Just delivered the last assignment for the GIM class 30 minutes ago.
That means that, apart from the Global Supply Chain Management assignment due on Monday, I am done with MBA classes.
I wish I could continue to have classes indefinetely. I like classes. I like to learn, to ask, to discuss. And I like the feeling of beeing worry-free, as the only thing you are supposed to do is pay attention.
ButI need to find a job and to write a thesis. So it is good to be finally able to concentrate on that from now on.
Pity that this last module was, in my humble opinion, way below the level of other modules, so it wasn't very enjoyable. And I was (am) sick.
They are having a reception with champagne and snacks in the next room, I should join them. But I think that my health won't allow me to drink or eat much. That also the reason I am missing out on the Hazmat Modine concert in Stuttgart in an hour. But I should be fine tomorrow.
Well, actually a bit more than a week, as the picture below was taken two Saturdays ago. I went with 2 other colleagues, one Canadian, one French, to a very small town somewhere in the wine lands around here to a wine and castle festival with some live music. The first band was bad, the second was ok. The festival was much smaller than I expected, but the Weinschorle (whine mixed with - little - sparkling water) was plentyful and cheap. The place was called Wachenheim.
Monday saw us rowing again, as well as Wednesday. I believe that I will be able to post better pictures later during the week, as I cannot take my camera in the boat. On Wednesday I tried to row a single boat for the first time and landed 3 times in the water. Of course. But it was warm, so that wasn't a problem.
Monday was also the day when I discovered that my locked bicycle was stolen from the locked bike garage in the locked apartment building. Really upsetting.
Thursday was a busy day. Career strategy coaching session at the business school and soccer game watching with barbecue in the same location, in company of the students of the EMAT course. It was also the day I got my push scooter as a replacement for the stolen bike.
Germany won, everybody went to the Wasserturm to commemorate.
Today the last MBA course for our class and my sixt in Mannheim started: Global Information Management. It started slow with an analysis of Friedman's "The world is flat" text.
The afternoon was a bit more exciting, with a quick (and I mean quick: 1000 years in 1 hour) review of the world's history based on economic cores and a tentative look on how the world might look like in the next 50 years. I am curious to see how the course progresses and how today's class integrates with the rest of the course's material.
We went to rowing practice again and I spent half an hour in the single boat once more, this time returning safe and dry to land.
And tomorrow I will be the CIO of Volkswagen of America, at least during the case study discussion.
I myself don't drink beer, but it is always interesting to get such a message from the course coordination:
Due to the size the class will be divided into two groups on Tuesday and Wednesday. While group 1 will have the PC Exercise on Tuesday and the Beer Game on Wednesday, group 2 will have the Beer Game on Tuesday and the PC Exercise on Wednesday.
Cool to see more friends from abroad here: Omo, Jake, Valmiki and Andson from Warwick are here.
Then we have some new people I still have to get to know better: Laure, Tom, Hiba.
And we have some old friends showing up again: NPV, WACC, IRR...
Let's see how it goes.
The first class of International Management went well. Now the classis much bigger than before and we are having the class in another room. Not as ideal as before, but still good chairs, good desks and a good projector. What else do you need? No power sockets for lap tops, though, and I believe that the students are concentrating more, now.
And the main reason is certainly the professor. Dr. Dr. Perlitz is a very dynamic professor with great experience, both academic and as a consultant, and even lectured for 6 months at COPEAD, in Rio de Janeiro. I have enjoyed the first class and believe that this is going to be a great course. But now I have to read a case and answer the questions below.
As promised on twitter, here the fairy tale from another point of view.
The three little pigs told their parents that they wanted to move out. The parents, being caring as they should, wanted to be sure that their piglets knew what adventures they were facing.
The pig parents were glad to see that their piglets identified the main risk out in the woods correctly: the big bad wolf. He certainly was a big risk, as the probability of an encounter was high, and the consequences of such encounter serious, probably leading to death.
The piglets presented their risk management plans.
The first one decided to build a wolf-proof house made of bricks and mortar. This should be enough to neutralize the risk. But, additionally, he bought a rifle. Being a good handyman, he certainly knew how to handle a gun and an encounter with the wolf would be a short-lived occasion.
The second pig decided to build a less expensive house with timber and wood. He knew his house was not too strong and, in an attempt to divert the risk, he signaled the surroundings of his home with signs and directions to Little Red Hood's granny's house. Maybe not very ethical, but, after all, he IS a pig.
The third little pig was nature loving and a pacifist. He built a lightweight, environmentally optimized living space out of straw and some natural fibers from organic extraction out of Venezuela. He believed in dialog, and set up a solar powered information kiosk which provided well researched information based on the latest researches on the benefits of vegetarian diets. Using the latest neurolinguistics approach, he convincingly presented the hazards of the ingestion of pig meat.
Well, you know the rest of the story. This version of this fairy tale was presented to us by our Services Management teacher, Barry Cross. I added my touch here and there, it was quite amusing.
