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Some years ago, I was working as a team leader for the project management group at Bosch in Toluca, Mexico. The business awards of the starter motors and generator division in North America were finally coming in. Young and enthusiastic colleagues were dedicating all their energy to develop, manufacturing, and launch our products. But… none of us expected Bosch to place the division on the market for sale in 2016, an operation that was completed beginning of 2018.
Many took the event as a small disaster, as the unknown causes concerns in many of us. Not for me, I was appointed as the project manager to plan, execute, and monitor the carve-out of our two locations in North America to become a stand-alone organization in less than 2 years. My responsibilities included coordinating the setup of the Human Resources, Legal, and Logistic departments. These were areas I had dealt with before, but without getting involved with their actual responsibilities and activities.
During the next couple of years, I learned how complex the setup and the operation of a large organization are. Everything we take for granted is the result of many years of ongoing adaptation to the market and the legal requirements. Every department, division, and regional organization works with each other like gears in a machine. Independent, but perfectly coordinated to contribute to the success of the organization.
Even though I was appointed as the Head of Project Management processes and methods in North America, I had become interested to increase my knowledge about executive management in an organization because of the carve-out. And what better option than to do it through enrolling in an MBA programme. Reviewing options in North America and Europe, I became interested in the Executive MBA at Frankfurt School. Not only the curriculum of the EMBA is interesting, but also the complementary academic programmes, as Corporate Performance & Restructuring or Data Science. Based on the positive impression I got, I applied and was accepted.
Considering the professional experience mentioned before, I was very interested in fields like Competitive Strategy and Organizational Government. Deep diving into these and all other classes helped to develop a better understanding of the whole organization and what are all the factors that need to be taken into consideration for good decisions. And this is what I am always looking for, to understand the whole, not just a picture of the moment. It is not just participating in the lectures, it is about each of us getting to know ourselves. What does it mean to be back to school? How much time do we need to prepare classes and finishing the case studies? How do we combine all this with our personal life?
I learned more about myself than I expected.
Do not be scared if something unexpected happens in life. Even though we may be concerned, it opens new doors for us. It gives the final push to do something we always had on our mind but did not start because of other priorities. Do not stagnate, be proactive, keep growing, and be successful.
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