An Interesting Article

A friend shared this article with me about a talk Clayton Christensen gave, "How the Pursuit of Profits Kills Innovation and the U.S. Economy".

I couldn't agree more.  With all of the analysis done about companies trying to break them down into ratios so that they can be compared apples-apples for investment strategies, the core competencies of a company - what makes it great and allows it to generate value for consumers - are essentially forgotten.  As a result, in order to make the market happy every quarter, companies focus on short term profits, selling off the parts of their business that don't have as high margins or are more capital intensive.  While this looks good on paper, the qualitative benefits of those functions (the ability to innovate and own your process) are lost, dooming the practitioner to long-term existence in mediocrity.

I don't know that these measures should be eliminated, but they shouldn't be allowed to overtake the organization.

LGO Baby!

Early morning.  Very early morning, and Tiffany was going into labor. Realizing there was some regularity to her contractions, we began to wonder if baby Logan was going to arrive before class, and I opened up the stopwatch app on my phone.  Like clockwork, every two minutes or so she had a one-minute contraction, about 60 of which were dutifully timed by a husband unable to think of anything else helpful to do.  Being a man of action, watching Tiffany do all of the work through labor and delivery makes me feel incredibly pathetic.  To try to be useful I gave her encouragement and whatever emotional support I’m capable of giving (not what I would consider my greatest strength, but Tiffany says she loves me anyway), and did the only measurable thing I could think of to help – timed contractions with my stopwatch.

After much anticipation and thinking we would need to head to the hospital at any second, they stopped.  Saying it was discouraging to go back to bed at 5 am to get some rest is an understatement, but I had to go to class if we weren’t at the hospital, and soon-to-be big sister would wake up around 7 wanting to play.

As the day progressed, Tiffany continued having irregular contractions, and I anxiously went to class with my phone on silent, expecting any second that my phone would vibrate and I would have to run the mile between the business school campus and our apartment in record time. I made it through Business Law without a phone call, though only partly able to concentrate on how people get sued for stealing trade secrets when they leave a company and start up a new business.  Key lesson learned: stealing the Coca-Cola recipe = a very large lawsuit.  It lacks the nuances of the actual basis of law, but I think it will work in a pinch. After class I ran back to our place to check up on the family – still no baby.  However, our apartment was scheduled to get the heating repaired that day, so Tiffany was hanging out at a friend’s place while the workers finished up.  Luckily I had a long enough break to get our place put back together after the workers left, and then it was back to campus for a trading-room simulation for Finance with my phone at the ready.  During the exercise, we traded imaginary stocks to see how the market behaves to determine stock prices.  Key lesson learned – there’s a lot more to making money in the stock market than guessing when a stock will go up or down, and the market (everyone that buys and sells stock) is really smart.

Still no baby.

Back home, we were hoping that our lost sleep in the morning wasn’t all for naught, and waiting for Tiffany’s mom to arrive from California, and it started.  I pulled out my phone, opened the stopwatch app, and began anew my contribution to the process.  Tiffany bent over the couch and began her concentrated breathing.  These contractions were stronger than those in the morning but didn’t come quite as quickly.  She wanted to labor at home as much as she could (the hospital really isn’t that comfortable), but we called the hospital to let them know that we would probably be arriving that evening.  Realizing I was measuring and recording something, and no longer groggy from the early morning, my primal instincts to track, monitor, and improve a process kicked in.  A control chart seemed appropriate, so I switched from jotting down times on a notecard to recording them in Excel.  Giving the urgency of the adrenalin-fueled situation, identifying proper upper and lower bounds for contraction times wasn’t very realistic, but I was at least able to track the labor process in real-time, and visually see any changes or patterns.  The chart below is what Tiffany was going through.  Plotted are contraction duration, the break after each contraction, and the total of the two.  The y-axis is the time in seconds, and the x-axis represents each sequential contraction.  For some people labor is most vivid when seen and lived through in person, but for others, the following chart will be even more enlightening.

As you can see, the contractions (blue line) were fairly consistent up until about number 16, where things began to get more intense.  Once the lines for “Duration” and “Break” crossed, I knew it was time for action.  This was an obvious visual cue that it was time to get to the hospital, and data collection has never been so exciting in the history of man.  As well, it was fortunate that we had the charts so that I knew what to do, because at this point Tiffany was too focused on breathing and not having a baby in the living room to be able to answer me when I asked, “is it time to go to the hospital?”

Tiffany’s mom had arrived a while earlier, and was returning from the playground with Kayla as we passed her on the stairs and told her we were on our way to increase the size of our family by 33%.  It took one contraction on the stairs and one on the sidewalk to get to the car, but we were on our way.

