Small Wins!
Reflecting on my time at Kellogg — and learning to celebrate the small wins.
Last month, I graduated from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. It marked the end of my final 2 years of formal in-class education - 2 great years, where I met some fantastic people, learned tons and leave with some great memories. I can safely say there has been some tremendous personal growth over the last 2 years. The MBA curriculum (and especially at Kellogg) is designed to make you introspect, learn more about what drives you, what your blind spots are, and then lean in to work on them. You constantly give and receive feedback and one of the things I was made aware of was that I don't celebrate my highs. People who have been rooting for me get disappointed when I take wins in my stride and do not even acknowledge that something good has happened. It makes them not want to root for me the next time over - because, anyway, I am going to play it down. Hence, this post is about celebrating some small wins at Kellogg, not the big jobs or graduation.
These small wins have special meaning and something I need to cherish. Let's start with:
1. The Early Bird Award: This is a silly yet cute award that I received for my role in the Student's Admissions Committee (STAC) at Kellogg. As part of STAC, I interview prospective students and the interview report goes a long way in deciding if the applicant gets into Kellogg (a lot of factors other than the interview as well). I had the habit of writing detailed reports with examples and quotes from the interview. I also liked to work on the report on the same day of the interview, so things were fresh in memory. When you do 3-4 interviews in a day, it is tough to complete all the reports (each can be over 1000 words + a survey) the same day. I took this responsibility seriously and would often work late into the night and submit reports by 2/3 AM. Most others would use the entire 3-week window to submit the reports (I don't remember a conversation from the day before, wonder what kind of job I would've done had I waited 3 weeks). So, the 'early bird' was to signify that I was one of the earliest to complete these reports.
While not a big achievement so to speak (see me playing it down again), it correlates nicely with one of my life philosophies - 'the early lead'. The early lead forces me to get a head-start on my work i.e. not delay a task and once I am ahead on timelines, it becomes easy to finish. Michael Schumacher inspired me to get the 'early lead'. I've seen him many times, take an early lead in races and once he is ahead, continues to build on his lead and becomes impossible to catch. Most of these wins can be attributed to the effort he put in at the start to get this early lead.
I am often guilty of procrastinating and not going for the early lead but the award was a reminder of the merits of this philosophy.
2. Best Story-Teller: I was awarded the 'Best Story-Teller' as part of the Negotiations course at Kellogg. The course is very sought after and taught by Prof. Victoria Medvec, who is a superstar. In the last session, she hands out awards basis student's performances in the various in-class negotiation exercises. She watches recordings of these exercises and gives weightage to peer nominations. It is a special award for me for 2 reasons: 1. Coming from a sales background, I've always had to adapt my pitch and each pitch is a story in its own way. Getting recognized as a good story-teller is vindication of my selling abilities. And 2. When members of my extended family saw that I had received this award, they all said 'like mother, like son'. My mom runs a chain of pre-schools and is a great story-teller. She would voice modulate, be very animated and get into the character as a story-telling, wowing her school kids. Glad I inherited this trait from her - nowhere close to her level but hopefully on the right track.
3. Dean's Distinguished Service Award:
The Dean's Distinguished Service Award is given to Kellogg students who have made significant and lasting contributions to the Kellogg community (excerpt from the University). I have always enjoyed doing stuff outside of the classroom and was actively involved in clubs and student governance initiatives back in undergrad. Back then, I had over-committed myself across multiple clubs and I was keen not to repeat the same. Hence, at Kellogg I stuck to a leadership role in one club - the media and entertainment club. In addition, as I mentioned above, I was involved in student admissions.
My biggest contribution came as part of the Kellogg Student Association (KSA), where I co-led the clubs and finance ecosystem at Kellogg. It is an interesting role that required me to liaise with a lot of club leaders, understand their pain points, and ensure an equitable distribution of funds among 80+ clubs (way way too many clubs!). Lastly, recruiting is a big part of the MBA experience and I've conducted 100+ mock cases/ mock interviews for students preparing for roles in Consulting, tech, and media/ entertainment.
The biggest difference between my involvement back in undergrad and at Kellogg was the motive behind my involvement. Back in undergrad, we are all naive and wanted to be over involved thinking it would help our resumes, thinking it would make us popular, etc. At Kellogg, I got involved because I felt I could make a difference and was keen to help people around me. I had the media and entertainment industry experience to support the community recruiting in the space. I got involved in admissions because I felt it would help shape Kellogg culture going forward. On the KSA front, I got to work with great people including a close buddy of mine who I had an election pact with (we would help the other if any of us won the election mandate). Recruiting wise, I was keen to give back (received a lot of support in my first year). I took it upon myself to give the best feedback I could and equip my juniors to put their best selves forward in interviews. Learning of the job offers they received brought me a lot of joy.
I enjoyed writing this piece - these small wins have meant a lot, yet I haven't cherished them enough or played them up. More importantly, there is a way to celebrate a win without bragging about it. Lastly, we have long way to go in our personal growth journeys and while we continue to learn more about ourselves, it is important to stop, reflect and celebrate/ course-correct from time to time.