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Deep inside the tomb of Ramses III, an unlikely set of three musketeers — one Turkish, one French, and one Finnish — marvel at the colors and images their artists meant for no eyes to see. Yes, there are many tourists around. And yes, we have learned quickly how to handle the persistent souvenir salesmen waiting outside the gates. But nevertheless, the joy of sharing these sights and the thrill of exploring mythical places with good friends is priceless. As I emerge from the tomb into the Valley of the Kings with my classmates Kielo and Nicholas, the Egyptian midday sun hits us as it has many other Nile adventurers over millennia. We are excited with the curiosity of what might be waiting for us around the next corner ... behind the next sandy hill ...
If I've been able to pique your interest with the imagery from our visit to Egypt last week, wait until you read where I am writing these words ... We are currently in Dahran on the East Coast of Saudi Arabia with 13 of my MIT Sloan classmates for our spring break trip. And if you think this is a unique choice for a spring break destination, you are right. However, our hope to learn first hand about places and things makes this trip a great choice, as opposed to relaxing on a beach somewhere.
We are being hosted by Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil company, in Saudi Arabia. A couple of months ago, when I heard that my classmate Omar Al-Madhi from Saudi Aramco was organizing a trip to his homeland, I jumped at the chance to join. I grew up in Turkey, and circumnavigated the world, but surprisingly I had never been to an Arab country. I was curious about many facets of the Saudi culture: its interpretation of Islam, the role of women in the society, the desert lifestyle, the traditions. I was also curious about the Saudi economy, and especially about the future plans to diversify its oil-based economy.
Omar and Saudi Aramco had planned a whirlwind tour of both the east and west Coasts of Saudi for us, with meetings to introduce us to top educators, businessmen, and political leaders. We visited the Dar Al-Hekma College for girls and met its dean Mrs. Suhair Al Qurashi, PhD, and her students. The college seems like a first grade educational institution, with top grade administration (Dr. Al-Qurashi's energy and wisdom is second to none), faculty, student body, and facilities. We also met students and faculty from the College of Business Administration girls' school in Jeddah, which was equally impressive. I have to admit that my classmates and I were pleasantly surprised to meet outspoken, very intelligent, and well-educated women throughout our visit to Saudi Arabia. Although we likely met some of the most fortunate women in the country in status and education, it is difficult to deny that the position of women in the society is in improvement, even when viewed from a western point of view. Many Saudis we met agreed that Saudi Arabia's investment in women's education (about 56 percent of university students are female) will both improve the economic situation in the country and its international image.
The hospitality of the Saudi people is incredible. We've met hundreds of people, visited markets, museums, homes and have only had most pleasant experiences. Foreigners are welcomed by individual Saudis, and many people announce their love for Americans and Europeans (although we've heard clear objections to U.S. foreign policy). Our understanding of Saudi hospitality became complete when we were hosted at a camel farm in the middle of the desert. Here we were, 14 Sloanies among 300 camels, surrounded only by sand dunes. The camels were friendlier than I assumed. (Contrary to common belief, there are no camels in Turkey other than a few for tourist rides; so, I don't know anything about camels). I even got a chance to milk one and then drink the milk (after I boiled it). Everywhere we went, we were greeted with Arabic coffee with its exotic mix of spices, offered feasts, and presented with information and gifts.
Once back on the east coast of Saudi Arabia we got a chance to visit Saudi Aramco facilities. The sheer size of the company is mind boggling. Since the discovery of oil in the Saudi desert in the 1950s, Saudis have taken on the challenge to deliver power to the world by exploring and extracting the largest oil reserves in the world. This effort was originally led in large part by Americans, but in the last few decades Saudi Arabia has been heavily investing in building Saudi talent to operate everything from management, finance, and drilling, to exploration and IT. In fact, education is one of the most important mandates of Saudi Aramco. We were impressed to learn about the education programs the company leads to provide scholarships to thousands of students to study overseas.
During our visit to Aramco, we got a chance to meet with some of the MIT Sloan alumni, such as the Chief Financial Officer Abdullatif Al-Othman, who shared with us the challenges of running the finances of one of the largest companies of the world. (You can calculate its revenue in hundreds of billions of dollars from number of barrels and price per barrel.) Talk about a learning experience ... Mr. Al-Othman was open with us about the balance between running a profitable company and contributing to Saudi Arabia's well being. We were also hosted by another MIT Sloan alumn, Manager of Public Relations Ziyad Al-Shiha. As a recent MIT Sloan graduate, Mr. Al-Shiha mentioned that some of his most valuable courses at the School focused on leadership and organizational processes.
