LGO - My Experience

Leadership in the Military

2012-01-27T20:28:00.000-08:00

I shook the hand of a Medal ofHonor recipient today. Needless to say,not an every day experience – and one I won’t soon forget. His name is Tom Kelley, and he came to speakat a class I was enrolled in titled “Leadership Lessons Learned in the Military”. The course was organized by a fellowLGO/former submarine officer/good friend of mine and took place over the pastthree days during IAP (independent activities period) here at Sloan. IAP lasts for the month of January, and manystudents use this time to go on vacation, or to take part in various treks thatare available, and a multitude of short courses are offered on-campus by mostdepartments as well. I’ve been using itto spend time with family, work on my thesis, and to take this class – which I’mglad I did as it will probably be a part of my MBA experience that will really stickwith me.

This course was offered throughSloan and is sponsored by one of our great ethics professors, Leigh Hafrey. While Professor Hafrey is afantastic teacher that challenges you to think critically and solidify how youfeel about everything that can’t typically be defined by an equation – likepower, authority, leadership and influence, he really didn’t drive thecourse. Instead, it was put together andfacilitated by a few of the veterans in our MBA class. It was a great opportunity to learn from themabout how their military careers affected their lives and how they act asleaders. I’m writing this post in anattempt to capture my impressions on leadership from the past few days, andmaybe someone else will also find it useful.

Day 1

We spoke about the different ranksin the military, and what it takes to achieve them. I hadn’t really understood that there weretwo paths in the military, that of the enlisted soldiers and that of theofficers, and the lowest ranking officer will always outrank the highestranking enlisted, even though said officer will be a 22-year old kid fresh outof college or one of the military academies, and said enlisted soldier willprobably have a 20+ year career in the military under their belt. This isn’t to say that the enlisted soldieris a low-ranking contributor, in fact it’s quite the opposite – to be wherethey are they have to have proven their capability to lead soldiers andaccomplish objectives, and are often technical experts at what they do. They typically have great rapport with theirpeople, and in the class were often referred to as the “backbone” of themilitary. When you hear the terms“Gunny”, “Chief”, or “Sergeant First Class” on T.V., these are the peoplethey’re talking about. They are alsoreferred to as “Non-Commissioned Officers” or “NCOs” which causes someconfusion, but they are enlisted soldiers that report up to officers.

Once we had an understanding ofwhat all these ranks meant, we had the opportunity to hear from two Army drillsergeants talk about how they get new recruits literally fresh off the bus andbegin to incorporate them into the Army – it doesn’t sound like fun. Corporate onboarding would be a lot differentif it entailed pushups ad-nauseum, some amount of sleep deprivation, and bigscary guys yelling at you from the moment you entered the door. We then had the chance to talk with threesenior NCOs, who were able to give us their perspective on what it’s like tolead when you’re the person with all the experience and some young kid with acollege degree outranks you. They saidthat these young officers were generally most successful when they were humbleand allowed themselves to be trained. Ithink this is really applicable to young college and MBA grads in general. It’s really easy to think that just becauseyou have a fresh degree from a top-notch institution then you will always knowbest and so people should listen to you. However, from my experience that just isn’t the case. A college degree is only a manifestation thatyou know how to think, and it also helps to open a lot of doors. However, the people on the ground that haveearned their spot through experience have all kinds of valuable knowledge. This knowledge needs to be used both for thesuccess of the person and the success of the organization, and if a youngleader can swallow their pride, ask for help and training to be able to utilizethe abilities of these people, then it will help everyone in the end.

Day 2

We had an“optional” PT (physical training) session with the guys from the MIT ROTC at0700. The training was actually a lot offun; we got in formation, did military exercises – naturally a number ofpushups – and ran around shouting military cadences. They went really light on us, but it was coolto get a glimpse of what that aspect of military life is like. I said it was optional because it technicallywas, but the day before they broke the class into squads, named squad leaders,and gave the squad leaders the order to have 100% attendance at PT. I ended up as our squad leader, and while Ibegan to get some commitments to come, I was killed in action as a part of theexercise. Not surprisingly then, mysquad did not have 100% attendance. Thekey takeaway for me here was that of accountability. Once we got back in the classroom, they putall of the squad leaders in the front of the room and asked us what ourattendance was, and why our people weren’t there. Most of us didn’t have a very good answer. Sure I had gotten killed, but I still couldhave done more. We probably hadn’t takenthe exercise serious enough, and hadn’t held ourselves accountable how weshould have. However, this really mademe think about accountability in life in general. It’s too easy to just send an email and thenthink we’ve done our job, when really that email doesn’t mean anything. I could go on for a while about this, butthis simple illustration of accountability was powerful for me, and while Ifeel like I am on the whole an accountable person, I recognize there is roomfor improvement and incorporating it more into my life has become a goal ofmine.

