I write this post while flying back from Boston to Birmingham after spending five days at the esteemed Harvard Business School, finishing up a four-year program that earned me a Certificate of Management through an executive education program. It gets shown in our agency’s morning announcements each day that “JPS @ Harvard” and I can only imagine what the office chatter is about with people asking what I am doing there.
To give some background, a colleague who runs another kind of professional service firm told me about this program when he attended in 2015 and said, “Man, you’ve got to do this.” Reluctantly, (because I swore I would never go back to school) I did the program the first time in the summer of 2016. It was such an amazing time, and I got so much out of the program I went back for another program the following year until I realized that two more course selections would make me eligible to get a certificate of management.
So, why did I keep going back? Well, it is certainly not from a lack of things to do and having enough time in my schedule. It was a lot of sacrifice, not only on my time but also because every other course I have taken was in the summer, which ate into the time of my family vacations. Amy had a lot of patience the last few years because, in lieu of nice week-long trips, we pretty much did family vacations in a couple of days plus a weekend so there would be time for me to go to these sessions. But each time I went, there were always ah-ha moments, and there were plenty of them. I took very detailed notes each time and would always type them up after the classes to have something I can always refer back to as I go forward in my career. But, that still doesn’t answer the biggest part of why I kept going back: to be in a room and hear lectures and stories from guys who ran companies like JP Morgan Chase, Dell Computers, Bain Capital, Honeywell and others who were 5 Star Military Generals who also had Ph.D.s, and those who had spent their whole lives in academia based on running and operating companies like mine was priceless. (Well, actually not; it was expensive, but worth every minute and every penny).
So, what did I get out of it? I got a real sense of accomplishment because hearing what other companies do and struggle with and seeing what Strong Automotive Merchandising does on a daily basis has me flying back with a real sense of accomplishment. Is everything I or the agency does perfect? Not by any means. But are we doing things right where they really matter? The answer is yes.