How to Ace Your First Year at Harvard Business School
How do you ace your first year of classes at Harvard Business School?
One of the most valuable skills at HBS is learning how to "move forward" the discussion in a group of people through the case method.
Participation ≠ Being Right
Your goal of participating in class is NOT to show you have the right answer, it's to contribute a comment that will help the 89 other people in the class move forward their understanding.
Leadership = Moving Forward Others' Understanding
In my time building a company before coming back after an (extended) leave to finish my last MBA year, I realized that strong conduct in the case method classroom is the same conduct in an effective board room or a productive meeting with decision making stakeholders.
Each HBS case method class is practice in the key aspect of leadership in "bringing people along."
You Can't Lead Alone
At first, many first year RC students - including me a long time ago - find this hard, jarring, and uncomfortable. It's not how we're wired to function in many other high performing settings, especially as individual contributors. It requires not just understanding the material, but also understanding your classmates, and your classmates working with you, themselves.
However, when it comes together, there is nothing like the feeling of 90 smart minds in a room all moving forward the discussion in tandem to a more effective outcome than any one person could do alone.
Being back, it's something of a marvel to see how effectively second year ECs slip naturally into driving forward the discussion in the best classes at HBS.
It takes deliberate practice and feedback though.
What is Measured is Managed
One of the most helpful tips that an EC shared with me back in 2019 was to track my participation in class.
It gave me the motivation to speak up, confidence with visibility into my participation, and a more objective feedback mechanism to help me improve a skill that is the core of HBS's pedagogy.
It's a skill that continues to be an incredible asset and that I continue to strive to improve every day inside (and outside) the classroom.
The Participation Log
In the spirit of paying it forward, here's a template of the log I created that helped me go from stumbling through comments to leading through my participation in HBS's pre-covid years [1].
Perhaps it will help a future RC like it one did me. [2]
[1] (Though, now that I'm back as an EC with the skill under my belt, I just write a participation note at the top of my spiral notebook!)
[2] If it does or you want to connect, drop my a line!
[3] Accompanying LinkedIn Post