CELEBRATING SHORT WINS!

Last Wednesday we celebrated the end of the Business Project and the Kick-off of the Consulting Project with a delicious lunch in the VIP room. Four month of intensive work behind and two month of even more intensive work in front of us – but we’re still laughing!

 We laugh when we are celebrating,

We laugh when we are working,

But we can look really serious too!

IAE Aix and Arts & Metiers ParisTech

I wanted to highlight today the relationship between the IAE Aix Graduate School of Management and Arts & Metiers ParisTech because it's one of the things that makes the MBA Change & Innovation so special.  I wrote a few weeks ago about the Power Into Perspective seminar here, and I mentioned at the time that we were joined by over 30 engineering students from this prestigious French university.

Power Into Perspective with our guests from Arts & Metiers

First, just a quick background on Arts & Metiers.  It is the leading French engineering school in the fields of mechanics and industrialization.  Since it's founding in 1780, the school has trained more than 85,000 engineers.  It consists of eight teaching and research centers (one in Aix en Provence) and three institutes spread across France.

Participants from Arts & Metiers and the MBA C&I talking between lectures

Both the full-time and part-time MBAs here at IAE Aix have a relationship with Arts & Metiers.  They are partners with IAE Aix in the part-time MBA and for the full-time program, students take part in an exchange where the engineering students come to IAE Aix to take part in special seminars.  It allows a very unique learning and networking experience for both schools.  I know that having engineering students in the classroom during a very dynamic course like Power Into Perspective allows for a completely different but welcomed perspective for the full-time MBA participants.  It also is a great chance to network with a group of highly talented engineering students.

Scenes of Spring

Hi Everyone,

It's been a particularly beautiful few weeks in Aix, and I've been lucky to snap some interesting shots on my way to IAE Aix.  We are lucky to be surrounded by some of the most beautiful country in the entire world!  Enjoy...

That's Mont Saint Victoire in the distance

This years wine just starting to sprout

This shot is from the village of Lourmarin, which is about 30 minutes from IAE Aix

The beautiful rolling hills surrounding the school

Beautiful vineyards which surround us :)

Crazy fountain in Lourmarin

Innovate and win an iPad

Hi All,

Our friends at the MGIM program wanted us to remind you that there is a great way for you to win an iPad.  Right now is the MGIM Project Innovate Challenge, and they are asking participants to come up with a short video explaining what the cell phone of the future will look like.  The winning submission wins a new iPad, however, they explain it a lot better than I do!

The Camargue

Hi All,

Today I want to highlight another very special place that we are lucky to have just down the road from IAE Aix.  It's the Camargue, and if you live outside of France, there's a good chance that you've never even heard of this gem.

The area is situated very close to the town of Arles, which is an hour east of Aix.  The Camargue is famous for beauty and wildlife; infact, it was established as a regional park and nature reserve in 1970.  There are over 400 species of birds that call the Camargue home, including one of the very few places in Europe that you will find flamingos in the wild.  It is a very marshy area where you can also find the famous Camargue Bull and beautiful white horses roaming freely along the marshes.

I was lucky to have visited the Camargue this past weekend, and here are a few photos that I took...enjoy!

The beautiful marshes that make up the Camargue

Flamingos in the wild

These guys were having a bad day :)

Two ducks just looking for some lunch

Flamingos are both funny looking and beautiful at the same time!

Power into Perspective

Bonjour a tous!

It's another exciting and beautiful week around IAE Aix.  Spring is here, and the school is alive with energy.  For our MBA participants, it's an exciting week because it's another installment of our Cezanne Seminars.  During the first half of the week, participants take part in the Power into Perspective seminar, which is what I want to write about today.

Natalia Berezovska leading a discussion on Power Games in the workplace.

It's led by MBA Professor, and MBA favorite, Pierre Casse along with several special guests.  For this seminar, Pierre invited Elizabeth Sadova, Academic Director at the Moscow School of Management Skolokovo and Natalia Berezovska, CEO and Managing Partner at Detonate Ventures.  Also joining our MBA participants were a group of engineers from the famous French engineering school, Arts et Metiers.  The diversity of the guests made for a very dynamic and exciting classroom.

Ms. Berezovska taking questions from an MBA participant.

Power into Perspective is a really unique course that looks at the power games inside organizations.  Whether we want to admit it or not, power games exist, but the course is not here to teach you only how to get power.  What it does try to do, however, is make you aware of the power games, how you can get it, if needed, or how you can work most effectively with the people that do have it.  Through case studies and group discussions, participants get to reflect in this key area to develop ideas and action plans for managing this dynamic concept.  I speak for everyone when I say it is a very exciting and informative class to be a part of.

Participants discussing one of the cases.

More case discussion among participants.

Real Options & Innovation Leadership

Today, I want to highlight a special course that was given to MBA participants recently.  The course was Real Options & Innovation Leadership, and it was taught by MBA Change & Innovation alumni, Claus Hirzmann.  

MBA C&I Alumnus and Professor, Claus Hirzmann

Before we talk about the class, let me first give you a background on Mr. Hirzmann.  He graduated from the MBA C&I class of 2003-2004, but before that, developed a strong technical background by working for several years as an electrical engineer.  Currently, he's the Senior Manager of Commercial Finance for Amadeus and he teaches at both IAE Aix and at EDHEC.  Besides working at Amadeus, he's worked at Hewlett-Packard (HP) and for Mondi Business Paper in the fields of R&D, management, procurement, new business development, corporate strategy and finance.  To say the least, he's got some very relevant experience with some very relevant companies.

MBA Participants listening carfully during the lecture.

The course is interesting because in today's industries, leadership in innovation is crucial for competitiveness and profitability.  However, leadership in innovation requires risk taking in the face of uncertainty (e.g. regarding breakthrough technologies and new markets), and in many cases, it is hard to justify to top management just why you have to take that risk.  Classical decision making uses process like NPV calculations which seek to minimize risk and uncertainties upfront.  

What this class teaches, however, is rather than looking at a project with uncertainties from purely a profitability standpoint (as NPV would suggest), look at these projects as opportunities that have strategic interest.  Investing in innovation projects, allows the company to learn more and eventually use that knowledge to go further, to an eventual breakthrough.  The value of an uncertain opportunity can be valued as a Real Option and thus allows for a balanced and fair investment.  As such, it resolves some of the dilemma between strategic interest and lacking profitability projections.

Ultimately, participants learned to value managerial flexibility which allows a decision to be delayed to a certain point.  Just like a Call or Put Option in stocks, a Real Option introduces some flexibility into the decision making process and that flexibility has a value.  That's all I'll say, as I don't want to give away all the good stuff...to know more, you'll just have to take the MBA :)