A fertile environment for ideas

Fermenting brains multiplies the results of the efforts: this is the most surprising of my many expectations of the International Part-Time MBA program.Despite the many challenges brought by today’s disrupted normality, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, my colleagues and I continue to work hard. Our class was shaped by MIP from among the many applications, choosing who could bring forth proactivity and the ability to innovate with curiosity: this attitude is decisive to carry on building the future and setting ambitious targets. To carve out the space for self-realization and professional fulfilment. To create a fertile environment for ideas.

We have each other. We are neither shy nor jealous of what pops into our minds because we know we can find active support or advice from our colleagues. We have established a positive atmosphere where we know that a thought or a comment shared is not intended to be a personal showcase, but rather an occasion to share understandings or knowledge.

The team-building activities during the first ice-breaking International Week at EADA Business School set the foundations for this positive mindset. We empowered engagement during our monthly face-to-face appointments at MIP and at the many networking events: the opportunities to gather and to cooperate, analysing and finding solutions to the business cases are a great chance to appreciate each other’s most distinctive traits and work together to achieve quality outcomes.

We have established a great environment, a fertile soil where ideas can be nurtured and grow organically and sustainably. Raw concepts get shaped through suggestions, observations and comments. This cross-contamination occurs in multiple audiences, thanks also to the team-swapping during the entire duration of the course, where everybody can experience the potentiality that lies in diversity.

Contamination is nurtured by diversity: the class’s variety of backgrounds in terms of culture, education and professional experience could be perceived as an obstacle but it is, in fact, an opportunity for growth. A mix of STEM and humanities graduates, employed in very different industries internationally, coming from the Far East to South America, could have created a tinderbox but instead, becomes a trigger for development.

After 12 months on our International Part-Time MBA path, we are starting on the Project Works. This fertile environment and these great synergies have led us to burst with potential business ideas, which are currently being developed. Most of these projects came about exactly as explained, from an informal chat which gained momentum and group-wide contributions.

Naturally proactive mindsets transform diversity into opportunities to capture an unexpected point of view and broaden the horizon to more suitable implementations. Whoever agrees to play the game stresses the ability to generate links and shifts his or her perspective and propensity to change.

Our professors tirelessly push us to focus on innovation and a propensity towards transformation. In our groups, we experience essential training in open-mindedness and creative thinking, entailing an enrichment of the shared background of our experiences.

Lastly, mutual esteem is the key to steering people who aim to do their best into a positive and cooperative environment. We are keen to improve our ability to work in teams, and we learn leadership while we find the best time to embody the role of the promoter or to step back and leave the scene to whomever is more capable of being an effective driving force.

At the very beginning, it was difficult to understand the real reason why the Career Development Office was focusing on the essential role of soft skills for achieving success in our career strategy. From my perspective, it was the technical skills which were the key to success, but I can now appreciate the change of perspective that has been generated in my propensity to openness.

We are unconsciously learning how to think agilely, in an entertaining way that improves our personal attitude towards both our knowledge and the unknown leveraging of the relationships we are building with a group of talented peers.

 

About the author
Fabrizio Liponi

My name is Fabrizio and I work as a tunnel engineer in the construction of Underground Line 4 of Milan. Born, raised, studied, living and working in Milan: I love my city and I’m proud to take part in building its future. Travel addicted, I love to meet people and different cultures.

 

 

The first day as a restart: my MBA kick-off

We are used to facing many “first days” throughout our path. Especially when we talk about school. We spent time at kindergarten and then we attended primary school: we usually have a blurry memory of our first day at these institutions. Middle school is quite different, some can remember the moment they entered the classroom, others can recall the first period, when conversations with new friends began and you felt part of a community. I think that the first day of high school is quite clear in our minds: maybe you met the same friends from your middle school again or maybe you had moved and started on a new life with new mates with a different accent, dialect or even language. The first day at university is the peak of a transformation period. A large percentage of students change their city, home, friends from home, classmates, habits and, probably, ideas, sports, hobbies… and the list can be much longer.

The milestones listed here are common to a relatively high number of students. This is a well-designed and pre-created path: you are only asked to follow it according to your inclination and give the right commitment to the tasks assigned. An important difference between these first days and a first day at an MBA class is that you know you are going to do something which takes you off the standard route, making a decision which comes quite exclusively from you.

