Patterns of China
We spent a few days visiting businesses around Beijing and getting the inside scoop on some of the challenges and strategies for doing business in China. Several of our hosts suggested that the first step in being successful is to forget everything you think you know about China. The dynamic Gregory Shea (RIM Asia Pacific Vice President of Government Affairs) suggested we challenge our perceptions of a country that are often over-simplified and skewed by the western media. In the short two weeks that I’ve been China, I couldn’t agree more.
It is hard to explain the complexity of China. And, as a tourist only spending a few weeks in the country, I wouldn’t even attempt to do so. One thing that I enjoy while traveling is the variety of texture and patterns reflected in every aspect of daily life in a new place.
Calligraphy
Lucky Tree
Temple Wall
Sidewalk
Locks
In some way, these images help to define China for me and offer glimmers into the deep history and complexity its culture. Perhaps what Mr. Shea and other hosts are trying to help us learn is that knowing China requires an understanding of the fine details of the country — its history, language, customs and nuances. I’m a big fan of Christopher Alexander’s book “A Pattern Language”, and the concept of linking patterns together to solve recurring problems is one that has spread beyond architecture and into areas of interface design, education and software development. It strikes me that all the patterns around us — from buildings to clothing, work schedules to transportation systems — can reveal a lot about a culture, its values and view of the world.
In seeing the patterns of China — like calligraphy — I found it easy to take in the beauty of a script or think about the characters as representations of word that I could not interpret. Yet really understanding the way a language is structured or the way words are visualized in Chinese could lead to a much deeper understanding of the country and culture. I think this is the notion that several of our hosts in China were trying to convey. After all our summer reading of books and news articles and tales from other travelers, many of us arrived from Loyola believing we had some understanding of China. But just like the calligraphy, I was able to enjoy the surface of the country and to also recognize that I need to go much more into the details and a little off the beaten path to catch a glimpse of the authentic China.
Traveler’s Delight
There has been so much to see and discover in Beijing! Here are a few random snapshots from the past few days:
Fire extinguisher in a hotel south of Beijing.
Starbucks? Not quite!
Freedom of expression. Chinese writing on bamboo is much more beautiful than spray paint on cement.
Full service bike shop.
Flatbed truck.
Young Beijing
Our class arrived in Beijing on Friday to begin the International Field Study component of the MBA program. What an exciting adventure it has been! One of my first excursions was to the Forbidden City — a monument steeped in history and shrouded in mystery. Being from the US, it is remarkable to wander through a landscape of structures that date back hundreds and hundreds of years.
Forbidden City, Beijing China
In keeping with the rich traditions of Beijing, I took a dragon boat and followed the old imperial route up the Long River to the Summer Palace. Although it starts in the heart of the city, the shallow river is surrounded by old willows and is insulated from hustle and bustle of the city. My experience cruising in the traditional-style boat along the ancient route seemed to be not so different from this experience in Beijing 500 or 1,000 years ago.
Buddha Temple and Lake Kunming at Summer Palace
Yet Beijing is a young city. Most of the building has only taken place in the past ten years — and a large part of it happened within the past five years as China prepared for the Olympics. A visit to the Olympic Park area really captures this young Beijing. The high tech museum which chronicles the construction of the Olympic venues and the structures themselves seem to belong to a different time and place than my dragon boat river ride.
The Aquatics Center (Water Cube)
Classmates who spent time in Beijing ten or 20 years ago remark that they don’t even recognize the city. And the Chinese tell me that the pace of change is so rapid that many of the pictures I take now will be very different in just a few years. This is not such a surprise as I realize that buildings that were shrouded in construction fabric only one week ago are now showing freshly polished stone and “opening soon” signs.
