Kaizen: SO, what's it like?
Jo Pattamiraban, MBA2
Issue date: 11/12/01 Section: Features
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This week we welcome the contribution of a guest writer from the second-year class. We thank Jo for her words and willingness to share them with us.
Kaizen is the process of continuous improvement. While the word itself exudes benevolence and gentle pressure, the way that it's been implemented by auto manufacturers worldwide is not a "little-drops-of-water, little-grains-of sand" approach. Instead, these companies force imperfections to the surface by continuously subjecting processes to brutal and increasing amounts of stress. It's an apt metaphor for the GSB, a crucible of personal change, where we are simultaneously stretched in several directions. While we are very aware of changes in some areas (good-bye, 10 hours of sleep), others are not so apparent to us.
A major area of neglect is our relationships with friends, family and significant others. The risk of relationship breakdown is one that many of us don't take into account when we decide to attend business school; but, if you stop to think about it, the cost of attending the GSB should include relationship cost in addition to economic cost and opportunity cost. A rough definition of relationship cost is the effort expended to revert any relationship to the state it was at before business school. If you speak to any of the married or seriously involved students at the GSB, you'll find that this cost is probably very high. Not only that, it tends to accumulate until it can no longer be ignored. Hence, our Siebel scholars--they’re all married--should be commended for not only academic excellence, but for relationship I.Q. as well.
Stepping back, it's not surprising that there should be a relationship cost at all. The stresses resulting from the decision to attend the GSB begin with moving across states or even countries to a new home. For couples, there's also the financial stress from having one person (or both, in my case) give up a paycheck. Once the school term begins, the MBA student invests what seems like a disproportionate amount of time thinking and talking about GSB-specific things, especially the triumvirate of D&D-Econ-Modeling. Finally, in the excitement of meeting new people and doing new things, older friends and habits take a backseat. Thus, a long-standing Friday date might be replaced by LPF, with study groups and social events filling every crevice in the student’s calendar. S.O.’s respond to this new behavior in a manner that borders on the binary--(s)he either becomes totally integrated into the GSB, or treats it with a mixture of fear and suspicion.
In my case, and I know I'm not alone, it was the latter, to the extent that my husband’s now thrilled that we're living in Mountain View (where trains roar by at 5 a.m.) instead of being cooped up on campus. It's not that he personally dislikes any of the GSB-ers he's met. On the contrary, he finds most of them interesting and witty. It's just that he's overwhelmed by the GSB’s stunningly narrow range of topics. At any gathering where there are at least two GSB students, the topic of discussion will naturally gravitate to "subjects I'm taking/ how I used my silver bullet", "companies I'm interviewing with", "my summer experience", "why D&D/ Econ/ Modeling is a bear", "the merits and demerits of various professors", "person X's liaison with person Y (both unknown to spouse)" and so on. If your husband, like mine, finds these topics incredibly mundane, (s)he will develop a natural aversion to such gatherings, which results in her/him being more out of the loop than ever. That's a great example of a network externality working against you right there. Plus, we MBA’s also tend to use words like "network externality" in our conversation, which makes the resulting barrage even more incomprehensible to the hapless S.O.
But in other cases, the spouse or significant other takes to the GSB with refreshing enthusiasm. The most shining instance of such an exemplary spouse, I'm told, is Nicolas Philippe, husband of Tammira Philippe, MBA2. In search of the magic formula, I interviewed Nicolas over the phone. Modestly, he attributed his popularity to his flexible hours, which allowed him to congregate with the students. But how did he brave the MBA conversation? I asked. Then the true genius of the man was revealed--apparently he listens when Tammira talks about school, her subjects, her professors and her classmates. As a result, his eyes don’t glaze over at LPF when someone mentions the long run average cost curve or Professor Lattin’s vodka experiment. Instead, he is able to chip in with intelligent, knowledgeable comments and voila! The network externality is giving him all it’s got. It was clear to him, he says, that his options were to either be completely separated from Tammira’s life as a result of the GSB’s demands or to make her new life a part of his own. He chose the latter. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that he’s naturally gregarious and, like Tammira, wants to enjoy the B-school experience. His advice to incoming S.O.’s is to persist despite the initial cascade of D&D-laced conversation and, when it becomes too much, to get away from it all with the Biz Partners or the Bizbands. Jason Elk, MBA2 Sarah Elk’s husband, also deserves an honourable mention for founding Bizbands and for crossing over to the dark side by becoming an MBA1 himself.
But, what if your significant other, like mine, is happiest away from the GSB? First, recognize that while you think the GSB is enthralling, (s)he may not feel the same. One option is to cut down on your GSB activities sharply to spend more time doing things together with your significant other/spouse. You may even (gasp!) invest some time making friends outside the GSB. The other option is to work out a compromise deal whereby you spend a chunk of your time doing GSB-specific things but spend the rest together. For example, Peter deWeerdt, MBA2, places one day of his week completely at his wife's disposal.
In sum, I’m sure we’ll all come up with inventive ways of dealing with the key relationships in our lives. However, it strikes me as completely bizarre that while we have resources galore to learn new skills from the mundane to the esoteric, we have no way to educate ourselves about being better at relationships, except by talking to and learning from each other. Conversation, not evolution or revolution, is an unusual way to begin the process of personal improvement but you know, little drops of water…
If you are interested in submitting an article as a featured guest writer, please email kaizen@gsb.stanford.edu.
