Nick Maher (Chief Executive, Industry and Parliament Trust) opened the IPT and the British Chamber of Commerce's reception on the 4th December in London, jokingly with how delighted he was seeing so many young-looking faces in the audience -- something rarely seen at the House of Commons. True enough, I saw several students in their school uniforms roaming around the room. The event was titled in line with the campaign 'Business is Good for Britain', "Business is Good for Young People". An eye-opener for me, I was glad to be in the event and able to hear more about new initiatives surrounding the businesses and trades in the country. One of the things I found relevant with my current status as a student was that the government seems to realize how education and business go together and how new policies are designed along that. A lady was speaking on behalf of employers on her company's efforts in providing jobs for young people and support them in finding suitable employment. A smallish painting and decorating company, it was supporting an initial of 22 apprentices which then grew to a hundred of them. She was astonished and encouraged to see how capable these young people were as they came to her company already with certificates and qualifications, yet they were unemployed. The Chamber realizes its strategic position in encouraging employers to look at this situation and to provide employment opportunities for more young people. Improvements in English and Mathematic subjects are apparently being done to ensure that these young people are academically equipped in those two important academic subjects for an employment here. Not only certification or academic qualification, I agree with Jo Swinson MP (Minister for Employment Relations and Consumer Affairs in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Women and Equalities Minister in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport) that employers require 'the right attitude' from potential hires, from being reliable at work, to coming on time to work or simply the willingness to show up at work while you don't feel like it as you wake up in the morning. Young MBAs We may lament over the seemingly childish behavior of some 24 or 25 years old lads. But I think being young does not mean one is incapable, or less capable, in being a good worker. On the other hand, we do know that maturity does not always come with older age anyway. I believe such positive attitude mentioned by the minister applies to MBAs too -- our academic qualification/certificate is not everything. Regardless of age, our quality of work as MBA students (and as an effective leader) is very much determined more by our attitude and approach towards responsibility, towards what respecting other people, authority and agreed deadlines mean. And how we need self-awareness skill that could help us to maintain our constant commitment to those positive attitudes, if not making them better.
I had the (rare) opportunity of attending a public lecture on Family Enterprise. I say 'rare' because my usual timetable would only allow me to leave the campus after 5 pm. Jointly organized with the Scottish Family Business Association the lecture held yesterday was the third in its inaugural series. Hugh Raven of Ardtornish Estate(Scottish Gaelic: Àird Tòirinis)talked about his family enterprise; from its historical background to its most recent evolvement. Essentially an inherited family business, the Ardtornish Estate has now been a famous holiday destination and expanded its business to other areas with a range of enterprises owned by Raven's family since 1930. Raven was passed on his current MD position from his brother who lost a battle with cancer. Pretty much the first talk I ever had on family enterprise, I find it interesting to hear from the seemingly quiet, thoughtful middle-aged man on challenges the family business dealt with, why the recent decision on restructuring and formalizing the governance of his family's business was made. More to this, I gain the practical knowledge on the local practice and terms like Trust, the Scottish local association for the family businesses, etc.
Seven years ago, just several hours after flying in from Osaka returning from his trip, my father died at our home. He was 51. It was a sudden loss for all of us as it usually is on heart-attack cases. I heard my mom blaming the situation that him being too busy for months following his death and one of them was because he had to deal with the mess in his family's business. Not only I'm an ignorant person (having this combination of phlegmatic-melancholic temperament), in our culture it's more common for us children not to know too much about conflicts in our extended family. Well, at least I grew up with my mom keeping us away from such agony of having to know how our aunts and uncles may not be as nice as they seem to be. But when my father died, I found myself asking my mom about my dad's family's business and surprised to know how messy it had been since my grandfather died almost two decades ago. Understanding my father's family background has helped me to better understand the current situation the family is now facing. My paternal grandfather was a wealthy man, but the loss of one wife after another made him re-married twice and I could see how it broke the family apart. From the seven children, only few successfully went to obtain a university education. Years after their childhood most of them have to struggle to meet ends meet in their present lives. Hugh Raven mentioned about risk-taking in family business. And one of those risks is... emotional risk. Being the only son after his brother's death, he told us how he is surrounded with the strong domination of women, his sisters. We heard him sharing about going out to meet each of them as he was having ideas and new approaches that he was making on the business, to make sure that everyone's well informed on new developments, regardless of the reactions he may receive from them.
While our family lives in Jakarta, all of my parents' families live in Surabaya, the second largest city in Indonesia. My aunt is now single-handedly managing the human resource company there. I'm not sure how much she involved her other siblings or, as what Raven says, taking into account experts advice (such as experts with legal knowledge). As Raven puts it, with good governance, banks would be more confident in lending you money and you'll get the ability to keep the business going. Without my father's presence, how we've always lived in different cities and that I grew up not close to my father's family, practically I have lost my connection with her and her other siblings. I don't see myself being an entrepreneur, but should I reach out to her and ask her on how the business is going? I don't even know how to emotionally risk that. As I thought about it, I came to realize that even keeping the struggling company has been for an emotional, sentimental reason: it was our father's, and so we are to keep this running.
Malcolm Gladwell: The unheard story of David and Goliath
I'm not sure if Malcolm Gladwell was the first speaker at TEDTalks who used an incident that took place some 3000 years ago in ancient Palestine to state his point - a story that he said he was obsessed with when he was writing his new book. I was intrigued to hear a 'Gladwellian' perspective from this particular story about a shepherd named David defeated a giant named Goliath -- a metaphor that is now commonly used to describe an unlikely victory.
'David and Goliath' is a classic underdog story. Yet as Gladwell was focussed on the giant, I never really realized how 'the source of Goliath's apparent strength is also the source of his apparent weakness - giants are not as strong as they seem'. I heard this story many times in my childhood... and I think we always looked at David as the central character of the story. Not Goliath. Scenario Planning and our 'giant'-ism impairment On the first 2-weeks block of our course, our class had gone through the Scenario Planning exercises as a powerful tool for strategic thinking in the current business world -- what else but to help managers making their organizations successful. One of the first things our lecturer told us every time we are about to step in the class was to hang our coat at the door -- and leave our job title there too. His reasoning was that attitudes that stem from prideful statements like 'I'm a director of so-and-so company', 'I've been CEO for 20 years', 'I came here with years of managerial expertise', etc, would not much help someone to take in valuable lessons in an MBA class. I could concur how our job titles, our salary, and our 'breed' could easily become our 'acromegaly', a 'tumor' that hinders us to see that we're not as great as we thought we are. As the tumor enlarge and growing it will significantly reduce your vision, and lead to vision impairment. Moreover, the EIBE module has provided us with 'giants' in their field who then failed to maintain their presence in the market. Poor controls in quality, budgets, costs, immature management style, along with failure in communicating business ideas were some of the striking and highlighted causes why a (giant) organization fail. And at some point of these 'giants' corporate history, they may have missed out the presence of a 'shepherd with his five stones and a sling in his pocket', an underdog, a new player that took over the market share and became even more successful. Showing up persistently with the right attitude of open-mindedness, disciplined, focussed and a humility that's carefully and consciously maintained are still valuable to possess as an MBA student. And beyond.