Running horses around the pyramids, milking camels in a desert, visiting the world's largest oil company, and learning directly from its CFO ... This Spring Break trip to Egypt and Saudi Arabia has already been one of the best trips of my life. Tomorrow we will go to a beach resort to get some sun before reporting back to Boston. And oh, on the way we have a day in Amsterdam due to a long layover. I counted today; I have been to 17 countries since starting my MBA at MIT Sloan. So, I think that even the pharaohs of Egypt would agree: Life at MIT Sloan is as international as possible ...
The grandeur of the Giza Pyramids match their fame
Nicolas, Kielo and I overjoyed watching the sunset in the Saudi desert
E52, P., murals, Salsa, folk, Collage, UVA, Jamnastics, Hips, blare, seriously, fun
If you ever visited MIT Sloan's building E52 (yes, many buildings are numbered at MIT, but more on this later), you may have noticed the portrait of Alfred P. Sloan above the entry and large murals depicting academic and daily life in Cambridge on the adjacent walls. The lobby has an official air to it, with a constant flow of well-dressed visitors and applicants, professors rushing to classes, and access to admissions and administrative offices. However, if you ever visit the MIT Sloan lobby on a Tuesday evening, you may be shocked by the change in its atmosphere. Every Tuesday evening, the furniture in the lobby is pushed aside, the sounds system is setup, and the lobby is transformed into a dance class!!! MIT Sloan Salsa Club has been holding dance lessons in the MIT Sloan lobby for the last eight years!!!
If you are wondering why I am writing about Salsa at Sloan, let me explain with a brief background ... I have been an avid dancer for most of my life. Growing up in Turkey, music and dance is a part of daily life. I started dancing in elementary school, where I was part of the folk dance team. Folk dancing (especially Turkish) has remained an important part of my life, as I spent three years performing for Ahmet Luleci's Collage Dance Ensemble in Boston.
My introduction to Latin dances happened when I went to the University of Virginia. My Latin American friends at UVA taught me how to dance Salsa and Merengue. In the last couple of years I attended the University of Virginia, I started teaching these dances at the university. When I moved to Boston, I joined a nonprofit organization called Jamnastics and taught Salsa to adults, which funded after-school dance and gymnastics programs for inner-city children.
Over time, and although I've tried different dances, Salsa has become a passion for me; it offers a social outlet for my sometimes too busy lifestyle. So, it was natural for me to get involved with the MIT Sloan Salsa Club when I joined the School. In the last year, my friend Sana and I have been leading the club, organizing weekly salsa lessons for our classmates and the rest of the MIT community. Our professional instructors Cristina and Seemore from Hips on Fire have been teaching at MIT Sloan for eight years. Their energy and charisma fill the MIT Sloan lobby every Tuesday evening as the Latin rhythms blare through the hallways to remind us all that at the end of the day. We all love to have fun. As my classmates fill the lobby with full smiles on their face, and start moving to the beat, the weekly Salsa lesson becomes a testament for the down-to-earth character of Sloanies; working hard through day and night, but not taking ourselves too seriously to be able to stop and have some fun.
A recent evening at the Salsa class in the MIT Sloan lobby.
My fiancé, Riia, and me on stage at a Salsa performance.
Paul Levy, candid, hospital, Oxley, worthy, team
Today we had the CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Paul Levy visit our Practicing Management class. We had a very candid discussion on his leadership role in running one of the leading teaching hospitals in the world. I have to say that Paul is possibly the most candid CEO I've ever met or read about. I think even Jack Welch would reconsider openly admitting that “hospitals kill people” if he were running a hospital. But this is exactly what Paul does on his blog, Running a Hospital, and in person. The candor itself makes reading his blog, and analyzing its possible effects, worthwhile.
Why should hospitals be allowed to hold back information or not be measured directly against their main goal of saving lives and getting people healthy? The questions and answers Paul poses makes even a hospital-phobic person like me get interested in the topic. Paul's leadership style and openness also point toward a possible new trend in management in the Sarbanes Oxley era. Will this new breed of managers' capacity to be blatantly open about the strengths and weaknesses of their organizations be enough to publicly convince them to improve or to beat the competition? Paul's experiment in setting the public stage for this debate seems like a worthy cause.
The Practicing Management class taught by Professor Anjali Sastry is an MIT Sloan pilot course that aims to define the next generation of management education. By providing tools to reflect on our experiences and improve team dynamics, the class provides ways to improve the daily practice of management. We also get a chance to meet leading managers that use these tools, and hear about their impact on business.
Osman, 3GSM, Sachin, Kirloskar, Battacharyya, McKinsey, Helsinki
Since I last wrote, we finished our G-Lab project in India, started our final semester at MIT Sloan, and I am already back in the air traveling back in Europe. Over the weekend, I went to my good friend Osman's wedding in Istanbul, and now I am on my way to Barcelona where I will attend the 3GSM Conference — the world's largest mobile communication event with over sixty thousand attendants. In the last couple of weeks, I have also made my full time job decision. Let me first tell you about how we wrapped our amazing India experience and then I will tell you about what I will be doing next year.
