CARMA...is it instant?

Okay, you dorks. Don't correct me on the spelling of "Carma". It's spelled that way for a reason at Darden.
When we began our First Year, the Class of 2009 took mandatory sessions of CARMA and PCAP (Personal Career Assessment Program). Which is an acronym for Career Management. It is a great process by which we can discover a lot about what makes us tick. This insight can help influence vital decisions about jobs, where you want to live, who you want to surround yourself with, and the type of things that motivate you. We took a Myers Briggs and a few other cool tests. I got a lot out of the class, partly because it was taught by the engaging Connie English. (Whose real name is Constance, for the trivia-minded. I always got a kick out of that on her emails.)
Anyway, Connie was very helpful as I navigated the waters of further discovering who I was as a person and what that meant for my future. Granted, I’ve done a crapload of introspection. Being an Art major with a Creative Writing minor; one is hard-pressed to get outside of her own head sometimes. Couple that with the hundreds of hours in painful meditation on a bicycle and you have someone who’s thought a lot about who she is and her place in this world. Does that make me better-suited for a productive life because of all this introspection? Not necessarily. But I definitely enjoyed diving into the process through the lens of an MBA program. It was great to get some external tools by which to evaluate my skills, aptitudes, tendencies, motivators, etc. I have a personality type as dictated by the MB (and it’s stored in my office in Cville). I have my work-life balance chart. Lots of great stuff.
Plenty of my classmates thought the sessions were worthless fluff. Some skipped with impunity. I was disappointed. It always seemed to me that the people who discounted it were the ones who needed it most. Not that I didn’t need it. But I believe that if those skeptics could have been open to the curriculum, they could have learned a lot about themselves and how they can successfully establish a productive and fulfilling career path that helps make the planet a nice place to live. Instead they checked out, played a few rounds of golf, and started the First Year crush with the same level of awareness they’d carried for many years. How disappointing to see. Perhaps they got confused between their technical skills, which always enabled them to wow their colleagues with their competence; and their true talents, which may have been rooted somewhere deeper than excellent excel spreadsheets. A lot of us got to where we were by being technically excellent at something. But for graduates of Darden and other top business schools; you all enter the workforce with roughly the same technical skills. It’s the way in which you employ them alongside the “softer” stuff that enables ascension to that fabled corner office.
It may not be the way with every industry –Investment Banking seems to be a contest of who wants it more, sleeps the least and runs it the hottest- but I’d be willing to bet that a majority of successful businesspeople will tell you it’s the softer skills that helped them succeed. Their understanding of the subtleties of influence. The value of self-awareness and emotional intelligence (EQ). Their passion for their customer (and let’s think about the definition of customer). Their ability to effectively communicate strategic thinking. Their methods of building trust.
So, if you’re not focused on I-Banking (in which case, please leave your soul with the Registrar on your first day at Darden); think about attending the now-not-mandatory PCAP pre-matrculation classes and not skipping the more mandatory CARMA classes.
Hey, you get to take a free Myers Briggs! Better than having to take one in the loony bin. Then you get this nugget (if you’re an ENFJ, like me!):
Warm, empathetic, responsive, and responsible. Highly attuned to the emotions, needs, and motivations of others. Find potential in everyone, want to help others fulfill their potential. May act as catalysts for individual and group growth. Loyal, responsive to praise and criticism. Sociable, facilitate others in a group, and provide inspiring leadership.
Ah…I feel warm and fuzzy now. And I don’t hate I-Bankers; I just like to give them crap.