Like many of you, I just got back from NSHMBA. Standing in one of many lines this weekend, I was suddenly struck by the similarity of the job hunt to another subject I’m very familiar with: dating. NSHMBA reminded me of a speed dating event I attended once: you pay to get in; you meet a lot of people in a short amount of time; you try to tell the person all the good things about yourself so they’ll want to see more of you.
I managed to think of a few more similarities during my time standing in line. Here they are: how job hunting is like dating.
- Interviewing is a lot like several first dates I’ve been on recently. You come away feeling really good—great rapport, natural conversation flow. You really felt like a connection. You’re totally getting a call back. Then…nothing. (At least with the job search you sometimes get a rejection email.)
- Your interest level for a particular company (or potential mate) sometimes depends on their interest level in you. Have you ever suddenly become interested in someone because they showed an interest in you? It’s the same in the job search. Now that the economy is tanking, you might want to reconsider that job offer from the “sweet spirit” company.
- A friend of mine called a company to tell them she was declining their internship offer. She said she really felt like she was breaking up with them. Think about it: You use traditional break-up phrases like “It’s not you. It’s me.” Or “I had a really good time but I just don’t think it’s going to work for us.”
- Once you have that job offer in hand, you may find yourself afflicted with a syndrome most commonly found among single people in Provo. It’s called Around-The-Corner Syndrome. You suddenly aren’t satisfied with what you have. You want to play the field a bit. See what else is out there. You never know—“The One” could be just around the corner.
As the recruiting season hits full stride, maybe we can leverage these similarities to our benefit. Married people: some of those techniques that helped you land your EC (Eternal Companion) might help you land your DJ (Dream Job). Single people: if you’ve had more success in the job hunt than in the spouse hunt, screening your dates with the behavioral and case interview questions you’re so familiar with now may help you prevent potential heartbreak later. “Tell me about a time when your girlfriend got emotional and how you reacted” or “Here’s a situation: I’m watching football with my buddies and you want to talk about our relationship….”
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Sunday, June 8, 2008
15 Ways to Know You're Dating an MBA
1. Call the first month of your relationship a "preliminary assessment period.".
2. Talks to the waiter about process flows when dinner arrives late.
3. Congratulates your parents for successful value creation..
4. Your Valentine's Day card has bullet points..
5. Refers to lovemaking as a "win-win.".
6. Decides to re-org your family into a "team-based organization.".
7. Refers to your date as "testing marketing methods..."
8. Writes executive summaries on your love letters.
9. Ends the argument you have by saying "let's talk about this offline." .
10. Refers to you as "my co-CEO."
11. Insist you do market research before getting pregnant.
12. Says your "deliverable" for Sunday evening is clean laundry and paid bills.
13. Asks the waiter what the restaurant's core competencies are.
14. Gives constructive feedback to your dog.
15. Conducts a performance review after making out with you.
The Eight Immutable Laws of MBA Dating
I found this article in old e-zine called MBA Jungle. It thought it was pretty appropriate for the topic at hand and (having completed my first year) pretty accurate.
Who says business isn't romantic? Profit squeezes, position limits, extension swaps, rollovers, interlocking directorates—horizontal mergers, for heaven's sake. This stuff is downright steamy. Factor in a tight-knit cadre of ambitious, successful people in the prime of life, a pressure-cooker environment, and enough recruiter-sponsored cocktails to irrigate the Gobi Desert, and nature is bound to take its course. We can't guarantee you'll find true love, but based on extensive conversations with MBAs who've been there and, er, done that, we can make a few confident predictions about the dating scene you'll face as a B-school student. Without further ado: the Immutable Laws of MBA Dating. Learn them. Live them. Love them.
1
If you weren't single when you arrived, odds are you will be by Thanksgiving.