Well, in case you are wondering, unfortunately the India vs. West Indies cricket game ended with India's loss. However, we still got a chance to learn cricket and watch the likes of legendary Sachin Tendulkar bat. In Chennai, we also met Anand's wonderful parents who helped us in planning the travel portion of our visit. Meeting them explained why Anand is considered by many the most caring and friendly person at MIT Sloan.
During the last week of our stay in Bangalore we analyzed all the data we gathered in our interviews and made recommendations on the future of the high tech sector in India to our host IDG Ventures India. Our presentation to the partners was very well-received. Although we still have to follow up on some minor action items that arose from our presentation, we are largely done with our G-Lab project. This will remain one the best experiences I've had, not only at MIT Sloan, but in my entire education. We were able to learn a great deal in a short amount of time through both great team and client experiences.
However, our last week in India wasn't all work and no play. One evening my team and the other G-Lab team based in Bangalore were hosted by Vikram Kirloskar, chairman of Kirloskar Systems, and an MIT alumnus, for dinner. Throughout the evening we were able to listen to Mr. Kirloskar's experiences bringing Toyota' automotive production to India, his goal of making India a leading manufacturing center in the world, his ideas about capital structure, his love of the arts, and trekking. Spending a long evening sharing opinions with a leading businessman in India was a great educational experience.
Another evening, Shouvik Battacharyya, MIT Sloan Fellow '06, hosted us at his company Adea's annual party. Shouvik is the charismatic, energetic CEO of Adea,, and has quickly made Adea a success story after taking over the CEO role last May. Adea is a business process outsourcing company and they hosted the other G-Lab team in Bangalore. The company plans to continue its link with MIT Sloan in its global growth plans.
My trip to India came at a time when I had to finalize my full-time employment decision. I had several great options to choose from in both the industry and also in management consulting. I decided that working for McKinsey & Company as a management consultant is the best choice for both the professional and personal aspects of my life. I have to admit that I did not come to MIT Sloan to become a management consultant; frankly, I didn't know much about consulting before MIT Sloan. My goal coming into the School was to work on strategy for a leading global technology company. After learning about management consulting, I realized that I can work on strategy for such companies serially as a consultant. The different consulting projects I worked on at school made me passionate about consulting as a profession. The decision to apply for a position at McKinsey was an easy one due to the caliber of the people I met from the firm, the quality of their engagements, strength of the firm's alumni base, and its reputation. I think working for McKinsey will not only allow me to work toward my original goal of working on strategy for technology companies, but also allow me to learn more about other industries such as finance and manufacturing.
I had a choice to join either the New York or Scandinavian office of McKinsey. After meeting the Helsinki team and weighing my personal life choices, I chose to join the Scandinavia office and be based out of Helsinki. My fiancé Riia is Finnish and we want to start building a life together in her home country. Being in the same time zone and only a three hour flight away from my home country Turkey also makes Finland attractive. Besides, in this ever more global economy, it makes sense for me to add more international work experiences to my so far mainly U.S. based career.
Not wasting time while waiting for a train at the Bangalore train station.
holidays, deserted, Heathrow, Korea, gigs, Manus, OP, ancillary, arts, career choice, fog
Happy holidays to all! Here at MIT Sloan, holidays present a chance for extracurricular activities with school friends as well as time for reconnecting with our lives outside of school. Today MIT Sloan is deserted — all my classmates are off visiting far reaches of the world with their loved ones. As for me, I am (as often) stuck in London Heathrow for an extra twelve hours on my way to Finland due to ... well, one can easily guess in London ... heavy fog. Once the fog clears, I hope to spend Christmas and New Year's in Finland to continue my strategy project for Nokia, visit my future in-laws, and also consult for a medical device inventor who is trying to patent and license her inventions in the U.S. Early January will see me off to Korea for a short visit to a company there and then I will be in India for the G-Lab project I mentioned in my previous entry.
Since I have often mentioned “consulting gigs,” it probably makes sense for me to tell you more about how Sloanies end up getting involved in out-of-class engagements. First of all, it is not that we have ample amounts of free time. In fact, chances are that if you take on any activities on top of a full course load, you will likely give up either social or sleep time (mostly the latter). However, the opportunity to learn by working on real problems of real companies is so great, most of us find ourselves working as consultants while attending school. This action oriented learning also matches MIT's motto “mens et manus,” mind and hand — putting what we learn in action ...
If one is not already a management consultant when arriving at MIT Sloan, the consulting experience usually begins with the first semester Organizational Processes (OP) class, where we are required to study a change initiative in an external organization. For my core team during our first semester at MIT Sloan, this meant working with the Boston Ballet studying their organizational structure to make recommendations on how they can communicate a major change to various stakeholders. In the second semester of our engagement with them, we looked at developing a business model that would increase the ballet's revenue from ancillary sales. A whole year of working with a top non-profit arts organization was a great experience that taught me much about the non-profit world, its opportunities, and challenges. The experience also greatly increased my appreciation of ballet as an art form. After this positive experience, I expect to continue supporting arts organizations with my business knowledge throughout my career.
