Month: April 2011

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In Celebration of Sidney Harman: Career Self-Management at Its Finest

Sidney Harman died last Tuesday at 92. If you don’t know much about Harman’s life, you need to. It stands as a model of career self-management at its finest: a passion for learning and creative problem solving wedded to solid values, a love of life, and a willingness to use his talents across a range of projects and sectors.

The key to a good and long life, Harmon once mused, is restless curiosity. His fueled technology and business successes that revolutionized the audio industry – I still have the groovy Harman/Kardon stereo speakers I bought in graduate school – as well as his political activism, philanthropy, love of the arts, and stints as a college president, Jimmy Carter’s deputy Secretary of Commerce, and Executive Chairman of the edgy, born-again Newsweek (now in partnership with Tina Brown and the online Daily Beast.)   

You can read details of Harmon’s life and leadership in his autobiography, Mind Your Own Business: A Maverick’s Guide to Business Leadership and Life – or in the many tributes following his passing.

I call attention to the confidence that his skills and experiences were transferable across time and industry, his willingness to get in there and do something – “lead the revolution” – even when others had given up or failed, his refusal to take himself too seriously – “Want a little Shakespeare? The kid is ready.”[1] – and his positive determinism.

Just weeks before his death on learning about the cancer that would quickly take his life, Harman penned an upbeat, sassy My Turn column for Newsweek entitled “Hey Cancer: Go Stand in the Corner.”[2] Life is  for living, working, and enjoying the things you love to do. Harman wasn’t naïve or in denial about his health. He just wanted to continue living his life as he had always done: deliberately and fully, nothing on hold as he faced down “the dragon.”

During chemo, he planned to prepare his lectures for his University of Southern California class, study Newsweek’s recent operating reports, read, listen to music, and work on his new book entitled Geezer Golf. “This is a hell of a good time to finish it,” Harmon wrote.[3]

The New York Times eulogized Harman as “a scholar of boundless energy and utopian ideas,” and that’s what set him apart from the crowd and prepared him for a diversified career.

I want the courage to live and work every day the way Sid Harman did. He knew who he was and brought that with confidence to every table. He loved what he did – or changed things up when needed to keep life fresh. What about you?

[1] Sidney Harman (2011). Hey, Cancer: Go Stand in the Corner. Newsweek. April 25, p. 9. Accessible at http://www.newsweek.com/2011/04/17/hey-cancer-go-stand-in-the-corner.html

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

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Who’s Leading Us:The 10 Most- Followed People on Twitter

I was surprised to see a recent list of the 10 most-followed people on Twitter.  While Twitter analysts have  complex formulas for measuring Twitter influence by counting tweets, tweeting frequency, mentions of another’s tweet, personal responses to less famous followers, and retweets, I’m OK looking at raw numbers to ask an important question. To whom do we accord power and leadership?   

If we listen to someone – and listen regularly – we cannot help but be influenced by what they think, say, do, and value. Look who’s got the ear of millions today – and millions of young people. What does all this say?

The 10 Most-Followed People on Twitter

1. Lady Gaga (7,941,444 followers)

2. Justin Bieber (7,032,265 followers)

3. Britney Spears (6,652,470 followers)

4. Barack Obama (6,531,868 followers)

5. Ashton Kutcher (6,261,483 followers)

6. Kim Kardashian (6,032,559 followers)

7. Ellen DeGeneres (5,745,455 followers)

8. Katy Perry (5,283,350 followers)

9. Taylor Swift (5,020,965 followers)

10. Oprah Winfrey (5,013,218 followers)

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Data from David Leonhardt (March 27, 2011). “A Better Way to Measure Twitter Influence.” New York Times Magazine, p. 18.

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Top Ten List: Executive MBA Learnings about China Today

The China trip is over, and we’re home tired but transformed. You can’t study and travel in China and feel otherwise. The world never looks as big nor China as overwhelming again. 

