MBA in Australia

End of the MBA and Future Plans (last post)

2007-05-21T09:59:00.000+09:30

Two years past by and I have finished my MBA. I thought this is a good time to share my experience and my future plans.

The main goal of doing the MBA was to learn a set of new skills; take some time to understand myself and create a vision of what I need to do in the future. Moving to Australia from Bombay was a chance to also create a better lifestyle for my family.

Now that I have finished the MBA I can say that most of the goals were achieved and I am happy I took this decision. The MBA did bring about a more strategic understanding of the business world, increased knowledge & skill sets and a sense of what needs to be done to create success.

More importantly, over the last two years I realised that I can combine my interest in finance (in ADP), the social aspect of making a difference (in Deeshaa); Business development and entrepreneurship (in BPODigest.com) and environmental activities in the current job (in DFC) into creating a career in the field of "sustainability and business" which dove tails perfectly into my values, beliefs, philosophies and future plans.

If you want to understand what I mean by "sustainability and business" check this link - http://worldisgreen.com/about-worldisgreencom/

This realization in 2006 then directed me to explore my ideas and now I am well into a journey to work in this area. ( www.worldisgreen.com)

One of the great learnings was to establish myself in the university, in the community, making new friends, the workplace, understand a new culture and a new country. This learning will stay with me forever and will make a difference on how I view life now and in the future.

The best part was the multi-cultural experience of living in Australia. I had the opportunity to meet, interact and enjoy with people from various parts of the world. It is a unique experience that is available in only a few countries of the world.

Another interesting experience was to meet Indians from various parts of the country and the world and South Asians from Pakistan and Sri Lanka. There is so much in common.

Where am I going from here?

After finishing off my application for a permanent residency here in July, I plan to explore job and consulting opportunities in Australia. If a really good opportunity comes up then I may look beyond Australia. A visit to India is due around September of this year.

As this quote from Marcel Proust says, "The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes" .

I have developed new eyes.

Thanks to all who have followed this blog or have passed through it. The blog has served me well and I hope you have enjoyed it. Today is the end of this blog.

Looking forward to a exciting new life. Keep in touch!

You can connect to me on Linked In or e-mail/chat at anantula [AT] gmail [DOT] com, on Yahoo/MSN/Skype (ID - suhit_a) or if you are interested follow my new blog - World is Green (RSS Feed; Email Subscription).

Cheers,
Suhit

The Sustainable MBA

2006-12-05T13:32:00.000+10:30

Karen Losee at GreenBiz.com writes about "The Sustainable MBA".

She says that the climate change and sustainability issues facing us will require new leaders.

The future calls for leaders that can develop and lead profitable,
competitive businesses that are sustainable, both in a social and environmental
way. Where will these future leaders come from?

Traditionally, the business schools teach that "there is no higher purpose than to make money". This is true for most of the MBAs.

There are signs that this is changing. She cites a recent Net Impact survey among MBA schools in 110 schools.

81% believed businesses should work toward the betterment of society
89% said managers should take into account social and environmental impacts when making business decisions
78% agreed that corporate social responsibility should be integrated into core curricula in MBA programs.”

This is a great change in thinking, but is not true everywhere.

In my MBA in Australia, there are very few people I have met who think in those terms. Business people generally do not talk about anything but money.

The UniSA MBA curriculum is struggling to teach the traditional MBA topics well, and are nowhere near talking about 'corporate social responsibility' or 'sustainability'.

For somebody like me who was interested in these topics it was very hard to pick topics that were near to this topic. I picked one elective from another Uni on "Enviornmental and Resource Economics" which has provided me a grounding in economics and the environment and a second elective designed as a small research topic on using Environmental Accounting principles in office buildings concentrating on Computers.

However, I believe that the tools taught in the traditional MBAs are still relevant. It just needs a different orientation and direction.

One book which I am reading now which combines the business world and sustainability is "Capitalism at the Crossroads" from Stuart Hart.

The first chapter of the book is titled "From Obligation to Opportunity". This is the theme which people need to understand.

For a country like Australia however, it is tough. There is a growing understanding of the environmental issues here but then it is dismissed because "we are too small and insignificant" to make a difference. In terms of poverty and other issues - Australia it too far away from these problems.

Firstly, you do not see poverty in the cities or elsewhere. Australians do not relate to poverty well. And poverty in other countries, this is more connected with aid and charity.

To be able to see that it can be a opportunity may be a leap too big conceptually.

Atleast in Australia, Green MBA may be possible but a Sustainable MBA is a tough ask.

[sustainability]

Low Rent Living

2006-08-31T10:05:00.000+09:30

Moving into a new country and a new city one of the first decisions that you need to make is renting a house. This rant is my experience with dealing with Indian students only!

When I moved into Adelaide almost 18 months back I started living with a couple of Indian students. In the next two months I met many people, saw their houses and at the end decided to rent a subsidized university accomodation in an 'Ok' suburb.

My wife was happy with my decision and after a year, we moved a leg up into a slightly bigger house but still a low rent subsidized housing but now in a better suburb (whatever that means).

Our campus was located in the city to enable part-timers to come from work to school. Some of the students decided to stay near to the City (the CBD) which would enable them to access the university easily and use the Uni provided transport.

This meant paying higher rent every week for 100 weeks.

My simple calculation was that, house rent was a fixed expense. And due to the lease contracts you are stuck with them for atleast a year. This meant that the rent should be the least you can possible manage. Just this decision will save me more than $6000 compared to some of my friends in the 2 years. This is including the move to the new house.

As a student that's a decent sized money, enough to pay three courses or financed our Car, our melbourne and brisbane trip and still save!

