4 - 2019 - Asia School of Business

KUALA LUMPUR: If you want a window, or a gateway even, into Southeast Asia, try Asia School of Business (ASB). Those are the sentiments of ASB’s recent MBA graduates Jack Farrell and Gary Liao, who have just completed their 20-month residential course in Kuala Lumpur. Farrell, an American entrepreneur, had the opportunity to conduct ASB’s signature Action Learning projects across the region in Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, Penang, Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur. “The opportunity to do work and business in all these different markets is truly an eye-opener,” said Farrell.

ASB is a premier global business school founded by Malaysia’s central bank, Bank Negara, and the United States’ MIT Sloan School of Management. Through the Action Learning curriculum in the MBA program, students spend more than seven months of their 20-month program solving real-world business challenges, on-site, in companies across Asia and beyond. And now that Farrell has gotten his feet wet in Southeast Asia, he is not leaving.

“I am staying on in Kuala Lumpur. I may be involved in assisting venture capitalists, or get into another start-up and grow it vertically, or even start another company again,” said Farrell, who cited Malaysia’s high English literacy and the competitiveness of the Ringgit as key factors behind his decision to remain in Kuala Lumpur. “Southeast Asia is the epicentre of growth, and the best way to get to Southeast Asia is through ASB. ASB is the biggest secret in higher education. It is a business school founded in the digital age. Its curriculum is being shaped on current developments and not firmly entrenched (like older business schools),” he said.

Cultural Nuances Matter

His classmate, Taiwanese-Canadian Gary Liao, felt strongly about ASB’s diversity of cultures. “ASB is a lot like me, a combination of East and West,” said Liao, who practised immigration and human rights law in the United States before commencing his MBA at ASB. “ASB’s diverse student body was very appealing. Most schools are 40% international, but ASB is 70%. I wanted an environment where I can benefit from the different perspectives of people from diverse geographies. Malaysia itself is an intersection of a lot of cultures as well,” said Liao.

From the Action Learning projects, Liao said his key takeaways were learning how to operate in a foreign country and interacting with C-suite management. And he must have done well, given that he will be joining the Taipei office of an international strategy consulting firm as a post-MBA Associate, a role offered to him weeks before he even graduated. Prior to enrolling in ASB, Venezuelan Klara Markus spent 10 months in Vietnam leading the regional expansion of an American education start-up.

Asked if she would have performed her previous role any differently, she said: “I would have had more tools to manage the teams in Vietnam and Indonesia. I didn’t understand the nuances of managing people from different cultures. One example (of leadership) is the importance of saving face, particularly when dealing with a leader who is a foreigner and younger.” “I didn’t think the MBA would help me understand human psychology, but it did. You become a more sensitive, kind, empathetic person,” said Markus.

Passion Re-ignited

Social entrepreneur Calvin Woo’s passion for education burns as brightly after completing his MBA, and he has set out to continue championing education issues. At 24, Woo is the youngest of ASB’s Class of 2019, but he is very determined and focused on his goals. His drive to boost social development in Malaysia was recognised early on. As a result, he was the only Malaysian awarded the Queen’s Young Leaders Award in 2016 by Queen Elizabeth II herself at Buckingham Palace. Woo was a co-founder of an education-driven social enterprise called NextGen Impact, which lasted two years—long enough to make an impact.

“I burned out as a young founder with limited skills and tools. When I started out, I was naïve, thinking that everyone was good and kind. Now I’m more strategic and prudent (after the MBA),” he said, adding that the teamwork and diversity in perspectives during the Action Learning projects helped him grow as a person and as an entrepreneur. For the immediate future, Woo has two goals – to start another social enterprise in education and to earn a PhD in Management with the intention of shaping public policy.

“How can we address educational issues with an entrepreneur model?” he ponders. The odds are in his favour that he will find the solution pretty soon. While Woo continues to drive his life-long passion with enhanced skillsets earned from the MBA, Nura ‘Adila Asri and Sarah-Ann Yong Jenlee are making a career pivot. Nura, previously an auditor, is looking forward to a career as a creative strategist. “The MBA has helped me reflect on the life that I want. It has opened my mind beyond traditional career paths,” she said.

Yong practised law in Kuala Lumpur for 2.5 years but has now set her sights on the tech sphere, with her 3-month Summer Associate Programme at Microsoft being a big influence in the decision. “How can Microsoft help lawyers leverage tech better in the workplace and in the courtroom? That was the essence of my core project during the Summer Associate Programme.

