Reflection of 2015 MBA Trip to Boston

Introduction

As the class enters Year 2 the long anticipated trip to Boston commenced on September 13^th. This was a great way to refresh one’s mind for the MBA prior to starting in earnest towards later in the month.  The trip I believe was a great success with stronger binds between all participants.  At times it was fairly hectic with a lot of information and concepts to be absorbed and at other times it gave meaningful insights into how the business world can operate at different levels to achieve the same goals

.When I looked at the agenda initially there was a wide range of subjects; from a lecture on how to laugh to strategic problem solving.  There did not appear to be any common theme.  This, I now believe, was not correct.  I hope in the course of this reflection to explain that the theme of Practical Wisdom is the common thread throughout the week.  I contend that although the agenda itself was not structured as such but that if you consider the week holistically then the concept and definition of knowledge and wisdom were explained; the techniques for achieving knowledge and wisdom were discussed; and the ways to apply this new found wisdom will lead to success. These three themes will be discussed and reflected later in this piece.

 

Overall Feeling of the trip

As with all scheduled activities they can often occur at the least convenient time.  For myself I was leading a track on a regulatory response that arose from a recent audit at one of our sites.  These unforeseen events can have an impact but I am fortunate I am part of a good team and my work colleagues took up some of the burden.  This allowed me to concentrate as much as I could on the Boston week.

I like going to the U.S. The immense proportions of the country can be over awing.  You think how can a country like Ireland with a population less than the size of the Greater Boston area ever succeed within the greater global context.  Then I look at my class mates and I see one running a successful business in the US, another involved in many IT based projects internationally and perhaps myself, relatively successful in a small field internationally.  It has been said that apart from the education we receive that the main reason why Ireland can “punch above its weight” is that we are natural storytellers and that in business being able to explain a vision is an important factor in leading and being successful.

Boston as a city was like a home from home apart from the Boston accent and the tall buildings.  The hotel, Omni Park House Hotel, for a New Ross man had a certain resonance married as I am to a descendant of the Kennedy clan that remained in Ireland.  The hotel’s central location and the fact that everyone was staying there added to the sense of camaraderie within the group.  The Suffolk University buildings on Tremont Street were beautiful to admire and gave a sense of credence to the week.  The welcome and effort put in by the organizing group was well appreciated and the group was made feel at home.

The lectures given were all of a very high standard with the contributors’ obvious experts in their fields and their engagement with us tremendously high and very forthcoming.  The highlights for me were Larry Prusack and Jim Porcarelli who are master public speakers. Larry Prusack defined for me the substance of the week in discussing Practical Wisdom and it was a personal pleasure for me to have presented the Waterford Crystal present on behalf of the class to him. Larry Porcarelli’s slightly ‘queenie’ style of presentation was very enjoyable when justapostioned against his strong business savvy.  For content and practicality I appreciated Kui Hen Hung’s lecture on Supply Chain Management and Martha Culver’s understated presentation on market intelligence.  Both gave real life examples of how the theory can be applied in practice. I also appreciated Michelle Langer’s short talk during the visit to State Street Bank; she explained in a very good diagram how you should continuously improve from your core activities to adjacent activities that offer opportunities which ultimately leads to new activities which can transform a business.

The visits to HubSpot and State Street Bank were interesting in the diverse nature of their management style. The HubSpot work environment was portrayed by the company representatives as main way of capturing and retaining critical expertise. HubSpot is the archetypical IT start up with the rejuvenated warehouse look, X-Box stations and beer on tap.  The people were all young, bright, and beautiful and empowered to meet their goals in whatever manner they wish.  This is definitely a significant contrast to the norm we have in most businesses in Ireland with such empowerment associated with managerial levels rather than at staff level.  It also contrasted with the approach in State Street Bank.  Here people were expected to work hard and as a team within a fairly structured environment.  Their staff retention level was high and it was probably because there was also a high level of empowerment for the staff   similar to HubSpot. My personal takeaway was that perhaps stripping away the evangelism of the HubSpot approach that providing an employee defined environment can increase job satisfaction but that ultimately it is just a different road of the same journey, when compared to State Street, to achieve the same level of employee productivity.  At the end of the day the employee derives job satisfaction from many different levels but it is the work and appreciation of the work that motivates most.

The agenda of the week and the activities surrounding it such as the visit to the Massachusetts Sate House and the 2015 All Ireland Mixed Pool Tournament held in the Beantown Sports Bar provided an excellent canvas for the incredible learning curve of the 4 days.

