During my research for my first assignment I came across some papers and a book debating about the best way to learn management skills and behaviours. One of the strongest opinions came from a distinguished professor of a Canadian University. The basic idea of his books is that MBA is the wrong way to train to the wrong people the wrong tricks. He argues that management being a skill can’t be learnt in a classroom; instead it needs experience and training on the ground.

Although no body can dispute the fact that experience is necessary in any occupation or profession. Cognitive learning is essential to arm you with the tools and the methodology to understand better your work as a manager and how to improve it.

I disagree with this professor and with some of the published papers challenging the suitability of MBAs. I decided to embark in an MBA, because after 10 years of managerial experience I realized that fundamental frameworks for my career were missing. Because no matter how many courses of finances, accounting and project management you take, you still miss a holistic view and understanding of your work as a manager. Because you actually end up learning more from your class mates than from books and professors who act more as a facilitators than teachers. And because It is a lot of fun to go back to the University, enjoy the debates and challenge every well-established position or belief including the existence of the MBAs.

I’d visited Oxford several times before. The first time, about 12 years earlier, I’d been part of a BBC course. As part of an organized tour we visited famous colleges like Christ Church and St John’s, and pretty much all of the touristy, pretty parts of the town. But to their credit, the tour organizers made sure we saw the deprived parts like Blackbird Leys, so that we did not go away with a one-dimensional, prettified view of Oxford.

There is the romance of the Dreaming Spires, but many others will only ever be able to dream.
There is real poverty, particularly in northern pockets of the town. So while on Friday nights the streets are awash with late-teen children of the great and good of Great Britain learning to get drunk on cheap lager, there are other, life-toughened children from poorer families who already know how to.
It’s a striking contrast. Henry will leave Balliol with the self-confidence that the well bred and well educated have, and take path to sure success, probably in the City or at the Bar. Henry from Blackbird will tread his own, predetermined path. There are exceptions, of course, but it’s a terrible indictment on the British schooling system that there aren’t enough.

Anyway enough of this downbeat stuff. Oxford is a very beautiful, historic town. As Andrey and I walked back to Saïd after registering at St Anne’s College, Andrey, a Muscovite, kept shaking his head and laughing.
“It’s like out of a fairy tale”, he said.

EMBA 6 has really taken to Oxford. Colleges are a unique part of life in old uni towns like Oxford and Cambridge. Scarves with the college crests were bought. One colleague flaunted her distinct green and white Jesus College scarf.  She allowed me to wear it for a while.

We quickly sussed out the watering holes— special mention must go to the indefatigable Warren. The catalyst for many things social after class, and sharp, focused and prepared next morning.

Just past Trinity College on the other side of the road is The Turf. It’s like a labyrinth— a maze of cozy little rooms. Quaint. Old. Very English. Some good lagers and bitters there. I like Village Idiot.

The first module was amazing. Between the tremendous desire to get started with our MBA and the excitement to meet so many new people from so many corners of the globe; we didn’t notice that at the end of the module we had an assignment to complete. An ‘Oxford Style’ essay with five thousands words of a subject that no body agrees about: What do managers do.

Does any body know what managers do? I don’t; and I have been working as such for more than 8 years. It gets worse. When you start to sink your teeth into the recommended literature; you find that there are as many definitions of managers and leadership as scholars have tried to define it.

After skimming two books and studying fourteen white papers you have a revelation; this assignment will look great if you had six months to prepare it, but you have only a couple of weeks to read all literature, analyse it and finally write your essay. Against your will and your better judgment you need to make a crucial decision. Stop reading and start writing. Before I knew it I had more than six thousands words that was in a desperate need of cleaning, editing and finally cutting down to five thousands words as required by the assignment. The first draft is finished and you don’t like it. You want to start to write everything from scratch but you get a wake up call. The pre-reading for the next module is already in your inbox and it looks massive. Time to submit your essay with your fingers crossed and with one hand covering your eyes. Done!!! Did I survive this one? Don’t know until the results come back, but I don’t have a lot of time to dwell on it as the next module is already here and it looks scary; Decision Science.

