Tag: #MIPexperience

Manage your time: how to survive (and enjoy) one year of Full-Time MBA

Posted on | by Angela Leone | Leave a Comment on Manage your time: how to survive (and enjoy) one year of Full-Time MBA

Prospective students or professionals interested in the MBA program have reached out to me lately to hear my say. One of the most recurrent questions I have had so far is about the effort it takes in terms of study-life balance. Commonly enough, I find myself recalling how challenging it was during the past months to deal with a very tight schedule including attending classes, submitting assignments and preparation for interviews. As I recognize this is a very relevant theme, I decided to put pen to paper to give my ultimate 3 tips + 1 guide to time management, or rather, on how to survive and still enjoy this amazing and sometimes overwhelming year!

 

1.       Do not procrastinate: do it and do it now!

Let’s be clear: after the first month of onboarding with the basics in digital phase, made up of clips to browse online and pleasant encounters at MIP with the students who have already relocated to Italy, the first trimester is the real challenge of this program. You will easily find yourself immerged in a full week of classes, most of the times followed by after-school talks and company presentations which you don’t want to miss, and at the same time you have to work, every weekend, on the submission of two assignments. Living around the clock will soon be the norm, so if you want to be on schedule, do not wait for tasks and deliverables to pile up (because you will have tons!), do not go through the same task back and forth seeking for a second, third or maybe fourth read. Do not wait for perfection: act fast and act now.

 

2.       Be in the moment

This is very connected with the previous point and it is something I learned from one of the most inspiring professors I had this year, Filippo Passerini. In his words, one of the most effective ways is to stay focused is “to be in the moment”. This is by no means achieved by a strong will not to get distracted by technology and social media, maybe leaving the mobile in your pocket on purpose for the whole duration of the class or taking notes on paper rather than on a digital tool, but also avoiding multitasking. As the human attention span gets shorter and shorter with digitalization (did you know it is shorter than a goldfish’s?), multitasking is indeed reducing this threshold. Being in the moment means getting rid of all those objects, thoughts and ideas keeping us from the here and now. If you want to take (and learn) the most from what is happening around you, set a blank mind. You cannot imagine how much time you will save later.

 

3.       Take that hand: people are here to help

We are all in this together. It might sound like the claim of a manifesto, but truly enough, your classmates are the best allies along the way. Setting up study-groups where you can dive deep into topics that were mentioned during class, asking for a read-through or a double-check on your assignment, rehearsing for an exam by exchanging notes and ideas, are all very common things you will find as you walk around the busy desks of the study stations at MIP. Rest assured, in your class you will find at least one person who was previously working in the same area of expertise as that of the subjects studied, and the good news is that everyone wants to lend a hand and help each other, to be cross-pollinated and to learn from other peoples’ experience. Take that hand, especially when your time is short, teamwork will help you eat the elephant piece by piece.

 

+1. Work hard, party harder

After all I’ve written and said, this might look contradictory, but no. The core of this experience is the human value coming from the network of people you will meet along the way. This program is really multicultural and diverse in its soul and what you will grasp from your classmates will make your day. You will work a lot, you will challenge yourself in many circumstances, at times you will be tired and stressed out, but on top of this, you will have plenty of aperitivos, calcetto (five-a-side football) matches, pizza nights, beers and drinks with the best laughs. You will eat handmade Chinese dumplings, learn how to dance salsa and hopefully become a huge fan of reggaeton, and your time  ̶  despite being short  ̶  will never be so rich, it will never be worth so much!

 

About the author
 Marianna Trimarchi
I am a candidate of the International Full Time MBA at MIP. I have a background in academia as a PhD in Communication and Strategic Analysis and a career as content producer in the Media Industry. I have worked for the Italian Television as author and assistant producer for cultural programs as well as for other media outlets as journalist. I am passionate about understanding complex phenomena particularly related to internationalization and global development from a multidisciplinary perspective.

 

 

 

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

Posted on | by Chiara Vasta | Leave a Comment on 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

Posted on | by Angela Leone | Leave a Comment on 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.

 

i-Flex networking experience

Posted on | by Angela Leone | Leave a Comment on i-Flex networking experience

Digital and “spread” classrooms, distance learning and international spirit: which are the benefits, the challenges and the incentives of building an i-Flex network?

