life makes sense when you see how simple a child can be...
Monday, April 30, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
School versus on-the-job
I came across the article below at CNNMoney.com. I thought the ideas resemble a bit to those of the famed Rich Dad, Poor Dad series wherein it says that schools don't necessarily teach at how to earn money, but they rather let you learn only the theories. It doesn't write off formal learning though, but it reiterates that social skills and a person's out-of-the-box thinking and abilities can also make one get to the top.
____________________________
The trouble with MBAs
Employers are finding that freshly minted graduates lack key interpersonal skills, so B-schools are changing to ensure that quantitative geniuses also learn how to hug it out.
By Anne Fisher, Fortune senior writer
April 23 2007: 6:31 AM EDT
(Fortune Magazine) -- When Jack Welch gave a guest lecture at MIT's Sloan School of Management in 2005, someone in the crowd asked, "What should we be learning in business school?" Welch's reply: "Just concentrate on networking. Everything else you need to know, you can learn on the job." Sloan's dean, Richard Schmalensee, was stunned because "Jack was essentially saying a graduate business degree was a waste of time."
Not long after that visit, MIT began a curriculum rethink - dialing back on pure quantitative skills and adding more interpersonal coursework. Wharton, Tuck, Chicago, the University of Virginia's Darden, and Berkeley's Haas School, among many others, have also started stressing teamwork and are paying more attention to "soft" skills like listening to colleagues.
What's driving the curriculum shift? B-schools are acting a lot more like businesses these days (gasp) and responding to their various customers - corporate recruiters and students. "MBA students we employ don't need to come in being finance gurus. What's much more important is that they know how to analyze issues and communicate recommendations," says Ken Barnet, a vice president at State Street Corp. (Charts, Fortune 500) who works with both B-school interns and freshly minted MBAs.
The numbers back up Barnet. Every year since 2002, the Graduate Management Admissions Council, which administers the GMAT exam for B-school applicants, has surveyed recruiters. And every year so far, the survey has revealed that several skills employers value most - like the ability to write and speak clearly and persuasively - are also skills that new MBAs lack.
Another spur for the ivory towers to change is competition from online degree programs, which have been eligible for federal student-loan funding since February 2006. Not only is an Internet degree more convenient to get, but a recent survey by employment site Vault.com says 81% of hiring managers look more favorably on job candidates with virtual sheepskins than they did five years ago, and 41% now think an online degree is just as good as a "real" one.
The syllabus changes are most noticeable at the hard-core quant schools. At the University of Chicago, the only course that every single MBA candidate must take in order to graduate is a communications and team-building course, in which specially trained second-year students coach and mentor newbies. Last year Chicago added Spring Launch, a series of seminars for graduating MBAs to help them polish their people skills before they rejoin the working world.
Likewise, in 2005, Wharton - home of econometrics and other arcane quantitative tools - began offering a leadership program that emphasizes one-on-one counseling from professional coaches. It's a hit: Enrollment has nearly doubled, from 50 students two years ago to 90 now. Balaji Krish, who came to Wharton from India by way of Silicon Valley, will graduate this spring. He says the altered curriculum has prepared him for a "team-oriented world. You work on ten to 15 different teams before you leave here."
Students, meanwhile, have pushed for some changes too - notably a greater focus on business ethics. Starting this fall, the Tuck School at Dartmouth will offer a course on using microfinance as a tool for alleviating global poverty. "They want to learn how to give shareholders a great return while also being balanced and principled. It's the double bottom line," says Tuck's dean Paul Danos.
That's not to say that plain old self-interest has fallen by the wayside. The Yale School of Management, for one, just added a required course for first-year students that teaches them how to plan a career, including how to cope with "stressors like job loss [and] aging," the course description says. Notes Jonathan Feinstein, the prof who designed and teaches the course: "We want to stretch their minds to realize that a career is a long-range project."
Ultimately that kind of thinking will help B-schools prosper too. "If our students leave here and get great first jobs but don't succeed in the long run, we've failed," says Stacey Kole, deputy dean of the full-time MBA program at Chicago. "We want them to be successful as their careers evolve." Employers, not to mention MBAs themselves, couldn't agree more.
____________________________
The trouble with MBAs
Employers are finding that freshly minted graduates lack key interpersonal skills, so B-schools are changing to ensure that quantitative geniuses also learn how to hug it out.
By Anne Fisher, Fortune senior writer
April 23 2007: 6:31 AM EDT
(Fortune Magazine) -- When Jack Welch gave a guest lecture at MIT's Sloan School of Management in 2005, someone in the crowd asked, "What should we be learning in business school?" Welch's reply: "Just concentrate on networking. Everything else you need to know, you can learn on the job." Sloan's dean, Richard Schmalensee, was stunned because "Jack was essentially saying a graduate business degree was a waste of time."