Alan Morrison was teaching a class on Finance, Rationality and the Profit Motive, and made reference to the AOL/Time Warner merger.
Then he asked in a by-the-way sort of way, “anyone here familiar with this merger?”
A cool California drawl came from the back of the class.
“I worked with AOL/Time Warner”.
Bob, one of the quiet men of class, spoke knowledgably about the effects of the merger in back and forth with Alan for a few minutes.
Later the subject of Vodafone-Mannesmann came up. Again the question. “Anyone here from Vodafone?”
Ahmed put his hand up. “I work for Vodafone”. Again, a knowledgeable dissection of the merger. From the class.
That’s when I knew I’d made the right decision— to join the Executive MBA and not the MBA class.
Notwithstanding the years of work experience— 20 in my case— there are solid arguments for going MBA.
One year instead of nearly two.
Singular focus on an academic year out of work, instead of mixing work and study.
The small difference of £15K or so.
 
The advantages of the EMBA were:

• Not having to give up the job completely
• A more manageable programme for people who’d not performed at an academic gig for a long time  
• Experienced classmates who’d achieved much professionally, from whom you’ll learn a lot.
   

Listening to Bob and Ahmed in class just confirmed what was already clear— there was some serious mental and professional firepower in the room, and not all of it was Alan’s.
There are some pretty robust incisive contributions.
Adrian or Tico talking financial trading.
Or Barbara talking company contracts.
I cite a couple dozen more examples.
I’d made the right choice.
It’s going to be tough for a broadcaster for whom garrulousness comes naturally, but if I’d just keep quiet I might learn something these next 20 months.

I first set foot in Saïd Business School in November, for my admissions interview. Stephan Chambers, Executive MBA Director, was my sole interrogator. It was a tough interview: he was razor sharp. He’d clearly prepared well, and seemingly had known me for years. I’d had an easier time with interview panels of three.

He eventually homed in two things I myself had reservations about: my frequent travel for work— how would I successfully navigate the demands of the programme? Most of my recent work related travel had been to the US to cover the primaries and general election, and now that that was over, I said, I’d be doing far more studio presentation.

The second was how I’d cope with the demanding quantitative component, seeing that my barely used engineering background was a long time in the past. I allowed that I was preparing for GMAT and getting a good sense of where I stood on algebraic matters.

Ginny Madeley from EMBA admissions kindly showed me around.

I came back to Saïd Business School in later that month, to cover the Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford event. I’m a techie, had done technology pieces for and presented the World Service’s technology programme, and talking with the guys like Biz Stone, the founder of Twitter and Reid Hoffman, chairman of LinkedIn, was like giving a greedy kid the keys to the chocolate shop.

I liked what I saw at Saïd Business School.

The quality of the lecture theatres was first-rate. I’d looked at some other biz schools and in this respect, the school’s teaching facilities were as good as any I’d seen.

I like the aesthetics of the building— brick, pale wood and glass modernism and high ceilings along the lecture theatre corridor.

The stone courtyard and the amphitheatre above look inviting. I had the feeling that as the days grew longer and, especially in the spring and summer, I’d really enjoy being at Saïd Business School.

Of course, the building has its critics, as I’ll show more fully in a later post. That muted mood lighting in the evening may look great along lecture theatre row but it doesn’t work in the library at night. MBAs and undergrads, who spend a longer time at Saïd Business School than we EMBAs do, find it wholly inadequate.

Nonetheless, I like the look and feel of Saïd Business School. I’d like to think that it’s not because I spend relatively little time there. Can’t wait for the summer. I hope we get an open air class in the amphitheatre. Never taken classes in sunglasses.

The formal college dinner was at Worcester, my college.

Mid-January, and I’m back in the London office after module 9. With module 10 nearly three months away, it’s as good a time as any to set the pace for 2009.

For many of us, the Christmas break was about disengaging from work and studies (i.e. putting off writing the Global Strategy assignment until our arrival in Oxford), so it was a relief to have six hours of lecture each day as opposed to nine.

Thinking back to the summer modules, the temperatures in Oxford plummeted since September, right alongside the FTSE. In spite of the constant pursuit of warmth, the mood was decidedly more relaxed in January than it was during the December module when we had the Finance and Financial Reporting exams to prepare for.