Unless you're pretty permanently attached (by, say, a ring) to your pre-B-school honey, there's a good chance you'll break up a few months into your first term. "We called Thanksgiving of first year Black Thursday," says Tracy Lawrence, 29, who graduated from Harvard Business School in 1999. Thanksgiving break presents a handy opportunity to bring messy entanglements to an end face-to-face, but whether the demise takes a week or a year, preexisting relationships are destined to bite the dust. The weight of B-school—its time demands, the insularity of the community, the team bonding—can break through longstanding romantic ties like a wrecking ball.
Christine, 30, a second-year at Wake Forest's Babcock School, managed to hold out until February of her first year before she broke things off with her boyfriend of almost three years—but an end at some point seemed inevitable. "Whenever I'd visit him, I'd have to concentrate really hard to forget about deadlines and assignments," she says. "I'd repeat over and over again in my head, 'Try to have fun.' " Julie Karickhoff, 26, a Georgetown second-year, also bid adieu to a beau five months into her first year. "He thought I studied too hard, that I was being a nerd and overdoing it," she says. "He didn't understand where I was coming from, but at first you don't know if you can compete in business school. I just wanted to make sure I could make it and have good grades." Michael Preis, 27, who graduated from Columbia Business School last spring, also succumbed to the inexorable pull early in his first year. "I had a miserable time trying to break away from classes and group work to be with my girlfriend," he says. "You're making such a huge investment in the network of people at business school. To be torn away from that defeats the purpose of being there."
2
For two years, you will work hard but have a very good time.
MBA candidates quickly discover that business school is tailor-made for dating. "I had one stretch of six weeks where I was seeing three people at once," says Preis. "I was trying to keep track of who was from where, which town, which college, who had the dog, the cat, the parrot. But you can't keep that kind of pace up." Probably not—but chances are you will have some juggling to do. "You're in a social environment, surrounded by people who are smart, motivated, the right age, at the right time in their lives, and with the free time to date," says Harvard grad Lawrence. And you will have a lot in common with them: similar work experience, similar aspirations.
What's more, MBA candidates come to school prepared, in a sense, to work the room. They know that they have only two years to nurture the precious connections that can make a business degree so valuable. And B-schools take advantage of and reinforce their students' networking instincts. At most schools, there's a constant barrage of mixers, cocktail parties, and other assorted meet-and-greets. Each class or section is likely to have a student appointed to organize parties and recruiting events. "I worked harder and played harder than I ever did when I was in the working world," says Paul Campbell, 35, who graduated from the Thunderbird School last spring after attending his fair share of parties. Liz Williams, HBS '99, met her husband, Ather, when he was the social chair of her section. "He would always try to convince me to go to pub night," Williams says. Finally he succeeded—and the couple were married by graduation. Most events are designed to ultimately get you a job and a Rolodex full of precious contacts, but they just might land you a date, if not a spouse, as well.
3
Women are scarce and therefore in demand. Men are a plentiful commodity.
The B-school dating scene (heterosexual, anyway) is a good case study on that old rule of supply and demand: What happens when a commodity is scarce and its consumers are plentiful? Men outnumber women by as much as two to one in many MBA programs, which means women can be picky. "The numbers game is horrible for us," says Mike Aaronson, 25, a Wharton second-year who writes a column that occasionally addresses dating issues for the campus newspaper. "A lot of guys go outside the B-school community for dates. Having other grad schools around helps—nursing students are popular, for example." For women, the attention can be flattering, but that doesn't mean they find B-school to be a feast of eligible men.
4
In the dating world at large, an MBA makes a man more appealing, but not a woman.
When men announce they're getting an MBA, prospective dates tend to respond well. "Those three letters go a long way," says Sean Quinn, 26, a Georgetown second-year. "The salary is probably a big motivator. I'm not saying that if I was in the Peace Corps I wouldn't be able to meet women, but most seem more eager for conversation after hearing about the MBA." Unfortunately, many female B-schoolers report that a lot of men aren't comfortable with ambitious women. "They may be perceived as kind of hard-core, a little more intense," says Aaronson. Whether or not that's so, many women have anecdotes about telling a guy they're in B-school only to bring the flirting to a grinding halt. "There are men who are intimidated by women with MBAs," says Liz Williams. "When I was a first-year at HBS, I came home at Christmas and met someone at a bar. When I told him I went to business school, he basically walked away."