Most of my classmates initially engage in consulting projects through classes structured to provide such experiences. Last spring, the Entrepreneurship Laboratory (E-Lab) allowed my team composed of Sloanies and MIT engineers to consult for a local mobile search startup company. G-Lab enables us to participate in similar consulting projects with a global reach. The Leaders for Manufacturing (LFM) program includes a co-op where students work for a company for a semester as part of their MIT Sloan education. The new Practicing Management class builds on the “Prepare-Act-Reflect” framework to support student initiated consulting projects. The $100K Business Plan Competition is another great venue for Sloanies to meet technology or social entrepreneurs to help them with their business plans.
These more structured engagements build up the skill set and confidence of students to consult. You may wonder what the consulting skill set is, so here's my explanation of consulting: Ask the right questions to find the problem. Find data to analyze problem. Hypothesize a solution. Support hypothesis with more analysis. Effectively communicate actionable recommendations to the client.
I have to admit that before MIT Sloan I didn't know much about consulting. Although I have much to learn, I feel MIT Sloan exposed me enough to consulting that I am now planning on consulting firms either from within, as part of their corporate strategy groups, or as an external consultant for one of the leading management consulting firms. I will write more about my career choice once I make my decision on which full time offer to accept in late January. Deciding which company to work for, and in which country, hasn't been easy. Although my career decision process may still be foggy, at least the fog over the Heathrow runways seems to be clearing up ...
unique, IAP, nuts and bolts, far away land, Brazilian beauty products, Lesotho, Intel, Bangalore, FT
Between the fall and spring semesters MIT Sloan offers an experience unique among top business schools. Being part of MIT, MIT Sloan dedicates the month of January to Independent Activities Period (IAP), a short but intense semester where students can either attend innovative short courses, do an externship or take a longer holiday break. The short courses range from for-credit courses like the popular Nuts and Bolts of Business Plans offered by the MIT Entrepreneurship Center to student-taught non-credit courses like the Dark Chocolate Tasting offered by the Laboratory of Chocolate Science (and no, I am not kidding!). For many of us second-year Sloanies, IAP means a for-credit trip to a far away land to put our business education to practice ...
Global Entrepreneurship Lab (lovingly known as G-Lab among Sloanies) is one of the most popular classes for second-years during the fall semester at MIT Sloan. The class brings together entrepreneurs from across the world with teams of four Sloanies to work on a strategic project for the entrepreneurs' startup companies. The class is composed of lectures and meetings with client entrepreneurs over the fall semester, followed with a three-week visit during January to the client's country to finalize the project. The projects range from expanding a Brazilian beauty product startup's market to the USA to devising financing strategies for a renewable energy non-profit in Lesotho.
My G-Lab team is comprised of a classmate who is from India and has a background in microprocessor design and high tech investment, another who is an investment banker from Japan, and a third classmate from Thailand, who has a background in investment banking for a top investment bank and management consulting for McKinsey & Company (and is also a concert pianist and soprano). The four of us have been able to get a much sought after project in India working for a venture capital firm which recently started a high-tech investment fund in Bangalore, India. As a team, we have been studying a certain segment of the high-tech sector in India and sharing our learnings with our client in weekly teleconferences (I love the 10.5 hour time difference!). In early January, we will convene in Bangalore to go to work for our client VC firm for three weeks, during which time we will interview Indian thought leaders in the market segment of interest, observe Indian consumer choices, and finally meet with the management of some of the companies that we study for possible investment.
Our client is a Sloanie who, in the four years following his graduation from MIT Sloan, has managed to combine his previous consulting experience with VC experience to become a partner in a prominent VC firm. Interacting with him and observing how he runs a meeting, makes decisions or communicates expectations has been great experience for me and coincide with my interest in Practicing Management (see my previous entry). Due to the work ethic of our client and our drive as a team, we are probably one of the hardest working teams among the forty G-Lab teams (in fact, I should be working on that project instead of writing my journal). I will write more about this experience in January when I am on the ground in India. You can surely expect to read a lot of enthusiasm in those entries; after all, not only will I be in India for the first time but I will also get a chance to act as a VC for the first time ...
(You can also expect to see international media coverage of our trip as G-Lab projects often attract a lot of attention in the press.
Jack, spell, consistency, Winning, candor, true potential, fun, pedestal, practicing management
It is difficult to meet Jack Welch and not fall under his spell. His charisma is visible as he enters a room; people suddenly grow silent and attentive, his intense gaze and smile getting everyone's attention. But I have found over the last three months during the class he teaches at MIT Sloan, that there is more to this legendary executive than his charisma and genuine interest in people. He is full of practical management wisdom that consistently makes sense ...