My first day was the end of a long period of evaluation and personal assessments, and the beginning of a brand-new journey of improvement. I had decided to take an in-person MBA before the pandemic and I have never changed my mind; even though I was quite sure that some classes would be held online, I would not have renounced one of the fundamental values of the live lessons: the contact with classmates.

During the Master’s kick-off session, despite the age and the maturity acquired during my past experiences, I perceived a sense of excitement and the perception of doing something significant arose. For me, being an MBA candidate means growing in a different way. Since the beginning, my objective has not been to find teachers but mentors; not to learn but to be inspired by innovative and antifragile points of view; not simply to meet more people, but to create a valuable network that, leveraging the different backgrounds, shares common goals; not to fill my curiosity with notions but to aspire to a long-lasting willingness to improve; not to be the perfect employee but to farm an entrepreneurial mindset and apply it in every aspect of my working life.

Seeds of these aspects were already visible on the first day, but a contrasting feeling appeared: the enthusiasm to get the most out of this experience and, contemporarily, the certainty that time is limited. I am quite sure that one of the most important achievements we will gain from this intense and overwhelming parcourse will be the ability to balance it with our current jobs and private lives. The decision to dedicate hours and (sometimes) whole weekends to lessons and to studies is crucial and must be taken with awareness.

The first days are the expression of a restart: you are discouraged by the mountain appearing very hard to climb and you think your equipment is insufficient for scaling it. Actually, you approach every “first day” with something more than the past: you bring with you a different background and a deeper experience. If you dig up this expertise, you will find the necessary tools to make the scaling easier and insightful and that will enable you to achieve what you had planned before.

Certainly, at the beginning you cannot count on specific future benefits: an MBA is an investment and, like every investment, there are risks as well as returns. The big difference here is that you are (and have to be) confident about the asset you are investing in: yourself.

 

About the author
Luca Bianchi
National Account Manager for a multinational logistics company and part of the young group of the Freight Leader Council, I would define myself as curious, ambitious and continuously disposed to improve. A strong supporter of cross-functional experiences, job rotation, teamwork and lifelong learning, my objective is to be constantly able to see challenges from different perspectives and to be adaptable in this ever-changing environment..

 

Why an MBA and why today?

During the years at university it is quite easy to focus on one main goal: to pass all the exams and get the qualification you were aiming for. In some way, life after university can seem distant and blurry. Then you graduate and suddenly realize that your run, the longest one, has just started. You will search for a job, not a random one but something that suits you, that lets you apply what you had learnt at university, that lets you understand how your impact on the company can be positive and your efforts recognized as solid and valuable. You realize after a while that you must embrace your work experience to make it a profitable learning path, and that’s for a simple reason: you are going to spend a considerable part of your life working, so why not reap all the benefits of it?

At least, this is what happened to be my personal experience. I started to work as a freelancer for some small design firms till I joined a big international company that made me see my approach to work in a different way. I found that being part of a complex environment pushes people to adapt to several new situations, and that makes them grow faster. Suddenly I wanted to know more about my job because I couldn’t apply the same methods and habits as I had before. The scale and the impact of my actions massively increased. The mix of cultures made me care more about the way I communicate with people. With so much information to manage and so many opportunities to learn, I was constantly being forced out of my comfort zone.

The fact is that after a while, even if the environment is tough and the level of responsibility higher than before, you’ll easily get used to it and start to organize your time and your work better and better. After a couple of years you’re a different person, you’re more comfortable with your tasks, the pressure you felt at the beginning is much lower. Actually, you’ve managed to improve your productivity, the quality of your work, and it has happened so fast and so satisfactorily that you could choose to continue challenging yourself more and more. You can think: Am I satisfied now? Can I or do I want to improve more? Am I too technical? Should I learn how to manage teams, projects or even a business? Do I really want to challenge myself more?