5
Everything—including romance—moves much faster in B-school time.
If you do decide to start seeing someone, keep in mind that the business school metabolism for romance is very fast. A bunch of goal-oriented type-A personalities all in one place means that if a relationship is destined to be nothing more than an insignificant fling, it'll be over in two days, not two weeks. If it's true love, it'll turn serious over the weekend, not after six months. "At work, you see more of your boss than your girlfriend," says Matt Gorin, 27, HBS '01. "But business school is kind of an incubator for love and dating. Even though I've only been dating my girlfriend for a year, it feels like four years. It's like dog years." Julie Karickhoff, from Georgetown, agrees. "I've been dating my current boyfriend for more than four months, and he just bought me a plane ticket so that I could meet his family. Two months into our relationship he celebrated Easter with my parents. School itself is incredibly fast-paced, and that urgency spills into your social life. My ex-boyfriend would never have met my parents so quickly."
6
People will warn you not to date someone in your section. You will do it anyway.
Every new student is given this handy little piece of advice upon arrival—and almost every one of them ignores it. Business schools have learned that people work well in small groups, cranking away for long hours on projects with just a few of their peers. That means lots of late nights, lots of stress, lots of bonding, and many celebratory evenings out with the same group of people. If you like someone on your learning team or in your section, chances are you will indulge. "At first, I heard that dating your sectionmate was taboo," says Liz Williams, whose future husband was in her section. "If you have a bad experience, you have to deal with that person for the rest of the year." But if all goes well, of course, you get to deal with that person for the rest of your life. Should you take the plunge, you'll have to prove to your sectionmates that your affair isn't going to be a distraction to everyone.
Allison Blumenthal, 30, who graduated Columbia Business School in May, met her boyfriend in her section. If such a relationship ends, she notes, it's not just the two people involved who will suffer. Everyone who has to deal with an imploding romance will suffer as well. "Dating while in school takes a certain conviction," says Blumenthal. "I have to say, without great maturity, it would be extremely difficult to manage a breakup."
7
You will attempt to have a secret relationship, and you will fail.
Business school classes are relatively small. Everyone attends lectures and sections in the same buildings and eats in the same off-campus restaurants. Nothing will be confidential for very long. "There's a high school mentality," says Raj George, 27, who earned his MBA at Columbia last spring. In his first year, George attracted the interest of a classmate; word of the crush soon made it into a campus gossip column—the newspaper's editors even tried to get George and the woman to date. "Everyone knew about it, and when we showed up at a dance together, they were all watching. We couldn't let anything develop naturally." UCLA Anderson second-year Kerry Edelstein, 26, says that's typical. "The gossip mill can ruin something before a casual relationship even begins," she says. "There's so much pressure that you need to keep it under wraps until you're a couple." Unfortunately, even if you try very hard to keep your trysts a secret, you will likely fail. "You eat lunch with someone on campus a couple of times and the buzz is out," says Karickhoff.
8
No matter what you think, no matter what people tell you, this is solemn business.
The social life of your average business school student may seem a lot like being back in college or high school, but don't be fooled. For MBAs, love, like everything else, is an intense and goal-oriented pursuit. A generation ago, men and women saw their undergraduate years as prime time to choose a mate. Many a woman who attended college in the '50s and '60s joked about getting her MRS—and precious few were single for long after graduation. Today, graduate school has shouldered that same mantle for a lot of single 20-somethings. The majority of people entering MBA programs are sneaking up on 30. They've made some money and had a few significant others. Now, biological clocks have started ticking, and people are eager to settle down. "When you get out of school, it's the beginning of the rest of your life," says Matt Gorin of HBS. "A lot of people start that off by getting married." Gorin found a serious girlfriend in B-school, and the two are planning to move in together. "When you've spent two years in this environment," he adds, "by graduation you tend to know one way or another which way things are going."
