This past week we started with a new module in the course curriculum. It's called Making Decisions in a World of Complexity. The theme of studying two aspects of the same topic continued pairing Microeconomics with Statistics. The microeconomics course is about the big picture thinking regarding industries and society while the statistics course deals with how to collect and manage the numbers that aid in forming the economic picture.
Microeconomics
The course is actually titled The Global Environment of Business. Prof. John McHale is really a brilliant guy. You can tell that he's highly intelligent and knows his stuff really well. I get the impression that he thinks at such a high level that he has a hard time explaining economics concepts in simple terms. I asked a couple questions in class and got some really long answers when I was just looking for a simple one. I think he's so advanced in the field where some of the basic concepts like the supply-demand curve is second nature to him that he has a hard time relating to people who have no experience in the field.
The course gets really interesting at times. We discussed big issues like Peak Oil and Climate Change from an economic perspective. One team had an interesting presentation about the Stern Report. My team had to present an alternate point of view by Bjorn Lomborg. We had to read a chapter from his book "Cool It" and present the information as advocates of his argument. You can get the gist of his point of view from this YouTube video.
Apart from the funny similarity of his name to a character in Office Space, I think Lomborg is missing the boat on some key aspects of the increasing global temperature. He's primarily concerned with some big humanitarian issues in the world like HIV, poverty, and famine. My view is that if the global temperatures continue to increase, the weather instability will magnify the issues that he's concerned with. Maybe my reading of The Weathermakers has had a big influence on my point of view, but that's another topic of discussion.
In any case, I still have to learn the material and understand some of the economic analysis tools that we're being taught.
Statistics
The course is actually titled Acquisition and Analysis of Information for Management and Prof. Jeff McGill does an excellent job of making the topic interesting. In a way, it's refreshing to be back to the familiar world of formulae and number crunching where there are definite right and wrong answers. It's been a really long time since I did anything with statistics though and I don't remember much from my university course. I do remember that I didn't enjoy it very much and that I didn't do very well in it.
Naturally, the course is heavily dependent on using spreadsheets and in our case, Microsoft Excel 2007. In one sense, the Microsoft programmers have done a good job in including some advanced analysis tools that makes breaking down data very easy. In another sense, the new interface is very unintuitive and is cumbersome to use. It takes a while to get use to it and the simple tasks take longer than usual since I spend a lot of time trying to find where the commands are.
The course material isn't difficult in itself, but the time crunch of learning everything in a span of a week and a half is pretty challenging. Some members of our class have no background in using formulae and some have never used MS Excel. It's a steep learning curve for them. I'll encounter the same thing when we get to the finance courses.
I decided to run for the student executive body. They are the link between the program administration and the class. I ran for the fit-to-lead liaison position and found out today that I got elected. The fit-to-lead program (you can read about it at the bottom of this page) is there to make sure the students get a balanced experience and form healthy lifestyle habits. They provide information about healthy diets and set up opportunities for people to get out and be active. They also set up personal training sessions and fitness assessments. I ran because I thought it would be a fun thing to do. I know it's going to be a tough balancing act between my school work and the liaison duties, but it's only for a year and I think I'll have a lot of fun doing it. Along with a couple of other guys, I've already played a part in getting a sailing program running (we'll find out more concrete details this coming week). I also made a personal list of things that I want to do this summer...getting the class involved in them will make it more fun.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
MBA: Second week...
The second week of the Queen's MBA program was a little more structured than the first. There were two courses: The Role of the General Manager and Leadership. I guess they wanted to start us off thinking about leading an organization from the top and entertaining the possibility that one day we would be CEOs and general managers. It was an interesting week covering both the technical and abstract aspects of leading an organization.
The Role of the General Manager
This was a really interesting course taught by a dynamic lecturer with a really interesting job outside of teaching. Professor Peter Richardson gets recruited to conduct strategy workshops mainly for mining companies to help them form business strategies that will help them turn around and become profitable. He told us some interesting stories about some big mining operations and how he conducted the workshops that involved selected people from across the entire organization; all the way from the executive level down to the labourer level. We had a case study where we had to look at Acklands Grainger and come up with a strategy to turn them around. He even brought in Doug Harrison talk to us for an hour and entertain our questions. Mr. Harrison was the guy in charge of turning Acklands Grainger around back in 2000.
Professor Richardson works with his wife, Elspeth Murray, in the Strategy field and they published a book called Fast Forward: Organizational Change in 100 days. We had to read four chapters out of the book for the course, but the workload was fairly heavy and I only skimmed through it. It'll be on my reading list for when I actually have the time to sit down and do some leisurely reading.