“It was an exciting project because I was able to leverage on my past experience, connections and insights as a practicing lawyer to provide such recommendations,” she said. “When I first started the MBA, I wasn’t sure if I would go back to law. But now, after being exposed to the world beyond law, I am now psyched about exploring opportunities beyond what I was initially comfortable with,” she said.

* To learn more about ASB and its Action Learning module, please visit: www.asb.edu.my.

For more information, please contact:

Pek Ee Siew
Director, Marketing
Asia School of Business
E: eesiew.pek@asb.edu.my
M: +6012-4353095

About Asia School of Business
Asia School of Business (ASB) was established in 2015 by Bank Negara Malaysia in collaboration with MIT Sloan Management to be a premier global business school, a knowledge and learning hub infused with regional expertise, insights and perspectives of Asia and the emerging economies. ASB is committed to develop transformative and principled leaders who will contribute towards advancing the emerging world.

Grab, the Malaysian-born ride-hailing app, was recently dubbed Southeast Asia’s first ‘decacorn’—the rare marvel of a start-up worth over $10 billion. In the six years since it launched in 2012, Grab has expanded into 168 cities in eight countries. Having bought out Uber’s regional operations, it currently occupies a 97% market share in Southeast Asia. In the last two years, the app has grown rapidly, doubling its number of users, with daily rides increasing from two and a half million to six million.

Grab’s achievement is part of a wider Southeast Asian tech revolution. Since 2015, over  90 million new internet users have come online, a number that is increasing exponentially and at unheard-of speed. Frontier-minded MBA students need little encouragement to relocate to Southeast Asia. At its epicenter is Kuala Lumpur, where  Asia School of Business (ASB) is offering students the lucrative opportunity to access the fastest growing tech market in the world.

Using tech to solve problems

One student who took the leap into Southeast Asia’s tech market is Jack Farrell. From selling lemonade to buy baseball cards, to reselling second-hand college textbooks at Duke University, Jack has always been entrepreneurial in his attitude. “I look for problems that I can build businesses around,” Jack says. Applying to ASB was an easy decision for Jack. Southeast Asia’s rapid growth, ASB’s link to MIT Sloan, and a long-term desire to earn an MBA made the opportunity attractive to him.

With experience in tech startups in the US, including co-founding pet services platform PawedIn, Jack benefitted most from the immersion in Asian industry as part of the school’s Action Learning curriculum. Throughout the program, students undertake five extended consultancy projects with leading organizations in up to five countries, working closely with their employees to deliver impactful change.

“It was a chance to go into different countries and see how different they are—their stages of development, their habits, the ways people buy,” Jack recalls. At Hotel Equatorial, a hospitality group, Jack created a digital marketing strategy to increase on-site conversion for bookings. At Ananda Development, Thailand’s largest condominium developer, he advised on how to increase the price per square foot by developing internal and external technology.

While the problems were different, both projects played to Jack’s interest and skill in using technology and entrepreneurship as problem-solving tools. Jack, a self-proclaimed ‘Southeast Asia Evangelist’, has used his time at  Asia School of Business to produce his own video series—‘Jack SEAs Tech’—on regional digital trends and innovations.

After graduation, Jack is deciding between the equally enticing opportunities of venture capital and starting his own enterprise—perhaps to be a part of the next decacorn like Grab. Either way, his gaze is firmly fixed on Southeast Asia. “Everywhere I look, there is so much opportunity to build business, because of how quickly everything is growing,” Jack enthuses.

“Everyone wants to enhance digitally”

Saloni Saraogi’s (pictured) path to Southeast Asia’s tech revolution was slightly different—born in India, and raised in the Middle East, a bachelor’s in finance and accounting at the University of Nottingham paved the way for a career in finance. Choosing to earn an MBA was a way of advancing her own business competency, at the time based at BNP Paribas in Mumbai. “As I started to get more leadership roles in the bank, I started to think, ‘I need to expand my toolkit.’”

The Action Learning program at ASB, as Saloni remembers, gave her the opportunity to get actively involved in industry, and to get her hands dirty. It also exposed her to developments in the finance industry—in particular, the growing role that fintech plays in modern financial institutions, even in long-standing establishments such as Bangkok Bank. Last year, she completed an Action Learning project with the firm that involved leveraging existing technology platforms to help it attract more customers.

“[In finance], there is an understanding that everyone wants to enhance digitally,” Saloni remembers. As someone with digital literacy, Saloni found Southeast Asia to have abundant opportunities to work in technological developments. A summer placement at the consultancy Frost & Sullivan found her working alongside the APAC head of fintech, building an index that measured the digital readiness of insurance companies in Malaysia.

In the meantime, Saloni produces her own newsletter, ‘Exploring Digital’, which details digital and technological trends and thought-pieces. It is currently distributed to all ASB students monthly.

