I remembered joining the MBA course for 4 purposes: to learn, to develop, to network, and to enjoy.  I have always kept reminding myself on these throughout the MBA journey.

• Learn - I have learned much about business, its various areas and everything in a whole.  The last case study submitted was a consultative paper in which I learned to apply many things in the course to provide solution to a real-world problem.
• Develop - I should have become a better thinking person, thanks to certain good lecturers in the course.  But I’ve not been able to improve my communication skills including presentation and public speaking.
• Network - I might be one of the most connected person in my business school.  The last count on friends known through the course on Facebook stood at 318.  Unfortunately, most are shallow relationships and I hardly have more than a few buddies to speak of.
• Enjoy - After absence from school for years, I indeed have enjoyed the campus life.  In fact, I enjoyed every process including the stressful schedules to submit assignments, prepare for presentations and sit for exams.

• Financial goal – Increase my net worth for a certain amount.
• MiC (Masters in Communication) – I need to become a master in communication, the very thing that I missed out developing in the MBA course.

I guess I’m quite clear of what I need to achieve this year. How about you?

December 26, 2011 (Monday) - 4 areas to be tested on Wednesday: 1. Training needs analysis. 2. Transfer of training. 3. Training evaluation. 4. Development methods. Now reading up on 3rd area and evaluating Santa Claus’ performance this year.

December 27, 2011 (Tuesday) - Final exam starts tonight until next week. My only exam is tomorrow night. One thing I learned from friends here is D.N.U.T. (Doa, Niat, Usaha, Tawakal). So let’s do our best and have PEACE..

December 28, 2011 (Wednesday) - The last ever exam is now over! I’m always lucky for taking less number of subjects and so finishing earlier than others. For my friends still having other papers until next week, best of luck and you too will be independent very soon like me now.

January 6, 2012 (Friday) - Supervisor wants me to publish in case competition and wants me to do PhD. Well but let me earn some money first, then I’ll think about it again

January 7, 2012 (Saturday) - This morning I got waken up by phone call from a professor in marketing encouraging me to pursue PhD. She has not taught me in any class before, but she was in fact the first lecturer I got to know personally in GSM. She must have remembered the guy who presented to her in lab on social media in July 2009

December 19, 2011 (Monday) - Transferring marketing ideas from mind map to words in report is taking more time than expected. Will finish in one or two days so that I can turn it in to Turnitin, or else I’ll have to turn myself in to GSM for late submission.

December 20, 2011 (Tuesday) - Submitted the first incomplete draft to Turnitin for “testing”. Result unknown. Still writing up on marketing strategies. Learning more when crystalizing ideas in words. Took one hour to draw up perceptual map alone. Work to be continued tomorrow. Good night.

December 21, 2011 (Wednesday) - Met client in their office, conducted training on email server. Now sitting in cafe in KL City Walk, drinking Vietnamese milk coffee, writing up on marketing mix. Typical work + study life in past 2 years.

December 22, 2011 (Thursday) - Finished writing on marketing strategies, having taken 3 days and many pages. Case report writing is now 90% done. Should be finishing up the final part soon

December 23, 2011 (Friday) - Case study report COMPLETED. Submitted to supervisor and Turnitit for checking. Hopefully not much change required. Now I can sleep. Good night

December 23, 2011 (Friday) - Someone told me I’m a “controversial” person in GSM. Well, it’s good to be controversial, not good to be ordinary. Stand up and speak for what we believe in. That’s how Namewee created a niche for himself too.

December 24, 2011 (Saturday) - Spent hours to settle company accounts and works delayed while focusing on case in past 2 weeks. Will start to revise for the last ever exam on Wednesday.

December 24, 2011 (Saturday) - Reading up on training needs analysis (TNA), one of the four areas to be tested on Wednesday. Studying is over soon, but lifelong learning continues (thanks to MCA). I already identified my own learning needs (or rather, developmental needs) in 2012. You?

December 25, 2011 (Sunday) - Christmas time + Study time for Training & Development = Task analysis on Santa Claus.

December 12, 2011 (Monday) - Completed SWOT and SPACE for Case Study on one client company. More reading, thinking, strategizing and writing ahead. Developing skills as con-sultant, but not interested to be one. Why earn cheapskate money for giving ideas to others, when we can use them to build up our own business and earn better ourselves?

December 13, 2011 (Tuesday) - Sat in International Marketing class of Dr Kenny Teoh, one of the most popular lecturer around. Listened to friends’ presentation on selling Tongkat Ali coffee. Stealing information for own case study as usual.

December 14, 2011 (Wednesday) - Intensive planning, intensive writing, intensive reading, intensive stealing.

December 14, 2011 (Wednesday) - Surprise farewell party for Tuan Haji Yaakob, my two-time lecturer in Case Writing, and Training & Development Management.

December 15, 2011 (Thursday) - The last class of the whole MBA is over. Worked on case study in Old Town while friends discussed issues. Learning much on opportunity analysis. As entrepreneurs we often come across various opportunities, and the seven domains model is one good method to systematically analyze and decide to pursue them or not.

December 16, 2011 (Friday) - Developing a “co-opetitive” business model for client company in case study. Let’s not be me-too but start to think out of the box. Learning how to think is one major skill we can gain in this course.

December 17, 2011 (Saturday) - Morning do case, afternoon do case, night do case, eat thinking of case, drive reflecting on case, sleep also dreaming of case, might as well marry someone called Casey.

December 17, 2011 (Saturday) - SWOT done, SPACE finished, opportunity analyzed, business model evaluated, competitive strategies proposed, now QSPM-ing. Case is 70% completed. Not a crime thinking about life after MBA. Bitter first, sweet later!

December 18, 2011 (Sunday) - Let’s imagine the joy of having fought a good fight and having run a good race. Then we will be most motivated towards the goal at the end. Case is 75% done and one day ahead of schedule. Next up, ready for submission by Christmas on Sunday!

December 18, 2011 (Sunday) - Working on Appendix C: Financial Statement Analysis. Who ask you to take General Management? Must do everything from strategy, marketing, operations, IT, now accounting and finance some more.

December 18, 2011 (Sunday) - Financial analysis completed. Now working on strategic action plan, strategy alignment and McKinsey 7S Framework. Whatever goal we have in life or business, we must make sure everything we do is helping us towards the goal rather than away from it.

December 8, 2011 (Thursday) – Assignments come and go yet never ending. But Case/Project should be on top of mind and done every now and then.

December 8, 2011 (Thursday) – Reading up on “perceptual distortion” for the very last presentation (conduct training) on Sunday.

December 8, 2011 (Thursday) – Books are gold mine to those who know how to find. Theories are practical to those who know how to apply.

December 9, 2011 (Friday) – Had the last group meeting with members of my last group for the last presentation in MBA. We are to give a half-hour training on Perceptual Distortion. We will try to, no, we will do our best to give one impressive “performance”.

December 9, 2011 (Friday) – Finished preparing slides for weekend training. Going to depend less on slides but focus more on trainees. Borrowed textbook of Marketing Strategy class. Going to scan through for possible materials to use in Case Study.

December 9, 2011 (Friday) – Reading marketing strategy textbook and extracting possible models and theories to be used in Case Study. Pretending to be CONsultant for a client and learning to apply theories in real-world situation is great learning experience.

December 10, 2011 (Saturday) - Now left the last presentation (training) tomorrow, final exam on 28/12, and case submission by 30/12 (or 3/1?). Coming week is critical in order to submit before Christmas. Must have good lifestyle support and time management!

December 10, 2011 (Saturday) – Last-minute effort to rehearse for training tomorrow. It’s always a challenge to present a dry topic in a funny way and engage all audience from start to finish. The last time I managed to do so was on Digg in MIS class but many months ago. Hopefully the last presentation tomorrow will be good enough for lifelong remembrance.