I was really intrigued by the Strategy field of study. I'll have to make a point to visit Prof. Richardson's office and ask him about the academic research aspect of what he does. I did manage to talk to him a little bit about general management consulting companies like BCG.
After coming up with a strategy, a key part in implementing it is getting everybody in the company aligned with the goals set by the corporate strategy. Part of the process is coming up with corporate vision, mission, and objective statements. You can see those statements in the lobbies of most companies...they usually have an airy and flowery tone to them. I saw them when I was working at JDS Uniphase and didn't think much of them. It was interesting to learn about how they actually come up with those statements.
I was more concerned with the details of implementing a strategy than coming up with some phrases that sounded nice. The part of the course that I found most interesting was Prof. Richardson's break down of the employees of a company when a strategy goes into implementation. He has a 20-70-10 rule of thumb. When you outline a new strategy, 20% of the employees will see the value of the strategy and will be highly enthusiastic about implementing it. 70% of the employees will take a wait-and-see approach. The remaining 10% are what he calls "the saboteurs." These are the people who hate change and will fight it every chance that they get. Prof. Richardson said that the key to successfully implementing a new strategy is to find the 20% employees (they could be the receptionist, secretaries, line workers, maintenance people, engineers, any employee at any level really) and engage them to rally the 70% fence-sitting employees. The 10% saboteurs will either leave on their own volition or will eventually find a way to allow the company to get rid of them. It was an interesting perspective...I kept thinking back to some of the places that I've worked at and recalled several sceptical people who always had something bad to say about the company. I don't know if they would have actually been effective at derailing a corporate strategy, but they definitely made the work atmosphere miserable.
Our team assignment for this course was to take a case study for Paradigm Foods and form a strategy to turn their business around. We had to present our strategy to Prof. Richardson, Elspeth Murray, and the MBA Dean, Dr. Bill Blake. Our team came up with a solid strategy (we thought so in any case) and had a good presentation...really good if you consider that it was the first one we did as a team and we were unfamiliar with each other's styles. We paid a heavy price though...we were up until 4:30am on Friday night putting the strategy slide deck together. It seems that we're a group of perfectionists with poor time management skills.
Leadership
Dr. Blake has been studying leadership for around 30 years. He was in the Canadian navy and had some neat stories to tell us. This class was a stark contrast to that taught by Prof. Richardson. The GM course dealt with concrete concepts regarding corporate strategy and Prof. Richardson had a lot of energy and was in constant motion. Dr. Blake, on the other had, is a soft speaker with a soothing voice that made it hard to stay alert...especially after lunch. The course itself was more of a discussion class that dealt with the abstract concept of leadership. It took a while to get going in the class, but people got engaged and there were some interesting discussions in class. Ethics was one area that we looked and it was interesting to hear the different interpretations of the same case study. The assignment for the course was an individual essay talking about the best or worst leaders that we have ever worked with or been around. I decided to talk about the worst leader that I encountered...won't go into details here but it was an interesting course none the less.
This week we'll get into microeconomics and statistics. I'm not sure if these courses will be as interesting as the previous ones, but I'll have to wait and see.
One that that really struck me here was the Maps of Meaning series by Prof. Jordan Peterson of the University of Toronto. He's a psychology professor who occasionally shows up on the news as an expert when something crazy like a school shooting happens. The first episode had a lot of relevancy to the team building course while the 2nd lecture related to the leadership course very closely. I had watched the series back in 2006 and referred to it every now and then. It had a big effect on how I now view the world. The quote on the title of this blog is the last thing that Prof. Peterson says in his last lecture.
The Role of the General Manager
This was a really interesting course taught by a dynamic lecturer with a really interesting job outside of teaching. Professor Peter Richardson gets recruited to conduct strategy workshops mainly for mining companies to help them form business strategies that will help them turn around and become profitable. He told us some interesting stories about some big mining operations and how he conducted the workshops that involved selected people from across the entire organization; all the way from the executive level down to the labourer level. We had a case study where we had to look at Acklands Grainger and come up with a strategy to turn them around. He even brought in Doug Harrison talk to us for an hour and entertain our questions. Mr. Harrison was the guy in charge of turning Acklands Grainger around back in 2000.
Professor Richardson works with his wife, Elspeth Murray, in the Strategy field and they published a book called Fast Forward: Organizational Change in 100 days. We had to read four chapters out of the book for the course, but the workload was fairly heavy and I only skimmed through it. It'll be on my reading list for when I actually have the time to sit down and do some leisurely reading.