Having started the core electives, module 9 had fewer lectures with the entire class. Indeed, it didn’t escape our attention that we will only meet as an entire class for three more lectures before splitting up for the summer electives.

Judging from the past year, the next nine months will pass quickly; only too soon it will be time for the EMBA V class to progress from our multi-faceted work/home/Oxford existence, and onto our next steps.

What awaits us at the other end of this journey?

Cliff in evening study sessions in SR10

This time last year, many of the EMBA IVs had started new jobs or formed new companies.

Not so for us. With a few exceptions, most of us in EMBA V remain in the same jobs - we may perhaps be even more unclear about what we’ll do in September 2009, than we were when we started just over a year ago.

Naturally I’m not thrilled about the financial crisis, but have arrived at the conclusion that studying Finance at Oxford in the midst of it is deepening my understanding of the central issues of corporate governance and industry regulation. And whilst we may not leave Oxford with a fistful of job offers that are multiples of our previous salaries, I maintain that the financial crisis is in fact maximising the value of our education.

Attention is heightened. Theories are questioned. Lecturers are challenged (in both the lecture theatre and in the pub!)… How the financial crisis will affect our plans is yet to be determined; that it will is assured.

Making big choices which span our personal and professional lives is difficult; tragically, few people have the courage to take the risk. If you’re contemplating starting the Oxford EMBA next year, consider this: September 2011 will arrive anyway, and while there’s no way of knowing whether or by how much the financial crisis may have eased by then, one thing will remain very, very binary.

Either you will have an Oxford MBA degree, or you won’t… And if you do, you will understand intuitively, amongst other things, just how appropriate the Black-Scholes model for option valuation can be in calculating what is effectively a binomial decision tree.

SBS cloisters on a cold Sunday evening in January

As 2008 draws to a close and EMBA V passes the half-way milestone in our Oxford education, it’s very difficult indeed to resist the temptation of reflecting on the year just gone…

So I give in.

What was 2008 all about? What themes emerged? What threads were knit together to weave the fabric of 2008?

With ever so many ways to frame 2008, I would suggest that it was the year that offered far more questions than answers. And only very rarely could the questions be answered in a simple manner of yes or no…

Not surprisingly, there was a bottomless ocean of academic questions to be considered: What’s the difference between a manager and a leader? Do the dynamics of my industry reflect a Bertand or Cournoud model of oligopoly? What are the implications of Modigliani Miller’s Proposition II, and how have these changed in the face of today’s global financial crisis?

Professionally, I find myself asking, how much value can my business plan really create? Will I put myself forward for greater contributions within my company and industry, or explore new possibilities in private equity and social entrepreneurship?

Personally and practically, I find myself asking continuously - how can I stretch myself to reach the next milestone?

As the year ticked away in its seasons and rhythms, I soon recognised that the academic, professional, practical, personal and even philosophical questions cannot be compartmentalised - that they are in fact as intertwined as a tree is to the earth, the sky and everything in between.

Every project that you do, every assignment you submit, every connection that you make between colleagues, friends, family, classmates and professors… You are in fact raising a question.

Sometimes, you may even find yourself asking, is this achievable? Do I have it within me to complete this journey?

To this end, an ancient Chinese saying comes to mind:

Ask the question and risk being a fool for five minutes; don’t ask the question and remain a fool forever.

It will have been a full three months by the time we return to Oxford next week, and indeed, it seems a long time ago since Module 7. This past September saw the departure of the EMBA IVs, and we were treated to a glimpse of what we can look forward to this time next year - the satisfaction of having earned the MBA degree from Oxford!

We’ll be on our own for Module 8, and then the New Year will usher in the EMBA VIs and we will be the ’senior class,’ the experienced ones who can advise the incoming class on what to expect for the first 12 months…

What will I tell them? Surely, when they ask me if it’s difficult, I will answer with a very affirmative YES.

We may not be going to the moon, but as JFK said, we do it not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard.

I will also repeat what we heard from Stephan Chambers that Monday morning way back at the start of Module 1 in January: the EMBA is transformational - professionally, academically and personally.

Professionally, I’ve been engaged within my organisation to lead bigger projects with larger commercial impacts; I will articulate the internal business case for my entrepreneurial project, and the execution for my core project. Though not yet complete, the EMBA has already set me free to think and act as a leader rather than a manager - to do the right thing, instead of just settling with doing things right. 