In this year we have been meeting many couples who have settled down here. They have started to look for houses to buy. Interestingly the most important decision forpeople who are working for atleast 2 years (in Australia from overseas) is to buy a home, take a mortgage and pay it for 20 years.

Not that owning a home is a bad thing, especially now with the housing market tanking in Australia, it could be a good buy too. However, is this better than low-rent living.

Low-rent living provides options to save, have flexibility, not get stuck with a job you don't like, start a business with the money you saved, invest in stock markets and just plain peace of mind.

Next year when I finish my education, we will not buy a house. We rather start a business!

This rant of mine has been inspired by this post on low-rent living on the Chief Happiness Officer blog.

Australia: A Small Business Country

2006-05-29T11:14:00.000+09:30

I have been in Australia for more than a year now. Adelaide in that sense is more of a small country town than a big city. It is a problem to find a job here while studying for most of the MBA students.

Some of the students have graduated a couple of months back. It remains to be seen what and when they get a job.

One problem seems to be the fact that Australia is a small business country.

==========
At June 2004 the number of active businesses on the Australian Bureau
of Statistics Business Register (ABSBR) was 3,015,318. Of the total
number of businesses, 837,078 (28%) were employing, with 2,178,240
(72%) non-employing.

The majority of employing businesses, 754,504 (90%) had between 0 and
19 employees. There were 77,656 (9%) businesses with 20 to 199
employees and 4,918 (1%) businesses with 200+ employees.
==========

This is from the ABS through Google Answers.

A large number of businesses were small business who did not provide employment, next lot were small businesses which provided employment and the next lot just about 5,000 companies had employees more than 200.

This seems to be the critical problem for employment for MBAs in the country. Generally, MBAs are sought by large companies as they can afford them. A small business cannot afford to have an MBA and even if it does the expectations are way higher than a large business.

This can help in understanding why it may be tough to get a job after the MBA.

This is just one aspect of the situation. As a recently elected student representative to the Board of IGSB, I have decided to take up the issue of career services to the MBA students as my priority. This school lacks the basic of services and they have slowly come to grips with it as more and more international students are joining the school and demanding it.

However, I have not yet seen any great strategy to solve this issue.

Scott's Conviction

2006-04-27T09:38:00.000+09:30

Scott McNealy steps down as CEO of Sun.

In an interview with The Register he gives a piece of his mind. His passion about his business and commitment to the Network is the Computer stuff is known. He talks about why he think the WalStreet is wrong to suggest that he lays off 15,000 his employees. With being in the red for longtime, Scott and now Jonathan are showing their belief in people and vision. Kudos to them,

The best ofcourse is this,

Look, I've thought long and hard about this stuff and my business, and I don't care what anybody says. We're right. And that's how I live my life.

Sophisticated Simplicity

2006-03-04T16:25:00.000+10:30

If you have been following Apple, (which I do), then you would have known that Apple invited the press to show off some fun products. Withough disclosing before the event what these “fun” products where Apple increased the buzz it generally generates. However, after the event it kind of hit it back. Why?

Apple released a iPod boom-box and the Mac-mini not improved and positioned as the “living room PC”.

However, the mac fanatics and the media were more worried about the lack of effect then what was really shown.

But Micheal Greeson, President of the Diffusion Group, wrote what I think is one of the most balanced report on the latest releases from Apple.

He acknowledges the fact that the event did not live upto the hype and blames it on Apple saying, “Such is the danger of being an industry innovator”. This is so true. Apple is getting ready to face the problems of success.

6-button remote control

What interested me in the article is what Greesman calls “sophisticated simplicity”. The ability of Apple to design sophiticated products like Mac computers, iPod and in this case the Mac mini and its six-button remote.

Why does Greesman think is important?

Apple’s remote control is yet another example of the company’s emphasis on designing elegant, easy-to-use solutions. Yes, it’s just a remote control. But it’s the remote control’s banality that makes it such a powerful expression of deeply Apple believes in this vision, what I call the “sophisticated simplicity” strategy. If one looks closely into the remote control, you can almost make out images of Apple’s future…

The Mac Mini remote control only has six buttons and looks similar to an iPod but without the viewing screen. Let me repeat that just in case you missed it the first time: the remote control has only six buttons and it looks similar to an iPod. Unlike other MCPC vendors and the CE community in general, Apple seems to think that six buttons and a killer graphical interface are enough to enable consumers to easily access and control their digital media.

Avoid adding buttons to a remote control even though we can? Brilliant!

As Ockham’s Razor (also known as the principle of parsimony) reminds us, given a choice between two equally valid explanations, the simpler of the two is preferred. This principle applies equally well to architecture and product design, although it may seem foreign to most CE designers. For example, I recently purchased a multi-room/multi-zone AV receiver from a upscale CE manufacturer, a complicated beast with a remote control that looks like the pilot’s panel of a 737. I’ve had the system for more than two months and I’m still learning how to execute the basic multi-device commands. Does it have to be so difficult to use? Not at all, but many CE vendors fail to grasp the importance of an elegant user interface.

This goes back to Apple’s elegant design of the Mac OS, the Newton, the ‘Books. Its part of the Apple design philosophy which is sometimes coigned terms like “zen-like design” due to its simplistic brilliance.

I was reading the other day about Josn Kauffman’s Personal MBA. In that he lists 42 books which should make your reading list for a personal MBA. The list of books are impressive.

He lists two books which are connected to this discussion. One of them is “The Substance of Style by Virginia Postrel”.

His introduction:

Ever wonder why people are willing to pay $6.00 for a designer toilet brush when the plain old $1.99 special accomplishes the same goal? Why Apple’s iPod is so popular? Why some people are slaves to the fashion industry? It has to do with aesthetics: all things being equal, people will consistently choose products and services that please their individual sense of style.

