Mario Moura [Brazilian] is the author of today's guest entry. He is writing from Doha in Qatar on behalf of his International Consulting Team [ICP] composed of Irina Marchenkova [Russian], Zina Sanyoura [Lebanese], Pedro Almeida [Portuguese] and Rantej Singh [Indian]. It is the first of our ICP Guest Entries.

Real [new] World, Real Learning!

June 20th 2008, 19:30. Flight LX 292 touches down at Nairobi International airport in Kenya.
August 15th 2008, 18:30. Flight QR 84 touches down at Doha International airport in Qatar.

A new world is being opened to me, with new learning experiences. I stepped in Sub-Saharan Africa for the first time at the Discovery Expedition in Kenya and, likewise, the International Consulting Project is providing me with a first experience in the Middle East.

I am filling these geographical gaps in my career and I can only say that IMD is indeed a Leading Global Business School. Apart from the international group of students and faculty, the program offers you the possibility to have those two very different, and hands on, international exposures.

Regarding the ICP, somehow we are back to real life.  We are back to full-time work and have now the chance to put in practice the new analytical and soft skills that we have been learning during the program. However, this time in a totally new environment – most of us are in new countries and working with new industries! We continue to work in groups [4 or 5 members], but now a new stakeholder is in place: our Client! Therefore, an extra sense of responsibility in delivering excellent results is in our minds at all times.

My ICP group [a Brazilian, an Indian, a Lebanese, a Portuguese and a Russian, coached by a Scottish!] is reaching a new level of interaction. We are in Qatar, living in the same house [a comfortable villa provided by the Client] and will only return to Lausanne in a month. We will then come back to Doha later in October for another period of 3 weeks. A new dimension of team bonding is therefore in place, especially given the time of rising anxiety – with job search – that we are experiencing. The team is acting like a real family, helping each other in dealing with work assignments, going shopping together, driving through the city of Doha [a real challenge], correcting cover letters, finishing “Kenya assignments” due for next week, watching Olympics, etc.

Today we have just finished our first meeting with the Client [yes…Sunday is a working day in the Middle East] and, while facing the beautiful Persian Gulf through the window of the meeting room, we learned the challenges that the company is facing. They are a successful Qatari conglomerate and it is the third time they work with an IMD ICP group. We could feel how pleased the Execute Committee was to have us here. It is extremely exciting when you feel you can make a difference, especially in a [new] World. Thank you IMD for this unique experience!

Now it is 10pm and we are going through our first internal meeting to discuss a first plan on how to tackle the issues we learned today. I leave you with the brainstorming guidelines that Professor Stewart Hamilton, our Scottish coach, brought to the meeting today, and which we will be following throughout the project:

• Defer judgment
• Encourage wild ideas
• Build on the idea of others
• Stay focused on topic
• One conversation at a time
• Be visual
• Go for quantity

Tisbah a’ala kheir – good night in Arabic.

Mario & Team

Mario’s sub-Saharan plane tickets!

The Qatar ICP Team. From left to right: Rantej Singh [Indian], Irina Marchenkova [Russian], Pedro Almeida [Portuguese], Zina Sanyoura [Lebanese] and Mario Moura [Brazilian]

The team in front of Doha and the Persian Gulf. From left to right: Pedro Almeida [Portuguese], Zina Sanyoura [Lebanese], Mario Moura [Brazilian], Irina Marchenkova [Russian] and Rantej Singh [Indian]