The transformative power of tech

While the digital boom is good news for tech companies, Jack and Saloni both recognize the transformative implications for the region. Jack believes that initial public offerings (IPOs) for successful start-ups like Grab could start in the next few years, using that wealth generation to reinvest in and grow the Southeast Asia tech economy.

Saloni, meanwhile, sees the ability of technology as a development tool, closing the vast gap between countries like Malaysia and developing countries like Indonesia and the Philippines, where around 90% of the region’s impoverished population is based. It is worth considering that, while only 27% of Southeast Asia’s population has bank accounts, there are roughly 1.4 mobile phones per person.

“Tech can be used to promote financial inclusion,” Saloni notes, an ambition which is driving her own career, and which she plans to explore further through a research project with the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), which she landed through Asia School of Business.

Read the full article here.
This article was originally published on BusinessBecause, a network helping MBA students make connections before, during and after their MBA.

There is no better way to learn than to do. Since embarking on my MBA journey at Asia School of Business, I have completed two out of five required Action Learning projects. Every project presents an opportunity to apply the toolkits learned in the classroom to real-world environments. The learning curve is steep from the get-go, with immersive and intense projects that require navigating new industries, functions, and cultures.

During the 4 weeks we spent onsite throughout the semester, we developed a full understanding of our host company’s business challenges and delivered tangible recommendations. This semester, I had the opportunity to learn In-Flight Operations via an Action Learning project with Thai AirAsia in Bangkok. The goal of the project was to assess the effectiveness of RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) technology for In-Flight Services (IFS).

Our task was to identify opportunities to improve the efficiency of IFS by automating the manual stock counting process of merchandise through implementation of RFID. My team was not only culturally diverse, but also professionally diverse. What we had in common, though, was the fact that this was our first foray into the aviation industry.

Go & See

It was important for us to understand the entire process of moving goods from the warehouse to the flight before brainstorming solutions. During this stage, we observed, identified and analysed the issues to be addressed. This involved us camping out one night at the IFS warehouse from 10 pm onwards to see how carts are unloaded at the end of the day and replenished with new merchandise before being loaded on the flight the following day.

Given the focus of the project, we got comfortable with the warehouse in no time. One of the highlights of the project was the airside visit, where we went behind the scenes to observe the turnaround process. We observed how carts were lifted and loaded into the plane by the inflight crew and marvelled at how the cabin crew swiftly powered through a series of tasks from stock-counting and onboarding passengers to cleaning the aircraft cabin, all with smiles on their faces.

We learned that it was crucial for cabin crew and the inflight team to work together seamlessly to achieve AirAsia’s goal of minimising turnaround time to achieve high aircraft utilization.

Plan Before Action

Once we were able to understand the situation at hand, we utilised the theories and frameworks taught in class to develop a feasible Plan of Action. Over the course of the project, we mapped out multiple process flows, carried out time studies and conducted surveys and interviews with the IFS team and cabin crews. This helped us identify gaps and areas of opportunity before coming up with recommendations.

As part of our goal to reduce the manual labor required for stock-counting, we also got a chance to test out our recommendation by carrying out an RFID (radio frequency identification) simulation, enabling the counting of goods to take a matter of seconds rather than minutes.

Throughout the process, we made sure to consistently follow up and check in with our host to ensure the project’s success. During our final visit, we delivered an RFID implementation strategy where parts of IFS’ process would be automated using RFID, leading to time savings of 75% and man-hour reduction in manual stock-counting.

Reflection and Takeaways

There are two main takeaways from my Action Learning experience with Thai AirAsia. First, there is strength in diversity. Each team member’s unique experiences inspire myriad ideas and allow us to look at the issues at hand through multiple lenses.

Second, don’t embrace the status quo. As a company, AirAsia is agile and constantly pushing its boundaries, and it is important that we did the same. Throughout the course of the project, we learned to be curious, adaptable and challenge convention.

Thank you for the immense learning, Thai AirAsia. Onwards and upwards!

To the class of 2019: I know today is a super super exciting day for you: Today I am going to give you a speech.

Why ASB?

This question was asked many times before I came here. It was asked many times while I was here and I’m sure it will continue to be asked many more times after today. Having now gone through the entire experience as a student, today I would like to do one thing and one thing only – to answer this question: Why ASB? But first, I’d like to begin with a delightful story about a man who is known to be right about a thing or two, Albert Einstein…

In 1951, Einstein was teaching physics at Princeton University. One day he gave an exam to his senior class. After the exam, the teaching assistant, looking very puzzled, came up to Einstein and said “Dr Einstein, something is not right. The exam that you just gave, isn’t it exactly the same exam that you gave to exactly the same class a year ago?” “Yea yea” said Albert Einstein “it’s exactly the same”.