Kaizen is the process of continuous improvement. While the word itself exudes benevolence and gentle pressure, the way that it's been implemented by auto manufacturers worldwide is not a "little-drops-of-water, little-grains-of sand" approach. Instead, these companies force imperfections to the surface by continuously subjecting processes to brutal and increasing amounts of stress. It's an apt metaphor for the GSB, a crucible of personal change, where we are simultaneously stretched in several directions. While we are very aware of changes in some areas (good-bye, 10 hours of sleep), others are not so apparent to us.
A major area of neglect is our relationships with friends, family and significant others. The risk of relationship breakdown is one that many of us don't take into account when we decide to attend business school; but, if you stop to think about it, the cost of attending the GSB should include relationship cost in addition to economic cost and opportunity cost. A rough definition of relationship cost is the effort expended to revert any relationship to the state it was at before business school. If you speak to any of the married or seriously involved students at the GSB, you'll find that this cost is probably very high. Not only that, it tends to accumulate until it can no longer be ignored. Hence, our Siebel scholars--they’re all married--should be commended for not only academic excellence, but for relationship I.Q. as well.
Stepping back, it's not surprising that there should be a relationship cost at all. The stresses resulting from the decision to attend the GSB begin with moving across states or even countries to a new home. For couples, there's also the financial stress from having one person (or both, in my case) give up a paycheck. Once the school term begins, the MBA student invests what seems like a disproportionate amount of time thinking and talking about GSB-specific things, especially the triumvirate of D&D-Econ-Modeling. Finally, in the excitement of meeting new people and doing new things, older friends and habits take a backseat. Thus, a long-standing Friday date might be replaced by LPF, with study groups and social events filling every crevice in the student’s calendar. S.O.’s respond to this new behavior in a manner that borders on the binary--(s)he either becomes totally integrated into the GSB, or treats it with a mixture of fear and suspicion.
In my case, and I know I'm not alone, it was the latter, to the extent that my husband’s now thrilled that we're living in Mountain View (where trains roar by at 5 a.m.) instead of being cooped up on campus. It's not that he personally dislikes any of the GSB-ers he's met. On the contrary, he finds most of them interesting and witty. It's just that he's overwhelmed by the GSB’s stunningly narrow range of topics. At any gathering where there are at least two GSB students, the topic of discussion will naturally gravitate to "subjects I'm taking/ how I used my silver bullet", "companies I'm interviewing with", "my summer experience", "why D&D/ Econ/ Modeling is a bear", "the merits and demerits of various professors", "person X's liaison with person Y (both unknown to spouse)" and so on. If your husband, like mine, finds these topics incredibly mundane, (s)he will develop a natural aversion to such gatherings, which results in her/him being more out of the loop than ever. That's a great example of a network externality working against you right there. Plus, we MBA’s also tend to use words like "network externality" in our conversation, which makes the resulting barrage even more incomprehensible to the hapless S.O.
But in other cases, the spouse or significant other takes to the GSB with refreshing enthusiasm. The most shining instance of such an exemplary spouse, I'm told, is Nicolas Philippe, husband of Tammira Philippe, MBA2. In search of the magic formula, I interviewed Nicolas over the phone. Modestly, he attributed his popularity to his flexible hours, which allowed him to congregate with the students. But how did he brave the MBA conversation? I asked. Then the true genius of the man was revealed--apparently he listens when Tammira talks about school, her subjects, her professors and her classmates. As a result, his eyes don’t glaze over at LPF when someone mentions the long run average cost curve or Professor Lattin’s vodka experiment. Instead, he is able to chip in with intelligent, knowledgeable comments and voila! The network externality is giving him all it’s got. It was clear to him, he says, that his options were to either be completely separated from Tammira’s life as a result of the GSB’s demands or to make her new life a part of his own. He chose the latter. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that he’s naturally gregarious and, like Tammira, wants to enjoy the B-school experience. His advice to incoming S.O.’s is to persist despite the initial cascade of D&D-laced conversation and, when it becomes too much, to get away from it all with the Biz Partners or the Bizbands. Jason Elk, MBA2 Sarah Elk’s husband, also deserves an honourable mention for founding Bizbands and for crossing over to the dark side by becoming an MBA1 himself.
But, what if your significant other, like mine, is happiest away from the GSB? First, recognize that while you think the GSB is enthralling, (s)he may not feel the same. One option is to cut down on your GSB activities sharply to spend more time doing things together with your significant other/spouse. You may even (gasp!) invest some time making friends outside the GSB. The other option is to work out a compromise deal whereby you spend a chunk of your time doing GSB-specific things but spend the rest together. For example, Peter deWeerdt, MBA2, places one day of his week completely at his wife's disposal.
In sum, I’m sure we’ll all come up with inventive ways of dealing with the key relationships in our lives. However, it strikes me as completely bizarre that while we have resources galore to learn new skills from the mundane to the esoteric, we have no way to educate ourselves about being better at relationships, except by talking to and learning from each other. Conversation, not evolution or revolution, is an unusual way to begin the process of personal improvement but you know, little drops of water…
If you are interested in submitting an article as a featured guest writer, please email kaizen@gsb.stanford.edu.