The answers will depend a lot on your personal situation and environment, but if you’re already asking yourself these questions, the time has probably come to find an alternative way to learn. When I started to look around, I found several opportunities but nothing challenging enough nor suitably in line with my goals, which, in fact, at that moment were not really clear to me. So I found myself, almost randomly, participating in the MBA presentation at MIP Politecnico di Milano, sitting in a class with many young professionals and hearing for the first time what an MBA is  ̶  a complex and difficult path that gives you both deep and practical knowledge about economics, finance, marketing and entrepreneur-ship, and about the tools you need to succeed with them, i.e. statistics, strategy, planning. Last but not least, the MBA focuses a lot on soft skills such as leadership and career development. During the lessons you will always be pushed to interact with your classmates, to share your opinions and to discuss them with both professors and students, because you will be an “active learning” part of the course itself. In my opinion, this is the perfect way to connect with your classmates and create what will become a team that can work together and help each other.

I started my MBA at MIP just few days ago and I am feeling more determined day by day. The students selected by MIP are strongly motivated to work and improve together and, even if they come from different environments, everyone’s ready to share their own experiences and to learn from those of others.

Therefore, if reading these words makes you feel like being part of this group or just willing to challenge yourself in all the dynamics an MBA can offer, I think that the real question at the end is “Why not an MBA?”

 

 

About the author
Simone Moscato

Having graduated at Politecnico di Milano, Simone is now working as a civil engineer in an international EPC Company while attending the International MBA at MIP. An enthusiast for travelling and fighting sports, he’s always searching for new challenges. After years, he’s still struggling to learn how to play the guitar.

 

 

My Part Time MBA experience, a journey definitely worth it!

Here we are for my last article about this amazing adventure!

My MBA path had come to an end with the graduation in July. I have to admit that it has been an amazing experience for which I will be grateful forever!

I have gained a lot from this journey, including many takeaways that have changed my prospects for the future.

For sure, one key area is related to people: friendships, teamwork and leadership.

Working with a diverse group of individuals for each project taught me to work in a team in an effective and cordial way, despite disagreements or personal dislikes. This experience has definitely been useful for managing situations at my work, in which I have to manage people in order to apply some teachings to my concrete professional circumstances.

At a more intimate level, my MBA classmates showed me the importance of being humble because of the stories behind our lives, the value of cultural diversity, since this is an international course, and the creation of a network which I am using right now and which has ended up being a key asset.

This MBA was also a chance for immersion in real world business problems and stories through the various speakers, in-company visits or international experiences. It made me understand the overall set-up of a company and the most important issues in every function. Our course took an extremely case-based approach and I see now that this has developed my critical thinking, my ability to make quick and analytical choices, my strategic reasoning and my ability to take decisions individually or in a group. This MBA has inculcated in me a structured way of thinking about things which I will never lose.

My final project also gave me the chance of investing the core of my function, working with top management and closely following one of my company’s key strategic choices.

The last area is my personal development. This MBA has encouraged my entrepreneurial spirit and fostered my ambition in growing professionally, despite the risks and downsides embedded in every choice. I am now stronger and more aware of my capabilities and qualities and have a clearer path for my future growth.

 

About the author
Pietro Cavallo

My name is Pietro and I grew up in Milan, where I am currently living. I work in Switzerland, in the Supply Chain division of a clothing multinational. I am the husband of an incredible wife and father of 2 crazy kids.

 

 

My MBA journey: challenges and emotions

It has been an intense and challenging two-year journey to get my Part Time MBA diploma at the MIP, Politecnico di Milano School of Management. Emotions were certainly not lacking and neither were moments of joy and those of suffering. I have finally reached my most important training milestone and concluded an incredible experience that I will try to convey in a few lines in my last article, which officially closes my journey.

We have all carried out the part-time master in parallel with our professional career and personal and family commitments. During these two long years each of us students has run into changes, unexpected events and more stressful moments that have drained our energies and made us falter: a change of role in the company, a problem in the family, a birth, or a love that has ended. But the structure of the course with the two international weeks, the company visits and the exams, which almost all included an individual and a group part, have allowed us to develop relationships and friendships that have been consolidated exam after exam. We have therefore sustained each other by supporting colleagues while they were going through a more difficult time or when they simply encountered greater difficulties in a specific exam, far removed from their work area or from their university training environment.

Together we faced the health emergency of Covid-19, a complex and unprecedented situation. We remained isolated in our homes but still connected thanks to the cutting-edge technology made available by MIP. Together with the school, we adapted to the unexpected situation and finished our studies in the best possible way.