I was really intrigued by the Strategy field of study. I'll have to make a point to visit Prof. Richardson's office and ask him about the academic research aspect of what he does. I did manage to talk to him a little bit about general management consulting companies like BCG.
After coming up with a strategy, a key part in implementing it is getting everybody in the company aligned with the goals set by the corporate strategy. Part of the process is coming up with corporate vision, mission, and objective statements. You can see those statements in the lobbies of most companies...they usually have an airy and flowery tone to them. I saw them when I was working at JDS Uniphase and didn't think much of them. It was interesting to learn about how they actually come up with those statements.
I was more concerned with the details of implementing a strategy than coming up with some phrases that sounded nice. The part of the course that I found most interesting was Prof. Richardson's break down of the employees of a company when a strategy goes into implementation. He has a 20-70-10 rule of thumb. When you outline a new strategy, 20% of the employees will see the value of the strategy and will be highly enthusiastic about implementing it. 70% of the employees will take a wait-and-see approach. The remaining 10% are what he calls "the saboteurs." These are the people who hate change and will fight it every chance that they get. Prof. Richardson said that the key to successfully implementing a new strategy is to find the 20% employees (they could be the receptionist, secretaries, line workers, maintenance people, engineers, any employee at any level really) and engage them to rally the 70% fence-sitting employees. The 10% saboteurs will either leave on their own volition or will eventually find a way to allow the company to get rid of them. It was an interesting perspective...I kept thinking back to some of the places that I've worked at and recalled several sceptical people who always had something bad to say about the company. I don't know if they would have actually been effective at derailing a corporate strategy, but they definitely made the work atmosphere miserable.
Our team assignment for this course was to take a case study for Paradigm Foods and form a strategy to turn their business around. We had to present our strategy to Prof. Richardson, Elspeth Murray, and the MBA Dean, Dr. Bill Blake. Our team came up with a solid strategy (we thought so in any case) and had a good presentation...really good if you consider that it was the first one we did as a team and we were unfamiliar with each other's styles. We paid a heavy price though...we were up until 4:30am on Friday night putting the strategy slide deck together. It seems that we're a group of perfectionists with poor time management skills.
Leadership
Dr. Blake has been studying leadership for around 30 years. He was in the Canadian navy and had some neat stories to tell us. This class was a stark contrast to that taught by Prof. Richardson. The GM course dealt with concrete concepts regarding corporate strategy and Prof. Richardson had a lot of energy and was in constant motion. Dr. Blake, on the other had, is a soft speaker with a soothing voice that made it hard to stay alert...especially after lunch. The course itself was more of a discussion class that dealt with the abstract concept of leadership. It took a while to get going in the class, but people got engaged and there were some interesting discussions in class. Ethics was one area that we looked and it was interesting to hear the different interpretations of the same case study. The assignment for the course was an individual essay talking about the best or worst leaders that we have ever worked with or been around. I decided to talk about the worst leader that I encountered...won't go into details here but it was an interesting course none the less.
This week we'll get into microeconomics and statistics. I'm not sure if these courses will be as interesting as the previous ones, but I'll have to wait and see.
One that that really struck me here was the Maps of Meaning series by Prof. Jordan Peterson of the University of Toronto. He's a psychology professor who occasionally shows up on the news as an expert when something crazy like a school shooting happens. The first episode had a lot of relevancy to the team building course while the 2nd lecture related to the leadership course very closely. I had watched the series back in 2006 and referred to it every now and then. It had a big effect on how I now view the world. The quote on the title of this blog is the last thing that Prof. Peterson says in his last lecture.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
MBA: Thoughts on the first week...
Well...1 week down, 51 to go.
It's been a crazy week! I have to say first that the MBA staff are really good. They know how to make the program structure run well and smoothly. They're very helpful in terms of getting the students set up and running. If you have a question about something, they're very quick to get you the answers. They've been doing this sort of thing for a while and pretty much know what the students are going through.
A lot of people, especially the international students, arrived right before the program started. There isn't enough time to get used to a new city and find out where to get the essentials like food and how to get there. The school understands this and provides lunch and dinner for the first week until people have time to settle in and figure out their personal needs and logistics. The program content itself is just like a regular 2 year MBA but condensed into 1 year. So getting off to a fast start is essential...that's pretty much what the first week was about.