China is an amazing country where you taste the pace of change and development – and it is both exhilarating and exhausting.  Anything is possible; but the efforts required to navigate the culture, infrastructure, and realities of the country’s transition daunting. Recognizing all this at the core of one’s being is the purpose of the Executive MBA residency and the power of experiential learning. Translating that into executive judgment and rules for informed action comes with time and reflection. Students have been journaling to facilitate the process. I’ve been doing my own.

Below, my Top Ten list of what I hope students experienced in China. There are important learnings  embedded in each for their careers, leadership effectiveness, and global citizenship. 

1. If they were energized by the pace of action, the palpable excitement of our distinguished speakers (Chinese and ex-pats), and the sense of infinite (and prosperous) possibility, they learned something important about China today.

2. If they were exhausted by the pace of the action; the daily multi-layer challenges business and life require; the amount of information – sometimes conflicting – and planning needed to inform simple actions; and how plans changed, speakers cancelled, substitutes came, and traffic and government policies altered schedules despite high levels of planning, they learned something important about China today.

3. If they felt confused and awkward in knowing what rules (cultural, social, political, economic, ethical, governmental) applied when, they learned something important about China today.

4. If they were frustrated by a slow, erratic internet in a well-wired nation where cell phones work in  subways, in deserts and on mountains, along the Great Wall, and in the highest of skyscrapers, they learned something important about China today.

5. If they were surprised that Shanghai could differ so markedly and in so many ways from Beijing and both cities from Tianjin and the country side (and how different a 5 star hotel in each could be), they learned something important about China today.

6. If they were surprised (or shocked) by differing industry standards, safety measures, pollution levels, and technologies, they learned something important about China today.

7. If they experienced the predilection for luxury brands and shopping as the national pastime among China’s rapidly rising affluent — and were intrigued by their own feelings of winning through their wiles in the shops and markets, they learned something important about China today.

8. If they saw a blind eye turned so as to turn a profit, they learned something important about China today.

9. If they heard every speaker – whatever their assigned topic – touch on the importance of talent development and new HR policies to attract, retrain, and train China’s young, eager, and mobile workforce, they learned something important about China today. 

10. If they felt they learned a lot about China through this residency, but now feel how little they really know about this rising economic and political giant, they learned something important about China today,  about the demands of global leadership, and about the role of lifelong learning for leadership effectiveness.

BONUS:  The Bloch Executive MBA on a company visit to Lights Medical Manufacture Co., Ltd. in Tianjin pictured with the company’s founders, Dr. Li Shaobo and Ms. Wang Jinping, and senior leadership. (Photo compliments of Lights Medical.) 

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Day 10: Coming Home

Today is last minute errands, final things to see in Beijing, and suitcase packing.  For some, there will probably be final fittings with the tailor, if multiple alterations were required.

We check out of the hotel at noon.  Our group flight out of China to Newark is at 3:45 pm.  We leave late Monday afternoon, fly all day, and arrive home in Kansas City on Monday evening, recapturing the day we lost when we last crossed the International dateline.

I look forward to seeing my family — and to sleeping in my own bed tonight!  

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Day 9: The Wall, The Banquet

This morning is our trip to the Great Wall. It is indeed a wonder of the world!

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We travel about an hour by bus to Mutianyu for entrance – with good views of the outer rings of Beijing and the countryside as we go. It’s farther from Beijing than other access points, but I think the Wall is less crowded and less touristy here.

 

 

 

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I also love the cable car to the top which makes the full Wall and its views accessible for anyone who can’t (or prefers not to) climb. Students enjoy the Chinese equivalent of an alpine slide down one steep segment of the Wall. I prefer my toboggan on snow and without someone, sitting on a little metal disk, coming down fast behind me.

 

 

We lunch after a few hours at the Wall at a small local restaurant in the town, interestingly named the School House Restaurant, and then head back to Beijing for a free afternoon that everyone has earned.

