Chocolates Kill Leadership

When the Q&A session is just as insightful and engaging as the rehearsed part of a speech, you know that the speaker is great. We had one such speaker yesterday in Class. It was the CEO of Neuhaus Chocolates (Jos Linkens). It was truly a great talk. But that is not what this post is about.

Before the advent of computers, the ruffles of the plastic cover were used to replicate fireworks sound in Hollywood movies. And it is for a good reason the plastic covers were used :) 

During the presentation yesterday, the CEO was kind enough to pass a cover (Plastic cover) filled with chocolates to the class… Each time a student dug into the cover to pick a chocolate, it was like fireworks going off! And then the cover would get passed on for the next student… It reached a point where the voice of speaker and the ruffles noise were competing for our attention. It was amazing to see how different students behaved… some didn’t care how much noise the cover made, they dug in as hard and deep as they could, others had an animated face as they tried to pick the chocolate without touching the walls of the cover which would make the noise (except that each and every student failed and failed miserably)…

I wished someone would show some leadership to hold the cover and not pass it on to the next person until the talk was over… None, absolutely none did… when one student tried to hold it… the person sitting next to him practically demanded his right to make the noise and grabbed the cover away from him… it was not just the students, we even had a couple of faculty members who found the chocolates way too irresistible :) It was a 90 minute interaction out of which the fireworks went on for nearly 20 minutes.

It might just be me who was overly distracted by the noise because the speaker himself was in his splendid flow of ideas and seemed least the bit distracted.

We have had our embarrassing moments during other presentations. But the other times, it was usually was an irrelevant or rhetorical question which we could blame on one person. As funny as it sounds, this was clearly the first time that, as a complete group, we let ourselves down… I wonder if it’s immaturity or just irresistible chocolates :)

Routine is not boring

As I walk to school every morning, two thoughts constantly cross my mind. The first is about how incredibly lucky I am (I don’t mean to be sloppy soulful, I’m indeed lucky) and how it’s scary that this place feels like home now! The air is cold but not unusually cold; the streets are clean, not unusually clean.

I also realised that in the past 2-3 months, all that I have done is take the same walk everyday and do that same thing… i.e. learn. It’s the same routine and yet it is not boring. I feel no need to do something out of the routine. It’s as if I don’t even notice this routine. This is strange compared to how I felt when I was working. The routine was staring at me every day. It was a constant desire to do something different (that explains the crazy music scores, online chess and photography). I wonder why?

Come to think of it, I choose to learn and therefore I go to school in the morning. It’s something I look forward to out of choice. In going to school, it’s my objective which is first served. Whereas I must earn money to live and therefore I had no choice but to go to work, in going to work, I must first satisfy the objective of my firm and then serve my own objective. It’s a variation to the classical principle-agent problem :) I guess that is the main difference.

Last week, our program director, when talking about our forthcoming international study trip, said “life becomes boring if you have nothing to look forward to”. It’s very true! Except that life becomes boring if you have nothing to look forward the next morning! This does have a profound impact on how one chooses his career path. You can either choose a career which will afford you a vacation in Trinidad at the end of the year, which means you have something to look forward to at the end of the year or you can choose a career which lets you learn everyday and that means you have something to lookforward to every morning!

Warren Buffett said postponing the pursuit of your dream job in order to pursue a high paying job is like saving sex for your later life :)

To cut or not cut hair!

MBA is like level 1 of a video game. All that is expected is that you swing the sword and all demons are killed. Not the same in level two… you need real skill. As soon we get into the real world, its no more about hypothetical cases… it’s all real. 

The billion dollar is not a print on the HBS case study, its real cash in bank; the indicator of risk is not a beta score, it’s about whether the last name of the CEO is Buffet or Madoff; Your understanding of CSR is not based on how much you paraphrase a fortune 500 company CSR report, it’s based on your choice between making a 30 million dollar sale or topping your competitor’s “gift” to the client’s procurement manager by 3000 dollars. It’s not about the constraints that are plugged into the linear model to optimize the supply chain; it’s about constraints that are not plugged in it. Decision making in real world is a “different ball game” compared to MBA. And yet, it’s easy to fall into the trap of “if I’m an MBA… I can automatically improve the bottom line number by 30%”.

My dilemma with decision making is rather trivial… it’s about whether or not to cut my hair :) After seven years of frequent hair cutting, I finally have had the chance to let it grow wild, since I don’t need to meet clients and I’m just a student! But now, it’s time for interviews. Every course about interviewing etiquette, leadership (concept of staging), negotiation and simple logic leads to the conclusion that I must cut hair and yet the idea that my near and dear ones will have a nice laugh when they see me with long hair seems to be the constraint that I’m unable to overcome :)

Marketing and Strategy

Often (well, not often, but a couple of times) in class, the question was raised about what exactly is the difference between strategy management and marketing management. I guess the question does come up in many marketing and strategy classes not because the answer is difficult, but because it takes us a while to warm up to the two concepts :) 

I was unsure as well. After all, both courses talk about uniqueness in value proposition (UVP which is another buzz word I’m only just beginning to understand fully) and about segmentation (who to serve), targeting (more in marketing than strategy course) and positioning.

Now that we have a good 15 hours of lectures in both courses and we have had the chance to read more material, it turns out that the answer is quite simple. Marketing is outward looking and Strategy is inward looking. 

Marketing is about identifying the customer/ market needs, how these needs differ across time and space, which are the best customer segments to serve and how best to communicate the unique value proposition to the segment. 

Strategy on the other hand is more inward looking about how to choose the activities to perform, and those not to perform and to create a strategic fit in the configuration of these activities in a way that it creates a unique value chain – a sustainable competitive advantage – which produces the unique value proposition to the customer.

