The Night the Titles Came Off
The MBA module · Community (the Friday eXperience)
The table
The case
Subtitle: A fictional leadership case for discussion.
At half past ten, the regional CEO was helping move a table.
An entrepreneur held the other end. A younger manager cleared a path while someone rescued three glasses from the edge.
They had spent the afternoon discussing leadership in a room where their names and positions appeared on a screen.
Now they were making space for dancing.
“Your side first,” the entrepreneur said.
“For once,” the CEO replied.
They laughed.
Near the terrace, an alumna who had arrived knowing almost nobody was talking with two people she had assumed would be too busy to speak to her. Someone requested a song associated with an old MBA trip. Within seconds, a group began telling conflicting versions of the same story.
The evening had acquired a life of its own.
The next morning, those people would return to a demanding COlab working session.
Something about the room would be different.
The Room Before the Music
Earlier that day, the discussions had been intelligent and slightly guarded.
Participants introduced themselves through their roles. Senior executives spoke with the confidence of people accustomed to being heard. Others waited for an invitation.
One group was working on a case involving an established company and a smaller technology partner.
A younger founder saw a problem in the proposed partnership. The larger company expected rapid experimentation while retaining several layers of approval.
She began to raise it, then softened her point.
“It may be worth considering how the process would work.”
The regional CEO, who was defending the established company’s position, nodded.
The conversation moved on.
At dinner, they sat several places apart. Later, on the terrace, he asked what she had meant.
This time, she answered directly.
“You want startup speed, but every meaningful decision still goes through your system.”
He laughed.
“That sounded sharper than it did this afternoon.”
“You looked harder to interrupt this afternoon.”
Becoming Easier to Speak To
The conversation lasted fifteen minutes.
Then someone called them back inside.
Over the next hour, the CEO heard about the founder’s first failed product. She learned that he had once taken over a team that openly resented his appointment.
Neither story became a lesson delivered from a stage. They were simply talking.
Elsewhere, an operations director discovered that an alumnus he had considered overly formal was an enthusiastic dancer. A quiet participant became the person who knew which songs would bring everyone together. Two executives who had disagreed during the workshop spent twenty minutes laughing about travelling with teenagers.
The evening gave people more ways to understand one another.
Some danced. Others stayed outside in conversation. A few left early. Nobody had to perform sociability in the same way.
The host moved between the groups, making introductions and noticing people at the edges.
She knew that an energetic party could still contain lonely guests.
The Morning After
At the next day’s session, the younger founder spoke earlier.
This time, she laid out the approval problem clearly.
The regional CEO asked her to walk through a specific example. When she challenged his response, he stayed with the question.
Across the room, another group reached an impasse. An alumnus crossed over to ask someone he had met the previous night for help.
“Can we borrow your brain for ten minutes?”
The request felt easy.
The programme director noticed the change. More people were speaking across tables. Questions were less ceremonial. Participants were willing to show work that was still incomplete.
The party had given them shared references and a little more confidence in how others might respond.
It had not settled their business disagreements. It had made those disagreements easier to explore.
What the Camera Could Not Measure
By lunchtime, photographs were circulating.
The communications team had plenty of material: a crowded dance floor, smiling groups, a terrace full of conversation.
An AI tool helped prepare draft captions and organise submitted feedback. It could summarise what participants chose to report about the evening.
The programme director was more interested in what happened next.
Who returned to a conversation? Who asked for help? Did newer participants feel able to contribute? Did people keep in touch beyond their existing circles?
A photograph could show people standing together. It could not establish what the relationship meant.
One alumnus offered a useful observation.
“I have seen him on panels for years. Last night was the first time I felt I could call him.”
That was a meaningful opening. Whether it became a relationship would depend on both of them.
Keeping the Circle Open
The host was pleased with the evening. She also saw a problem.
The oldest alumni groups had deep shared histories. Their stories brought warmth and energy, but a newcomer could spend an entire dinner listening to references they did not understand.
For the next evening, she asked several alumni to act as hosts across generations. Their task was simple: welcome people, connect conversations and help guests find a place where they felt comfortable.
She wanted space for music and celebration, alongside places where people could hear one another.
She also wanted participants to feel free to enjoy the evening without every moment becoming public content.
The strongest memories belonged first to the people making them.
The Question Before the Next CDayZ
A sponsor asked whether the next programme could devote more evening time to formal introductions and short presentations.
The programme director understood the request. Visible business activity was easier to explain in a report.
Yet she had watched useful relationships begin while people were dancing, laughing and talking without an agenda.
She needed to decide how much structure would help—and when to let the room take over.
At the end of the final workshop, the younger founder and the regional CEO agreed to continue their discussion with their teams.
Before leaving, she pointed towards the table they had moved.
“Next time, you can take the heavy side.”
He smiled.
“Send me the actual problem first.”
The CDayZ Leadership Challenge
You are designing the social experience around CDayZ.
Create the conditions for alumni and guests to enjoy themselves, cross status boundaries and build relationships that can support future learning and work.
Decide what the hosts should actively organise, where participants should have freedom and how the experience will welcome people with different social styles.
Discussion Questions
The owner's "Eight Questions for the Room":
- What changed between the afternoon workshop and the next morning?
- How can a host make senior leaders approachable?
- How would you welcome someone who arrives alone?
- How do you keep a strong alumni tribe open to new people?
- What balance of structure and freedom would you choose?
- What role should AI and digital tools play around the experience?
- How can an evening’s connection support the next day’s work?
- How would you know the experience strengthened the tribe?
Which interactions made people more willing to ask questions, disagree or seek help?
What conditions encourage natural interaction while allowing everyone to retain personal boundaries?
Describe what happens from arrival through dinner and the later evening.
What should longstanding members do when shared stories and friendships unintentionally close the circle?
Consider introductions, seating, music, dancing, quiet conversation and the ability to leave comfortably.
Where could they reduce organising work, and what aspects of relationships should remain for people to interpret themselves?
What opportunities would let participants continue useful conversations without turning every social moment into a business obligation?
What voluntary feedback and subsequent behaviour would help you understand its value beyond attendance and photographs?
A Lesson for the Next COTRUGLI Generation
People become easier to work with when they become easier to know.
Learning, shared challenges, meals, travel and parties give the COTRUGLI tribe a richer understanding of its members. Humour and celebration allow qualities to emerge that a title or presentation rarely reveals.
Leaders help by participating, welcoming others and allowing themselves to be seen as people.
The next morning, the titles were still there.
More people felt able to speak across them.
Your comment on this chapter
A question for the table, a disagreement, what you would have done. The case lead reads every comment; the ones the table takes up enter the chapter as questions from the room, with your name.