Businesses all over the world are beginning to pay attention to design for a simple reason: good design has real economic value. In The Substance of Style, Postrel argues that aesthetic value is becoming an increasingly important differentiator in a world where product function and quality are consistently high.

This is exactly what is needed to succeed in the business. I agree, marketing is important, strategy is important but design is becoming very important. Sometimes as important or more important than the other parts of the equation.

However, the traditional MBA schools do not even get this. For example: my MBA at UniSA does not talk about design nor have any course remote connected to aesthetics.

To give you an example, compare this HTML version of the Personal MBA to the ChangeThis version. And then think about it.

Past and Present

2006-02-23T07:46:00.000+10:30

Past and Present
Originally uploaded by thegreenguy.

Study makes you smarter? Or does it?

2006-02-21T19:41:00.000+10:30

21-02-06_1943.jpg
Originally uploaded by thegreenguy.

This is an ad for the Unibooks store in Adelaide for buying books. Australians have a funny way of putting things (mainly laughing at themselves) but this is really funny.

JOB OPENING: BOP Consortium and The Solae Company

2006-01-27T08:53:00.000+10:30

If any of you are interested in the following job, please contact me at anantula AT gmail DOT com.

Many of you know of the Base of the Pyramid (BOP) concept, thanks to its popularization in books by Stuart Hart and C.K.Prahalad. The Base of the Pyramid Learning Lab, led by Stuart Hart at Cornell University's Business School, is now working with DuPont's food division, Solae, to set up a BOP protocol project, with the initial pilot project based in Hyderabad. The project is looking to hire four dedicated interns to work on the pilot project, reporting to Solae's director of global accounts. This is a PAID position, with the significant upside that you will get to work on a one-of-a-kind BOP project with a global team. The job will include a significant training component with the Cornell/Solae team. Here is a brief description of the position:

The Solae Company has initiated a project to develop sustainable businesses in India that serve the needs of poor individuals and communities that comprise the “base of the economic pyramid” (BoP). For the first phase of this project, Solae seeks four interns to become members of a Solae BoP Protocol Team. The Team will include members from and be guided by a US-based group of leading BoP business professionals and academics affiliated with Cornell University’s Johnson School of Management who have directed the development of a BoP Protocol™. The BoP Protocol™ is a roadmap for engaging poor communities in co-developing business ideas that meet local needs and generate value for the company.

In terms of background, we are looking for someone with a serious interest in catalyzing economic development in India through sustainable private enterprise. Ideally, you will will have expertise in one of the following areas: business and social entrepreneurship; social work; development nutrition. Knowledge of Telugu is a plus, though not a requirement.

If you are interested or need more information regarding this position, please send me your resume asap at nebuer AT gmail dot com. Feel free to forward this to anyone you think might be interested.

The End of an Era - Drucker Dies

2005-11-24T13:29:00.000+10:30

If there is one person I can claim to have read, followed and learnt from is Peter Drucker. He is thinker extraordinaire.

Sadly, Dr. Drucker died on Nov 11th 2005 at the ripe old age of 95. I feel a sense of sadness as I have been his fan for a long time now. I feel as if a dear one has died.

Drucker is hailed by many as the "father of management". the Economist recently wrote that he is " one management thinker every educated person should read".

Of the 40 odd books he wrote I own atleast 18 of them. I am a big fan of Peter. Whatever I have learnt about management, my princilples, the thinking patterns, the big picture ideas have come from him. If not for him, I would not be what I am.

For me. Drucker is the one person everybody should read. Not only has written widely, he has a big heart and a continous view on the long-term, history and big picture stuff. Above all Drucker shows the "direction", he is the "compass", he talks a lot about "effectiveness" and it is upto us to find the tools to get that done.

Doing my MBA I miss reading him. I am surprised that my Uni does not suggest his books at all. Very strange. The MBA is full of tools and stuff. Somehow learning tools would make a smarter decision maker.

Drucker shows the way - the path to take. Tools will help us get there faster, better, easier etc.

If you have not read him, please do read him. I re-read him every time I come across a problem and find new ideas. He will be missed.

Accounting Course

2005-11-16T15:47:00.000+10:30

The accounting course is going fine. We are done with the financial accounting part of it where we were taught the various rations. However, I am dissapointed till now with the course. The Prof did not get into how to use the actual analysis on a company but rather gave some spreadsheets etc which we can get anywhere on the Net.

Now he has moved into Management Accounting which is all about costing and how to generate internal reports for startegy etc.

I am working on a group project to analyse a company called Boral Ltd. from a shareholder's perspective. This is first project in the course where I do not have a clue on where I am going.

Ratan Tata's Interview

2005-11-03T22:37:00.000+10:30

If there is one Corporate head that I absolutely respect in India it is Rata Tata, the Chairman of the TATA group in India.

A recent McKinsey Interview with him tells us more about him.

Some excerpts:

companies that are not good corporate citizens—that don't hold to standards and that allow the environment and the community to suffer—are really criminals in today's world

What I feel most proud of is that we have been able to grow without compromising any of the values or ethical standards that we consider important. And I am not harping on this hypocritically. It was a major decision to uphold these values and ethics in an environment that is deteriorating around you. If we had compromised them, we could have done much better, grown much faster, and perhaps been regarded as much more successful in the pure business sense. But we would have lost the one differentiation that this group has against others in the country. We would have been just another venal business house.

I have been involved with South Africa for perhaps seven or eight years. There was such an enormous disparity between rich and poor, and I always felt that this large poor community had been exploited over the years. So I met [Thabo] Mbeki before he became president—this was in [Nelson] Mandela's time—and I said we really wanted to do something in South Africa to give to the country rather than take away from it.