The choice of a learning path is never a simple step. It will require you to dedicate your time, energy and also money. Especially for a master, it will affect your life for several months. There is no second opportunity, so it would be worth weighing up your decision. With the increase in online courses, the first question that comes to mind is whether these have the same value, in terms of knowledge, experience and overall job market recognition, as a traditional one.

One of the biggest differences between an online and a traditional course is the common concept that a traditional class reinforces the relationship among students. The social contribution of a course is vital, as well as the knowledge learnt during the course itself. Discussions with colleagues, the sharing and comparing of new ideas, working groups or pure networking all enable skills that enrich the training offer. There is no doubt that a face-to-face class has all those characteristics. But are we sure that they cannot be replicated in a remote class? Nowadays, we are living in a social world and everyone is in the habit of interacting with others on social media using the most varied tools. Chatting, speaking and video calling far-off people is a practice which takes place several times a day. It can start friendships and enable you to get in touch with people without any need to organize demanding trips. Furthermore, in this way, you can also get in touch with friends who are located very far away, even on the other side of the world. So why not benefit from such tools and adopt them in order to complete the learning path? This should not be a substitute for frontal lessons but can be considered as something that provides added value to the lessons. Being in an international class brings a variety of cultures and points of view that can be very different from the usual ones. By giving people, who could not otherwise attend, consent to access distance learning courses, the composition of the class is more diversified. Moreover, most jobs are already designed in this mode, being agile and involving collaboration with people who are not in the same workplace. A situation analogous to remote working groups can be created within distance learning. Groups are part of the learning process. And what remains when the course has ended? A solid network already trained for the whole ongoing program, in the sense of continuity and staying connected.

As I was saying, having online lessons should be complementary to an initial, face-to-face approach. As for any type of relationship, it’s necessary to trust other students when sharing questions of clarification or when targeting collaborative assignments. Trust takes longer to build at a distance and real contact can speed it up. The i-Flex program thinks exactly in this way. An initial week is mandatory in order to aid the establishing of trust among students in a teamwork perspective. This week is also useful to get to know the faculty processes and professors with a few face-to-face lessons. Anyone who has experimented with agile work knows that teamworking at a distance is totally different from working at the same table. There is the coordination of meeting times to be considered, collaboration without physical interaction, the need for training with regard to work alignment, as well as for the many assignments in working groups. Most of us are practitioners and professionals. Combining work and study may become a tough challenge which requires finding and keeping focus and enthusiasm on your own. The true difference from a traditional course is exactly that. On one hand, it allows so much more flexibility, choosing the most suitable time in accordance with other engagements, but on the other hand it requires strong determination and self-motivation to keep assignments with other students and to maintain your overall study plan. And if that is not enough, there are many additional complementary activities like business games, new idea challenges and webinars that help us get to know each other better, share interests and also provide support for extracurricular issues, and to build stronger relationships among us: a cohesive network.

I have definitively found many new friends. Of course, if we could have been in the same city we might have met up more frequently for dinner together but we are still in touch very often, even sometimes every day, and honestly this would not have been possible alongside all the other commitments of daily life. It’s a tough task, choosing which type of master to follow, with pros and cons for each program. Personally, the international context and networking were essential to me. With the quality level of classes being comparable, moving over to a digital platform just better matched my needs for flexibility and for maintaining long distance relations with my new friends.

 

About the author
 Vito Conversano

Chief Information Officer @ San Marzano Vini SpA with extensive international experience in IT & strategic consultancy for fortune 500 companies. Creative, Curious, Travel lover. Passionate about discovering new concepts, learning continuously and developing new ideas.

 

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

Posted on | by Beatrice Grillo | Leave a Comment on 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

Posted on | by Beatrice Grillo | Leave a Comment on 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.

 

A veterinarian in the MBA world: interview with MIP Alumnus Nicola Morandi

Posted on | by Beatrice Grillo | Leave a Comment on A veterinarian in the MBA world: interview with MIP Alumnus Nicola Morandi

The purple background of Teams pulses insistently, asking me to take the incoming call. It is a sunny, post-quarantine day, and I am getting along after home lockdown on my MBA journey. Classes are over and my days revolve around preparing for the project work I will be following in a couple of days down the line. The voice on the other side hails me on a cheerful yet unexpected note, “Hello, doctor!” Nicola Morandi is a former student from the Executive MBA of some years ago. He is the Technical Manager of the Animal Health division at Boehringer Ingelheim, the company where I will be doing the project work, and – the thing has made me most curious about his profile, amongst the network of MIP alumni – a PhD, like myself.

