Anatomy of Case Discussions

As in any MBA program in the United States, we at Hult IBS are also made to "learn by case method" and bombarded with case discussions after discussions day in and day out . Surprisingly the cases which we discuss are pretty much common across the various B-schools in the United States. I was speaking to my friend in Darden School of Business in Virginia and I told him I am doing an assignment on Nordstrom. Turned out that they had done the Nordstrom case as well and a host of other cases which we had done too . All the cases were written by the case writers of the holy temple of Business education - Harvard Business School. So what differentiates the various B schools if the course work/cases is more or less the same ?

Undoubtly it is the quality of the case discussions which we have in the classrooms. What case perspective can a bunch of one year experienced folks bring to table ? It has to be a right mix of the experiences, educational background and cultural diversity. In that respect , Hult I believe has scored over others and the diversity of discussions we are having in the classroom is mind-blowing. Most case scenarios are United States based (afterall it is the defacto home of Business education) but then many of us bring our own perspectives about the way things get done in our home country and sometimes we do have some animated and heated discussions.

Of course this diversity brings it's own cons. Sometimes people don't follow the flow of the discussions but instead hark back to a point spoken at the start of the case hour, thereby taking the whole classroom back to square one . Here is where the professor or the facilitator comes into picture. A good facilitator makes sure that we don't divert off-track but rather stick to what is being discussed while at the same time not actually negating the point which is taking us off track. (It is a different matter that this off-track guy will be losing out on the Class Participation credit ) . Also the insights of the professor also make a huge difference to the learning process and some of the classes are really inspiring and make us to "think about" the broader perspective.

And so the professors, the cases and the discussions are making me "think about" things thereby increasing my "frame of reference" , the key to being a global manager in the flat world.

"Depends" and MBA

My MBA coursework has now gone into the 5th Gear now and every single day seems to be bringing out different facets of the way business is done in the various parts of the world. The perspectives of the people in the case discussions are so varied that at the end of the 80 min discussion, you are left with more questions than the answers the case was supposed to provide. (Anyway a case analysis is never meant to reach a conclusion ) .

So what happens at the end of the discussion when the various perspectives just dont seem to fit into the 80 minutes scheme of things ? Hmm........You use the term "Depends" . Aah well the answer to the case questions "depends" on how you look at things. I believe the focus should be on Financial restructuring . However any decision needs to taken "Depending" on how important the other functions of the company are !! . If the question is "Do you want to expand the product line by offering a new innovative design ?? " , the answer is "It depends on whether you want to increase the market share or you want to keep a sustained but slow and steady growth ... blah blah... blah blaha............"

So in effect what the dean said on the day one of the MBA orientation was quite true. MBA increases "your frame of reference" allowing you to think in different directions. The "depends" usage is just a extension of "your frame of reference", with the MBA managers purportedly having more ambigious scenarios to think about in order to bring out the best possible solution. More on my "depends" MBA as the story unfolds.............. ciao till then.

Out of the (Tool)Box !!

About 4 weeks ago when I landed in Cambridge for the Hult MBA experience, I was handed out a huge folder with "Orientation Toolbox" written on it. The toolbox is supposed to give us tools to be used over the next 11 months for getting the coveted "MBA" degree. So did I get the so called tools at the end of the Boxy ride ? Yes of course it did serve the purpose !! . Just back from a 5 year grind in the workplace where the only thing I could think of was to impress my boss (and of course the gal in the next cubicle. Gosh Why arent any gals in my project/team/cubicle ?. Guess I will save that discussion for another day ) and my so called clients.

So in came the toolbox with me and the others bombarded with "case" analysis , Accounting and Finance Basics, operations basics, Presentations skills basics and career advisor seminars and of course the Friday night binges with beer and food.!! (And yes the fact that parties are paid for by the school makes it even more fun) . Along the way, we also did a team case Assignment and presented our recommendations as consultants in a full blown presentation to the faculty. The case assignment was the one which was to open my eyes to the team dynamics and also to the way various people from different cultures acutally work . My team consisted of one Indian( that is me!! ) , an american , a Japanese , a Filipino, a Brazilian and a French.

To see this team work on a case assignment was (cant fit a word here ) !! . I knew Americans were very good "small talkers", but I did not know the extent they could go on and on talking about everything in the world. (No offenses here. I honestly mean it in a very good way ). Then we had the Japanese way of thinking whereby they are very respectful of the other peoples' thoughts and try to listen to patiently before making a comment. And of course brazilians who are the ultimate party goers. Call them for any party and they are game and they are never the ones take anything to heart. (Dil pe mat le yaar !!! ) . Finally my team presentation turned out to be good and we were all happy with the hard work we had put over the last 3-4 weeks.

So off I am to sleep over the Tools I learned and move over to Module A. Now the real fun begins (ok I keep saying this but cant help it ) with the gradings and GPA coming into the picture. So while the Class Participation in Toolbox classes are all about simply glib talking , we now have to talk substance to get the so called credits for CP. zzzzzzzzzzzz

Outward Bound Learning : Truly Amazing !

Today we at Hult International B school experienced what is called the OutWard Bound Learning process.More Information on this program here . It is essentially a working in teams exercise, where a team is asked perform a series of activities some as mundane as trying to balance a small aluminium rod with using just one finger and others as complex as building a raft from scratch and making it float. The experience of building the raft by using barrels, bamboos, and ropes and trying to sail was by far the most fabulous one.

Apart from the fun we had in building the raft by Strategizing, planning, designing and executing the actual plan, the way a bunch of folks worked as a team (some of them in the team were meeting each other for the first time) to achieve the goal was fabulous.There cannot be a better example of how the "target" or the "goal", makes people work together as a single Entity . Every member of the team helped in his or her own way to make the raft float and sail . And yes our team's raft did float and the picture is of the team which accomplished it :) .

I would recommend this program to any corporate which has just hired a new team for a new project and want the team to get going on the task at the earliest. Signing off hoping that OutWard Bound continues to build such innovative programs for the student and corporate world.

Welcome !

Welcome to the Blog of the Most International MBA on earth ! . The one year MBA of HULT International Business School located in the beautiful city of Boston promised us that it will be the most "international and Diverse " MBA and the orientation day indeed delivered what the insititution promised. How many MBA classes can boast of Students coming from Brazil, Venezula, Portugal, Canada, India (Aye ! we are the highest number in this class too), China, Japan,Korea and even Australia ? Even countries like Macedonia, Greece and Russia are represented in this class.

Apart from diversity in terms of the countries, the class of August 2008 at Hult has Students who have previously worked as Musicians, Cardiologists, Entrepreneurs, Bank Managers,Currency traders and of course the usual Information Technology (IT) Engineers (And yes I am one of them). And the orientation day was really fun with me listening (and trying to understand) the English Accents of almost all regions on World. So we had people speaking Spanlish (Spainish accented English), Chinglish (Chinese English, by far the most difficult one for me to understand, Frenglish and of course my own Hinglish(Indian English , which though not much accented is fast paceed. So we need slow down to the American way of speaking english which is a challenge in itself).

So it seems we are going to have a challenging year ahead. Firstly the culture shock in terms of diversity . Add to that the fact that it is a one year MBA, which means the we have less time to assimilate things and need to be on our toes from day one. Hoping that the year turns out to be a great one !