December 11, 2011 (Sunday) – Mock training started in GSM. 6 groups to present half-hour each, 4 indoor and 2 outdoor. God bless my team’s indoor training later.

December 11, 2011 (Sunday) – Final presentation is done! My own performance is not satisfactory. But thanks to teammates Shannon Tam and Carrie Goh Yi Yi, we did fairly ok. All the best in your project and studies. I’m leaving GSM soon.

December 11, 2011 (Sunday) – One customer asked me on writing a lot about MBA lately. It’s because now is my last month in MBA and I want to journal these last moments of my course. So writing till end of year only. No, I’m still working..

Continued from previous…

It was 7pm as Anita was making a presentation in her case writing and analysis class. She had written a business case based on a scenario faced by a real company. The company wanted to develop a new industrial product and market it throughout the world. But questions remained in the management. Would the new product be profitable or not? If so, what were the best business and marketing strategies to compete in the global market? How should they differentiate from their competitors?

Anita had earlier approached the company and gained access to the required data to be used in her case study. She interviewed the managers to find out about the product and issues involved. She reviewed the company’s history, its management and staffs, the current businesses, sales and financial performance. The company treated her like their free consultant. For one, they would like to hear recommendations on their problems from an MBA student. Also, it was a valuable opportunity for the company to be mentioned and studied in an MBA course!

In the class, Anita acted as a consultant of the company and presented the problems and solutions to the case. She applied strategic planning tools learned in her strategic management class to analyze the business environment and the new proposed business. These tools included SWOT analysis, SPACE matrix and BCG matrix. She presented her findings and recommended the client to proceed on the plan. She also drew upon knowledge learned in marketing management class and proposed a marketing plan for the client.

After presentation by Anita, her classmate Faeek came up on stage. He had been assigned as the critique of Anita’s case. Acting as a devil’s advocate, he criticized Anita’s case and pointed out problem areas that needed improvement. Then, the whole class started to comment and debate on case. The lecturer acted as a facilitator encouraging participation from everyone, besides providing his final comments on the case and also the quality of critique and class discussion.

This was yet another experiential learning built into its curriculum by one business school. In doing so, a student faced real life problems in the business world instead of just doing textbook exercises. Anita had learned to approach issues objectively, and developed her people skills interacting with people in the organization, creativity and problem solving skills as consultants, presentation skills in presenting her findings and analysis, and also persuasion in defending her solutions and fielding questions from others. Are these skills not what we expect from an MBA graduate?

In my previous article in this column, I mentioned the respect towards our MBA graduates is declining because they are unable to fulfill the needs of companies employing them. Now, in order to close this gap, MBA can be more experiential by exposing students to the real world situations, rather than just keep them sleepy in the class reading the books and listening to lecture. What use is it to feed students with all business theories and knowledge in the world, yet they are unable to tackle a situation in the real world?

The war game, the on-the-job training, and the case writing class mentioned above are just some examples of experiential learning. Universities, colleges and training institutions, you can be even more creative. Give what the market needs in an MBA graduate, and you will enjoy good reputation and profitable returns for churning out graduates companies in marketplace speak well of.

So b-schools, why do you let HSBC to hold business plan competition every year to dig out the business talents among our youths, when you can host the Malaysian version of Apprentice to draw out the potentials among your students? Or you think MBA should be academic only and it is the real world’s job to teach students about real world? Congratulations, for you will be dinosaurs in education field in no time.

About The Author

Ricky Soo is a biased advocate for using case method in management education in Malaysia as used widely in the US. If you feel strongly too in this matter, come and argue with him on http://www.rickysoo.com. Or if you want your organization to be mentioned in an MBA course, feel free to spam here.

Continued from previous…

It was 9am in the office when Dennis received the letter of appointment as the Head of Department of the sales department. He had been rotated in his company from one department to another. In purchasing department, he learned to negotiate and push for the lowest prices and best terms from suppliers. In finance department, he learned to manage cash flow to make sure the company had enough to pay for its bills and not cause a disruption in operations. Now in the sales department, he would learn to lead a team of energetic sales force to achieve sales target of the company.

One month later, Dennis became an entreprenuer and started his own company selling environmentally-friendly shipping boxes. He drew up a business plan with five team members and presented it to investors and bankers for financing. They got the funds and started to trade. As the CEO, he managed his team members, who each had a part to play in his or her own functions in the company including sales and marketing, purchasing and operations, accounting and finance, human resources and administration.

Business did not turn out as good as envisioned. Competition was stiff, suppliers were suspicious of the new company, and customers complained of high prices. The prospects did not respond favoriably to their cold calls and staff morale was as low as sales. But the new company needed to survive and pay back RM100,000 loan from the bank plus interest. Dennis managed to motivate the team and they worked together to execute a turnaround plan. They started to collect boxes from their customers, recycle them and sell the reconditioned boxes at discount price. Sales finally picked up and the company achieved a handsome profit after one quarter. The financials were pretty and the investors complimented them for their performance.

Dennis and his team were actually full time students in one business school. They had been sent to a training company where they worked in a simulated business environment. They first worked in an established virtual company to learn different functions in the business. Then they learned to form their own virtual companies and trade with virtual suppliers and customers. The money and products were not real, but the business operations was very real.

Being exposed to such working environment was impactful to students who had no or little working experience. The training was counted in their résumé as valid working experience. They not only learned to appreciate the various business processes in a company and work harmoniously with one another, they also discovered their seed of entrepreneurship in selling products in their own enterprises. They would graduate from their MBA course having a competitive edge over their peers. The training was useful even for trainees who had prior working experience, as many of them had been working in their own field and did not get to see the helicopter view of a business and the interdependence of various departments in it.

Read on here…

It was 5pm as Amin and his soldiers marched into the jungle. The weather was warm and their heart was worried. They were sent into the forest to fight against the guerrila force who had stole a prized treasure. Guided by a compass, they nevertheless boldly trekked the jungle towards the coordinates given. There they expected to encounter the enemy to complete the mission.

But they were not the only squad going after the treasure. There were also other millitants vying for the prize. Amin needed to compete with these forces to reach the destination, and even engage them in fight if necessary. The reward was bountiful, for they would earn money for each rival soldier killed. But for each own soldier downed by their foe, Amin had to pay ransom to redeem the life of a dead member. Keeping enough cash was important to keep the enterprise afloat and pay for expenses as they arose.

Staying alert against any attack on the way, Amin and team each held a bomb in one hand, while carrying a bag of weapons and food supplies in the other. But the terrain was just too challenging, and not all team members were fit enough to hike up and down for hours. By 8pm everyone was hungry and worn out. So they stopped and started campfire to cook dinner with rice and water bought.

Unfortunately, as they relaxed their guard, bombs started to fly across the trees. They had been ambushed! Three members got killed in the dark. They smelt badly as stinky water spread around their bodies. Fortunately they managed to bomb a few opponents too. Money exchanged hands and the mission went on. Unless the treasure was recovered by any team, the jungle fight would go on and on. Nobody would be allowed to walk out of the jungle, even if it meant continuing until the next morning.

Well, the weapons were as fake as water bombs, and the killings did not really happen. But the enthusiasm was real and team spirit was high. This was a corporate strategy simulation camp informally called “war game” by one business school for its MBA students. The participants were grouped into “companies” in the war game and required to earn money by winning games and competitions, the jungle war being only one of the many activities. The company with the most cash at the end would emerge as the winner.

Though Amin’s company did not win, they learned a lot in the process. They undertook many tasks over four days and three nights. These could be as simple as building bridge across the River Kway, designing the most efficient process to pass balls around, and performing role-play on stage. But some activities could be as challenging as building a raft, rowing it in the open sea towards a goal post. They even overcame their water phobia by swimming 300 metres in the waters back to the beach, and of course, brought out their fighting spirit bombing enemies at midnight in the jungle.

