Any dream will do!

Well, this is it. The last entry. The 113th and last chapter for me. At least as the official diary writer. This entry is for the friends I made this year in Lausanne.

After a hectic - but good - week with graduation ceremony, the big ball at the Palace Hotel, a few days of skiing in France with some of my classmates - or fellow alumni as I should call them now - we packed my apartment into the car over the weekend and went to my new home in Genova, Italy. My girlfriend moved from Copenhagen to Genova in July, so this is where the next chapter of our lives will be written.

For the past three months or so I have had one particular time and situation in mind. The time was Monday 14 December - i.e. yesterday - at around 8.15 in the morning when my girlfriend had just left the apartment to go to work. I pictured myself making a cup of fresh coffee and enjoying it on the balcony, while thinking about the past and future. I had been looking forward to that very moment with great anticipation and with some anxiety.

So yesterday that moment came. Susana went to work. I had already prepared the coffee. I put on a jacket - it is only 3C degrees here these days - and went to the balcony. The sun was just coming up and the view of the Mediterranean was stunning. And then I asked myself the question that I learned to ask myself this year: 'So, how do you feel, Thorsten?'.

'Well, I don't know', my first thought was, but as I have learned through the work with my PDI 'shrink', it will come out once I try to describe it. So how do I really feel?

Sad? - Not so much anymore, last week I did, sad to be leaving, sad to give up something unique and special that never would come back. Sad to say goodbye to a lot of really special friends. How can they be special if there are so many of them, you may ask. Well, they just can.

Regrets? - Not anymore, again, last week I did have a lot of regrets. Regrets that I did not get to talk much more to many more people in the class, that I did not go out more, that I did not work even harder, pushed myself further, read more cases, did more work in the groups, etc. I then realized that I gave what I had. Perhaps I could have made different choices which would have given different outcomes, perhaps, perhaps not, but I could not have done MORE.

Sense of achievement? - Not really, perhaps I should say not yet. Logically I should feel it. I have just completed the toughest year of my life, in many ways. I think the real value of what I learned only will show once I start putting it to use.

So what DO I feel?

I feel like in a vacuum, a bit of nothingness somehow, not positive, not negative, just being in this very moment without anything that I HAVE to do. A feeling that there is a world out there waiting for me. A feeling of being prepared to go and grab it, but also a feeling that it will not come to me. If I do nothing, nothing will happen. Most of all I feel an underlying confidence that I both can and will grab it. A confidence that I will figure out how.

While moving I came across an old Andrew Lloyd Webber CD that I used to play a lot, it must be at least 15 years old. As I am writing this Jason Donovan is singing 'Any dream will do'. I could not agree more.

It is time to hand over to the new 'generation' at IMD. Thank you to all the applicants, future students, classmates, partners, parents and everyone else that have bothered to read my scribbles this year and thank you for all the feedback and encouragement, particularly when times were tough. It was a pleasure and an honor to be your eyes and ears in the IMD MBA 2009 class room. :-)

Ciao!

Thorsten

Well, perhaps there was some sense of achievement after all! :-)

Genova from our balcony, the home of a new beginning.

Thank you for making this year such an unforgettable one!

It's over!

'....and with those words I end the MBA program of 2009'. I couldn't believe it when I heard program director Martha Maznevski say those words a couple of hours ago. It can't be over! How can it be! Help, put me back in the bubble! I am not done yet! There are still so many people that I need to talk to!

We still have a couple of sessions with feedback and rewards on Monday and of course the graduation on Tuesday, but that is 'just' the celebrations. The program as such is over! Why don't you get it, Thorsten!?!

Well, why don't I get it. Perhaps because it has been approaching with the speed of a bullet to the very last minute. Even the last few weeks I have not been able to find much time to sit down and reflect on how I want to say my goodbyes and mentally phase into my new life. We have been (and still are) going full speed to the very last minute, like a bullet train that does not slow down before it is too late....

...just like it happened in Montparnasse Station, Paris in 1895.