Hello Nicola, thank you for taking the time to talk with me today! I am happy to introduce your experience here: you are a doctor in veterinary sciences, as well as an MBA. Can you tell me about the industry you work in and what part the MBA played in your career development?

“I have been working at Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health since 2015. It is a multinational pharmaceutical company, but still a family business. If you have a dog, we are the “Frontline” people, just to make it clear! Our core business is in the production of vaccines and antiparasitics for all kinds of animals. Until 2015, I was a veterinarian, in the most classical way: I was curing animals, and specifically my fields of specialization were internal medicine, bovine surgery and infective diseases. Once I arrived at Boehringer, I found out that despite the fact that my background and knowledge as a specialist veterinarian gave me the basis for a good performance, I was lacking of a set of hard skills that would have benefited my job as a whole. Strategy, economics and marketing are, after all, the pillars of every industry, and of our company as well. I could quite easily have gained these competences with some hands-on experience in the field, exposing myself to all the tasks required in the various roles in my division, but this would have required a lot of time. Indeed, an MBA program could accelerate this path, so I chose the latter option, with an Executive Part-Time program, to gain this acceleration. As of today, I must say I am able to have an impact in many processes of the company going above and beyond my specific job function. I can say that the EMBA really worked as an accelerator for my career path.” 

During the MBA at MIP, you were exposed to themes and tools such as innovation and design thinking. In which way have these been useful and practical in your job?

“One of the most positive aspects of doing an EMBA deals with the possibility of putting into practice tools, methods and models you see during seminars and classes quite straightforwardly. In my case, there were some of them, such as design thinking, innovation of meaning and creative problem solving, that proved truly helpful and fruitful in my job. For instance, they helped me accelerate the sales’ pipeline of one of our star products and this was quite impressive, given the fact that this product was already performing in a surprising way, with 50% of market share.” 

Would you like to share an anecdote about your MBA life?

“When I joined the program, I hadn’t considered two aspects that later on became key takeaways for me: teamwork and time management. The ability to put together effectively your everyday workload, private time with family and the commitment of doing a Master program is challenging at times. However, these are after all the things I remember the most: to perform well, you need to leverage on the strengths of every team member you find yourself working close to in every course of the program and to negotiate successfully the work-study-life balance. Oh yes, and parties too…”

On a serious note, Covid-19 is making organizations experience an unprecedented need for change. What are the implications you see in the upcoming months for your industry and what will be the drivers companies and employees should focus on adapting rapidly?

“As I see it, Covid-19 is a stress test: it made urgent and clear the need for changes that were in a way already programmed or in plan. I am specifically referring to people management and digital transformation. People are the key element of every organization, and this situation is specifically requiring effectiveness by making them feel an active part of the change, not a consequence of a necessary adaptation. Digital transformation is usually seen as a trend that will act as a substitute for people. On the contrary, the missing point in the common way to see it is that it is an enriching element contributing to performance. Of course, this is possible when the transformation is effectively communicated into a people strategy. Another driver that I find important and that we still need to work on a lot are soft skills: with particular reference to the present moment, communication, teamwork, proactiveness and the ability to stay up-to-date, focus on the objectives and resilience are the winning points of the future of work.” 

On this note, Prof Sdogati from our faculty at Politecnico has recently remembered something Gramsci said: “Study, because we will need all your intelligence”.

 

About the author
 Marianna Trimarchi
I am a candidate of the International Full Time MBA at MIP. I have a background in academia as a PhD in Communication and Strategic Analysis and a career as content producer in the Media Industry.I have worked for the Italian Television as author and assistant producer for cultural programs as well as for other media outlets as journalist. I am passionate about understanding complex phenomena particularly related to internationalization and global development from a multidisciplinary perspective.

