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Over the past two years I will balance two identities: a full -time founding father of two firms and a student at Trinity College Dublin. I entered intensive learning sessions and to be honest, I was really excited about them.
I selected the Executive MBA program, which is created for people with full -time work. Let us learn and cooperate with many group projects that we have made in our free time.
The program lasted 2 years, divided into 3 trimesters every yr. Each trimester covered several weeks of lectures, 1-2 weeks for preparation and a week for exams. We took basic courses and items to select from, winning loans for everyone we took.
Return to the student’s considering seemed nostalgic. I remember how I prepared for the first exam for financial statements for managers at Trinity College Dublin. I felt the same mixture of nervous energy and determination I had during my bachelor’s days. The desire for knowledge lived in me and I wanted to develop so much. I even bought my first calculator in 20 years!
I spent years trying all the pieces, reading a lot of books, but I still felt like something was missing. MBA seemed to be an ideal way to increase my business skills – and spoiler: it’s absolutely.
Here are 4 lessons that I gained thanks to returning to school as a founding father of 12 years.
1. Founders among the management
During my MBA I was surprised to see so few company owners in my group. Of the 50 people, only two of us were founders – the rest were directors of huge firms. It was a contrast with my experiences in Ukraine, where I come from. After returning home, MBA programs and similar courses are often filled with small and medium business founders.
This difference has created interesting dynamics. As the founder, your motivation is deeply related to your organization: growing revenues, scaling operation and so on. For management, he often focuses on developing a profession and development in an existing structure. Both are necessary, but they convey different perspectives to the table.
The founders often think about a large picture and how their decisions affect the whole business and bring extra money to their bank accounts. Management focuses more on their specific areas, resembling operations, finance or marketing.
This dynamics gave me a higher understanding of the priorities and considering of individuals working in larger organizations. It also jogged my memory of how unique the founder’s journey is, in which the rates are very personal and often related to your identity.
2. Filling the gaps
The second big lesson that I took from my MBA was the learning of the company’s “skeleton”. Each organization, no matter its size or industry, follows similar stages of development. Some universal principles and structures can be used for each company as they develop.
The owners of firms who learn on their very own try to come up with a circle at every step. However, MBA experience taught me that it is not all the time needed again again. Sometimes all the pieces is about understanding the framework that exist already and effective use of them.
Frames resembling McKinsey’s 7s gave me tools to look at the company and see more clearly its basic structure. I have learned to discover functions that each team must perform at various stages of growth. These frames helped me see the gaps in my own firms and deal with them strategically.
3. Cooperation on loneliness
One of the best lessons I learned during my MBA was the strength of teamwork. At almost every course we had to cooperate as a group as a substitute of ourselves. Regardless of whether it was a presentation or just a group project, we had to assign roles, communicate and come up with how to work as a team.
Each time we received a list of names of people that were to work as a group. There was no designated leader or specific roles – we had to come up with all the pieces. It gave me a real feeling of how flat, Holkratic organizations work.
The idea was easy: “Tell them what to do and learn how to.” This experience taught me the true meaning of diversity, except for a fashionable slogan. Our group of fifty people had people from 14 different countries, each with their very own ideas and ways of solving problems. Many of their thoughts and perspectives were so different from mine that I couldn’t consider it.
In business, it is easy to get stuck in your individual way of considering, especially as a founder. Working with individuals who query your assumptions can lead to more progressive solutions and higher decision making.
4. Learning through cultural immersion
As I mentioned earlier, my Kohort MBA was extremely diverse with people from 14 countries. For the first time I was in an environment so wealthy in different cultures, traditions and lifestyle. It wasn’t just skilled experience; It was also extremely personal.
Life and learning next to such a multicultural group taught me more conscious origin of other people. I have to understand small but significant ways in which our every day habits and traditions differ. For example, during poker nights that we organized in our group, the host had to consider dietary preferences and religious practices of everyone. Then I learned how dietary customs work – how Indians avoid beef – and appreciated the importance of observing religious practices resembling Ramadan.
These observations could appear small, but they taught me to approach the situation with greater empathy and understanding. In business and in life, small gestures of respect and awareness can significantly contribute to building relationships. This way of considering is especially useful when creating an commercial or selling a product in the recent market. It helps to avoid large errors in the strategy.
Summary
We finished our studies at the end of July 2024, but the real attraction was in October during our faculty graduation.
It takes place in the historical Hall of Trinity College Dublin ceremony, it seemed that it went back in time. Everything followed old traditions; The whole ceremony took place in Latin and from 1700 we had experience similar to all Kohort.
We went in six people to collect our diplomas, also written in Latin. I had to use chatgpt to find out what they said! The whole experience was magical, like something straight from Harry Potter.
To sum up, this experience was very influential. This not only made my approach to business more structured – it also expanded my perspective in a way I didn’t expect.
When you are the founder, your pace is often uninterrupted, with constant decisions and adaptations. Despite this, it was one of the most concentrated and priceless growth periods I had.
Looking back, I can say that this MBA was not only an academic exercise; It was a journey of private and skilled development, which I will carry with me for many years. Only 3 months have passed after graduating, but these lessons already shape how I run my firms.