Expanding Your Global Skills, Mindset, and Network

What is the main reason you selected Harvard Business School?

Kari McHugh: The quality of the Harvard brand is the best in the world. I thought it would be an ideal opportunity to take a week out of the busy day-to-day and revisit key business and leadership ideas.

Stacey Caravella: Having access to preeminent professors who are well known, even outside the academic world, is invaluable. You just don't find that in most learning environments.

What attracted you to the Women's Leadership Forum?

SC: Kari brought the course to my attention. I like the holistic approach to life that the course takes. It's not just about work—it's about looking at your whole life, from being a female to managing your career to engaging with your family.

KM: Leading as a woman is different from leading as a man. I absolutely was drawn to the idea of being with a group of strong women who have been successful in their careers and talking about how they got there and, again, what is different.

How would you describe the experience thus far?

KM: It's far exceeded my expectations, from both a content and an emotional standpoint. I'm learning a lot about who I am as an individual and a lot about corporate culture and leadership. When I return, I can do things differently with my teams and work with Dunkin' to bring about change.

SC: I find the case method to be a very interesting and engaging way to learn. It's enabling me to explore my own thoughts and really change my thinking. A lot of the topics may seem to be far off in the future, but joining a board, making a career change, and negotiating a deal will be very important skills for that next job.

It's great to see people come to campus as teams. You start speaking the same language when you go back to the organization.

SC: One of the things that Kari and I have been talking about is how coming to the same program at the same time has been hugely beneficial. We don't necessarily work together on a day-to-day basis, but what we've learned will have more legs across the organization because we've both gone through it.

KM: When you're sitting in these classes, you think, "Oh, I want to send that email" or "I want to do this differently now." You can immediately talk about it and hold each other accountable for who's going to make that change. We'll definitely recommend that Dunkin' send people in teams.

Was the living group helpful in facilitating the program?

SC: What's nice about the living group is that the awkwardness is taken out of the equation. It's totally cool to walk up to a table and sit there even if you don't know anyone, because it's a group of successful women executives who are in the same position as you are. That's a powerful dynamic that might change if it were a mixed group of men and women.

KM: I work for a coffee company in Boston, but was amazed by the ongoing insights from a woman who works in a mine in Australia. She wears boots and a hardhat to work and I wear high heels and something black, but she repeatedly gave me the greatest advice about my next job choices. And my guess is that if she sat down, she would say the same thing.

Did your Board of Advisers offer valuable insights?

KM: When you get a bunch of smart people together, it's amazing how they really can give you change-making insights. They provided feedback on my personal experience and my personal challenge in more ways than I expected.

SC: People are at a similar time in their careers, literally across the globe, and we are able to help each other create a serious personal action plan. The professional coach was an added bonus.

In what ways did the program expand your global mindset?

KM: Coming here and interacting with women from around the world was insightful in terms of how similar the issues are and how people feel on the opposite side of a language exchange.

SC: I never really considered how difficult it must be to work in a non-native language, even if you do have a firm grasp of that language.

Did any specific content pieces change your way of thinking?

SC: So often, you just go into these things thinking, "Okay, this is about working, managing, and leading." But during WLF, you look at your life holistically. You can still have the work-life balance conversation, but it's definitely all-inclusive, not separate, and that makes all the difference.

KM: The case study on Ernest Shackleton was profound. It focused on the importance of knowing where the energy is in your organization and ensuring that the energy level stays up. That will fundamentally change the way I lead and the way that I will try to push Dunkin' to think going forward.