This article originally appeared in the September 2001 issue of MBA Jungle.
http://mbajungle.com/main.cfm?chID=0&schid=0&inc=INC_article.cfm&artid=1620&template=1
The Eight Immutable Laws of MBA Dating—You may not love 'em, but you can't love without 'em.
by Who says business isn't romantic? Profit squeezes, position limits, extension swaps, rollovers, interlocking directorates—horizontal mergers, for heaven's sake. This stuff is downright steamy. Factor in a tight-knit cadre of ambitious, successful people in the prime of life, a pressure-cooker environment, and enough recruiter-sponsored cocktails to irrigate the Gobi Desert, and nature is bound to take its course. We can't guarantee you'll find true love, but based on extensive conversations with MBAs who've been there and, er, done that, we can make a few confident predictions about the dating scene you'll face as a B-school student. Without further ado: the Immutable Laws of MBA Dating. Learn them. Live them. Love them.
1
If you weren't single when you arrived, odds are you will be by Thanksgiving.
Unless you're pretty permanently attached (by, say, a ring) to your pre-B-school honey, there's a good chance you'll break up a few months into your first term. "We called Thanksgiving of first year Black Thursday," says Tracy Lawrence, 29, who graduated from Harvard Business School in 1999. Thanksgiving break presents a handy opportunity to bring messy entanglements to an end face-to-face, but whether the demise takes a week or a year, preexisting relationships are destined to bite the dust. The weight of B-school—its time demands, the insularity of the community, the team bonding—can break through longstanding romantic ties like a wrecking ball.
Christine, 30, a second-year at Wake Forest's Babcock School, managed to hold out until February of her first year before she broke things off with her boyfriend of almost three years—but an end at some point seemed inevitable. "Whenever I'd visit him, I'd have to concentrate really hard to forget about deadlines and assignments," she says. "I'd repeat over and over again in my head, 'Try to have fun.' " Julie Karickhoff, 26, a Georgetown second-year, also bid adieu to a beau five months into her first year. "He thought I studied too hard, that I was being a nerd and overdoing it," she says. "He didn't understand where I was coming from, but at first you don't know if you can compete in business school. I just wanted to make sure I could make it and have good grades." Michael Preis, 27, who graduated from Columbia Business School last spring, also succumbed to the inexorable pull early in his first year. "I had a miserable time trying to break away from classes and group work to be with my girlfriend," he says. "You're making such a huge investment in the network of people at business school. To be torn away from that defeats the purpose of being there."
2
For two years, you will work hard but have a very good time.
MBA candidates quickly discover that business school is tailor-made for dating. "I had one stretch of six weeks where I was seeing three people at once," says Preis. "I was trying to keep track of who was from where, which town, which college, who had the dog, the cat, the parrot. But you can't keep that kind of pace up." Probably not—but chances are you will have some juggling to do. "You're in a social environment, surrounded by people who are smart, motivated, the right age, at the right time in their lives, and with the free time to date," says Harvard grad Lawrence. And you will have a lot in common with them: similar work experience, similar aspirations.
What's more, MBA candidates come to school prepared, in a sense, to work the room. They know that they have only two years to nurture the precious connections that can make a business degree so valuable. And B-schools take advantage of and reinforce their students' networking instincts. At most schools, there's a constant barrage of mixers, cocktail parties, and other assorted meet-and-greets. Each class or section is likely to have a student appointed to organize parties and recruiting events. "I worked harder and played harder than I ever did when I was in the working world," says Paul Campbell, 35, who graduated from the Thunderbird School last spring after attending his fair share of parties. Liz Williams, HBS '99, met her husband, Ather, when he was the social chair of her section. "He would always try to convince me to go to pub night," Williams says. Finally he succeeded—and the couple were married by graduation. Most events are designed to ultimately get you a job and a Rolodex full of precious contacts, but they just might land you a date, if not a spouse, as well.
3
Women are scarce and therefore in demand. Men are a plentiful commodity.
