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Established in 2015 in collaboration with MIT Sloan Management, our vision is to be a global knowledge hub, with regional insights from Asia and the emerging world.
ASB’s research centers conduct impactful research in emerging markets, business strategies, technology, and sustainability. Together, they foster innovation in the business landscape.
The ASB curriculum seamlessly integrates MIT Sloan’s rigor with the strategic insights of Asia. With MIT Sloan Immersion and Industry Treks, it immerses future leaders in a diverse range of industries.
Introducing ACE (Agile Continuous Education), a structured micro-credentials initiative offering flexible, hybrid courses developed to strengthen professional capability in a rapidly evolving landscape.
The decision to head East is about more than your destination – it’s about a new way of seeing things. And for many young professionals, the dynamic business environment of Asia is an irresistible opportunity to gain boots-on-the-ground experience in some of the world’s fastest-growing markets.
The region is home to four of the five most populated countries on the planet, and the war for talent that McKinsey first coined in 1997 now has the added dimension of training the next generation of business leaders for digital transformation and AI-driven innovation. Twenty-five years later, Asia has a growing number of world-class business schools to meet that challenge.
As former Graduate Management Admission Council CEO Sangeet Chowfla points out, in 2000, MBA programs domiciled in the U.S. occupied 38 of the top 50 positions in the Financial Times global MBA ranking. Schools in Asia had none. “This year the U.S. had 29 positions while Asia had eight,” he notes. “Europe makes up the rest.
It’s not that U.S. schools have gotten worse, it’s just that others have caught up, and students have more choices.” The CentreCourt MBA Festival with Poets&Quants in June 2023 will include a special focus on the best business schools in Asia. Below is a review of seven of the hottest MBA programs in the region.
Asia School of Business
Tuition fees: 150,000 Malaysian Ringgits ($33.5K) Class size: 40 students Program length: 12 months
Bringing the M7 to Malaysia, Asia School of Business (ASB) offers an MBA program that stands among the most innovative and affordable among the region’s leading business schools. Based in Kuala Lumpur, a city that is one of the world’s most diverse melting pots, the school was founded in collaboration with MIT Sloan and Bank Negara Malaysia, the country’s central bank.
Students benefit from a teaching approach that Poets&Quants describes as “experiential learning on steroids”, making for a truly unusual yet insightful time. MIT Sloan’s world-renowned faculty teach 50% of the one-year MBA curriculum in KL alongside ASB faculty, and students spend a 3-week immersion at MIT Sloan in Cambridge, MA.
They can extend their learning opportunities by applying to study at MIT in the Visiting Fellows Program or apply to enroll in the nine-month STEM-designated MS in Management Studies from MIT Sloan. Academic rigor is combined with Action Learning experiences throughout Asia, including industry treks and business practicums as well as group projects and associate programs at host organizations.
“Through my Action Learning projects in Malaysia, Thailand, Germany, and Vietnam, I learned that there are different ways to run a business in companies that were sometimes American and sometimes 100 percent Thai or Vietnamese, we developed a common language to understand the problem and deliver results,” says Klara Markus, MBA Class of 2019 and now a Senior Manager at Amazon.
Of course, when applying for a full-time program that lasts for an entire year, students are making a lifestyle commitment as well as an educational one. With sun-kissed beaches, a plethora of Asian culture and cuisine, and one of the world’s oldest rainforests practically on your doorstep, there are plenty of opportunities to expand your horizons outside of the classroom too. And at less than $35,000 for an intensive 12-month MBA program, you’re getting an M7 experience with outstanding ROI.
“My advice to women starting their MBA journey is to first know that you are needed as thought leaders and decision-makers in all industries and across sectors.” In her ten years at the Yale School of Management, Kris Mercuri has had many conversations with women about imposter syndrome. “Imposter syndrome is real,” confirms the director of MBA admissions, recruiting and outreach.
“But we must recognize it as one of the things we can control. Forge ahead in your pursuit of a seat at the table, or at the head of the table. You will be joining a collective effort to get us all closer to equality.” Yale SOM had an early success in the formative years of the school of management back in the 1980s, when women comprised over 50% of the MBA class.
“Meaningful leadership means that all perspectives are represented and all viewpoints heard,” says Assistant Dean Bruce DelMonico, “and making sure that women have an equal seat at the leadership table is a critical component of this vision.”
Nearly Half the Top 100 MIM Programs are Composed of 50% Women Students
Kris Mercuri, director of MBA admissions at Yale School of Management
Since then, Yale SOM has been working to return to gender parity in the MBA program, which DelMonico sees as an important aspect of fully realizing this view of management education. Progress for the leading U.S. and international MBA programs has been slow.
