Harvard Business School - Day 55 - Final Thoughts

Saturday, 31 Oct 2009
It is 7:00am and I am due to catch the 8:00am bus into Boston Logan Airport. The living group area is deathly quiet, every one has gone. The Charles River looks pristine, regal, and surreal outside the window as dawn breaks over Cambridge, MA. I will miss this place, it is so full of enthusiasm and hope; all the bright young people at the various schools of Harvard, all striving for their place in the world, with a few program participants such as ours where the enthusiasm is retained but the average age grows considerably and so (hopefully) does the collective experience (and the waste lines!).
Having spent time in the U.S. before it is hard to see Boston as American, it is different, more old world, more European, with a sense of grace and poise that comes from age and perhaps wisdom. The coffee is still bad, the food is better than elsewhere in the States but is still pretty bland. America for all its problems is a great country, full of diversity, but united in an incredibly patriotic way. The American's I have met have all been fantastic people, great hosts, proud people, intelligent and generous.
So I say goodbye to Boston, Cambridge and Harvard. I hope I get the chance to come back some day soon.

The photo above top is of our team (minus Steve who had his family in class and Ajay who is just out of shot) at the final lecture of the program, set through to me by Philippe. The second one (also provided by Philippe) as is the one take on the final dinner which includes us all.

Harvard Business School - Day 55 - Course Summary

Saturday, 31 Oct 2009
Last night was my final night at McArthur Hall and HBS. About two thirds of the participants left on Friday to all points of the globe. Saying goodbye was actually quite brutal, emotionally tough. We grew to like each other and then were cleavered apart. Last night I went out with a few of my Indian colleagues for a meal (Indian of course) and a last supper. The Indian's are fantastic people, they always seem to be happy, they are smart, hard working and everyone seems to be a born philosopher.

I thought for the record I would plagiarise some of my Australian friend Mark Young's overview of AMP177 and the AMP program in general.

Week 1
Two days devoted to the evolution of the Nike Company over time, using an integrated series of cases. Serves as an introduction to the case method and the faculty. Highlighted a number of themes and ideas covered in detail during the remainder of the program.

Living Group Acceleration Exercise
An interactive exercise providing a series of challenges aimed at developing the living groups as teams capable of enhancing one another’s learning.

Introductory module in Accounting and Finance
Skills required to analyse and solve business problems, An intensive review of basic accounting and finance techniques.

Weeks 2–6
The next four weeks included seven courses, running simultaneously. These courses covered the different subject areas in depth, although many of the issues covered overlap. The subjects (and their associated Professors) are:

Business, Government and the International Economy (Richard (Dick) H.K. Vietor)
This course examines regional trajectories of growth, development, and governmental strategies that are leading the world economy toward globalization. In the process, it teaches the essentials of competitive analysis—national income accounting, balance of payments, fiscal and monetary policy, and real exchange rates. Participant develop an analytical framework for analysing national economic management and international competitiveness in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the United
States.

Financial Management (William (Bill) E. Fruhan, Jr.)
This course does not assume a background in finance beyond that developed in the Week 1 module, but progresses rapidly toward the frontier issues of the global financial marketplace. The objective is to build a framework for understanding the financial dimensions of a company’s competitive strategy, and to use this framework to manage more effectively in the difficult environment of the current global financial
crisis.

Leading Innovation and Organizational Effectiveness (Michael L. Tushman)
Focusing broadly on organisational effectiveness, this course is broken out into three modules. This course is closely tied to AMP’s Personal Development Module and its culminating Re-entry and Leadership Modules (weeks 7–8).
Module 1: focuses on organisational alignment and change, including the identification of key success factors, necessary conditions for change, and different strategies for effecting change.
Module 2: focuses on the role of leadership in corporate transformation.
Module 3: deals with individual effectiveness.

Marketing (Sunil Gupta)
How do you create value for customers in this highly competitive environment? How do you manage two key assets of a firm—its customers and brands? How do you launch new products to maximize their odds of success in the marketplace? How do you create effective marketing strategies in the new digital world? This course discusses these and related questions from a top management perspective across a wide range of industries.

Leadership and Corporate Accountability (Lynn S. Paine)
This course focuses on the responsibilities of companies, their leaders, and their boards. Its aim is to deepen understanding of the economic, legal, and ethical dimensions of these responsibilities and to provide practical guidance on how leaders drive responsible performance. Through a series of difficult dilemmas set in different
regions of the world, a framework is built for accountable decision making and explore the elements of good governance. Participants have opportunities to consider the role of business in society and to reflect on their own philosophies of business leadership.