Once on the road, we began to navigate the tricky Cambridge traffic.  As you may know, Cambridge existed during the time of the revolution; in fact George Washington’s troops were camped out at the battle of Boston in what is essentially our modern-day backyard.  This is only relevant because it means that roads were set up to handle things like horses and pedestrians, so with the proliferation of the automobile during the 1900’s, the only option for traffic in Cambridge and Boston was to become terrible.  The hospital was only 2 miles away, but traffic levels could be the difference between a leisurely hospital delivery and a historic delivery on the banks of the Charles River.  Luckily we planned the best route before hand, snuck through traffic with Tiffany realizing just how uncomfortable a seatbelt can be during active labor, and arrived at the Hospital a little after 8 pm.

After getting Tiffany set in the room, I ran down to move the car and grab the camera.  The doctor and nurse said we probably had about 20 minutes before they would break her water, and the baby would arrive in under an hour.  When I got back to Labor and Delivery the nurse said, “Okay Dad, her water just broke and the baby’s coming!” 

Me - “Wait, you broke her water without me?!?”

Nurse - “No, it broke on its own!”

In the ensuing minutes, Tiffany demonstrated her heart of a champion, endured a few excruciating contractions, and then pushed baby Logan out in 2 pushes! No epidural, no pain medication whatsoever.  The baby was born at 8:40 pm, and Tiffany was happy to no longer be pregnant.  And to no longer be pushing.  And to have our new baby! She’s amazing!

Logan’s Stats:

Weight – 7 lbs. 5 oz.

Length – 21 inches

Both Tiffany and Logan are doing fantastic recovering from the ordeal.  We should be able to go home tomorrow and begin our lives as a family of four!

Operations Strategy

Now that I'm starting to settle back in, I thought I'd take a moment to discuss one of my favorite classes this semester - Operations Strategy.  It's a case-based class, and so far we've looked at the operations of companies as wide-ranging as Boeing, McDonald's, and Amazon.  That's one of the things I love about the course (and Ops in general) - it doesn't matter if you are building airplanes or hamburgers, you need to effectively identify and execute your operations (read "value-creation") strategy to be successful and grow.

This semester, the course is being taught by two amazing professors: Zeynep Ton (who is one of the best lecturers I've ever had) and Don Rosenfield (the director of the LGO program).  Professor Ton brings a great degree of excitement to the course, and challenges you to really think critically about the case you are discussing to understand the things that companies do well and why they do them.  Don's insight into the operations of these companies is also incredibly valuable, as he literally wrote the book on Operations Strategy.  As well, here's a link to an interesting article he wrote about why Operations management is so important.

In short, the class is awesome.

Back on Campus

After another coast-to-coast drive - Seattle to Boston - I'm back.  The internship went surprisingly fast, but it's exciting to be back on campus.  In a few words, Seattle was rainy, and Amazon was awesome.  It was a great chance for me to apply Operations Management and Supply Chain knowledge I had learned both in class at MIT and in my prior experience to a company and industry that were both quite new to me.  Surprisingly enough, whether you're building engines, shipping textbooks, or optimizing patient flow through and Intensive Care Unit (a classmate's project); the same principles can be applied to improve the process and organization.  It never ceases to amaze me, and I'm sure annoys my wife when I explain how Costco is doing a great job getting customers through checkout when she is more concerned with making sure our 2-year-old doesn't fall out of the shopping cart.

Anyway, now that I'm back it's a busy semester in front of me: classes, recruiting, thesis, and most importantly - Baby #2.  That's right, you heard it here first (unless of course I've told you previously) - we're having a baby boy on or around October 5th!  Needless to say it's going to be an exciting 4 months! I've had to make some adjustments to my course schedule as the reality of how busy it's going to be has set in, but luckily that's fairly easy, and just means my final semester at LGO will probably be a little more full than that of some of my classmates.  As well, the thesis will take up a fair amount of time, but luckily I  feel like I have a pretty good outline and direction moving forward for it.

With everything happening, I'll try to post updates for anyone interested in what the program is like during recruiting, as well as what it's like having a baby during the program.  But now, it's time to prepare a case for Operations Strategy - ITT Automotive: Global Manufacturing Strategy - it should be interesting.