Next up, wehad two panels, one with Junior Officers and one with Senior Officers. The theme of humility came up again, and theJunior Officers reiterated the point that the NCOs had made – it’s important tolearn from the enlisted folks that have a lot of experience. However, they also stressed the importance ofmaking decisions and owning them, because at the end of the day that’s yourjob. The Senior Officers were also quiteimpressive – we had representation from the Army, Navy, Marines, and AirForce. It was as though we had four VicePresidents from four large companies with us in the same room to speak aboutleadership. One of my key takeaways fromthis was the importance of knowing your people. While this had been stressed throughout the course, it really hit homefor me here. In order to lead peoplehave to want to follow you, and the way you earn that is by showing them thatyou know and care about them. As well,it was interesting to think about how it goes both ways – you need to know thepeople below you so that they trust what you say, but you also need to know thepeople above you so that you trust what they say. Otherwise, you won’t really be able to owntheir orders, vision, or objective that they give to you, and in the end youwill become ineffective.

Day 3

Today. It was reallycool. We did a lot of reflection on whatwe had talked about so far, wrapped up the course, and listened to both the Deputy Under-Secretary of the Army and of course Mr. Kelley. It was interesting tohear him speak, and to hear him talk about fear. He said that while of course he was afraidfor his physical well-being, what drove him to his heroic actions (if youdidn’t check the link above, while protecting his troops on a damaged boat, heput himself in a necessary but very exposed position, and continued to commandhis troops to get the out of danger after having been struck in the head by theshrapnel from an RPG, which cost him his eye) was more the fear of letting hismen down. In essence, as their commanderhe felt accountable to them and their safety, and that had become such a partof him that it overcame his fear. Whenwe had a break for lunch I approached him to shake his hand, thank him forcoming and for his service like I’m sure thousands have done since he receivedthe award. It probably wasn’t a big dealfor him, but for me it was very impressive to be able to shake hands withsomeone who had been ready and able to perform under the most duress imaginablein a way that saved the lives of his mean and is admired by a grateful nation.

As I’ve been reflecting of this course, I think my maintakeaway is that leadership is really simple – it’s all about people and it’sall about accountability. While we comeup with all kind of frameworks, theories, and mantras for leadership, it’sprobably just that simple, and maybe everything else we talk about whendiscussing leadership is just fluff.

An Interesting Article

2011-11-28T07:29:00.001-08:00

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!

2011-10-06T17:40:00.000-07:00

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

2011-09-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

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

2011-09-14T07:48:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-18T20:31:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-03-02T20:07:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-11T18:44:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-03T09:27:00.000-08:00

"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!

Leaders for...

2010-12-12T17:55:00.000-08:00

For me, one of the best parts of the LGO program is leadership development. While some would argue that leadership is innate and can't be learned, I disagree. That fatalistic point of view says that becoming a better leader is something that just happens and is out of your control, which really isn't the case. It's like anything, some people have natural leadership ability, but we can all work to develop whatever ability we have to become better leaders.

Because of that, LGO puts a lot of focus on leadership - which you probably gathered from the name. One of the courses that I took this fall was an elective leadership seminar offered by the program, and it was one of the best courses I've taken. While the other classes you'll take for LGO - accounting, operations management, economics, engineering courses, etc. - are all very good, this one stands out because it focuses on your personal development. The title of this post "Leaders for..." is what the facilitator of the course feels is the most important part of the program (I call him a facilitator rather than an instructor or professor, because he really just facilitates discussion rather than dictates it, and is a retired business leader that volunteers his time for the course). It means "Leaders for Global Operations", but also things like "Leaders for Our Communities", or "Leaders for Sustainable Development", or Leaders for anything really that we think is an issue and needs to be addressed. In this sense, LGO is about more than just getting an MBA and a Master's in Engineering from MIT, it's also about learning from ourselves and each other to become better leaders that will be able to make a difference in the world.

Throughout the course we had several discussions about leadership traits, qualities, and examples of good leadership that we've experienced. As well, we had LGO alums from the early years of the program and other business leaders visit to talk about their different experiences with career development, family, entrepreneurship, and how leadership development will play a role in our lives post-LGO. Finally, the last day of the course everyone in the course stood up and spoke for a few minutes about what leadership meant to them. I must admit, at first I was a little skeptical about how this was going to turn out, but it was a pretty cool experience. It was a 90 minute barrage of thoughts on leadership, and not only did it make me put my feelings into words, but I was able to hear from my classmates what they thought, which in turn helped me to better understand both them and myself. In all it was a great experience and I'm glad I took the course. It helped me to learn to take a step back and reflect on my life, where I'm at, and what it will take to achieve my goals, which I think will be valuable throughout my career.

Now, the semester is coming to a close, I'm preparing for my internship, and I just have my accounting final between myself and winter break - Woo-hoo!!! Good luck to everyone submitting applications!

Campus with the family

2010-11-03T17:17:00.000-07:00

Nothing groundbreaking here, but last weekend I took the opportunity to do a little exploring around MIT with my family. I usually just see the buildings in which I have class, Tiffany and Kayla don't generally see much of campus, and sometimes it's fun to just do a little exploring as there is so much going on. One of the highlights was the gauntlet of asteroids in the green building, where the department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences is housed. ET was hanging out at his summer home on the pink asteroid, but the Millennium Falcon was nowhere to be found.