Negotiations (Max H. Bazerman)
The course provides executive negotiation skill building and allows Participants to evaluate their own negotiation behaviour. Participants will plan, negotiate, receive feedback, and discuss negotiation strategy. Additionally, the course seeks to improve analytical abilities in understanding the behaviour of individuals and organisations in competitive situations.

Strategy (David B. Yoffie)
What are the competitive forces at work in industries today and how can firms create and sustain competitive advantages through strategy? This course explores how to analyse industries, how firms can create superior competitive positions, and how to anticipate competitor moves. In addition, the course explores the complexity of strategies in times of crisis, in highly diversified settings, as well as strategic
problems associated with the Internet and Web 2.0.

Leading High Performance Operations (Amy C. Edmondson)
This course examines the challenges faced by the General Manager when leading operations to achieve extraordinary performance. Operations are the core activities though which an organization’s work gets done, and can be understood along a continuum from high to low volume, and from repetitive to unique tasks. A
distinctive feature of the course is the variety of teaching material—including multimedia and paper cases, featuring executives in private and public sector organizations, in settings ranging from the U.S. Government to patient care delivery to space exploration. A core theme is the central role of learning in achieving high
performance, and the three modules explore the varying forms learning takes in differing operational contexts.

Weeks 7–8
The last two weeks focus, other than completing the above subjects was more on personal renewal and the process of effective reentry into your company.

Special Topics in Executive Leadership
As the program moves toward closure, the emphasis shifts to integration and action planning for re-entry to business and family life. During these final two weeks and on specifically identified days throughout the program, AMP addresses special topics that are of importance to executives at the top level of the organization including: restructuring, leadership values, and corporate responsibility, and challenges facing
particular parts of the world.
Week 8 also provided an opportunity to finalize a personal case linking the content and ideas developed at AMP to issues back at your organization.
The program concluded with a Graduation on Friday October 30th.
170 participants / 43 Countries / Many and diverse enterprises.
Networking opportunities
– Many dinners
– Many informal gatherings and group sporting “challenges”
– Social and Professional networks established
– Potential to leverage these networks in the future

Some other interesting things about the program.
Approx 160 case studies (you have to read in your sleep), covering numerous organisations and 30 countries Case study methodology reinforced by;
– Independent reading / research
– Living group discussion
– Class work on case studies with some overview lectures
Opportunity to listen to external speakers / other faculty ;
– Robert Kaplan (Senior DirectorGoldman Sachs – not Balanced Scorecard)
– Niall Ferguson (“the Ascent of Money”)
– Clay Christensen
– Paul Volker (Chair of the Economic Recovery Board former Chair of the Fed)
– Robert Mueller – Director of the FBI
– Michael Porter (18 books – foundation for strategy and competitiveness)

Harvard Business School - Days, 52, 53, 54

Wednesday, 28 Oct 2009 to Friday, 30 Oct 2009
And then it was over, so suddenly, so abruptly; that I am sitting in my room trying to put it all together, with a sense of both excitement and loss. I have just graduated, had a very nice lunch, drunk a bottle of Burgundy with my living group members and I have said a hundred good-byes, and now it is over. Finished, complete....

Last night we had dinner at The Four Seasons which is one of Boston's top hotels. The food was nice but the camaraderie was spectacular. The AMP program could just as easily be labeled the program to turn strangers from different countries, different cultures and different religions into life long friends. We returned to the school and the participants had organised a DJ and with-it another impromptu Karaoke night back at McArthur Hall.I truly hope my version of Willie Nelson's "One the Road Again" was better than Mike the German's rendition of "Almost heaven".Friday we had the final two final lectures and then it was off to graduation which was conducted in military like fashion and wrapped up in around one hour. They say that nothing that happens on AMP happens by accident and I belive that. So I miss home but am sad to leave Boston, I have loved being here, but I have had enough, I've enjoyed learning, but I need to work. I have made life long friends with my colleagues but I am sick of them. I crave a life more normal, I want to apply what I have learned. Anyone that hasn't done a program like this just wouldn't understand (and I am not trying to be smart or elitest).

Harvard Business School - Days 50 & 51

Monday, 26 Oct 2009 & Tuesday, 27 Oct 2009
The final week of the course arrived and we had two days of formal lectures remaining, with the final two and one half days (through to midday Friday) focused on wrap up and re-entry.
Monday night my living group when out to dinner at Legal Seafood, which is the restaurant where we first attended as a group at the beginning of the course all those weeks ago!
Tuesday night we had a citizenship dinner with the ANZACs congregating. The atmosphere is interesting, and emotional as there is a huge sense of excitement about going home, being with family and getting back to work. There is a overwhelming sense of achievement at having reached the end of the course. Yet these positive feelings are collectively juxtaposed against the knowledge that the course is nearly over and the diaspora that congregated for AMP177 and became colleagues then friends over the past eight weeks will dissipate and disperse as seamlessly as they arrived, and therefore an underlying tone of sadness taints or emotions.
The following are a selection of Harvard area photos taken by my living group colleague Philippe Robert.