Wrapping up

Interning at Amazon I recently had the opportunity to visit a number of fulfillment centers - the places that pack and ship you your textbooks, whey protein, lady bugs, lawnmower engine, or whatever else catches your fancy.  While I'm working on a very interesting project, I'm based at headquarters in Seattle.  As a result, I don't get much regular exposure to the fulfillment centers, so seeing them up-close was a great experience.  It helped me to better understand how changes I make will affect the day-to day operations, and reminded me just how impressive it is that Amazon can assemble and fulfill millions of orders to people all across the country, all while making it possible to get that order the next day and offering free shipping.  Incredible!  

Anyway, my project is wrapping up and my internship is coming to a close.  We've planned our trip back (it should be a nicer cross-country drive in August than it was in February, though while on the trip out we were able to leave our toddler with Grandma, this time we won't be so lucky... ), and I'm beginning to think about fall classes and my thesis.  I'm surprised at how fast the time has gone, but I've definitely learned a lot and am excited to complete this milestone in the LGO experience.

Off-Cycle Internship in Seattle = Road Trip!

Wow, it's been a while. During and after plant trek things got pretty hectic, and as a result my blogging has lacked significantly.  However, it's time for an update.

A lot has happened really. As many of you probably know, part of LGO is a 6 month internship with one of the partner companies, and the research done on this internship serves as the basis for your engineering thesis.  Most people tend to do their internship "on-cycle", which means it starts after spring semester and ends around the end of November, and then only one semester of classes remain until graduation and the professional world.  However, a portion of each class also does their internship "off-cycle", meaning it starts at the beginning of February and ends sometime in August.  Various partner companies offer off-cycle internships, and about 20% or so of the class will take one of these internships.  It's completely up to the student whether or not they want to apply for off-cycle, and there are various different benefits/drawbacks to either option. Some course offerings are only possible if you go off-cycle (and vice-versa), off-cycle internships allow you to be back on campus for all of Sloan recruiting (although there are plenty of recruiting options for on-cycle as well), and you get a break from classwork  after two semesters.  As well, some companies only offer off-cyle internships, and some only offer on-cycle, so it's good to start thinking about your game-plan and what you want to do for your internship soon after arriving on-campus.

With that long-winded explanation (and as evidenced by the title), I'm doing my internship off-cycle with Amazon in Seattle.  For me it came down to the company/industry, internship project, and location. I worked for Caterpillar (also a partner company) prior to LGO, and for my internship I wanted to work on something different from my prior experience, to broaden my horizons and give me exposure to something outside of large, steel-cutting manufacturing.  Don't get me wrong - I love heavy manufacturing, equipment, and everything that comes with it - but I wanted to try something new.  As well, the project I'm working on is very interesting, and my wife and I thought it would be fun to live in Seattle for 6 months or so (we're finding it's quite rainy, but beautiful when the sun shines!).

In order to get to here, however, we had to drive across all of the purple mountains majesties and above the fruited plain.  And while the trip was largely uneventful, the first of February is not the ideal time to spend any considerable amount of time in Fargo, North Dakota.  Coast-to-coast in a few short days was a marathon of a trip, but it's what made sense for us.  We left almost all of our stuff in storage back in Cambridge, and have found some cheap things second-hand.  Some people will rent furniture, and others will take their stuff with them, it really just depends on the situation.

One of the highlights of the road trip was the picture above, we saw a 737 fuselage on a train headed to Boeing (another partner company) in Seattle!  It was coming from Spirit Aerosystems (yet another partner), and it was awesome to see this part of a supply chain, in the flesh and right next to the freeway!  I had just seen these planes being assembled at Boeing as part of our plant trek, so this was especially awesome for me.  I was notably more excited than my wife (although she did think it was cool to see, it's not every day you see a big green airplane being pulled by a locomotive), so she was forced to take the picture because I was driving.  She calls me a nerd, but it's okay - operations nerdity is encouraged at LGO.

Plant Trek 2011

One of the cool parts about LGO is that we have a number of student-run committees in charge of different parts of the program.  These committees provide great teamwork experience outside of the classroom, and work with different aspects of the program including (but in no means limited to) internships, curriculum, new partners, and - you guessed it - the annual plant trek.  I've had the pleasure of being on the domestic plant trek committee, which is in charge of our annual trip around the country to visit partner company facilities.

We kicked the trek off yesterday visiting a Pratt & Whitney facility in Lansing MI, learned all about jet engines and that facility's transformation to a more efficient and profitable operation. They work a lot with composite aerospace components, and I never cease to be amazed at the feat of engineering that it is that allows us to safely fly all over the world.