First, I need to put this consistency in context: Teaching at MIT Sloan is not an easy task, even if you are a well-known figure like Jack Welch. I don't know if my classmates (and I) are already inquisitive types or if exposure to MIT Sloan quickly turns us into such, but professors often get a slew of questions from students who make sure that all sides of an argument are considered and every stone has been turned. Trying to find answers to these questions can be a daunting task at times, even for the most capable of teachers, especially since some of the questions come from experts in the topic being taught. (Try teaching a case on MRIs to students who are doctors, one on Dell to students who work for the company, or growth strategy to McKinsey consultants.) As Jack started his lectures, based on his bestseller book Winning, I think my classmates and I gave him a ten minute grace period before bombarding him with questions. “Jack, what do you think of Google?” “Jack, is it possible to become a CEO without charisma?” “Jack, what do you think of GE's current performance?” “Jack, how would you motivate a colleague who is hampering team performance?” “Jack, is candor really effective across the world in different cultures?”
True to his fame, Jack seemed to love the challenge these questions posed and always delivered answers that were consistent with his previous lectures and the contents of his books. For example, in a class on hiring and firing, when asked what to do about the bottom 10 percent performers in the organization, he reminded us how these people should never be surprised about underperforming through frequent reviews and therefore should not be shocked if they are let go. During a class on budgeting, he mentioned how candor should prevail in this process to avoid fake smiles during a once-a-year dog-and-pony show between top management and business units that only increment on last year's performance rather than aiming for the company's true potential.
Jack Welch is also very consistent in his demeanor and in the way he addresses our class. For example, as he teaches us to build constant feedback in an organization and he also asks us for verbal and written feedback often about his performance as a teacher. He also believes in frequent celebrations and that work should be fun (Amen!), and makes us constantly laugh and organizes a mid-term celebration. (We will also have a “Jack style” end-of-term celebration at one of his favorite spots in town at the end of the term.) Jack also lives his energetic-energize mantra by being very involved in the class and not missing a beat even if the class is at the end of a day when he's made headlines about his involvement with the Boston Globe or Hertz.
You may think that the headlines or his wisdom that we can't find holes in would put him on an unapproachable pedestal. This couldn't be further from the truth. Although he is likely the most famous business leader of our time, Jack Welch still shows colors of his wholesome New England upbringing by being surprisingly down-to-earth. It is truly amazing how he is so interested in people; so much so that he memorized most of my classmates' backgrounds after one class and starting calling on us knowing who among us was a Lebanese department store owner, a Navy officer, an executive from Caterpillar, or a development manager from Microsoft.
Finally, I want to tell you about how this class, Conversations with Jack Welch, fits into an ongoing effort at MIT Sloan to redefine management education for this century. MIT Sloan has been instrumental during the last 50 years in defining management globally, not only as an art, but also as a science that can be taught. There are now many pilot programs within MIT Sloan to increase the effectiveness of management education. One such program is called Practicing Management where students are taught practical management skills which complement theoretical content from other classes. Just imagine the effectiveness of learning capital budgeting theory in a finance class in the morning and then learning how to actually deal with budget requests from business units from Jack Welch in the afternoon. This blend of theory and practice is a winning recipe for a management education that is neither too low on tangible day-to-day skills nor too high on math and statistics.
I want to leave you by paraphrasing some of Jack's wisdom that I learned over the semester. My classmates joke about how these lessons have more than paid for our MBAs considering what Jack must charge for an hour during his talking tour. If you want to learn more from Jack, I would suggest reading Winning, or the fresh off the press, Winning: The Answers. You can also watch a video of another one of Jack's lectures on the MIT World Web site.
Charisma is not essential to become a leader but it definitely saves time.
Gut feeling is no more than pattern recognition.
As you are reviewing an underperformer, make sure to concentrate on the improvement needs and that he leaves the conversation with a clear message. If you provide him positive feedback at the same time, it will dilute your message.
Never hire someone for their last job; hire “athletes” and not “specialists.”
Make sure that star employees grow and not swell.
Management consulting is beneficial if done for a short time.
Training is not used enough as a motivation and retention tool.
If a good employee leaves and wants to come back, hire him back.
You can teach how to energize people to an employee but you can't teach how to be energetic.
Chairman and CEO roles should not be separated; there should be a clear boss and not multiple choices.
Genuine and to the point, Jack delivers practical wisdom in class
back, curious, industrial economics, beer game, g-lab, Jack
After an incredible summer, I've been back home in Cambridge for a few weeks now. Although it was hard to leave my job at Nokia, I was eager to come back to MIT Sloan to see friends. On registration day, I ran into maybe one hundred of my classmates, what seemed like all at once. They were all as curious about my summer as I was about theirs. Couple of days, some coffee breaks, and a few happy hours later, we were all up to date, our curiosities satisfied. Like businesses, MIT Sloan runs on information.