Harvard Business School - Day 48 & 49

Saturday, 24 Oct 2009 and Sunday, 25 Oct 2009

We finished class at noon on Saturday, had a bite to eat at the canteen and then those of us that were heading away for our last weekend in Massachusetts met outside McArthur hall where there was a van and driver waiting. For the ten of us the destination for the day was Marth's Vineyard. The weather was pretty lousy as we headed south. It took about 1.5 hours to get to Woods Hole, which is where we took the ferry across to Matha's Vineyard as foot passengers. The trip across to Tisbury took about 45 minutes and we picked up another taxi van on the other side to take us the approximately 20 minutes to Oaks Bluff.

Our accommodation for the night was at a old mansion type house called the Oaks Bluff Inn. It was owned and run by an amiable and very laid back landlord called Eric. The house was resplendent in a slightly purple hue, which looked perhaps hinted at a flowers, caftans and chemical filled past, it describes itself as whimsically Victoria (http://www.oakbluffsinn.com/ ) , however inside is was very tidy and very homely and almost a little stately. The weather never abated on Saturday, but we had a few drinks, some dinner at a excellent restaurant called the Oyster Bar where they really did showcase the local seafood. Being anti establishment I had a steak which turned out to have been taken off the hind-quarters of Tyrannosaurus Rex. While it was cooked to perfect and as tender as you could want after eating about three pounds of it I gave up. I was going to doggy bag it and take it back to the Inn but I realised that I wouldn't be able to lift it so I left it for the next three hundred patrons to take turns at gnawing on.
Sunday dawned and presented us with a clear blue sky. Eric had prepared a very enjoyable breakfast and some typically shit American coffee, after which we went for a walk around Oak Bluff which is known for its large camping ground where the tents have over the last 150 years been replaced by little gingerbread cottages which are on land owned by the Martha's Vineyard Campmeeting Association. There are around 350 of these little cottages and they are all very close to each other and very cute.
We had arranged for our taxi driver of the previous day to pick us up at noon and give us a 3 hour tour of the island before depositing us back at the ferry for the 3:45pm sailing. The island itself is home to the "Islanders" many of who hail back from the island's whaling days, as well as seasonal holiday makers who number from amongst the most wealthy of U.S. east coast aristocracy. This is the island that JFK Jnr crashed his plane off in 1999 killing himself, his wife and sister, John Belushi (he of Blues Brothers fame) is burried here. Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama and their families come to or ave stayed on the island. Jaws was filmed there.
There seems to be a lack of consensus as to why Martha's Vineyard is in fact called Martha's Vineyard as there appeared to be no wineries what-so-ever (I am sure there must be one or two but they are certainly not prevalent) although the van driver advised us that vines did in fact grow wild. What I am authoritatively advised is that it is one of the few places in the United States today with a possessive apostrophe. Thus it is Matha's Vineyard, not Marthas Vineyard. We had lunch at a little fishing village. I had crab cakes and seafood chowder from a little take away shop, which was great. I bought some lobsters to which I had cooked so I could take them back to my living group. We made the 3:45pm ferry and a van was duly waiting for us back at Woods Hole, the Sunday traffic was kind to us and we were back in Harvard by about 6pm.
Our living group sans Ajay went out for dinner last night. Hopefully we can get all 8 of us together before the end of the week.

Harvard Business School Days 46 & 47

Thursday, 22 Oct 2009 and Friday, 23 Oct 2009
The last two days have passed by very quickly. Thursday night was notable because we ended up having impromptu party in our living group area. Neil was playing his guitar and he really is very good, knocking out a few classic 70s rock hits, with a particular passion for Eric Clapton. Along the way Wayne recited a Chinese opera number for us, which sounded nothing like Eric, but was polished non-the-less. The noise must have been heard in some adjacent living groups because in the space of about 30 minutes our 8 had turned into around 30 of us. There were a few tired looking people in class this morning.
Friday we had a lecture by Michael Porter (the guy in teh green tie with glasses) who is probably Harvard's most famous professor and apparently at one stage a few years ago was the world's second most expensive speaker behind Bill Clinton. Professor Porter gave a lecture on The Competitive Advantage of Nations, States and Regions. His big themes were understanding that the key metric was increasing productivity, which allowed higher wages and a higher standard of living to be obtained, on leveraging you natural endowments (e.g. resources like oil, or location like Singapore) and that it is hugely beneficial to create clusters. He spoke for about an hour and then took general questions for another half hour or so.
Steve my living group member (the guy without a tie, holding some leaves of paper wondering what Porter's name is) had the opportunity to introduce him, which he did well other than forgetting his name. I suspect we won't forget to remind him of that a few more times before we leave.