But the most intense challenges were contrasted by equally joyful moments. The international weeks in particular have given us the most beautiful emotions. They forced us to live in close contact with each other and to share intimate moments such as lunches, dinners or a hotel room. This MBA has given me inseparable new friends. I have seen some of them become fathers or mothers and others get married and, all together, we have reached the most demanding educational goal.

I must conclude with a sincere thanks to those friends who have been closest to me: Luca Randazzo, Alessandro Artuso, Alessandro Brunitti and Antonio Rossi. With them I had the pleasure of carrying out the project work and also spending much free time outside the master. They are incredibly intelligent friends but also capable of making themselves equally stupid when necessary to cheer you up in difficult times!

 

 

About the author
Andrea De Donatis

I am Andrea De Donatis, alumnus of the international part-time MBA at MIP Politecnico di Milano. I Graduated in energy engineering and I am currently working in technical sales for a leading multinational electronics company based in Milan.
I am very passionate about technology, IT and digital marketing. I strongly believe that disruptive innovation is vital to create new value.

 

 

Taking care of online visibility: enforcing the network through personal branding

The key to success for every business is the ability to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. In a nutshell, a company’s customers should perceive a higher value delivered than if they were to look for the same ̶ be it a product or service ̶ in a competitors’ offering.

Now, picture applying the same concept to us professionals, therefore seeing ourselves as businesses. In this case, the products and services we have to offer are our hard and soft skills, experiences, values and opinions. The target market – our preferred customers – are personal or professional contacts, as well as the networks and organizations with which we want to be involved.

But how do we reach out to them in the most effective way? How do we communicate and show what we have got? How do we stand out against our competitors? 

Well, given today’s trends ̶ which have been strengthened by the challenges brought on by the recent pandemic ̶ most professional, educational and networking activities and exchanges are taking place on the internet via online platforms and services providers. These have become the go-to medium for anything we need: from a conference call at work to a last-minute delivery of our dinner.

This is why having a strong and tailored online visibility is paramount to being found, but also to finding.

As a student at MIP I receive constant support from the Career Development Office staff, who help me in bettering my online presence by delivering interesting seminars, training and one-to-one meetings with recruiters and HR professionals on the topic. Among MIP’s wide-ranging offering, I recall finding extremely helpful the webinar held on personal branding strategies. The latter helped me reconsider my online presence and start taking good care of it.

The development of a personal brand is crucial for standing out in a crowd of experienced professionals. Moreover, while our colleagues and friends can experience our potential “live”, the vast majority of the customers we want to engage with lies outside our first-hand network.

In order to communicate effectively the value we can deliver to our potential “customers”, we must have a strategy in place. Thanks to all the training on the matter I have changed my perspective: it is not about what you want to say, instead focus on what you’d like to hear if you were your customer.

At the beginning, set who are the contacts of the network you would like to build. Then, figure out what those people would like to find in their network. Next, understand how to manage your value to achieve your target. Eventually, go online and start to put your plan into action.

First step: our online visibility’s journey begins on a search engine. If someone wants to know more about us, they will look us up on the internet. If our name+surname returns “no results”, our potential contact is immediately lost. So make sure you have an online presence linked to your main interests.

Please note: the internet keeps track of everything, including what we wouldn’t like our potential boss to know. Therefore, a periodic check of our activities online helps greatly in avoiding uncomfortable situations as well as conforming the first glance of the final picture we want to convey.

Second step: a wise and strategic use of social media is paramount. Our profile page on social media is the front door for accessing our online persona: are we taking care of it? Choosing a proper profile picture and the right keywords to describe ourselves and our competencies draws the line between being ignored and emerging.
Please note: via social media you foster meaningful interactions: be careful with comments on posts, remember to stay coherent with the set strategy and what the targeted audience expects. This allows us to show strengths and experience. Stay professional.

Third step: publishing content moves us on the frontline. By posting on our personal blogs/websites or social media pages, we aim to attract prospects and leads, build credibility and enforce trust. If we don’t aspire to be perceived as experts, sharing content with a personal comment is often enough.

Please note: posting content is the icing on the cake. Make sure this is done carefully and is linked to communicating the particular and unique value that we can deliver. We must be aware of the purpose we want to convey. We must provide a consistent picture with everything we say, do and write.

