I remember the days when my friends and I used to have a round table discussion on a great idea we had. We would then think of establishing a new business. We even started writing a business plan but we didn't calculate any "break even" or "expected value". We didn't do any "sensitivity analysis". We didn't talk about accounting issues like how our first year balance sheet or financial statement would look like. After preliminary, what would be a very incomplete business proposal in retrospect, we would talk about what we could do to raise money and then didn't use to progress much.

After 3 months in IESE, I can proudly say I am learning a lot here. I now know, although in a very basic way, how to critically look though balance sheets and income statements of companies. I know of different factors we need to take into account when making a decision from Decision Analysis course. I could relate to many things that happened in my past workplaces when going through the cases and discussion in Organizational Behaviour classes; for example, how one of my ex-boss who also had a huge stake in the company was acting more from a stakeholder perspective than a manager perspective. Just before I started writing this blog, I was reading a HBS case on "Accounting Fraud at Worldcom". I could very easily relate the analysis to what I have learned in Financial Accounting on how financial accounts are prone to manipulation. The case itself is very nicely written and I believe I got a complete and well rounded picture of the fraud that took place in Worldcom. The list of what I have learned at IESE goes on.

I also learned to be careful when reading my mail in Spanish today. I got a mail from Career Services saying "Los alumnos seleccionados para las entrevistas del di­a 17 de enero, ya han sido contactados." I read the word "entrevista", saw the date, noticed that the subject was the name of the company I had applied to, so I immediately thought I was shortlisted for interview. The congratulatory emails we receive when we are actually shortlisted are generally "short". (It makes sense, short-listed and hence short email, right?) So, I was happy that I was shortlisted and told some of my friends. They all congratulated me, one of them even suggested that it must be for London position as they haven't yet heard about the positions in Spain. Only after I came to my flat and shared the news with my flatmate who also received similar email, I realized the true meaning of the sentence. I know I am to be blamed for making a wrong interpretation but couldn't the email have been written to give the intended message without mentioning the date?