It has been an emotional day. Most of all because it started with Professor George Kohlrieser's legendary session on 'bonding and grieving', on how to deal with loss and separation. He is a clinical psychologist, a hostage negotiator and professor in organizational behavior all in one. He can basically make people cry on command. When you then add a class full of people that have been through A LOT together the past 11 months and who are starting to realize that they soon will be spread all over the world and NEVER will be together again as a complete class, then you have all the parts needed to make it both a memorable and emotional event.

I am sitting in study room 9 and writing this. Whether a coincidence or not, this is where it all started 11 months ago. This is where my first study group - named Cloud #9 - was born and lived. This was where I for first time met Liesbeth, Misayo, Eva, Fadi, Eric, Kornelius and Juan. I remember like it was yesterday how nervous I was. SO much has happened since then, and what a ride it has been. A ride with ups and downs, high mountains, endless tunnels and sharp turns.

We have a saying in Denmark (I am sure it is used elsewhere as well) which basically says that after a busy period you must take the time to let your soul catch up with you. Although I physically have arrived to December, I think my soul still is working its way through March or something like that. I wonder how long it takes for it to catch up and thereby for me to understand what really has happened to me this year? Probably years!

Thorsten

Wednesday was the Polar Bear's last dip in Lake Geneva.

Today we refurbished the MBA Archway that we created on the first day of class.

Stefano and Albert with their hand prints that have been on the Archway the last 11 months.

Eugene, Joe, Misayo and Young-Ha is preparing the new Archway decoration. The Archway has been given a new meaning that symbolizes our transition back into the real world. We will walk through it on our way to the auditorium to receive our diplomas on Tuesday.
I will not reveal the final result to you just yet. Why don't you come see for yourself?

Seeing CERN

Yesterday we had the opportunity to visit one of the places that I really have wanted to see eversince we arrived to this part of Switzerland a year ago. We went to the European Center for Nuclear Research or CERN as it normally is called. A 27km circular particle accelerator 100m under the ground in the south western tip of Switzerland and eastern France. In the accelerator - also called the Large Hydron Collidor or LHC - two beams of protons are accelerated to speeds close to the speed of light in opposite directions and are then brought to collisions. The aim is to recreate the conditions that existed when the universe was created with the big bang billions of years ago. Nothing less. The aim is to understand what matter (and anti-matter) is made of. More specifically they are looking for the Higgs boson, which the Standard Model claims exist, but which has never been observed.

Enormous amounts of information is created at the collision, more than it is physically possible to store. CERN is therefore always at the forefront at information technology. That also goes for sharing of the information that is created. Due to the nature of the organization, that consists of thousands of scientists in universities all over the planet it was necessary to create an efficient way of distributing the information efficiently. CERN therefore became the birthplace of the worldwide web.

The visit was arranged by Professor Donald Marchand who has been studying the collaborative decision processes in CERN the last two years and by our own classmate Paolo Guglielmini [Italy], who worked in CERN before joining IMD. It was fascinating to hear both their perspectives!

CERN gathers the best brains from around the world and has several Nobel price winners in its history books. You can clearly feel how passionate the people are at being at the frontier of what mankind knows. They are out there where the building blocks of life, parallel universes and unknown dimensions are part of the everyday discussion.

As Donald said at one point: "These people are every day at the edge of what humans cans understand". One of my good classmates added "and he is not even talking about group dynamics" (referring to our leadership sessions with Professor Jack Wood).

A Spanish scientist explained how a typical experiment typically runs over 10 hours in what to us seemed like a pretty tedious and boring process, but when Fadi Sbaiti asked him: 'So where is the excitement?' he answered with a big smile 'What do you mean?'. How could we not be excited about this? We later learned that they actually had set a new world record that day!

The state-of-the-art control room of ATLAS, the newest of the four detectors along the LHC. ATLAS detects the particles that are created at the collisions of the protons.

Ready for a 3D movie!

Part of the LHC control room.

Paolo Guglielmini telling about how fascinating it was to work at CERN.