The assistant was baffled. He said “But how could you possibly do that?” Einstein smiled and said “Well the answers have changed” … The answers have changed. In other words, what was true in 1951 is even more true today, and even more true in this part of the world where the answers are changing not by the years or months but sometimes every day. This became evident to us through Action Learning.

Having collectively done almost 200 projects across all sectors, industries and countries, we could clearly see that organisations today, big or small, government or private are all struggling with to find new answers to the same old questions in this era of globalization, of the internet of things, of digitalization. What has got us here will no longer get us there. What works in Europe or US might not work in South East Asia.

And even within this region, what works in Singapore might not work in Malaysia or Vietnam. And there are simply too many variables to solve for. So, if you ask me Why ASB, the first part of my response is “because the answers have changed”. And it is ASB that equips us with not the answers but the thinking, the methodologies, the moral and ethical principles, the cultural and social awareness, the patience and determination, the sharp and smart skills to figure out these new and constantly changing answers, particularly for this region and to really make major footprint in the rapid development of South East Asia.

For that, I want to thank everyone at ASB for affording us this invaluable learning opportunity. Special thank you to Tan Sri Dr. Zeti, to our Board of Governors, to Bank Negara and MIT for your incredible support and to Charlie for your great leadership. My second part of the answer is because ASB is in Malaysia. Malaysia might not be the obvious choice for many when thinking about getting an international MBA or just getting business and management education in general.

But having been here for 20 months, I know that it has to change. There is no better place to be if you are serious about learning and making an impact in this part of the world. It is not just because of the geographical location, the diversity or the openness of the country, it is also because of the wonderful people that you have here in Malaysia. Malaysia welcomed us with open arms.

Your kindness, your extraordinary hospitality, your irreverent sense of humour, your brilliantly unique way of using English – everything has become so familiar and I’ve truly fallen in love with this country. At least I know my love is real when I was on an overseas trip recently and suddenly had a craving for Nasi Lemak …They say home is where the heart is. And if that’s the case, I will be very happy to call Malaysia and KL home. So, thank you Malaysia. Terima Kasih!

And lastly and also most importantly, it is because ASB is the place where I get to meet people like you, class of 2019. It has been an absolutely incredible ride and to be honest I would not have it any other way. I’ll admit that I’m feeling a bit sad that today is our last day at ASB. But hey you know what they say. “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened”.

And if I think about the memories that we’ve shared and the waves that we’ve ridden over the past 2 years, I know that I should be smiling non-stop for the next few months (Maybe even longer if I don’t have to get a job…) When I left Vietnam 10 years ago, my mom told me this only one thing. She said, “wherever you go, the most important thing is that you leave those with whom you cross paths with a little more happiness and a little more hope”.

Today I’m leaving ASB feeling more hopeful and happier than ever and I think that’s all because of you. I hope that you feel the same too and I hope that I have contributed to that in some way. And if you think that I did, please tell my mom – she’s seating over there – so that she can be proud of me… It is truly amazing how 36 people from 12 different countries in 5 continents with different backgrounds, cultures, religions became so close.

We’ve seen each other in our best moments and not surprisingly our weakest moments too. We pushed each other to the limits and beyond. We argued, we fought and we learned from one another. And at the end of the day, we supported each other through thick and thin no matter what. You are among the smartest, funniest and bravest people that I have the privilege to call friends and I cannot be more grateful to be a part of this incredible family. I will miss all of you so dearly.

“There are good ships, and there are wooden ships. There are ships that sail the sea. But the best ships, are friendships. And may they always be!”

Congratulations class of 2019 and from the bottom of my heart I wish you the very very best.

KUALA LUMPUR: Education is an essential foundation for the betterment of the nation, paving the way for future progress, said Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. “The best investment that can be made is in education. Education raises the potential of the individual through value-added means, which, in turn raises the potential of businesses and economies to perform well,” he said in his speech at the Asia School of Business’ (ASB) Master of Business Administration (MBA) convocation ceremony, here, today.

Read the full article here.
This article was originally published on News Straits Times website.

KUALA LUMPUR: Graduates of Asia School of Business (ASB), a global business school founded by Bank Negara Malaysia and the MIT Sloan School of Management in the United States, are in high demand, with many receiving job offers well before their convocation. As the MBA graduates of Class of 2019 receive their scrolls today, they are finding that their educational accomplishments are sought after across Asia and beyond. Graduating students have received job offers from well-known companies such as Amazon, McKinsey, Gap, Facebook, AirAsia, Esquel, Didi, JobStreet, Microsoft, Liberty Mutual, Maxis, and numerous others.