 

Invest in yourself: develop your soft skills

Posted on | by Beatrice Grillo | Leave a Comment on Invest in yourself: develop your soft skills

The longer the time I spend with my Part-Time MBA fellows, the more surprised I am by the mutual enrichment we get from our different working backgrounds and personal lives: we get involved as a whole person, and this goes beyond our differences.

The benefits for students on an MBA program, along with the hard skills developed during the courses, include the opportunity to work in a team and cooperate proactively to achieve the common goal of finding an effective and original solution to challenging assignments. This is anything but easy: emphasising our creativity, we produce a bucketload of different ideas and everyone tries to persuade the others to follow his or her line. In the end, a fine emotional intelligence is key to understanding when it’s time to find a shared thought, agree upon an idea and lead the road towards the target.

In a few words, enrolling in an MBA program offers a great arena for training soft skills.

In general, soft skills indicate all the transversal competences that are not directly connected to a specific task; they mainly refer to the relationships with other people involved in the organization and the personal attitude to dealing with a task.
Hard skills, on the other hand, concern the ability to do a specific task, require specialized knowledge and technical abilities: they’re easily measurable and they are usually very specific to a role in an organization.

Time and effort dedicated to the development of soft skills is thus an investment for the future development of each person’s career; as the need for specific skills can pass by with the development of new technologies, the attitude to rapidly approaching new, upcoming technologies and coping with disrupting changes will remain.
And these two competencies, learning agility and adaptability, are indeed soft skills.

In the complex labour market in the era of disruptive change, while hard skills must be continuously improved as the necessary enablers to access the game and hold one’s position, soft skills give the opportunity to move wisely and nurture a positive environment that is the key to achieving both one’s personal goals and those of the team.

Moreover, in a time of fast transformations that lead to the development of cross-industry teams and abilities, soft skills represent a business card that is valuable in multiple different environments.
In a multi-disciplinary team the ability to communicate effectively, listen carefully and delegate are key elements for success. And guess what? These are soft skills.

In our path as MIP students, we are offered boot camps, seminars and courses to improve our soft skills: the leadership class at EADA was a great opportunity to reflect on personal attitudes and the different ways to be a leader, shaping our way with the four pillars of authentic leadership.
Seminars offer us the opportunity to dig into ourselves and develop self-awareness, maturing a consciousness of our strengths and dealing with our weaknesses: we don’t get to choose our warts, but we must be able to transform them into opportunities for growth.

As Part-Time students, moreover, we have the chance to put into place the soft skills training both at work and with our MBA colleagues, in very different contexts with bosses, subordinates and peers.

But the downside is that we have pressure coming from both sides and we have to struggle with tight time schedules to balance work and study. Guess what? Again, soft skills are required here.

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.

Bootcamps at MIP: what they are and what to expect

Posted on | by Beatrice Grillo | Leave a Comment on Bootcamps at MIP: what they are and what to expect

First of all, I have to say that I have seen the light…! My Part-time MBA adventure is getting closer to the end and I’m really excited about what this last kilometer will be like. While I am developing one of my last group assignments and at the same time, my final project work, I would like to recollect one of the most meaningful experiences of this tiring, crazy but outstanding voyage.

Almost a year ago I decided to apply to one of the several Bootcamps we could choose from, which were included in our MBA program.

But what exactly is a Bootcamp? It is 30 hours of face-to-face classes focused on a particular topic and designed specifically to create a link between theory and practice.

Besides, the one you choose (I picked “Luxury & Made in Italy Excellence”), represents a chance to focus on topics that are either part of your daily work, or in which you are particularly interested.

The course gives you the opportunity of meeting with various leading realities (Italian and international) and top managers in industry and consultants with whom to network and to gain a better understanding of the key challenges they have to cope with every day. Furthermore, it gives you hints of a potential professional growth path you can follow, by listening to their lives and experiences.

The real case studies are an essential part of the program and foster the discussion on real-life situations that you face in your work. For me, it was of great value to take a deep dive into the concrete issues of my professional life, to look at things in a different way and with a renewed way of thinking. The whole experience is completed with key theoretical principles about which it is always useful to refresh your memory, and I think it is also a nice experience to look at them again with some years of work experience behind you.

It also represents a unique opportunity for networking with the students on other MBA courses (for example, the Full-time MBA, or other international students from exchange programs), because the bootcamps are run across the various international programs. I had the chance of interacting with almost 60 young professionals working or willing to work in my sector, and to discuss and share opinions with them on a variety of topics.

