Category Archives: Keep Learning

Keeping the Edge

Keep Learning, What's up

When David and I went scuba diving last weekend (jealous?) we talked about missing having class but not missing the homework.

Work and family life can definitely keep the schedule over filled, but there are some relatively low impact things that I’ve been thinking about starting.

ADRhub.com that John Barkai recommended to us hosts monthly webinars. Some of the subjects are interesting others not as much. This months was Non-Defensive Communication.  There are two weird cuts. I had to stop and start the screen recorder. It’s a fairly breezy 57 minutes filled with solid advice and common mistakes people make either answering or asking for information in ways that create feelings of defensiveness. The video is unlisted so be kind about protecting the link. 🙂 I really liked it and I’ll be watching it again. Here’s what I put in the YouTube doobly doo:

“ADRhub’s Monthly Webinar. Sharon Strand Ellison defines Defensive Responses, three formats of communication, non-defensive questioning, and holds a short Q&A.”

 

Something else I’ve been looking at is Coursera.com. It’s similar to other MOOC or free online college-level course sites.  There’s everything from Western Music to Exploring Quantum Physics. With institutions like MIT and Carnegie-Mellon offering similar free courses the options are amazingly varied.

Maybe you’ve started working out again or picked up a third job instead. What are you all doing to keep your brain cells churning?

Finally, if you aren’t getting email notifications for new posts on the blog your primary email address probably isn’t on your profile. There’s a “subscribe to blog via email” box on the right side of the screen. Go ahead and enter your primary email address there. It makes it really easy to keep up when you get an email every time there’s an update.

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I hope the Holiday Season is shaping up nicely for everyone.  Annnnd, how about some updates after all the family gatherings over the next two months. 😉

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

-Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

Re-integration blues?

Help!, Keep Learning, What's up

Hi Everyone,

First off – stop reading this right now and read Tony’s post below if you haven’t done so already.

OK – you’re back?

Sara is amazing (which we already knew, of course)!

Now- onto my much-less inspirational post:

I’ve  noticed a trend in several DLEMBites I’ve talked to: various levels of trouble re-integrating into our pre-DLEMBA lives. This seems to most often be on a personal basis, but could presumably be in our professional lives as well. I’ve reflected upon various possible causes for this that include:

  • We weren’t paying enough attention to other aspects in our lives, and often the changes that occurred within them, while we were so busy with work and school.
  • We were looking for some kind of change in our lives that caused us to pursue this program and we may now be finding that the MBA experience is not the answer or perhaps only part of the answer to what we were looking for.
  • It is also possible that we ourselves have changed  through this program and those around us have not. Dealing with that can be difficult.
  • Doing the DLEMBA program and continuing our normal lives was, in a way, a very selfish act. We were taking our time (and money) away from others and giving it to Jack DLEMBA.  That require a certain degree of selfishness to do.  Returning to our former generous selves requires a re-adjustment (which Sara, at least, was apparently able to do!).

I’m sure there are other possible causes – and they may be as unique as each of us are.  If you’re feeling any of this, what do you think? Are there lessons we should pass on to the next class?  Are there recovery procedures you’ve discovered that others may benefit from?

[queue anecdotal science guy story]
I tell young astronomers coming to work at an observatory, where they are employed largely for their ability to provide services to other astronomers as opposed to  their own research,  to make sure they make time for their research from day one on the new job. The temptation is to settle into the job first, or finish a project first, and then start research. The result can often be they never pick up research again, or they simply lose time that is hard to make up.  An active research program is vital for most astronomy careers.

Many of us took the time to maintain the other aspects of our lives (analogous to the young astronomers’ research – see, it wasn’t a totally random sidebar) during DLEMBA, and I suspect many did not.  Almost certainly, we all made sacrifices that ended up having real consequences.   We were/are an ambitious group that cares for each other and no one wanted to let their team mates down. Sometimes, not doing so meant letting ourselves or others in our lives down instead.  We may be dealing with the repercussions of those choices now.

Anyhow, I don’t really have a purpose in this post other than to make the point that if you’re in this camp, you’re not alone. It’s not just you.  I believe the strength in each of us that got us through this program will get us through the rest of life’s challenges. I also believe we still remain an incredible support group (“personal board”) for each other, so I recommend reaching out to your fellow DLEMBites and sharing your experiences.

Hopefully this post is too late for everyone and we’ve all gotten through this already, but in case not – we’re all here to help and we’re all (author included) going through the same thing!

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How to promote investment in job/market creation

Keep Learning, ,

I just finished an interesting and thought provoking article (hopefully you still have an active HBR account) in the June, 2014 Harvard Business Review.  Written by Christensen and van Bever, the article, The Capitalist’s Dilemma, starts out addressing the question why companies are not investing in ways that create jobs and open new markets.  It ends up concluding that the traditional MBA-based company soundness analysis focused on ratios like ROA, IRR, NPV, etc. are based on the now incorrect assumption that capital is scarce.  Scarce? These days, it is practically free! Combined with the domination of “tourist” shareholders (those who invest in the short term as opposed to the long term – a description that even applies to pension fund investors these days), the reliance on these traditional estimates of return drives firms to spend money to increase their efficiency or performance, usually eliminating jobs, while investing in opening new markets, with its increases in risk and assets, is typically viewed as less financially attractive than simply sitting on retained capital and doing nothing.  Capital is cheap, the authors argue, we should use it, not hoard it.

They also ask the question what we happen if we develop metrics for measuring investments in resources that are truly scarce – like making good people better.  How about time? How do we measure the value of time as a scare resource?  The focus on short term performance has created an abundance of short term capital that is not doing its job to help ensure future success and development.

Any thoughts/ideas on what we can do in our own lives and firms to reflect this change of perspective and corresponding motivation to put capital to use to build a stronger enterprise, not just a set of assets in some overseas company so our ratios appear better?

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