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APRIL 2002 MBA JOURNAL: INTERNSHIP INTERVIEWS Vivian Cohen-Leisorek: Looking to Life Beyond the MBA "Internships are not common in Israel, and are non-existent for local MBA programs. Although I don't envy the grueling interviewing process that my peers are going through now, I'm aware of the loss that not having this experience represents. "
(and a word about the current situation) Internships are not common in Israel, and are non-existent for local MBA programs. Although I don't envy the grueling interviewing process that my peers are going through now, I'm aware of the loss that not having this experience represents. My undergraduate internship at CNN Mexico so influenced my future professional life, that I still wish I had the chance to go back to that company as a student and see things from a new angle. So, without a summer internship, the future Haifa MBA graduates must settle for the next best thing: doing an "18-month-long internship" in real-life jobs throughout the MBA program. We'll cover the lessons learned (on both sides) in this internship in the first part of this article. In addition, since the finish line (end of August, 2002) is already in sight, it's also easier to see how life beyond the MBA will probably be and, after receiving so much, what we can do to give back. A few ideas have come from our peers in other MBA programs, especially in Tel Aviv University's Kellogg-Recanati program more about this in the second part of the article. Finally, given the recent events in the Middle East, this entry wouldn't be complete without a brief account on the current situation in Israel, and how it's perceived inside. So before we move on to the topic of internships, a few words on the matzav. A Few Words on the Situation The Hebrew word for situation is matzav. For the past 18 months, but especially in the last few weeks, the word matzav has taken center stage in family dinners, TV news coverage, and even among spontaneous exchanges with strangers in the street. The general, non-specific nature of the word matzav reveals not only the confusion aroused by the collection of current events (there's no better name for them yet... and the word "war" still scares us), but the manner in which the matzav has "generalized" itself and penetrated almost every aspect of our lives. Perhaps it also points to the hidden optimism of Israelis always hoping that the current matzav will overturn soon and become normal and non-threatening, like the word matzav itself. We were in Passover break when we heard about the Seder Night suicide bombing in Natanya, as well as the suicide bombings in the Matza restaurant in Haifa, the supermarket in Jerusalem, the coffee shop in Tel Aviv, and in the bus in the outskirts of Haifa. By the time we came back to study two weeks later, dozens of Israelis had been killed (including an honor student in the Faculty of Economics, the third University of Haifa student to be killed in the six months), and several of our classmates, co-workers, and husbands had been recruited for special reserve duty (husband Ari was not one of them, fortunately). As a result of the events of the past few weeks, one foreign professor has cancelled his trip to teach the first half of the Business Strategy course, and his partner in Israel must now take over the entire group of sessions. Much to our good fortune, this is the only direct negative impact that the matzav has had on our program. With less than five months until we get our degree, we hope it will be the last. The mood in my class is at times somber, and at times more optimistic - almost perfectly correlated to the tone of the day's news. We try to keep a normal life, away from images of destroyed houses and endless funerals, and concentrate instead on our families, our work, and our studies. In this respect, the MBA has been an unexpected blessing. When we look back at our achievements in the past year (yes, it's been exactly 12 months since we started the MBA), we feel only pride. We have made significant changes in our workplace and careers; we have grown as human beings, and we have gained true friends. That certainly helps to put things in perspective, whatever the temporary matzav might be. Now on to the topic of our entry our full-time "internships." Why Medical Students and MBA Students are Alike (No, it only seems like seven years of MBA study.) The full-time job + MBA syndrome has caught up with us: like med students who consistently "discover" new "symptoms" in themselves after studying about them in class, it's very easy to find a parallel to all the theories, models, and case studies inside the companies we work for after our class discussions in Haifa. Armed with your newfound knowledge, you go back to work, only to face an entirely different company than the one you left the previous Thursday morning. Suddenly, pricing policies can (and must) be drastically improved, internal communication is a joke, customer service is nonexistent, and it seems like upper management has no strategy whatsoever. No wonder things are falling apart! A moment of enlightenment occurs you know how things should be, and it's "just devising a strategy of how to get the company there." Or maybe not. No matter how noble your intentions or justified