The B-school dating scene (heterosexual, anyway) is a good case study on that old rule of supply and demand: What happens when a commodity is scarce and its consumers are plentiful? Men outnumber women by as much as two to one in many MBA programs, which means women can be picky. "The numbers game is horrible for us," says Mike Aaronson, 25, a Wharton second-year who writes a column that occasionally addresses dating issues for the campus newspaper. "A lot of guys go outside the B-school community for dates. Having other grad schools around helps—nursing students are popular, for example." For women, the attention can be flattering, but that doesn't mean they find B-school to be a feast of eligible men.
4
In the dating world at large, an MBA makes a man more appealing, but not a woman.
When men announce they're getting an MBA, prospective dates tend to respond well. "Those three letters go a long way," says Sean Quinn, 26, a Georgetown second-year. "The salary is probably a big motivator. I'm not saying that if I was in the Peace Corps I wouldn't be able to meet women, but most seem more eager for conversation after hearing about the MBA." Unfortunately, many female B-schoolers report that a lot of men aren't comfortable with ambitious women. "They may be perceived as kind of hard-core, a little more intense," says Aaronson. Whether or not that's so, many women have anecdotes about telling a guy they're in B-school only to bring the flirting to a grinding halt. "There are men who are intimidated by women with MBAs," says Liz Williams. "When I was a first-year at HBS, I came home at Christmas and met someone at a bar. When I told him I went to business school, he basically walked away."
5
Everything—including romance—moves much faster in B-school time.
If you do decide to start seeing someone, keep in mind that the business school metabolism for romance is very fast. A bunch of goal-oriented type-A personalities all in one place means that if a relationship is destined to be nothing more than an insignificant fling, it'll be over in two days, not two weeks. If it's true love, it'll turn serious over the weekend, not after six months. "At work, you see more of your boss than your girlfriend," says Matt Gorin, 27, HBS '01. "But business school is kind of an incubator for love and dating. Even though I've only been dating my girlfriend for a year, it feels like four years. It's like dog years." Julie Karickhoff, from Georgetown, agrees. "I've been dating my current boyfriend for more than four months, and he just bought me a plane ticket so that I could meet his family. Two months into our relationship he celebrated Easter with my parents. School itself is incredibly fast-paced, and that urgency spills into your social life. My ex-boyfriend would never have met my parents so quickly."
6
People will warn you not to date someone in your section. You will do it anyway.
Every new student is given this handy little piece of advice upon arrival—and almost every one of them ignores it. Business schools have learned that people work well in small groups, cranking away for long hours on projects with just a few of their peers. That means lots of late nights, lots of stress, lots of bonding, and many celebratory evenings out with the same group of people. If you like someone on your learning team or in your section, chances are you will indulge. "At first, I heard that dating your sectionmate was taboo," says Liz Williams, whose future husband was in her section. "If you have a bad experience, you have to deal with that person for the rest of the year." But if all goes well, of course, you get to deal with that person for the rest of your life. Should you take the plunge, you'll have to prove to your sectionmates that your affair isn't going to be a distraction to everyone.
Allison Blumenthal, 30, who graduated Columbia Business School in May, met her boyfriend in her section. If such a relationship ends, she notes, it's not just the two people involved who will suffer. Everyone who has to deal with an imploding romance will suffer as well. "Dating while in school takes a certain conviction," says Blumenthal. "I have to say, without great maturity, it would be extremely difficult to manage a breakup."
7
You will attempt to have a secret relationship, and you will fail.
Business school classes are relatively small. Everyone attends lectures and sections in the same buildings and eats in the same off-campus restaurants. Nothing will be confidential for very long. "There's a high school mentality," says Raj George, 27, who earned his MBA at Columbia last spring. In his first year, George attracted the interest of a classmate; word of the crush soon made it into a campus gossip column—the newspaper's editors even tried to get George and the woman to date. "Everyone knew about it, and when we showed up at a dance together, they were all watching. We couldn't let anything develop naturally." UCLA Anderson second-year Kerry Edelstein, 26, says that's typical. "The gossip mill can ruin something before a casual relationship even begins," she says. "There's so much pressure that you need to keep it under wraps until you're a couple." Unfortunately, even if you try very hard to keep your trysts a secret, you will likely fail. "You eat lunch with someone on campus a couple of times and the buzz is out," says Karickhoff.