Not long after that visit, MIT began a curriculum rethink - dialing back on pure quantitative skills and adding more interpersonal coursework. Wharton, Tuck, Chicago, the University of Virginia's Darden, and Berkeley's Haas School, among many others, have also started stressing teamwork and are paying more attention to "soft" skills like listening to colleagues.
What's driving the curriculum shift? B-schools are acting a lot more like businesses these days (gasp) and responding to their various customers - corporate recruiters and students. "MBA students we employ don't need to come in being finance gurus. What's much more important is that they know how to analyze issues and communicate recommendations," says Ken Barnet, a vice president at State Street Corp. (Charts, Fortune 500) who works with both B-school interns and freshly minted MBAs.
The numbers back up Barnet. Every year since 2002, the Graduate Management Admissions Council, which administers the GMAT exam for B-school applicants, has surveyed recruiters. And every year so far, the survey has revealed that several skills employers value most - like the ability to write and speak clearly and persuasively - are also skills that new MBAs lack.
Another spur for the ivory towers to change is competition from online degree programs, which have been eligible for federal student-loan funding since February 2006. Not only is an Internet degree more convenient to get, but a recent survey by employment site Vault.com says 81% of hiring managers look more favorably on job candidates with virtual sheepskins than they did five years ago, and 41% now think an online degree is just as good as a "real" one.
The syllabus changes are most noticeable at the hard-core quant schools. At the University of Chicago, the only course that every single MBA candidate must take in order to graduate is a communications and team-building course, in which specially trained second-year students coach and mentor newbies. Last year Chicago added Spring Launch, a series of seminars for graduating MBAs to help them polish their people skills before they rejoin the working world.
Likewise, in 2005, Wharton - home of econometrics and other arcane quantitative tools - began offering a leadership program that emphasizes one-on-one counseling from professional coaches. It's a hit: Enrollment has nearly doubled, from 50 students two years ago to 90 now. Balaji Krish, who came to Wharton from India by way of Silicon Valley, will graduate this spring. He says the altered curriculum has prepared him for a "team-oriented world. You work on ten to 15 different teams before you leave here."
Students, meanwhile, have pushed for some changes too - notably a greater focus on business ethics. Starting this fall, the Tuck School at Dartmouth will offer a course on using microfinance as a tool for alleviating global poverty. "They want to learn how to give shareholders a great return while also being balanced and principled. It's the double bottom line," says Tuck's dean Paul Danos.
That's not to say that plain old self-interest has fallen by the wayside. The Yale School of Management, for one, just added a required course for first-year students that teaches them how to plan a career, including how to cope with "stressors like job loss [and] aging," the course description says. Notes Jonathan Feinstein, the prof who designed and teaches the course: "We want to stretch their minds to realize that a career is a long-range project."
Ultimately that kind of thinking will help B-schools prosper too. "If our students leave here and get great first jobs but don't succeed in the long run, we've failed," says Stacey Kole, deputy dean of the full-time MBA program at Chicago. "We want them to be successful as their careers evolve." Employers, not to mention MBAs themselves, couldn't agree more.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Guestlists and Guests
One of the hardest things in planning a wedding is coming up with your guest list. Part of our Pinoy culture is to invite everyone we know. Be it be our bosom friends, former classmates, colleagues, relatives up to the nth degree, acquaintances, family friends, even people we are not close with. An engaged couple is expected to generate the list most of the time just to please everybody and make happy anyone that will come along their way.
But in these hard times, it is just not practical to invite the whole bayan. Mainly because budget is such a huge consideration in making a wedding possible. Wedding reception comprises already the 60% of the total budget. And how much that percentage actually translates into cash depends on how many you are inviting.
Just where do you start writing the names? It is just as difficult as recalling which people have made your life totally worth it. Of course, your immediate family and relatives must be part of your special day. Your friends, colleagues, family friends, brothers and sister in the faith, which are currently and have been part of your lives, whether when you were single or engaged, count too.
You have all the names, but keeping them to your minimum number is a lot harder. When you’re working to a 150 list, you need all the necessary reasons why someone deserves the honor of being invited. After all, it will be an issue why someone was not part of the list (as if it was a royal wedding J ). Only the couple has the single right on who becomes a part of their special day. They will solely decide and no one has to intervene on that.
But just how satisfied a couple is with their guestlist after the wedding? Just as in any project or cashflow, expect something like 15-20% downfall with the forecast. In our case, some of the downfall cancelled a week before which allowed us to replace the slots. During the actual day, two tables were missing with people. These people were the ones who confirmed in attending but sadly, didn’t show up. It was really unfortunate. These were already counted and paid heads. It is really gracious that when you can’t really make it, let the couple know. I had friends who won’t be able to come who informed me days before or even the day itself. That is was well taken, since a lot of these people had their valid reasons for not coming. But there are some who really didn’t care. Not even a word. It is just not their disregard but the people who we might have taken in. We carefully made the list making sure that everyone important to us is there.