Know Thyself
The program is centred around teaching the individual how to work as part of a high performance team. Most people usually know what they're like but they don't usually know how to describe themselves in a nutshell. Getting to know the people you work with also usually takes time since interacting with new colleagues usually is a slow process that starts with getting to know them at work and then, later on, outside of work. Individual personalities and different levels of introvert/extrovert tendencies affect the time it takes for any team to gel and get to the level where they're in sync and working well with each other.
In the Queen's MBA program, there isn't enough time for that process to occur naturally. There's also a risk that a team won't gel at all and that would work contrary to the goal of the program. So they've done a lot of work in getting people to know themselves and getting team members to share they individual info with each other. The idea is to accelerate the gelling process of a team.
One of the tools they use is the Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI). A guy named Ned Hermann did a lot of research into how the brain works and figured out a way to show it using a survey. Basically, he divided brain tendencies in to four categories and assigned colours and letters to them. Once you've done the survey and seen the results in a diagram and data form, you get a clearer picture about who you are and what your natural tendencies and preferences are. Obviously, most people know themselves pretty well. Not many people, however, know how to communicate to other people who they are in a nutshell. This instrument provides a way. There's a lot to it and it'll be difficult to summarize it all. You can read more about it here.
For me, my dominant quadrant is yellow, followed closely by blue. My green and red quadrants about equal, but about half as dominant as the other two. My blue/yellow dominance means that people like me are suited for jobs that have a combination of creativity and quantitative work...like a design engineer. So I guess the fact that I've worked as a design engineer for my entire professional life is no surprise. It's a nice affirmation of what I think I'm about and what my preferences are.
Another tool they use is a Gallup survey that tells you what your themes are. It's difficult to explain what a theme is without showing the report. I wanted to scan the pages to show people, but I'm still adjusting to the rhythm here and haven't gotten around to setting up my scanner. Once things settle down a bit, I'll post the info. The basic idea of the Gallup survey though, is that it gives you another sense of who you are written down in a report. There are 34 themes in total and they list them in the order of most dominant to least dominant. Since every individual is different, every individual report will be different. I guess that since every person's fingerprints are unique it only makes sense that every person's brain works in a different way. My most dominant theme is Strategic while my least dominant theme is Significance. I don't have the exact definitions handy right now, but, if I recall correctly, the Strategic theme has to do with big picture thinking and problem solving while the Significance theme has to do with how I feel about what people think about me.
I can see where they're going with these kind of tools. Written reports that paint a picture of who you are make it easier for you to identify the kind of work that you really want to be doing and also helps you put together a strong resume and gives you the basis for being really strong in an interview situation.
Team Work
The team aspect of the program is intriguing. In one sense, I feel like I'm a bit of a lab rat with experimenters watching how I work and how I interact with other people. In the other sense, I'm starting to see the how of the team program at Queen's stands out from the other programs. There's a lot of socializing going on in the first week designed to get the students interacting and getting to know one another. Whatever the reasons are, you naturally gravitate toward certain types of people based on who you are and who they are. You also form quick impressions of the people around you and categorize them to make sense of the frenzied social situation. When I finally found out who the people on my team are, it really stood out to me that I hadn't talked to any of them in the socializing aspects. At that point, I pretty much saw the real value of the Queen's team structure. They deliberately set you up with people that you aren't naturally compatible with. The idea being that if you can work with that team, you can pretty much work with any team.
Apart from myself, my team includes a girl from a Greek family and a background in IT consulting, an Irani girl with an architecture background, an Indian guy with a telecom background, another Indian guy with a telecom background, and an English guy with a political science background.
They put us through some exercises designed to get us to know one another. One interesting team building exercise was called "bombardment". There's some info about it here. Basically, it forces you to see the positive aspects of the people that you'll be working with and then tell them about it bombarding them with positive feedback. I found it to be a strange and weird thing to go, but it does force you to break up your initial impression of them and how you categorized them. I found the body language of the exercise particularly interesting. It'll take too long to elaborate any further here, but I might write a more detailed post about it some time down the road.
As a group, our brain dominance is very yellow and the Strategic them is one of our top five themes. To me, that means that we have to potential to be really creative and come up with really good solutions to problems. If we can find a way to work with each other really well and manage our natural personality conflicts, we could be a really good team.
There are four stages that any team goes through: Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing. You can read about the stages here, but if we can manage to get to the Performing stage quickly, we'll be really good.
Each team also gets a team facilitator/coach. Someone to help us get over some of our problems and get us working together. Our facilitator has a really strong human resources background and has a lot of info that can help us out.
