I never really expected extracurricular activities to supply me with the real management experience that I was seeking by attending business school. And even if I had an inkling that it could, I never would have guessed that it would come from running a newspaper.
When I got to the Johnson School, the last thing I thought I'd do was anything related to journalism. I knew the school had a student-run paper, but it didn't really occur to me to get involved. Of course, after a few months of the core, withdrawal symptoms from several years writing stories on deadline for BusinessWeek started to set in. Almost in spite of myself, I inquired about getting involved.
A month later, I started running the Cornell Business Journal. Of course, I wasn't alone. A fellow first-year named Vivek Pai assumed the role of Co-Editor; we figured two heads would be better than one, particularly because we were inheriting an independently run and funded organization (we survive by selling ads and don't take a dime from the school, so that we may maintain our independent spirit and right to cast a critical eye on any and all elements of life at the Johnson School).
When we took over, we were in a tough spot. There was almost no cash on hand to cover printing costs, and the staff was largely uninspired and oversubscribed with other activities.
Of course, I was overconfident. I figured it would be a snap to turn this thing around, reinvigorate the staff, and establish journalistic excellence -- all at the same time. But it hasn't quite worked out that way. The process has felt more like pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps. And, like just about everything I've been involved with at school, the process of finishing an issue sometimes finds itself temporarily demoted on my priority list. That's not to say I don't care about it; I think my role as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Cornell Business Journal is what I care most about here at Johnson -- and the thing about which I'm most proud. It's just that the paper is always competing with at least ten other things on my to-do list.
It's now been close to a year since we took over the reigns from last year's second-year class, and I thought it time to take an honest look at the gap between the turnaround I thought I could pull off and what has actually transpired. After all, it's almost time to turn it over to the class of 2010.
So, how have we done? On the undeniably positive side, we'll turn the CBJ over to this year's class of first-years with probably four times the cash on hand as we had last year. We've put together some pretty solid marketing collateral that we use to approach potential advertisers (some of it was adapted from the hard work of previous classes). And I think we've established a pretty solid record of quality stories and writing.
Okay, enough patting myself on the back. Where we could have done better is getting more of a real team environment going. I pulled a number of people in to help run the paper last year, and some of them have fallen off at one point or another; we've had underperforming staff members and also some solid contributors. But I think the number one management challenge I've faced is figuring out how to compete for peoples' time and attention in the face of so many activities and responsibilities that go along with being a business school student.
Would I have an easier time of it in the real working world? Perhaps. I'm convinced that pinning people down would be easier in the real world, but the other issues we've had -- with maintaining quality, designing our organization to motivate workers, and some sporadic trouble with suppliers -- are all things that are omnipresent in the working world. Even if I hadn't taken anything at all from my classes (but, of course, I have), the experience of running the Cornell Business Journal, encountering and overcoming the challenges that I've noted above, would have made my time here worth it. I'm going back into the business world with much more theoretical knowledge, but also more hands-on experience, than I had when I got here. And despite the occasional challenge, I'm proud and thankful for the experience.
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