Overcommit and underdeliver.

Classy, right?  I’ve been feeling a bit of that pressure lately myself.  I’ve blogged about it before, but there are so many amazing things to do here that it’s easy to become immediately overwhelmed.  More dangerous is how easy it is to find a leadership position in a club.  Every club has about 20 officer positions.  VP of this, VP of that, C-level position in whatever.  From my experience, about 90% of those positions serve a very critical purpose: resume padding.  The remaining 10% of the people are actually stuck with doing the day-to-day grind of organizing club activities.

So, here’s the disclaimer.  I’m an officer in three different clubs, which puts me far over into the overcommited category.  I’ve yet to succumb to underdeliver, but it’s probably only because I’ve been ignoring a substantial portion of the after-hours social activities and cutting my case-prep time in half.

The other day marked one of the first events I’ve planned and brought to campus: a speaker for a club (which around here, happens quite frequently).  The whole process is really quite interesting.  Lots of planning and contacts and working with various campus groups, and in the end, you still end up with half of the audience walking out during the event (to attend other events, presumably).  HBS students are rude, rude, rude.

Admittedly, though, part of it is my own fault — expectations here are high.  It’s not enough to bring a CEO to campus for a lecture.  You need to bring both a “celebrity” CEO (to draw a crowd) and make sure the discussion is dynamic and two-way (to keep people in the room).  It’s a tough environment, but that might not be a bad thing.  If you have an audience and keep it — you really know you were successful.  People here do not suffer boring speakers kindly.

There’s definite appeal.  It results in a group bonding experience similar to hazing.  Everyone is forced to let down their pretensions and pride (just a little bit of those at HBS) while sharing participation in an embarrassing activity.  In other words, offering a chance to laugh at and be laughed at with no fear of condescension or reprisal.  I’m all for this… I love the idea of costume parties, embarrassing theme or no.  This particular one is a bit more dangerous.  Bonding and laughter are much more difficult to translate over the internet than a particularly scandalous photo:

Priscilla Ball (Unidentified HBS Students)

And as we all know, the internet never forgets.  I think most HBS Sections are careful about where the photos from this event end up, but it’s a bit difficult to control these things.  I guess it’s good to give journalists something scandalous to write about… I’m more curious what will happen 15 years from now when the up-and-coming CEO or Senator finds himself with an interesting internet photo-history.  It’ll definitely make elections more interesting, won’t it?

Today is a very busy day.  Along with the usual load of classes (and a three-case day tomorrow), there are career team meetings, student panels, improv classes, a venture capital club meeting, an outdoors club meeting, and… of course, the Dell CEO.  If there’s one thing to be said for HBS, it’s that it forces you to be a brutal time manager.  You start to evaluate every activity and compare it against the world of amazing possibilities that lie at your finger tips every hour of the day.

As I was standing in the shower after a quick racquetball match today, I think I finally developed a framework for screening activities.  The framework is something like this:

1. Will it help me develop lasting relationships?
2. Will it offer a chance for experiential learning?
3. Will it add value to my resume?
4. Will it allow me to explore new ideas?

In that priority.  Unfortunately, listening to Michael Dell talk really only hits #4… and even that one’s uncertain (depending on how much the Q&A draws out beyond what I could read in a magazine article).  It’s interesting… I wouldn’t have given the same answer two hours ago.  If someone asked why I was going (which no one ever does), all I would’ve been able to say was “Well, he’s Micheal Dell.  He’s fabulously successful.  How can you not go see him talk?”

I guess it would’ve given me a good photo and story to post on this blog.    Anyway, the sun finally came out today… here are some celebratory photos from around campus:

Across Baker Beach in the Sun

Baker Library in the Sun

Out the Window of My Dorm