Believe it or not, I was also very eager to get back to school to start my classes. I have an all-star line up this semester: Industrial Economics with Professor Robert Pindyck (author of the very popular Microeconomics textbook), System Dynamics with Professor John Sterman (inventor of the famous Beer Game), Global Entrepreneurship Lab with Professors Simon Johnson and Shari Loessberg, and last but not least, Conversations with Jack Welch with (well, you guessed it) Jack Welch.
In Industrial Economics, we are studying how strategic decisions of a firm can be made based on economics. Last week we studied the emerging digital music market. We will be playing a strategy game as a class throughout the semester where individual teams will decide price and quantity of production of their goods and compete against the rest of the class.
System Dynamics is one of those courses that is sure to change one's life. Studying complex systems, interdependence, and trying to find high leverage points is crucial in today's business environment where no decision is extraneous to the firm. However, System Dynamics doesn't apply only to companies trying to make more profit. In fact, most systems we consider in our classes are not businesses. Last week, we built a computer model of the SARS epidemic in Taiwan, and matched results to the actual epidemic data. Professor Sterman's willingness to touch on real-world problems and his utter enthusiasm for the subject will make this course unforgettable.
Global Entrepreneurship Lab, lovingly called G-Lab, is a course unique to MIT Sloan. Building on the strength of MIT Sloan's strong entrepreneurship resources, the course allows teams of four students to travel to far reaches of the planet to help start up companies over three weeks in January. My team is comprised of Ploy Jensen from Thailand, Anand Daniel from India, and Yu Hironaka from Japan. We are planning on taking a project in India or Africa. But no matter where we end up, our combined expertise in high-tech, investment banking, management consulting, and sales should provide value to a developing company. I will write in detail about this as our project takes shape during the semester.
Last week I took my first class with Jack Welch. What a privilege! This is the first time Jack (we are on a first name basis now) has taught at a business school. In a class of only 30 students, our conversations are very open, to the point, and as one would expect from Jack, full of candor. In one 1.5 hour session, Jack gave us so many points of business wisdom that I feel better qualified as a business leader already. I can't wait to learn more from Jack both by listening to what he is teaching and also by examining his leadership style up close.
strategy, kulta, santa, boot throwing, transit, Nokians, Glass Castle, four continents, Piste
I sat down to write about my summer internship at Nokia Corporate Strategy but I can't help but tell you first about my fascination with Nokia's home country Finland. Maybe the uniqueness of the country will also help explain the qualities of my experience working at Nokia.
Finns are known for their calm demeanor except during bright Helsinki nights in the summer when Lapin Kulta beer and pear cider flow free. Talking about your own achievements or boasting is considered rude except when claiming Finland as the homeland for Santa and having one sauna for every three Finns. These calm and composed people are mostly interested in sports that require helmets such as ski jumping, ice hockey, and Formula 1 racing (go Kimi Raikkonen!). There are, of course, also ancestral favorites such as wife-carrying races and rubber boot throwing (yes they are Nokia brand).
So how does such a country end up with a company that dominates the mobile device market? Well, first of all, Finns are fanatic about education and, according to many measures, have the best education system in the world. Second, Finns are hard workers. Their brand of hard work is a little different though. Things work in Finland, because everyone obeys the rules and takes care of their responsibilities. This must be the only country where mass transit projects finish under budget and before schedule regularly enough to have people joke about it. (I wonder why Boston didn't hire Finnish contractors for the Big Dig...) Third, under that composure, Finns are wildly creative.
It is in this cultural setting that Nokia has been able to succeed without the funding and technical innovation of Silicon Valley and Boston. The first day I reported to work at the Corporate Strategy group at Nokia House outside Helsinki, the no-nonsense attitude of Nokians immediately struck me. In this headquarters building I lovingly call “the Glass Castle,” people seem to walk a little faster in the corridors, and time is seldom wasted. And, like most Finns, Nokians are trusting, open to collaboration, and goal-oriented. The idea of “connecting people” is in the fabric of the company: Long distance collaboration is not just encouraged, but is a fact of everyday work life. For example, during my internship, I traveled to several different countries in Europe and collaborated with Nokia employees on four continents. Which brings me to another value of Nokia: People are expected to give their best without supervision. Even as an intern, I was given great responsibilities and all the freedom to achieve them. As my internship comes to an end, I am comfortable in saying that my internship is in the running for the one with most impact. I have Nokia's culture and my manager to thank for that.
So, without being able to give any details of the actual work I did for Nokia, this is all I can say about my internship. But this summer won't be the end of my involvement with Nokia. This fall I will help Nokia actively recruit interns and full time employees at MIT Sloan. And who knows ... I might even end up back in the Glass Castle one day. After all, having a chance to work on Nokia's global strategy has been such a dream of mine, I had even listed it in my career goals in my MIT Sloan application essays.
