balance my career, my relationship, my friends, my professional network, my workouts and so much more. I've been feeling that my days need more hours during my time in Palo Alto already, so I can only imagine that it will be much more challenging going forward. The quote made me realize that there isn't that magical equilibrium of perfect interplay between all those balls I have to keep in the air. Actually, doing one thing means NOT doing something else. Devoting time to my friends might mean not doing that incremental bit better at work. 

The term "work-life balance" sort of romanticizes the fact that I will actually have to make decisions to do worse than I could in some areas of my life. That realization is actually quite useful. I know myself pretty well by now and I know that believing in that vague "balance" is not going to hold me accountable and is not going to force me to make uncomfortable decisions. I hate not doing things 100%. I don't like not answering emails in time. I don't like having to decline an invitation to go to a bar with friends. I don't like telling my boss that I do not want to stay in the office until 9pm on a Friday night. I also don't like not going to a movie when I had made plans to do so.

All of this is of course necessary. And realizing that I should make up my mind in advance is pretty useful. Otherwise my behavior will not be coherent, which could result in doing worse over all. 

This ties in to a story HBS professor and business guru Clayton Christensen shared with us last year about his starting days at BCG:

"During my first project I was asked to attend a really important client meeting on a Saturday. I had to tell my project leader that this would not be possible since Saturday was the day I could spend with my wife and my kids. He then asked whether Sunday would be better for me. On Sunday, I had to tell him, I have to go to church and cannot work either. We somehow got the work done by Friday and I was never asked again to work on my weekends."

Especially when starting at a new job in a new company one tends to please the colleagues. The problem is, though, that this behavior is going to set the precedent for the years coming working with those colleagues.

I want to have my mind set on what my priorities are and where I am willing to make trade-offs.

Cheers + bis bald,

TIM

MBA World Summit 2014 in Hong Kong!

Some months ago I received an email inviting me to apply for the first MBA World Summit 2014 in Hong Kong. The idea is to bring 60 MBAs from all over the world together to connect, exchange, network and generally have a good time. All expenses paid. During my spring break. In Hong Kong. Yeah right, I also thought this was too good to be true.

I applied, which basically meant writing 2 essays and doing a video interview, and was selected out of more than 2,000 applicants along with 10 other GSBers, several students from HBS, Columbia, LBS, INSEAD, IESE, HEC Paris, Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, Milan etc. I also agreed to host a one-hour workshop about taking up a job with a big multi-nationals or a small start-up and what sacrifices each choice brings with it.

Right now I am sitting in a hostel in Hong Kong, ready to enjoy time by myself, to meet friends that are in town and to eat some Hong Kong street food. Reflecting on the past 3 days, some thoughts dominate my experiences. I once more realized how important networking is, not from a standpoint of then being able to free-ride on other people or to bypass application processes, but from being able to connect ideas and create a global network of people that are willing to help you and to make life easier for oneself. Starting with a night out in Lan Kwai Fong, many of those connections are going to be continued on Facebook, lead to having places to crash all over the world and will eventually have a tremendous impact on ones professional career.

Quarterly Crossing, the Germany-based company that organized the summit, is specialized in creating and maintaining such networks and tries to create a broader international footprint. Of course there was some recruiting from partner companies, but the main focus was to help the 60 of us grow together so that this might be the starting point for a long-lasting relationships. This was done by treating us to fancy drinks, dinners and top-quality social activities such as a boat cruise in the Hong Kong harbor. Quarterly Crossing plans to continue with the event over the net years and wants to develop it into on of the signature MBA events that crosses all schools, continents and backgrounds. For 2015, all of this year's participants are invited again. As soon as the date comes out, I will for sure block it in my calendar.

On a lighter note: As already said, several participants held workshop sessions about various topics which everyone could sign up for. My workshop generated the most interest, which is why I was awarded a trophy and since it was the first trophy ever awarded it was named after me. From now on, every MBA World Summit will award the "Tim Eisenmann Award" to the best contribution to the summit. Putting the "Tim Eisenmann Award" on my own CV might still not be the smartest thing to do though :-)

Alright, I am off to get some milk tea and fish balls.

Cheers + bis bald,
TIM

Boat Cruise in HKG Harbor

Night Out in LKF

Dinner at the Grand Hyatt

Dragon-i - The Hottest Club in Town

Weather could have been better

I wasn't kidding :-)

Should I have gone to Harvard?

We just had the 1st round admit weekend on campus and it was interesting to see many potential members of the class of 2016 evaluate their classmates, campus and faculty. I hosted a German admit (who has just paid his deposit and will be coming to the GSB - Way to go Daniel!) and was thinking more than usual about why coming to Stanford was the right choice for me, what it meant and also what I had to sacrifice.

Adding on to this, last week I was asked by a classmate who had also been accepted at Harvard if I sometimes think that I should have gone HBS. I think about it at least once a week and most likely much more often. Especially coming from Europe the HBS brand name carries so much more weight and is the Coca-Cola of education - something really everyone knows. As most human beings (some more, some less), I like to impress people. I find it satisfying to see that my parents and friends are proud of me. I could have had so much more of that had I gone to HBS especially talking to people that have only heard about both schools and never did any research. Still, I believe Stanford is the place where I can grow the most and where I am prepared to have maximum impact in whichever path I end up choosing.

Whenever I think about that a quote from our Dean of Admissions comes to my mind. Someone asked him the grandparents question:

"Derrick, my grandparents have no idea what Stanford is. I want them to be proud and I remember how excited they were when I got into Harvard."

Derrick's answer:

"You know it is really sad if your grandparents don't really know where you are going to school. But imagine, that one day your grandkids won't know where you went to school."

Stanford is a great place, but in some regions outside the US it does not yet have the reputation of Harvard. This will change over time though. Stanford is forward-looking, innovative and shapes the world like very few other places. Going to Stanford means taking pride in what is possible, not in what has been.

First Days at Stanford and Thoughts about Bad HBS Press

Hello there,

Walmart Run!

my to do list is getting smaller and smaller. By now I have a bank account and a cell phone plan. Both things are essential here. So are trash bags, paper towels and forks. Also taken care of!

I got into town on Sunday, spent a night at a friends' place and moved into my room on Monday. The days have been filled with shopping trips, admin tasks and a lot of sports. The facilities here are amazing: tennis, volleyball, soccer, running, cycling, rugby. Very impressive to see how active the entire class, but also the campus in general, is. Let's see whether we can keep that up once classes really start.


Two interesting things that I have noticed:

People here are stunningly beautiful:

As already mentioned earlier, everyone in the class is slim, fit and takes good care of his or her body. Why is that though? Have we been selected also for how we look or  are the character traits most of us share lead to the fact that we are conscious about our appearance? On a sidenote: I met a guy who told me he had purposely lost 60 pounds before applying to B-school. He had the feeling he would not get an offer if he was too big. Feel free to use the comment box if you have an opinion about the topic!

HBS gets a lot of crappy press lately:

Here
Here
And also here...

I'm glad not having to put up with all of that. From my undergrad I know how annoying bad press can be and how much inflated many things are portrayed. I can just image that basically any more-or-less talented author can make a good story throwing gender issues, rich internationals, sexism and the Harvard brand into an article. Nevertheless, I am eager to see how the mentioned issues are tackled at Stanford. Will let you guys all know!

Cheers + bis bald,
TIM

Campus

View from my room