Outline of Reflection

As I mentioned earlier the key theme of the week for me was Practical Wisdom.  One of the aspects of the MBA and indeed of any significant endeavor is how to manage and take meaning from all the information that is given.  Remembering or having access to information in itself is not being knowledgeable. What I have summarized from the different lectures but perhaps defined in the discussions lead by Larry Prusack and Liam Fahey is that information used in the correct context leads to knowledge but that knowledge used with insight leads to wisdom. When you have wisdom it is expected that you will then take the correct decision.

Once I had understood this insight then the rest of the lectures fell into place.   I remember asking Larry Prusack how can we, as MBA students, can learn knowledge to which he advised to give yourself personal space, read and discuss outside your normal field.  This giving of space is the starting point of the process that I took from the week of lectures and discussions.

The steps of the process to achieve practical wisdom that I propose are to;

Step 1: Create some space to allow thinking without distractions.

Step 2: Gather all the relevant information.

Step 3 Analyze the information within context.

Step 4: Derive conclusions with insight based on measured assumptions.

Being from a technical background I tend to need to put structure to my thinking.  By having this model, I can formulate better to myself the information that was received.

 

Definition of Knowledge

One of my work objectives for this year is to establish a network within the company of subject matter experts at each of our sites.  The aim is to establish a network of expertise which could be developed in the area of data integrity and computer systems validation. This is a specialized area and as with all corporate companies the internal expertise is located in many countries.  Prior to going to Boston I had started research into knowledge networks and it was not long before I came across references to Laurence Prusack.  When I made the connection to the Larry Prusack on the week agenda I was delighted that we would have the opportunity to meet him in the flesh.

Larry Prusack has spent most of his life considering organizational knowledge but interesting believes that it is not fully defined or understood.  He challenged us to consider whether the current technocratic puzzle solving management theory now common within most prominent business schools is the correct paradigm to becoming wise.  This was echoed in Kui Hen Hung’s and Martha Culver’s presentations where they gave real life examples how solving a puzzle is not enough that you had to have understanding and be able to consider the best course of action.

Although Larry’s talk was scheduled in the middle of the week I believe that it forms the foundation for all the other lectures.  His definition of gaining knowledge and then achieving wisdom are reminiscent of the Toyota Production System (TPS).  Knowledge is the assimilation of information into a cohesive and usable manner. In TPS, workers are challenged into explaining and justifying their technique and it is the cycle that develops their knowledge. Likewise, the definition proffered by Larry was that knowledge was the use of information in the correct context.  Similar to workers in TPS we have been challenged that knowledge needs to be sustained and this can only be done by constantly learning.

It was in the definition of wisdom that initially I failed to fully understand.  At one level wisdom is the ability to knowledge with insight, something Martha Culver, Guarab Bhardwaj, and Liam Fahey developed further, was understandable.  Larry Prusack brought it further by adding the characteristics of openness, understanding the effects on the future (“Living in the shadow of the future”) and caring for others to insight and context.

These additional characteristics I could not appreciate but then as a class we discussed leaders that were wise such as Mandela, Gates and US President Wilson.  These people have been wise at many times of their life. When you consider them, within the characteristics that Larry Prusack described, you can see how they have used their knowledge altruistically for not immediate benefit but for future long-term benefit.

Space to Think

Larry was the only person who delivered his lecture without any presentation or gimmicks. His style in itself was a learning experience.  One of the points that he made was the skill of rhetoric that we should develop.  His presentation was full of rhetorical features with abundant use of relevant quotes and clear construction of his argument.  Such skills can only be developed if a person has the time to think. In this modern world thinking is becoming harder to do with our “on-line” livingstyle.

Dr. Sushil Bhatia gave an entertaining and thought provoking presentation which straight away got out us all out of her comfort zones.  Dr. Sushil has been professor in Suffolk University since 2005 after a successful career in the field of innovation. He made the point about thinking positively… it is too stressful.  Instead he demonstrated that through proper breathing, laughter, meditation and thinking neutral gives a person a clear mind.  With the clear mind it is then possible to consider different possibilities and then innovate.

Although Dr. Sushil approached the subject in a light manner there is a high level of support to the claim that meditation is good for you. There are a number of studies that support this with one by Luders et al identifying increase size of the cortical gyrification ( supposed indicator of brain activity) predominant in mediators.  Luders et all suppossition that this may show that practitioners of meditation will have increased control over their ability to focus by regulating distractions such as daydreaming and wandering of the mind.  This supports Sushil’s contention about the importance of thinking neutral.

My understanding is that in previous generations in Ireland we had an enforced meditation by the Catholic Church. Like other religions the familiarity of the prayers and rituals allowed people to take a mental timeout.  Now living in a more secular world the imposition of the religious regime has been replaced or removed.  What is good about Dr. Sushil’s approach is that meditation if practiced regularly may act as a replacement of the tranquil of a church without the religious overtones.