At the ceremony celebrating their graduation, Guest of Honour Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, delivered the commencement speech and congratulated the graduates on their accomplishments. He was later awarded an honorary doctorate by Professor Charles Fine, President and Dean of ASB. One of the key factors contributing to the high employability of ASB graduates is the Action Learning curriculum in the MBA program, where students spend more than seven months of their 20-month program solving real-world business challenges, on-site, in companies across Asia and beyond.

This curriculum was recognized by Poets & Quants, a leading US-based education publisher, as providing “the most innovative MBA program in the world.” “We are aware that many employers highlight the skills gap often seen in graduates,” reported Professor Fine. “And as such, we have structured our program to ensure that our students are prepared for the rigors of entering the workforce in challenging managerial positions.”

Professor Fine thanked the ASB Board of Governors, many of whom lead companies that hosted student teams for their Action Learning projects. He also thanked the 96 corporate partners from 18 countries that have hosted ASB students in Action Learning projects since the school was founded in 2015. The long list of companies that hosted student teams includes AirAsia, Sapura Energy, Esquel, Daiwa Steel, Bangkok Bank, BJC of Thailand, Del Monte, Microsoft, Petronas, Maxis, Johnson & Johnson, Nestle, Samsung and Unilever.

Tun Mahathir presenting the President_s Leadership Award to Ricardo Acosta Latapi (R). Looking on is ASB President and Dean Professor Charles Fine (L). Fine added that the teamwork-centric feature of the student projects helped them learn skills for collaboration, a core value at ASB. Finally, he noted that the host companies directly reap benefits of improved productivity from the student’s energy, education, and problem solving.

On ASB’s future direction, Fine mentioned plans to expand the academic programs to include a part-time MBA and short courses for executive education. ASB will also work towards increasing the number of students per intake once its new state-of-the-art campus is ready next year.

Download:

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Commencement Speech By YAB Tun Dr. Mahathir Bin Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia (Watch Video)
Welcome Address By Professor Charles Fine, President & Dean, Asia School of Business (Watch Video)

For more information, please contact:

Pek Ee Siew
Director, Marketing
Asia School of Business
E: eesiew.pek@asb.edu.my
M: +6012-4353095

Professor Rajesh Nair (center) is a man on a mission “to reach one million students and create 100,000 entrepreneurs in 10 years”. In conjunction with Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre’s (MaGIC’s) Innovation Week, he delivered a talk entitled “Creating 10x Entrepreneurs in the Future”. Rajesh is a professor of practice and senior lecturer of innovation and entrepreneurship at Asia School of Business, a new business school in collaboration with MIT Sloan located within Bank Negara Malaysia’s building.

Listening to him speak, his passion to uplift student communities and impart his ideas are clear. Born into humble beginnings in a small village in India, Rajesh’s first exposure to electronics happened when he took his radio to a repairman when he was 12. His inquisitive nature was piqued, “Before then, I thought little people lived inside the radio singing to us daily.” It was a new beginning for Rajesh. In the next few days, the repairman taught him the basics of electronics. Those few days are a lifelong gift Rajesh will always cherish, “It changed my life.”

As a young adult, he pursued his Bachelors of Engineering and a masters degree in electronic product design at the Indian Institute of Science. Keen on ensuring his product designs were manufacturable, Rajesh enrolled in the University of Massachusetts Amherst for a masters in manufacturing engineering. After some years of working in product design and even founding a startup, Rajesh’s latest qualification is a masters of Science in system design and management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This is where he began seriously thinking about the problem of creating more entrepreneurs.

THE ENTREPRENEURSHIP STIMULI

“Here I was – this kid from a small village who just happened to have the right stimuli at the right time,” said Rajesh, believing that it spurred him on and brought him to where he is today. “There are millions of kids around the world who may not get the right stimuli.” With this in mind, Rajesh set out on a path to create a process that provides students with the right input for entrepreneurship.

He truly believes that the number of entrepreneurs in any community can be multiplied. Many entrepreneurship programs around the world are carried out in a top-down fashion which is not the most effective way to create entrepreneurs. According to Rajesh, the founders and startups that come from these programs are given funding and other resources. Despite this, they often fail. “Because it’s the first time they’re ever doing it. They’re just about learning to walk.”

By giving funds and having them start companies, these founders are not given a chance to learn and fail. Instead, Rajesh thinks the focus should be on exposing kids to entrepreneurship and inspiring them. “Often these programs focus on 25-year-old people. I believe it should be done when they’re 10-years-old because to master these things in your 20s – the rate of learning is pretty steep,” he shares.