It was not until 2018 that USC Marshall became the first top-ranked business school to achieve gender parity in an MBA program, while Wharton made the headlines in 2021 when the incoming MBA class was the first in the program’s 140-year history to be majority female.
The picture looks more balanced at the early career stage of graduate management education. Some 49 of the top 100 Masters in Management (MiM) programs in the Financial Times ranking recorded at least 50% women in 2022, including five of the top 10.
A Wide Range of Specialized Business Master’s are Now Available
Poets&Quants will be hosting the CentreCourt Masters Festival this week, and discussing with program directors and students the wide range of specialized Masters that are now available.
Certainly, businesses need more diverse perspectives and ideas to succeed in today’s complex and competitive global economy. But still, in 2023, a common reason why fewer women return to business school for an MBA or Executive MBA is the lack of flexibility that allows them to juggle both a family and their careers.
“Women everywhere carry the lion’s share of family care. Taking time off from work to care for young children would entail slower or interrupted career trajectories,” says Kristina Rai, chief operating officer at Asia School of Business, which offers a one-year MBA program in collaboration with MIT Sloan.
“All too often the clock stops for career progression when the biological parenting clock is ticking,” she adds. “This pause in a woman’s career often has an impact on seniority, job mobility, and even their confidence.”
Women and Career Breaks
Kristina Rai, chief operating officer at Asia School of Business
Nalisha Patel, regional director for Europe at GMAC, echoes this point. “Taking time ‘out’ of their career may not be attractive for many women, and doing an executive program may just be too much.” As many women are already taking time out of their careers to have a family, it may not seem like it is an option to further their education as it involves another career break.
“The MBA remains largely a post-experiential degree,” says Bruce DelMonico at Yale SOM, “which can be less optimal timing for many women than comparable programs such as law degrees and other graduate programs.
To address this issue (among others), over 20 years ago we created a program called the Silver Scholars Program, which allows students to go directly from undergraduate to our MBA program here at Yale without any gap, which addresses this timing issue that many women face.”
There are a growing number of flexible options now available – different types of programs, varying course lengths and delivery formats available, online or hybrid study, part-time and stackable – this means that people can find something that suits their circumstances.
Flexible MBA Program Options Most Attractive to Women
“We learned from our GMAC Application Trends Survey that women’s representation in the applicant pool of flexible MBA programs, which allow students to switch between full-time and part-time status through their time in the program, is higher than any other U.S. MBA program type,” explains Patel.
This highlights that flexibility in graduate management education is key for women and something that more business schools need to prioritize if they want the gender balance of their cohorts to be more equal.
“We’re in the education sector, so we should be at the forefront of helping women traverse these dilemmas so that it does not become a binary choice of career or family,” says ASB’s Kristina Rai.
A Need for More Female Faculty and Staff
Malin Arve, vice rector for research at Norwegian School of Economics
Another way business schools can attract more women is to have a more diverse staff and faculty. “For many reasons, business is perceived as a very male subject and often prospective students and their families do not see the whole spectrum of what business really is and the broad set of opportunities it offers,” says Malin Arve, vice rector for research at Norwegian School of Economics (NHH).
“A step towards changing this perspective would be to have more females on the faculty and offer female role models. It is important to lead the way by actively showing the important role that females or other underrepresented groups play in these programs,” says Arve.
She adds, “this can be done by having female role models in the educational institutions, but also drawing upon past and current female students to create awareness of their success and place in their field of expertise.”
‘Business Schools Need to Show They Walk the Talk’
As Rebecca Loades, director of MBA programs at ESMT Berlin insists, “Business Schools simply need to show they ‘walk the talk’ and employ female faculty and women at senior levels in the business schools.”
Business schools can also think of all the little things the institution can do to make an impact. Karen Spens, President of BI Norwegian Business School says “even if you start small, think big. It’s always better to do something than nothing, even small initiatives may have a big impact on someone.”
Marlin Arve emphasizes this point, “I do not think that there is one measure that alone can change the world. Changes come from the sum of all the small things that we do.”
There are many small changes that schools can make, and Nalisha Patel points to a range of options that include, “showcasing more females in their class profiles, adjusting their targeting when looking for applicants, partnering with bodies to support finance, supporting student-led clubs and events, offering more flexibility in programs, and providing places for mothers to breastfeed.”