Diorama of Beijing at Urban Planning Museum
Summer Reading
My summer reading list included:
- a stack of pre B-school magazines and articles that I’ve been collecting
- one mystery novel
- my Macroeconomics textbook (which I planned to read for fun this time Dr. Ward)
- a book on business ethics
- china: a new history
- and a few hardcover art books with loads of pictures
Sadly, summer is nearly over for the Loyola EMBA class of 2010 and I only managed to get through about 1/4 of my summer reading list. It was much easier to get out of the school routine than I expected! I’ve spent the past two months catching up on visits with friends and family — if only to warn them that I’m soon to be immersed in my final year of graduate school.
Reading About China
This week I’m officially back to the school books. The last year of my program starts off with our international field study in Beijing and Shanghai and I’ve been pouring over books about history, business and travel. A few weeks in China will be a great easing-in to the semester. We’ll be visiting more than 15 businesses and organizations and we get to spend a few days taking in the sights.
I’ll be back on my regular blogging routine once school start again with our departure for China of August 27. Stay tuned for pictures and stories of our adventures!
Please post any suggestions, tips, ideas or hints about my upcoming trip to China!
A-school, B-school
As the semester draws to a close, I’ve been inspired by the many similarities between business school and the fine arts college where I received my undergraduate degree. Like Loyola, the end of the school year at MICA is a time filled with excitement, activity and celebration. Both colleges go the extra mile to honor and support students and take pride in their accomplishments.
A big distinction between a visual arts college and business school is the way that student talent and work is shared. At MICA’s senior exhibition every graduating student is given a space on campus to display her work. A special preview event provides the opportunity for the general public to tour the studios and meet the artists. I can’t think of a better way to showcase talent and provide students with an opportunity to share the culmination of their learning.
In b-school, this opportunity for sharing our knowledge and experience in the program is more private. Our semester ended with a series of team presentations which brought together much of the learning from the last module. What could b-school learn from an art school about making the learning experience more transparent and accessible to other students, family and community members? And what can business learn from the art traditions of critique and feedback?
As John Maeda wrote in this post, individuals and organizations that are open to models of critique indicate that “…you are open to asking bigger questions about your work and its validity within your organization.” Some colleges in Finland are bringing the worlds of business and design together and I am very interested to follow their progress.
Critique @MICA (www.mica.edu)
Analysis and Synthesis
In Loyola’s EMBA program, we talk a lot about the synthesis of learning. Throughout the program, we are challenged to look beyond the segregation of systems and to integrate knowledge and experience.
The final module of this year (composed of Macroeconomics, IT Strategy and International Business) has been the most exciting in terms of bringing together the academics of business and the actual experiences of world around us. I feel very fortunate to be in this program during a time of economic crisis and global change and to be surrounded by twenty five talented and smart classmates who bring a range of perspectives and meaning to the subjects we study.
One of the biggest challenges when I started this program was figuring out how to synthesize my school experience into the rest my life.
A Framework for B-School
Inspired by frameworks of business process change introduced during our IT Strategy class, the picture above is a graphical representation of my synthesis of the EMBA program. Similar to the business concepts behind the framework for IT Strategy, my B-school model illustrates the four main areas of life — work, school, life and community. By using a model of synthesis (and not just analysis), I believe the Loyola program pushes students into deeper learning by helping us to recongize that success in any one area cannot be achieived by taking the pieces in isolation. It took me a few months to gain some lopsided alignment in all the quadrants of my life, and it is the process of integrating input from of all these systems into a larger and broader whole that creates value.
Knowledge Leadership
Last month I attended another Leaders and Legends lecture where the featured speaker was (John) Chris Inglis of the NSA. Chris suggested that there are three attributes of successful organizations:
- everyone knows what the company is about — there is a common purpose and goal
- everyone understands what their personal contribution means to the organization
- the organization is able to discern changes that are taking place around it and respond or take action
It’s pretty easy to sit in our offices and believe that everyone in our organization understands their role, what the company is about and how we, as an organization, are able to get a head start on industry changes. But think about this:
“Leadership is about recasting what is possible and appropriate.” — John Chris Inglis
Michelangelo's Pieta from http://commons.wikimedia.org
Michelangelo is central to so many of the topics of Chris’s talk because he was not just a leader but an innovator. Time and time again the individuals who make the most difference in how we embrace solutions are those that have tried them out on their own. What is so interesting about Michelangelo is that he understood the business of his line of work. While he was innovative, he was limited by his ideas around how marble could be mined, transported and turned into amazing pieces of art. As Chris Inglis suggests, it is really about the risks you can afford to take and strategies that exist within your organization.
