- Next »
- « Previous
Main blog down again, so here I am
Wow, it's been over a year since I last updated my Vox blog!
I wanted to blog about my INSEAD class today and I know if I wait until my main site goes back up, I will forget some points. So here they are...
We had an Entrepreneurial Leadership class and the guest speaker was Ivan Lee from Thai Express. He brought along Vikram, an INSEAD MBA who is now his Assistant General Manager. Ivan began by saying that MBAs are overhyped. (slap in the face!) However later on he clarified that there is some worth but like Citibank shares the market will adjust (downwards) to its true value. Ouch! He also got Vikram to testify that working at Thai Express was very different from what he studied in business school. (Then again how can you refuse your boss?)
Anyway that was enough to provoke some interactivity in class. Ivan's gist was that all the ivory tower frameworks we learnt aren't helpful if we aren't willing to get our hands dirty and execute the strategy we've been planning. He is not the first person to mention that MBAs love to do high level jobs like strategy and general management, but that strategy execution is just as important (if not more so). In fact things don't always go to plan and we have to be flexible about it. I agree with that.
Trust is very important in working relationships. Even if a top employee betrayed that trust and had to leave, at least the demonstration of trust will show to the second best employee that he too can be worthy of it. Human resources are the most important asset to be managed in any company. That part we all agreed on.
Personal touch keeps employees loyal. Ivan told us how he bought Vikram a Tag Heuyer watch for his birthday, after working for him for just a year. And Ivan personally chooses every gift for his top employees, instead of subbing it out to his secretary. And if there was a good employee from a certain culture, e.g. Indian, and he wants to retain him, he will attend the employee's events, meet his parents - get close to what the employee values. Because beyond a certain point, salary is not the key factor in making someone stay at the job. That point has been drummed into our heads in other classes.
A classmate asked, "Sure, you can do that if you have a few employees but now you have over 1000 - how can you possible devote personal time for each of them?" Ivan's answer: Delegation. He makes his managers follow him to learn on the job - watch how he handles staff.
"What about training to keep employees loyal?" A classmate asked. Ivan said employees today don't become loyal simply because you pay for their training. They see the company as a provider of free airplane tickets. I started to wonder how the Government and MNCs with large training budgets, would respond to that. I think there is some truth in both schools of thought. Certain staff can be loyal but training will not be the main, or only, factor.
At the end of the talk I spoke to Ivan and thanked him for giving us a good slap in the face :) I then asked how can this entrepreneurial leadership work in bureaucracies (i.e. the Government)? And even if we're successful at making our own department more innovative than the norm, as I'd like to believe I did at one point in time, how can we sustain this and prevent bureaucracy (procedures, protocols, paperwork, politics etc) from creeping in?
His answer was simple: Go to the top man and convince him. That's how the Government works. Our professor agreed and said it worked for him before. I am glad at least that my top man listens and understands. My BATNA isn't so bad I guess.
This account was entirely written off the top of my head so I hope it's correct.