Friday night, following along on the previous weeks cultural evening theme, we had a kareoke night, which was a lot of fun and produced absolutely no tallent but a huge number of laughs. When the second person up is reasonably rotund a 6' 4' German banker and sings Almost Heaven in a way that only a mother could love (sorry Mike) it set the bar. But by God he set it low. It was a great night and I think the realisation that it will all be over in less than a week was one of the reasons that everyone just relaxed and had fun. The singing was on average awefull but the energy was massive. It was a fantatstic night.

Harvard Business School - Days 43 & 45

Monday, 19 Oct 2009 to Wednesday, 21 Oct 2009
The beginning of the week dawned and with it blue skies and sunshine once again, in stark contrast to the appalling weather of Sunday. Class continues to be engaging and interesting, but there is a real sense that the end is approaching rapidly. On Tuesday we had boxes delivered to our living groups for us to pack up, with international students boxes being dispatched on Monday next week. That was the first tangible sign that our self-centred existence of the last six and a half weeks is drawing to a close.
One of the things that I most enjoy about classes or through discussions with participants is being challenged to think about things in a different way, from a different perspective or indeed to consider issues with the benefit of new information . This YouTube video is an example Did You Know?
Tuesday nights (as I have said before) is rotation dinner night, so they mix up all the members in each living group and recombine them into groups of 8 or 9 that meet at a nominated living group and have dinner there. The concept is that it provides a mechanism to meet other participants and to share thoughts and ideas with a different group of people and in practice it works very well.
Neil and I ended up back in our living group area drinking port and watching Eddy Izzard and Monty Python videos on YouTube, quite possibly this wasn't the most constructive use of our time but it was most enjoyable.

Most nights we sit around as a living group and discuss the cases we have to prepare for class the next day. We try and achieve three things.

1. Develop a basic understanding of the case.
2. Work out what the key learnings or areas of specific interest are when applying the class curriculum to the case.
3. Share any personal insights or experiences that we have as individuals.

These sessions can go anywhere from about one hour to three hours. On top of this we have tried to allow time to discuss more broadly issues we have in our "other lives" and how we have thought through these issues while on the course and applied learnings as a way of understanding or addressing them. The photo is of Neil, myself and Philippe in one such living group discussion.

Harvard Business School - Day 42

Sunday, 18 Oct 2009
It was a bitterly cold day here on Sunday. The temperature was just above freezing (about 2 degree C) and there was drizzle and snow. You could only but feel sympathy for the rowers still plying their trade in the Charles River. We had an ANZAC dinner at a local seafood restaurant. There is actually 12 ANZAC's on the, if you count two expatriates (an American and a Scot) that are living in Australia. I guess with a combined Australasian population of around 25 million we must be the most represented group per head on the course.
The photo below is of my living group, in our living area after we had Professor Vietor around for drinks and nibbles last week.

Harvard Business School - Day 41

Saturday, 17 Oct 2009
Saturday passed by uneventfully, with classes finishing as normal at noon. Our working group has routinely used Saturday afternoon to prepare for class on Monday, therefore keeping Sunday free. However we varied it because the weather was so nice and the weather forecast on Sunday so bad.

We watched the rowers on the river.

I got some reading done as well as going over to Harvard Square for some lunch. Amnuay my Thai living group member took us out to a very traditional and very and very enjoyable Thai meal in Cambridge. We teamed up with Mark Young's (he of road trip fame) living group and had a great time. The


camaraderie and sense of togetherness that the participants in AMP 177 have developed over the time we have been here is incredible. After dinner a few of us then went into Boston and managed to find the original Cheers bar which kept us entertained for an hour or so and then caught a cab back to Harvard Square.

Harvard Business School - Day 40

Friday, 16 Oct 2009

There seemed to be a realisation amongst the participants on the course that time is running out and the daunting 8 week horizon we faced at the commencement of the program has been whittled down to the point where we be finished in two weeks today. A result of this is to put more substantial efforts into talking and understanding the culture, careers, lives and motivations of those on the course that one hasn't yet spend any meaningful time with. As if to underscore this intent today was filled with about as much cultural diversity as is plausible.
We started off with an Oktoberfest reception and dinner, which was replete with German beer, sauerkraut, bratwurst and other Bavarian fair. Following that Wayne (or living group's resident Chinese) had organised some of his colleagues to come over to our living group for an informal discussion of issues, observations and opportunities in China. After that we were invited by our Indian contingent (of which there must be about a dozen) to a Diwali Celebration. Diwali is a significant festival in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism, and an official holiday in India. Adherents of these religions celebrate Diwali as the Festival of Lights. They light diyas, cotton string wicks inserted in small clay pots filled with oil (although this has largely been replaced by the use of candles) to signify victory of good over the evil within an individual. The had organised the local Hare Krishna Temple to come along and they provided some entertainment. All the Indian's were dressed up and resplendent in their traditional garb. We had our foreheads adorned with a red tilaka. There was a lot of lights, chanting and dancing. I have a card from the temple that says:
If you want to be happy, try chanting:

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna, Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare
This is a YouTube video that oone of teh participants shot  Diwali Night
I managed to get persuaded into purchasing a book called "The Science of Self-Realisation" which was a gift worthy of a donation if one felt so inclined. It was rather hard to take the book and be disinclined so I exchanged $20 for it. Its amazing how open to new ways of thinking you can be after several steins of German beer!!

As that died down, after culminating in some Indian Bingo [picture right]as a way of financing the night (and perhaps the Temple), the Japanese invited us out into the courtyard for some sushi and sake. A few of us escaped (smiling) from there and went into Harvard Square for a class of wine and a chat.

Outside our window both sides of the Charles River have become a collection of marques and people all there for the annual "Head Of the Charles Regatta" ( www.hocr.org ) which is by their own definition the worlds largest two day rowing regatta. The routinely expect 300,000 spectators along the banks and it is quite a spectacle.There are certainly a lot of people around and we have the perfect viewing spot from our living group window (as per the photo above).

Harvard Business School - Day 36 to 39

Monday, 12 Sep 2009 to Thursday, 15 Sep 2009
The days here are starting to speed by very quickly. There is still lots of work to do both during the day and in the evenings but somehow each day seems to disappear so much quicker than it did at the beginning of the course. Tomorrow we will only have two weeks left before we leave!!
The weather here is transitioning very fast between summer/fall and winter. Just a couple of weeks ago it was mid twenties and shorts and t-shirt weather now it is struggling to make double figures. The days are shortening and the treees are starting to loose their leaves. They would expect to have their first snow within the next month and in Boston once down it is there to stay for winter. You suddenly understand the difference between a temperate climate like NZ and a continental climat like the US, it is the seasonal extremes that differentiate the two.
Today one of the cases we had was on the FBI and how they were found short after 11-Sep-2001 (911 in their speak) terrorist attacks on the twin towers and pentagon. In the wake of this attack the FBI had to re-invent themselves  and no redefine and expand their intelligence capability as well as their traditional law enforcement role. In attendance at the case was the FBI's head of National Security. A recent interview with him has teh following to say:

After 20 years with the CIA, Phil Mudd joined the FBI in 2005 as deputy head of the Bureau's National Security Branch, tasked with transforming the FBI into a domestic intelligence agency, more like Britain's MI-5. In this interview, Mudd discusses his work at the FBI, progress to date, the FBI's new paradigm for preventing terrorism and the nature of the domestic terror threat. This is an edited transcript of an interview conducted June 2, 2006.
He was an interesting, animated and thought provoking individual.
In the afternoon it only got better. HBS had arranged for the Director of the FBI, Robert Mueller to speak to us. There are 170 odd people on the Advanced Management Program and we all filed into a different lecture theatre than normal, presumably because it was underground and had only two entrances/exits. There was A LOT of security present. If John Key was here he would have had an inferiority complex. Robert is the 6th director of teh FBI (J Edgar Hoover hogged the role for nearly 50 years!!).

Mueller www.fbi.gov/libref/directors/directmain.htm joined the FBI on 4 September 2001, so things got very busy very quickly for him post 911!! He spoke very candidly about how the old metrics for measuring the success of the FBI was around catching criminals while in the new post 911 world it is around having no more terrorist attacks on US soil. This is quite a different focus when you think for the most part that law enforcement is reactive and for prevention to work it has to be reactive.
What was really enlightning and to a large degree reinforced what we have already learned (or knew) is that the issues involved in changing the focus and mission of the FBI are very similar to any organisation. Jost for the record the FBI has 32,000 employees, of which 13,000 are special agents and they have a budget of US $7.5b per annum.He spoke a lot about changing the organisation and repioritising what they do. Their priorities are now:
1. Protect the United States from terrorist attack.
2. Protect the United States against foreign intelligence operations and espionage.
3. Protect the United States against cyber-based attacks and high-technology crimes.
4. Combat public corruption at all levels.
5. Protect civil rights.
6. Combat transnational and national criminal organizations and enterprises.
7. Combat major white-collar crime.
8. Combat significant violent crime.
9. Support federal, state, county, municipal, and international partners.
10. Upgrade technology to successfully perform the FBI's mission.