A quick jump back to IMD. I have been waiting anxiously for months to take this picture. Juan Benitez (far left) is out of a family with a very special set of names. Juan's full name is Juan Manuel Benitez. Juan's father (far right) is also Juan Manuel Benitez. Juan's brother (nr. 2 from the left) is Juan Nicolas Benitez and there is yet another brother (not here) named Juan Camilo Benitez, so all in all, a family with four Juan Benitez. Amazing, isn't it?
Lately, yet another brother has sneaked into the family. Our classmate Gerrit from Germany (nr. 2 from the right) visited Juan's family last week in Colombia (see below picture) and immediately felt at home. We therefore now call him Juan Gerrit Benitez! :-)

Gerrit with the rest of the Benitez family in Colombia last week.

Thorsten

Football finale

I had a Friday that was quite unusual. I got up at 3.30 in the morning to get on a 4.20 train to Geneva in order to reach the 6.30 EasyJet flight to Brussels. As I was sitting there waiting at the gate, feeling sorry for myself for being awake as such inhuman hours Fill Niu [China] from the class walked in. He had been up at the same time, been on the same train and was going on the same flight. He looked as fresh as he always does, so there went my excuse for pitying myself.

We slept all the way to Brussels and a little before 8, the time we normally walk into the classroom, we were walking out of Brussels Airport. Fill was picked up by the company he was visiting and I took the train to Antwerp, where I had two meetings. Mid afternoon, I got on the train to Rotterdam for another meeting in a café right next to the Rotterdam train station. Two hours later I was back in the train, now heading towards Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. Everything was going according to whatever little plans I had made......until a passenger on the train got sick and had to be picked up by an ambulance. That took 30 minutes and now time suddenly was in short supply! I ran through the airport and made it to the gate just as they started to board. Back to Geneva, on the train back to Lausanne and at 00.30 I was finally home again. A nice 21 hour work day, good meetings and I avoided staying overnight. It is great to have these high-pace high-energy days from time to time..... as long as you get your rest in between.

Saturday and Sunday have been passing at a much lower pace. More and more signs of the closing of our MBA experience is starting to appear. One of them is the arrival of parents, brothers and sisters that are coming in for the graduation on 8. December.

Today was the last round of football in Parc de Milan. Our Sunday morning football is one of the things that I will miss the most. There were weeks - particularly during the building blocks - where is was the only thing that kept me going, the only short-term reward I had in sight to get through the week.

There was a great show of people today, so we were playing 11-on-11 or something like that. After the game our fearless and tireless football captain of the year, Joost Mackor, had invited us all out for a beer. The Sportsbar was closed, so we ended up at the White Horse, having beers and burgers. The team presented Joost with a picture of the silver-medal-winning MBAT team duly signed by the team members. Both on and off the track Joost has been the driving force behind the team. Thanks Joost, from all of us!!

Thorsten

We had a great game today!


Today's orange team. It is Yury's dad in the back with Yury's daughter.


Sometimes you can shake a camera so much that the picture actually becomes good. I was just about to delete this picture when it occurred to me that it somehow pictures a memory. The blurred but good memory that our Parc-de-Milan days eventually will become.

Of course this diary entry must finish with the team's grand achievement.
The MBAT 2009 Silver medal, Paris 9 May 2009.

Vision to reality

A great guest entry by John Rohan, the dad of one of my good classmates David Rohan. I include it here because I shows how the IMD impact goes far beyond the MBA students.

Recently my wife and I had a very enjoyable lunch at IMD and met Thorsten and in our discussions, I mentioned that I had previously attended two IMD courses for executives. On hearing that Thorsten was looking to start up his own company, I mentioned to him that, after attending my first course at IMD, I made a major change in my career, which most of my friends and family thought was very risky, if not crazy. Thorsten has now asked that I might repeat some of that story for the IMD Diary.

The reason for our visit to Lausanne was to visit our son David and Kate our daughter in law. As many of you would know, David is a 2009 MBA student.

The first IMD course I attended was in the early 90’s and was entitled ‘Vision to Reality’, nearly all the 45 or so attendees were from different countries, very like the composition of the current MBA class. All attendees were at, or about to move to managing director or executive chairman levels. Whilst some of us had MBA degrees others had worked their way up from the ‘coal face’ without any formal qualifications, however all were generally successful business people.

