Getting in the Zone

(article commissioned for NUS Business School newsletter )

where the meets

Ability to execute

MBAs are special among academic courses in that this is where the student finally encouters "real world thinking" in an academic context. What matters are real results, and not rote learning; what measures your value is your ability to execute, not the additional feather in your cap of having completed and excelled in another course. The extra digits on the credit side of your P+L tell the tale of your success better than the extra letters after your name. The classroom is a place of teamwork, not isolation; contribution not competition. Learning by doing trumps memorizing, reaching out to the team replaces building defensive walls around yourself.

Akin to the economics lesson coined by famed mathematician John Nash - so excellently portrayed in the movie A Beautiful Mind - the optimal result comes from doing what is best for the individual AND for the team. We learn to reach out to our colleagues during the MBA program, and accept that we can depend on each other as well as on ourselves.

Furthermore, MBAs should be natural entrepreneurs even within a corporate environment: self-starting achievers who are savvy, opportunistic, and self-motivated. Broadly educated in the experiences of others through case studies, they match the situations they encounter during and post-MBA with the learnings from the real world course they have done. They have learned to prioritise, to delegate, when to hold their cards, when to play them, and when to fold them.

They have in short, learned the Art of Decision Making.

Hands-on learning

Which leads us on to the GMAT itself, and how GMAT preparation is in fact the beginning of your journey through business school.

Your GMAT preparation can launch your business school path to success by preparing you in teamwork, reaching out to others, learning by doing and learning the art of decision making. A generally overlooked aspect of GMAT preparation is the mental preparation you require to face those 3.5 hours. Indeed, in our experience, confidence and keeping the morale momemtum going over the preparation period is the trigger to aceing the GMAT. We are all aware of the structure of the GMAT exam content : one half tests your ability to answer mathematical and logical problems, the other half probes your English language dexterity with a fairly well-defined subset of the question types - what we refer to as the GMAT Framework.

However, the individual questions themselves are not what make the GMAT worthy of preparation; the problems are in fact all solvable with a small amount of preparation and sufficient time. But the GMAT exam environment tests your ability to make decisions quickly, maintain concentration and manage your time well: key skills for success in the business school world.

Learning by doing

This key insight - learning by doing - into MBA success has formed the basis of our GMAT preparation course : what matters is that you excel on the day, and perform at your top potential during those crucial 3.5 hours. Similar to athletes preparing for the race, we know that you have to be fully in the Zone and feel supremely confident that on the day you can perform your best.

We therefore throw you in at the deep end from Day 1, with a cascading avalanche of exam-scenario questions, timed to put you under pressure to deliver and accustom you to the GMAT environment. By the day of the exam yourself, the fear of the unknown - the exam environment - will be considerably reduced, and supplanted to major extent by confidence in your ability to tackle the test and excel.

Know the terrain

Hand in hand with learning by doing, where you hone your time management skills and answering strategies, is foreknowledge of your terrain. Sun Tzu devoted an entire chapter of his seminal strategic opus, the Art of War, to emphasizing foreknowledge and mastery of the terrain ahead. Practicing the GMAT exam environment removes ever more obstacles to your success by allowing you to feel that the terrain is yours, and you control the sequence of events, and not the other way around.

To quote Sun Tzu, "Hence the experienced soldier, once in motion, is never bewildered; once he has broken camp, he is never at a loss."

Build your answering skills

Each question type can be identified, and appropriate answering skills developed. Similar to the blocks and counters of a martial art, each action has a reaction : each question type has a solution that you can master. And every student can learn how to deal with every scenario that presents itself.

For example, Critical Reasoning can be broken down into the following question types : Assumption, Hypothesis, Paradox and Essence, with appropriate answering strategies.

Reaching out

We are firm believers in harnessing the class dynamic to maximise the benefit of the participants. When each individual student works only for herself, and focuses only on the words of the lecturer, the efficiency of information transfer between everyone in the room decreases, and the individual lecturer cannot meaningully serve each participant.

However, when the classroom model becomes participative, and the information exchange begins to become peer to peer as well as peer to trainer, our minds benefit greatly from both the different perspectives to capture the concepts, as well as the morale benefit of being in a team. Time and again, we observe that triggers to rational learning come from emotional well-being. Our energy levels and morale open our minds to learning in ways that buring the midnight oil never could.

In short, we learn smart and it's fun.

Timing your mental preparation for your GMAT

Bear in mind that you must be in peak condition for the the GMAT on the day itself.

You must aim to

• Master your time management skills

• Be in excellent physical and mental shape - completely relaxed

• Be prepared - having mapped out your terrain, nothing is there to stumble you and break your stride.

• Master your answer weaponry - have answering strategies for all the major question types in the GMAT Framework.

• Be confident - this is the first step on your path to the MBA; many more tests will follow. Put your best foot forward and never look back.

About the author

The author, Mícheál Collins, is a Director of Collins Kumarsinghe Associates, a boutique consulting firm based in Singapore, and is Executive Director of the Singapore Irish Business Association.

He has aced the GMAT after applying the above principles to self-study with friends, and has an MBA from INSEAD. Collins Kumarasinghe Associates has developed a high impact, innovative GMAT coaching course based on the above principles.

For more information, and contact details, see http://www.gmat-zone.com