Electives

This weekend I finished reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, my favorite (so far) of the movies. It was a great read and I'm really enjoying the extra depth that the books provide--both of the plot and of the character development. Although it may sound blasphemous, I find that there are some scenes the movies actually portray "better" than the books, especially in Prisoner of Azkaban. Director Alfonso Cuarón really elaborated cinematographically on some of the J.K. Rowling's ideas to good effect.

One element that I enjoyed about Prisoner of Azkaban is that it is the first year that the students choose electives. They no longer all take the same courses and can now specialize in the subjects that interest them. In less than two weeks we will begin electives here at IMD as well. Only instead of "Divination" and "Care of Magical Creatures" our options are more like "Advanced Group Dynamics" and "Managing Change." They aren't quite as exotic sounding, but I'm still looking forward to them.

Following is a list of our available electives. The ones I will be taking are in bold:

Course 1:

Introduction to Advanced Group Dynamics - Jack Wood (our Leadership professor)

Economic Dilemma - Economic Opportunities - Ralf Boschek (our Industry/Company Analysis & Economics professor)

Course 2:

Entrepreneurship - A Longer View - Joachim Schwass

Business History - Lessons from the Past - Stewart Hamilton (our Accounting professor)

Global Corporate Strategy - James Henderson (our Strategy professor), Cyril Bouquet

Course 3:

Managing Change - Maury Peiperl (our Leading People in Organizations professor), Anand Narasimhan

Special Topics in Private Equity and Venture Capital - Benoit Leleux (our Entrepreneurship professor)

Turnarounds: Tools for Recovering Corporate Wealth - Jean-Frederic Mognetti

Course 4:

Advanced Supply Chain - Corey Billington (our Production and Operations Management professor)

Advanced Finance - Didier Cossin

Managing Information, People, and IT Capabilities for Business Value - Don Marchand

For most of the course blocks I was torn between two or more courses. Like Hermione Granger in Prisoner of Azkaban, I really wanted a way to take all of them. However, lacking a time turner, I've had to resort to more mundane methods to bone up on each subject. For example, in Course 4, I've been able to learn a great deal of the Advanced Supply Chain content during the ICP because Corey is our faculty advisor. For the other courses I may just procure the required readings and get to them when I can.

Regardless, there is still an ICP to finish before I can start really thinking about electives.

Stewart Hamilton is a Bad, Bad Man

Our Accounting professor led us to believe for the past several weeks that today's Accounting exam would not require us to put together balance sheets or profit & loss statements for corporations with numerous, complex transactions, which we had to do in the Mod I Accounting exam. Consequently, no one studied balance sheets or profit & loss statements for this exam.

You can imagine our shock and dismay when we opened up today's Accounting exam booklet to find a problem that A. required us to produce a balance sheet and profit & loss statement B. featured some of the most complex transactions we have seen all year, and C. was worth 25% of the total exam grade! Oh Stewart, you codger; just as we thought you were softening up, it turns out that you were just lulling us into a false sense of security. Even his assistant was in on the gag; a few weeks ago she held a review session, dressed in provocative attire (trying to distract us from the danger that lay ahead!), and told us that the only document we would need to assemble on the exam was a cashflow statement. No wonder so many students failed the exam last year!

When I first saw the problem, I was mortified. I hadn't studied that material and the problem setup was daunting. My MP3 player had just switched to Mozart's Requiem in D--how fitting. I decided to skip it and come back to it at the end, lest it bog me down and affect the rest of my exam. The other problems were challenging but I felt confident in my answers. As the clock continued to tick, all I had left standing in the way of being done with Accounting forever was this one Devil problem.

I couldn't remember exactly the methodology I was supposed to use to work through it so I just reasoned my way along. And, after some time . . . it was my most successful solution for such a problem all year. My balance sheet balanced on the first go-round and the P&L fit right in. That helped quell the anger I was initially feeling toward Stewart. Plus, I suppose you can't blame an Accounting professor for putting something so fundamental to Accounting on his final exam. Perhaps it was an intentional lesson on planning for the unexpected.

The victory over the unexpected challenge was a good note on which to end my Accounting "career." Next up: Finance. Arturo claims that the exam is exclusively about options but, now that we've been stung by Stewart, we're all refreshing ourselves on capital structure, discounted cashflow forecasts, and CAPM. We'll just see if our other professors are in on it too!

Integrative Exercise v2.0 is OVER!

Today was a great day. It marked the end of our final integrative exercise. So as not to ruin any surprises for next year's class, my following description will be deliberately vague.