As all IMD participants know, IMD is very different to other business schools. One example which really brought this home to us was a remarkable lecture by an Indian Professor from Harvard on the effects of subliminal advertising on TV, (Incidentally he was not advocating its use). He mentioned at the start of his lecture that during the hour lecture, he would put everybody to sleep during that lecture. As you would expect this group of relatively hard nosed business people thought this was impossible. He gave a very good and interesting lecture to a minority as he succeeded in hypnotizing all but two people to sleep, in the hour and woke them all up at the same time at the end of the hour.

We all learned a lot about ourselves and human behaviour in general and most of us came out of the course believing that up to that stage in our careers we had only tapped a small part of our real potential and we came away with the healthy belief we could achieve anything.

When I came to the Vision to Reality program I had been running companies for about 15 years and had been working my way up the corporate ladder over that time. At this stage of my career, I was running 42 companies in Asia, the Pacific and America, for one of Australia’s blue chip organizations with over 3000 employees and this group of companies had been growing successfully for the previous 3 years.

Shortly after returning from the program I was approached by Vodafone UK to become MD of Vodafone Australia and to build and run a digital mobile network. There was no office, no people, no network, no product etc. I accepted the job and I am sure that my then, recent experience at IMD had much to do with this decision.

Within 6 years the Australian business went from zero to $1Billion turnover and from 1 to 2500 employees. It certainly helped that the digital mobile market in Australia doubled every year for those 6 years and as I said to Thorsten in Lausanne, that business success is also sometimes helped by a little luck and fate.

In these tough economic times I am sure that many of the 2009 IMD MBA graduates will have needed to accept new positions which are probably more risky and not quite in the career direction or in the country that they might have wanted. I hope my positive experience of making what seemed to be a risky career change gives them some confidence for their own success.

I wish all the 2009 MBA participants all the best in their future careers.

John Rohan

Chillin'

It has been a relatively light day, where I got a lot of small practical things done, canceling insurances, delivering stuff for dry cleaning, etc. Nothing really major, but just nice to get going on all the things that have piled up. I went to the school for lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon there.

We went to the Chinese place again for dinner. It was just as packed as last time! It is as if all of Lausanne have discovered this place at the same time. The food - particularly the dumplings - is great and the price absolutely reasonable.

A lot of people are out of town this weekend, some have gone skiing and some are visiting friends around Europe. As you probably can sense from this Diary entry I don't really have much to write about. The reason is that there is actually not much happening. And you know what, for once that is actually very nice!

The bright summer colors are gone, but that does not make the the landscape around Lausanne any less beautiful.

And the sunsets have not lost their colors at all.

Are you liable for your tweets?

Are you liable for your tweets? That is what the headline on cnn.com currently is asking. In the article the paper goes on to ask 'Can the law keep up with technology?' It describes how a number of people have faced law suits because of the statements they have written on their twitter accounts. The article goes on to philosophize that the laws governing free speech online generally are five years behind the technology. The technology needs to develop first before you can design laws to govern it, the argument seems to be. Sounds reasonable to me.

Interesting article, I thought. Even more interesting, I thought, that I actually read it. And took the time to let it sink in. Something have changed. It is not like I haven't gotten my share of news. Particularly after Jean-Pierre Lehmann's class on Global Political Economy I made sure that I subscribed to some RSS feeds on the different part of the world news. A very efficient way of keeping up with the high-level news. I barely made it further than the headlines, though. Until now.

I feel that I am in the process of resurfacing after a very long dive and I am starting to rediscovered things that I used to enjoy. Such as reading the news. Only three weeks ago I discovered that the information center at the school actually keeps the main Danish business newspaper 'Børsen'. There is nothing better than grabbing a cup of coffee and a Bounty chocolate bar and then spend half an hour after class reading the news. Not because I have to, but because I can.

It was mostly Danish news and business news used to read, but the Global Political Economy class (and probably the IMD environment) has changed that. Right now I enjoy following Obama on his trip around Asia and the talks about the upcoming climate summit in Copenhagen. The International Herald Tribune delivers 90 papers to the school every day in attempt to get us to become so accustomed to the paper that we will buy it afterward. I probably will from time to time.