Rebecca Loades adds that it is important to “recognize that business schools are not alone. Employers want to help their female employees develop so that they can reap the benefits of increased diversity at senior levels. Working together, business schools and employers can develop programs to support female career progression.”
Value in Starting the Journey, Regardless of Whether You Go to B-School
Rebecca Loades of ESMT Berlin
Even if you’re not 100% sure that business school is right for you, GMAC’s Nalisha Patel insists there are many benefits from even just applying. “It needn’t be challenging and you don’t have to commit to anything. You could find a whole host of benefits on the journey of exploring business schools – the connections, knowledge, and information about new careers and sectors.
But most of all, you’ll find confidence in the information out there encouraging you to do it, and you’ll find people that are rooting for you to succeed.” Rebecca Loades agrees. “Invest in yourself, know you can do it, and prepare for personal and professional transformation. And if you’re not sure now is the time, then consider joining women’s networks like the Forte Foundation, or the Professional Women’s Network. Reach out to women who inspire you, learn from them.”
Yale SOM is a founding member of the Forte Foundation and has partnered with organizations such as 21 Broads and Womensphere over the years to encourage more women to pursue graduate management education. The school also engages in recruiting efforts at Seven Sisters schools and other academic institutions, partnering with colleagues at Harvard, Wharton, and elsewhere, to increase awareness among aspiring MBA students.
Bruce DelMonico hopes these efforts and continued experiments with program portfolio and educational delivery innovation will provide inspiration and meaningful flexibility for women who may not otherwise have considered graduate management education to pursue an MBA degree.
“The industry continues to move toward gender parity in the MBA student body, and I feel that it remains a matter of when rather than if. Some schools have crossed that threshold intermittently, and I think more schools will do that in the coming years, and on a more consistent basis.”
There’s no denying that international education is critical in widening opportunities for all. Research shows that international education helps individuals achieve higher economic mobility and better job prospects. That’s not to distract from the many benefits education brings to the individual — widening their perspectives and introducing them to new ways of problem-solving.
Such a mindset is incredibly important for anyone wishing to progress in their lives and career — but it is especially so for Malaysian women. While the number of educated women in Malaysia is increasing, just as many are held back. Reasons include family commitments, personal responsibilities, and a lack of exposure. For educated women like Kristina Rai, this was the most significant lesson she learned from attending an international university.
“Education opens you to, if not like-minded people, then people who value learning,” Rai shares. The desire to constantly grow and learn guided Rai through more than 30 years of her career. As a scholar of Malaysia’s Central Bank (or Bank Negara, as it’s referred to locally), she’s gone from strategy to international relations — seeking new experiences to increase her knowledge and expertise in different areas.
It’s led her where she is today: the COO of Asia School of Business, an innovative institution working with the MIT Sloan School of Management to deliver forward-thinking MBA and leadership programmes. We speak to her about her journey as a Malaysian woman in leadership — and how education was the central driving force in helping her achieve her aspirations.
Rai now helms the Asia School of Business, which aims to provide programmes to elevate and empower men and women in Asia. Source: Asia School of Business
The importance of being an educated woman
Growing up, Rai was always a focused student. She got her As and aced all her exams. More than that, she was influenced by her father’s words. “My dad used to tell me: you’re a girl, so you have to study hard because if your marriage is not great, you can leave the man,” she recalls. “When I look back, it was a practical piece of advice,” the Malaysian recalls.
That is a reality for many women around the world. It’s common knowledge that educating girls is the most effective way to end child marriage. Other research shows that educated women tend to maintain stable marriages and leave violent ones. “My mother was a homemaker,” she explains. “And all her friends were homemakers as well.
The mantra from her was that when you don’t have an education, you’re stuck, you have no choice but to stay in a bad marriage. That was the norm back then — you would hear more about how women endured.” It was a powerful message that stuck with her for years. Upon graduating from school, Rai went on to win a scholarship from Bank Negara. They sent her to Universiti Malaya — Malaysia’s oldest and highest-ranking higher education body — and the University of Manchester for her master’s.
Since then, she carved out a long and impressive career for herself — one that could not have been possible without her education. “I think education gives you a sense of self-sustainability,” she enthuses. “I got a job on my own merit. I could get my own house, a loan for my own car — all my cars, I bought myself. The person I could choose in my life was never determined by how much they earned. It made the partnership more balanced.”
An education can help empower women to choose what she wants rather than what she needs. Source: Asia School of Business
Career or family — why do women have to choose?