8
No matter what you think, no matter what people tell you, this is solemn business.
The social life of your average business school student may seem a lot like being back in college or high school, but don't be fooled. For MBAs, love, like everything else, is an intense and goal-oriented pursuit. A generation ago, men and women saw their undergraduate years as prime time to choose a mate. Many a woman who attended college in the '50s and '60s joked about getting her MRS—and precious few were single for long after graduation. Today, graduate school has shouldered that same mantle for a lot of single 20-somethings. The majority of people entering MBA programs are sneaking up on 30. They've made some money and had a few significant others. Now, biological clocks have started ticking, and people are eager to settle down. "When you get out of school, it's the beginning of the rest of your life," says Matt Gorin of HBS. "A lot of people start that off by getting married." Gorin found a serious girlfriend in B-school, and the two are planning to move in together. "When you've spent two years in this environment," he adds, "by graduation you tend to know one way or another which way things are going."
This article originally appeared in the September 2001 issue of MBA Jungle.
http://mbajungle.com/main.cfm?chID=0&schid=0&inc=INC_article.cfm&artid=1620&template=1
Monday, April 21, 2008
The Eligible Bachelor Paradox
We at Dating Strategery want to sincerely apologize for the lack of postings recently. We are in the middle of finals and are trying to to pass our classes so we can return next year with more brilliant strategeries for your enjoyment.
To tide you over, a friend forwarded this online article to me regarding Game Theory and how it could affect your dinner party. Here you go:
To tide you over, a friend forwarded this online article to me regarding Game Theory and how it could affect your dinner party. Here you go:
The Eligible-Bachelor Paradox: How economics and game theory explain the shortage of available, appealing men.
Actually, no—and here's why. Consider the classic version of the marriage proposal: A woman makes it known that she is open to a proposal, the man proposes, and the woman chooses to say yes or no. The structure of the proposal is not, "I choose you." It is, "Will you choose me?" A woman chooses to receive the question and chooses again once the question is asked.
The idea of the woman choosing expressed in the proposal is a resilient one. The woman picking among suitors is a rarely reversed archetype of romantic love that you'll find everywhere from Jane Austen to Desperate Housewives. Or take any comic wedding scene: Invariably, it'll have the man standing dazed at the altar, wondering just how it is he got there.
Obviously, this is simplified—in contemporary life, both sides get plenty of chances to be selective. But as a rough-and-ready model, it's not bad, and it contains a solution to the Eligible-Bachelor Paradox.
You can think of this traditional concept of the search for marriage partners as a kind of an auction. In this auction, some women will be more confident of their prospects, others less so. In game-theory terms, you would call the first group "strong bidders" and the second "weak bidders." Your first thought might be that the "strong bidders"—women who (whether because of looks, social ability, or any other reason) are conventionally deemed more of a catch—would consistently win this kind of auction.
But this is not true. In fact, game theory predicts, and empirical studies of auctions bear out, that auctions will often be won by "weak" bidders, who know that they can be outbid and so bid more aggressively, while the "strong" bidders will hold out for a really great deal. You can find a technical discussion of this here. (Be warned: "Bidding Behavior in Asymmetric Auctions" is not for everyone, and I certainly won't claim to have a handle on all the math.) But you can also see how this works intuitively if you just consider that with a lot at stake in getting it right in one shot, it's the women who are confident that they are holding a strong hand who are likely to hold out and wait for the perfect prospect.
This is how you come to the Eligible-Bachelor Paradox, which is no longer so paradoxical. The pool of appealing men shrinks as many are married off and taken out of the game, leaving a disproportionate number of men who are notably imperfect (perhaps they are short, socially awkward, underemployed). And at the same time, you get a pool of women weighted toward the attractive, desirable "strong bidders."
Where have all the most appealing men gone? Married young, most of them—and sometimes to women whose most salient characteristic was not their beauty, or passion, or intellect, but their decisiveness.