Harvard Business School - Day 33, 34, 35

Friday, 9 Oct 2009 to Sunday, 11th Oct 2009

Well quite clearly I have been a bit remiss at keeping this blog up-to-date.

Friday we finished class and then had a lobster dinner. A lobster is a lot like a crayfish except it has a serious set of pincers as a means of defense. There were several large serving platers of cooked lobsters for our dinning pleasure. So armed with bibs and crackers we proceeded to sample this delicacy with appropriate amounts of gusto and of course a glass of vino blanc.

In truth they taste a fair bit like crayfish as well but perhaps not as sweet, so trying to park any southern hemisphere bias and be objective I think I would prefer the humble cray.

However that is where Jasus Edwardsii or the humble New Zealand Crayfish or Rock Lobster, looses its competitive advantage to its northern hemisphere cousin Homarus Americanus, as you can buy a live nice size lobster for around US$8.

Saturday morning we had class. Our working group agreed to do the preparatory work for Monday on Saturday in order to give us Sunday free. Saturday night Neil, Philippe, Steve and I went out to a very nice Italian restaurant called Taranta www.tarantarist.com in the north end of Boston, where there are lots of Italian establishments. Afterwards I caught a few of the guys from class for a beer back at Harvard Square at John Harvard's Bar. Thank you to all the people who emailed or text me to say happy birthday. I felt like I actually had two birthdays as people were ringing me on the 11th NZ time and then I had my northern hemisphere birthday on Sunday which was the 11th here.

Sunday I went shopping at this massive outlet store. There were 170 plus shops all representing good brands, Polo Ralph Lauren, Timberland, Adidas, Columbia, Gap, Hugo Boss etc. The prices were amazing, and even better when I still tend to think that $1US = $0.50NZ (and at the moment it is $0.74). So although I needed nothing I bought quite a bit!! It was a very busy day there as it is a long weekend in Massachusetts, with a public holiday on Monday and sales everywhere. 

 I arrived back to where we had to pick up the bus about 30 minutes early and cleared a couple of messages off my iPhone, while sitting on a pack-type-bench. When I arrived back at Harvard I was dismayed to find I had no iPhone. Given my track record of loosing phones and the huge inconvenience of being without it (especially as a lot of the HBS course is delivered over the mobile nexus) I was  very annoyed. I decide to ring the shopping complex, just in case it had been handed in. Miracles of miracles it they did indeed have my phone, but they closed at 6pm (it was about 3:30pm) and after that they handed it into "SECURITY" which from what they said was like a black hole that was impossible to extract anything from once it had been devoured. Neil was fantastic enough to agree to drive me to pick it up as he has a rental car based on campus. The shopping centre was approximately 60km away so the whole return trip took about 2 hours. A big thank you Neil, I was much relieved to have my phone back in my possession. We decided not to go out for dinner as a working group (the weekends participants are required to fend for themselves) on Sunday but instead stayed in our living area and had cheese, anti-pasta, fresh bread, crackers and good wine. We watched a movie and the evening was very social, a great way to spend my birthday with my new friends.

Harvard Business School - Day 32

Thursday, 9 Oct 2009

This evening there was an invitation from a number of the Jewish participants on the program to attend dinner at a local Jewish house called “Beit Chabad”. The current period is a traditional holiday time for the Jewish people, among it is what is called the “Sukkot” holiday, which means  a decorated booth or hut (a sukkah). Sukkot lasts for 7 days and is also alternatively known as the Feast of Booths, the Feast of Tabernacles or just Tabernacles.

The sukkah is reminiscent of the type of fragile dwellings in which the ancient Israelites dwelt during their 40 years of wandering in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt. Throughout the holiday the sukkah becomes the living area of the house, and all meals are eaten in it. There are specific specifications for building a sukkah, I am not sure exactly what they are, but given the standard of construction of the one we were in, I'm pretty sure it would be hard to get GDC to consent one in Gisborne!!By tradition friends of all religions are welcome at the sukkah. I think that perhaps 20 of use from the program accepted the invitation. We congregated in the lobby and them walked across to Beit Cabad as a group.

I think in general we were interested in accepting the invitation, from colleagues that have a very strong faith that many of us know little about, as a way of gaining understanding and supporting our friends.

We were greeted by one of the two Rabais present and asked to immediately help ourselves to some food.

I think many of us thought that the food would be ethnically Jewish, and while I have no doubt it was Kosher it was most certainly Chinese Takeaway by origin, and I have every confidence that the sweet and sour was chicken not pork.