We have been a very measured, very cautious group, which has looked at the market, decided what was safe, and then moved in. We need instead to lead and not just follow. We have to take more risks and gain predominance in that manner. Targeting the larger part of the income pyramid is an important part of what Tata will be doing.

Leisure and Productivity

2005-10-19T10:13:00.000+09:30

Ross Gittins in the Sydney Morning Herald asks the right question in relation to Australia.

She asks "Is the route to riches justified if people are being lost along the way".

In a country like Australia, which has grown its GDP Per capita consistently over the last 3 decades and ranks 11th in the world where does the goal of higher productivity end.

Ross points to the fact that increased productivity is important as it results in the increase in overall incomes. However, "Trouble is, doing so puts means ahead of ends. It focuses on the income, forgetting why we want it. It makes us the servants of factories and offices, rather than their masters.".

She points out that this,

"…robs us of our humanity, taking away our leisure and making us more like robots. Humans don't just need leisure time, they need time off work at the same time as their spouse and while their children aren't at school. That's why weekends were invented, particularly Sundays.

Humans are obsessed by their families - by their mum and their dad, by their spouse and their kids, not to mention their siblings."

Ross points out to the fact that "income" by itself is the wrong measure. What is the goal of being rich? Is it happiness?

The Economist asked a similar question sometime back: "Why don't rising incomes make everybody happier?"

The Economist points to the work of Richard Layard, an economics professor at the London School of Economics. He comes out with some non-intuitive findings. [Happiness: Has Social Science a Clue: Lecture 1, Lecture 2, Lecture 3]

One of the paradoxes is: an individual who becomes richer becomes happier; but when society as a whole grows richer, nobody seems any more content. Professor Layard explains by what he calls "habituation": "people adjust quickly to changes in living standards. So although improvements make them happier for a while, the effect fades rapidly. For instance, 30 years ago central heating was considered a luxury; today it is viewed as essential."

The Economist article goes on to provide results from two surveys of harvard students where

asked whether they would prefer (a) $50,000 a year while others got half that or (b) $100,000 a year while others got twice as much. A majority chose (a). They were happy with less, as long as they were better off than others.

The same Harvard students were also asked to choose between (c) two weeks' holiday, while others have only one week and (d) four weeks' holiday while others get eight. This time a clear majority preferred (d). In other words, people's rivalry over income does not extend to leisure. The result of this, suggests Lord Layard, is that developed societies may tend to work too hard in order to consume more material goods, and so consume too little leisure.

Leisure then is an indicator of progress. For example: The sustainability indicator, The Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) which puts into monetary terms the value of household and volunteer work, resource depletion, pollution and leisure time is a better indicator of progress. It "for example, subtracts destructive costs and adds in social and economic benefits ignored by the Gross Domestic Product"

According to the GPI:

VII. Changes in Leisure Time
As a nation increases in wealth, people should have increasing latitude to choose between more work and more free time for family or other activities. In recent years, however, the opposite has occurred. The GDP ignores this loss of free time, but the GPI treats leisure as most Americans do — as something of value. When leisure time increases, the GPI goes up; when Americans have less of it, the GPI goes down.

This is so right. If the case was that if a poor country like India or what even the Australians many, many years back (50 yrs to 100 yrs) back used to work for more number hours with lesser pay and lesser leisure time.

One of the advatantages of a developed country is the "quality time" that can be available to a person. The last 6 months that I have spent in Australia has clearly provided me an opportunity to appreciate that.

I get paid by-the-hour which is anathema in India. It provides me the opportunity to work in the prescribed hours, earn enough income to manage my expenses and at the same time spend the rest of time on studies, family, friends and my personal interests.

This would not have been possible with the work-culture, wages and time available in India. And this is one of the differences of living in a developed country.

The Australian's and other developed country citizens should and most of them do value their leisure time. Now only if I could convince them and make a similar case for Environmental management.

The MBA Menace

2005-10-13T12:16:00.000+09:30

There has been a lot being written on MBAs in general and particularly the US style of MBAs. I have touched about it before: here and here.

Check this.

I couldn't get too mad at the MBAs, though. They didn't create the system. Had the blogger been back in the Navy, where putting out fires is serious business, he'd surely have pressed more. But he was at Wharton now, where perception is reality, return on investment is all that counts, and the only fires worth putting out are the sparks inside ourselves

The entire article shows how much the MBA is all about money making and nothing else. Sometimes I wonder if I am in the right field at all, with my assertions that as an MBA I want to make a difference to the world and all. Is this course tell you anything that can help change the world?

Henry Mintzberg attacks the MBA again. He calls it the MBA Menace.

Sure, you've taken courses called "management" and "strategy." But these were about looking in from the outside. The truth is, no one can become a manager in a classroom. Management is not a profession, nor is it science. It is a practice that depends mostly on craft and significantly on art. Craft is learned by experience. Art can, of course, be admired in a classroom--think of all the visionaries you read about in cases. But voyeurism is not management, either, nor does it develop creativity.

I hope you learn. The world desperately needs dedicated leaders. Not heroes on some kind of fast track, but decent human beings who engage themselves and others substantially. That could be you--if you can get past your MBA.

There, that's it.

I have started to wonder if the Australian MBA is better than the US ones. My school does not use Case Studies much. Some of them use it, but it is not a case study approach. 80% of the students are part-time students who are working and studying at the same time. Somehow that seems to be a good combination.

Australian's do not put a lot of emphasis on rankings as much as Americans do and even Indians do. So most of the MBA schools are doing well and people go to the one nearest to them.

And frankly Australians do not believe that the MBA can make a huge difference to their career nor get them stratospheric salaries. They kind of follow the idea that it is good in the long term - some knowledge, some connections and a degree to brag about which can open some doors. Of course, the money comes with it I guess.

