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Coming into Harvard Business School, Triston Francis (HBS, ’19) had big goals for accelerating his personal development, and he invested his time outside the classroom in achieving these goals. One activity that he focused his time on was serving as co-president of the HBS student association. Francis shares his goals for business school and how serving as co-president helped him build the skills for long-term career success.
A leadership learning crash course
While there was much to learn inside the classroom, serving as student body co-president at Harvard Business School was a crash course in leadership. For example, a key lesson I learned was the importance of building a team. My co-president and I decided to increase the size of our student government team by three times that of the previous board. We had a far more successful year than either of us could have imagined, and this was largely a result of us having built an incredible team. We saw our role as mainly just doing everything we could to make the lives of the people on our teams as easy as possible.
One unique aspect of serving as co-president was that I was constantly collaborating with my classmates, administrators, and professors. This was a great opportunity but also posed some unique challenges, as these are all diverse groups of people with different interests. To drive success, I would always think to myself, “How can I create a win-win-win situation?” First and foremost, I wanted to make sure that every member of my team felt as though they were getting something from being a part of student government. I wanted to help them connect what they were passionate about and their long-term goals to the student government work. This led to a win for the student leader, a win for the institution, and a win for the student body.
A chance to make an impact
Throughout the year, there were a number of projects and programs that I helped create, but the one that I am most proud of is Eat & Engage.
During my first year at HBS, my roommate and I hosted dinners at our home. As a way of breaking through the surface-level conversations of, “What did you do before school?” or, “What do you want to do after school for work?” etc., we started each dinner by reading the personal statements that we wrote when applying for admission to HBS. These were incredibly personal stories that helped get the conversations to a point of depth. It was at one of these dinners where my eventual co-president and I ended up meeting for the first time. We decided to expand these types of dinners and roll them out school-wide, resulting in thousands of interactions among students. This year at HBS, the student association launched an initiative called Eat & Engage, which is a series of subsidized small-group dinners centered around a variety of relevant issues. Each week, 6–8 students and their partners meet for dinner and thought-provoking discussion on topics from social issues to innovation to personal growth. These dinners are student-run and are hosted at a volunteer’s apartment.
Final advice
TAKE ON A LEADERSHIP ROLE WITHIN YOUR MBA PROGRAM
I believe that leadership positions are an optimal way of ensuring that you make the most out of your MBA experience, and build the skills that you can use in your post-MBA career.
FOCUS YOUR “A+” EFFORT
My mentality prior to business school was, “deliver an A+ product on everything that I do.” Although having a high quality of work remained important to me, I now have a mindset of, “only do the things where I am excited to deliver an A+ quality of work.” I have become much more selective as it relates to where I invest my time.
TO BUILD RELATIONSHIPS, FIND PASSION PROJECTS
I think that the best way to get to know classmates is by working on a project alongside them, ideally, one in an area that he or she is passionate about. That is precisely what I got to do on a regular basis through my role as student body co-president and it led to some of the strongest friendships that I will cherish for a lifetime.
To read more of Triston’s story, check out MBA Insider today