Educated women get a reputation for being too career-focused — something which Rai believes is untrue. She noticed it herself when the time came for her to want to start a family. A survey in 2019 found that one in eight companies was reluctant to hire women who could become pregnant. The same survey revealed that one in seven companies take this and any existing children a woman might have into account when awarding promotions.
As such, educated women are faced with a seemingly impossible choice: sacrifice their career or family. “For women, I think that having a young child really takes a lot out of us because we have this guilt muscle in us,” Rai says. “I wasn’t there for my son’s first birthday. It didn’t really matter to him — of course, he couldn’t remember my absence. But I still felt a lot of guilt, like it was something I should have done. And that’s one thing I learned — that you should know what’s important in your life.”
Fortunately, Bank Negara never gave her the ultimatum of choosing — and gave her two years off work. “I had people who said that it would affect my career and my progression,” she recalls. “But the fact of the matter was that I wanted to spend time with my family. When I looked back at it, nothing was severely impacted. I’m very lucky to have had kind and compassionate bosses in the past — but I do think this is something society is moving away from, and I can’t understand why we do that.”
At Asia School of Business, no one is held back because of their gender. Source: Asia School of Business
Building a programme that elevates women
As evidenced by Rai, educated women are just as capable as men of carving out successful careers for themselves — sometimes even more so. In her role as COO at Asia School of Business, she’s working on creating business programmes that will benefit both men and women in their careers and as individuals. More than that, she hopes to instil a growth mindset in Malaysians — something she believes is gained through international exposure.
“The business teaching here gives students incredible exposure to another side of the world: the US,” shares the COO of Asia School of Business. “In an Asian setting, we are not as encouraged to do so. In our culture, it’s more common to give deference to someone because of their position. But with us, we have MIT faculty who come to this side of the world to teach. In their classes, everyone is encouraged to ask questions and give their opinions.”
Indeed, Malaysia scores highest on the Power Distance Index, which indicates the level of deference a society has towards authority figures. The results show that Malaysians are simply not brought up to defy people in positions of authority — by the simple fact that it is considered disrespectful. For women, who are already at a disadvantage for their gender, this can be even more harmful.
In this, Rai hopes that programmes like the ones offered by Asia School of Business can help change that tendency. “It’s important that our students — especially women — are exposed to environments where they are encouraged to question and give their opinions on things,” Rai explains. “This helps them build confidence. Because women take home so much, and society still expects us to take so much — so it’s important that we learn to stand our ground.”
Today, Rai is not the best homemaker. She isn’t a traditional wife and never really spent enough time learning to cook when her mother invited her. “In the end, I don’t cook great,” she says. “But I’m not stuck — and that’s very liberating.”
Dr Joseph Cherian, Practice Professor of Finance at the Asia School of Business (ASB) in collaboration with MIT Sloan, has recently returned to Malaysia after many decades living overseas and held the prior position of Professor of Finance at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School, as well as managing director, global head, and chief investment officer in the quantitative strategies group of Credit Suisse Alternative Investments in New York.
He sees opportunities abound for Malaysia’s growth. Having worked on a wide range of subject matters, from his research on Islamic Sukuk bonds in Malaysia to his advisory role on Singapore’s national pension plan, Dr Joseph Cherian now sees several areas in Malaysia’s economy that can be leveraged and elevated.
BusinessToday just had an interview with Dr Joseph Cherian to get his views on issues like net-zero, sukuk and pensions.
BT: How is Malaysia progressing towards achieving net-zero? How far is Malaysia behind its goals?
Dr Cherian: First some definitions. Achieving net zero – which means no net greenhouse gas emissions, be it carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide or fluorinated gases – would have a big impact on climate change. According to the UN, to cap global warming to 1.5°C of the pre-industrial era temperature level, greenhouse gas emissions must come down by 45% by 2030 and attain net zero by the year 2050.
Malaysia is one of the 70 plus countries that has signed on to that target. The Malaysian sectors covered under net zero are energy, industrial processes and product use, waste, agriculture, and land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF). The commitment from the government appears to be robust. Various government linked entities, such as the EPF, Khazanah, TNB, Petronas and Sarawak Energy, appear to be equally committed to net zero.
To understand our progress, however, we need to scientifically track and measure the progress against targets. Example, the Climate Action Tracker (CAT) tracks and rates 39 countries in this manner by using scientific and quantitative methods & models. Unfortunately, while Singapore is included in the CAT, Malaysia isn’t.
BT: How to finance Malaysia’s goals of achieving net-zero?
