WHAT DOES PURSUIT OF THE GOOD LIFE SAY ABOUT KELLOGG?
That Kellogg has incorporated an examination of how to live a good life into orientation for all students says several things about the school, suggests Smith. “First off, it says not only the students but also the faculty and the administration are incredibly supportive of building both incredible leaders and people who are whole beings and happy about living their lives.”
It also says that Kellogg is for those MBA students who really want to focus on their whole self. “If you want to take two years out and really dedicate it to transforming your life to make it what you want it to be, Kellogg is the place to be,” she says.
Smith certainly seems to be on a transformative path. “My whole goal since I started this process in the spring was to dedicate my summer to understanding what matters to me in life and how I want to live it,” she says. To this end, she spent a month this summer walking the Camino Trail in Spain and France with her mother, followed by an 11-day silent meditation in Indonesia with a friend who also participated in last spring’s Good Life Sessions.
“Now I know what’s important to me, which is awesome,” she says. After a quick trip back to Evanston last week to help lead the Good Life Afternoon, she started her post-MBA job this week in operations consulting at Boston Consulting Group. “As I start work at BCG, my whole goal is to continue to keep that balance in my life by preserving these things that are important to me on a weekly basis,” she says. “I will be even better at my job and be a better employee as a result.”
In the meantime, Rajiv, Corona and the other faculty members will continue to keep the focus on leading a good life back at Kellogg. Corona helped build the leadership development system at the school, realizing the need to be cognizant of things like work-life balance and work-life integration.
A FEAST OF PERSONAL LEADERSHIP OPTIONS
“I would describe what students got as part of the Good Life Afternoon at CIM as an appetizer,” Corona says. Kellogg is launching a new leadership development system for all students who are interested— including a class called “Personal Leadership Insight”—which will go into more depth on what was touched on during orientation. “Our students will have a feast—a buffet—of great complementary options. If they elect to pursue these ideas, they have all the resources they need here.”
If the Good Life Afternoon was any indication, appetite among Kellogg’s incoming class has been whetted. Corona reports that the room was buzzing and people were highly engaged in terms of their questions, comments and energy. Moreover, people seemed thankful for the opportunity to think bigger picture about life in the context of what it means to be a business leader, he added.
“At Kellogg, we have a portfolio of in- and out-of-classroom experiences that help students prepare for the C-suite and other high-impact roles around the world while making sense of what it means to be a business leader and have a personal life aligned with your own true values,” he says. In this way, he believes the school gives its students an opportunity to pursue a more holistic life experience. “You get an opportunity here to focus not only on the intellectual but also the emotional side of business and life.”