If you can and want to travel, MIP also offers you the chance of taking this course abroad in prime destinations, such as Silicon Valley or Asia.

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.

 

«Why did you choose Italy?» Tales of students from around the globe

Posted on | by Beatrice Grillo | Leave a Comment on «Why did you choose Italy?» Tales of students from around the globe

In the last article, we talked about the importance of Multinational Networking in an MBA. One of the most important benefits you can get is the development of long-lasting relationships with like-minded people. You can find real friends!

And talking about MBA friends, I’d like to share with you the experiences of some of them: Bruno Pivato from Brazil, Jo Eun Cha from S. Korea and Alejandro Tommasi from Venezuela. I guess their words will be much more meaningful than mine in helping you understand the beauty of diversity:

Bruno Pivato

“I was born in Brazil, where I was educated and developed my career. I have a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration.

I started my professional career in 2005, as an intern in a national investment bank, working in the area of foreign exchange, and then moving to BankBoston. After 2 years in the banking sector, I decided to try a new experience in Marketing, in a totally different company belonging to the medical technology sector. I became a Senior Marketing Analyst and, in 2012, I decided to leave and join 3M as a project manager. After that, I accepted a start-up project linked to Covidien, a big multinational company in the pharma sector. This experience led me to join Zambon, at the HQ in Italy, where I became a “Business Operations Manager”, responsible for Marketing and Business Development for 5 countries: Brazil, Colombia, China, Indonesia and Russia.

It wasn’t that easy to adapt to the Italian environment, but I found out that the best part of Italy is the people. Both in the office and in the street, I have found Italians to be very open-minded and receptive.”

Jo Eun Cha

“I was born and raised in Seoul, S. Korea. I graduated in economics and worked as a Buyer for watches and accessories for 5 years. My dream was to work in the fashion industry, so I decided to study and go for it. I moved to Milan 10 years ago to study and to work. Then Singapore and Seoul again. Anyway, when I was in Milan, my manager called me one day, asking me to join his team in PVH. I accepted and now I’ve been working here for almost 4 years. I always wanted to apply for an MBA, so I decided to do it this year, so here I am.

Why did I decide to come to Milan? Well, Koreans love Italian products and I wanted to learn something about European culture. As soon as I arrived in Milan, I realized that the size of the city was right for me, even if it was much smaller than Seoul.

As far as the working environment is concerned, the Italian and Korean cultures are quite different. In Seoul, you work more and you’re more stressed out. In Italy, people work hard too ̶ but they place more importance on family, food, chatting and chilling. There’s a better work-life balance, and this helps you to perform better in the office too. This made me change my mindset, I guess for the better. I’m now confident that it is possible to set the path for my future career while enjoying life at the same time.”

Alejandro Tommasi

“I was born in Caracas, where I lived until I was 15. The awful political situation forced me and my family to leave our country, looking for safety, opportunities and a future in my grandparents’ land: Italy. At the beginning, it was hard to adapt to a completely different environment; it took me years to finally find a balance. This experience helped me to grow and improve myself. Italy has given me some amazing opportunities: I studied and graduated in Mechanical Engineering, in the beautiful city of Turin.

Italy is a place drenched in culture, history, style, art and nature. I think it is a place which everyone around the world dreams of visiting at least once in a lifetime. I’m confident that this country has enormous potential to excel in every single field, and this potential should be transformed into action and plans for future development.

In my current position, I develop technological machining solutions to meet customers’ needs for many industries. I’m sure that with the knowledge, experience and benefits of exchanging views gained during this International MBA at MIP, I could apply all my energies to contribute to improving this country and its potential, especially in this difficult moment. I’m sure that diversity is always a provider of opportunities, looking at a future in a more and more interconnected world.”

Well, I don’t have much more to say. I guess my new colleagues and friends have said quite enough to make you understand the many differences (and the possibilities connected with these differences) that you can find in a multicultural environment, such that of the International Part-Time MBA at MIP.

I just want to leave you all with a final quote, by Stephen R. Covey, the famous American educator:

“Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.” 

Let’s hope this strength will help us to get out of this tragic situation, and to increase our confidence in the future with a renewed spirit.

 

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.