Friday freedom

What do you do when you have stared yourself blind on your business plan and no longer can come up with useful answers? You call some of your classmates with experience in the field into a meeting, you explain the problem and a couple of hours later you are on your way again with your head full of new input and - most of all - a new solution to your problem. That was what I did today and it worked wonders! Thanks guys!

We have this and the coming two Fridays off. I was not in Lausanne during the 'On-campus recruiting' weeks, so this is the first week day where I have not had class or group work since I arrived in Lausanne. What a wonderful feeling of freedom to walk around in town and feel the fresh pre-winter air in your lungs as you walk up the steep pedestrian street. I spent the afternoon running some errands. Amongst other things I went up to get my official 'Departure Certificate', which basically is a letter stating that Switzerland acknowledges that I am leaving the country. As I walked up there I discovered several new places; stores, nice restaurants and a big movie theater. Places that I had no clue existed and that I definitely would like to frequent. It is somewhat ironic, though, that I only see them on the way to pick up my departure documents.

My girlfriend arrived early in the evening and we went out for Chinese with a bunch of people from the class. When we arrived at the place there were two other tables with IMD students already there. A popular place, indeed! And their dumplings were fantastic! The feeling of the fact that this year is about to end has started to settle and we have realized that if we are to go and have all the coffees, beers, dinners and other get-togethers that we talked about the whole year, then we need to do it NOW!

Eugene Cha [Korea], Juan Benitez [Colombia] and Tony Jamous [France/Lebanon] enjoying some of the good Chinese food.

Nicolas Denef [Belgium] and Suchir Swarup [Canada/India].

Handstands and hamburgers

Like Kristin I am also attending the class on India and China this week. The class is taught by Professors Anand Narasimhan and Winter Nie, who are from India and China respectively. Today Professor Nie (pictured above) taught a case about how the relatively small Chinese company Alibaba successfully kicked global giant Ebay out of the Chinese business-to-business e-commerce market in a couple of years.

Alibaba was forced to use new and unproven methods to overcome the massive financial advantage Ebay possessed. One of the things Alibaba did was to teach their employees how to do handstands. The idea was that to get them to see things from a different angle. Chuks Onunkwo is not Chinese, but was happy to show how they do handstands in Nigeria. Eric Vergara [Thailand] (and the rest of the class) is watching.

The beautiful autumn colors and the winter coats have come out, but that cannot keep an MBA class off the ping-pong tables. Here it is Henry Low [Singapore] and Juan Benitez [Colombia] on the left playing Eric Vergare [Thailand] and Ilya Syshchikov [Russia].

Yury Vasilkov [Russia], Carsten Bremer [Germany] and Fill Niu [China] had their birthdays Sunday and Monday. That was celebrated yesterday at the White Horse pub with cold beer and dart games. Since birthday cake does not go very well with beer, Valeria Pavlyukovskaya arranged for birthday hamburgers. Here the three gentlement are joined Chia Chia Lim [Singapore].
Carsten is from the old East Germany and has his birthday on 9 November, the same day as the Berlin wall came down in 1989. That was his 13th birthday. He has both memories and very interesting stories from that time. We tend to forget that these events are not very far away. In fact, they are part of the people that are around us every day.

Mind your map

I have been putting a lot of hours in my business plan over the last couple of days. I collected a lot of the information for it in Hong Kong and Singapore back in September, but then came a month of ICP with travel and intensive days in the dungeons, so I never had time to write it down. It would have been better if I had written it down earlier, though. You loose a lot of details when you have things in your head for too long, but at least I remember all the general principles.

I guess I am also starting to panic a little bit. The end of the year is drawing near. Just like everybody else is on the hunt for a job, then I need to create this job for myself. It is not really that different. I promised myself and a potential investor that I would have my business plan ready by mid November. I am glad that I made this commitment; it keeps me on my toes. I guess I also panic, because as I write, I realize what a monstrous task I have in front of me. There is such an endless amount of things to consider, when you want to start on your own: Where do you register the company, where do you find investors, who do you hire to help you, where do you find them, what are the risks, how do you mitigate them, etc, etc. I try to stick to the big picture, but it is not easy and I still get lost in the detail too often.