But if these people didn’t realize the inconsideration, we might as well invited people who are sincerely happy for us. We took out of the list friends whom we haven’t seen for years, but days after our wedding genuinely congratulated us. We excluded people whom there have been petty gaps, but were there when the family needed them. We wanted to save face, but it our own guilt that is affecting us. The uninvited members of the congregation were the ones who wished us really well the way we weren’t made feel by those invited. I remember one elderly brother who weakly shook our hands and expressed how joyful he is for us and how he thought we were perfectly made for each other. I felt so guilty that time I wanted to put up a party just for those not there during the day.
It was so heartwarming that there are people who really cared and genuine, which in turn, doesn’t mean that all invitees are as sincere as well. I recall a couple, who before our wedding, made comments to my then-fiancé that they will be happy as long as he is happy and they will support him. In Filipino, kung saan ka masaya, suportahan taka. If I could just take them out of the list I would. Their remarks were distasteful and lacked proper breeding. They are quick in making judgments and conclusions. My only message is, Get all your facts right and It is your business to mind your own business!
But then again, it is said that you should never rely your happiness on your whether your guests had a great time, were ecstatic or were actually there at your wedding. After all, you can’t please everybody. Even if you treated them well or spent your last centavo just to serve them the elusive caviar, there will always be statements circulating, whether these are true or just figments of the imagination. I remember a wawie posting a message telling us that do not be sad if your guests had nasty comments, but be sad because you invited someone who is not able to appreciate the honor of being invited. This goes to those who forgot and those who had always something to say. But whatever it is, what is important is getting married. After all, after the wedding, it just falls down to the both of you.
But in these hard times, it is just not practical to invite the whole bayan. Mainly because budget is such a huge consideration in making a wedding possible. Wedding reception comprises already the 60% of the total budget. And how much that percentage actually translates into cash depends on how many you are inviting.
Just where do you start writing the names? It is just as difficult as recalling which people have made your life totally worth it. Of course, your immediate family and relatives must be part of your special day. Your friends, colleagues, family friends, brothers and sister in the faith, which are currently and have been part of your lives, whether when you were single or engaged, count too.
You have all the names, but keeping them to your minimum number is a lot harder. When you’re working to a 150 list, you need all the necessary reasons why someone deserves the honor of being invited. After all, it will be an issue why someone was not part of the list (as if it was a royal wedding J ). Only the couple has the single right on who becomes a part of their special day. They will solely decide and no one has to intervene on that.
But just how satisfied a couple is with their guestlist after the wedding? Just as in any project or cashflow, expect something like 15-20% downfall with the forecast. In our case, some of the downfall cancelled a week before which allowed us to replace the slots. During the actual day, two tables were missing with people. These people were the ones who confirmed in attending but sadly, didn’t show up. It was really unfortunate. These were already counted and paid heads. It is really gracious that when you can’t really make it, let the couple know. I had friends who won’t be able to come who informed me days before or even the day itself. That is was well taken, since a lot of these people had their valid reasons for not coming. But there are some who really didn’t care. Not even a word. It is just not their disregard but the people who we might have taken in. We carefully made the list making sure that everyone important to us is there.
But if these people didn’t realize the inconsideration, we might as well invited people who are sincerely happy for us. We took out of the list friends whom we haven’t seen for years, but days after our wedding genuinely congratulated us. We excluded people whom there have been petty gaps, but were there when the family needed them. We wanted to save face, but it our own guilt that is affecting us. The uninvited members of the congregation were the ones who wished us really well the way we weren’t made feel by those invited. I remember one elderly brother who weakly shook our hands and expressed how joyful he is for us and how he thought we were perfectly made for each other. I felt so guilty that time I wanted to put up a party just for those not there during the day.
It was so heartwarming that there are people who really cared and genuine, which in turn, doesn’t mean that all invitees are as sincere as well. I recall a couple, who before our wedding, made comments to my then-fiancé that they will be happy as long as he is happy and they will support him. In Filipino, kung saan ka masaya, suportahan taka. If I could just take them out of the list I would. Their remarks were distasteful and lacked proper breeding. They are quick in making judgments and conclusions. My only message is, Get all your facts right and It is your business to mind your own business!
But then again, it is said that you should never rely your happiness on your whether your guests had a great time, were ecstatic or were actually there at your wedding. After all, you can’t please everybody. Even if you treated them well or spent your last centavo just to serve them the elusive caviar, there will always be statements circulating, whether these are true or just figments of the imagination. I remember a wawie posting a message telling us that do not be sad if your guests had nasty comments, but be sad because you invited someone who is not able to appreciate the honor of being invited. This goes to those who forgot and those who had always something to say. But whatever it is, what is important is getting married. After all, after the wedding, it just falls down to the both of you.
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