Evolutionary psychologists will remind us that there's a long line of writing about "female choosiness" going back to Darwin and the male peacocks competing to get noticed by "choosy" mates with their splendid plumage. But you don't have to buy that kind of reductive biological explanation (I don't) to see the force of the "women choose" model. You only have to accept that for whatever socially constructed reason, the choice of getting married is one in which the woman is usually the key player. It might be the man who's supposed to ask the official, down-on-the-knee question, but it usually comes after a woman has made the central decision. Of course, in this, as in all matters of love, your experience may vary.
There may be those who look at this and try to derive some sort of prescription, about when to "bid," when to hold out, and when (as this Atlantic story urges) to "settle." If you're inclined to do that, approach with care. Game theory deals with how best to win the prize, but it works only when you can decide what's worth winning.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the available, sociable, and genuinely attractive man is a character highly in demand in social settings. Dinner hosts are always looking for the man who fits all the criteria. When they don't find him (often), they throw up their hands and settle for the sociable but unattractive, the attractive but unsociable, and, as a last resort, for the merely available.The shortage of appealing men is a century-plus-old commonplace of the society melodrama. The shortage—or—more exactly, the perception of a shortage—becomes evident as you hit your late 20s and more acute as you wander into the 30s. Some men explain their social fortune by believing they've become more attractive with age; many women prefer the far likelier explanation that male faults have become easier to overlook.
The problem of the eligible bachelor is one of the great riddles of social life. Shouldn't there be about as many highly eligible and appealing men as there are attractive, eligible women?
Reposted from: http://www.slate.com/id/2188684/Thursday, April 3, 2008
Not all M&As are alike.
The subject of mergers and acquisitions is a popular one in the business realm as well as at BYU, but not in the way you are thinking. Because BYU is pretty much the Mecca of the LDS dating world, everyone has marriage on the brain, and what better example of mergers and acquisitions than marriage. Many of the same things that cause strife for large companies combining their forces also plague newlyweds and thus we can glean wisdom for life from our study of business.
Some marriages unfortunately are essentially acquisitions where one party absorbs the other and the acquired loses their identity. This is very sad but really does happen; I have seen it myself. However, I have also seen marriages that are very closely resemble mergers where both parties asses their strengths and then adopt the traditions and habits to the advantage of the couple as a single unit. This is the more healthy and desirable of the two.
The article highlights several common sources of conflicts during M&As and as I mentioned before, many of them can also double as conflict for newly- and not-so-newly-weds. As in business, newlyweds must at some point make decisions regarding physical facilities. His place, her place, or new place? Should they try to integrate together or start anew on neutral grounds? Another decision is about business processes and who will have responsibility for it. Both parties have been managing their own financials in their own way. Does he take it over? Is she more detailed in her records? Or do they want to attempt to combine forces and take it on as a team? These are important questions for individuals who are considering taking their relationship to the next level.
Similarly, just as clashing corporate cultures can submarine a successful merger, a couple who neglects to assess their own potential clashing cultures may find themselves on opposites sides of an argument instead of on the same team. For example, in his family, the parents helped the children pay for college and the associated expenses. However, in her family, the kids were pushed to fend for themselves with little or no financial support. Or, her family spends Christmas Eve and the entire Christmas Day with the large extended family, whereas his just immediate family spent a quiet holiday at home alone. Like the Daimler-Chrysler merger, even a merger of apparent equals could go awry without proper discussion and planning.
I would not personally be able to handle a relationship based on a concept of acquisition for either party, i.e. either in he is doing the “acquiring” or he leaves behind his personality and interests for mine. I see a marriage as a merger, in the most idealistic sense of the word. A marriage should be an equal partnership with both parties invested in sacrificing for the other, yet preserving themselves too. However as mentioned above, the couple must also be on the lookout for potential obstacles and plan accordingly. A little discussion now, can prevent a lot of pain now.