Achieving Balance
This is something that I naturally try to achieve in my life, but, thankfully and probably for the best, not everyone is like me. So the Queen's program tries to illustrate that to people with the Fit-to-Lead implementation. A healthy body and a healthy mind will allow people to perform at their best. Since the brain is a physical organ in your body that affects how you think, having a healthy and active lifestyle combined with good nutritional habits will lead to a healthy state of mind. So they encourage physical activity and devoted the latter half of the first week to getting people out an active. They organized a trip to a driving range and mini-putt place to get people active. There was a volleyball court there as well so people go do what they preferred. I stuck to the driving range...I went through 3 buckets of balls cranking them with a driver. Lots of fun for free!...everything was paid for by the school. I might bring my clubs back the next time I visit my parents...there are a number of golfers in the class.
There's also another silly aspect of the fit-to-lead program. Every now and then, some of the student employees of the program will come in with a boombox and get everybody dancing for 10-15 minutes. People who've worked in a large corporate atmosphere will be familiar with this. I hate being forced to dance so naturally I'm not really big on this. I know why they do it...it lightens up the mood in the class room and gives everyone a fun diversion. I dance when I feel like it, but forcing me to do it has the opposite effect of what was intended. Whatever...I'll go with it and who knows, I might come to enjoy it.
Continuity
A group from the previous class came for a visit yesterday and threw us a party. They made us wear silly things and got us running around Kingston on a scavenger hunt. People who've gone through engineering schools in Canada will be familiar with this...it's just a fun thing to do and good excuse to have a few drinks.
Those guys were still fresh out of the program...they only just graduated a week before our class started. Things started out in a very civilized fashion, each team sat in their team rooms while a graduate from that particular room came in and talked to us about the previous team. Apparently, my team's room is one of the better ones and last year's team was one of the best...a good omen. The graduates also gave us some pretty good pointers and assured us that everything will be ok...Queen's wants us to succeed and they'll do everything to try to help us out.
This post is starting to get a little lengthy so I'll wrap it up here. The main thing that I got out of this first week is that if you approach this program in the same way you start a new job, things will work out well. I think the fact that you're paying a significant financial price for this education and that you're in a class room environment throws you off for a loop. In a way, you are starting a new job. This program is a very intense and long training session for the work that you'll be doing afterwards.
It's going to be a gruelling year, but I think it'll also be really fun and I'll end up with a really great sense of satisfaction by the end of it.
It's been a crazy week! I have to say first that the MBA staff are really good. They know how to make the program structure run well and smoothly. They're very helpful in terms of getting the students set up and running. If you have a question about something, they're very quick to get you the answers. They've been doing this sort of thing for a while and pretty much know what the students are going through.
A lot of people, especially the international students, arrived right before the program started. There isn't enough time to get used to a new city and find out where to get the essentials like food and how to get there. The school understands this and provides lunch and dinner for the first week until people have time to settle in and figure out their personal needs and logistics. The program content itself is just like a regular 2 year MBA but condensed into 1 year. So getting off to a fast start is essential...that's pretty much what the first week was about.
Know Thyself
The program is centred around teaching the individual how to work as part of a high performance team. Most people usually know what they're like but they don't usually know how to describe themselves in a nutshell. Getting to know the people you work with also usually takes time since interacting with new colleagues usually is a slow process that starts with getting to know them at work and then, later on, outside of work. Individual personalities and different levels of introvert/extrovert tendencies affect the time it takes for any team to gel and get to the level where they're in sync and working well with each other.
In the Queen's MBA program, there isn't enough time for that process to occur naturally. There's also a risk that a team won't gel at all and that would work contrary to the goal of the program. So they've done a lot of work in getting people to know themselves and getting team members to share they individual info with each other. The idea is to accelerate the gelling process of a team.
One of the tools they use is the Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI). A guy named Ned Hermann did a lot of research into how the brain works and figured out a way to show it using a survey. Basically, he divided brain tendencies in to four categories and assigned colours and letters to them. Once you've done the survey and seen the results in a diagram and data form, you get a clearer picture about who you are and what your natural tendencies and preferences are. Obviously, most people know themselves pretty well. Not many people, however, know how to communicate to other people who they are in a nutshell. This instrument provides a way. There's a lot to it and it'll be difficult to summarize it all. You can read more about it here.
For me, my dominant quadrant is yellow, followed closely by blue. My green and red quadrants about equal, but about half as dominant as the other two. My blue/yellow dominance means that people like me are suited for jobs that have a combination of creativity and quantitative work...like a design engineer. So I guess the fact that I've worked as a design engineer for my entire professional life is no surprise. It's a nice affirmation of what I think I'm about and what my preferences are.
