Deja Vu

Everytime I think I’ve left IMD’s first half in my rearview mirror, it jumps back into my life. It is late at night, I’m here at school with my team, and–just to ensure that I really feel like it’s Q1 2008 again–we all just trampled each other to get at sushi left over from an executive program dinner. But I wouldn’t have it any other way; these are the memories I will take with me years afterward.

Our Phase II ICP presentation is 36 hours away and there is still a great deal of work to do. However, it is interesting work so staring at it all day everyday is not onerous. Time constraints bring the challenge of finding the right balance between sophisticated analysis and quality communication of results. Growing anxiety over careers adds another dimension as teammates (myself included!) are pulled in other directions. This isn’t unexpected, though, and I’m sure we can address it–after all, we will face similar challenges in the “real ” world.

A Great Day for Football

Blogger’s note: I no longer use the term “Redskins” but am leaving my prior references intact in the spirit of learning.

Yesterday was a great day for football in my family. My mother’s alma mater, TCU, destroyed SFA 67-7. Not to be outdone, my father’s alma mater, Arkansas St, obliterated TSU 83-10. Meanwhile the University of Minnesota, where both my parents earned their PhDs, beat Bowling Green 42-17.

Rice’s game against Memphis was much closer, but we still prevailed 42-35, scoring 29 fourth quarter points, capped off by a 69-yard interception return for TD with only 11 seconds remaining in the game. Go Owls!

Now if only my Redskins could pull their offense together . . .

A Trace in the Sky

Monday evening I was fortunate to have the opportunity to sit in on a session in an executive program for a major energy company. The speaker was Bertrand Piccard, who completed the first transglobal balloon trip. I had seen his balloon at the National Air & Space Museum, where my mother works, so I was intrigued to meet this adventurer.

His talk was very interesting. The first theme was leadership of teams against difficult goals, a subject near and dear to my heart. The second theme was leadership and decision-making when you have little control over external factors. In a balloon, for example, you can change altitude but you have no steering control and you certainly can’t control the weather. By recognizing that which you cannot control and focusing on what you can (adjusting altitude to take advantage of different wind directions and weather patterns), you will be maximally effective. The talk finished with a brilliant photo montage accompanied by “Let It Be.”

Bertrand is now focusing on a new project: Solar Impulse, a 100% solar-powered plane to go around the world. I wish him great success, as such projects will inspire people. Many thanks to the most sophisticated woman at IMD, who was instrumental in helping me finagle an invitation to the session.

Condom Understanding

Yesterday was the first presentation to our ICP client, the definitive end of Phase I. ICPs usually follow a four phase format:

I: Industry Analysis – understand the client’s industry and which factors are key to succeeding in it
II: Company Analysis – benchmark the client against those key success factors, identify gaps, and recommend initiatives to close them
III: Issue Analysis – take one of those initiatives and work it out in great detail to provide very specific recommendations on which actions the company should take
IV: Implementation – provide a plan for and participate in the implementation of change

Our project is a little different, however. The client arrived with a firm idea of which issues they wanted worked. Accordingly we combined the industry and company analyses into Phase I and used it as an objective validation of the specific issues on which the client wanted to focus. Our conclusions were that yes, supply chain mattered to this industry, yes, the client had significant room for improvement and, in fact, if they didn’t address their supply chain strategy immediately, they would soon find themselves in a world of hurt.

Three of our client stakeholders–including one board member–came down to IMD. I was honored to be selected by my team to make this first presentation, key to setting the tone for the rest of the project. Our team worked long and hard to produce a quality deliverable and wanted to make sure that the presentation reflected that. Although I had to adapt my usual “jovial” style to the serious, Swiss-German audience, I think it went well. This should largely be credited to the team (including Corey, our faculty advisor), who offered me very helpful feedback during the several dry runs we went through.