For me it was something that I recognize that I need to develop as I find it hard to think neutral and give my body a rest.  I have used the techniques a few times since the presentation and have found it effective.  I still need to achieve the proper meditative state.   I also need to consider Larry Prusack’s approach of taking a day out every week to read, study and discussing. This creating space is a good management technique as Gaurab Bhardwaj mentioned when Meg Whitman took over HP she took one year out to analyse the company which was in dire straits at the time.

Information, Analysis and Insights

With the provision of a framework for wisdom it is then time to start gathering information. All the lectures that were of a practical nature all had as an initial step the gathering of relevant information.  From the crisis management of Regina O’Neill to the last lecture (or possible advertisement) of Brian Knish and Ronald Hertel the gathering of proper information was crucial to the development of strategy and the making of decisions.

Supply chain management was of particular interest to me working in the pharmaceutical industry. Kui Hen Hung identifies that there is a certain levels of risk with regard to supply chain.  The assessment of this risk is dependent on the decision makers at each stage of the link.  The main problem with a supply chain model is the lack of information which then leads to lack of co-ordination. Similar with Regina O’Neill and crisis management.  Successful crisis management is in the preparation by gathering information on the organization and identifying the risks.

Martha Culver was different perspective when dealing with market intelligence.  In an understated presentation she outlined the dimensions of market intelligence.  It is not only the information and the structured approach in the data gathering; it was also applying the information with knowledge and foreknowledge.

Analyzing the information within context is the area that resonates with me most.  It was the constant underlying theme as I indicated previously. What was interesting in the detailed lecture by Kui Hen Hung was how initial information explained the cyclic nature of supply chains. What I found intriguing that after gathering the data and theorizing the cycle, even after identifying the best approach to minimize the impact of supply chain disruption that Hung discovered that the critical issue was the people.  This changed a fairly standard discussion with cyclic graphs (the answer to everything in business) to one with greater insight where the critical factor was the strength of human to human relationships and the propensity of people to react in certain situations.

This resonates with me as I deal with the management of data, this is my product.  Within my company we have our own supply chain as well as our 3^rd Party operation and our suppliers.  All supply physical goods but all supply data which we depend as a company to be accurate and true. The issues identified by Ken for physical goods I also see for data and I believe his approach is something that I should be able to develop within my own work.

The same risk assessment type of analysis was demonstrated by Regina O’Neill.  Gathering the data is not sufficient.  There has to be an analysis of the data and some level of insight.  Martha Fulder’s company provides Win/ Loss scenarios where they examine different scenarios based on different assumptions

And it is assumptions that Liam Fahey drew our attention to.  He gave a lovely line that “An assumption without evidence is useless” which is something that should be perhaps put in bold letters on the wall of every business.  It is failure, or laziness of thought, that we are all guilty of.  But what Fahey and Fulder do is to identify, examine and test all assumptions.  When the assumptions are proven then the application of the knowledge with insight, based on the assumptions will lead to wisdom or in business terms a strategy.  Or probably more clearly defined by Phil Drover where any solution depends on your deep understanding and proper utilization of both your physical and intellectual capabilities.

 

Discussion and Conclusion

I have attempted to extract the key points from the lectures and to combine them in a cohesive manner. The three key components were understanding what is practical wisdom, the techniques required to achieve wisdom and finally building the insight to use that wisdom effectively .  To think without being distracted and by this perhaps the definition is not to allow bias be that distraction.  Practical wisdom requires to have an open mind, space to think and ability to provide insight.  The week of lectures and site visits when viewed as a whole provide a clear road map from both a personal perspective (via mediation or setting aside time to think) and from a business perspective by using proven techniques to acquire, process and summarize information so that it allows you and your team to make the right decision or to take the correct direction.

My own view, and the view I believe from discussions with my class mates, was that this week was great success and something that we will talk about for years to come.  It was a great bonding event and everyone had a great time.  Boston is a lovely city and the Irish dimension is incredible.  The only possible sour note was the social disparity towards African-Americans in a city boasting the two greatest universities in the world. I remember seeing a car with bumper sticker similar to ‘no parking’ except it said ‘socialist’.  For a country with no form of socialism this fear is hard to understand.

Going forward there is a good framework to study deeper on some of the topics.  Knowledge management is my current topic and I know now that if I include Prusack in my search whatever comes up will be of great quality.  But I think also will look further in Kui Hen Hung ‘s agent characteristics in the supply change management it may be something I can adapt for data integrity management.

I would like to personally thank the Waterford IT staff for the effort he obviously put into the preparation of the week.  The standard of speakers and being exposed to great thinkers such as Larry Prusack and Liam Fahey.  Although physically we are wrecked mentally we have been invigorated. I am glad to have done it in my second year because I feel I am starting to put all the various strands together.