Wrapping up the Program - Part II

Following up on Part I, I thought I would highlight some of my favorite projects from the program. Some were things that I was a part of, while others came from classmates. I've mentioned some of these before, in previous blog posts.

The first was the summary presentation we gave for Leadership & Organizational Behavior (LOB) class. The 1st semester was an interesting transition for everyone in the class, not only readjusting ourselves to academia but also transitioning into a structure where teamwork and trust were critical factors in success. The focus of the presentation was supposed to be analysis of our personalities against LOB criteria, but what it turned into was a very revealing look into the personalities of our classmates. Their history, their fears, their hopes and dreams, and their ability to trust the people in the room with personal information. For most people in the class, it was the first opportunity we'd had in 3-4 months to really understand who we'd be going through the rest of the journey with. For me personally, I used it as an opportunity to try out a presentation style that I had seen a few times, but had never used before. It's a variation on something called Pecha Kucha, which we eventually used in the 4th semester for our final Leading Change presentation. When I gave the presentation, I think I made some people uncomfortable (less structured, less formal, limited analysis). I was trying to use the style to convey the pace at which my working environment (Internet Technology) moves, and I believe that came across to some extent. Regardless, it was my first attempt at using the MBA program as a vehicle to try new ideas which could be reused in my working world.

BGracely LOB Personality Semester Project 5Dec2008

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Our final Business & Global Economics (BGE) project involved a country/region and investment analysis in Emerging Markets. BGE was the 1st semester course that really taught me that I had much to learn about the complexities and inter-dependencies of the global economy We choose to analyze UAE, which at the time of our selection (Aug.2008) seemed like an exciting, vibrant new beacon of the global economy. Our analysis and recommendation highlighted many of the possibilities being created by the massive influx of petrodollars, but it also cautioned against a potential bubble. Having new eyes for UAE, it has been extremely interesting to watch the reports of the demise of Dubai in the early to mid part of 2009, and then the more recent reports of its resurgence towards the end of the year. I believe the stories of Dubai, and its ultimate success or failure are still to be written, with results being somewhat unknown for another 5-10 years.

WFU-MBA-BGE-Team5-UAE-5Dec2008

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Towards the end of our 2nd semester, our Managerial Accounting professor (Dr.Bern Beatty) asked Brian Healy (EVP, Kindermusik) to come speak with our class about how they implement Open Book Management. Not only was this an excellent look at how an entrepreneurial company was putting unique leadership styles to work, but it also began a business relationship with Mr.Healy that I hope to leverage for another start-up that I may launch in 2010.

Open Book Management - Critical Number

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Another 2nd semester project allowed Portia Mount and I to explore an element of Marketing that gets heavy coverage from the press, but is still not well understood my most of the business world or academia. We explored Social Media and Social Marketing in the context of the Obama Election campaign, but tried to constantly bring the context back to everyday business environments. It was an interesting culmination to our Strategic Marketing course, as each sub-team also created a final presentation that focused on an angle of Internet or Social Marketing. Since that presentation, I've actually had 5-6 companies approach me about training/educating their executive teams about Social Media/Marketing best practices and way they can engage with this new media.

ObamaNation - Lessons from the Front Lines of Social Media

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The 3rd semester was all about International Business. We had the option to focus on China, Japan or South America (the India trip was canceled due to the Mumbai bombings). Eight of us choose to spend two weeks in Beijing, Xian, Shanghai and Hong Kong. We chronically our journey on the China Blog. It's still difficult to put the magnitude of that trip into words, but needless to say it completely changed my views on my career and the 21st century.

To conclude our Entrepreneurship course, we were asked to focus on a new business model or idea. I decided to focus on Gracely Girl Designs, which is an online appearal business that I created with my wife in October 2009. The primary motivation for the business was to allow her a creative outlet to coincide with the raising of our children. But what we found in designing the business was an ability to operate almost entirely virtual and with a structure that was incredibly flexible. I presented this business as a model that could be adopted by classmates that wishes to stretch their entrepreneurial legs, but also maintain their existing jobs (at least for a while).

Gracely Girl Design

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Our Management Practicum was focused around the theme of Environmental Sustainability, and how we could attack that problem in a way that found balance between environmental challenges and business challenges. Many of my classmates came up with incredible ideas (to be discussed in Part III), presenting ideas to start businesses that will have lasting impacts for thousands of people in the US, Latin America and India. Their work will go beyond business success and will thrive in the future successes of mankind. Our team took a technology focus, looking at ways to more efficiently deploy IT Data Centers, the 21st-century "bit" factories that will drive the output of electronic addictions. Considering that today's Data Centers consume 2-3% of all US electricity, with exponential growth expected as Smart Grids and Electric Vehicles become part of the US economy.

Looking back on the breadth of our projects, I'm still amazed at what can be learned in just 18 months. Not only did we develop domain-level expertise in many areas, but we created a framework of knowledge that will allow us to take on strategic challenges throughout the 21st century.