Critical success factors facing these challenges included strategy, leadership, creativitiy, confidence, communication, teamwork, delegation, trust, crisis management, motivation, and even behaviour correction. But on top of these common lessons in team building activities, participants also got to experience and apply on the battlefield many theories they learned in their MBA class including competitive and cooperative strategies, theory of constraints, entrepreneurship, business process reengineering, financial management and even blue ocean strategy.

Read on here…

I’ve been asked to write a testimonial for MyPEC training, a simulated on-the-job training I went through with a group of MBA students. I think I might as well post it here so that my friends and other coursemates know what I’d been through missing in action in the period from November 2010 to January 2011

In November 2010, at the start of my fifth semester in MBA, I was among 30 students selected to join MyPEC training. We were sent to work full-time in a virtual company two days a week for three months. The company sells office stationery to “customers” (other virtual companies in Malaysia and throughout the world).

First I became the head of department in purchasing where I learned to negotiate with “suppliers” (yet other virtual companies) in order to buy office supplies at the best price and quality. Being new to purchasing and quite an accommodating person, initially I found it hard to be tough and assertive negotiating for best terms. Anyway I learned a few tricks and my team managed to pass the test to minimize the costs and bring in more profit to the company.

Few weeks later, I got rotated to the production and planning control department where I assisted my team leader to come up with new and creative products for the company. Designing and working on physical products was not my cup of tea, and I found myself quite reluctant in the new department. But I managed to come out of my comfort zone to do a job I was not familiar with.

Another few weeks later, all trainees formed groups and we broke into 5 new virtual companies. I helped form a company selling shipping boxes. Together with other founding members in the company, we completed the registration process to register a Sdn Bhd company, produced a business plan, pitched our business idea to investors and bankers, got funds in and started selling our products.

As COO of the new company, I was in charge of operations aspects including purchasing and inventory control. Again I was involved in negotiating and purchasing. But this time I was not so lucky as the suppliers stood firm and kept raising their prices. I offended quite some people and made a few mistakes. One of the most important lessons learned was to manage my emotions and stay cool and positive even under stress.

The company went well and we presented quite a handsome profit to our investors at the end of training. Thanks to the job rotation in former company and helping to oversee the operations of the second company, I had learned to appreciate the overall business process of a trading company. Needless to say, I learned the importance of teamwork and soft skills like negotiation and communication too.

The training had opened my eyes as it’s my first time experiencing such realistic and practical training. Although the suppliers, customers, products and money were all virtual, we all worked hard as if they were all real. The training provider was very successful in creating the simulated environment.

I recommend the training to all students without working experience to feel how it is like to apply what we study in business course to real life situations.  I also recommend it even to those with working experience because it enhances our understanding of the overall business flow of a company and helps us to see all departments and appreciate all inside and outside stakeholders with a helicopter view.

I thank MyPEC Sdn Bhd for providing such a novel kind of training in Malaysia, and the coaches who taught, advised, encouraged, challenged and even scolded us in performing our job. Some people were not nice to deal with. But it was meant to simulate the real life anyway.

I also thank my business school, Graduate School of Management (GSM) in UPM, for allowing me into the training, though it was initially meant for my junior batch. The training should be continued in the university, and in fact should be introduced to many other business schools as well.

Continued from previous…

Understanding these diverse backgrounds of students, together with the values and behaviors that they bring to an MBA course could help us to understand and work with one other more harmoniously in our MBA study. Not appreciating these differences might bring to culture shock and even conflicts for certain students.  Imagine Rocky attends an executive MBA class consisting of senior managers and business people. He can get bored and lost following their discussion on obviously topics unrelated to exam. Now imagine Dato’ Muni joins a class of fresh graduates. He can easily get disillusioned by the lack of culture for learning and sharing.

Talking about learning, a learning-oriented student should have no problem identifying and appreciating the practical value of what is being learned in the course, especially if he or she has had some working experience. Take the theory of constraints in operations management. Dato’ Muni should be able to apply immediately in his business to identify the bottlenecks limiting the sales of his company, and so do something about it.

Also, consider the Big Five personality trait theory, career-minded Lisa can immediately use it to assess her own personality in terms of openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism to discover her strengths and weaknesses, and the kind of work most suitable for her, in order to chart a career strategy for herself.

As for Rocky, studying the marketing concept can immediately unravel the secret of finding his love.  Consider what Peter Drucker says about marketing,

“There will always, one can assume, be need for some selling. But the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy. All that should be needed then is to make the product or service available.”

Consider applying this in Rocky’s situation,

“There will always, one can assume, be need for some courting. But the aim of marketing is to make courting superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the guy/girl so well that you fit the target and sell yourself. Ideally, marketing should result in a target who is ready to accept your proposal. All that should be needed then is to make you available!”

Trust me, in MBA, there is just SOo much to learn!

Ricky Soo consists of both a business person and a working person inside. He thinks that no matter what our aim for MBA is, by no means go for it in full force. There will be heavy workloads and peer pressure to sway us away from our desire. But let’s not be transformed by the pattern of the crowd, but keep reminding and motivating our self to strain forward towards our goal post. Ricky can be followed at http://www.rickysoo.com

Continued from previous…

The personal stories of Dato’ Muni, Lisa and Rocky tell us why people choose to embark on an MBA journey. The reasons people buy this brand called MBA appear to be very diverse, depending on whether they are business people, working people, or fresh graduates. Even within these same category of students, one may not assume all others take MBA having the same reason he or she has. We all have different motives in doing the same thing.

For business people like Dato’ Muni, they do not need MBA for the purpose of getting a job. Having been in business, they know a paper qualification does not speak of the whole person, if it speaks anything about the person at all. They want to excel in their study in MBA but are not too obsessed with getting A for all subjects. To them, they know the difference between grade A and grade B is not significant. What they value most are the practical knowledge learned, useful insights gained, ideas inspired, skills acquired, character developed, teamwork and leadership training undergone, and friends made during their MBA study. But they can become disinterested when the subject matter gets too academic and theoretical that they do not see practical value in learning it.

For working people like Lisa, MBA offers a solution to their career advancement. Many of them face dilemma whether to invest money in MBA education, or buying a house or a new car. Many of them need to choose between devoting quality time to their spouse and family, or spending endless hours everyday going through reading materials, doing assignments, attending group discussion, and preparing for presentation. But for those who decide to forgo valuable time and money for an MBA are likely to have strong utilitarian view of the course and expect high payoffs in future. To quote a few business jargons, they must have, though unknowingly, gone through benefit-cost analysis, calculated the returns on investment (ROI), checked the net present value (NPV), and justified spending one or two years going through taxing schedules with high enough consumer utility in taking the course.

For fresh graduates like Rocky, an MBA is likely another course of study same as those they have gone through in the past 15 years or so. For some of them, for the first time in life they have a real choice to study a course they are really interested in. For others, they study MBA because they have heard it is a good qualification for job market, or their close friends are doing it. To be frank, not all of them know why they are in the course. They may not really know what they might get out of the course, and what to expect after they graduate from MBA.

Because of the different reasons and motives people choose to study MBA course, the values they regard highly also differ from one another. It follows that their expectations and behaviours are also quite different. A business person values most in learning, knowledge, practicality, self-development, training, experience, sharing, discussion, brainstorming, networking, recognition and even the self-actualization they may get out of the course.