School evaluation!

Program management meeting is when the school receives feedback from students. Its the time for surprises, not just for the school, but for me (us?) too! I never imagined that the morale of some students was low. But this is the feedback provided today. Some said they were in a negative state of mind!

The logical inference may be that the school has not met students’ expectation. But is this the final conclusion? A quick look at the reasons why students have a negative morale might help. The top reasons were lack of transparency in scoring student class participation, requirement that students must accumulate at least 90% attendance, “feeling” that few courses were irrelevant for some and tiredness due to heavy workload.

Granted that lack of transparency in scoring class participation is indeed an issue, however, none of the student mentioned that the lack of adequate feedback on the exam papers as an issue. Quite frankly, the latter is a bigger issue because without adequate feedback, our learning from the course diminishes. We have no clue what we did wrong with the paper assignment or examination (Although we have open access to the professors anytime to request feedback). Any case, my guess is that it was not mentioned because the scoring seems objective for paper assignments unlike for class participation which seems to be based on the professor’s qualitative judgement. The rest of the reasons in my opinion were unfair.

Is it too much to ask from students to attend 90% of classes or is it fair to say that courses are irrelevant without going through the assigned reading or cases… Nevertheless, it shows how complicated achieving customer satisfaction can be :) A business school could offer all the nice courses and once that need is met, students’ basic expectation turns to receiving high scores :)

Strategic Strategy Plan!

“Strategic” must be the most misunderstood adjective in business english. I’ve heard terms like Strategic organization, Strategic growth plan, Strategic agency which are ambiguous enough. Last week, I heard the term Strategic Strategy plan. It pretty much confirmed my suspicion. Few understand what strategy means. I guess everyone understands it only intuitively like my mom does :)

Often, Strategic is used as a decorative word to make meaningless plans sound important. As soon as we ask what is the plan strategic for? Few seem to have a clue. Strategic growth plan to grow?! There is a difference between a Strategic plan to grow and Strategic growth plan.

The golden words uttered when describing career ambitions are “I want to do something with strategy and business development”. Implementation is a taboo term when talking about future careers. I wonder why implementation cannot be strategic to a company and I wonder what “do something with strategy” means :)

EU too Socialist to live in?

 I’m going to take the liberty and meander around in this post…

Vyacheslav Nikonov is the grandson of Stalin’s foreign minister. In a recent financial times article he said:

“The EU is too socialist – some even say communist: too much regulation, too many welfare programmes, and too high taxes”. 

It is true. A European career does not provide a better incentive either in financial terms or in terms of career progress when compared to Bangalore unless you work at an investment bank in Zurich… oh by the way… are there any investment banks left :). What then is the reason to seek a career in Europe.. I guess it has more to do with socialism than to do with the career. It is to do with freedom.

On the night of 30th December 2008, my classmate and I were on Skype and were discussing how to spend the New Year’s Eve. We decided at 11 PM in the night that we should drive through Belgium into Germany, cross Germany into Czech and spend the New Year in Prague. From there, time permitting, we should also drive to Slovakia and then back to Belgium. 8 hours later, we drove to Prague and made the plan happen! Here are few snaps. We didn’t have to think about borders, directions, accommodation, safety or currency… it was just as easy as driving to the next town. I could never imagine doing this back home. Freedom and happiness are more precious than money. 

However, I spoke to my classmate who has travelled all over the world during his life. He said, the one thing you miss if you relocate often is real friends. It takes about two years to make friends you can trust. If you keep relocating… having a good friendship is just not feasible.

Salary Check

Today a session was organised to give the students insights about laws relating to taxes, immigration and employment. It’s true! The highest tax bracket in Belgium is 55%! Based on the current tax structures, I crunched few numbers to find a regression between Salary levels in Bangalore and Belgium which will lead to same net savings. I could be way off target here… :)

If X is the salary in Belgium and Y is the EUR equivalent of Indian Salary, the regression I end up with is Y = 0.6017X – 26,962.00. Basically means the salary in India will yield the same net savings as the salary in Belgium even if the Indian salary is 26962 Euros less than 60% of the salary in Belgium. For example, A 78000 Euro salary in Belgium will result in net saving of 5000 Euro per annum, which is the same net saving for a salary of 20000 Euros (78000*0.6016 – 26,962) in India. Note: Utility of 5000 Euros in India is exponentially higher than in Belgium.

Assumptions: 

• Monthly expense in Belgium -> 2000 Euros + 5% of gross salary every month
• Monthly expense in Bangalore -> 500 Euros (equivalent) + 5% of gross salary every month
• Exchange rate: 1 Euro = 60 Rupees
• 12 % – 13 % social security contribution each month

New Pages

The new post called “it’s all coming together” was so long that I had to publish it as a separate page. Actually, I realised I’ve published a few new pages about how the MBA course is evolving, about my role models and about what I’m learning in MBA. The “what I’m learning in MBA” page is by no means an exhaustive list :)

Flow

This is one of the best talks I’ve watched. I first listened to it in HP more than two years back and I’ve been coming back to view to it over and over again. Its intriguing. The youtube description of this video is:

Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi asks, “What makes a life worth living?” Noting that money cannot make us happy, he looks to those who find pleasure and lasting satisfaction in activities that bring about a state of “flow.”

The problem with that question is, no matter how facsinating it may be, I dont want to be aware of what makes a life worth living! If I did, it would be the classical “Is that it?” moment.  Nevertheless, objectively, it makes a lot of sense. the key message in this talk is a key principle on which job hunting should begin :)