Today began at the Henry Ford Museum, which is an incredible collection of Americana.  They have everything from Henry Ford's first car (the "quadracycle"), to the Allegheny 1601 (a gigantic steam locomotive), to an old diner, and countless other feats of american ingenuity. They even have an old Model T that they let you help build - I bolted the muffler to the frame. We then toured the Rouge factory in Dearborn where they assemble the F-150.  It was really cool to see the impressive assembly operation, and to learn about the history of the site and all of the things that have been done there - it was at the Rouge that Henry Ford was able to vertically integrate automotive manufacture and revolutionized american industry.  At one point they not only formed and assembled car here, but also processed the steel from raw ore and processed rubber for the tires.

In short, the trek is shaping up to be an awesome experience.  We are set to visit GM tomorrow and see the Chevy Volt be built, stop at the auto show, and then leave Detroit for the rest of the trek to visit Boeing, Amazon, Dell, Amgen, and Hamilton Sundstrand.  It's been fun to help plan, and even better to experience.  I'm sure I'll post a recap after it's all said and done.

Question and Answer - Life Balance

"Braden, Random question that may seem off topic for your blog but I was wondering how hard it has been for you to balance the LGO work load with family? The reason I ask is because I am thinking of applying for the 2012-2014 class and I have a wife and 3 month old son. I've heard that the LGO experience is intense because you are fitting in two degrees into two years. I was wondering if you could talk a little about your balance on the blog?"

You're right, LGO is intense, but in my experience (and that of many other parents in the program) it is very doable.  In fact, that's really the reason I have this blog.  It was one of the things I was most nervous about when coming to the program, but some of the parents in the class of 2011 assured me it was doable, you just needed to make sure to keep your priorities straight.  Here are some of the things that have helped me and my family.

Living On-Campus
The on-campus family community at MIT is really great.  We moved to Cambridge from Peoria Illinois, and both my wife and I are from the western US, so moving to an urban area in New England was quite the transition.  As well, because we knew we would likely be moving for 6 months for the internship (while some internships are local, most aren't) we were worried about finding a place where we could adjust quickly and my wife could make new friends while I was at class.  Living on-campus allowed us to do just that.  There are a lot of families with children, so my wife and daughter were able to quickly make new friends in our same situation.  As well, my commute is all of 10 minutes, so I'm able to spend more time with my family and less time commuting.

Setting Up "Family Time" Boundaries - & Sticking to Them
For me, this has been really important and helpful.  When you come to LGO, there is so much to do and so much happening on campus that it would be easy to let school time over-run family time.  However, at the end of the day my family is more important and will still be with me after I graduate, so I don't want to neglect them.  I also want them to be able to look back at the time we spent here as a good experience as well.  To try to make that happen, we set up Sunday and Saturday as "Family Days", and advised my groups that I would be unavailable to get together for assignments on those days.  While I did get some push-back at first, we were able to work it out.  It does mean that I generally have to get more done during the week to free up my weekend, but having that time with my family has been essential.  I must admit, some Saturdays in fall when thing got especially heavy I did have to go to school for a few hours, but I never missed a Sunday, and we were able to maintain this family time throughout the summer. It allowed us to take advantage of all the exciting things to see and do in and around Boston, to go to church, and it gives me a chance to play with my daughter and give my brain a much-needed break from school.

Making LGO an Experience for the Family, not Just for Me
This doesn't mean I bring my family to class, but there are a number of more social events where significant others and children are invited ("Spooky Sloan" at Halloween for one, and other bbq's and such).  I make it a point to bring my wife and daughter to these whenever I can to help them get to know the people in my class that I'm spending a lot of time with.  It's always a lot of fun, and my classmates love to meet and play with my daughter.

Planning and Communication
This one almost sounds like an item in a marital advice column, but I think it's a crucial part of maintaining a good life balance with family while at LGO.  I put my school calendar on my wife's computer (you learn to love google calendar at LGO), so she knows which days/weeks are going to be heavier and which ones are going to be lighter.  She also adds to our shared calendar so I know when she has other commitments or when our daughter has a checkup with the doctor - MIT medical is only a 2-minute walk from Sloan, so I've actually been able to be there for most of her checkups.  We've also agreed that because some weeks are heavier and some weeks are lighter, I'll spend more time with my family on the lighter weeks to make up for the heavier ones.

Coming to LGO with family you undoubtedly have a different experience than your unattached classmates, but it is definitely something that can be done.  There's always at least a few people in each class that have kids, and a good portion with spouses or significant others.  As well, a few students generally become parents each year, so you definitely won't be alone.  I've found LGO and MIT to be very supportive of my family, and while it has been an adjustment we've been loving the experience.

Thanks for the question!