Those interested can join me on an informal shopping trip to the Pearl Market. We’ll see pearls, pearls, and more pearls in little shop after shop after shop on floors and floors of the market – and everything else Chinese for sale that you could imagine: silks, scarves, purses, luggage, toys, clothing, fabrics, electronics, linens, tableware, teapots, souvenirs of all kind, and more. Prices are great for those willing to haggle because there’s so much obvious competition. Talk about market economics in action.

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The evening – and the residency – ends with a huge farewell Tibetan banquet, complete with dancing, passing of the white scarves, ethnic entertainment (with a contemporary twist), and a carefully-selected range of interesting Tibetan dishes.

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Few will have eaten any of these delicacies, but there will be plenty for even the non-adventurous. But at this point in the trip, the non-adventurous are fewer in number than when we arrived. Yak butter tea, anyone?

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Day 8: School is Out

Our good colleagues in Beijing, Patrick Ma and Stephen De Pretre, have agreed to meet with us on Saturday morning. 謝謝 (thank you)!

Patrick helps us make sense of the rapidly evolving legal environment and intellectual property issues in China. Huge!

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Stephen brings diverse and much experience across China, as well as the reflective eye of an ex-pat to discussions of labor markets and HR management in Greater China.

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Bell rings.  School is out!

We’ll lunch at the hotel, get on our walking shoes, and see some of the sights in Beijing.

Of course, the Forbidden City, 

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Tiananmen Square and the area around Mao’s tomb,

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and all the people in China who have travelled to see the same historic sights.

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Internal travel is now possible and huge with the rising prosperity and standard of living afforded everyone in China because of its current capitalist-socialist economy.

In 1978, then Premier Deng Xiaoping launched a market economy in China while maintaining the Communist Party with the famous statement: “Let some get rich first, so that others can get rich later.”  It’s happening. 

China boasts a rapidly increasing number of multi-millionaires, and one out of every 1,700 people in the country has a wealth of 10 million yuan (divide by 7 for U.S. Dollars). Compare that to one in 100 in the U. S.owning $10 million (stats from the China Daily). It’s a new day in China!

Now that we are savvy about ethnic diversity in China, people watching also takes on new meaning.

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For many Chinese from the far out provinces, we may well be the first group of Westerners they have ever seen. In past years, people have curiously wanted to touch blonde hair, stand next to our tallest men, and study and touch our clothes. Hey, we’re the ones who look really different!

 

 

 

The evening is one of my favorite parts of the trip. We attend a Chinese music concert at the stunning, acoustically wonderful, new Beijing National Concert Hall.

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The Hall is surrounded by a reflection pool and has an interesting, below-the-water, underground entrance. Lighting at night in breathtaking, complementing the night lighting at the near-by Forbidden City.  China is beautiful in so many ways!

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So far, we’ve been learning about China by reading, seeing, doing, tasting and eating, smelling, touching, watching, and asking our experts lots of questions. Now we have opportunity to learn something powerful about China’s soul through its music and musical heritage.

Sounds will be different and so will many instruments. We’re ready for the experience. Bring it on!

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Day 7: Consumer Behavior

We’re starting to adjust to the time difference – and many of us are no longer waking up at 4:00 am (which is 5:00 pm Kansas City). But the pace and the constant learning begin to take their toll about this time in the trip.

Cravings for Starbucks (usually right down the street from wherever we are) and McDonald’s (findable, but not as close as the KCF on every corner) multiply for me.  Decaf mocha latte vente skim, 謝謝 [xièxiè (pronounced like a clipped shay-shay) – thank you].

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We have a day and a half left in the classroom – and some of our historic best speakers and sessions.

Today, it’s exploring consumer behavior and trends with the Beijing head of the big PR firm Burson Marsteller. Then it’s a panel of senior corporate leaders exploring future economic outlooks for China.

