the LGO journey

Question time: if you could re-do one thing about the program what would it be? - anonymous

I am not sure what you mean by “re-do.”  I don’t do regret, so definitely wouldn’t change anything I’ve done so far.  In terms of the program, I think an opportunity for improvement could be with how we structure the internship.

As you know, I’m currently doing an internship with Raytheon.  As with most large corporate companies that typify our partners, the pace of change can be slow.  It’s easy to say “If I were VP I would do A,B,C…”  We’re not.  We’re learning how to drive change from the middle.  How to bring our perspective from past companies and from school to the front lines of major companies. 

So what’s my idea?  Borrowing an idea from the UMichigan Tauber Institute, I think we could make internships a 2 man project.  Require each partner to sponsor a team of two people at a minimum.  I know this would be incredibly controversial, especially with the current students.  After all, people are very self interested.   It could be something we test out with a couple companies.

A big issue many people run into is a lack of a push from peers or other people on their project teams.  People within the company are incredibly busy and do not have a lot of time to rethink the way they do business, especially in 6 months.  When I was at McKinsey, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by incredible peers.  I always did my best work in team environments and think a team is always best to do most types of non-repetitive work.  LGO people are of the same caliber I had there.  With two LGO peers challenging each other day in, day out, I think it could be quite powerful.  It also could be quite stressful if the two did not like each other :-).

That’s my idea and I’m sticking to it.

11 April 2011 · Comments