Friday evening after class we received our first assignment, a case study of a company evaluating acquisition candidates. We were told that the exercise would last all weekend and that, at the end of the exercise on Monday, the two most successful teams would have an opportunity to present to the CFO of the company that was the subject of the case. Our first deliverable was due Saturday morning: a presentation on which target to acquire and why. My study group met immediately and set out our goals. We agreed on two: 1. to be selected to present to the CFO and 2. to achieve goal #1 without killing ourselves.



We got down to work, analyzed our options, made our choice, and built our story. Most of us headed home by midnight but a few troopers stayed behind to beautify the slides. Even they were happy and done by 1 AM, a major success considering most of us had pulled multiple 5AM nights (with 8 AM returns) during the last integrative exercise. There were many groups still working when we left, so we felt like we were on track to meet at least goal #2.



Four other groups were chosen to present their picks and, judging by their presentations, we felt pretty good about what we had submitted. We were then given much more detailed information about one of the companies (which happened to be our pick) and told to come back at the end of the day with a valuation for it. We worked hard all day but never seemed to get it together. By the time our deadline came around we were still feverishly plugging numbers into the spreadsheet.



Naturally this time we were chosen to present. My hat is off to my groupmate, Daniel, who presented for us, never having seen the slides before. It reminded me of my ad hoc presentation back in Februrary but he was a trooper and did as well as could have been expected--better even! Still, we clearly had a lot of room for improvement.



We were then given more information about the acquisition target and issued our final assignment: to present an investment recommendation to the protagonist company's Board of Directors. Several groups took Saturday night off in order to recharge for a full day of work on Sunday. In line with goal #2 and our poor performance during the second phase, we went to work Saturday night to get a head start. When we returned on Sunday we were far enough along that we were one of the first groups to leave (~11 PM) even having taken a two-hour break to lunch, shop, or--in my case--lift.



As we neared completion I became more and more hopeful that I would be the one to present on behalf of my group. Fourth quarter with the game on the line has always been when I have been at my best and this was probably one of the best ways I could contribute to my group's efforts. "Give me the ball, Coach; I won't let you down!"



My group gave me the ball and I didn't let them down. I felt very comfortable with the presentation but I stayed behind to run through it a few times just to make sure I would nail it when it counted. Come Monday morning we were ready for our presentation before faculty judges. Everyone in the group had contributed a great deal to the research, analysis, and format of the presentation. Furthermore, due to our accomplishment of goal #2, we were all well rested and in good spirits.



It would be presumptuous for me to declare that I nailed the presentation but, suffice to say, it went very well. My group performed excellently during the Q&A portion as well; as we left the lecture hall we all gave each other hugs for a team effort with which we were very satisfied. Now all that remained was accomplishment of goal #1, presentation to the CFO!



We heard rumors that we had been selected before lunch but it wasn't until after lunch that we received the official news. The messenger was none other than Matt, another American classmate, who would be presenting to the CFO on behalf of his group as well. Matt and I interviewed for IMD together so I was thrilled that we would have the opportunity to present back-to-back again.



The presentations (which were in front of the rest of the class in addition to the CFO) went well. Matt's group had produced results very similar to ours but they had come to the opposite conclusion, which made for interesting discussion. The piece de resistance of my group's presentation was my flashing my Texas-sized belt buckle to prove credibility since the acquisition target was based in Houston. The CFO (and one of his colleagues) was a great addition, probing us about our analysis, assumptions, and conclusions. He then stuck around to share cocktails with us as we shook off the weariness of the exercise and embraced the glorious weather.



It was a great exercise and most of us agreed that we had learned a lot and really (in hindsight!) enjoyed the process. Amazingly many of us were almost sad that this was our last integrative exercise. Credit goes to Stewart Hamilton and Alicia Micklethwait (and the subject company's Finance staff) for creating the case and organizing the exercise.



For our group it was more than just a great exercise; it was a great triumph in which we achieved our goals as a team. Each groupmate owned his/her role and made very valuable contributions. I am thankful to be in such a solid team and proud to have helped out.



Of course, before the wine bottles were even empty it was back to business as usual. It was time to plan out our assignments for the rest of the week. Still, I am high on the exercise and most of us will be in Paris in 72 hours for the MBAT so good luck dampening my spirits!

Two Fifths Down, Three Fifths to Go

Some friends back home make fun of the way I frequently divide things into fifths: probabilities, progress, alcoholic beverages . . . anything. Well today my pro-fifthism is justified as we are 40% done with our Mod I final exams. LPO went well yesterday as we analyzed a very interesting case about leading change in uncertain times. Today Accounting went . . . less well . . . but I was impressed during my studying by how much I had picked up in class. Stewart has managed to teach me a thing or two whether he likes it or not!

