{"id":53186,"date":"2021-10-01T06:01:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-01T13:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=53186"},"modified":"2021-09-29T02:06:31","modified_gmt":"2021-09-29T09:06:31","slug":"stanford-mba-discusses-coffee-chats-episode-437","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/stanford-mba-discusses-coffee-chats-episode-437\/","title":{"rendered":"Stanford MBA Discusses Coffee Chats [Episode 437]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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What can you do before starting business school to set yourself up for a valuable MBA experience? [Show summary]<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bob Manfreda discusses his experience in the Stanford GSB program and shares wisdom from his co-authored blog, MBA Coffee Chats,<\/em> and book, Coffee Chats: Thoughtful advice on how to get the most out of your MBA.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How coffee chats can help you clarify your career goals, prioritize activities and more [Show notes]<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to the 437th episode of Admissions Straight Talk<\/em>. Thanks for tuning in. Before I introduce our guest, I have a question for you: are you ready to apply to your dream MBA programs? Are you competitive at your target programs? Accepted\u2019s MBA Admissions Quiz can give you a quick reality check. Just go to accepted.com\/mba-quiz<\/a>, complete the quiz and you\u2019ll not only get an assessment but tips on how to improve your qualifications. Plus it\u2019s all free!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d like to welcome to Admission Straight Talk<\/em> Bob Manfreda, Stanford MBA and co-author of Coffee Chats: Thoughtful advice on how to get the most out of your MBA<\/em>.<\/a> Bob earned his Bachelor\u2019s in Applied Physics and Chinese at Notre Dame, worked at Deloitte as a consultant, earned his MBA at Stanford as an Arjay Miller Scholar and is now a manager at Deloitte. He is also the Chief Booth Officer for PhotoFox Photo Booth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My first burning question is, do you like coffee? [1:53]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I do. I made myself an iced coffee for the occasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You were at Deloitte before you went to Stanford GSB and you\u2019re now again at Deloitte. Did you intend to return to Deloitte after your MBA as you\u2019ve done? [2:04]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIntend\u201d might be too strong of a word. I knew it was a strong option, and it was one that I was excited to have. I was sponsored to go to school. I cared to come back, but I also wanted to explore some other careers just because I\u2019d been at Deloitte for four years already. And there was a lot out there. I think I had a little bit of a wanderlust career-wise. So I did some poking around in venture capital, in mid-stage startup and then entrepreneurialism which was a list of three things that I came up with that I thought would allow me to maybe be financially equivalent but still explore something new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started working my way through that list. For whatever reason, I never really got a lot of momentum on starting my own thing. I realized after a couple of coffee chats actually that venture capital probably wouldn\u2019t be something for me. And I interned at a mid-stage, tech startup and had a great time, but it didn\u2019t really work out for my career perspective. There wasn\u2019t necessarily a path there. When I got to my second year, Deloitte made the official offer to return, and it felt like the best thing at the time for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Has it worked out for you? [3:20]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It has. Deloitte is a good company. They\u2019ve got great benefits. I\u2019m currently actually on paternity leave. We had our first son, Jackson, who is six months old. My wife works for a company called Snowflake, and they updated their policy to six months so she had a bunch of time off. Anyways, long story short, now I get months 6-10 off with Jackson which I\u2019m really excited about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going back to consulting<\/a>, for me, I think there was the professional benefit of getting to manage people soon and to continue developing some of the core skills. But I think there was also the personal element of it that I knew I\u2019d have that benefit available to me of good paternity leave, and I\u2019d be able to go to where I want to in the country so it was more than just a professional decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s turn to your Stanford experience. What did you enjoy most while you were a student at Stanford GSB? [4:19]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I think it was the freedom to choose every single day. As I went into school and reflected on life growing up through school, the goal was always me getting better and pursuing an interest. That\u2019s the mandate of educational institutions. When I went to the professional world, that was certainly a goal, but it wasn\u2019t always goal 1A. It\u2019s usually profits or something related to that. And going back to school, I could go play pickup