Luckily Johan Jansén-Storbacka (Sweden/Finland) showed me some mind-mapping techniques and tools the other day. That has been a huge help in getting the whole thing organized. Thanks, Johan! The perhaps greatest benefit of all is to get all this stuff out of your head and down on paper. That is the benefit of the writing process.

Well, I better get back to work!

Ciao!

Thorsten

A business tour de force

We are having a business tour de force this week with no less than 18 speakers coming through in five days. Seven of them were there today: Bombardier, Deloitte, IKEA, Dell, Kuehne & Nagel, Boston Consulting Group and PubliGroupe. All of them world class players in each their field. The overall subject is change management in different forms.

All of it is done as live cases, which means that the companies present a business situation or dilemma that they have faced. That could be anything from a spin-off of the company to the roll out of a new global strategy. We ask a few questions and give our shot at a solution. We then hear how the company actually solved the issue and what the result was. Interesting stuff which at the same time gives good insight into a lot of different companies.

Monday morning we turned in our last leadership paper, which was our last large assignment (as far as I know). Due to the presentation of the live cases we don't have to read cases in advance and there is no more group work either. This means that I have been home at 6pm the last two days, WITH NOTHING TO DO! Weird, very weird. I almost don't know what to do with myself. Can you imagine, today I even read the newspaper!! I mean, the real paper version! The one that you easily can spend an hour reading while you are sipping a cup of coffee! Great feeling, but at the same time I almost feel guilty for not doing anything! Luckily I have the diary today, so the shock is not too great, but what about tomorrow? :-)

Thorsten


Deloitte and IKEA live cases presented by Luis Gallardo and Patrick Lindvall respectively.


Stefan Minder from Kuehne & Nagel presenting how he revamped their sales force. It was great to see someone from my old industry - transportation and logistics - on the podium.

Movie Night

We had movie night tonight. Although it was very cosy with popcorn, coke and beer there was also an intellectual element to it. After the last two days teachings on 'Ethics and Social Responsiblity' Professor Michael Yaziji showed Al Gores well known movie 'An inconvenient truth' and Marc Achbar's 'The Corporation'. The former tells the story of the biggest challenge of our time, Global warming, while the second is about how corporate greed and lack of ethics and moral can leads to exploitation and human misery. The latter is a very anti-business movie, but it is nevertheless very relevant, particularly in a business school.

What I liked about both movies is that they don't end as doomsday wisdom. Al Gore's movie ends up concluding that we already have the necessary technology to turn the corner and bring our CO2 emissions back 1970 levels. All that is required is mix personal and political will, not more technology.

The yearbook committee is working serious overtime these days. They have collected more than 15,000 pictures and hundreds of pages of data from participants and partners, which they now are compiling into a book that we all will keep as a memory for many years to come. The hard workers are Adrian Smaranda (nearest), Rasmus Figenschou, Sylvain Cabalery, Manisha Mediratta and David Rohan (behind the screen). They get moral support from MBA2009 dog-of-the-year Kizomba. Thank you guys for the amazing work. We know how many hours you are putting in it and we all appreciate it!!

Thorsten

Crisis management

It was Monday morning in the study rooms. The external professor was running late (or so we thought) so we were just sitting in the study rooms doing a few emails, a cup of coffee in the hand, no rush. Then the phone rang! Weird, the phones in the study rooms normally never rings. They are used to call out. It was a journalist from BBC! And he wanted to know what we were going to do about the toxic material we had leaked into the river?!?! Huh, say again! What river? What material?

Then the other phone ring. We looked at each other very confused. It was a teacher from the local high school, who wanted to know whether they could still visit the plant despite the accident we had. School? Plant? Accident? You've definitely got the wrong guy, I am just having my morning coffee while waiting for the class to start. Leave me alone.

The phone rang again. Silence, confusion, more silence. Johan slowly picked up the phone, not knowing what to expect. It was the farmer from up the river who wanted to know whether it still was safe for his cows to drink from the river? Huh??? OK, this was not fun anymore. What was going on? Perhaps we should read the papers that had been left on the table in the room. 'You are the management team of Company XYZ..... accident...... possible leakage......'. We looked at each other in horror. For a couple of seconds the room went dead silent. Then we all jumped to our feet at once, two people went to the white board and started scribbling down the information we had, others started working on press releases and emails to the media, the employees, the customers, etc. Johan was immediately appointed spokesperson, a role we didn't envy him as he time and time again was fed to the hungry beasts (journalists) outside the door.

