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Sunday, April 10, 2005

Debrief on "the brief" Fourth Term

Another term down - each term seems to go by faster than the previous one.

Just like our team case study, the Corporate Strategy course started strong with great expectations but finished with a muddled whimper, repeating the refrain “innovate or die” and other bromides… like a cat imitating a lion. The one big bonus was the guest speakers – a slice of CEO life and times…what I found out is that Corp Strat actually all comes down to leadership – whether the leader can define a strategy and execute it effectively, “let your employees have it your way.”

Like a high speed assembly line, Operations Management maintained a hyper-efficient full-force, hit-on-all cylinders state through the term and it was all I could do just to keep up with the process – just like the beer bottling plant in the Laverne and Shirley show where the bottles keep coming down that assembly line and you have to keep up or give up. Interesting side note…after taking this course you never see standing in line the same way again – first off, it’s now a queue and you start to analyze where the bottleneck is and how to calculate the expected waiting time using a complicated mathematical formula with a forest of square roots and a fraternity of Greek symbols.

Speaking of symbols, Organization Design was symbolized by one huge question mark with the letters H-U-H before it. Sorry Gerry, I just couldn’t get my arms around the concepts in any meaningful, practical way like I could for Managerial Effectiveness. And trying to use a computer algorithm to diagnose cultural and organizational “fit”? Fuggadaboutid!

Apparently, there are just 10 more residency weekends to go before we get to wear those silly square hats and smile that dopey graduation smile in front of all our families and friends...the proverbial light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.