Last tip: be patient. We should nurture an effective online visibility as farmers nurture their crops. We plow with credibility, we seed connections, we nurture and grow relationships, we aim to harvest opportunities of cooperation, be it professional collaborations, job offers or entrepreneurial initiatives.

 

 

About the author
Fabrizio Liponi

My name is Fabrizio and I work as a tunnel engineer in the construction of Underground Line 4 of Milan. Born, raised, studied, living and working in Milan: I love my city and I’m proud to take part in building its future. Travel addicted, I love to meet people and different cultures.

What is innovation and how can it be achieved in daily life?

Today “Innovation” is a keyword used in a huge variety of contexts. In the business world, it has become almost synonymous with fame, fortune and money, and it is a tool that can make your business much more competitive. But what is innovation really?

If we Google it, we get the following result:

“Innovation – Every novelty, change, transformation that radically modifies or in any case causes an effective rejuvenation in a political or social order, in a production method, in a technique.”

Trying to translate it into simple words, innovation is nothing more than a change that positively transforms a situation or status quo. The concept of innovation is closely linked to one of the main dogmas of Lean Manufacturing: continuous improvement. If, within a company, it can be carried out through investments in R&D, Industry 4.0 technologies, innovation can also be carried out at an individual level. Each of us can achieve continuous improvement and be an innovator.

According to research published in the Harvard Business Review, there are 5 characteristics that distinguish the most innovative people:

  1. Ability to associate ideas, problems and situations: as Steve Jobs once said, “Creativity is connecting things”. Innovative people are able to generate ideas from old solutions, also taken from other areas, recombining them in a different way.
  2. Ability to ask questions: innovative people ask “Why?” and “What if?”, and they try to understand how existing processes (i.e. the status quo) can be modified to provide better results and are able to change their assumptions, going beyond the boundaries dictated by their own thinking and imagining opposite alternatives.
  3. Observation: innovators must be able to observe common phenomena in detail and without preconceptions.
  4. Experimentation: an innovator must be able to effectively translate new ideas into prototypes and pilot projects.
  5. Relationship: with this term, we intend to highlight that some of the innovator’s time and energy must be dedicated to the relationship with individuals capable of providing him with a radically different perspective on the same problem.

So, the question now is “how do you innovate?” Here are two pieces of advice I’d like to share:

CHANGE YOUR MENTALITY AND TRY TO GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE

Our brain often tends to rest in routine, in already known thought patterns and, for this reason, finding the mental space to innovate is difficult. Innovating means allowing your mind to accept risky ideas, stepping outside the comfort zone and questioning your own little world. The price of freedom is uncertainty! If you can handle the emotional fear of not knowing what will happen, then you can absolutely be free and, without preset patterns, thinking out-of-the-box becomes simpler.

WORK AND INTERACT WITH PEOPLE DIFFERENT FROM YOURSELF

In our private and working lives, we tend to always relate to people who have the same mentality and worldview as ourselves, because they will always be ready to support our theories when necessary. Of course, It’s helpful to work with people who understand you and think like you, but not always. So, when you can, it’s always best to surround yourself with people who have a different mentality than your own. It is impossible to grow up without understanding the point of view of people with ideas distant from yours.

Ok, now what? How to put these tips into practice?

The options are many. You can start small, in daily life, traveling, meeting people with different lifestyles, attending multidisciplinary conferences, reading, etc. Otherwise you can make some slightly more “drastic” choices. Mine was to apply for an International MBA at MIP. What prompted me to limit my social life, choose to go back to school and devote time to classes and exams? Was it madness? Masochism? Maybe in part, yes, but the main motivation is the continuous search for personal innovation, which nowadays is becoming more and more a necessity rather than an option. And what better environment to reach it than in an international context full of ideas like an MBA?

 

About the author
Marco Di Salvio

Student of the International Part Time MBA at MIP Politecnico di Milano.
Industrial Engineer currently working @ Gucci as WW Supply & Demand Planner, based in Florence.
Tech passionate, Cinema-lover, Sports addicted.
Solving the world’s problems one spreadsheet at a time.