basketball or read a book, and on the quarter system at Stanford choose a different class every three quarters. My classmates were all incredibly passionate about things so I just felt like every day I got to wake up and explore something new and whatever it was, that gave me the most energy that day. That was a lot of fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking back on the MBA program, the education, the extracurricular opportunities, whatever it was \u2013 what class experience or extracurricular activities were most valuable to you or really stand out in your mind? [5:11]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I think there\u2019s two in particular. Everyone\u2019s got different goals. So I think that will drive a lot of the outcome to this question. For me, the social element of business school was not <\/em>a priority. My own relationships and my personal health were. Neither were some of the career pivot options that were out there so I didn\u2019t end up doing many clubs or those things, which also could be really good experiences for other people. I got a lot of value out of classes actually. At Stanford in particular, there\u2019s the whole soft skills curriculum that Stanford\u2019s built its brand around like Touchy Feely. But it\u2019s so much more than Touchy Feely. It\u2019s the whole environment at Stanford that\u2019s built in that ethos of emotions as the basis of connection, and that made me very uncomfortable. I grew up with a tax lawyer dad. Emotion was bad \u2013 it\u2019s the enemy of reason. Don\u2019t be emotional. Stanford challenged all of that for me but in a way that was, I think, really helpful and pushed me to become a better version of myself<\/a>. I can relate to people more frequently and on easier terms. I have less arguments with my wife. My personal relationships have never been stronger. And professionally, the summer between year one and year two, I remember getting frustrated with my manager at the time at my internship. I think old Bob might\u2019ve argued why something else was done incorrectly and why my position was right. And new Touchy Feely Bob said something like, \u201cI\u2019m a little frustrated right now, or I feel frustrated. Can we take a step back?\u201d And that was totally new to me and not something I ever would have done, but that a week and a half into my internship was the total pivot point for what ended up being an awesome relationship with my manager that summer because instead of us fighting over what was right or wrong, we took a step back, related on how we were feeling about things, what drove that, what we needed to do to correct how we were working together and then got back to the core of it. To me Touchy Feely, the Arbuckle Leadership Fellows, and a lot of the similar classes are all centered around that idea and those types of experiences for getting to know people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s wonderful. It wasn\u2019t the answer I expected particularly because your book seems to talk so much about the value of everything but the classes. [7:46]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Well, that\u2019s a tricky one because I think that\u2019s a common element for the MBA in general. It\u2019s like people feel that way. There are so many resources available to you at school. I think that can be true that for a lot of people class isn\u2019t the core part of the program. For me, I was excited about the academics of it and so I got a lot out of that. To be clear, if it was just Touchy Feely, it wouldn\u2019t have been as powerful if not for the community and the people and the experiences around it, but everyone\u2019s goals and experiences with the MBA are different<\/a>. And it just so happened that for me, I think class had a pretty awesome part of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are so many things coming at you and setting a couple of things aside helped me make the most of what I decided to prioritize. I think people so often talk about prioritizing as a big theme for business school. I think it\u2019s possible to over-prioritize. I think more often people don\u2019t prioritize enough, but I do think that is one of the central themes to having an effective MBA experience. I think that\u2019s great advice that you tell people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What could have been improved? Even though Stanford GSB is a fantastic institution and experience, what could have been improved for you, or what do you wish you would\u2019ve done differently? [9:32]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s actually a great segue to one of the comments I just made about over-prioritizing, which I think is the mistake that I made. I mentioned going into it that I decided that I\u2019d focus on either a startup VC or a growth stage or starting my own thing<\/a>. Looking back, I feel like those are three things of a very similar flavor to what I was already doing. Like consulting, it\u2019s very bizarre. Obviously it\u2019s a business strategy, and I don\u2019t think I did enough to open the aperture going into school, because I kept hearing from people it\u2019s so important to prioritize. That way you know which lunches to go to, which classes to take, what to work on. But there are so many amazing resources at these schools that you don\u2019t have before you show up that can be helpful in finding