my EMBA Chronicle

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 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

Loyola

+

Starbucks

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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.