From there on it was just four hours of fire fighting. We were bombarded with phone calls, emails, sms'es from our boss and DVDs with news coverage from the local media. Protesters were hammering on our door and journalists were barging in at no warning. What a mess! What a Chaos! All extremely well orchestrated by crisis management expert Tom Curtin and his team of very, very real BBC journalists.

In the afternoon we saw the videos that had been made during the hectic morning, so we could hear what we really said. Ouch! We would have been slaughtered by the public if it had been the real thing. It was particularly fascinating to hear from the BBC journalists themselves, what they actually are looking for when they interview. In the afternoon it was wrapped up with a session on 'Brent Spar', very much an example of how not to do it.

Thorsten

There was real Swiss cheese fondue for lunch today....

...which was a big hit, as you can see.

Execution and Change

This week we have been back in the class room again for the first time in what feels like an eternity. It took some adjusting to move from the small ICP teams, where you decide everything yourself and back to the class room with pre-readings and discussions in the auditorium all day. Nevertheless, there was something comforting in being back, like meeting up with old friends for the first time in a long time. So much catching up to do! The fact that the we are back, but relieved from the excruciating pressure of the building blocks, makes both the classes and the days in general very enjoyable.

The subject was 'Execution and Change' and was directed by Professor Maury Pieperl. The class had many parallels to Leadership and Leading People classes, but focused specifically on leadership in periods of great change. A very interesting subject which (as the picture indicates) really got the class going.


Baby lineup of some of the MBA children that are in Lausanne with their Moms and Dads.

Two of the latest proud fathers with their daughters Bruna and Kavya.

From left to right the proud parents Isabella and Corinne with their daughter Camille followed by Swati and Prashant with their daughter Kavya.

Tutto bene!

Here we are, Stefano and I on the way back from Milano to Lausanne. We were lucky to get onboard one of the new fancy trains with airplane seats, power plugs and a restaurant that serves fresh-brewed coffee. It makes life so wonderfully comfortable.

We have been in Milano to talk to Father Kizito - founder of the Koinonia organization - and to the Amani organization - the primary source of funding for Koinonia . We felt that it was important that they also knew about the things both we and Koinonia had been through, so they can provide Koinonia with the optimal support. Our message was well received and we now only need to debrief with the MBA2008 class to bring the project to an end. That meeting is planned for Friday.

Stefano is from Milano, so we stayed with his parents while there. Here it is from left Fratello Stefano, Sorella Marta, Papá Fabrizio, Mamma Marina and one of their guest for the day. Gerald Lo was also there, but is unfortunately not captured here. We really enjoyed the hospitality of the family and the excellent cooking of Mamma Marina. It was a piece of Italy, like taken out of a movie.

The Giussani family lives in a charming high-ceiling apartment in central Milano. Stefano is the 4^th consecutive generation engineer in the family and surprised us by showing his hidden talent on the family’s piano!

It was also quite an experience for a northerner like myself to experience another of Stefano’s talents: Some real Italian driving in Milan rush-hour traffic! I know now why the Italians produce such great race cars: It is in their blood!

Ciao!

Thorsten

A picture from Kenya on Friday after we had our last workshop. These are the people from Koinonia and IMD that formed the core team during the project.

Ruslana and Eva under a beautiful purple-flowered tree at the Karen Blixen house just outside Nairobi.

Out of Africa

We finished our assignment in Kenya on Friday afternoon and started our journey back already the same evening. We had a few hours to spend before the flight, so Gerald and Stefano went to one of the rescue centers to spend some time with the kids, while Ruslana, Eva and I wanted to see the Karen Blixen museum. Karen Blixen, who is one of the most famous Danish writers, spent a good part of her life in Kenya. You may have seen her in the movie 'Out of Africa' which is about her life in Africa. She had a farm at the foot of Ngong hills and today that whole area - the south west outskirts of Nairobi - is simply called Karen.