I personally know of customers who were already successful in business but studied MBA for the sake of challenging their potentials. Sometimes their behaviours can be quite strange to the rest of us. For example, it is OK for them to take longer than normal duration to finish the course in order to learn as much as they can from each subject. They may self-study a subject more than what is covered for the sake of learning. They may purposely choose to take up assignments and research areas according to their interest, no matter how tough and challenging they may be. They may write up an assignment much more than what is expected by lecturer. They may be the most outspoken ones in class asking questions and sharing ideas, though some areas are not directly related to what will come out in exam.

Whereas, a working person values most in utility, payoffs, speed, effectiveness and efficiency. Most of them have to juggle life between work, family and studies. For them, the years spent in MBA could be the most hectic years they will ever have in life. As such, they cannot afford to study a subject as extensively and leisurely as do the business people. They need to finish the whole course in the fastest time at the lowest costs in terms of time and effort. They can do very well and pass the course with flying colors. But they are not likely to spend too much effort in any one thing that they work on.

For the fresh graduates, doing an one-year MBA course is like doing one extra year in university after their final year as undergraduates. They are likely to use the same study methods they been trained in to tackle an MBA course. Due to the very exam-oriented culture in our education system, these students are very exam-oriented too in MBA study. They value tips for exam questions more than learning a new thing in business. They value studying more than learning, memorizing points more than appreciating business concepts.

Due to lack of working experience, they might know what is being taught without really understanding it, or they might understand it without really appreciating it or knowing how to apply it for practical use. Anyway, these do not matter. What matters most is that they get good grade in examination, something they have been trained well as professional students. For them, examination is a time they cram everything into their head for the big test. But after examination, it is a time of unlearning and releasing all that in the head, so that they may have space to put in another subject or other more entertaining things in life. Some of them may not be really interested in what they study. To them, MBA is just one final stage they need to finish up before being freed from study life into working life, thinking it is a better world out there working than studying. As such, some of them can consider MBA quite a waste of time.

Of course, we cannot stereotype all business people, working people and fresh graduates as having all the same characteristics respectively as above. There are many exceptions. For example, in my own MBA course, the best presenter I have seen so far happens to be a fresh graduate. However, examining more closely, this classmate actually has some working experience as a part-time DJ, whose job has trained him to do well in presentations . Therefore, not all fresh graduates are totally fresh as we may think.

Read on here…

Dato’ Muni is finally back to school. Having spent over 20 years working and building his business, an education courseware provider for homeschooling kids, first of its kind in Malaysia. He just enrolled himself in an executive MBA program. Already in his late 40s, does he really need the qualification? Of course no. So why waste time studying for MBA when he has achieved so much success already?

But Dato’ Muni has his own reason. He wants to expand his business regionally and bring it to the next level. He also plans to list the company in Bursa Malaysia later. He believes an MBA can help him gain new knowledge and insights to attain another new height in business. He enjoys discussion and brainstorming with classmates so that he may be inspired with new ideas. He loves to learn from the experience of others and he likes to share his too. He may even find future business partners in the class. But honestly, it is not so nice telling people in IPO that you as a company director have only a bachelor of arts in accounting. To him, a master degree in business will just fit the bill nicely.

Lisa is a bank officer. Since joining as a management trainee five years ago with a bachelor degree in economics, she has gone through job rotation in various departments to get familiarized with the bank operations. Her pleasant personality and ability to work with people of every temperament earn her the reputation of being able to get work done well. In terms of ability, she is well poised for promotion as a manager. But she has one problem. She does not have a postgraduate qualification. It is difficult for the bank to justify promoting her when there are others who possess master degree.

Lisa has reached a plateau in her career. She lacks the necessary qualification to climb up the corporate ladder to earn higher salary. Something must be done. That is why she has chosen to do an MBA for a breakthrough in her career. As her boss keeps telling her, she also wants to learn to look at problems more holistically and solve them from a managerial perspective. She believes MBA will teach her the right problem solving skills she needs, and trains her to see things from a vantage point she never experiences. Furthermore, an MBA qualification will give her some insurance in job prospect. As her supportive husband advises, even if one day she is downsized by the bank, armed with an MBA, she still could have a good headstart in another company, or even a different career.

Rocky is a young aspirant. He is ambitious, independent, outspoken, entrepreneurial, Internet-savvy and wants to make a difference in the world. He maybe just a fresh graduate in bachelor of business administration (BBA) having very little working experience. But he already has high ambition to chart a career in corporate world. He even speaks of making it big in business one day when opportunity strikes like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, though he does not know yet exactly how.

Rocky too has chosen to take the MBA course. He does not know how useful it might turn out for him. But an MBA seems to be a natural progression path for a BBA holder like him. After all, the economy is not doing so well and many seniors do not get the job they want. His parent’s advice makes sense to him to stay in the university for another year to acquire a master degree so that he may have a competitive advantage over others next time in the job market. To him personally, he also hopes to find a girl friend in the course. This is evident from his status update on Twitter the week before his MBA starts. His tweet reads, “I hope can meet some leng lui lah!”

Read on here…

1. Are you a student of tertiary education (university or college)?
2. Did you choose the course you are studying now (your dad did’t point a gun on your head telling you to take the course)?
3. Are you truly interested in the area of study you chose?
4. Have you got the passion to learn everything you could in your area of study?
5. Is you learning (note I don’t use the word “studying”) in good progress?
6. Would you like to know how well you are doing in your learning?
7. Do you consider exam a way to feedback to you how well you have learned what you like to learn?

These series of questions might help us to “reframe” how we view this thing called exam.  Reframing is a technique in neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) to relook at a matter from a different perspective.  In this case, hopefully we can view exam in more positive light.

I don’t deny exam can be boring, stressful and hated.  But if we could fill the thoughts in our mind and the words coming out of our mouth with more positive vocabularies, we are more likely to do well in it.  If you believe in the law of attraction, positive thoughts attract positive energy, which in turn attracts positive results.

If we need to face exam anyway, we might as well choose to use more empowering words to describe it.  May the positive force be with you

It was a few months ago when I joined a camp where the participants were thrown into the open sea and had to swim 350 meters back to the beach.  Everyone was clothed in life jacket and asked to move in a group.

There were three categories of us. The first category were those who didn’t know how to swim.  Blessed were them because they didn’t have to swim.  They had helpers to help them drift forward.

The second category were those who knew how to swim.  They not only needed to swim for themselves, but also gave a helping hand to non-swimmers to pull them towards the destination.

But the third category were those who didn’t really know how to swim well, but claimed they could swim.  They not only had to struggle their own way to the beach, they were supposed to help others too!

Guess which category I belonged to?  Perhaps I was one of its kind in this category

So I felt extremely tired, but it was still a long way in front. I couldn’t stop swimming to rest because we were supposed to swim together.  I looked at those swimming in front of me and knew how it felt to be left behind.  I looked at the beach far in front and realized I was the most desperate person in the worlds.

But I had no choice but kept telling myself, “Don’t give up. Keep on swimming. You can do it.”

I did it.  I swam to the shore and we completed the mission.  I felt thankful I had not given up.  I did the right thing to keep on swimming!

To make it more interesting and applicable, we related the presentation to The Art of War (孫子兵法) authored by ancient strategist in China called Sun Tzu (孫子).  Here are a few quotes taken from the book of wisdom in warfare to apply to the business world.

未戰而廟算勝者，得算多也

Translation – The general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought.

Explanation – Those companies and individuals who win in the business world make much calculation, planning and deliberations on their strategy and plans.  Those who plan less have lower chance of success, much less those who don’t plan anything at all!

知彼知己，勝乃不殆

Translation – If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt.

Explanation – Success comes first from knowing our own business well, including its strengths and weaknesses, as well as those of the competitors.  Understanding this does not guarantee success, but it gives us foreknowledge into our chance of success.

知天知地，勝乃可全

Translation – If you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete.