To help me tune out all the clackity-clack of laptops and calculators during the exams I have been listening to Mozart on my mp3 player. As Maury, my LPO professor, is a pianist, I listened to piano concerti (especially 21 and 23) and sonatas (especially 11 and 16) during the LPO exam. During Accounting I played operatic overtures. Given how much better I think (hope!) the LPO exam went, I think I'll return to the piano tomorrow.

Tomorrow's exam is Marketing. We have already received the case on which the exam will be based and most study groups are here in the Dungeons working feverishly to dissect it. Then tomorrow we will individually present our analyses and formulate marketing plans. I'm sad that marketing is coming to an end; it was an interesting class about everything from market research to branding to comunication and distribution of products. We learned much more methodical approaches to answering marketing questions (and that most business questions have at least some marketing relevance) than I'm used to in my "put out the fire" and "if the shoe fits, wear it" software startup experience. Indeed, marketing has turned out to be much more than just "tra la la."

What we have learned is just the tip of the marketing iceberg. IMD's objective isn't to train marketers; it's to train general managers to be familiar enough with marketing concepts to manage marketers well. I'm embarrassed and disappointed that my group received a barely passing grade--the lowest grade in the class--on our Marketing Plan, the key group project of the Marketing curriculum. However, I'm not here because I have all the answers; I'm here to learn and a key part of learning is failure. Tomorrow I will deliver a much better marketing plan during our exam because I have learned from the failure of our group project. More than just enhancing my grade, hopefully this will help Martin understand that he has succeeded as a professor as well. We got him a bottle of champagne for the last day of class, but I think he will feel more rewarded by our high performance. I hope so at least, as high performance is what I intend to deliver.

Brazilian High

Yesterday was awesome. It was full of surprises from our faculty, each one better than the last. Because some prospective students read this blog and because the surprises were critical to today's success, I'll refrain from any real explanation. The cool part was that it was our first day of cross-functional project work: addressing a business case from accounting, marketing, and leadership perspectives within our groups.

At the end of the day, three groups were selected randomly to present their arguments. For each group, one member was selected randomly to do the presentation to a panel of faculty members who played roles of actual decision makers/influencers in the case. Given the amount of time we had to prepare, any presentation was essentially an improvisation.

When we were first told about the presentation part of the assignment, my natural reaction was to hope that I was selected. After all, I love presenting to an audience; it's my element. Then, as I realized that I had gaping holes of knowledge about the accounting and marketing aspects of our group's proposal (We split up the work but didn't have time to regroup before the deadline.), I became a little more apprehensive about being selected.

Our group was the second of three selected to present; I was selected from my group to be the presenter--be careful what you wish for! The faculty decision makers' roles were intended to poke holes in whatever we presented, be interruptive at times, and generally stress the presenter out. I didn't know the supporting evidence for several aspects of our plan and hadn't even seen the powerpoint in its entirety, but hey, I didn't come here not to be challenged!

The faculty gave me a hard time, especially on the quantitative stuff, but it was a big rush to be up there. The class gave me a lot of support from the audience, which felt great. At the end of the day, my presentation was pretty BSy, and probably was especially underwhelming to Stewart, the Accounting prof. I spent a significant amount of time afterward thinking about what I would have/should have said and receiving explanations from my teammates about what our slides actually meant. However, I received numerous backslaps and congratulations from my classmates afterward so I think I held my own.

Regardless, it was a great experience and I can't wait to do it again. Afterward the class and the professors (out of character) met in the lobby for Brazilian (The case was set in Brazil.) caipirinhas before heading down to the dungeon for a long night of project work. What a day; I can't wait to do it again!

On another note, the Chinese students made a very gracious presentation for lunar new year and gave away Chinese gifts to all the students. Coming from a country where everyone seems to be leery about competition from China, I found their unsolicited offering to be right in line with the warm, generous culture I've come to know and expect from these students.

Accounting

If I had to choose one word to describe Accounting professor Stewart Hamilton, it would be "curmudgeonly." He's a crotchety old Scot who is very emphatic that we should not question the "why" of accounting practices; we should just accept them. He has already yelled at me in class because I applauded him. I can't help it; his stodginess is hilarious.

So far our accounting education conjures up images of dusty old books and quill-written ledgers. As a software guy, that's a little hard to stomach. IMD is very clear that we are not here to learn to be accountants. We are here to learn to be better general managers--the best general managers--so the intent of this course is to educate us just enough to be dangerous.

Our major takeaways from this course have been centered around how to analyze balance sheets, income statements and cashflow statements to support investment decisions. I've had plenty of exposure to these reports before in a software context so it's interesting to see them applied to manufacturing, services organizations, etc. I'm also hoping to benefit from Stewart's knowledge of fine Scotch whiskey.

I'll leave you with a quote from Stewart: "You know you're due it so you have to accrue it!" Imagine it with a thick Scottish accent.

Happy Mardi Gras!