Due to the nature of the Australian MBA I am getting more freedom to find myself and the stuff that I want to do. There is no specific emphasis on ROI or Finance or technology. In a way it is helping me find myself.

Career Interviews

2005-10-12T16:32:00.000+09:30

I was reading Robbie's MIT MBA blog and he had a brilliant idea.

Robbie is doing his MBA from the SDM in MIT.

What is the SDM?

The System Design and Management (SDM) program was created at MIT to educate future technical leaders in architecting, engineering, and designing complex products and systems and to give them the leadership and management skills necessary to do that successfully across organizations.

Robbie has 10 yrs of experience hence he is suited for this course. Where can he go from here? He says:

my career path is leading me to be a CIO, CTO, VP of Engineering, or CEO/Founder. But how do I pick the one I want to do? The CIO role is typically quite different than CTO or VP of Engineering.

He faces a fundamental problem which is true at any level. What exactly does a particular job consist of?

Even with all the classes I attend and the speakers I listen to, I get very little information on the specifics of what it is like being in a particular position at a company.

When I decided upon "business model innovation" as my career choice sometime back I had trouble understanding what exactly that the job would be in terms of a day-to-day profile.

I found this great blogger who calls himself "yes". He wants to remain anonymous but provides some valuable understanding into his job. He is a technical guy with a PhD who is into "business development".

He starts off with a post on What to do with your Phd?

You spent some years in Lab (because I know nothing outside of Biology Ph.D.'s, No idea what the rest of you do).

Now what?

He then goes on to provide a list of options for the job possibilities including Business Development, Marketing and Sales.

His blog provides me a good understanding of what it means to commercialize technologies and various nitty gritties like the legal stuff, tech transfers from Universities etc.

Now coming back to Robbie, he comes with a brilliant solution:

So to help me decide what position I'm best suited for, I'm doing several "career interviews." I'm cold-emailing various executives around the Cambridge area and asking for an hour of their time to talk about their job and career. I'll ask a variety of questions about their role, the skills and commitment required, how they obtained the position, among others. One of the last questions I'll ask is if they have any recommendations for additional people I should contact. This also will be a good networking opportunity.

I think I need to do this. There is a good number of tech firms in Adelaide. It has a Tech park and the MSTC Commercialization course which means that a lot of people in the "innovation game" will be attending it.

My Marketing Professor, David Corkindale, provided me the avenue to jump into this field. As I was working on a Marketing Individual project he provided me the idea to do a project on business models for tech firms which conviced me that this is the career I need to pursue.

I can use this help in finding the right people to talk to. Will update you soon on my "Career Interviews". Thanks Robbie.

Henry Mintzberg on MBAs

2005-10-12T16:04:00.000+09:30

From Robbie's MIT Musings

# Can't create a manager in a classroom
# MBA programs don't create managers
# Management is the intersection of craft, art and science
# Don't close MBA schools, just recognize them for what they are. They are teaching analytical skills to future analysts.
# If you want to be a manager, get in an industry and be promoted to a manager. Then join a educational program that lets you enhance those skills
# MBA programs should be part-time so they don't cut students off from their experience
# Should earn managerial stripes, not get it because you have an MBA
# You are being trained well on business functions, but NOT on being a leader of tomorrow
# Cases are not a way to learn management (several digs at Harvard's style of teaching)
# Students should build the learning around their experience
# Management isn't like engineering or medicine Â there is no such thing as a natural surgeon, but there are natural leaders, i.e., some leaders have never taken a single leadership course
# The problem with being in the rat race is that even if you win, you are still a rat
# MBA is so hyped up
# Only 5 of 19 Harvard superstars from 1990 were still "successful" in 2003
# He has a pretty dire perception and outlook on American business
# After Enron, schools added a course on ethics next to the 12 on shareholder value
# Shareholder value is not a value
# Softkills are blended in all courses, you don't need specific classes on it
# The biggest problem in leadership today is selection
# We almost never consult the people who have been managed by the candidates we evaluate

themba

The Business Model of Business Schools

2005-10-12T15:15:00.000+09:30

Starling Hunter, on his blog "The Business of America is Business" (a curious name) talks about the change required by the B-Schools in America.

Quoting from the Los Angeles Daily, it sites that there is decline in the student participation for MBA programs across America. (I would say it is increasing in India, China and other Asian countries and even Australia, although I do not have concrete numbers backing it). One of the ways that American schools are solving the present problem is recruit students from overseas like Taiwan, India and China.

The article suggests a few solutions:

Instead of adding accounting and marketing courses, USC is attempting to tap creativity. The school is focusing on strategies to help students manage innovation. To do that, Gupta is advocating that students work in groups and understand how businesses interact with their environment.

However, there is a deeper problem. Hunter connects the problem to "functional division" of the b-school.

Attracting foreign MBA students from the world's developing economies is certainly one option, but only a stop gap measure, a way to keep the money coming in while the strategies are overhauled. If US schools want to keep US students interested in the MBA and thus be educators of the world, not the outside world, then they'll need to overhaul not only curriculum but also pedagogy. Chief among the needed changes is the division of labor among business school faculty along functional lines.

Anyone who has read much about modern organization theory knows that while functional organization is very effective in certain sectors of the economy, it does carry with it the hazard of the functional silo problem. This is especially the case in business schools where faculty often have very deep functional expertise in just one area of management studies, many time without anywhere as much practical experience in said area. When you put several dozen such experts together, the task of achieving cross-functional coordination and providing students with a cross-functional perspective on organizations is very difficult indeed. What you get instead is graduates who are, as a rule, smart as whip, but who have no view of firms as a whole. It is precisely this kind of graduate to whom many businesses have said "no thanks" in increasing numbers, preferring instead to uncover and train management talent on their own

.In the increasing trend towards systems thinking, strategy, innovation and business model innovation there is greater need for "various kinds of knowledge in one head".