There was one snafu, though, and it occurred at the very beginning. I was presenting with the display behind me and one of my teammates’ laptops in front of me, controlling the powerpoint presentation. While presenting one of the first slides, a meeting reminder popped up on the laptop, obscuring much of the screen. It wasn’t visible on the display behind me, however, so no one else knew about it. As I contemplated whether or not just to continue presenting that way, my mouth was on autopilot. I was supposed to say that our objective for the meeting was to build a “common platform of understanding” from which to launch the rest of the project. However, what came out was a “condom platform of understanding.” Oops.

After that, though, it was pretty smooth sailing. We’re glad to have Phase I behind us and today will immerse ourselves in Phase II: conceiving an optimization model for warehouse locations and transportation costs within Europe. Our next presentation is in 10 days–bring it on!

Rice Football

Blogger’s note: I no longer use the term “Redskins” but am leaving my prior references intact in the spirit of learning.

The weather here has taken a decidedly cooler turn. I’m not sure if that’s just temporary or if we’re entering autumn. Such thoughts in August would be unheard of in Houston–and even in northern Virginia–but I suppose it is possible. Either way, the onset of cooler weather always means one thing to me: it’s football season!

Although professional games don’t begin until next weekend, this weekend marks the start of the season for the NCAA. My fighting Rice Owls won their season opener last night against conference rival SMU in very decisive fashion. I’m sorry I couldn’t have been there as the home opener each year is always quite a spectacle.

I can’t believe it’s been over 10 years now since I last played football. Real football, I mean–none of this sissy flag variety. The grueling two-a-days in August heat causing players to drop like flies and require intraveinous water/electrolytes, the smell of freshly cut grass, the competition on the field for starting positions, the resultant camaraderie off the field, the crack of helmet on helmet and pads on pads, the roar of the crowd, etc, etc. The football field was a great place to learn about teamwork, leadership, strategy, discipline, performance in clutch situations, and how to accomplish goals despite daunting obstacles (UT!).

I will miss the football season here in Lausanne but at least I can follow my teams thanks to the Web. Go Rice! Hail to the Redskins! And, of course, Go TJHSST Colonials!

ICP Client Visit in Zurich

Following is an IMD MBA Diary entry cowritten by my ICP teammate, Daniel, and me. This is Daniel’s second time working with me (We were also in the same Mod II study group.) and he hasn’t strangled me yet.

You know that something has changed when you take a train during a weekday. We have become so used to being stuck in Ouchy that it felt almost awkward not to sit in a classroom all day. There was a sense of adventure and excitement in the air when we (Bryan Hassin [USA], Mupwaya Mutakwa [Zambia], Felipe Restrepo [Colombia], Daniel Thull [Germany] and our professor Corey Billington [USA]) left Lausanne for the first work-meeting with our ICP client.

The expectations for our meeting were high. Over the last months there had been some communication glitches between our client, a global chemical company code-named Pandora, and us and we were eager to get the project back on track. We used the two hour ride to Zurich in a very “swissy” train car to consult with Corey and come up with a project plan that will bring us closer to the “big win”. Had someone told us a year ago that we would be travelling first class to Zurich, talking about physical supply chain optimization and the tax-effect of principal structures, we probably would have told him to go see a doctor…

Avid diary readers might recall that we have recently seen the movie “An inconvenient Truth” by Al Gore. Although our project team had not discussed the issue openly, we did all our travel on public transportation and thus maybe helped to offset some of the carbon footprint of our colleagues who travel around the world.

The meeting with Pandora went very well. Although one of our stakeholders was out with a migraine (maybe that was due to the long list of information we were requesting from him) we were able to extract lots of useful information from them. Not least did we learn that emulsion polymers are colloidal dispersions of polymers in an aqueous medium. We expect that tidbit to be of critical importance in our future careers.

The Pandora buildings left quite an impression. Bland from the outside, they were sharp and very modern inside. Maybe a little TOO modern—the green bathroom was a bit much! Speaking of green, though, all of their buildings had green roofs. We thought this sustainability touch, coupled with the absence of a single environmental incident over their 100+-year corporate history, was surprising—and welcome—coming from a chemical manufacturer.