 

The fundamental value of my MBA Project Work

The MBA experience came to an end in mid-July. It had been a long journey… sometimes exhausting, always interesting but for sure a lifetime adventure!

Our last step was the delivery of our project work, a final paper focused either on a strategic project within our company or on a startup development plan of our own.

The project could be managed in groups (for startup business plans) or by a single student (for the in-company project only) and it is discussed in front of MIP professors (and, if possible, is also open to other students) as the last step of the MBA. In both cases a tutor is assigned for each project, represented by a MIP professor with experience in the specific area of interest. This figure is key in the development of the project work because the tutor helps you step by step with useful indications and relevant tips based on his/her knowledge of the industry. I found my tutor to be a really great source of discussion and encouragement.

Personally speaking, this project was a chance for me to concretely apply all the notions I had collected and internalized during the last two years. The MBA courses fostered our capacity of giving life to embedded startup ideas and increased our understanding of business logics. A great thing is that often entrepreneurial ideas comes to life concretely thanks to startup contests linked to the Politecnico through the PoliHub, one of the main Italian incubators for startups.

I decided for the in-company project focused on fashion supply chains and the impact of Covid, which was a great personal and professional experience. It was a big chance for me to be part of one of the main strategic choices of the firm I work for, involving my specific area. I was able to grow and learn from the company’s top management in order to define and deliver the project, giving me more visibility and a deeper understanding of my firm’s strategic path.

Therefore, this final work was for me more than an assignment but truly professional growth for which I will be forever grateful. In general, for example for all my MBA colleagues who did the startup business plan, it was a chance to develop their ideas with a great deal of help from brilliant minds and the possibility of concretizing them.

 

About the author
Pietro Cavallo

My name is Pietro and I grew up in Milan, where I am currently living. I work in Switzerland, in the Supply Chain division of a clothing multinational. I am the husband of an incredible wife and father of 2 crazy kids.

 

The Project Work experience, an opportunity to bring your ideas to life

An International Part-time MBA at the MIP Politecnico di Milano School of Management always ends with the discussion of a group Project Work. During this final step, students have the possibility to put into practice what they have learnt during the two years in a consultancy project in their area of interest.

For this occasion, we had the possibility to join up with three colleagues and implement a project in our own company or develop a new business idea with the support of the MIP faculty.

I joined forces with Luca Randazzo, Alessandro Artuso and Alessandro Brunitti in a heterogeneous team in terms of knowledge and competences in the fields of law, engineering, marketing and information technology. We decided to develop our own business idea, willing to venture into a sector different from the one in which we work daily and, for the first time, to be responsible for an owned business, feeling like ambitious entrepreneurs and no longer just employees.

I met my Project Work colleagues for the first time during the MBA. We got to know each other during the courses and became good friends very soon. During the two full weeks abroad at leading European business schools offered by the Part-Time MBA program, we strengthened our friendship and we discovered that we had one common passion: traveling.

We first decided to extend the second of the two weeks abroad by taking the opportunity to explore the city of Munich and then we also organized another trip together to celebrate our graduation.

On these two occasions and in the context of the lockdown caused by the Covid-19 emergency, the idea for ​​our project was born: an app that simplifies travel planning and also brings tourists and tour guides closer thanks to remote tours, live or on demand. An app that allows guides to work remotely and that offers tourists multiple content solutions according to their individual needs. In defining this idea, talking about our past travel experiences and sharing personal stories, we also got closer to each other. Furthermore, we were able to put into practice all the main lessons of the course from Financial Accounting to Strategy and Marketing (to name a few) by applying them to the various project phases and defining an accurate business plan.

In addition to the opportunity to access the PoliHub – Politecnico di Milano’s in-house start-up incubator – MIP has assigned Filippo Renga to us as our tutor, expert in Management Economics, counting multiple personal experiences in different start-ups, also in the tourism sector. Filippo has been able to give us not only technical advice on how to set up a start-up but also food for thought. He often made our sense of security falter by testing our motivation to go beyond the idea of a project, with the simple goal of graduation, but rather, to take the path that would actually bring it into being. He also made us face up to the reality of the entrepreneur’s lifestyle, when you are often alone, fighting against numerous failures by pursuing your own ideas, very distant from that of an employee, both from a practical and an emotional point of view.