The business schools expect that once students attend 10 different courses on various subjects they will be able to connect them in their mind and become multi-disciplinary. However, this does not happen. The main reason is that when we do a particular course there is no way a Professor connects that to other disciplines and ideas.

The width is missing in the b-schools. And the only way to Innovate is to have a wide variety of ideas in one head and make the lollapalooza effect come about. This is what Charlie Munger, Vice-Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway called "the latticework of mental models" (PDF).

Sadly, the b-schools do not understand that.

b-school

Game Theory

2005-10-11T13:46:00.000+09:30

Atanu Dey, my ex-boss, mentor and a dear friend introduced me to the concept of Game theory and its importance in everyday life and business. He once told me that "if you understand the concepts in Game Theory you will start seeing them everywhere in life".

I did try to understand Game Theory but it was of no success. (Many of you may have heard of John Nash, who received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994 for his work on non-cooperative games and the Nash Equilibrium).

A good introduction to the subject is from Econ Lib by Avinash Dixit and Barry Nalebuff who define Game Theory "as the science of strategy".

A large part of the MBA courses talk about strategy. About how finance, marketing, technology, innovation and other aspects of business relate to strategy. Sadly my University and many others do not have a basic course on Game theory.

I have found a course in the Economics dept. of the University of Adelaide which has a course without the mathematics called "Strategic Thinking for Decision Making" which is an introduction to managers about the uses of game theory in business.

I will know more about this tool and field next year once I take the course however, I would suggest every student to do a basic course to better able to start using this tool in the future.

Incidently, this years Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to two people who spent their life understand co-operation and conflict from a game theoritic point of view.

What is a College Ranking?

2005-10-11T13:02:00.000+09:30

The MBA students all over the world are used to checking the rankings of the various business schools in order to get into the best ones depending on their circumstances.

The Mises Economics Blog is questioning the validity of these rankings.

How can you rank heterogenous, dissimilar institutions? Each instructor has their own subjective evaluation of a student, course work is different at each institution, resources available to students are different, student-body diversity/dynamic is different, how can these be aggregated?

It also links to some good articles and analysis on the value of a university and the correctness of these rankings.

A great article by Malcolm Gladwell called the " the social logic of ivy league admissions" in the New Yorker magazine is linked to. This is a must read.

Its conclusion:

Success depends on Individual ability like drive, energy, goal setting, hard-work
Harvard, Yale and other Ivy league institutions are more like 'modelling agencies' where they take the best of the lot of make them a little better
Harvard is like a luxury brand and selects its students on the basis of maintaining that brand rather than any academic or other merits

Another story in the WSJ on why Haravrd is still in the press even though it is not so relevant in terms of its academic output as before. The short answer : the harvard-educated journalists

Managing Information

2005-10-09T18:31:00.000+09:30

A friend of mine who is currently doing his MBA back in India wanted to know how I manage my "information flow" especially news and how to save time doing it.

The following is what I wrote to him. One thing to note is that there are several other attributes to the ones I mentioned that I would do. How would you manage your stuff?

The response starts below:

What you has asked me about is "efficiency"?

How do you get the most information in the least possible way?

Much more important than that is "effectiveness" which is what I will dwell on first and the go to efficiency.

It is very important for somebody to realise that whatever is published is not the truth. Especially with political news. This could be true for management stuff. In the case of financial stuff it can be mingled.

For example: The stock market moved a couple of hundred points. The financial press informs us with stuff like "due to the FII activity the stock market has moved" or "due to the fall in the NASDAY the tech stocks in India has fallen".

It is always important to understand that facts, information, analysis, opinion are different things. you need to understand the difference and be conscious about it while you are reading anything. Sometimes we can take analysis or opinion as facts.

The different types of information is important but more important is that we "trust the sources" from which we get the information. Especially in terms of opinion.

Let me give you a good recent example of what I mean. I am not sure but if you have heard about the recent Sun-Google press meet. There they have stepped forward to form a pact in which Sun will distribute the Google toolbar with their Java software. Google promised something vaguely of helping distribute Sun's Open Office.

Now see what the Times of India and the Indian Express reported.

[http://www.cbronline.com/blog.asp?show=cbr/2005/10/inaccuracies_ab.html ]

According to the Times of India, "Google has announced a strategic merger with giant Sun Microsystems, in a deal that is expected to create another dent in arch-competitor Microsoft's monopoly over the Internet."

Many of you will have spotted two pretty significant problems with this sentence. Firstly, Sun and Google announced an alliance, not a merger. Second, Microsoft does not have a "monopoly over the Internet". No-one does. Microsoft may have the lion's share of the browser market, but that's not the same as having a monopoly over the Internet. Besides, the Sun-Google collaboration is not so much about changing the dynamics of the browser market as it is about changing the dynamics of the desktop applications market.

The Indian Express fared slightly better, but they too seem to have witnessed a completely different press conference to the rest of the world. According to the paper, "Google Inc took a big step toward challenging Microsoft Corp's dominance in computer word-processing and spreadsheets with the announcement today that it would distribute Java technology from Sun Microsystems Inc." Wrong again - Sun will distribute the Google Toolbar when people download Java from Sun. So far, Google has not said it will be distributing Java. They are exploring other ways to collaborate, they say, but there is no firm news yet.

See the blatant mistakes these esteemed newspapers from India have made. They could not report a simple alliance. They could have just copied from the press release of Sun.

For my part, I believe a lot in Blogs. First I try to find the best blog sources that I can trust on various topics. Then I follow then. If they take me to a specific newspaper or magazine I follow it.

Google or Yahoo groups is a good source to follow as it is community based. I like Slashdot or Whirlpool.net.au in Australia for broabband information.

