Exam fever builds in `Circus of the Absurd'

You'll be pleased to hear the Circus of the Absurd continues apace out Carysfort way. For its next act, the Graduate School of Business in a stroke of masterful planning has scheduled the nine Christmas MBA exams to take place over six days.

The countdown is well under way, and time management is becoming something of an art form. So much so, that a friend took me to task the other day for treating a telephone conversation like a quiz master during the rapid fire buzzer round.

As time becomes more and more precious, patience levels are falling. Peoples' true personalities are emerging, replacing the shiny, happy versions of ourselves we wanted to portray in the early days. The new people make a much more colourful bunch, full of sarcasm, angst and wit.

One of the few advantages of an exam system I suppose is that it strips people back to a basic common denominator. Much like a hunger, we are all united towards one goal but people go about satisfying it in different ways. Some people have simply gone to ground, others are industriously organising group study systems, and everybody looks like they're on the verge of a freakout.

I'm sure it can't be healthy to put 70 people under one roof under such pressure for 12 weeks. There's definitely a propensity there for someone to "go postal" - a new expression we learned from one of our American classmates.

While trying to assess whether a radical organisational change to the US postal system had been effective, it was pointed out that an inordinately high number of its 700,000 or so employees go berserk, gun rampages... you know the kind of thing. So much so that it has given rise to the term "going postal" in the US when a person engages in a spot of unhinged behaviour.

Anyway, it's made me start looking at those strong silent types up the back of the class in a whole new light.

On the learning front things are beginning to take shape. When we started the course a number of lecturers mentioned that themes and ideas would all seem very disjointed initially, but then we would see a clearer picture emerging. For weeks I wondered at the back of my mind about this, and when the all-illuminating moment would arrive.

But it's a much more gradual process, where the more you learn the more you realise how that learning can be relevant in a range of less obvious situations. The last 12 weeks have largely been about putting a scaffolding in place comprising nine business disciplines. The exact shape of the building behind is still pretty unclear, and its final form I imagine will vary greatly from person to person.

To my surprise the more finite and quantitative subjects like finance, accounting and economic principles display a very welcome charm in their ability to measure the affect of actions on an organisation. Love them or loathe them they are critical tools when you start adding other business units like marketing, human resources, operations and technology.

Over time we see constant overlap between the measurable and the immeasurable organisational processes. The same keywords keep cropping up across the range of disciplines: communication, clear objectives, empowerment, value, heuristic, customer satisfaction, total quality control, continuous learning, optimisation.

But in the real world there are imbalances of power and culture and will, and no amount of theorising is going to redress these.

Two blissful weeks away from the perpetual guilt of not being at my desk will be heaven on earth. I also relish the prospect of rekindling relations with friends and family - if they'll have me. In the meantime spare a thought for the 70 MBA victims starting their exams next Saturday, as you launch yourself into the Christmas season.

Madeleine Lyons can be contacted at lyons@ireland.com. The next MBA

Diary will appear on Monday, Jauary 15th, 2001.