One thing that I value most at Insead is the number of class interventions by a diverse intelligent set of people. As a result, one thing that upsets me most is when pedantic participants, mainly interested in redirecting the spot light onto their glorious past abuse the rights that they so expensively acquired to speak up in the program for stupid remarks. The former enriches everybody’s experience, makes excellent use of class time and adds much to the contents provided by the faculty, as very few professors will ever claim to be completely rights. Most of them see their mission as providing academic tools to observe reality, a framework in which to operate but understand the limitations of this approach when interacting with hands-on participants. The latter tend to paraphrase ineloquently what the professor says, provides boring evidence of the point already brought home through questionable work experience and usually is not even funny.
Why would all these people feel the need to repeat constantly the name of their past employer? Do they lack so much confidence in their own identity when speaking up that they must refer to a bigger umbrella?
Yesterday, in our FSA class, someone spoke three times to merely repeat what the professor says, or perhaps argue over $100,000, when we unveiled a $6bn gap.

At this point, I would like to quote another INSEAD blogger, for whom I have a lot of respect: Lucky Goldstar. He once wrote “There are messages behind each lesson, and disputes about details will easily obscure the subtle tuition that is the object of the interaction. You may not remember the facts one year from now, but you should remember the stories that they told.” To this, I would like to act: unless you truly do not understand the message of the lesson and genuinely need clarification, do not draw attention to yourself by repeating a story that all your colleagues have already heard as they have kept taking classes with you or since they were listening to the professor, just for the benefit of the professor and dubious class participation points. He is getting paid to be there. Your fellow participants are paying for the class.

Most of them also mention: class participation isn’t about quantity, it is about quality. So please, give us a break.