Explanation – Knowing our self and the competitors is not enough.  The environments in terms of opportunities and threats need to be understood too.  We can be good, but if the timing is not right, our effort will be in vain.

戰勢不過奇正，奇正之變，不可勝窮也

Translation – In battle, there are not more than two methods of attack – the direct and the indirect; yet these two in combination give rise to an endless series of maneuvers.

Explanation – There are only two kinds of attack, namely normal and ordinary one (direct) and the unusual and extraordinary one (indirect).  But the combination of both opens door to endless permutations of strategies we can take.

兵貴勝，不貴久

Translation – In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.

Explanation – There is no use to analyze and over-analyze the situation until we get into analysis paralysis.  We must act with our gut and intuition, despite incomplete information, after reasonable amount of analysis has be done.  The objective of a business war is in the victory, not prolonging the process.

Do you see how The Art of War may apply to your business or life situation too?

You may have read about companies being taught in business textbooks, or mentioned in management courses. Your company too, no matter public-listed or sole proprietorship, can get such exposure among the business community, starting from the nascent circle of business students.

Your company will be covered in areas of mutual agreement, such as management, leadership, marketing, human resources, finance, operations, strategies and so on. Please share your success stories too and how you cope with challenges, whether in the past or now.

So you not only get your company name out, you also get free consulting service as we work to analyze your issues faced and propose solutions to them. And by the way…

Have you seen many business students come out to work only to find themselves unable to cope with real world issues? Please help reform our management education and train our students by contributing a part to give them real business issues to solve as their case study.

Please don’t worry about any trade secrets, strategies, financial information and anything being leaked out. We can discuss on how to cover up and disguise these information for win-win situation for all.

Please contact me here. Your contribution will go a long way toward improving the quality of our business education.

This is the original version of my article sent to be published in MBA Edge Quarterly magazine January 2011 issue. The edited version published in magazine might be a little different. Your feedback is much welcome.

Continued from previous…

Our education system is to be blamed. It is very exam-oriented. Students are trained to remember facts and slides for the exam week and unlearn everything afterwards. It emphasizes too much on technical skills at the expense of problem solving, teamwork, presentation, communication and other soft skills.. Why require MBA students to memorize case laws to write in exam when they should be trained in apply principles in law in business situation they are facing? Why years after years we produce profesional students who can study well but not work well in real world? There is a clear mismatch between what are required in the education system and those in marketplace.

The teaching of MBA is to be blamed. Why teach the very quantitative Managerial Economics as a core subject when it is not directly applicable in business world? Why not teach Entrepreneurship when more and more young people nowadays do not know what it means by working for people but starting their own business? Why not teach how to write business plan when this is one thing most expected out of MBA graduates? Why not teach and test students in soft skills for at least 50% of total assessment when these skills are the most wanted ones in marketplace?

Business schools are to be blamed. They are business entities and have to be market-oriented. They have to offer what the market want (read: not need). Students want to get MBA quickly, and so they come up with one-year intensive MBA programme and compromise on their quality. Students don’t want to think and do assignments, and so they choose to spoonfeed them and test them in exam. Students don’t want to study, so they come up with seminars for students to sit in and get the qualification without proper assessment.

Students are to be blamed. Frankly, how many are here to really study? Most just want to finish the course quickly, get the paper, land a good job, and live happily ever after, as if this is reality in life. Many are really not qualified and experienced enough to enrol into an MBA. The result – garbage in, garbage out.

Are employers to be blamed? Yes, they can be blamed. But they are the “final customers” of MBA programmes, as they are the “end users” who consume the expertise of MBA graduates for their company. In politics, don’t blame the voters for not voting your party. Check yourself. In business, don’t blame the customers for not buying your products. Check yourself. Don’t blame the employers, but produce the kind of business leaders and managers they really need to help them bring their companies to another height.

Sorry to disappoint some people. But more and more people in marketplace are paying less respect on MBA graduates. Unless something is done, I can’t imagine what the brand equity of the name MBA will be like 50 years from now.

About The Author

Ricky Soo personally has no respect for the title of MBA, as he has seen undeserving chaps graduating as MBAs but end up being laughingstock. It is not the paper and grades we acquire that earn our better future. It is the kind of person developed out the learning process with the set of knowledge, skills, experience and character that illuminates our bright future. Support or argue with him at http://www.facebook.com/rickysoo

May Lee and Muralee parted as MBA coursemates as they graduated from business school. May Lee continued working for her employer and sponsor. Muralee applied for Cradle Investment Programme (CIP) to set up his own multimedia production house. Now armed with MBA qualification, both graduates hope high for better life to come. However, the reality is not as rosy as they dreamed of.

Far from becoming a capable manager, team leader and player in the company as expected by her company, May Lee does not seem to have improved in these capacities except an increase in head knowledge. Her China-man boss starts to wonder what kind of “shit paper” she has acquired in her MBA certificate sponsored out of employee development fund.

No doubt May Lee’s paper qualification shows her straight A results. But her performance is not up to the mark at all. Her MBA course was conducted in English, but her English does not seem to have improved. She may have spoken in many class presentations, but she still reads from the slides and her presentation does not excite the audience at all.

She may have completed piles of assignments and case studies, but she does not seem to have any clue when asked to comment on the strategic direction of her company. She may have worked in teams and groups, but she still does not seem to be able to work independently, much less handle tough negotiations with clients competently.

Muralee is in no better situation. In order to apply for pre-seed grant from the Cradle fund, he needed to draw up a business plan for his new proposed business. However, he does not remember having learned about business plan in his MBA course. Well, he did write a marketing plan in Marketing Management class. He also submitted one assignment on financial projections in Financial Management class. But there is no one single class or project requiring him to combine all these individual pieces into one complete business plan!

Moreover, Muralee never learned how to pitch his idea to judges who must pick the best business ideas out of so many. He has never been taught to communicate and sell his ideas to venture capitalists and angel investors. His MBA did not even talk about venture capital! Of course, the judges rejected his application in favour of much better ideas and pitches by non-MBAs who know the trade better. To them whether they have MBA or not does not really matter. In fact, the higher qualification you have, the better piece of work you are expected to produce.

What went wrong with May Lee and Muralee? Well, they may have thought MBA qualification is the panacea that makes us better person at work and in business. They were once convinced that MBA is the passport towards higher salary, promotion and prosperous future. After all, business schools tout slogans like “Shaping Business Leader of 21st Century”. But is this the truth? Has MBA failed to address the real needs in the marketplace?

Read on here…

Initially, I considered the law subject boring and very tough. Indeed it could be. But luckily our good lecturer taught it in a very easy-to-understand way that most of us got A in final grade.

But I knew knowledge in law is very important in business. In business, I have had disputes with customers and companies before. If not handled well, those issues could have been escalated into legal cases. By knowing the law, now I feel more confident in making deals and avoid being cheated by others.

In the subject, we needed to understand various laws applicable to business, such as law of contract, agency, partnership, sale of goods and hire purchase. We were presented with situations and were required to draw on legal principles and past cases we learned to solve the problems.

The study on law was very practical. I found much use in what I learned. However, one thing I was not good in doing was remembering the case law. In fact, in order to save time, I chose not to memorize any case but focus on the principles and applications instead (yet I still got A!)

But there was one principle I learned well, not only for law, but also for study of any subject. I know law can be boring. It can be tough and can drive us crazy. I could read many people complaining about it on Facebook. But don’t hate a subject that we don’t like. Choose to like it.

Do you believe in law of attraction? If you keep saying negative things about something, like you don’t like something, it will really get disgusting. You will have attracted negative energy about the subject to yourself.

But choose to like it. Choose to develop an interest in it. Choose to understand how it could relate to our life. Start to appreciate it. Then slowly we attract positive energy around the subject, start to develop an interest and like it.