Academically, we’ve each written about 40,000 words thus far, articulating ideas, consolidating research, analysing outcomes, quantifying performance, exploring organisational behaviours… We’ve become fluent in the language of business. And Edward has already alluded to the lively discussions arising from pursuing the Oxford MBA in the midst of global financial turmoil and oil prices which rise and fall like the tide on the River Thames.

Personally, we’ve forged alliances with people who are globally-minded, dynamic, capable, and crucially, keen to make a difference. We’ve earned the respect of one another - especially those with families and other competing commitments. And for the record, our class has already seen four new births this year!

Of course the aspect of fun is not to be overlooked! Here in London, after picking up lost momentum from our London study group meetings, a bunch of us met for an evening of ice skating and drinks at Somerset House, followed by dinner at the Albannach on Trafalgar Square. Indeed it was a relief to be amongst classmates and friends without being constrained to discussions about the weighted average cost of capital and the vailidity of our assumptions in the acquisition of the Colinsville aluminium plant…

Earlier this evening during our Finance Study Group conference call, anxiety about forthcoming exams was expressed very candidly. Indeed, it didn’t escape our attention that there was as much silence during the call as there was discussion. That said, we also had our moments of laughter - Dave’s misunderstanding that our Operations Management text was a Christmas present comes to mind…

So with that thought and until next year, it’s time to sign off and resume studying in earnest…

How does one employ corporate governance to improve internal management? How does one allocate (or re-allocate) finance to improve earnings? As per Edward’s earlier blog, it depends…This is one of many things we learned from Financial Reporting. When reading balance sheets, income statements and deriving cash flows, it all depends…

Who would have thought that Financial Reporting could be so philosophical? After enduring the mock exam during Lecture 6, we were further reminded by Paolo Quattronne that Financial Reporting is driven by greater motivations than numbers and figures… that it is furthermore our responsibility, as students of an institution that has been educating leaders for more than 800 years, to question these motivations and institutions…

From a more technical aspect, we learned that whilst some parts of the balance sheet reveal insights into the effectiveness of internal management, others provide a way to measure the management of external, market-facing resources i.e. finance and capital.

So a firm can improve its enterprise value by considering internal aspects - operational efficiencies and the value of the services launched to a market…

Alternatively or in combination, re-allocation of finance and capital can have an equally compelling impact on enterprise value.

Considering this on a personal level, it occurred to me that the same methodology can apply to any individual embarking on the Oxford Executive MBA. To complete this journey, which is not an easy one by any measure, you need to effectively manage your own internal resources whilst simultaneously managing your external social i.e. market capital… this being the relationships and energy which nurture your internal resources.

It seems that the rules which apply to a firm are the very same which apply to an individual… You need to know who you are (organisational structure and branding), where you’re going (strategy), how you’re going to get there (operations), why you want to get there in the first place (marketing and corporate social responsibility), and how you’re going to tell the world (financial reporting)…

And if you’ve done your homework, your earnings - whether or not you choose to pay them out as dividends (roof terrace party?!? See my earlier blog), together with capital appreciation… will sum up to a greater return on your own fixed and current assets…

Back to work in the London office after modules 5 and 6. The pace has stepped up a notch - for the amount of time spent in lectures, pre- and follow up readings and case studies, as well as in the forthcoming series of assessment deadlines and exams.

Since starting the Executive MBA, time management has taken on a whole new meaning - you really do need to stay on top of your game to keep up with studying, planning, revising and writing, all on top of the day job! Nevertheless, whether because of or in spite of all the work, the Oxford Executive MBA continues to be a multi-dimensional, rewarding experience.

Returning to the London office after two weeks in Oxford in some ways feels as if I had never left - same commute, same people, same desk, same familiar faces behind the tills at Pret and EAT… And yet, I’m left with the sense that the familiarity is superficial. I find that I’m asking different questions about the business. I pay attention to data in new ways. I think about cost, competition and management control systems from a deeper perspective. My presence and role in meetings have evolved… Eight months as an Oxford Saïd Business School student, I’m conscious that the seeds for greater contributions have already been planted… that last year’s status quo is all but a memory.