new things to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone has different goals for their MBA<\/a> like we were saying, but a very common one is to get into a certain career, whether an elevated position or a different one in some professional degree. I think to the extent that you over-prioritize prior to school, you can sub-optimize your professional outcomes because you\u2019re not seeing everything that\u2019s out there. Specifically for me, I realized during my second year of school that search funds and sales careers, both were actually really interesting and played into the things that I might enjoy but they were just much different than the experience I\u2019d had previously. I wasn\u2019t familiar with them and because I over-prioritized, I didn\u2019t start exploring them until too late in my two years there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m wondering how one could balance that need not to try everything and at the same time focus maybe with more exploration before you get there [11:16]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I think that\u2019s one of the places coffee chats come in because at the end of the day, the best way to balance this is to have a test and fail method which is so common with startups now. How quickly can you have a thesis, test it, and either set it aside or decide to invest further in it? One of the things we talk about in the book is why a pre-school internship could be valuable. I think one of the quickest, lowest time investment opportunities to explore things is the coffee chat. You\u2019re so focused on curating a diverse class of students<\/a> that if you reach out to people at your school, there\u2019s a very good chance that someone will have done what you might be interested in and during a 30-minute conversation with them, you\u2019ll learn a ton about whether it may or may not be a good fit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s what happened for me with venture capital. The way it was described to me is it\u2019s a hugely extroverted job where you\u2019re meeting new people, you\u2019re out there, you\u2019re exploring new companies and you\u2019re creating these deals in a large part on your own. For me that felt tiring, not energizing and coming from a very team-based consulting environment, I was a little unsure if I liked the single environment. Instead of spending a whole semester and hours investing in VC recruiting, I was able to rule that out after a couple of coffee chats. I think that\u2019s the whole essence of this book<\/a>, having conversations early before you show up. Then again once you\u2019re at school, you can start broad but then try to prioritize quickly down to what you do want to spend your time on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you glad you earned your MBA? [13:07]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I am glad. I think so often, that question is evaluated on extrinsic terms. How much did I pay for the MBA? And is it worth it?<\/a> I\u2019m not sure about that yet to be perfectly honest. I think it\u2019ll depend on the long-term. If I was trying to be a middle manager for my long-term career goal, I\u2019m not sure it would be, to be honest. The MBA is really expensive, but I\u2019m hoping it creates lots of upside for me. And I think between the network, the sticker on the resume, there\u2019s a few ways it could do that. But intrinsically, I learned a lot. I feel like I\u2019m a better person from some of the soft skill things. I made some good friends, and I really enjoyed those couple of years. It was a luxury. Fortunately I had a partner who was working full time, I had a company that was willing to sponsor it. It was a luxury that I felt like we could afford, and I really enjoyed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What advice do you have for applicants who want to get a Stanford MBA? [14:20]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Good luck. The application process is a slog. It\u2019s hard. It\u2019s introspective. I\u2019m still not sure why I got in to be frank. But I\u2019ll share the three pieces of advice that I picked up from some of my classmates that I thought did a good job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One, don\u2019t overthink what matters most to you and why<\/a>. For most people, it was a simple concept with a bunch of stories behind it that shows why it was very important. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two, the whole application should be related. What matters most to you and why should be largely personal. So why Stanford should build on that. Those aren\u2019t two separate questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then three, Stanford\u2019s whole motto with an emphasis on driving change<\/a>, I think is really important. They like people who are willing to think through the implications of their actions and how their goals will affect others. So if you want to start a nonprofit that will feed the world, obviously there\u2019s an easier link there, but you also might be someone who wants to be a consultant partner or a private equity leader. The goals are varied but don\u2019t just want to be that for its sake itself. Maybe it\u2019ll create jobs. How will it affect the world? I think telling that story is really important for the GSB application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n