Haggling in a Moroccan marketplace. Swapping ideas with business owners who blend tradition and hustle. You won’t find these business lessons on a syllabus — they have to be lived.
For more than 20 years, 51ԹϺ MBA students have taken part in Lee Business School’s International Seminar course, an experience designed to challenge how they think about business on a global scale.
This summer, Ajay Nune, Nic DuCharme, Amanda Catalano, and their classmates spent 10 days exploring Morocco, learning how business operates when the setting, customs, and expectations differ dramatically from those in the United States.
Here are five lessons they brought back home.
Lesson 1: Understanding the Market Means Understanding the Culture
The trip started in Casablanca, Morocco’s largest city. Modern and fast-moving, the city still holds tightly to its traditions. Visits to the Hassan II Mosque and the Mausoleum of Mohammed V offered more than architecture lessons; they were windows into the country’s spiritual and political identity.
For Ajay Nune, business insights clicked in less formal spaces.
“You can’t really grasp how informal economies operate until you walk through one,” he said, reflecting on his time in the city of Rabat’s old medina. “It’s efficient, collaborative, and deeply human.”
Along those winding streets, ceramic vendors, spice merchants, and jewelers worked shoulder to shoulder. There was less emphasis on competition and more on connection, offering a reminder that, in many parts of the world, business depends on relationships more than regulation.
Lesson 2: Agility Matters
Fez, home to one of the world’s oldest medinas, introduced a different kind of challenge. Within minutes of stepping off the bus, students were surrounded by a sensory overload of winding alleys, shouting vendors, sizzling food stalls, and the sharp scent of leather from centuries-old tanneries.
“It was chaotic, overwhelming, and completely alive,” said DuCharme.
But being adaptable and flexible in business is often where the growth happens.
The trip to the Sahara Desert added another layer. Riding camels through the dunes, surrounded by silence, the students reflected on the value of slowing down. It was a stark contrast to Fez — moving from constant motion to complete stillness in just one day. That kind of range stretches you.
Lesson 3: The Business of Making People Feel at Home
In Chefchaouen, also known as the Blue City, the group found a place where even the walls seemed to participate in a shared vision. Every doorframe, stairwell, and shopfront was painted in shades of blue. The effect was striking, but the message went deeper.
“This aesthetic, a collective effort by residents, reflected a deep sense of community,” Nune observed. That unity expressed their shared identity and made the city feel warm and inviting.
Making people feel welcome was a thoughtful, intentional part of doing business. That lesson appeared again in Marrakech, where a local family hosted them for a traditional tagine cooking class. From shopping in the medina to layering spices and cooking over coals, the experience was filled with warmth, trust, and meticulous preparation.
“The genuine warmth of our Moroccan hosts... fostered a sense of connection,” said Catalano.
You leave feeling like part of something bigger — and that’s good business.
Lesson 4: Entrepreneurship Is Everyday Hustle
In Marrakech, the group got a closer look at what entrepreneurship looks like when it’s built on daily routine and tradition. Street vendors, artists, and shopkeepers weren’t pitching ideas. They were just doing the work.
The souks were a masterclass in microenterprise, where everything from pricing to negotiation played out in real time. “The vibrant entrepreneurial spirit evident in the souks … a compelling case study in informal economies and sustainable practices,” Catalano wrote.
While entrepreneurship is often tied to high-tech or high-growth ventures, in Morocco it was about craftsmanship, consistency, and community.
The group also saw how sustainability shows up in small, practical ways. Local sourcing, low-waste operations, and long-term customer relationships weren’t strategies — they were just the norm. For students used to spreadsheets and pitch decks, it was a shift in perspective.
Lesson 5: Culture Shapes Business from the Inside Out
Each stop along the way — Chefchaouen’s quiet streets, Aït Ben Haddou’s ancient clay walls, the nighttime drumming beside a desert fire — was a reminder that you can’t separate business from the people behind it.
“This journey to Morocco has offered profound personal and professional takeaways,” Catalano wrote. It “reinforced the immense value of cultural intelligence.”
That mindset came into focus during the group’s final activity: a tagine cooking class hosted by a local family. From sourcing ingredients in the market to preparing the meal at home, the group saw a business model built on reputation, care, and consistency.
They weren’t just learning techniques. They were learning how people share, collaborate, and make something with care.
“The genuine warmth transcended language barriers,” Catalano wrote.
Business isn’t always about frameworks or forecasts. Sometimes, it’s about understanding how culture shapes the way people work — and why relationships matter more than spreadsheets. And to gain that, these LBS students needed to travel abroad.