Rajesh further explains that once someone becomes an entrepreneur, there is a lot of support given in the form of funding, policies and training. “The bottleneck lies in the conversion point from students to aspiring entrepreneurs.”

Rajesh describes this stage as the pre-entrepreneurship stage where students experience failure. “Every time you fail, you have hit the edge of your competence. Once you master it, you expand your zone of competence,” he said. Rajesh stresses the importance of failure as a learning process, “That is the feedback that the world gives you.”

FROM MAKER TO INNOVATOR

Drawing on his own past experience, he attempted to replicate his learning and came up with a framework starting with the maker stage. “The whole idea is to design, make, play. Don’t try to solve any world problems,” he said on the basis of how a child’s creativity works. Surpassing the maker stage, the next step is the innovator stage where problems are found and solved through design thinking. At this stage, empathy is key.

Rajesh explains: “You cannot sit in an air-conditioned room and create a solution for farmers in Sabah.” Promoting immersion and enabling his students to fully appreciate problems, he takes them to meet farmer and fishermen communities and patients in hospitals, all the while armed with tools and 3D printers. Nonetheless, Rajesh knows this is no one-man-show, “Mentors are the most critical missing link.”

Currently, he is working on training young adults from the community to teach school students in his Zero2Maker programs. Even if these students do not embark on entrepreneurship journeys, Rajesh believes they would still gain life-changing knowledge. “These students would have still built valuable skills that would help them in their life.”

This article was originally published on Digital News Asia’s website.

“What are the skills of the future? Whatever that future is?”

This is a question in everyone’s mind: career professionals, employers, students and graduates, academic and practitioners. What “soft” skills should we work on and what “hard” skills should we invest in? But what if the skills of the future are not “soft and hard” but rather “smart and sharp”? Here is the simple premise of this article: a new semantical approach and an articulation of their critical co-existence in action!

Soft and Hard skills – 1972

We are all familiar with the concepts of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ skills but do you know their semantical history? The soft and hard skill terminology was coined in 1972 by a research team in the U.S. Army to differentiate people who were good at machine operations, coining these skills “hard”, from those who did well in people related, supervision roles, coining them as “soft skills”. And since 1972, this ubiquitous terminology has served us well.

But just like all other fields of study who get to constantly revise critical concepts, we believe that this terminology needs a fresh, new approach. As a business school professor and a leader, I am faced every day with situations where I see either our Asia School of Business students, staff or action learning partners being faced with difficult situations: giving and receiving feedback, managing complex stakeholders, dealing with office politics, and I always wondered “What’s soft about it?”

Dictionaries define the word “soft” with words like smooth, mild, gentle, quiet, tender, and weak. Navigating competing perspectives and cultures does not come smoothly; pitching and presenting projects is not a tender act; handling and delivering critical feedback often is not mild; and dealing with office politics is certainly not for the weak. So why do we still refer to these skills as soft?

In a similarly fashion, calling accounting or learning pivot tables on Excel, ‘hard’ will just petrify people before they can even learn it. Dictionaries define the word “hard” with words like firm, rigid, resistant, free of weakness, unlikely to change, harsh, severe. But should the so-called “hard” skills required today—such as coding, system dynamics, finance, accounting, statistics, machine learning, engineering—be defined by these attributes?

Considering the constant changes in technology, and the subsequent need for users to adapt, these characteristics hardly seem fitting. And that’s why, at ASB, I have decided that is time for a semantical update and together with MIT Sloan Professor and ASB Dean and President, Charlie Fine, we are proposing two new concepts “Smart Skills” (replacing soft) and “Sharp Skills” (replacing hard) and a new interpretation of how we should think of these skills in action.

Smart and Sharp! Is this just a matter of semantics?

You are probably asking yourself now “Does it matter how we name the skills, as long as we have them?” In an attempt to answer this question, allow me to share a quote from UC San Diego Prof. Lera Boroditsky, a leading cognitive scientist in the fields of language and cognition and former faculty at MIT.

“By choosing how you frame and talk about something, you are causing others to think about it in a specific way. We can drastically change someone’s perspective by how we choose to talk about and frame something.”

Think about this. Narratives are created over time; a few years back, catfish was only a fish but in today’s verbiage, it has a whole new meaning. We assign new meanings to words every time we speak in a particular context and hence, Charlie and I believe that both these skill sets i.e., smart and sharp, need to be looked at in light of the roles that each play in our day to day lives.

“The job is easy, the people are not!”