Dr Cherian: Funding net zero is not cheap. I wrote an entire article on it:Funding net zero – CLIMATE CHANGE – Magazine | Asia Asset Management (by Joseph Cherian)
While capital market instruments (such as carbon credits & offsets) and government levies (such as carbon taxes) can to a certain extent help achieve net zero goals, all countries, including Malaysia, will need huge amounts of financing to transform their respective national economy towards net zero compliance by 2050.To put things in perspective, it is estimated that the world would need to spend approximately US$9.2 trillion annually on physical assets in energy and land use systems over the next 27 years (2023 – 2050).
If we use a back-of-the-envelope calculation, where it is estimated that the net zero cost is, on average, about 7.5% of GDP, that translates to about US$30 billion in annual net zero costs to Malaysia!
In any case, to raise even part of the requisite amount of net zero financing, one would need all the multilateral development banks’ balance sheets plus various capital market instruments, such as Green Finance, Green Bonds & Loans, Blended Finance, Sukuk, and so on.
What should the government and private sector do to win the global recognition in the sukuk industry?
I view Sukuk as Green Bonds. It is, by construction, totally aligned with the ESG principles. And we know Sukuk predates the coining of ESG. The rage now is ESG-based financing. Why not popularize Sukuk?
Malaysia is the world’s pre-eminent leader in Sukuk issuance, trading, and liquidity. It can use that leadership to nudge the world to recognize that Sukuk financing is a viable net zero financing instrument, which is green by construction, like Green Bonds, Blended Finance, etc. The world needs all the help it can get, and Sukuk lends itself naturally as a green finance solution. Good for the world, and especially good for improving Malaysia’s status as a global financial hub in this region. Just as the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) brought derivatives trading into the mainstream, Malaysia can help universalize and popularize Sukuk.
BT: The future of pensions and social protection in Malaysia. Around Dec 2022, there was a global ranking on the pensions and social protection. In Asia, Malaysia took the spot behind Singapore and Hong Kong. What should be done for Malaysian to secure a better pension system?
Malaysia has one of the best run pension systems in Asia. On the investments side, the EPF follows a prudent asset allocation scheme that targets long-term, risk-adjusted returns, which can also meet its liabilities (viz. member withdrawals).
That said, early withdrawals have become the scourge to pension adequacy in many countries, including Malaysia. The pandemic compounded the problem, especially in Malaysia, where close to US$35bn was withdrawn in aggregate (early!) due to members trying to meet pandemic-related exigencies and expenses.
So, while those with adequate savings can continue to rely on the EPF to protect and invest their savings until the point of retirement – where I hope a cost-efficient life annuity will be automatically made available within the EPF for members who want it – much still needs to be done for the members who have little left in the EPF. These folks are also probably in the B40 income group. An alternative subsistence (or living wage) pension scheme needs to be designed for them so that no one in Malaysia is left behind or falls between the cracks in their retirement years.
The Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER) issued a very nice report on this recently titled, “Retirement Fund Reform: The Future of Pensions and Social Protection in Malaysia (September 2022)”:
Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are the backbone of most developing countries. Hence why many countries have also developed initiatives to encourage entrepreneurship to grow MSMEs to strengthen the economy. But are the initiatives enough to encourage entrepreneurship? What are the actual reasons for Malaysians to become entrepreneurs? Dr Melati Nungsari, Assistant Professor of Economics at the Asia School of Business, explains the factors that can drive a sole entrepreneurial idea or intent into real action.
SOCIAL networks are the most prominent source of support in encouraging individuals to start a business, research has found. Research by the Asia School of Business (ASB) found that social networks provide financial and social capital as well as practical help and business opportunities. Conducted as part of its Rapid Youth Success Entrepreneurship (RYSE) programme, the survey involved 37 Malaysian micro and small business owners with ages ranging from the 20s to late 30s.
Most MSMEs know the fundamentals to do business and the only assistance that they need is funding, says Melati
The research author, Dr Melati Nungsari said the people she interviewed are, in fact, people who already have businesses and who are already making sales.“So, these people definitely have the entrepreneur intention (EI),” she told The Malaysian Reserve (TMR). According to the ASB assistant professor of economics, some individuals act upon their EI due to their financial situation on the back of the unprecedented collapse in employment.
“When the pandemic happened and unemployment went up, we saw that entrepreneurship was one of the things that people went into,” she said. She noted that roadside stalls also increased by more than 200% during the pandemic, based on her recent study. “I think Malaysians in general are very entrepreneurial and it is sort of within our culture already,” she added.