OK, let me brag for a second – and this has been confirmed by our partner ISP (International Study Program in Czechoslovakia) who works with EMBA programs across the globe and who helps us set up and coordinate our international residency.

Be proud, Bloch Executive MBAs – and the families and friends who support and encourage them back home. This international residency is one of the best designed, integrated, multi-level, learning experiences in the industry.  We may come home pooped; but we’ll also be much, much smarter about China, the world, our leadership, ourselves, and our responsibilities as global citizens. The world has become a lot smaller from the experience.

This afternoon is for students’ individual interviews and meetings with companies and executives for their China projects, just as they did in Shanghai – and which now seems like weeks ago. But it’s all different this time. Students are more comfortable, flexible, confident, and in control. Nice!  

Me, I’m ready to chill. Trip is winding toward the close: a few more class sessions and then some wonderful cultural events to help us decompress and integrate. Have I had enough foot massages yet?

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Day 6: Out of the Big Cities

Spending time in the two major, big cities of China gives a distorted view of the country and of its economic development. This year, our Executive MBAs are venturing out.

We travel by train today to Tianjin: smaller scale, more industrial. A good example of how the economic boom sweeping China is rapidly spreading: a rising tide does lift all boats.

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We were warned in planning that we couldn’t get the kind of nice motor coaches (tour buses) used elsewhere in our travels; that we’d find a different dialect, ethic composition (Hui), and cuisine in the city despite its closeness to Beijing; and everything would be a little plainer. I was thrilled. This is exactly what we need to experience.

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China has great diversity in its population. The majority of Chinese are Han; but in a country of 1.3 billion people, there are still a lot of Chinese who are not.

 

Here’s a visual feel for the magnitude of the ethnic differences. I think you’ll be surprised. Take a look and study the faces.  http://personal.inet.fi/koti/chayangshu/56national.html 

A big shock to first time Western visitors to China is that all Chinese people don’t look alike – and that many look a whole lot more like us (and our ethnic ancestors) than they do our Chinese stereotypes.

We ethnocentric Westerners also tend to think all Chinese speak the same Chinese language. Not true. China has 36 officially recognized ethnic groups with their own cultures, religion, traditions, languages, and distinctive facial and physical features – and beyond the official count, there are many other sub-cultures.  That makes communication and planning within China difficult and complex.

Imagine what it would be like if people in Chicago, LA, and New York City couldn’t easily communicate with each other. That’s what we are talking about – but, ever the professor, I digress. Back to Tianjin.

By our standards, Tianjin is still a big city (11.9 million people) and China’s 4th largest; but not by comparison to Shanghai (China’s largest with 18.9 million) or Beijing (its historic capital in second place with 17.4 million).

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And like other cities in China, Tianjin has (and continues to build) beautiful structures with amazing aesthetic appeal. For example, their Olympic stadium

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We return to Beijing by train in the evening – and to the comfort of our hotel – after visits to a large multi-national; the “internationally active domestic company,” Lights Medical Manufacture; and an ethnic lunch.

Our local planner suggests an informal Beijing evening of karaoke or a visit to the night market at Wafuging near our hotel for a different taste (literally) of China. (Yes, those are scorpions on a stick, along with other tasty options.)

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I suggest bed!

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Day 5: Hello Beijing

This is a travel day: goodbye Shanghai, hello Beijing.

Early morning up and out – and a farewell to the Shanghai breakfast buffet that has been my morning pleasure. The kitchen opened early to feed us before we head off.

Service is big in China – after all, everything in China still runs to some degree on guanxi (relationships of reciprocity and exchange). Our fourth year in this hotel: we’re building guanxi.

The trip to the airport is on the maglev train, a quiet and comfortable magnetic levitation train that operates through Shanghai. It’ll cut the time of the trip by 75% as compared to the bus in on day one. The maglev is the first commercial high-speed line in the world, with test speeds clocked at more than 300 mph.

