To boldly go...back to school

I knew that the march back to the ivory towers of academe after having been away just 5 years would yield a few nuggets of learnin' here or there. What I did not expect is that these nuggets might teach things about myself. Here's what I have learned so far...I enjoy writing and seem to have some knack for it. It's as if I have a writing itch that needs a thorough and cathartic scratching lately, and I don't know how it got there. My team members have caught on to this and have assigned me editorial duties on our case studies. I am happy to oblige, but my perfectionist tendencies to get just the right meaning out of a word or phrase is time-consuming. Hopefully, it gets easier with practice.

Another thing I've learned - never having taken a psychology course in my entire academic life, I find it fascinating to listen and read and think about the organizational behavior constructs and constraints in my Managerial Effectiveness class. Some might find the grayness of this course confounding, as there is no right answer, just different points of view and ways to justify it. I find it liberating. In some ways, it is no different from my research days, playing with different variables and observing the effects, looking for patterns and paradigms, imposing order and systems upon apparent disorder. But of course, here the subject matter is fickle and infinitely more complex - people.

A very successful CEO was once asked what made him so successful, “Good Decisions” he said. Well, how does one make sure one makes good decisions? “Experience” he said. So how does one gain experience in order to make good decisions? “Bad Decisions” said the CEO.

This quote comes from a father and son dialogue entitled "Avoiding Prattfalls at Pratt" posted on the website for the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke (www.pratt.duke.edu/news/feature_younger.php). I think it is instructive as to the ways we learn...it is far easier to learn from failure than from success. Success breeds false pride and lock-step conformity (if it ain't broke, don't fix it)...failure causes us to re-examine, to repair, to reflect. Of course, a couple of successes here and there doesn't hurt to remind us at least we are on the right path...

Connecting the Dots...

As I see it, there are two kinds of learning - experience-based and knowledge-based. Experience-based learning is the kind of knocked-down, dragged through the mud, grit in your teeth, stomach turning process that makes you older and wiser, i.e., trial and error. Knowledge-based learning is the internally focused, analytical and observational process that is part laser beam focus and part 30,000 feet aerial view - what are the concepts, theories, patterns, structures, paradigms, etc. at play in this situation? I have the latter in spades by virtue of 6 years of Ph.D. training and can cogitate with the best of them...but the former, execution - getting things done - theory into action, potential into kinetic...aye, there's the rub.

This week was a week of experiential learning...suffice it to say I learned much about labor laws in the State of NC and the validity of contractual agreements. This day-to-day learning laboratory that is my company stands in contrast to my pursuit of the EMBA, a more abstract and contemplative knowledge-based endeavor. I am not quite there yet with connecting the knowledge dots that I gather in school and the real world dots that I see at work. But I suppose just as a practiced astronomer sees constellations, patterns, planets and stars in the sky where a novice sees only points of light, perhaps one day I likewise may be able to connect the dots and see the big picture.

Reality bites!
I think I was more enamored with the concept of business school rather than the reality of it. The brochures and campus visits and websites all play up the glossy happy images of professionally dressed and well-groomed students gathered around some conference table somewhere, caught up in discussion of some high concept business theory. What they fail to show is the darker reality - long lonely nights staying up to the wee hours just trying to finish up that stats problem set you thought would only take a couple hours to solve and it is three days later and it still eludes you. All this knowing that in 4.5 hours, you will have to wake up and go to a full-time job with full-time problems (er, challenges and opportunities). It used to be that in college (or even grad school), if I did poorly on a test or exam, I would say "I'll just spend more time studying" and get caught up by the next test. Well, I found out this week that I bombed my first financial accounting quiz. And I have no elasticity with time here - my Prof tells me "you just need to do more problem sets." OK, let me quit my job first, that should free up some time. It's challenging enough to keep work at work, reserving my evenings and weekends for hitting the accounting/stats/management problem sets and readings. They say it will get easier, and I can only believe it and keep plugging away. At least now, when they bring the prospective students around, I can flash them a weary smile and say "yeah, they keep us pretty busy around here."

It's all about M.E.

I was at dinner with a couple of business associates recently and the conversation turned to teamwork within companies (or lack thereof). Seems that we all could benefit from some teambuilding and management skills once in a while, especially those of us in the scientific and technical disciplines, where more often than not, an individual is promoted based on his/her technical skills and merits, rather than ability to work in collaboration with others.

One of the WEMBA classes this term that is new and different for me is Managerial Effectiveness (the other one that is new, different and difficult for me is Financial Accounting...more on that later). Having been in the "hard" sciences for most of my life, I was curious to know if a similar sort of "management science" can be taught to current and future business leaders, or if leadership is more or less innate. Apparently, leadership is teachable, although not in your typical read-a-textbook-work-a-problem-set type of way. I have found the (aptly named) "M.E." course to be relevant and timely thus far, touching on issues of teamwork, conflict resolution, leadership, influence, communication, etc. And that's started me thinking that maybe we all could use an occasional booster shot of managerial skills once in awhile.