Lunch was a refreshing break as we spent an hour chatting up our client. The special of the day was “Fleischkäs”, which ostensibly means “meatloaf.” However, this was like no meatloaf we had ever seen. It was basically a huge hot dog, sliced into crosswise sections and served with gravy. It couldn’t compete with IMD’s lunches, but what do you expect in the cafeteria of the local water works?! Unfortunately Corey had a long conference call and couldn’t join us for lunch. He had to settle for a cheese sandwich plus a Twix – welcome to the consulting world!

Before hopping on the train to head back to Lausanne, our group relaxed by the river for about 45 minutes. We found a nice little café with outdoor seating and ordered a round of beer—except for Bryan. When told that they didn’t have any dark beer, he ordered Scotch whiskey instead. The “bourbon” on the menu came from Tennessee so he didn’t trust it—Americans! Despite the fact that he claimed to have had Macallan 12-year many times before, this was the first time that it was served A. in a champagne flute and B. accompanied by dark Lindt chocolate—a pairing that went quite well!

On the train ride home we abandoned project discussion to talk about careers. Corey was helpful in providing some of his wisdom accumulated throughout his years at IBM, HP, and Silicon Valley start-ups. His #1 piece of advice to us sounded obvious but he assured us that each year he saw students not follow it: avoid toxic companies/work environments. Avoid them like the plague. If you love what you do and are in a nurturing environment, there is no limit to what you can accomplish. You should feel your energy going up every day. If, however, you are in an exploitative, unethical, abusive, or otherwise “evil” company, your energy will go down and life will . . . suck.

This project falls into the former category. We are set to deliver millions of euros of value to our client, we have tremendous faculty support from Corey, and we are very positive as a team. Despite the fact that the solution to our client’s problem is non-obvious, our energy level for addressing it is increasing and we know that we will succeed. Now, in the meantime, we all need to work on finding similar environments for life after IMD!

The Circle of Life

Sorry for the cheesy title to this post but I’m not in a very creative mood. I arrived home this evening to learn that the daughter of one of my good friends had died. She had been in and out of the hospital all her life so perhaps this wasn’t a surprise, but it still hurts. Figuring that my friends probably needed some grieving time to themselves, I forewent a phone call and spent a long time crafting an email to express my heartfelt condolences.

Of course it is terrible whenever a loved one dies, but there is something so . . . unnatural . . . about parents outliving their children; it adds another dimension of grief to the mourning. Although I have never experienced it myself, I saw the anguish it caused my grandparents when my father died; years later they still cried and cried about it. These friends of mine were no more deserving of such a tragedy than were my grandparents, but I suppose these things happen; death is as natural a part of life as birth.

Then, no sooner had I hit the send button than a new email arrived in my inbox. It was from another friend of mine who was in the same circle of friends as those who had just lost their daughter. However this email was to announce the birth of his son, who entered this world just as the other was leaving.

I feel both sorrow and joy; I feel conflicted. I suppose this is akin to (albeit much, MUCH milder) the mixture of grief and joy felt by a new father when the mother dies in childbirth. Every end is a new beginning, every time a door closes another is opened, etc. This pointed coincidence of timing illustrates something so simple about the natural cycle of birth and death, yet so profound that I can’t possibly articulate it in this entry.

Olympics Scoring

After heated debate with my classmates from around the world, I have decided to revise my Olympics medal scoring system. While we all agree that points should be given for silver and bronze medals (After all, shouldn’t winning gold and silver be worth more than just winning gold alone?), the topic of dispute was how many points each medal should be awarded.

Under my original scheme, golds were worth 3 points, silvers 2, and bronzes 1. This means that earning silver and and bronze together would be equivalent to earning gold. Our consensus was that a single gold was worth more than silver and bronze together; after all, gold is the best in the world. Accordingly, my new “official” system assigns 5 points to gold, 3 points to silver, and 1 point to bronze.

As of now, China retains the lead with 330 points (49 gold, 19 silver, 28 bronze). The US follows closely with 317 points (34 gold, 37 silver, 35 bronze). Russia, Great Britain, and Australia bring up the rest of the top five, each with scores in the 100s. With only two days of competition left, GAME ON!