This is the most important lesson I have learnt from one of my colleagues, Prof. Nancy Waldron, Lasell College. But the second most important lesson I have learnt is that I am people! And so are you and the person next to you. Humans are complex algorithms: think computers but with mood swings, hunger pangs, and plenty of ego that need constant validation; therefore the need for smart skills to “augment our own humanity” such as becoming cognitively ready, develop our adaptability and humility, learn to listen and to follow, and so much more.

Same goes for “sharp skills”. We need to constantly learn how to optimize business solutions using science based management, data analytics and analytical reasoning, we have to become digitally literate and employ system dynamic thinking. And we cannot say, once you have learnt these skills, you are done. These skills need constant updating, they need to be sharpen at all times!

“Smart skills are co-developed with other humans, and sharp skills are co-developed with computers.” ASB Professors Willem Smit and Shien Jin

At ASB, we want to teach both practical and theoretical applications of these skills. Further, we want our students to be able to blend smart and sharp skills so they are effective in their work organizations. While teaching “sharp” skills in the classroom is doable, can one teach “smart” skills such flexibility, willingness to learn, innovation, open mindedness?

At ASB we believe that we can! How? Action Learning!

Blending Smart and Sharp through Action Learning!

One of my roles at ASB is to run our award-winning Action Learning Program, during which, our global students work with companies from all over SE Asia and beyond to solve various business challenges. When we designed our learning experience at ASB, Charlie Fine had the vision to build a transformative curriculum that activates and combines at all times the smart and sharp skills together in order to produce the market ready and principled leaders that our mission promises!

During each of the 5 semesters of the almost 2-year MBA, we send our students to work with various projects all across SE Asia and beyond, to address business challenges that our ASB business partners face: marketing, operations or finance but in this process, they also learn how to become culturally sensitive, to become emotionally mature, to be both humble and confident, and so much more.

How do we do it? Not only that we place these global students in diverse student teams, which is a given, but we send them to work with these companies 2 to 3 times each term. A very expensive and controversial decision, but one that truly articulates the smart and sharp skills in action.

Why do I say this with so much confidence? Because it works! Maybe the first time you go on site in a remote corner of the Philippines to formulate an integer programming model for scheduling a food processing factory, and teaching the plant staff how to use the model they developed, you think wow, this is a big challenge!

What we actually learnt from observing and supporting our students over the past 4 years, is that the first onsite experiences are all about smart skills: knowing when to listen and when to speak, keeping your ego in check, accepting that you are no longer the smartest person in the room, balancing your emotions when you had a 12h day that is still not over. Believe me when I say, that the programming model looks a lot easier in comparison.

And like one of our MBA alumni, Jack Farrell, said, “Learning how to navigate business challenges and cultural ambiguities is one of the biggest takeaways from my action learning projects. I say we are the ‘Real-World MBA’ operating in the most dynamic region around the globe.”

By the second time you go onsite, you might recognize some of the patterns not just in yourself but in your team mates and stakeholders, you have probably received some painful feedback in your 360-peer evaluation and you are a lot more introspective.

And by doing this over and over again, each semester for at least a couple of times, you learn about highly diverse cultures, you start to see various political and strategic perspectives, and you get exciting opportunities to test your growing smart and sharp skills in various industries, companies, and positions before graduation. This is our recipe to develop principled, transformative and market ready leaders: smart and sharp in action!

At Asia School of Business we are just at the beginning of our journey and we have so much more to learn. But we confidently believe that the latest generation of management students and practitioners need a full suite of smart skills to navigate the complex organizations and ecosystems that drive today’s economy, as well as sharp faculties for cutting-edge analysis of complex systems.

So, let’s get smart and sharp at ASB!

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The author Prof. Loredana Padurean would like to extend special thanks to her co-author Prof. Charles Fine, and recognize the editorial contribution of ASB MBA student Devika Manoj Made, ASB Professors Prof. Willem Smit, and Prof. Shien Jin and Ms. Iwona Fluda, Founder and CEO Creative Switzerland for their feedback.

Through global movements like the Women’s Marches and #MeToo, women have been leading the charge to better the world for future generations. How can we involve more men in gender inequality discussions and initiatives?

Watch the video highlights – an evening with Tan Thiam Hock, Founder of Silky Girl (Alliance Cosmetics), Prof Dr. Loredana Padurean, Associate Dean of Asia Business School (a collaboration between the Central Bank of Malaysia and MIT Sloan), Dr.Liz Lim, Co-Founder of Medical Innovation Ventures and winner of the EY Woman Entrepreneur Of The Year 2018 and Sutapa Bhattacharya, GM Group Corporate Communication of Tenaga Nasional Berhad, as they share their innovative ways in which we can advance gender balance in all areas of life.

