Executive MBA |
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Executive Scholars Program > Alumni Profiles Alumni Profiles - J. David Pothast |
J. David Pothast During one of his company's annual performance planning sessions, David Pothast realized that he had reached a point in his career that called for him to take his business education to a different level. He took the time to research several executive programs and found that the Kellogg School's Executive Scholars Program fit perfectly with what he wanted to do. "It's important that Kellogg is a top-rated MBA school. But even more importantly, Kellogg allowed me to sit down and decide what courses to take, and what track I wanted to follow. I chose the General Management track because it fit into what I'm doing now and what I would be doing in the future. It was also important that the classes were held one week at a time, rather than one three-week course, which can be difficult to schedule." Pothast started with the Accelerating Sales Force Performance course in 2004, looking for, and finding, ideas that he could put to work. "Before each class, I determine that I'm going to take two things from that class - when I leave that class, there are two things I'm going to do differently. You can't expect to become a different person - if you think you're going to reinvent yourself and be completely different after the class, you're going to fail. But you can see that there are different ways to do things." The difference, he found, is in the small things. "After taking the Leading High-Impact Teams course, I have better meetings now. I've learned how to motivate a team; I have become open to ways to create innovation. Instead of hour-long meetings, every meeting lasts half an hour. I've had some meetings where everyone stands, just to create a different feel. I've become more aware of the mob mentality - just because someone is quiet in a meeting doesn't mean he doesn't have anything to say, so you find a way to get that person talking. I found different ways to recognize people, and that it's important to recognize people for things they've done that don't always get noticed." The root of the learning experience lies in the way the professors run their classes. "The professors aren't preaching," Pothast says. "They allow for a lot of conversation, so much so that the classes become a mirror to your career. You get to hear what the professor is thinking and also what the people in your class are thinking. They come from different industries, they have different careers, and I just become a sponge in those classes." But the Kellogg experience is more than classwork. In fact, like many other participants, Pothast thinks he learned as much after class. "We had great conversations in the evenings. Sometimes after dinner, we'd sit around and talk about things, get each other's opinion. I'm having this issue, what would you guys do? During your work day, you never have time to take a step back. And I think this is important, too. Overall, it allows you to take a step back to think about your work, do some soul-searching. What kind of leader would I be? What can I do better? "I would recommend the program to anyone at a senior level who's managing teams. Kellogg is a great opportunity to see how different people do things, to come back with different ways to handle things. I'm better connected to what's happening in the work world."
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