Just came back from a week-long training with my batch of new colleagues. Yes, I’m starting at the bottom of the ladder alongside other fresh graduates.

This industry is one full of “type A” characters – strong-willed, forceful and particularly often eager to impress. We worked on just a case study and it is so evident – someone has an idea, wants it to be used. My suggestions are instead brushed aside. What is even more “outstanding” is their sheer confidence - even when there are errors in their thinking.

Example
Our strategy = divest out of low-end products and focus on the high-end. We needed to support this recommendation with numbers. A team mate who didn’t understand my methodology for estimating product-level EBITA, simply instructed me to estimate EBITA by growing product revenues and costs by the growth rate and deduct the difference.

Logical. Except that if he rejected my methodology to obtain product EBITA, we would only have company-level cost data. His methodology would mean assuming the same profit margin across all product lines. By exiting the low-end products (which had a larger share of revenues), the EBITA impact can only be negative. How will that support our strategy?! I’m not sure if he understood what he actually said. (In case you’re wondering, yes, he’s also an MBA! Thankfully from another B-school)

Perhaps it is due to my poor skills at explaining things; perhaps I should blame the case being poorly designed (if the numbers tied, no arguments are needed!). But this experience left me thinking:

(a) In hindsight, what could I have done, given that my colleague doesn’t trust me, and insists on his (faulty) alternative?

(b) Will I survive long in this industry if my colleagues are all going to be like that?

I can only resolve that I’ve survived my MBA an environment equally filled with highly intelligent type-A characters. In fact, I actually enjoyed it. With God’s grace, I will survive this too.