My study of business law was one good testimonial. Do you know any business student so passionately read up law books, even those not related to his study? I was one of them. Business law was something I could not catch up at the start, but at the end I started to complain I had not learned enough!

One of the most memorable experiences in my MBA study was my involvement in a mock court drama called The Revenge of Tara in our business law class. In the drama, we played out a real case in the 80s Tara Rajaratnam v Jaginder Singh, where a poor woman sued a group of lawyers for cheating her land.

It was an eye-opening experience to me as I was tasked to write up the script for the drama and act as Jaginder’s lawyer. Thanks to everyone’s good acting, multimedia effects, and various entertaining enhancements, the drama turned out to be very successful! I’m so proud to be part of it

Tara (acted by Kashturi) and Cullen (acted by Ricky), lawyer of Datuk Jaginder Singh, accusing each another in court

Credits go to our directors Leanne and Liza, all actors and actresses, and all who worked behind the scene. Of course, our dear lecturer Dr Rozanah too!

Cullen with his client, Datuk Jaginder Singh (acted by Muni)

Besides the satisfying experience with business law, I also learned from the Marketing Management class especially in presentations. It was so arranged in the class that every week two groups competed with each other in the same presentation topic. The bar was raised very high because of this. Up to now, this was still the class with the highest level of presentation quality I’ve seen so far.

In the marketing class, our group made two presentations, one on an US company on industrial branding, and another on Marriott Hotel. We even go to the hotel itself and took pictures!  We also submitted a marketing plan based on a real service in human resource outsourcing (HRO) by one of my customers.

This was the time I started to use mind mapping to take note for quick revision before exam.  I once sent my mind maps on business law to a few students. But I didn’t know who started the forwarding, that my mind maps got circulated around MBA students here.  Since there were “demand” for the maps, I also created a special page for their benefit to download all mind maps I created.

In this semester, I also faced various people problems working in team, both in the business law drama team, and also the marketing management team. I can’t detail the issues here, but I was culpable for many things and I learned many lessons for my own improvement.

One people lesson was that I could not expect people to do things my way because they had different circumstances and resources from me. As a weird student who took only 2 subjects per semester compared to 4 subjects by others, I had a little more time to delve into more depths in my study and make every piece of work more perfect.

But I didn’t understand that others did not have such luxury to spend much time on a single task. Instead, I imposed my own expectations on others and made their life difficult. Two marketing management team members even left me and formed their own group. I heard they didn’t know what I wanted from them.

These people issues had made me review myself. The lessons had also inspired me to write an article on the different motives by different types of MBA students in the inaugural issue of MBA Edge magazine, in the next semester, the 4th semester.

I completed the second semester from November 2009 to February 2010. Like the first semester before, I took only 2 subjects, that is, Financial Management and Human Resource Management.

But this semester #2 was most remembered for some personal problems and two memorable presentations. The first problem was a personal one which I can’t share online.

The second problem was lack of time due to a web development project. I was not in web design business, but I undertook that project to develop a web site for an event due to personal reason.

However, it affected my timetable so much that I lacked time to study and complete the project itself. End result – I didn’t get very good results this time, and I also delivered the web site late. Lesson learned – Don’t get involved in too many commitments. Being busy does not mean being competent.

Anyway, I did enjoy the second semester because two of my best and most memorable presentations were made in this semester, or more specifically, in HRM class under Dato’ Dr. Zulkifli Idris.

Dato’ Zul was one most inspiring and respectable lecturer. Instead of spoonfeeding us with information, he let students take over the class and present from the textbook to cover the whole course. Then he would chip in from time to time to elaborate on important points. Not everyone may be used to this student-led teaching style. But I liked it, and I believe all of us in class too!

Then came my turn to “teach”, I chose a topic not directly from the textbook but related to selection of employees. The presentation “Background Check Using Social Media” was on the issue of employers using social media like Facebook and LinkedIn to check job applicants.

It was one most satisfying experience delivering this presentation, partly because the topic was very much related to all students in the class, who used social media like Facebook (including the lecturer!). I believe the audience of a presentation will get interested and engaged if the topic presented becomes their topic.

The second memorable presentation was a group presentation. We interviewed my customer, an expatriate from UK and founder of one MSC-status software house, on international human resource management. We presented the findings after the interview.

Our presentation was the very last of five groups presenting on that day. We needed to keep the audience awake and engage them in two-way communication. Some people even expected and challenged us to do well, especially after Kak Liza’s group (Transformers) had set a very high benchmark in their good presentation one week before.

Group Presentation in HRM Class

To cut short a long story, we did manage to keep people awake and arouse interest in the topic. Among the tricks used included branding ourselves as Decepticons, interesting content, quiz time with prizes, giving out mandarin oranges (it was just before Chinese New Year), making fun of certain people, keeping people in suspense, and even generating curiosity on Facebook for a few days before the presentation.

Classmates Enjoying Mandarin Oranges

I also enjoyed the Financial Management class. The topic was foreign and tough to me as I was not well versed in this area. But the very experienced lecturer Dr Shamsher had developed my interest in finance. I got more interested especially after my group researched on one PN17 company and came out with a term paper on the company. I even considered taking a major in finance.

Moreover, I came to recognize the leading role of finance in a business. All the while, I had been thinking that marketing always plays the leading function. Not entirely wrong, but I found ultimately a business is evaluated on its finance, not marketing.

So, what drives a business? Marketing or finance? Finance sets the goals and drives a business. Once the goal is set, it’s marketing’s job to deliver the results. Agreeable?

is going out with…

or who is that???

Disclaimer: Practice Gossips are simulated stories for presentation purpose only.

Are you interested to hire me to help in your business or organization? I’m available to work for you for FREE one day in a week! I can help in projects such as IT, Internet presence and marketing.

You may wonder why there is such free lunch under the sun. Yes there are, but not in this case. I’m actually being trained to be a “consultant” to businesses and organizations in my MBA study.

I need to understand a company or organization in and out, so that I may write about it as a case study. I suppose the best way to understand a company is to work within it. Would you accept me?

Why I Do This?

I’m currently an MBA student in Graduate School of Management (GSM) in Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). I have chosen a road less traveled by choosing to do a practical subject in Case Writing & Analysis, instead of the more academic Business Research Methods. For your information, we can choose either one of these two routes to get our master degree.

The reason I chose to do a case study is because I want to be trained in analyzing real life business problems and issues and proposing effective strategies to overcome the problems.

It is in essence like a business consultant going into your organization, learn about problems you are facing, and propose solutions to your company. Isn’t it free consulting service for your company from my business school through a student like me?

So I’m thinking working in an organization (although I’m not required to) in order to understand its issues in and out. In exchange, I offer my skills in helping your business. When I say I work for you, I mean seriously working for you like your staff and helping your company.

Here Are Some Problems

But the problem is, you will need to share information about your company to me and my case supervisor (a lecturer who is supervising this project). The reality is that, not many companies in Malaysia and this part of the world will want to share information out.

But you can be different! In US, many companies approach business schools to have them used as business cases in business courses. This is not only a way to get free business consulting advice and fulfill corporate social responsibilities, but also a way to get their names out. So why not in Malaysia too?

The Solution

The good news is that, information about your company is protected. Any financial information and trade secret is to be known by me and my supervisor only. We will produce a case study report. In that report, these information can be disguised:

• Company name
• People’s names
• Brand names
• Financial data
• Company location

So if you don’t want your names out in the public, you don’t have to worry. The case study report will be kept for reference in my business school. A very well-written case may be modified, used in teaching and even published in academic journal. But such further actions will need your permission first.

Will You Hire Me?

So are you facing any issue and problem in management, finance, marketing, human resources, information system or whatever? Please let us in and help you. I’m posting this not only to help myself but also for my classmates.