Notably, entrepreneurial traits such as proactiveness, resourcefulness and passion enable individuals to overcome entrepreneurial structural constraints, such as lack of resources and negative action-related emotions. Meanwhile, she said that organisations such as schools, universities and employers play an important role in instilling the motivation for a career shift to entrepreneurship and providing opportunities to upskill.
“The role of organisations in upskilling and providing an entrepreneur-friendly environment is also instrumental in increasing the propensity of start-up behaviour,” she noted. On the other hand, the research found that the role of macroenvironmental factors such as governmental support play less prominent roles in the narratives of entrepreneurs. “We were trying to understand what actually drove the entrepreneurs to open up businesses, however, government support was not mentioned very much.
“We found that successful micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) owners did not actually benefit a lot from the government programmes although the government spends a lot of money on business training programmes,” she said. Melati noted that most MSMEs know the fundamentals to do business and the only assistance that they need is funding as well as connections to expand their customer base and suppliers.
“These people already know what to do for their business and it will be more helpful when the government helps them to market and expand their connections,” she added. Melati opined that the government should conduct an impact assessment for every entrepreneurship programme they have conducted to ensure the success of those programmes.
Moreover, the research found important implications for governments and policymakers in implementing support for those transitioning from salaried employment to self-employment. “Combined with the importance of having entrepreneurial personality traits, which enable individuals to overcome structural barriers, these findings have important implications for expanding entrepreneurship interventions beyond monetary, incentive-based approaches while also including character development approaches,” she noted.
On the online marketplace, Melati saw this platform as very beneficial for a lot of MSMEs, especially during the lockdown. “The e-commerce basically widens their customer base, especially during the pandemic — so they had to rely on bigger platforms to sell their products as well as to reach their customers,” she said. However, relying too much on the online platform also comes with drawbacks, mainly for food vendors that had to rely on the p-hailing platforms and were charged platform fees and commissions.
“If the MSME profit margin is not very high and they are giving a lot into the platform — that could be a problem,” she said. Nonetheless, she viewed that the way forward for MSMEs in Malaysia is to start taking entrepreneurship as a high-value and high-volume generating activity to help increase opportunities in the labour market. “When we talk about entrepreneurship in Malaysia, we tend to think about very low-value ways to generate income, thus, it would be really nice if we could take the conversation to higher values.
“It is about time we should think about businesses that actually innovate new social development and do interesting technological advancements,” she further said. Meanwhile, ASB is currently conducting the RYSE programme which aims to promote upward mobility and lower youth unemployment rates. RYSE is open to the public to train young people with the skills needed to plan, design and operate their own businesses from scratch.
Less Toxic, More Human Work Better with Professor Loredana’s New Book, “The Job Is Easy, The People Are Not!”
As the workplace continues to shift in new and uncharted directions, Professor Dr Loredana Padurean, Senior Associate Dean at Asia School of Business (ASB) and International Faculty Fellow at MIT Sloan, tackles the age-old question of “What are the skills of the future?” in her book, The Job Is Easy, The People Are Not!
In a world where leaders are expected to be technically, mentally, and emotionally competent, the workplace has become more complex, with new values and procedures adding a unique set of challenges and concerns to leaders, employees, and the overall work environment.
That’s where The Job Is Easy, The People Are Not!, and its accompanying Spotify podcast, comes in. Featuring a collection of refreshingly candid conversations with professionals in the ASB and MIT Sloan community, Prof. Loredana’s latest book aims to provide readers with the necessary skills and insight to help them navigate their professional life.
“The field of management is primarily about managing people and their impact on various aspects of a business. From organisational behaviour to operations management, economics to entrepreneurship, and change management to digital transformation, the one variable that always creates complexities is people,” says Prof. Loredana.
After reevaluating the concept of “Soft and Hard skills” in the workplace, Prof. Loredana found these traditional terms to be limited and misleading. To better reflect the true needs of the individual professional, she identified the 10 Smart skills that proved essential for becoming better leaders – and people.
While conceptually the same, “Smart and Sharp” differs from “Soft and Hard” on a psychological level, where the latter gives fixed meaning to skill sets, and the former allows adaptability. Knowing how to manage people is not “Soft,” it is just being “Smart,” while technical skills are not “Hard” and set in stone, but need to be constantly sharpened as technology evolves.
Seeing the importance of developing “Smart” people skills, Prof. Loredana conceptualised the “Top 10 Smart Skills” to not only help people become better coworkers but also better people. By the end of reading the book, the reader will gain a solid understanding of The Top 10 Smart Skills, from emotional maturity and humility to validation, listening, and managing up.