I also search news.google.com for any specific topic that I want to follow and the read many sources on one big issue to understand the various viewpoints.

it is important that you find sources that you can trust. This may take a while but it is worth the effort.

The next part is "efficiency". This is what your question was all about.

I use Bloglines.com as my preferred service for reading news and other stuff. I am not sure if you have heard but this thing called RSS or Really Simple Syndication makes it a breeze to folloe various sources like newspapers, magazines, Google or yahoo groups, blogs and even news searches through PubSub.

It makes it easier to follow various stuff.

To get an idea of the stuff I read I would suggest checking out my Bloglines subcriptions
http://www.bloglines.com/public/SuhitAnantula

Also, I follow the NyTimes etc but again mostly through articles suggested in blogs.

One last bit of people I follow are some "analysts" like Bon Cringley or Maunboussin etc.

Love for High-Tech

2005-10-06T14:07:00.000+09:30

I have been thinking of lately a lot on High-tech.

I have been in love for technology for many years now. I did try my hand at doing an engineering degree from the premier schools in India, the famed IITs, however failed to get it. Statistically it is just tough!

Anyways, I then did not want to go for a lesser engineering college (hubris or plain simple teenage wisdom stopped me). I shifted from science and maths to business and commerce in my undergrads coming out with a Bachelors of Commerce (hons). The one thing I learned was business is interesting, but you can only learn from working not from studying atleast not what I was taught and the way I was taught in my undergrad.

And now after 6 yrs of working I am doing my MBA and can genuinely say that I am learning something. Six months into the MBA program made me realize how much stuff that I need to understand and it has opened up new nodes in my brain which did not exist but the best thing which is happening to me is the connection of the various nodes. This is happening at such a rapid pace that I just cannot fathom.

Sometimes I just get up with just 4 hrs of sleep and start working on my lovely iBook G4. The love for the Mac does play a role, but there is a bigger reason. I just cannot wait to understand the world better.

As I went about this exercises I started to see what electives that I need to take. This made me think about myself. What is that I want to do? Where do I want to go?

Peter Drucker in his "The Effective Executive" suggested that the best way to contribute is to understand your strengths. The way to understand is to find patterns in what you do over years and see where you have been doing good, doing bad, you are happy, comes naturally, etc.

For me two things stood out.

My love for working in start-ups
My love for high-tech
The worldisgreen concept.

I worked in a MNC and then with a start-up and it just seems that I want to be in the start-up world. In fact it is clear as I do my MBA where my interests lie.

MBA for a large part deals with "managing wealth". I want to deal with "creating wealth". That is what start-ups all about.

My reading is predicated with slashdot, emergic.org, blogs on technology, the info wars, google stuff, software, etc. I have been consistently interested in the tech stuff and one thing is sure I have always been able to understand technology and related to geeks.

I think that is a skill that I find in myself and think it is a unique advantage.

The think with geeks is that they love their technology and always would love to talk about it. However, not every geek is good at markets and business. My role as I see it slowly is to fill that gap or what you can call commercializing innovations.

I have been trying to get this together and I see that the best job for me is in "business development" in high-tech stuff.

The more I started to understand this the better it seemed. Technology is changing the world. There is greater than ever need for technology to reach the masses. The only way technology can be reached is when it "the technical domain" makes value for the "social domain".

The gap is something which can be clearly filled by what can be called "business model innovation". The value of a technology is only which can be realised by the society. It is useless if the social aspect is not realized. The greatest idea in the lab is useless compared to a insignificant idea in the use of average people. That is what innovation all about. And the vehicle for that is "business model innovation".

I now see a clear way I can be part of high-tech without being a techie and still contribute as much the techies who develop a particular technology or product. In fact, a business model innovation is more like a " social innovation". Drucker has argued that innovation is in the technological, economic and social realms. And all the three types of innovation is important for making change happen.

A large part of innovation is concentrated on the "technological aspect". The social concept sometimes comes in marketing (Moore stuff) but it is far more important. The "business model" encompasses the "social and economic aspect" and hence the place where future innovation battles going to take place.

This fits in very well with my love for "green stuff". The bottom of the pyramid or rural development is one part of the green stuff for me. Green here would signify prosperity and growth. This is where I see that much change can be made. Deeshaa Ventures provided me a chance to work on that aspect.

The other Green stuff is "environmental" stuff. The ones which we are generally familiar with and associate with green. This is my job currently. I am an "Environmental Project Officer" working in the Govt. of South Australia to implement their Greening program in one of the agencies.

The unique thing is this - all of the above aspect; high-tech (IT, bio-tech, nanotech), BoP, Green technology have much in common. They all are dependent on "innovation".

Innovation in the sense of technology, economic and social. Depending on the situation one more than the other. Take the "bottom of the pyramid" ideas. It is a technological and a greatly economic innovation to make products and services available to the 4 billion people living in poverty or just above it in the world.

The same goes for "Green Technologies". The need for commercializing the Toyota Prius or the solar car, organic food. Or social innovation in terms of "stopping the use of plastic bags".

Somehow in all these I have had a chance to work in or relate to it.

My goal now is to concentrate on learning the stuff in the MBA and in the future related to "business model innovation".

What Do MBAs Learn?

2005-09-21T04:19:00.000+09:30

This is a question which a lot of us want to answer before we do an
MBA, while doin an MBA and also after we have completed an MBA.

However, it is very useful for somebody who wants to take the decision
to do an MBA.

I found this question answered for all of $11.5 on Google Answers
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=564094

The links in the answer are worth checking for someone who seriously
wants to understand the question.

Another interesting answer.

