All posts by Curly Scot

February 2016 Reunion

What's up,

Hi Everyone,

I finally got a chance to read and sign the reunion guest book. I guess everyone will have to wait until the next reunion to read my entry, so let me express my thanks here to everyone who helped pull this off: all you food and event volunteers, attendees, friends, and family. We had a constant abundance of good food, great activities and even better company over the weekend. I especially enjoyed meeting part of our next generation. Many thanks all for coming, sharing, and helping. I feel I didn’t just get an MBA through this program, I got an ohana. Thank you.

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Some pictures here.
(Send me yours and I can add them.)

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Reunions!!

Uncategorized,

I should have details for our February reunion later this week, if all goes well. Apologies for the delay.

Meanwhile, thanks to our own Kim Jong-un for hosting a warmup event on the valley isle yesterday.  A good time, too much yummy food, and great to catch up with everyone. I’ve missed you all!

Taken 22Nov15.

Wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving. Leave a comment or make a post and let us know what you’ve been up to and/or what you’ve been thinking about.  (And click on Curly’s blog link over there —-> for some of his recent mind wanderings.)

 

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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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OK- someone has to break-in the What’s Up Category…

What's up

So, a big “what’s up in my life” is that today I signed an offer letter for a new position at work. Starting 1Jul, I’ll be the  Associate Director of Development at our observatory.  It’s a pretty good position that gets me more strategically involved in both the division I’m working in now, and as a directorate member, in the observatory as a whole, so I’m really looking forward to it. On the other hand, none of the last 4 people in this position (all of whom I’ve worked with in my 7 years here) are still working for us.  That makes me the 5th person in this position in 7 years, so I figure that means by the end of 2015 or so, I’ll be on to something else.  Any suggestions? 😉

On a serious note, I really credit this program and all of you for helping me get this position and feel comfortable with both negotiating for it and filling it.  You’ve all taught me a lot and learning from your and your experiences has really helped me refine my own thoughts and approaches to management and leadership at work. So, I am quite sincere in saying you all share some of the credit in me getting this position -although when I mess it up in a year and a half, that’ll be all on me! 🙂

What’s up with everyone else?

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