Exploring the very human challenge of working with others, especially when coworkers do not see eye to eye, The Job Is Easy, The People Are Not comprises 10 in-depth interviews between Prof. Loredana and her award-winning fellow academics and colleagues, such as Prof. Charles Fine, Chrysler Leaders for Global Operations Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and former Dean of Asia School of Business; Prof.
Roberto Fernandez, William F. Pounds Professor in Management and a Professor of Organisation Studies; Dr Hadija Mohd, Senior Lecturer at ASB; and Prof. Yi-Ren Wang, Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at ASB, among others. In addition to personal, professional and theoretical anecdotes, each chapter provides practical suggestions about how to develop “Smart” skills to better navigate the complex waters of working with others.
Armed with these insights, readers will find both the job – and the people – becoming easier. As such, this book is invaluable for leaders and professionals at any stage of their careers who desire to nurture a better working environment.
The Job Is Easy, The People Are Not! is now available in paperback and Amazon Kindle. The accompanying podcast is now available on Spotify. To learn more about the “Smart and Sharp skills” curated by Prof. Loredana, visit www.smartxsharp.com.
About the Author
Prof. Dr Loredana Padurean is the Associate Dean at Asia School of Business, a collaboration between the Central Bank of Malaysia and MIT Sloan School of Management, and an International Faculty Fellow at MIT Sloan. Loredana is the Faculty Director for Action Learning and Innovation and Entrepreneurship at ASB. Prof.
Loredana has been an energising force behind the establishment of the school and, in particular, the development of MIT Sloan-devised action learning programmes in Asia, in collaboration with corporate partners in the region. Under her leadership, the Action Learning programme at ASB was recognised repeatedly as one of the most innovative programmes in the world.
She is an international keynote and TedX speaker that shared the stage with Steve Wozniak, Bob Geldof, ministers, deans, authors and public figures in the United States, Asia-Pacific, and Europe.
Prof. Loredana has taught in various MIT Sloan executive programmes such as the Executive Programme in General Management (EPGM), the MIT Scaling Bootcamp, Driving Strategic Innovation, at IMD Lausanne and Cambridge, MA, as well as regional companies such as AirAsia, AIIB, MIDF, Thomson Hospital, AXIATA ADA, Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council, China Construction Bank, Maybank, CIMB, Prudential, Khazanah Nasional and many more.
Her most recent research, “Jungle, Mountain, Ocean – A Startup Journey,” focuses on understanding the evolution of start-ups from scale-ups to sail-ups. Prof. Loredana has an MA in Communication and Economics and a PhD in Management from USI Switzerland.
To learn more about Prof. Dr Loredana Padurean, visit her website at www.prof-loredana.com.
Sipjoy is a cafe-focused mobile app platform that connects local independent cafés to coffee drinkers and café goers with one-flat-price coffee pass that allows cross-café coffee redemption. They have recently won 2nd place in the ASB101k Start-Up track. Vincent Sin founder and CEO of the SipJoy App together with Evelyn Saw joins us today to unravel their coffee journey.
Professor Yi-Ren Wang, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior in ASB, recently received the 2022 S. Rains Wallace Dissertation Award, selected by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology’s (SIOP) Awards Committee.
In her dissertation – Precariousness, Anticipatory Justice, and Belief in Delayed Pay-Off Affect Workers’ Intertemporal Choice Orientation: Implications on Socioeconomic Mobility, Yi-Ren explored some of the psychological barriers that hinder upward mobility among workers who lack job stability.
Compared to workers in more secure work arrangements, workers in these situations are less likely to believe their efforts will be rewarded in the future and, as a result, tend to show less personal initiative, tend to hold lower career aspirations, and engage in less self-development.
By understanding these psychological factors, organizations can work to create a more equitable work environment, and as a society, we can become more understanding and inclusive instead of dubbing those less fortunate as “lazy”.
The SIOP gives this award to the person who completes the best doctoral dissertation research germane to the field of I-O psychology. The winning dissertation research demonstrates the use of research methods that are both rigorous and creative.
How have you implemented the advice you give in your book “The Job is Easy, The People are Not – 10 Smart Skills to Become Better People” in your own life?
As a professor, I learn best when I teach, and that’s how this journey of writing this started. The book was actually inspired by two real life experience: one, my personal global leadership journey, a journey that challenged me to extreme heights, and two, seeing my MBA students struggle to work with their own peers and external stakeholders, especially in globally diverse settings.