Positive Quotes about MBA

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=324352

Some information on Canadian MBA programs
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=265782

About MBA Types
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=324905

Finishing Touch

2005-09-18T13:46:00.000+09:30

The difference between "professionals" and "amateurs" is the Finishing touch.

I used to go a "training school" for hairdressers when I first came to Adelaide. It was for obvious reasons. Saving money. Then I started last week (after I got my job here) to go a professional hairdresser and the difference is simple.

The training school ones where decent ones. Some of them were good, they had the natural ability, knew the styles of cutting the hair, talked to you some time (small talk) and tried to do it at a fair pace. However, the major difference was how the professional took that extra time to show me my hair in the mirror, ask me more than a couple of times if I was satisfied, used the hair blower to set the hair and made some minor changes to the 'locks' to make it look good.

All these small changes and extra last effort - what you can call the 'finishing touch' made all the difference between the professional and the 'amateur'.

I see the same thing in the MBA classroom while submitting assignments. Some of the experienced guys go with that extra oomph. Colours, binding, graphs, stats and great proof-reading and presentation.

Just that last effort, that finishing touch made all the difference between them and mine.

I learnt a lesson the hard way and the best way to compete was to "be great at finishing".

M&A and Strategy

2005-09-16T13:31:00.000+09:30

There has been these huge mergers and acquisitions going on in the last week in the world of tech.

Today, the rumour is that MS is buying AOL.

As usual I get my info from SlashDot. The best thing about Slashdot is the comments, they are insighful, information and funny!

Like the one below:

Oracle buys Siebel.
eBay buys Skype.

Ballmer: (to Bill via bad cell phone connection) Billy-boy, what are we going to do? They're getting more press than us this week.
Gates: Eh? Oh hell! (AOL) ( as he spills his coffee on his lap and hangs up)
Ballmer: Well, ok if you say so.

This is so funny.

I do not see how Oracle can become better buying something like itself, which is what Siebel is.

Ebay and Skype. I cannot fathom what you can get out of those synergy except that the founders and VCs make a lot of money and Ebay is moving into an unknown field.

And AOL and MS is frankly I don't know what you can do other than having better numbers.

Imagine AOL starts and wins the first war of ISP in US, and then buys Time Warner for cheap (inflated bubble share price) and changes its name to AOL Time Warner and then to AOL and now AOLMSN. Sucks!

This comment has more info on Synergy:

And let's recap the failures of Time Warner with AOL. Time Warner corporate failed to get Time Warner Cable to carry AOL as its premiere ISP, which was the #1 reason why AOL pursued the merger in the first place. Time Warner corporate failed to take any initiative to getting Time Warner Cable to make a deal with TiVo for set-top DVRs even though through AOL, Time Warner held a large stake in TiVo. Time Warner failed to leverage AOL's WinAmp property combined with the Warner Music Group interests...not to mention failing to envision an actual online music store like iTunes and instead relied upon nobody's favorite company Real to make MusicNet a success that it never became. I could list much more, but I'll end it with settling with Microsoft for less than $1 billion the antitrust case that AOL easily would've won the $10 billion they were demanding (and had that figure trebbled) had they committed to fight for the eventual ruling and a good 5 years of appeals.

I can never understand how this kind of stuff can be taught in MBA schools! Impossible.

Update:

This bit is even more amusing.

MSN and AOL team up? Yeah - there's a marriage made in heaven.
How'd you like to be the poor stiff in Bangalore sorting out the crap that's
certain to result?

Caller: Hi. I have MSN and my AOL account doesn't work.
In fact nothing works.
Banglaore Tech: And sir did you turn the computer on
sir?
Caller: Oh. right.
Bangalore Tech: Very good sir. Now kindly go
fuck yourself sir. Thank you for calling MSN/AOL tech support, you knuckle
dragging imperialist asswipe sir.

Writing, Learning, Studying, Working and Living

2005-09-16T09:52:00.000+09:30

I have not been writing on this blog for sometime now. This is for a couple of reasons.

One, I have been terribly busy. Two, I thought about if I am adding value by writing this blog to anyone, including myself.

I will be finishing my term this week and done with "Leadership Dynamics" and "Creative and Accountable Marketing".

In Leadership, the most important learning for me has been that it is all about yourself. It is how oneself can become a better person and become a better leader.

I have read a wonderful book called "Synchronicity" by Joseph Jaworski. One of the best books on personal leadership.

I found this amazing quote in the book which sums up the entire idea. It is

The Way to Do is To Be - Lao Tsu

It is such a profound statement. I cannot tell you how much it made a difference. "Being" is "Doing". In a way it is not the tools that you learn, the ideas that you have, the position that you are in. It is all about "What you are as a person" and that will influence the people around you, the ennvironment etc.

However, everything starts with "Being".

I realized that 'learning' is all about what you can do and not what you can be taught. It is minimal any teacher can teach you. I have come to the MBA here and doing it in a way to enrich myself. I am using the course, the course facilitator, the facilities, the environment, the peer network to create the environment for me to study and learn, about myself and about the world.

This is what is making the difference.

For Marketing, the University and the course is concentrated on "fast moving consumer goods" or the stuff you get in your supermarket. I am not interested to do that hence, I have decided to do a General MBA with no specialization and fill up my electives with some subjects which will be important in the long run. More about that later.

In terms of working, I got a job now. At last. I am working as an "Environmental Project Officer" in the Dept. of Families and Communities in the Govt. of South Australia in implementing the "Greening" program. My job is to create and implement an action plan to conserve energy, water and waste to start with. In a way going with my weblog - www.worldisgreen.com

I will be writing now more regularly for a couple of reasons.

One, I missed writing the blog. Two, like the comments the previous post there have been others who mailed me about missing the blog! That is a big motivation to know that there are people who value what you write.

Look forward to more posts.