I should be posting more pictures here on the blog, as I believe that the show a bit more of the day-to-day life than my texts by themselves.
So we start with another view of the main classroom, during the first day of the Investments course. Most of the MBA class was present, and I decided to capture the moment. Differently from Warwick, we haven't had classes with the whole class together, as people choose different electives.
But the big subject today was, again, the weather. Really miserable weather mostly due to the strong winds. Coming back home I found out that the extreme temperatures during the day had been -11 and +5, quite remarkable.
Anyway, two pictures, a bit of what's going on around here, now it is bed time. I will wake up at 5:30 for the second day in a row, this time for a telephone interview with a head hunter from Germany. Seems interesting.
Undoubtedly Nicholas Bate was the teacher who had the most impact on our class this term. Mind you, he is not a WBS teacher. He is a consultant and trainer who has given us about half a dozen sessions on varied subjects, all dealing with personal development. You know that kind of self help and life philosophy Americans seem to like so much? Yeah, exactly that.
I personally don't care for self help books. How could I? They are extremely boring. They do present some neat and interesting ideas, but they rely on repetition and exhausting explanations to present you what is, usually, pretty much obvious stuff, good sense. OK, their merit is to put obvious stuff black on white and present it to you. On hindsight, everything is easy, remember Columbus' egg. But they are boring and patronizing anyway, most of times. So I shouldn't like Nick's sessions, right?
Well, what he does is to get all the clutter out of the way and present what really matters. And he does so in a consistent and excellent way, with all the meaning of the word. But more on that later. So, personally, I found his sessions good, will use some of what he has proposed, but not all of it. But that's the hang of it: you have to endorse what he is doing.
It seems that his way of teaching is, at least, very striking: many of my colleagues have written about him in their blogs, and his phrases or citations are common vocabulary in the cohort: "Love the dip, love the plateau.", "No failure, only feedback.", "Be here now.", "Be your own hero.", "MEDS", "Be distinct or extinct." and so on. One of Deepak's first blog articles was about Nick. Praveen has written about him. Chris also. And Marwa is a big fan. No other teacher we had made people think as much about themselves.
We did have great teachers. And Ben Knight is, from WBS, surely the one I liked best. He has an extreme enthusiasm for his subject, economics (the mother discipline) and he obviously has fun making everybody participate in his class. And he knows the students in the group. By name, nationality, experience. He put effort into getting our particular experiences out to illustrate his points to the class. Five stars for him.
Then we had the energetic Stuart Chambers, Operations Management. For me, one of the most entertaining classes. As his colleague Nigel Slack, which we had for only one session, also created an impression with his knowledge and humor.
Nigel Piercy, Market Analysis, was, IMHO, a very good teacher. But one with a mixed feedback. I liked his classes a lot, many people could not deal with his cynic and sarcastic style. Sometimes you were not sure if what he meant was what he wrote or the exact opposite. But that was fine for me. Our marketing course was very much a first grade strategy course and it treated marketing from an updated point of view. No 4Ps or established (and usually still valid) theories, but more about customer value, customer relationship, strategic advantage, effective communication. I believe we could not have had a better marketing course. And, for me, his slides and his presentation style, though monologic and maybe boring at times, worked well.
In organizational behavior we had so many teachers, that only the first and main one remains in my memory. Nick was a very pleasant guy and his classes are interesting. But sorry, didn't work for me. I couldn't find a structure in his exposition and this made it very confusing for me. I am not expecting to get a good mark in OB.
Accounting was well taught. But it was a technical subject, nothing special to report.
And we had other speakers and teachers coming in and out during the term for one day sessions. Graham from Sykes Fairbairn stood out and his colleagues were pretty cool. Not to mention Mark and Dana from Penhela, who fortunately I will be meeting again and listening to their extremely fast paced speech in Mannheim in April. These are some really expert recruiting consultants!
But Nicholas Bate was surely the most impacting character during these 3 months. And, for me, it has more to do with the way he presents things, than with what he actually presents. He clearly has control of the crows all the time. When he is in class, he means business, and you know it. He does joke from time to time, but he is dead serious. He is extremely well prepared. He know his handouts by heart. He doesn't use powerpoint slides. He speaks clearly and loudly. He repeats and emphasizes. The course of his lectures is dynamic and diverse. He has catchy phrases. No bullshit keywords. And, obviously, he likes what he is doing.
So, that's it for today. I gave you all an overview of the types of teachers we had and singled Nicholas Bate out. I hope this gives you a good idea of who we faced during the term and I'll end up with the weblink to Nichola's blog. Its feed is on my reading list.
http://nicholasbate.typepad.com/
Cheers,
Fernando, heading to the Practice of Management report which should have been done long ago.
P.S.: The geese are back. They disappeared for a week, when it was really cold, but it is warmer now and they are there again, although not as loudly as usual. But this is an old pic.