It's not possible to take photos inside Nokia House. However, here's me at a Sonera Piste (point), a mobile phone sales kiosk, browsing through all the cool Nokia gadgetry we don't see enough of in the U.S. Sonera is the largest mobile operator in Finland and is one of the most innovative operators in the world. (Photo, of course, taken by a Nokia, in this case a 6630 in night mode.)
stereotypes, down-to-earth, welcoming, non-profit, Boston Ballet, Middle East
There are many positive stereotypes about business schools that make MBAs such a popular degree. But there are also some negative stereotypes that originally made some of my friends flinch at the idea of me going to business school. Right after I was accepted to MIT Sloan, one close friend confessed, at the risk of dampening my joyous mood, that she was afraid she would not recognize me in a year. “Don't become one of those self-centered, power-hungry business people,” she said, “Don't forget the things you care for now as you find others.” I have to admit that even though I knew Sloanies' have a reputation of being down-to-earth, I still believed that my friend's worries could be warranted. I wondered how I would fare among very ambitious people in a competitive environment.
This may prove to be the biggest surprise for me at MIT Sloan. A month or so into the school year a bunch of my classmates and I were sitting at the Muddy Charles Pub, frequented by Sloanies, and discussing our impressions of school so far. Looking around the table at all the friendly faces, we all agreed that the thing that shocked us most was how everyone at MIT Sloan — and I mean everyone - was so friendly, and how it didn't feel like a competitive environment at all. The school has managed to create an environment that is the most welcoming among all the institutions I've been a part of, and it fosters collaboration rather than competition. I think this positive environment has its roots in the admissions process, which seems to be geared towards finding the “real person” within the applicant. This is why all the applications are read to the last letter and the interviewers know to ask the applicants detailed questions. The process seems to result in a diverse student body with the common trait of being down-to-earth. As Ken Morse, managing director of MIT Entrepreneurship Center, once told me, “Sloanies are chosen to be confident but not too cocky. You can't teach new things to someone who thinks he knows everything.”
Sloanies' down-to-earth and caring character shows itself in the increasing non-profit involvement of the student body. Whether collecting donations for the victims of natural disasters or devoting school time or summer internships to non-profit work, my classmates are very interested in helping others by using their experiences and knowledge gained from classes. MIT Sloan offers many opportunities to get involved with non-profit organizations. For example, during my first semester my core team did our Organizational Processes (lovingly known as OP) class project with the Boston Ballet. Our project was received well by the Ballet and we were invited for a more involved project the second semester. MIT Sloan allowed my team to create a course around this project. I will write more about MIT Sloan's involvement with the Boston Ballet in my next entry.
I would like to devote the rest of this entry to tell you about another non-profit organization that is dear to my heart. As the Middle East conflict escalates in Israel and Lebanon, I want to let you know that good things are happening there as well. Middle East Education through Technology (MEET) is an educational non-profit organization co-founded by MIT students to change the perception of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To this end, MEET uses technology and business as neutral and pragmatic languages to bring together excelling Jewish and Palestinian high school students in Jerusalem for collaboration. MEET is a three-year program that teaches Java programming and entrepreneurial skills during a five week full-time summer camp and weekly meetings throughout the school year. The goal is to change the perception of the conflict by proving that technical and business collaboration is possible between the Palestinians and Jewish Israelis. Courses are taught in English by MIT graduate students from engineering and business schools.
When I met MEET's MIT student co-founders, Anat and Yaron Binur, at MIT last November, I was immediately sold on MEET's unique model. I have always felt connected to the Middle East due to my Turkish roots, and believed that technology and business should play a larger role in conflict resolution around the world. MEET has been very successful in its first two years and is now discussing how to grow as an organization. So, I agreed with its founders to take on a consultant role, along with Guy Yamen from HBS, to investigate the best growth model to maximize impact. Over the spring semester Guy and I interviewed many of MEET's stakeholders, including founders, staff, advisors, professors at MIT and Harvard, and donors, to gather opinions. Then we set out to Jerusalem in early July for 10 days to view MEET in action and deliver our findings. (Thank you Nokia for allowing me the time off from my internship). I had a chance to sit in on classes with the Jewish and Palestinian students and observe their interactions in team settings. The model's success was apparent as students from both sides were collaborating and warming up to each other even as the conflict escalated in Lebanon and Northern Israel. You can see students' comments and videos from past years at the Web site, www.m-e-e-t.org.