Watch videos
This article was originally published on Tenaga Nasional Berhad website.

As soon as you meet Calvin Woo, it’s easy to tell where his interests lie. As part of ASB’s MBA Class of 2019, Calvin’s unconventional background centers around entrepreneurship and social impact, two of his long-term passions. He formed his entrepreneurial mindset at age 11, when he asked his parents to buy him a gift and they told him he had to work for it instead. “Nothing comes free,” he jokes.

Still, he is grateful that, as the firstborn son in a Chinese Malaysian family, his parents allowed him to pursue a career in social enterprise, though he credits this in part to his adolescent negotiation skills. “I didn’t have that pressure of being an engineer, doctor, or whatever,” he says. “They let me do what I wanted to do.”

Over his school breaks and during the summer months, Calvin took odd jobs at a family-friend’s logistics company, using his relative invisibility as a young kid within the firm to learn as much as he could about how the business worked. He talked to everyone who would listen, including interviewing truck drivers about their routes and driving strategies.

Through these inquiries, Calvin was employing the principles of Action Learning years before he would enroll at ASB. In this case, it was his way of learning how to build a company. He started his first business as an undergraduate, printing t-shirts for clubs and organizations at his school. Through this experience, he learned invaluable skills such as negotiation and stakeholder management. Most importantly, he learned how to overcome the anxiety that comes with building something on his own.

“It’s about finding the right opportunities and jumping on them,” he advises. “Act now and fear later.” After this first taste of running a business, Calvin knew he could never work for anyone else. He was only unsure of what kind of business to start until he discovered the world of social enterprise. An English Education major, Calvin was concerned about the educational landscape in Malaysia and wanted to improve it.

In the library, he flitted between the education and business sections, unsure how to connect the two disciplines. A conference at MaGIC first inspired him to explore the bridge between social impact and business. There, he learned about the organization’s programs, eventually enrolling in its 2015 bootcamp where he met several like-minded individuals leveraging business to solve social issues. Not only did he learn a lot, but he gained access to a valuable community.

The first social enterprise he worked with as the Head of Programs was an afterschool program targeting high-need Malaysian students between ages 15 and 17. The organization partnered with universities and training providers to give students better-quality ways to spend their time after school, as well address gaps in their learning not covered in a normal school day.

“We saw how education can be done differently,” Calvin says, reflecting on the experience. “We saw that there were limitations to what the government could provide, especially in quantitative and analytics skills, which was one reason why I came to ASB.” And when Calvin started a social enterprise on his own, he encountered another issue that affected every double-bottom-line organization: he was unsure whether to register as a for-profit or non-profit entity.

This binary classification system didn’t make sense for his organization, causing him to wrestle with an identity crisis and eventually shutter the business. To Calvin, social enterprise means much more than providing earned income for otherwise traditional non-profit organizations. It’s a holistic way of thinking about business that takes a larger set of stakeholders into account, with the primary social mission fitting neatly together with a secondary financial mission.

However, he recognizes that balancing the two goals is an art, and a tricky one at that. The solution? “There should be systems in place that support the growth of these types of organizations,” Calvin says. “Social enterprises face a lack of clarity arising from their legal classification. The current policy doesn’t favor them at all.” After earning his MBA, Calvin hopes to help create a legal structure that will support social enterprises, enabling them to pursue these dual purposes.

He believes the ASB curriculum will prepare him for this work by teaching him to navigate between big-picture thinking and addressing everyday business challenges. “A few classes helped shape my mental model, such as Joe Santos’s global management course and Loredana Padurean’s entrepreneurship framework,” he notes. “I can now look at the same issues from multiple perspectives.”

Calvin also sees ASB’s diversity as a unique learning opportunity. For him, interacting with people from different countries was a way to learn more about himself. “I now feel more Malaysian than I had before,” he notes with a touch of humor. He has learned to embrace differences of opinion among his classmates, claiming that unique perspectives provide a more comprehensive view of a problem and result in more interesting and productive discussions.

His favorite example of this is from working in a team with classmates from different backgrounds and nationalities on an Action Learning project for Bangkok Bank. He credits the success of the project to the fact that some of the team members had banking or financial modeling experience, while others had a more entrepreneurial background. At the project’s conclusion, the bank’s president considered implementing several of the team’s recommendations.

“ASB is unique because the school forces a diverse group of individuals into a common working and living space, so we are able to engage more closely,” Calvin says. “Building these deep relationships is invaluable in itself, because it got me to where I am today.”

Month: April 2019