Another tool they use is a Gallup survey that tells you what your themes are. It's difficult to explain what a theme is without showing the report. I wanted to scan the pages to show people, but I'm still adjusting to the rhythm here and haven't gotten around to setting up my scanner. Once things settle down a bit, I'll post the info. The basic idea of the Gallup survey though, is that it gives you another sense of who you are written down in a report. There are 34 themes in total and they list them in the order of most dominant to least dominant. Since every individual is different, every individual report will be different. I guess that since every person's fingerprints are unique it only makes sense that every person's brain works in a different way. My most dominant theme is Strategic while my least dominant theme is Significance. I don't have the exact definitions handy right now, but, if I recall correctly, the Strategic theme has to do with big picture thinking and problem solving while the Significance theme has to do with how I feel about what people think about me.
I can see where they're going with these kind of tools. Written reports that paint a picture of who you are make it easier for you to identify the kind of work that you really want to be doing and also helps you put together a strong resume and gives you the basis for being really strong in an interview situation.
Team Work
The team aspect of the program is intriguing. In one sense, I feel like I'm a bit of a lab rat with experimenters watching how I work and how I interact with other people. In the other sense, I'm starting to see the how of the team program at Queen's stands out from the other programs. There's a lot of socializing going on in the first week designed to get the students interacting and getting to know one another. Whatever the reasons are, you naturally gravitate toward certain types of people based on who you are and who they are. You also form quick impressions of the people around you and categorize them to make sense of the frenzied social situation. When I finally found out who the people on my team are, it really stood out to me that I hadn't talked to any of them in the socializing aspects. At that point, I pretty much saw the real value of the Queen's team structure. They deliberately set you up with people that you aren't naturally compatible with. The idea being that if you can work with that team, you can pretty much work with any team.
Apart from myself, my team includes a girl from a Greek family and a background in IT consulting, an Irani girl with an architecture background, an Indian guy with a telecom background, another Indian guy with a telecom background, and an English guy with a political science background.
They put us through some exercises designed to get us to know one another. One interesting team building exercise was called "bombardment". There's some info about it here. Basically, it forces you to see the positive aspects of the people that you'll be working with and then tell them about it bombarding them with positive feedback. I found it to be a strange and weird thing to go, but it does force you to break up your initial impression of them and how you categorized them. I found the body language of the exercise particularly interesting. It'll take too long to elaborate any further here, but I might write a more detailed post about it some time down the road.
As a group, our brain dominance is very yellow and the Strategic them is one of our top five themes. To me, that means that we have to potential to be really creative and come up with really good solutions to problems. If we can find a way to work with each other really well and manage our natural personality conflicts, we could be a really good team.
There are four stages that any team goes through: Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing. You can read about the stages here, but if we can manage to get to the Performing stage quickly, we'll be really good.
Each team also gets a team facilitator/coach. Someone to help us get over some of our problems and get us working together. Our facilitator has a really strong human resources background and has a lot of info that can help us out.
Achieving Balance
This is something that I naturally try to achieve in my life, but, thankfully and probably for the best, not everyone is like me. So the Queen's program tries to illustrate that to people with the Fit-to-Lead implementation. A healthy body and a healthy mind will allow people to perform at their best. Since the brain is a physical organ in your body that affects how you think, having a healthy and active lifestyle combined with good nutritional habits will lead to a healthy state of mind. So they encourage physical activity and devoted the latter half of the first week to getting people out an active. They organized a trip to a driving range and mini-putt place to get people active. There was a volleyball court there as well so people go do what they preferred. I stuck to the driving range...I went through 3 buckets of balls cranking them with a driver. Lots of fun for free!...everything was paid for by the school. I might bring my clubs back the next time I visit my parents...there are a number of golfers in the class.
There's also another silly aspect of the fit-to-lead program. Every now and then, some of the student employees of the program will come in with a boombox and get everybody dancing for 10-15 minutes. People who've worked in a large corporate atmosphere will be familiar with this. I hate being forced to dance so naturally I'm not really big on this. I know why they do it...it lightens up the mood in the class room and gives everyone a fun diversion. I dance when I feel like it, but forcing me to do it has the opposite effect of what was intended. Whatever...I'll go with it and who knows, I might come to enjoy it.
