Sunday, May 23, 2004

I notice that a lot of the time, Deans at Insead are taken from the faculty and tend to be finance or economics professors. What if the Dean of INSEAD was an OB professor?

Seriously - there would not be 150 pop stars deciding when and what to teach. INSEAD would invest a lot of time in recruitment to get the best in IT, Marketing, CMS, etc...and would provide them with clear goals, career path and developments. They would hire for instance a few French people on the Singapore campus, selling them the tropics. They would also hire Singaporean and export them to Fontainebleau, selling them peace and quietness. Retention rates would be very high, and managers would be trained in doing the performance appraisals. There would be little infighting, just the usual political discussion, as the strategy would be so clear, the objectives for everyone would be very transparent and results published everywhere. There would be a lot of recognition for excellence and the school would take advantage of its small size to run the institution like a mini company. If it turned a profit - which it is not allowed to do - then the money would be reinvested immediately into the school for better scholarships, for better education, etc...the program, after the core course, would be more left to the participants to taylor, to take away from of the rigidity of a schooling system and allow people to take better control of their career and their needs depending on which segment of customer (industry, consulting, etc...) they are targeting. If they wish to do so as the program would be a bit longer (12 months with a summer break), they could take few elective over the last two periods to take the time to really reflect about what they want to do, and efficient career counselling would be provided. The school would be renamed HeavenSEAD.

Students would all be able to select a personal coach to follow them throughout their study. The curriculum would be modular to tailor it to everyone's needs. There would be a personal assessment at the beginning of the year to determine your learning style and all courses will be adapted to match it. Early on, you would engage in a dialogue about your life priorities and you will discover that you started to dislike accounting when your mother refused to give you more than 1 penny as pocket money when you were 6 and you could not finance your self-research and development. Food and general mood would be chosen to favor intellectual brilliance. Relaxation and massage sessions would be available before each exam. Each professor would have to spend 20 minutes with you whenever they return a paper to go in detail into what you can do better next time. Your working group would be allocated a mediator to help overcome its natural crisis and clash of egos, soon after its inception.

The school would constantly be looking at ways to develop leadership, to become more aware of cultures, classes would be delivered in many different languages, the library would also offer selection of German and Russian literature as well as sanscrit lessons to reach the heights of Nirvana. Buddhist and Hindu temple would spring out of the woods to complement the spiritual landscape of Fontainebleau. Campus exchanges would be mandatory to perpetrate a tradition of openness, quotas of female would be risen to a minimum of 44% on the basis of equality of genders.

Students would be able to choose their preferred slot for exams, depending on whether they are morning or evening people and seating spots would be allocated on the basis of an X or Y style, as well as on your Myers Briggs score.

CMS service would take the form of Personal Career Coaching services, to explore with you, the depths of your psyche and isolate the seed that either makes you a bloody investment banker, or a sheep farmer.

There would be no more Admission Office as it was representing the last bastion of capitalist elitist and probably machist selection system. The school would in fact turn itself into a charity organization for minds in distress and find out about your potential and your motivation in a big dinner party with candles and guitars. The essays would have to be in rhymes or sent with a sheet music for the accompanying harmony. Alternatively, you could sketch, paint or draw your portrait as a replacement for the "Candid Description of self" part.

The organization structure of the school would keep changing by function (faculty, administration, security, catering) or by competence (marketing, finance, food, etc...) as every year the current organization would show its limitation. On average, it would be perfect.

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