LBS visit: creativity, business and a great view

This must be writer's block. I've been looking at this blank screen for a while now, and there's a million things I want to say about my visit to LBS last week, but somehow only flashes are coming out and I'm finding it hard to write coherent sentences. I'm probably too tired. What follows is thus a sketchy, impressionistic view of my experiences.

It was the second time I visited the school and I keep on being impressed by the buildings and the surroundings. The night I was there, there were at least events going on and Gordon Brown visited the school, which also caused a bit of a stir. The 'starting and sustaining a creative business' event was inspiring and interesting, good panel (including a film producer, the guy who set up the Extreme Sports Channel, a guy who headed on of Britain's most influential marketing and branding firms, the guy that founded Skint Record label (and/or its parent company?) --> none by the way had any formal business training ;-) and I could just feel the sparks flying inside my head as they were talking about how they got started, what lessons they learnt and although they themselves had little business knowledge, they unanimously agreed that every start-up could use someone who knew business. I also attended a class with a current student and I really liked that too. I really got a good feel for what the school was like, good sides and lesser sides. Definitely recommended for future MBA's.

The whole experience of being at business school got me thinking though about the paradox of humility vs. ego. In order to learn, you need to be humble and accept that you do not know it all, otherwise there's no point in learning. [Editor's note: writer of this blog is one of these people who actually get an MBA in part because of the factual knowledge she will learn] But on the other hand, without ego, there would be no business-school. You have to be convinced of your own abilities to lead to be there, otherwise you wouldn't have applied. I'm convinced that leadership is also about humility, recognizing that you do NOT know it all nor do you need to, and ego, being absolutely convinced that your vision is right. I'm not quite sure where this is going, it needs some more musing, but maybe writing this down will help me get somewhere meaningful with this.

[edited: I've been thinking a lot about what to do after my MBA (yes I know I haven't started yet) and what it feels like is that it's coming down to my heart or my head, be sensible and stay in consulting or follow my heart and try and do something about which I feel passionate (sometimes I just wish I could be passionate about banking.... ;-). And of course, there's an article I found on this, by Marshall Goldsmith on the fastcompany website.]
[edit number two: also in Fastcompany, an article about the 25 Top Women Business Builders. Great stuff, I am all for great female role models!]

[edit number three: on the LBS website, there's a short newsflash-item on the Creative Entrepreneurship-do I attended, see this link]