Harvard Business School - Day 16

Tuesday, 22 Sep 2009
This week is moving along rapidly and many of us our looking forward to and thinking about what to do on our  mid course 4 1/2 day break starting noon on Thursday, 1 October.
My intention at this stage is to head north and have a look around some of the other New England states. My old rugby mate Craig "Crazy" Sutherland lives about 10 hours drive west of Boston in Pennsylvania, and I would like to try and catch up with him also for a night if possible.
I was on the Avis website last night looking to book a car and found out they have a special on a big double-cab Chevrolet pick-up, so using the basic premise of "when in Rome, do as the Roman's do" I booked it.
I was slightly disappointed as while I was able to optionalise it  up with sat nav, despite extensive searching, I was unable to find the check box for a rifle, gun-rack or hound dog. I am presuming that these will be complimentary, as well as a confederate flag in the back window and a carton of Budweiser tucked under the seat.
The course has ratcheted up a level in so much as much of the first two weeks was aimed at bringing everyone up to a common level of basic understanding around the key functional areas of business. In particular finance and accounting, but also strategy and macro economics.
Some of the subjects are now getting a bit more meaty.
As an example under the "Leading High Performing Operations"  course we had a case study based on the (Kiwi) Rob Halls ill fated and tragic commercial guiding trip up Mount Everest in 1996, where between his party and another associated one 12 lives were lost that May, including Hall's. The worst day in Everest's history.
The objective was to unpack the issues that contributed to the tragedy, grouped into areas around a) technical/system, b) cognitive, and c) leadership. Having done that the discussion focused around the parallels that can be drawn for business. It was a very interesting and fascinating discussion.
Tomorrow we have a full day split into three sessions on the Global Economic Crisis and the U.S. Current Account Deficit (mountaineering seems so much more appealing!).