Building Internal Motivation and Personal Goals: The Key to Achieving Success Without External Pressure

The cleaning industry professional earned his Corvinus Executive MBA diploma in 2021. In our interview, he shared that as a result of his studies, he feels he now has many more tools for successful decision-making. Additionally, he has gained several new skills that he can apply not only in business but also in his role as a parent. 

László Zsombók applied to the Executive MBA programme at Corvinus University on his own initiative, after earning a degree in Marketing and Management from Heller Farkas College (now Metropolitan University). 

It was entirely my decision. I’ve always wanted to study in an internationally recognized and accredited programme in English that offers a broad perspective. Previously, I worked in the FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) sector, and one of my goals was to gain a deeper understanding of other business sectors as well,

he explained. 

He added:

Without internal motivation and under external pressure, it’s not even worth applying for or starting any kind of programme. I’m driven by intrinsic motivation to continuously improve my performance. This programme also taught me how to achieve exceptional results while actually enjoying the process.

He believes that the two-year programme was very intensive. In fact, they were the last cohort to graduate before the programme transitioned into a double degree partnership with Maastricht University. As part of the programme, László Zsombók chose to spend his ‘International Study Week’ at Católica Porto Business School in Portugal. This experience provided him with a wealth of new insights and inspiration from the business practices he observed there. He could have chosen to go to cities like New York or Munich instead, but he found Portugal to be an enriching choice. 

What he also appreciated about the programme was the opportunity to meet executives with whom he could discuss business dilemmas – not only at the time but even years later. Interestingly, he mentions that he had been able to apply what he learned during the programme to his personal life as a parent. 

When I was attending this programme, my twin daughters, Anna and Eszter, were in the 6th and 7th grades. In some ways, I involved them in what I was learning and shared many of the methodologies with them. That was also the time when my daughters started competing in sports and playing volleyball – I was a professional volleyball player myself. Today, they are exceptionally talented athletes in their age group, even on an international level. As parents, we tried to raise and teach them the same principles I believe in: to have their own internal motivation and personal goals, and to never strive for any achievement due to external pressure,

emphasized Zsombók. 

Besides sports, he also considers learning, training, and continuous development to be important. As a result, his twin daughters have received the ‘Hungary’s Good Athlete, Good Student’ award three times, which he is very proud of as a father. But most of all, he is proud of the fact that they achieve exceptional results without anxiety and with enjoyment.

As a leader, this is what I strive for in my work as well. I believe creating the right environment is crucial to ensuring development and achieving outstanding results,

 he added. 

He has been able to apply much of what he learned at Corvinus in his career at Kärcher:

In 2022, Kärcher Hungary approached me to build a completely new sales division within the company – the retail division – and to make it successful together. It was a very exciting challenge because instead of fine-tuning an already established business model, we had to rebuild it almost from scratch. Fortunately, we were able to do this. We’ve achieved significant growth in recent years in a challenging economic environment, and of course, what I learned in the MBA programme has contributed to this,

 he stated. 

As he emphasized,

I was able to apply the knowledge I gained during the programme in strategy development, organizational development, process optimization, management controlling, and leadership tasks.’

He added:

Looking back after two years, I can confidently say that the new business line at Kärcher is performing well.

He has succeeded in building a committed, motivated team that is capable of adapting to changes and working effectively. As a leader, Zsombók also considers it very important for team members to work in synergy, achieving better results together than individually.

They should dare to be honest about anything, and feel free to make mistakes. Making mistakes is not the problem; the problem is not learning from them,

he states. 

As a result of the programme, Zsombók now also works as a business consultant, executive trainer, and mentor. He is a member of the 3rdGEN Management Consulting group, with whom he has implemented many successful business development, management training, and mentoring projects for Hungarian SMEs and international companies. 

Besides his positive experiences, would he change anything about the MBA programme? According to Zsombók, the programme has provided him with a global perspective, but perhaps there could be even more opportunities for exchanging experiences between different countries and regions. He added that when he was in the programme, there were 22 people in his group, and he still keeps in touch with many of them. They follow each other’s career paths on various platforms.

Perhaps there could be more alumni reunions at the university, as one of the great values of the programme was getting to know each other’s thoughts, experiences, and learning from one another,

added the Director of Sales and Business Development at Kärcher. 

Katalin Török