I don’t limit myself to organization of any type, size, in any field. You can be a trading company, service business, online Internet business, startup business, non-profit organization, non-governmental organization (NGO), social enterprise, government agency, education institution or charitable organization.

You have little to lose but much to gain. Please contact me here if you are willing to discuss. Thank you.

To complete the 4000-word essay (I managed to write 2800 words only), I thought of 10 points and expanded from there. I published in Facebook before and have drawn many comments.

Here are the 10 points for sharing to all.  Welcome to comment and criticize. I’d like to discuss and learn from your viewpoints.

Introduction

The question “Is globalization good or bad for Malaysia?” is not relevant any more. Globalization will happen and is happening to all countries including Malaysia, no matter it’s good or bad.

Quoting an unusual example – The late Qing dynasty in China in late 19th century and early 20th century. They locked the country out from the rest of the world. Unlike the Meiji Restoration that propelled their neighbour Japan into a world power in just a few decades, the Qing dynasty eventually fell in 1911.  Refuse to follow the world trend? It’s either downfall or extinction.

The 10 Points

#1 Malaysian businesses need the global market. The local market is just too small. It’s a matter of survival in the globalized 21st century. Don’t be content with just being a jaguh kampung (champion in home country).

#2 Malaysia needs to specialize. Want to get out of the middle income trap? Do something new, something different. Don’t insist on attracting FDI in labor-intensive businesses. Move up the value chain.

#3 We have been trying to “prepare” for globalization for too long time, even decades. It’s true some of us, some industries, some businesses are not ready. But when will we be ready? Perhaps when we are truly ready, we are irrelevant in the world economy any more.

#4 Globalization raises our competitiveness. Being a frog in a well (Malay proverb: katak dalam tempurung) does not improve our competitiveness. In business, it’s only when we face the real challenges that we grow. Just open up and the competition will hasten up our readiness.

#5 Globalization raises our human capital. Yes, brain drain is a real problem. But don’t dwell on it too long. How about using these “drained brain” in overseas for our advantage instead? How about getting foreign talents into our country instead? Who say Malaysia can’t attract talents? Learn from Mind Valley, the Google workplace of Malaysia.

#6 When we close ourselves out, people will not admire us. When we become an open book and have transparency, investors will come. A 81% drop in FDI is a wake-up call, much too late. Learn the lesson and open up.

#7 Communities in Malaysia have been sharing the same country, yet living segregated. But our diversity should be a great blessing to foray into the largest markets in world. Globalized Malaysian businesses with true partnership among different races and spirit of 1Malaysia can help national unity.

#8 We are living in an integrating, interdependent world economy. We need to keep up this reality. Want to close our market? Check the fate of Qing dynasty.

#9 We are good in many areas. We have leadership in many markets, such as Islamic finance and palm oil. Why can’t we excel in other areas as well? Malaysia Boleh (Malaysia can)? Don’t be defeatist. Think boleh and we boleh!

#10 I never advocate opening up 100% completely without reservation. There are limits. But we need to embrace globalization and even be an advocate in it. Globalization will change us, for the better.

What do you think of globalization? Is it good or bad for Malaysia? Welcome to voice your opinions.

14. Did your studies help you in any way in your work? How?

Certainly. I have always found practical applications to work.  For instance, many accounting concepts such as revenue recognition have been directly useful in doing my own accounts.  Others include marketing concepts. Many a times I just cannot concentrate on reading up the marketing textbook, simply because my mind will drift away thinking of applications in business!

Furthermore, I have found concepts and models useful even in personal life too!  These include balanced scorecard, SWOT analysis, branding and repositioning that could be directly used in assessing our own self and making strategic decisions for our own life.

15. What do you expect to achieve with your MBA in 5 years?

An MBA will be of no use if it is not applied in real life cases.  I expect to be able to use what I have learned in busniess, especially in making informed decision and strategic planning.  I also expect to raise my soft skills such as presentation and public speaking to the next level.

16. What is the most recent book you read? Did it help you?

In preparation to write a marketing plan for one assignment, I borrowed from the libarary and just finished reading the book titled “The Marketing Plan: A Handbook” by Marian Burk Wood. It has helped me understand the steps in creating a marketing plan.  It is defintely not just start writing, but needs to go through real life analysis and decision making before coming up with a sound marketing plan.  This is directly useful in my business.

17. Looking back, what would you have done to prepare yourself before starting your MBA? Why?

I am working while studying at the same time, but I enjoy my life back to school again.  If I could have a wish, I wished I could just take a leave from work for one to two years and immerse myself in studies.

I have recently been interviewed by two local authors for their upcoming book on MBA in Malaysia.  Here are my original replies to their questions.

10. Describe a typical day at work.

I am a mobile worker and can work from anywhere with a laptop and Internet connection, even from school.  In a typical day without class, I normally intertwine working and studying throughout the whole day.  When I go out to meet customers and attend events, and sometimes travel outstation, I will bring along my mobile office wherever I go.  I can work in Starbucks and hotel room for hours.  I am a workaholics but have been sincerely trying not to work at night!

11. Describe a typical day in school.

It depends on whether my class is in the morning or evening.  The classes are 3 hours normally with half-hour break in middle of the session.  In a typical class,  the lecturer teaches for the first half of the session, and then students take stage to do presentation in the second half after the class break.  But this varies from lecturer to another.  If it is a morning class, I normally will stay back in school for one to two hours after the class to work in my mobile office!

12. Do some of your classmates struggle in class? Why?

All students do have their share of struggle in pursuing an MBA degree.  If one is not challenged, he and she might have chosen the wrong program.  Yes, some classmates may not be used to the student-centered learning approach as they are accustomed to the traditional teaching methods such as lecture.  For those who lack working experience, they might struggle in understanding, appreciating and applying the course content. As a result, some may not be able to produce work of quality expected in an MBA program.

13. What weaknesses do you observe in some of your classmates?

The lack of working experience among some classmates is certainly an area we should look into.  Other weaknesses such as lack of critical thinking, analytical and presentation skills are typical among students under the education system in our country.  The education system needs to be transformed to the next level to enable the country to march into high-level income country as according to the proposed New Economic Model (NEM).

5. Which subject so far do you like best?

I like all subjects that I have taken so far.  But some subjects has been an eye-opener to me.  Though I am more inclined towards marketing-related subjects, I have found new interest in subjects I thought I would not be interested in. These subjects include Accounting for Decision Making, Financial Management and Business Law. But if I must choose a subject based on interest, then it must be Marketing Management.

6. Having gone through in the program so much, would you choose the same program again if you have the chance?

Given by my budget, I still consider UPM-GSM the best in the market that I could afford.  I admire its teaching approach such as problem-based learning (PBL), as opposed to just being lectured in class.  Yes I would choose the same program again if given the chance.

7. What do you like least about the program?

While I like the program, its syllabus and the school, the level of the students is quite varied.  They can be managers in their 40s with vast experience in business and management, but can also be fresh graduates with virtually no working experience.

However, an MBA program does require certain level of understanding and appreciation in the business world.  With an MBA class consisting of students from various levels of experience, it is said that the experienced ones can get frustrated for the lack of learning experience and challenge from peers, while the inexperienced ones can get unnecessarily confused for the difficulties in understanding the course content and producing works of comparable quality.

8. Which subject is the hardest?

I have experienced some challenges in studying Financial Management for my lack of knowledge in this area.  But the hardest subject so far for me has got to be Business Law.  While it is very interesting and practical in business application, I have found it hard to remember the statute laws and case laws.  It is an unfamiliar territory to me.