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We fly to Beijing, drop our bags, change clothes, grab lunch, and head off to a company visit. Beijing traffic is amazing. Take a read of Peter Hessler’s Country Driving —my favorite of his books on China that I’ve talked about in a past blog – for an accurate and entertaining read why.

Beijing adds 2100 new cars a day to its roads, and a thousand plus people get a first driver’s license in the city every day. A car is a new symbol of affluence and rising social status in China. Envision a country where 1.3 million people are learning to drive for the first time – most not having seen their parents drive or even having ridden much in autos. Get the picture of gridlock?  These should help fuel your imagination. 

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Things in China are ever changing, and staying flexible and open – a key leadership skill for everyone – is essential. We’re scheduled to visit ABB, but there may be a shift. Speakers and company visits have all been great – and I’m confident wherever we land will be amazing.

ABB is a Chinese-Swiss conglomerate and a leader in power and automation technologies that reduce environmental impact. We’ll explore the challenges of a multi-national setting up operations in China and sustainability issues, if all turns out as planned.

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Tonight, those who choose are measured for their custom suits, shirts, or other choices. June’s the young entrepreneur tailor who made us all look fabulous last year.

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She and her partner Ding and their cadre of seamstresses and seamsters plan to work their magic again this year, even though we have doubled our student numbers and are bringing some Midwest fashionistas with large, empty suitcases to fill. Learn more about D & J Tailors at http://www.tailorbeijing.com/about.php

I loved the silk Chinese jacket they custom-made for me last year. I am bringing pictures to inform some designs for this year’s purchases.

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Day 4: Ascending to Global Citizenship

This is the day that gives me some breathing space: a chance for a quiet afternoon in Shanghai – is that an oxymoron? – with our Executive Coach (who is travelling with us), maybe even a massage and a calorie splurge with dinner at M on the Bund. This, however, is the most stressful day for the EMBAs. Send them your love! 

We start as usual with class time and two fabulous instructors.

Bill Dodson (author, entrepreneur, consultant, and business principal, and writer of the http://thisischinablog.com ) brings his unique perspective on how to do business in China with exploration of the impact of cultural differences on business partnerships and opportunities. Check out his recent book to learn more.

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After a break for tea – this is China, after all – we probe the changing consumer markets with Paul French, prolific author and Founder and Publishing & Marketing Director of Access Asia. His recent book, Fat China, says as much about the dangers of Western notions of affluence as it does about China today.   

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Lunch together at the hotel is a kumbayah moment for the cohort, after which everyone goes off alone to do their individual interviews or site visits for their China projects.

Students have been working on these projects (at least in their minds) since last summer, and have been preparing for this moment of truth.

No matter how prepared, there’s always that last minute feeling of panic, heading off alone in a taxi or on the subway in a country where you can’t even fake that you know the language by giving your English a bit of an accent as you can in romance language countries.

Here’s where the rubber meets the road – a moment of executive growth and rise to full global citizenship.

Prediction: The meetings will go well, they always do. People will navigate a place as complex as China, even though they are not sure they can. Language won’t be easy, but they’ll make it work. And having conquered the fear of the unknown through their skill and flexibility (see past blogs on the topic of fear of differences and the unknown!), the students will be stronger leaders and different people.

We promise transformation in the Bloch Executive MBA – and this is one of the learning moments where we see the fruits of that transformation in action.

There will be another solo afternoon of interviews and site visits in Beijing for students, but this is the first – and the first is always the hardest.

I’m proud of everyone. You should be too. It ain’t easy – but people make it so and are better for having done that. They model professional development at its best.

Now, will I have the Chickpea Pancake served with Anchoiade & Tapenade, Eggplant caviar, and peppery Roquette or the Twice cooked, (so juicy and crispy) Pigeon served with ‘boudin noir’ and harissa at M on the Bund??? 

A toast to our students (and the beautiful view) while I decide.

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