For our part, Guy and I analyzed the current state of the organization and its growth options and presented our findings to its founders and staff. Guy's management consulting and my Boston Ballet experiences helped in our analysis, and we were successful in narrowing down all the growth options to one. (Since I returned to Finland, Guy, who remains in Israel, has led this effort). Upon our recommendation, MEET has created teams to assess specific requirements for growth. Over the next two months a new business plan will be written, and with it MEET will considerably increase the impact of its successful model in the long run. I plan to continue my involvement with MEET throughout the school year and may even go teach in Jerusalem. This year my friends Shahid Rhashid (MIT Sloan '07) and Michael Fox (MIT Sloan '06) have developed and taught the business curriculum. As I write this, they are still in Jerusalem, devoting their summer to this amazing cause. In this choice, they reflect the giving character of many Sloanies. The thought makes me proud to go back to school in September...
Take a look at some photos from my recent trip:
The World Cup was going on in early July so we bonded through soccer with the Jewish and Palestinian high school students at MEET's summer camp in Jerusalem. Shahid Rhashid '07, (in white shirt on left), Michael Fox '06, (in pink shirt) and I (with hat) did our best to keep up with the youngsters.
Kindergarten children can remind us adults of hope anywhere; behind, the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem.
Finland is a perfect place to reflect on the past. This land of 190 thousand lakes and only 5 million people offers solitude, peace, and long hours of light in the summer to allow for a momentary pause between my first and second years at MIT Sloan. So after a long Finnish sauna, I find myself sitting on the shore of one of those 190 thousand lakes pondering what I have learned at MIT Sloan in the last year, how this experience has changed me, what I contributed, and how I ended up in this wondrous country of the deep north ...
A year ago today, I was about to finish my two-month long trip around the world. I visited 17 countries in five continents, most of them with my parents, who had long hoped to circumnavigate the globe, but were reluctant to do so without me due to their lack of language skills and age. This trip ended up being one of the best decisions of my life, as it gave me a chance to reconnect with my parents after living away from them for 15 years in the United States. After dropping my parents off in our native Turkey, I visited friends in Scandinavia and finally returned to Boston where I have been living for five years.
But Boston suddenly felt like a different town. For the first time since moving there, I was not working 60-hour weeks but rather had become a student. My engineering and technical sales jobs at IBM and Ansoft had always kept me outside of the city during the business hours; so although I was a proud Bostonian, I had never walked its streets during weekdays. And MIT, which I had driven through so many times, was no longer just a place of wonder but suddenly a place where I also belonged. So even before the school year had started, my choice to come to MIT had changed my perception of things I thought I knew well. Breaking out of the high stress, highly organized work routine also proved to be one of the main drivers behind my renewed sense of entrepreneurship, which I will touch on in later entries.
As school started it became clear quickly that MIT Sloan was going to surpass even my highest expectations in many ways. My core team was made up of an amazing mix of people: a Thai-American soprano/investment banker, a Tamil Indian chip designer from Intel, a Chinese diplomat, a West Virginian engineer from Dell, and a pharmaceutical consultant from Maine. We didn't end up being the team that met the most number of hours for assignments or for parties, but our diversity taught all of us important lessons. But again, I will delay details until another journal entry.
You may read this in other journals or hear it from MIT Sloan students if you come for a visit: the school year goes by really fast. After what felt like a brief honeymoon period of making incredible new friends, we all found ourselves busy updating our résumés for summer recruitment. Then midterms came and we scrambled to finish our team project (which in our case was with the Boston Ballet), all the while attending company presentation after company presentation. Soon, the finals and our core semester at MIT Sloan were over.
And yes, it was busier than anything I had ever lived through before; not because of class work but because of all of the extracurricular activities (and partying) that I (and it seems like everyone else at MIT Sloan) took on. I personally became a member of the MIT $100k Entrepreneurship Competition organizing team, was elected as a member to the school senate, organized a school trip to Turkey during Spring Break, became the co-president of the Salsa Club, consulted for two non-profit organizations, Boston Ballet and Middle East Education through Technology (MEET), while getting my mobile marketing company, OpenThird, off the ground, and interviewing for a summer internship. Needless to say, I didn't sleep much in the last year. This is not the case for everyone at MIT, but one is easily lured into trying to take advantage of as many of the options as possible.
So, you may ask, how did I end up by a silent lake in Finland after such a busy year in Cambridge? Well, as serene as Finland might be, as the home of world's largest cell phone producer Nokia, it is the hub of activity when it comes to mobile communications. In December, I contacted one of our alumni at Nokia to ask if there were any positions available in the corporate strategy group. After a series of interviews, I was offered a position as a strategy analyst at Nokia's headquarters near Helsinki, in Espoo. This was a dream job for me and I had even mentioned it in my MIT Sloan application essays, so I took it over other offers in management consulting and technology management. Working at Nokia has been a wonderful experience so far and I will devote a separate entry to what it has meant to me.
So, soon I will write more to keep the promises I made above. I have to also tell you about my recent trip to Israel where I went to consult for a wonderful non-profit called MEET, founded through a partnership with MIT. Please stay tuned and drop me a line with your thoughts at alper@sloan.mit.edu.
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