your cause, you risk overall frustration when you realize how quickly your revolutionizing ideas are brought down, or how long they take to bring in results. So what are your options? The first one, or course, is doing something about it. You can start small: lead change in your team, your department, but most importantly, in your attitude. My friend Golan reports having drastically changed his management style, and Robi, a senior engineer in the Israeli Electric Company, has successfully implemented changes in his department, and more are coming - not bad for one of the largest (and more centralized and bureaucratic) companies in the country. Other classmates, Amir, an economist/comptroller of a shipping firm, and Gabi, an architect, report being more aware of concepts and procedures they didn't notice before, and making more informed decisions. This is a classic example of what Project Management Professor Alexander Laufer (probably the best course this period) refers to when speaking of turning tacit knowledge into explicit. Sometimes, a simple idea is all you need. Our classmate Shlomo, General Manager of the Israel branch of Philips Medical Systems, was able to overcome, in less than two months, a recurring problem in one of the assembly line of Computerized Tomography (CT) components. After a class discussion of an article on Hot Groups (dedicated, multidisciplinary teams taken away from their daily activities to focus on a single task), Shlomo adopted the idea and created a Hot Group on his company's production floor. The result was improved quality by a factor of two, reduced costs, and higher customer satisfaction. The total savings are in the range of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Other times, however, our "awakening" calls for drastic action. This was the case of Mickey, an attorney from my class, who, frustrated with bureaucracy and lack of clear management, quit an interesting job with the civil service and is starting over in a private law firm. There are numerous others like Mickey who, tired of uphill battles, or simply looking for a strategic career change, are waiting for the market to pick up to make a similar choice. Fortunately, the reverse is also true: several classmates report finding new respect for their company's policies and processes. Even more encouraging, our lessons have helped us understand and trust our "management instinct," whatever our field. As my classmate Tally puts it, it is particularly rewarding to learn of a theory or model that explains the righteousness of that risky decision you took a few months ago, or explains the logic behind the "hunch" that, in hindsight, probably ended up saving your project, your product, or your team. Giving back or life beyond the MBA It might be far-fetched for some to start thinking about life beyond the MBA, but this is the reality that my classmates and I will be facing in less than five months. After graduation, a few of us are considering a change in direction, or even careers. In preparation for this article, and after talking to my friends about the lessons learned after one full year of studies, it's easy to realize how much we have gained. And looking to the near future, it's encouraging to see how many of our classmates are already thinking of giving back. For example, volunteer class-list moderators Golan and Zohar will keep our Yahoo mailing lists as a knowledge base and virtual community after graduation, while classmate Ronny is committed to start a mentoring program to help the first-year MBA students who will join the program this month. Others plan to go back to their regular volunteer activities, such as the shelter where classmate Shay used to tutor teenagers several hours a week. But what could be better than looking at projects from other MBAs? One particularly good idea, left by alumni of the fourth cohort of the prestigious Kellogg-Recanati program at the University of Tel Aviv, was to create a handbook with summaries of all the courses in their MBA program. Each student/volunteer took responsibility for summarizing the key lessons of an entire course in five pages, sending it to the corresponding professor for feedback (a tough task on its own), and then rewriting it. The novelty not only lies in having a handbook that helps your entire cohort to easily remember the main points of each course, but making it available online, free of charge, to all those interested. The result, www.kr04.net, is a highly recommended (and now, very popular) site, which includes a message board and a mailing list and has received considerable coverage in local and international media. Stuart Ballan, a Kellog-Recanati graduate and leader of the KR04 initiative, proudly speaks of the worldwide response his site has gotten. Only one thing makes him prouder the fact that subsequent classes are now working on new ideas to launch their own version of what he calls the "Kellogg-Recanati Challenge." It seems like MBAs today are taking the challenge beyond the classroom (or boardroom) walls. What are you planning now? Any ideas for our cohort? Send me your feedback viviancohen@yahoo.com.  Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.  Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here. 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