Road to the Championship: Winning the INSEAD Master Strategist Day

On October 8, 2024, every INSEAD MBA 25J candidate from the Singapore campus gathered together in the Claude & Tuulikki Janssen Auditorium for the INSEAD Master Strategist Day (MSD). Held twice a year, the Master Strategist Day is a competition that gives all INSEAD MBA students the opportunity to apply the knowledge to a real-world industry challenge. Out of 28 teams, four finalist teams were selected to present their strategic options to an esteemed jury panel. These panelists included Dr. Kaushik Murali (President of Sankara Eye Hospital), Arjan Toor (CEO Health at Prudential), Jayanth Bhuvaraghan (CMO at Essilor International), Rune Aresvik (Managing Director at Vardetun), and a group of INSEAD professors including Hellmut Schütte, Thomaz Teodorovicz and Xinyu Liang. Each year’s winning team is displayed on the Hugo van Berckel Award wall plaque.

At this 17th event, the client organization was Sankara Eye Hospital, a not-for-profit foundation performing free eye surgeries annually for the underserved in India. The entire MBA 25J cohort were challenged to design a strategy for social impact and revenue generation, while delivering 400,000 free eye surgeries annually with financial feasibility. Our team, composed of AnneMarije van der Puijl, Sonakshi Agarwal, Akshyat Karki, Levin Shu (myself) and Stefano Pasquarelli, were proud to earn the top spot. Through assessing external market landscape and internal capabilities, we delivered a customized solution.  It consisted of strategic alliances that utilize synergies alongside medical travel and digital transformation.

After celebrating our victory, as I looked at the gold medal and certificate, I started to wonder: What made us a high-performing team? How did we go about building an effective team? What lessons did we learn that would help future teams succeed in academic competitions and professional assignments? Below, I have identified the seven most critical characteristics that enabled us to outperform the other teams:

1) Compelling Purpose: To start, we formulated a clear vision and a set of objectives on what we wanted to achieve. By clarifying the “why” and the “what” of the engagement, we were able to align on collective goals. To ensure we didn’t lose focus, on the top-right corner of our whiteboard I synthesized and jotted down the top three strategic imperatives:

A) Deliver 400,000 free surgeries per year while becoming financially self-sustaining.

B) Enhance synergies between social and commercial operations to improve efficiencies and resource sharing.

C) Align market positioning with social mission while leveraging commercial operations to scale free surgeries.

That way, we could always see what was important so we didn’t divert during discussions. In the words of Sun Tzu, the author of The Art of War, “He whose ranks are united in purpose will be victorious.” Although our team had no ranks, I resonate with Sun Tzu on how crucial purpose is to success.

In addition, a captivating purpose can help to generate excitement and commitment in team, which drove us to achieve desired results. After watching the introduction videos on Sankara Eye Hospital in the official kick-off session, we felt inspired by the ambition of this social enterprise, and were motivated to support it on achieving its audacious aspiration.

2) Talented Teammates: With five team members from five different countries, each of us brought unique experiences to the table. Everyone possessed distinct knowledge, and abilities, which were suited to different responsibilities. My teammates understood how their expertise and tasks contributed to the bigger picture, meaning the performance of the whole team.

Akshyat, a social entrepreneur from Nepal, shared his unique perspective on “medical tourism” based on his experience in the South Asian region. Stefano, a FinTech product manager based out of Switzerland, leveraged his Financial Engineering knowledge to work on strategic alliances formation based on financial data analysis. Sonakshi, an Equity Portfolio Manager from an Indian family office, initiated the idea of “digital transformation” through harnessing the power of technologies. In my case, I am a former management consultant based out of Hong Kong SAR of China. I spearheaded the creation of a ghost deck (skeleton) based on research and supported my team on ideation and deliverable consolidation. AnneMarije, a former management consultant based out of the Netherlands, provided support on the overall design and synthesis. She also took the initiative to design five evaluation metrics that enabled client to measure the effectiveness of the strategy.

3) Defined Plan: To save time and maximize productivity, we also defined our tasks clearly. This included setting milestones and playing to each other’s strengths. What might be noticeable, was that we assigned tasks autonomously based on members’ backgrounds and interests, while taking the work that needs to be done into consideration.

