По американским меркам школа небольшая, на курс набирают по 350 человек. Зато список выпускников украшают мировые знаменитости: Кофи Аннан, генеральный секретарь ООН, Бенджамин Нетаньяху, бывший премьер-министр Израиля, Карлтон Фиорина, глава компании Hewlett Paccard, несколько министров финансов латиноамериканских стран... MIT Sloan во всех рейтингах бизнес-школ попадает в число лидеров.

Школа MIT Sloan School of Management известна тем, что помимо обычного MBA, она предлагает множество других интересных академических программ: MIT Sloan Fellows Program in Innovation and Global Leadership, PhD Program, System Design and Management Program, Biomedical Enterprise Program.

Темы эссе в эту школу обычно предполагают, что вы расскажете о себе нечто неординарное. Например: "Вспомните, когда вам приходилось принимать нестандартное решение под большим давлением". Или: "Вспомните случай, когда вы совершили неэтичный поступок", "Опишите случай, когда вы пытались что-то сделать, а у вас ничего не получилось". Тут надо показать ум и энергию, а не собственный провал: да, я старался изо всех сил, сделал все, что мог, и все равно не получилось. Пожал плечами и продолжал делать то же, но другим способом. Или описать, как этот негативный опыт позволил понять нецелесообразность задуманного.

Сегодня мы с вами разберем первую тему:

Question: Please give us an example of when you exhibited creativity in a personal or professional setting. Please describe your thoughts and actions. (500-800 words)

We have a perceptual problem around efficacy," said the packaged goods company president. It was my first day on a new assignment for their hair thickening product, and he was explaining that their launch had been followed by a year of flat sales. "Although the product has clinically-proven efficacy, centuries of snake oil salesmen have created incred­ible skepticism in the market." His challenge: redefine efficacy to distance ourselves from "potions and lotions" and increase market share.

After a month of brainstorming ways to convey efficacy, we conducted one-on-one interviews to test our ideas. Man after blading man expressed angst over his hair problems, but none of them had done anything more advanced than the combover. "You see, we need to convince them there's a product good enough to warrant doing something," the president said.
I was not convinced. The more we tweaked the message to stress clinical efficacy, the more we had to caveat it to satisfy the PDA; the more we touted real results, the more we sounded like a late-might Infomercial. In my mind, we were just undermining our own efficacy message. We needed to find another angle to attack this problem.

While the client continued testing messages, I took a week to reflect and explore. Looking for insights, I studied [Company A]'s success, learned the psychology of plastic surgery, and read a history of hair color marketing in The New Yorker. It was in the article that I found an inspiration, for it described how [Company B] refocused its marketing on emotional rather than physical benefits—hence the tag line "Why? Because I'm worth it!" Reflecting on this example, it occurred to me that perhaps we were focused too much on what was going on top of men's heads, and not enough on what was going on inside them.

Curious to explore this further, I recruited a psychologist specializing in body image to review the interview transcripts with me at my office. What we uncovered was surprising— almost all men have high levels of concern when they first notice their hair thinning. However, over a short period of time, their concern fades due to internal acceptance, external reinforcement of worth ("honey, I love you just the way you are"), and general aversion to appearing vain. As a result, most men are resigned to their fate before they have time to do any serious exploration of options.

With this information, I refrained the question from "how do we redefine efficacy" to "how do we get men to act before apathy sets in." To answer this question, I used existing research to develop a quantitative, visual description of how men flow through the entire decision process. Along with the decision steps, I showed the most frequently mentioned reinforcers or blockers of action at each step in the process.

Although this system dynamics approach is typically used for complicated industrial problems, it was perfect for this puzzle. First, it made it simple to see the apathy cycle we had identified. Second, it highlighted that men who broke the cycle most often did so because of the encouragement of a friend, not the existence of effective products. Third, it showed that the overwhelming benefit to men who had acted was a sense of control—regrowing hair was an aspiration, but taking control was their inspiration.

These findings suggested three important steps. First, we had to reach men before they became apathetic. Second, we had to assure them it was "normal" to do something about hair thinning. And third, we had to emphasize that taking action was taking control. To bastardize [Company B]—"Why? Because it beats sitting back like a defeated old man!"

When I shared this new interpretation with the president, he understood my earlier skepticism of the efficacy dilemma. Within two months we replaced the efficacy-focused advertising with a new campaign emphasizing the importance of acting early to treat thinning hair, and the associated feeling of control it creates. In addition, we adjusted our media purchases to hit younger men who were early in the recognition to resignation cycle. Finally, we developed a program encouraging existing users to share their experiences with friends.

Through creative approaches to the problem, I drove significant change. At a product level, within a year sales grew by 18% and the average customer age dropped from 33 to 28— a good indicator that we were driving men to act sooner. At a company level, I introduced new tools and disciplines which have been successfully applied to other tough marketing problems. And at a societal level, I helped thousands of men find a better hairstyle than the combo ver!

Критика

Это эссе было очень весело читать, потому что его отличает именно умный подход к написанию. Видно, что человек не затрачивал особых усилий, сочинение было написано легко и также легко читается. Ответ выглядит, как некая консультация, но автор отобразил новое решение довольно старой проблемы. Как он сам написал: "Я воздержался от ответа на вопрос". Для многих понятие "creativity" ассоциируется с вдохновением, которое ведет к хорошим результатам в работе. Автор показал, что для него "creativity" - это не просто момент вдохновения, это то, что следует после. Интуиция очень важна, но также важно правильно ее применить.