Eva and Ruslana are tough negotiators and decisive women, so since they could not agree with the taxi driver on a proper price for our trip to the Karen Blixen house they decided that we should go by Matatu. Matatus are small jam-packed vans that the locals use to get around. They are very inexpensive, but in terms of comfort and security they leave a lot room for improvement. The ride was an interesting experience and we eventually made it to our destination, or so we thought. Instead of being in the museum, we had ended up in Karen Blixen's house, which had been turned into a restaurant and coffee bar. It was too late to try to get to the museum, so instead we sat down and enjoyed a good Kenyan coffe and the biggest slices of chocolate cake I have ever seen.

Less than 24 hours later I was attending my Grandmas funeral in Denmark. A lot of people had showed up and the whole family was there. Although it was no fun to carry the coffin out then I still felt that I had been through the worst when I had visited her in the hospital the week before. I had said my goodbye and now we were 'just' completing the journey with her. She left with dignity and in the evening the whole extended family gathered for dinner at my uncle and aunt's place, so for one last time - as countless times before - she managed to bring us all together.

Thorsten

Baking buns

I arrived in Kenya late Sunday night just in time for me to start the new week together with the team. They had done a fantastic job last week. Most of all they had brought together the Executive Council of the organization and with them defined the high level issues and the 'operational' vision and mission statements for the organization. A grand achievement that will provide a lot of clarity and guidance to the organization in the future and to the rest of our work here. It is important to note the word 'operational', meaning that it is separate from the 'spiritual' vision that Koinonia has a Christian community. One of the most interesting things about this project has been the question on how to bridge this gap between spirituality and day-to-day work. They don't teach you that at school!

Having established the overall objectives for the organization we prepared a workshop that should align the many initiatives with the overall vision. We made some adjustments to the framework that we had used during our first visit here......

...and asked the managers of the individual units to fill it in again. This time the objectives came from the overall organization, not from the units themselves.

A couple of them shared their filled-in framework. It became much clearer how both Social Initiatives and Income Generating Activities can pull in the same direction in support of the overall Koinonia vision.

Last night we met MBA2008 Jesper Hornberg and his friend Petter, who are in Kenya on a project of their own.

Early morning at Baraza Café where we have our breakfast every morning. Baraza is one of the Income Generating Activities under the Koinonia umbrella that serves the purpose of generating income for the social initiatives such as the children's homes.

Today Wednesday we took the next step in bringing the overall vision down to the level of the daily work. We did that by conducting a workshop on process mapping. The objective of the workshop was two-fold: To teach process mapping as a tool and to help Koinonia understand some of their own key processes better.
We needed a simple and recognizable process as an example to teach the very basics of process mapping. Inspired by my dad, who frequently surprises his family with freshly baked buns, we used the process of 'baking buns' as example. That proved excellent to get the points across.

We then split the Koinonia people in smaller teams and asked them to do a process map of a restaurant visit. Each of them were given roles such as host, waiter, cook and manager in order to spice up the discussion. The objective was to teach how to do an integrated flow chart for a process that involves multiple parties.

Next step was then to map Koinonia's own processes. Here Eva and Evelyn are working with the managers on the HR process 'Hiring-to-retiring'.

Helen from the Kivuli Centre - one of the children's homes - took the lead on mapping perhaps the most core of all processes in Koinonia, the reason for their existence, how to 'Integrate a child'.

The 'Integrate a child' process became center of an intense debate, which immediately pin-pointed some of the key issues that the organization is facing with its integration process. This is where the real power of processing mapping lies: Bring people from different parts of a process together and ask them to map their own work and you will be amazed about the understanding it creates. The issues with the process will unavoidable show up.

We were (again) amazed about the passion with which the Koinonia people speak of helping the children in Nairobi. This is much, much more than just a job for them. This is what they live for!

Monday evening I received the sad news that my grandma passed away. In the middle of these sad circumstances, I am so relieved that I made it home last week and managed to see her alive for the last time. When we left her on Saturday I said 'See you later, grandma'. I could not make myself say 'Goodbye', neither did I believe it was the last time. The funeral will be on Saturday, so when the rest of the team goes to Lausanne on Friday I will be heading back home to Denmark.

Thorsten