And now that we have just graduated, ambitious to carry on with our project, the real test and the most complex part will come: the implementation. But we are ready to get involved, to take our responsibilities and face the risks focused on the next goal, the first public release.

 

 

About the author
Andrea De Donatis

I am Andrea De Donatis, a student of the international part-time MBA at MIP Politecnico di Milano. I Graduated in energy engineering and I am currently working in technical sales for a leading multinational electronics company based in Milan.
I am very passionate about technology, IT and digital marketing. I strongly believe that disruptive innovation is vital to create new value.

 

How to use a “digital mentor” to avoid the dunning-kruger effect

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” (Albert Einstein)

Curiosity is one of the main leverages for continuous improvement. However, it is not enough if you don’t have someone to guide you along a growth path. With this goal in mind, MIP Politecnico di Milano developed FLEXA, the online platform created with Microsoft and aiming to be a digital mentor for current MIP students and alumni, in order to create a path of professional growth that is as flexible as possible.

Thanks to the work of Artificial Intelligence, FLEXA offers:

  • A hard skills self-evaluation
  • A soft skills assessment
  • A digital skills assessment
  • The possibility to insert your career goals
  • The chance to define the daily/weekly amount of time you want to dedicate to your improvement.

The user starts by defining the areas in which he/she wants to grow. After an evaluation, the platform allows the user to identify the gaps and the content necessary to be able to fill them.

Another important component is the time that the user has available for his/her training (“time is money”, they say). The content provided and the growth plan, in fact, consider the weekly hours that can be dedicated to studying and the period within which you want to obtain results.

With only these two pieces of information, FLEXA will provide you with plenty of materials, webinars, articles, events and videos from which you can choose to boost your knowledge.

Let’s talk about the self-evaluation. Is it truly easy to do? Apparently yes, but it’s not.

It takes time to properly evaluate your own level of knowledge. If you do it in a superficial way, you risk either overestimating or underestimating yourself, falling into the Dunning-Kruger effect.

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool”, wrote Shakespeare in As You Like It. And that’s the essence of the Dunning-Kruger effect, according to which those individuals who are least capable in a particular area of knowledge are most likely to overestimate their capability.

Only with experience can you properly get to understand which is your true level of competence.

The Dunning-Kruger effect makes you understand how important it is to fully comprehend your strengths and, above all, your weaknesses. Yes, because you must work hard on these weaknesses to improve yourself and to become an all-round professional.

Aristotle, one of the most famous philosophers in history, was convinced that “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom”. And the “beginning of all wisdom” can’t be that easy, can it?

Starting to do a good evaluation of yourself and your competences is the first step towards setting the best path for career growth. So, before beginning FLEXA’s skill assessment, try to focus on yourself. With a digital tutor it is even easier to be honest and admit your weaknesses.

This test will also be a good chance to focus on the main skills you’d like to improve and on the aspirations you have in the long term.

 In the Hard Skills section, you’re encouraged to reflect on yourself and the technical skills you have acquired to date. Through a self-assessment, you will be asked to define your level of knowledge of each of the complex skills that, based on the benchmarking, are generally required to operate within the functional area of ​​your choice.

The Soft and Digital skills sections are a little different and are evaluated through a bunch of multiple-choice questions.

At the end of the set of assessments you will be offered feedback, based on which you will be given a guide for the development of the level of your skills. The top critical skills to be developed for each set of skills (hard, soft and digital) will be highlighted as follows:

during the time, FLEXA will show your progress in each of the three fields of skills. From my point of view this is really helpful, and quite motivating. Having continuous feedback on how much you have improved and the great results you have achieved can be a huge incentive to keep on learning.

So, in order to stay curious, as Einstein said, why not give it a try and start your FLEXA Journey? Go to https://www.flexa.polimi.it/en/ and log in with your MIP email. For any questions or need of support, you can contact the FLEXA Support team by writing to flexasupport@mip.polimi.it.

 

About the author
Marco Di Salvio

Student of the International Part Time MBA at MIP Politecnico di Milano.
Industrial Engineer currently working @ Gucci as WW Supply & Demand Planner, based in Florence.
Tech passionate, Cinema-lover, Sports addicted.
Solving the world’s problems one spreadsheet at a time.