After we aligned on the final plan, each member was held accountable for at least one  part. We also clearly communicated the expected timeline as well as key action items. To maintain flexibility, we didn’t constrain detailed action steps (unless the member raised specific request for guidance). In addition, given AnneMarije and I are former management consultants skilled in PowerPoint deck creation with think-cell, we also took on the responsibilities of consolidating the final deliverable.

4) Empowering Climate: We strived to foster a supportive team environment, where innovative ideas could shine and unnecessary restrictions were removed. There are various properties that contribute to a positive team environment, including aligned ways of working, growth mindset. Among them is proactive listening. During discussions, when members would interrupt, we would pause and encourage each other to delve into the speaker’s perspectives. It may seem insignificant. As an experienced consultant who had worked on culture transformation engagements in an international setting, I know micro-behavior can have a detrimental impact over time.

INSEAD also helped to engender a climate of cooperation and trust within the team. Eric Luis Uhlmann, Professor of Organisational Behaviour, did a fantastic job by encouraging students to create a team contract, which helped to lay the groundwork for building inclusion and belonging in our team. A team contract is a set of basic principles on how our team will work together. In the contract, we clearly defined our goals and norm of interaction. On the other hand, the Personal Leadership Development Programme (PLDP) also allowed us to establish a common understanding of how members interact and exercise sensemaking for team success.

I still vividly remember when Professor Teodorovicz placed the gold medal around my neck. Mr. Arjan, shook my hand and told me, “Apart from the exceptional performance…what also differentiated your team was the spirit and culture as I saw how you guys hugged and celebrated…team climate is very important in the business world.” That quote lit me up, as I had been genuinely looking for opportunities to influence team dynamics through deliberate behaviors. Those conscious behaviors included listening proactively with eye contact, calling members without consulting experience to check-in, and providing feedback constructively in a timely manner.

5) Essential Resources: Sufficient resources and strategic allocation are force multipliers in successful engagement. Throughout the competition, participants had access to three types of resources: external databases via INSEAD Research & Learning Hub, a 30-minute session with a mentor, and our internal team’s collective brainpower.

Two hours before our final submission, Stefanos and I had a coaching session with our dedicated mentor, Gwyneth Fries from Bain & Company Singapore, for feedback. Gwyneth provided us with some pragmatical advice. It included quantifying impact to boost credibility and focusing on polishing the existing deliverable instead of investing more time generating new ideas.

6) Proper Rewards: This might sound premature, but I believe we should recognize team effort periodically by celebrating accomplishments – even before handing-in the final deliverable. According to research conducted by the Incentive Research Foundation, “the anticipation of future reward spikes dopamine,” which could potentially boost team performance.

Rewards can be in various types. For our team, it could be a team dinner in a cozy restaurant, snacks (credits to AnneMarije) during a brainstorming session, or even a short team-building trip at the weekend.

7) Effective Execution: The “execution” here does not only imply how our team executed the plan, but also entails how we advised our client to implement the solution. This is the final characteristic that differentiated us – and I only realized it after receiving feedback from the jury. With the advent of the emerging technologies, organizations are no longer simply looking for overarching strategy. Instead, they are increasingly placing value on how it can be brought to life. They understand that without implementation, strategy is not going to work anymore. In other words, the client believed our proposal would provide capability-building that was both feasible and executable.

For example, we elaborated on how the implementation of our solution could increase the load factor by 10% (equivalent to 10,000 additional surgeries per year), and reduce the expenses for intraocular lenses and medicines by 5% (equivalent to 6,000 additional surgeries per year). We also touched on the potential risks and mitigation actions, including identifying suitable campaign channels based on patient funnel.

Overall, participating in the Master Strategist Day competition was a rewarding experience. Our team emerged more confident, more compassionate, and more knowledgeable to tackle the challenges of the healthcare world. At INSEAD, we pride ourselves on “Business as a Force for Good”, so I would like to pass on the spirit to our future “master strategists” and encourage them to give back to the community through playing a role in driving meaningful impact.

Author Bio: Levin is an MBA Candidate at INSEAD (Class of 2025 July), a scholarship recipient and winner of INSEAD Hugo van Berckel Award. He was a management consultant based out of Hong Kong SAR of China, after graduating from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada. Passionate about social impact, Levin is a One Young World Ambassador. To know more, check his LinkedIn profile here.