We were invited to also wear a Kippah (skull cap) if we felt like it.

The younger and skinnier of the two Rabais welcomed us (it was his house) and told a us a few stories and facts, although he did like the sound of his own voice a bit. There were a few questions some of which were answered by the second Rabai an altogether more rotund version of the first (pictured). It was interesting to see a group of Jews, Muslims, Christians (Catholics, Mormons, Church of England etc.), and agnostics all gathered trying to gain a better understanding of another religion/culture. I think Andres (the Chilian  Jew in our working group) appreciated that myself, Steve, Neil and Philippe made the effort to attend.

                                       

Harvard Business School - Day 30 & 31

Tuesday, 6 Oct 2009 & Wednesday, 7 Oct 2009
Back in class again and all of  a sudden the end of the course is looming up in less than four weeks.
I had a session with my 360 degree feedback coach yesterday. It is nice to know I am not a psychopathic axe murdered, but there certainly some areas to work on that I look forward to discussing with the team when I get back.
As I have said previously we have been doing some really interesting case studies on various countries from a economic and macro-economic perspective. It really makes you think about where a country can draw sustainable economic growth from. The other thing that is very apparent is who open and non-corrupt NZ is.
We were doing a case on one country which we observed was very corrupt. We have a few of their citizens on the course so as normal they are asked to provide a internal perspective. One of these people works for a major government institution and was asked directly about corruption and whether they endorsed/participated in such activities. The answer was vague and somewhat obtuse. Several days later I was talking to another participant who is in the same living group and he was sharing the fact (and humour) that this individual has a collection of wrist watches with him on the course, which he changes regularly, the most expensive of which is worth $150,000US. I am sure not there are no civil servants in New Zealand regardless of position that can run to those sorts of extravagances.

Road Trip Day 5

Monday, 5 Oct 2009
We check out of our hotel and headed south. It took about 3.5 hours to travel back to Cambridge. We stopped off for lunch at a local dinner on the Vermont and New Hampshire border before continuing into Massachusetts and home.
The rental car company seemed unimpressed that I had dropped an oversize vehicle back at his Cambridge depot, but I didn't fancy trying to find the place we had originally picked it up from.
And so ended our road trip. It was an enjoyable break, I appreciated Mark as a travelling companion and saw a lot of wonderful countryside and met some interesting people.

I think we felt like we had done some real travelling and covered some serious distances and we had done over 2,000 kms in the 5 days and driven through 4 states (Massachusetts, New York, Vermont and New Hampshire as well as Ontario in Canada) but when you scale that off against a map of North America we have only made a small foray into the top north eastern corner of the USA.

Road Trip Day 4

Sunday, 4 Oct 2009

We carried on north east still in New York State. We had to get a car ferry across Lake Champlain at Ticonderoga www.middlebury.net/tiferry/ which is a long lake that runs from north of the Canadian border south for over 180 kms and is also the border between New York State and Vermont State.  Mark like me enjoys trying to understand the way a place works and we therefore routinely tried to find a little local diner each day to have brunch in a do some people watching.

As we traveled northward the fall colours became more and more apparent, with yellows, oranges, golds, and reds of the deciduous varieties all contrasting against the greens of the pines and other evergreens. There are little townships and sky resorts scattered all through Vermont with lots of trees as well as some agriculture especially beef and diary.
The weather was pleasant, cooler than New York State but still sunny with some autumn warmth still radiating from the sun.
We arrived in Stowe, Vermont our intended destination in the early afternoon www.gostowe.com . We had a look around the town which is a sky resort in winter and a hiking and mountain biking location in summer. In is nestled in the Green Mountain range. We managed to find the house where Scott, Peter, Michael and Kevin were staying in. It was a very nice house, but was probably 10 minutes out of town on a dirt road named "Bull Moose Run Road". We chatted to Scott for a couple of hours and went for a walk up the hill to better catch the amazing views and colours. The other boys had driven up to Montreal for the day. Mark and I went back into Stowe and found some accommodation at a nice place called the Green Mountain Inn www.greenmountaininn.com . It is a lovely old place with a strong sense of history dating back to the mid 1800s and a Victorian feel to it. We met up with the boys and had a nice meal and some equally nice wine at the Ye Ole English Inn www.englandinn.com .

Road Trip Day 3

Saturday, 3 Oct 2009
The weather had cleared by the morning, it was sunny and warm, and we spent the morning having a look around Niagara Falls. It was a far cry from the sub-zero temperatures I had experienced last time I visited in January 2007. Niagara Falls really are spectacular and it belies belief the sheer volume of water that flows out of Lake Erie into Lake Ontario.


The first photo is of American Falls which are smaller but part of the same water system.