*Disclaimer: This is written by an idealistic, never married person. Marrieds, do you have anything to add? Am I completely off base? Post your responses in the comments.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Be a Gucci, not a Hucci.
The greatest competition comes from those that enter the market under the radar and dominate in low costs. This can be the most disruptive force on the status quo. When fighting low-cost competitors, there is no success without a complete transformation. Merely changing a minor aspect of a company, or adding a low-cost line will not give a traditional company a competitive edge. It is crucial to understand customer needs besides price and design products and services to cater to needs that are not being addressed by the purely low-cost competitors.
This principle is pertinent to MBA women fighting to succeed in the cutthroat dating market at this university. While some men have high standards in choosing their mates, many more have less on their criteria. Most highly educated girls have difficulties appealing to the dating market because the majority of men is not necessarily seeking “premium” wife material. To them, the highly educated woman may be too high of a price for their need: a sensible wife. To the more “high maintenance” women, those that seem shy, very young, less educated or so-called “low-maintenance” are easy to overlook. However, they can be the exact low-cost disruptive force that pushes out the highly educated women out of the market. The “low-cost” girls end up going on more dates and ultimately getting married, while the “high-cost” women end up being bitter over lost opportunities. However, these "high-cost” women can overcome this by intensifying differentiation. There are sufficient, though small, numbers of men who desire “premium wife material.” The “high-cost” women can capture this market by offering more benefits (e.g. enhancing cooking skills, babysitting to hone maternal skills) in addition to their educational and career merits. This enables the “high-cost” daters to compete with the “low-cost” daters in a win-win situation.
Remember, do not be threatened by young girls. No "Hucci" (pronounced hoochee) knock-offs can really compare to a genuine Gucci.
Remember, do not be threatened by young girls. No "Hucci" (pronounced hoochee) knock-offs can really compare to a genuine Gucci.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Six Ways to Grow your "Business" into Adjacent Spaces
Like a corporation looking to grow, individuals in the dating world also look around to see where they should expand their business to next. The article lists five ways to grow into an adjacent space based on a study conducted by Bain & Company between 1995 and 1997.
Expand along the value chain – One of the most difficult ways to grow a business is expanding up the value chain. Fortunately it is much easier in the dating world. Call upon your most trusted family members and friends to keep their eyes open for potential good matches. Be sure to emphasize that you desire GOOD MATCHES and not simply matches. A common marital status (or lack thereof) between you and a potential date is not a compelling enough reason to spend time together. There needs to be something more i.e. common interests, mutual hatreds, or a desire to be adventurous.
Grow new products and services – In order to gain the attention of the opposite sex, sometimes you have to make improvements to the product (yourself). Examples of this include returning to school to get an advanced degree (like an MBA) or signing up for lessons to acquire or improve an area of personal interest (like gourmet cooking or voice lessons).
Use new distribution channels – When all your usual hangouts are not yielding the usual volume of dating potentials anymore, it’s time for a change of scenery. Get out of your comfort zone and find new situations to expose yourself to. Head out to that new club with your most hip cousin, or accompany your friend to their stake ice skating activity. The payoff of finding new channels to distribute yourself through will be worth a little bit of awkwardness.
Enter new geographies – When I lived in Florida, the LDS dating market was good but somewhat limited. After three years of YSA dances and singles conferences, I pretty much knew almost everyone in the area on at least an acquaintance level. After a certain amount of time, you may have “dated out” the market. In this case, in order to grow your “business” you may need to make a geographic change and actually move to greener dating pastures.
Address new customer segments – Are you of the gothic fashion persuasion and like to pair black clothes with combat boots? Way to be different! However, you may not be reaching your full potential audience. As pointed out in the article, companies spend lots of resources to discover their most desirable customer segments and appeal to them. You can do this too. I’m not suggesting you change the core of who you are; I’m merely recommending that you make some outward modifications to increase your ability to “distribute” your amazingness to a larger market. Give the people what they want! You!
*Based on the article "Growth outside the core." by Chris Zook and James Allen. Harvard Business Review Volume 81 Issue 12 (2003) pages 66-74.
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