A central theme of Chris’s talk focused on information — not only information brought into the company, but information capital of employees. And this is great connection to a case presentation my team is working on this week about knowledge management. Although he did not utter the phrase, I believe Chris Inglis was talking how organizations think strategically about business knowledge when he explored topics such as organizational resources and change management. Ultimately, leadership (and success in business) comes down to how employees are engaged in the vision of the organization AND what kind of knowledge infrastructure is in place to support transfer of knowledge across all members of the company.
16.3
16.3 is not the number of hours of sleep I’ve gotten this week, the number of steps to get from the coffee bar to my classroom or, sadly, the number of miles I rode on my bike for the past two days. 16.3 is the number of credits I’ve completed since I began my EBMA journey in September 2008. Wow!
During my undergraduate experience I went to school full time and took between 15 and 18 credits a semester. I’ve been in graduate school for six months and have completed over 16 credits. No wonder I’m tired!
Going to school is hard to begin with. Going back to school after you’re out of practice is doubly hard. And, in an EMBA program like Loyola’s — that is designed around being in school while working full-time — is, well, a daunting task that, due to my eternal optimism, I was not quite prepared for.
I am absolutely thrilled by what I’m learning and accomplishing as part of this program — but this is one of those sobering posts to remind prospective students that it IS a lot of work. Loyola alumni, faculty and administrators warn of the commitment required to complete a program like this. And it’s all true. It’s also true that getting your EMBA is absolutely worth it.
OK, I’m not finished with the program and I don’t have that many people beating on my door offering me new opportunities so I may lack some credibility. However, I am amazed at what a great impact six months of school has had on my approach to work, business and life.
Whiteboard Musings
Positioning Loyola
 Loyola |
+ |
 Starbucks |
= |
 greatness |
Loyola recently announced a new direction for the EMBA program. While I am very pleased with the format of my program, I’m a bit jealous of Loyola’s EMBA class of 2011 as they’ll get to benefit from new innovations in the executive MBA curriculum. Based on informal conversations with my instructors and others at the college, I know that much thought and planning has gone into the design of the new program and it will be an exciting direction for the college.
Almost as much as I enjoy watching how Loyola is positioning itself in the EMBA market, I love the fact that the graduate campuses are well positioned around coffee. Attending a statistics review session at the Columbia campus gave me an opportunity to discover that the Columbia campus is a) quite impressive and b) a mere .7 miles away from Starbucks. Coincidentally (or not), the Timonium graduate campus is also .7 miles away from Starbucks.
Inspired by this module’s classes, I’m tempted to create a regression model about the relationship between Loyola and Starbucks — if only there wasn’t plenty of other homework to do this week. Congrats to Loyola and for innovation in the EMBA curriculum and for the strategic locations of the graduate campuses.
Creating Opportunity
In Economics and Strategy classes we often explore ideas around creating opportunities — from developing strategies to increase economic profits to expanding into blue oceans full of possibility.
We learned this winter that we are going to China this summer for our international field study. And it was great timing that the Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs hosted a lecture a few weeks ago with Minister Xie Feng, Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of the People’s Republic of China.
Much of the lecture focused on the current economic crisis, it’s global impact and the importance of working internationally — not just nationally — to overcome the challenges. During lecture, the Minister commented that the Chinese character for crisis (wēijī) is actually made up of two elements which signify danger and opportunity.
 wei |
 ji |
Some linguists argue that this is not an accurate interpretation of the characters and even claim that “Adopting a feel-good attitude toward adversity may not be the most rational, realistic approach to its solution.“ However, based on what I’ve been learning and what I know from my business, being able to create opportunity — particularly during challenge — is a differentiator for success.