Later we went to the HallowMIT party that the Institute held for all of the student families. Kayla got dressed up as a little monster, tried a little cotton candy, got a balloon, had a lot of fun and was subsequently scared to death by Tim the Beaver (MIT's mascot). He was dressed up as some kind of Zorro/Vampire - hopefully next time Kayla sees him the scarring will have subsided.

My Industry Experience

2010-10-25T16:55:00.000-07:00

I had a question about how my experience as a scheduling analyst might have led me to or prepared me for LGO. To be honest, it didn't have that much to do with me coming to LGO, as I was placed in that position after I had already gone through the application process. However, I think it really did help me once I got here to be able to look at more of the big picture.

As a Manufacturing Engineer, I was more concerned with the day-to-day operations of the engine facility that I worked at - in a nutshell finding problems and fixing them. I really enjoyed this job, as I was able to see the tangible benefit of what I was doing, build relationships with a lot of different people on both the shop floor and in management, and really get my hands dirty working to find real solutions to problems - although my wife didn't always appreciate it when I would come home smelling like diesel fuel. However, the problems I was able to solve were, for the most part, local to my specific part of the assembly line. At times I would get frustrated because I wanted to have an impact on the "big picture" for the organization, but that was really outside of the scope of my position. So while I liked what I was doing, I wanted to be able to do more, and LGO was the perfect program for me to prepare to do so.

When I became a scheduling analyst, my day-to-day drastically changed. I no longer wore safety glasses and steel-toed shoes to work, I worked on my computer essentially all day long, and no longer came home smelling like a tractor. This position posed a whole new set of challenges for me, and I think it really did help me to prepare for LGO. I had to learn all of the different scheduling and database systems that we used in my department, monitor and report on inventory levels, work with forecasting, and find and fix any scheduling problems that I came across. While I no longer worked with factory operations per se, my actions had direct and important impact on the operations of the facility. If we messed up the schedule we would either have too much inventory or miss orders, both of which could cause major problems. As well, I was able to see and understand the operations of the business from a different point in the supply-chain, one that gave me visibility to both our suppliers and our customers, as well as our own position. It really helped me to get a grasp on the scope of what we were doing, and how seemingly small improvements in a supply chain can have dramatic effects to the bottom-line of an organization. I've reflected on my experience in this position often in my coursework, and it has helped to solidify my understanding of operations and supply chains.

I hope I answered the question, but yes, working in scheduling for me was very relevant experience to operations and LGO.

Hello Everybody!

2010-10-22T10:03:00.000-07:00

Well, seeing as this is my first post to this blog, I'll give some background information on myself - what I'm doing here at MIT, why I decided to come, and what I did before. If you are interested in applying to LGO, I would encourage you to check out the other student blogs (see link in the side bar) to get a good feel of what the LGO experience might be like for you. As well, feel free to leave comments and ask questions about the experience or application process.

What I'm Doing
Pretty straightforward - working on an MBA from MIT Sloan and an SM (MIT refers to master's degrees as "SM" rather than "MS") in Engineering Systems from the MIT School of Engineering. I'm in my second semester - unlike most straight MBA programs LGO starts the beginning of June so that we can complete both degrees and an internship in 24 months. As a result, I am now officially acclimatized to being a student again. Our LGO summer core was definitely a challenge, but it was an awesome experience that quickly brought our class of 48 together. We all had the same schedule with courses in probability and statistics, systems optimization, operations management, high-velocity systems, and leadership. Now we are in the heart of the MBA core at Sloan - we just finished midterms (sigh of relief) - and I am taking an extra business course in System Dynamics (an awesome course that I'll post about later) an engineering course in Logistics Systems, and a couple of seminars in leadership and global operations.

For those of you who have no idea what "Engineering Systems" is (which I didn't before I applied), it's basically a mixture between mechanical engineering, manufacturing engineering, and supply chain planning - at least the track that I am following. There are a number of tracks that LGOs can follow for this degree, you can check out this link for more information.

Why I Decided to Come
For me, it came down to the objectives of the program and the people that are here (both students and faculty). The name says it all "Leaders for Global Operations". I really have a passion for operations and manufacturing, and the systems required to make our society possible - both big and small. For example, have you ever thought about the system that's set up to make Q-tips? Think about it - you can buy 800 of them for like $3, can you imagine how fast they have to make those to turn a profit? I really don't have any ambitions to change the world through Q-tips, but still, it's mind-boggling!

I really like that the program is designed to help students learn and become leaders that can help organizations become successful through efficient, value-added operations. As well, the people here are awesome and it's a community that I'm glad I have become a part of.

What I Did Before
Before LGO I worked for Caterpillar as a manufacturing engineer and as a scheduling analyst. It was a good experience working in a large organization with large, complex manufacturing systems. Before then I did my undergraduate degree in Manufacturing Engineering Technology at Brigham Young University.