9. In what ways do you think the MBA can be improved?

The MBA has been quite successful in its student-centered teaching approach.  But perhaps the school could look into the problem highlighted above for the variety of student quality.  By the way,  it might be too easy to get A in the program.  Getting grade A might not mean one reaches the required understanding and appreciation of the subject matter, but rather he or she knows how to study.

1. Briefly describe your career to date.

I graduated from the University of Malaya in 2002 with a bachelor degree in computer science. While I have been working as a administrative assistant, computer technician and computer programmer, my experience working for people has not been substantial.  Most of my working life has been spent on building my own business, which I started while I was still a university student.

Currently, I am an Internet business developer, building and managing a few online businesses of my own.  My main business is an IT company focusing on providing domain name, web and email hosting services at http://bizpartner.com.my.  I also operate a blog at RickySoo.com.

2. What makes you want to do an MBA?

I came from a technical background and have been working in my business as a “technician”, as opposed to being an “entrepreneur” or “manager”, according to the three business personalities popularized by E-Myth.  As I found the need to cross over from being a technician to become more of an entrepreneur, I needed to develop myself in terms of knowledge, skills, experience and network.

MBA is one major part of my self-development programme in pursuit of my career objective to succeed in business. I have always kept reminding myself of my purposes in doing an MBA, as summarized in the acronym called LDNE (Learning, Development, Networking and Experience).  I have much to learn about all aspects of a business, develop myself in business and soft skills, network with like-minded people and experience school life again after years of working!

3. Which school are you attending? Why that one?

I am attending the Graduate School of Management in Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM-GSM) as at http://gsm.upm.edu.my.  Besides reasons such as budget and convenience of its location, I chose the school because of its student-centered and problem-based learning approach, and also for its high ranking in the country and the region.

4. Which other school was you interested in? Why?

If my budget and time allowed for it, I would consider doing MBA overseas.  Schools like Harvard maybe too far-fetched. But I’m definitely interested in schools nearer such as Nanyang Business School in Singapore, and McGill MBA in Japan.

Recently it dawns upon me that I should reflect on my MBA experience after each semester and write it down. It will be great later in life to look back and relive the wonderful experience I have had in this stage of life. So I would like to record down these experiences in the first semester (July to October 2009) while the memory is still fresh…

It’s been years since I wanted to go back to school. Unlike my friends, I have taken a weird and slow route by taking only 2 subjects per semester, due to my personal reasons for taking MBA. In the first semester, my two subjects were Accounting for Business Decision, and Organizational Behavior.

Though I have had a little background in accounting before, this subject in managerial accounting has been quite a learning experience for me. Under the guidance of our good lecturer Dr Foong, I have been made to see beyond the numbers and look into the rationales behind accounting decisions made by businesses.  I was even once challenged and “cornered” by her publicly in class for a decision made to the extent that I felt like losing face. But I’m glad to have gone through this learning process.

The students in accounting class were divided into groups. Due to a little “expert power” in the subject matter, I emerged as natural leader of my group of six members. We had many discussions together for our assignments, completed one class presentation, and had some arguments too.

Thinking back from now, this group in accounting class has been the strongest group I ever joined so far in two semesters. Almost everyone is someone is his or her own way – either as a good leader or team player. Yes, I think we have scored well together, thanks to team members working together

Accounting group members

As for Organizational Behavior (OB), it’s been an eye-opening experience to learn about human behaviors in organizations. But more importantly, it actually helped me to discover myself. I especially liked the self-assessment quizzes in the textbook. These tests had helped me to know my own weaknesses, especially in assertiveness, conflict resolution and negotiation.

All students were also required to stand before class and present on selected topic. Drawing on my past MLM experience and other life experiences, I presented on “Self-Efficacy – If You Think You Can, You Can!”. It was the first time I shared such authentic life story to many people. The sharing has since been one of the presentations I like most so far.

As part of coursework for OB, I also paired up with a classmate to produce a training booklet for managers on negotiation using Sun Tzu’s Art of War. It is completed with two case studies, one from the then crisis in MCA, and another from the US-Malaysia talk for free trade agreement. I have been reading about Sun Tzu for some years, and now so glad to be able to apply the principles learned in a real life topic

Due to time constraints of our initial group leader in OB class, he passed on to me the responsibility to coordinate our group work. We did fairly well in our group project and presentation on “Have You Got A Lady Boss?” I have also learned to use Google Apps to conduct online survey!

MBA is part of my self-development plan.  In this first semester, I have learned about being a team leader and a team player. Wherever I have been put to serve, whether as a leader or follower, just play my role to the best and serve lah. Don’t complain!

I have learned before that leadership is a service. A leader is one who serves others. It is not about personal ego and glory. When you have done your job, just get lost and let others take over. I subscribed to the idea of servant leadership. But I have not had the chance to practise until first semester when I could serve in both Accounting and OB groups.

But it had not been all smooth sailing, and I have encountered problems too. The first situation was when two group members had some conflict with each other. As group leader, I had mediated between them too. Though it’s resolved and they are now well as before, I also discovered that I could not handle conflicts very well. It’s been quite lucky to me that the conflict did not escalate to affect the group performance.

In the second situation, one capable group member turned down my request to perfect her work, that I had to get another member to take over her part in the last minute while everyone was busy. To be frank, it hurt me and inconvenienced others. But I found myself having problem confronting team members when they did not go my way. I should also have clarified expectations of what I wanted more clearly. But most importantly, I have been taught to exercise “grace”, be forgiving and not hold grudge against anyone when feeling wronged. (No grudge ever held because later in second semester we teamed up again and she has delivered good job)

Another skill I gained was speed reading (with speed understanding). Previously I was not able to read fast. But in the MBA course, sometimes we are required to absorb a lot of materials in short span of time. At first, I complained about having to read 120 pages in just 4 days in one instance. But now I found myself reading much faster than before. Thanks to MBA

In overall, the first semester has been a good start of a self-discovery journey.  I have enjoyed the campus life very much, to the extent that I wish I could stop working and concentrate on studies alone.

I’m satisfied with my performance in the first semester. I was also socially active, and participated in class a lot, especially when compared to second semester later. I’ll write about the more eventful second semester. Stay tuned…

How about the start of your MBA? Did you share any similar experience with me?

On a social level, I find it easier and more comfortable dealing with girls than guys.  I have more and closer female friends than guy friends.  Normally you may see me associating with girls more than guys.  I think this has something to do with my childhood upbringing.

But when it comes to working, I find it much more difficult dealing with a lady boss than a male boss.  “Boss” here is not limited to workplace but also other settings such as a team leader working together for non-work purposes.

Perhaps it’s because the few lady bosses I have had in the past are all quite strong leaders, even stronger than many male leaders I have come across.  They often have very high expectations out of me.

From personal experience, it has not been very pleasant experience working with lady bosses.  But thanks to these lady bosses, I have learned much and corrected myself from the experience dealing with each and every of these strong personalities.

Personally, I prefer working with male boss.  But I’m not in control of who will be assigned as my boss.  Perhaps God gives me a difficult boss in order to train me up.  So I should take whoever assigned to me as my leader.

I guess in future, women leadership will be very common, that perhaps one generation from now, such survey on lady boss is no longer meaningful any more.

It is a fact of life.  We need to deal with anyone who come into our life.  I guess the problem is more on “managing our boss”, rather than the lady bosses themselves.

I have indeed learned how to administer a questionnaire using Google Docs. It’s so convenient!  Thanks to recommendation from friends on the Internet and social media.

As promised, the results are being released online.   But first of all, have a look at what respondents told us about a lady boss.  Click to enlarge.

Don’t blame me for anything.  I’m just reporting the findings…

Below is the part of presentation on data collected and analysis.

Disclaimer - I’ve got the permission to put up photos of the pretty lady in the slides

Click here to view or download report data collection & analysis in PDF format.

What conclusions can you make out of these results?