Each of the 10 smart skills (I refuse to call these critically important skills soft, as there is nothing soft about dealing with people) presented in my book was inspired by the people I work with, by numerous conversations and realizations, and many moments of self-reflection. These 10 smart skills are: emotional maturity, managing up, validation, humility, followership, productive inclusion, multiple perspectives, adaptability, cognitive readiness, and listening.
I selected these smart skills by observing and thinking about what makes our Asia School of Business (ASB) students successful in working in dynamic and diverse Action Learning work environments. I spent a lot of time talking to leaders in ASB and MIT Sloan executive programs, conferences, events, and many other settings and learnt what skills the industry is looking for.
But by no means is this set of skills exhaustive or exclusive of numerous other skills. What I hope is for the list presented in my book to spark a conversation and reflections on becoming better people. In my own attempt to become among these “better people”, I learnt how my emotional immaturity can stress my team and organization. I tried and failed repeatedly to become more humble, to truly listen and follow up when it is time to do so.
I learnt that a strength, when not calibrated correctly, becomes a weakness: you probably like my energy, passion, fast mind, and gregarious personality, but you will find me uncomfortable. The next step was teaching these skills in my MBA and executive programs. The reactions were astounding. Everyone seemed to resonate to the skills and have a story on how hard is to work with others.
In May, I was teaching at MIT Sloan a different topic, but since my book was just released, I spent about an hour on this subject and the participants couldn’t get enough! Turns out working with other people is a universal challenge. So, more than advice for me, and I hope for many in my organization these skills are a daily reminder on how we can be better at working with people.
What “Smart Skill” do you find that most people struggle with and why?
We all struggle with some more than another, but the most surprising one was validation, a skill that I define as an evidence-based affirmation and recognition for someone’s work contribution, feelings, or efforts. Validation is different than feedback or compliments, because of its evidence-based nature and is a powerful tool when used well, because not only motivates you forward, but also is a training tool on how to continue to do better.
However, what I have learnt is that people who rely too much on external validation, can become validation addicts. These are the people that make everything about themselves, that want recognition for just simply doing their job, that steal the spotlight and don’t share the success with their teams. They can be energy vampires and are very difficult to work with.
The paradox is though that because they crave external validation, they work hard to get it so many of them become leaders, role which in itself is a validation fountain if you want. However, healthy validation is important and essential for a productive relationship, both personal and professional. Telling someone in a meeting or in private how specifically their effort and work added value, is free but priceless.
What were your sticking points in writing this book, where did you find you were having a hard time writing?
I actually never intended to write this book, but because I teach about this stuff, I got a lot of requests to do it. However, as good as I am, I cannot speak about these skills only from my perspective, because it would be terribly myopic, wouldn’t it? So, after a lot of thought, I realized that the only way I can write about people is to ask other people what they do to make it easier to work together.
And since I have 10 skills, I interviewed for each skill someone who I thought excelled in their smart skills and who would be able to teach me and the readers how to be better from that perspective. The interviews are going to be part of a podcast series as well as a video series to be released in August 2022 and each chapter of the book has a QR code that gives you access to all episodes. Or you can just visit www.smartXsharp.com and you can find all the interviews on my page.
Your novel is made up of a number of candid conversations, what conversation left a surprisingly lasting impression on you and why?
I chose to interview people I know really well, and I didn’t expect to be surprised to be honest. But I learnt so many new things about my colleagues and friends. My favorite MIT Sloan Prof. Roberto Fernandez who I interviewed for emotional maturity is one of the most charismatic, energetic and engaging speakers you will ever see, but he confessed to be a shy introvert just like me!
Prof. Charlie Fine, also from MIT Sloan, admitted that as a leader of Asia School of Business he had to practice a lot of paranoia to be more cognitively ready for whatever the job threw at him. And Emily Preiss taught me that one could be too adaptive which is actually quite taxing on our nervous system! Honestly, each interview taught me so much and left me humbled, which is a smart skill that I define as “the more I learn, the less I know”.
What message would you want people to take away after reading your book?
I end my book by wondering will the job still going to be easy and people still hard after reading this book? Of course. It’s part of the human experience to challenge ourselves, and others, and to keep growing from the process.
But what I hope that after reading the book we will realize that we are all difficult and we are responsible of making both the job and the experience of working together not just easier, but more positive, more productive, and most importantly, more meaningful. Because at the end of the day, the business of business is not business.
The business of business is people! As hard or easy as we might be.
Read the full article HERE. Originally published by Women in Business Education (WiBE). WiBE is a global network that champions women’s leadership in business academia.