The second is looking west back up towards Niagara Falls, with Canada on the right and the USA on the left.

The third is standing at the falls looking down at one of the Maid of the Mist boats which cart tourists up river and close to the falls, where the all get saturated because of the volume of spray. You will see they are all wearing little blue plastic ponchos.

The fourth photo is of Craig and me.

We said goodbye to Craig about midday and then crossed back over the border into the U.S.. We proceeded east again mostly along the I90 but we also took some secondary roads to try and see a bit more of the countryside skirting around the south side of Lake Ontario. Our aim was to get some or all of the way to Vermont where some of the other Australasians were staying for the weekend. We ended up travelling north east up through an area in New York State called the Adirondack Mountains www.adrkmts.com includes a big national park. It was truly beautiful to drive through this area with any number of misty lakes and small towns. We stayed the night in a motel http://www.cedarhurstmotorlodge.com beside Lake Pleasant in a town called Speculator. We found a local place called Melody Lodge www.melodylodge.com to have dinner in which was very convivial and friendly. Again we had a really nice meal and met some very friendly people a mix of locals and people with holiday homes in the area.

Road Trip Day 2

Friday, 2 Oct 2009
We left Syracuse and continued our westwards journey. The weather was not nice and we had rain all day.
We met my friend Craig Sutherland at the Niagara Casino at around 2pm and then crossed over the boarder in tandem into Canada.
Both Mark and I had flat cellphones so we found a mall and procured some car chargers that sorted out the issue. We then found a Best Western and checked in. Craig and I went back into town, but the weather was wet, so we came back to the hotel.
Mark asked one of the managers where the best ribs were in town and she said "right here". She then proceeded to order us a "sample". The sample fed all three of us boys and there was still some to spare. We didn't need to eat dinner that night. We then asked her where the best bar was in town and she said "right here". This barely seemed credible as the bar/restaurant had perhaps 6 people in it at 6pm, but we chanced our arm and stayed and by 11pm it was absolutely packed.

Road Trip Day 1

Thursday, 1 Oct 2009
After finishing school at noon we grabbed a cab into Harvard Square to pick up our rental car.
We being myself and Mark Young who is, as I have described previously, a South Australian from Adelaide who is the CFO at Adelaide Airport. He is a thoroughly decent bloke and provided to be a very easy and laid back travelling companion.
After having a bit of brain fade and first visiting the Hertz shop, where they didn't have our car, because as the lady pointed out so graciously my booking was with Avis, we proceeded across the road and waited most of the rest of our vacation in order to be served.
Once served I was informed that this Avis outlet did not rent pick-ups as they were too big to fit in the garage (the roof is too high) and that I wouldn't have been able to book one. Armed with documentary evidence to the contrary which I duly produced they then decided that it must be as a result of a computer glitch. Computer glitch or not I had the strong sense that somehow the issues at play we my fault. I was asked if I specifically wanted a pick-up and I said "yes that is why I booked one" (my humour often seems to fall a bit flat over here).

We were eventually loaded into a car and escorted across to another part of town where we were eventually presented with a shiny, white, very new, 4x4, Ford F150 pick-up truck.
This thing is truly massive. The photo of it shows beside my friend Craig's Ford Ranger which is also a 4x4 but is visibly several sizes smaller.
Navigating out of Boston wasn't overly enjoyable as it is wide and long and the law necessitated steering and positioning it on the wrong side of the road.
Once on the open highway it was a joy to drive, even if it was consuming an overly representative proportion of the world's fossil fuel reserves. Luckily it had a huge fuel tank, I don't know exactly how big, but at one stage I got over 33 US gallons into it, which I think is around 130 litres. Gasoline is only $2.50 a gallon, so about NZ$0.90 per litre . And if anyone actually cares it averaged about 18mpg.
Mark and I had decided we would head to Niagara Falls first which is about 750kms from Boston, so we had preplanned to try and knock as much of the trip off as possible on Thursday. I suspect we drove for about 5 hours west along the I90, a toll road which runs east/west across New York State, and eventually ended up staying in a town called Syracuse (population about 150,000).
Accommodation at a reasonable, but not flash, hotel was typically around US$130 per night.
We went into town for a meal and a drink and met a few interesting people. The most enjoyable was talking to a couple of young 21 year old guys who were in the military and are off to Iraq in a few weeks. They were nice boys but had no idea what they were going into or any real world view.

Harvard Business School - Day 24 and 25

Wednesday, 30 Sep 2009 & Thursday, 1 October 2009
Finished of the last day and half of class which ended midday on Thursday. Everyone is looking for to a break and some have their partners and families coming over, others are flying home, while most of the ANZAC's are heading for a look around the states.