my EMBA Chronicle

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.

If you are thinking about going back to school to get an EMBA — be prepared for challenge.  After being in my profession for fifteen years, I did not realize how accustomed I’ve become to “getting it” and being able to speak the language of my business.  I can navigate my environment, I know my customers and I’m used to getting results.

This week I realized that succeeding in an EMBA program requires something different from how I succeed in my job.  I’ve struggled a bit in the past two weeks trying to keep the theories of economics and accounting straight and to put the learning into practice.  I’m accustomed to thinking big and believing that I can do almost anything.  And so this week, school is teaching me to accept my limitations.  I’m learning about moments of fail.

I know that I do not have the natural inclination for economics or accounting.  While this program is giving me a solid foundation and good understanding of both disciplines, it is unlikely that I’ll be an expert — or have the mastery to pursue a career in either field.  And I certainly will not be skating through graduate school with straight A’s.  As I reflect on it, these are not really moments of fail…but moments of great discovery.  Time to dust myself off and move on.

Discovering great art in Schaffhausen

The end of module one has led me take a few days off from school to celebrate and to reflect on my EMBA experience to date.  The realization that the technology industry is as much about business as is it about tools and systems is what led me to Loyola’s EMBA program.  And one of my goals in pursuing a MBA is to compliment my experiential learning with a solid academic foundation in leadership and business fundamentals.

Looking back on the past ten weeks of study, I see that I’m well on my way to getting all that I hoped for.  Just as valuable as the amazing amount of learning that has taken place — I am in a diverse and challenging cohort of accomplished professionals.  Getting outside my industry and being in a class with lawyers, entrepreneurs, publishers, real estate developers, marines, engineers and educators creates rich dialog and broadens the learning.

As I look back on module one, I am delighted with how far I’ve come and also realize just how much more I can learn.

I just completed the residency component of the Executive MBA program at Loyola.  And one of the biggest take-aways from the four days of intensive coursework, team building (and a surprising amount of fun) was the value of reflection.  It was during the residency (while I was reflecting on reflecting) that I made a commitment to start this blog.

At MICA we are in the middle of a self study to prepare for re-accreditation.  During our early meetings we would often discuss the reflection as part of the assessment process.  I, like most of my collegues, rarely even make the time to take a lunch break so making the time to reflect often falls to the bottom of the list.

In IT there is a tradition of “lessons learned” which we try to employ at MICA.  After a project or task is completed, we try to come together as a team and share what we learned about the experience.  We tend to focus this reflection on the technical aspects of how the project was executed and not the bigger picture.  We don’t focus questions such as:  how did we work as a group on this?  how did our decisions impact the rest of the institution?  how does what we accomplish fit into our larger mission and goals?

In a challenging and often crisis and deadline driven environment like MICA, it’s much easier (and the cultural expectation) to make time to fix a broken email server rather than making time for reflection about how we respond to crisis.  I really believe that if we don’t reflect on what we’ve learned about each other, our business and our industry we will not evolve as an organization.

This little blog is one way of trying to honor reflection and put it into practice.

A parting thought

Shifting to a culture of reflection requires a big change in perceptions.  How do organizations value the work shown in these two pictures?

Women Working (www.britannica.com)

working on making things

The Thinker by Auguste Rodin (www.wikimedia.org)

working on reflection