Continuity
A group from the previous class came for a visit yesterday and threw us a party. They made us wear silly things and got us running around Kingston on a scavenger hunt. People who've gone through engineering schools in Canada will be familiar with this...it's just a fun thing to do and good excuse to have a few drinks.
Those guys were still fresh out of the program...they only just graduated a week before our class started. Things started out in a very civilized fashion, each team sat in their team rooms while a graduate from that particular room came in and talked to us about the previous team. Apparently, my team's room is one of the better ones and last year's team was one of the best...a good omen. The graduates also gave us some pretty good pointers and assured us that everything will be ok...Queen's wants us to succeed and they'll do everything to try to help us out.
This post is starting to get a little lengthy so I'll wrap it up here. The main thing that I got out of this first week is that if you approach this program in the same way you start a new job, things will work out well. I think the fact that you're paying a significant financial price for this education and that you're in a class room environment throws you off for a loop. In a way, you are starting a new job. This program is a very intense and long training session for the work that you'll be doing afterwards.
It's going to be a gruelling year, but I think it'll also be really fun and I'll end up with a really great sense of satisfaction by the end of it.
Monday, May 05, 2008
MBA: First day...
I officially started the MBA program at Queen's today. I wore a suit since they asked everyone to wear "business attire". It's a bit of a switch from the jeans and shirt dress code that I got accustomed to working as an engineer. I guess I'll have to get accustomed to wearing more formal attire from here on in.
There was a pre-program mixer organized through a group on Facebook Saturday night. I got to meet some of my classmates and mingle together. I met most of the rest of the class today...there's 77 of us so it's difficult trying to get to know everyone right off the bat. It's a good group overall...should be a good time getting to know everybody.
Anyways, it seems like this week is going to be a long one. Lots of details to take care of and lots of info. Here's what the schedule looks like:
Pretty busy week! A lot different from undergrad years...everyone's going to be busy for most of the year. I like it...it'll be intense and busy, but I think it'll also be fun.
I'm the oddball in the group as far as computer use is involved. I ended up getting a linux laptop from Dell because I wanted to avoid Windows Vista. In hindsight, I might have saved myself a headache and just buckled into buying a machine with Windows on it. I installed Windows XP using VirtualBox...today was a trial in seeing how it would work. So far so good. I installed Lotus Notes without a problem. I'll see in the coming weeks how the networking and printing will work. I know that there's a version for linux, but I think I'll tackle that if I have some time over the weekend.
There was a pre-program mixer organized through a group on Facebook Saturday night. I got to meet some of my classmates and mingle together. I met most of the rest of the class today...there's 77 of us so it's difficult trying to get to know everyone right off the bat. It's a good group overall...should be a good time getting to know everybody.
Anyways, it seems like this week is going to be a long one. Lots of details to take care of and lots of info. Here's what the schedule looks like:
Pretty busy week! A lot different from undergrad years...everyone's going to be busy for most of the year. I like it...it'll be intense and busy, but I think it'll also be fun.
I'm the oddball in the group as far as computer use is involved. I ended up getting a linux laptop from Dell because I wanted to avoid Windows Vista. In hindsight, I might have saved myself a headache and just buckled into buying a machine with Windows on it. I installed Windows XP using VirtualBox...today was a trial in seeing how it would work. So far so good. I installed Lotus Notes without a problem. I'll see in the coming weeks how the networking and printing will work. I know that there's a version for linux, but I think I'll tackle that if I have some time over the weekend.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
It's all gone JMo
If you're ever driving around Markham, Ontario, and you hear a guy's voice in the background occasionally yelling "Beat it!", then hear a loud bass and with some dance/techno music, that's probably JMo driving by your vicinity. He's a real life Frankie Wilde minus the coke badger, Ibiza clubs, bikini babes, and cheap whiskey...and he still has his hearing, remarkably.
Anyways, I sat next to JMo at MTC...good guy, but loud. He put together a new mix: Sunday Sessions April 2008. It's pretty good...I have it playing right now. You probably need a good sub woofer to really appreciate it, but it's still good to listen to. You can listen/download it here.
Anyways, I sat next to JMo at MTC...good guy, but loud. He put together a new mix: Sunday Sessions April 2008. It's pretty good...I have it playing right now. You probably need a good sub woofer to really appreciate it, but it's still good to listen to. You can listen/download it here.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Why get an MBA?
I've thought about getting an MBA for a while now. A couple of my friends have gone through Rotman and one through Wharton and they shared their experiences with me. I liked everything that I heard and was really interested in the topics, but, in my mind, two years of schooling with no income was a steep price to pay...never mind the tuition. It wasn't until I found out about one year programs that I seriously contemplated going back to school.