Open Book Management - Brian Healy - Kindermusik

Over the weekend, our MgmtAcct course was enhanced through a visit by Brian Healy (SVP/GM) of Kindermusik International. One of the topics that we've explored in class is Open Book Management, and how it may be a model that students should consider implementing in portions of their companies.

Mr.Healy was also a co-founder of Hooked-on-Phonics, so his perspective on managing a start-up and a global company addedOBM breadth to the discussion.

Some of the topics that interested me were:

• OBM isn't just a management style (process), it must be ingrained in the culture to be successful. People need to be trained, encouraged, and reminded how it helps impact the business.
• OBM requires investment by the company in $$ (training) and time. We spoke quite a bit about how mentoring and listening are needed to make this successful.
• OBM makes each person accountable for their area, on a weekly (or monthly) basis. It forces people to know their role/area, and be accountable for not only that area, but the other areas of the business it impacts. Some people strive in those environments, while others can't handle the visibility. OBM requires the right type of people (see "culture" above).
• As difficult as it might sound, it is possible to find a "critical number" for each group (and person) in the company. OBM forces a company to go through that thought process, and I suspect that the result is it forces everyone to think very hard about what value they bring to the company.

There was much more to the discussion, but those are the key points I'l take way with me. In addition to being a very honest and candid speaker, Mr. Healy clearly showed that he enjoyed making an impact on the world in ways that make people better. This was inspiring. It's about making money to pay the bills and satisfy shareholders, but it's even better if you leave behind something better than you started with. It's obvious that Mr.Healy and the good folks at Kindermusik are doing that. Sounds like it would be a fun place to work.

Thanks also to Dr.Beatty for arranging the visit.

Below is a segment of the presentation that was given in addition to the discussion.

Open Book Management - Critical Number

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What an MBA program should be like!

We're about 8 months into the program, and we finally had a weekend that was what I had expected the program to be like. Don't get me wrong, the program so far has been very fun, and we've learned quite a bit from both professors and classmates. But this weekend was just a little more rich, a little more complete in terms of the entire experience.

Here's a few of the highlights:

Every class spend much of the time working through cases. I've stated my preference for case method learning before, and this weekend was an excellent example of the types of learning and discussion that can occur when it's focused around multi-facted cases. OpsMgm't focused on capacity planning (for manufacturing & service industries); ITMgm't focused on runaway projects and outsourcing; MgmtAcct focused on companies that are looking at techniques like Open Book Management and Beyond Budgeting; and FinMgm't focused on capital budgeting for multinational companies. Great discussions of the issues within the cases, intermixed with healthy arguments of opinions and personal experiences from classmates. The prep work and actual discussion can be exhausting, but I feel like we learn so much more from this method.

In our MgmtAcc't class, Dr.Beatty has been talking about Open Book Management (OBM) throughout the semester as a topic that student may want to consider evaluating for their work environments. In fact, our final exam is being dropped in favor of a OBM project to create a plan to introduce OBM into one of the companies without our group. Our project (Team 5) will be for General Parts International (Raleigh, NC), a $3-4Byr privately-held company, where teammate Matt Johnson is a Sr.VP. After sending us a recent WSJ article on OBM, Dr.Beatty realized that Kindermusik (referenced in the article) was a local company and arranged to have their EVP/GM (Brian Healy) visit class and give us an overview of how they implement OBM within their organization. Mr.Healy did a tremendous job of sharing experiences and taking Q&A about how OBM helped shape the culture of Kindermusik, and focus each individual in the company on the "critical number" necessary to make that portion of their business successful.

The evening before our FinMgm't class, the amount of discussion between teams in trying to pull together all the information and analysis of the Whirlpool case was excellent. We were literally walking back and forth between rooms in the hotel comparing notes, debating analysis, struggling with how to handle missing data or assumptions, and generally putting in a ton of time for a piece of homework that effects a very small portion of our overall grade. By 2am we were completely blurry eyed and exhausted. But the journey was well worth it. Not only did we each learn quite about about the concept (capital budgeting), but I think we broke down a couple of mental barriers between the teams.

A few weeks ago a few of us where out late, signing Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer" with the local cover-band, and started talking about some ways that we could have a little fun and bring the class together a little better. Sometimes we get too focused on school work. The first attempt fell short (sorry Matt Kirk!!), but this weekend's Pajama Saturday turned out to be a big success. I'll get into that more later.

The 1st annual EXFT Ping-Pong Singles tournament reached the finals. This is our unofficial break-time activity. Congrats to Gregg Lewis and Brian Turner for reaching the finals. We're looking forward to the match next weekend.

So all-in-all a really great weekend. Lots of variety, lots of interaction within the class and outside of class, and I think the group is continuing to come together quite a bit more. It's a great bunch of people and a program that I'm proud to be a part of.