Here are a few of my reasons for doing it:
Ambition
I've had thoughts of starting my own business for the past few years and even attempted starting my own mechanical design company after my career break. I've also been keen on sometime managing an engineering department. To achieve either goal, I'd need to obtain some sort of management and business knowledge and apply it somewhere. An MBA is one way to get that knowledge...applying it in a new position after school would be a great experience.
Increased Opportunity
Between my co-op and full-time experience, I've spent almost 9 years in the same sort of mechanical design role designing machined/stamped metal parts. The context of the design, whether in high-tech, aerospace, or automotive, has changed, but the overall process and methodology has been the same. Over the years, I've developed other interests and contemplated a career switch to something in the field of computers/software. Starting over from scratch at an entry level would have been a long and arduous process. An MBA gives me access to other non-engineering industries without having to start all over again. Industries like banking, financial investments, information systems, and management consulting all recruit MBA students. Last year's Queen's MBA annual report shows a list of companies that recruit their students...it's a long list (page 8).
Personal Growth
I've been able to excel at almost every job that I've had. I want to see just how far my talent and ability can take me. The personal coaching and leadership training that an MBA offers can be extremely helpful and can help me attain higher goals.
Higher potential income
Pretty self explanatory here. I can draw a higher income with an MBA than with an engineering degree alone.
Timing
Manufacturing in Ontario is slipping and the local economy is not doing so well. It seemed like a good time to step out of it for a while and go back to school.
Here are a few of my reasons for choosing Queen's:
Most people apply to a bunch of schools but I only applied to Queen's. It was a pretty safe bet that I would get in as long as I didn't screw up on the GMAT exam.
Anyways, student life officially started today. I just moved into a room in a house with 6 other grad students. Tomorrow I'll stop by the MBA office and pick up my student card. I'll pick up some groceries and a few items. I already have homework to do so I'll have to get cracking on some reading.
I've thought about making entries on this blog summarizing my readings as a study method to try and make the knowledge stick better. I'm not sure how practical that will be, but I'll try it and see how it goes.
Here are a few of my reasons for doing it:
Ambition
I've had thoughts of starting my own business for the past few years and even attempted starting my own mechanical design company after my career break. I've also been keen on sometime managing an engineering department. To achieve either goal, I'd need to obtain some sort of management and business knowledge and apply it somewhere. An MBA is one way to get that knowledge...applying it in a new position after school would be a great experience.
Increased Opportunity
Between my co-op and full-time experience, I've spent almost 9 years in the same sort of mechanical design role designing machined/stamped metal parts. The context of the design, whether in high-tech, aerospace, or automotive, has changed, but the overall process and methodology has been the same. Over the years, I've developed other interests and contemplated a career switch to something in the field of computers/software. Starting over from scratch at an entry level would have been a long and arduous process. An MBA gives me access to other non-engineering industries without having to start all over again. Industries like banking, financial investments, information systems, and management consulting all recruit MBA students. Last year's Queen's MBA annual report shows a list of companies that recruit their students...it's a long list (page 8).
Personal Growth
I've been able to excel at almost every job that I've had. I want to see just how far my talent and ability can take me. The personal coaching and leadership training that an MBA offers can be extremely helpful and can help me attain higher goals.
Higher potential income
Pretty self explanatory here. I can draw a higher income with an MBA than with an engineering degree alone.
Timing
Manufacturing in Ontario is slipping and the local economy is not doing so well. It seemed like a good time to step out of it for a while and go back to school.
Here are a few of my reasons for choosing Queen's:
- 1 year program
- Technology based
- Team oriented approach
- Kingston: smaller town and sailing mecca
- Timing: the program starts in May and my lease in Toronto ended at the end of April...it just made a lot of sense.
- Intangibles: not sure why exactly, but when I tried their student-for-a-day trial I pretty much knew that an MBA was what I wanted to do and Queen's was where I wanted to do it.
Most people apply to a bunch of schools but I only applied to Queen's. It was a pretty safe bet that I would get in as long as I didn't screw up on the GMAT exam.
Anyways, student life officially started today. I just moved into a room in a house with 6 other grad students. Tomorrow I'll stop by the MBA office and pick up my student card. I'll pick up some groceries and a few items. I already have homework to do so I'll have to get cracking on some reading.
I've thought about making entries on this blog summarizing my readings as a study method to try and make the knowledge stick better. I'm not sure how practical that will be, but I'll try it and see how it goes.
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