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Asia School of Business

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Executive Education

Category: Student Experience

This entry is dedicated to mothers who are considering pursuing an MBA.

I have always been someone who constantly strives for self-improvement. As a working mother, I’ve always felt like I want to do more and achieve something bigger. That’s how the journey I am currently on began: with the search for a business school that would not only fulfil my ambition but at the same time enable me to grow in my role as a mother. When it comes to an MBA, the Ivy League schools in the US are the top choices by default. After eight years of living abroad, I wasn’t sure relocating for the second time was the right move for my family and me but I was still keen on a quality MBA degree. I am no superwoman, but I can say that the choice of pursuing my MBA degree at ASB makes it possible. So, why ASB?

I get to learn from the best in a small group where I could make an impact. The Professors are all from MIT Sloan and, being in a small group, these Professors get to concentrate on teaching individuals in addition to teaching a cohort.

It is not all about books. ASB practices Action Learning, where the students get the chance to apply what we learn in the classroom into the real world. I had no marketing experience in my 9 years of working, but through ASB I got to work on marketing projects with great companies.

The networking opportunity at ASB is amazing, especially with top business leaders in ASEAN. For someone like me who has chosen Kuala Lumpur as the place to settle down, such opportunities are amazing and valuable.

ASB grows with the students. The first ASB baby is due in June 2017. The school has been very supportive in making sure the mother, as a student at ASB, gets the support she needs. (That student is me.)

My typical school day begins at 6.30 am – I get my son ready for school, prepare breakfast for my husband, do some house chores and then head straight to my 9am class. Even though classes at ASB typically ends at 5pm, I usually stay back for another hour or two to avoid the traffic and to work on my assignments. I make time for dinner with my family, as I believe that a family who eats together stays together.

After putting my son to bed, I spend some time with my husband before returning to my MBA books. I usually cram my studies on the weekdays to make sure that my weekends are freed up for time with my loved ones. The first year of my MBA journey has been challenging but I enjoy every part of it – the challenges make me a better person and I look forward to the rest of my time as an MBA student at ASB.

“You think that because you understand “one” that you must therefore understand “two” because one and one make two. But you forget that you must also understand “and” … a simple lesson but one that we often ignore: the behavior of a system cannot be known just by knowing the elements of which the system is made.”
– Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

What do ebola, chickens and eggs and business strategy have in common?
The answer: they can all be better understood and better managed through applying a System Dynamics approach.

If your next thought is to wonder what System Dynamics is, you wouldn’t be alone. Before I embarked on this intensive, three-day course as part of our Spring Immersion Program 2017 at MIT Sloan, I thought Systems Dynamics was another one of those fancy MBA buzzwords thrown around that basically meant analyzing and optimizing systems to get the best results. By the end of the three days with Professor Nelson Repenning, Distinguished Professor of System Dynamics and Organization Studies, my perspective completely changed.

This course alone was worth my whole ASB-MIT education. What I thought would be a class about cold, rational adjustments to calibrate performance turned out to be a deep, almost philosophical exploration of human behavior — or, in simple terms, why smart people make dumb mistakes. We were taught not only how to build models showing cause-effect links, inflows and outflows of stock and how to use sophisticated modelling tools such as Vensim to run these models and project the future state of the system – but how, ultimately, every system in the world, be it a business, a political organization, a country, an ecosystem or even a family unit can be broken down and understood through System Dynamics.

I was introduced to a new way of looking at problems: an approach that is not linear in nature, but cyclical. From exploring how epidemics spread, to what causes someone to be stuck in a cycle of poverty, to how to analyze complex business models to understanding that extra cramming will not lead to better exam results, the applications are so stunningly infinite and hauntingly profound. (There were even a few chicken and egg and “why did the chicken cross the road?” jokes subtly and expertly woven in.)

It hit me that a better understanding of System Dynamics not only helps curb the spread of deadly diseases like Ebola, determine how to manage stock flow if you’re running a chicken farm or ensure that short-term performance-enhancing efforts in a company don’t ultimately lead to delayed negative impacts in the long run; it can also have tremendous positive impact at every level of society, from business to government to society.

These three intense days not only helped me understand better some of the challenges I observed in my previous workplaces, but also led me to reflect on shortcomings in my own personal life that could have been better managed by understanding that so many things in life are connected and have run-on effects — effects that we are often blind to or overlook, underestimating their significance.

Understanding system dynamics forces us to acknowledge how flawed and irrational the way we make decisions are, and how much of our approach is based on (incorrect) assumptions and mental models. It gives us a tool that, although not perfect, helps us challenge some of those assumptions and invite others to participate in helping us make better judgment calls.

To the future classes of ASB, this is the one course you don’t want to miss!

For many young professionals, pursuing an MBA is tantamount to bringing some level of certainty to one’s life. Whether this is in the form of personal validation, the need for a period in which to find one’s true calling in the world, or just a promise of a promotion, the degree seems to be a pathway to some mythic oasis of clarity. This is edified by the idea that the skills one would gain through their MBA coursework is, more or less, predictable – both the curriculum and the faculty are well-known, and there’s a clear understanding of which industries frequent which schools during recruiting season.

I myself was no exception in that I hoped to take a sharp turn that might steer my somewhat atypical career path into a more concrete corporate or academic future. Once I had arrived at ASB and the initial profusion of adrenaline – stemming, mind you, from the fact that I was working with young professionals from a different continent every day while living in a veritable tropical resort – had worn off, however, I had a somewhat sinking realization that a midlife layover at ASB would in no way lead me to a path of certainty (at least initially).

It was of course no secret that we would be the charter class for a new business school, but the degree to which ambiguity reigned became present in the most quotidian of circumstances: asking questions such as how to submit a form, or to whom I should speak to start a process were constantly met not with answers, but typically with more questions. This dynamic proved omnipresent throughout my first semester, permeating experiences in the classroom (which professor is coming this week?) to my Action Learning projects (what are we supposed to be doing, again?), and even to my personal life (why am I being deported? [just kidding]).

What started to differentiate my time at ASB from the anecdotes of my friends and colleagues at other business schools, however, was the extent to which faculty and administration here were aware of the work that remained to be done, and the intent with which they listened to our feedback. On more than one occasion, we met with the faculty to discuss an issue at hand, and the student feedback was incorporated immediately. It became clear that this looming specter of ambiguity was present on both sides of dean’s office, and that all of the school’s constituents were interested in working together to make the decisions that would help ensure that ASB developed into a world-class institution.

The upside of all of this has been that, since so little had been defined by the school (and that the faculty and administration were so committed to each and every one of us), opportunities tend to be only a proposal away: by way of allegory, it is perhaps true that filling a void tends to be an easier task than destroying and reconstructing an existing edifice. To this end, my first year resulted in me joining a faculty research project, working with two global FMCG companies, and securing a summer fellowship at MIT. I was also able to offer an opinion on any of the new student groups that emerged throughout campus, as well as the development of the administrative infrastructure necessary to ensure that these opportunities were viable and impactful.

In short, and perhaps ironically, I did gain some clarity at ASB via the message that clarity might not always be the greatest goal to which one should aspire. In fact, ambiguity examined a different way often resembles opportunity, and it is simply up to us to ensure that we have wherewithal and vigilance necessary to reach through it and the connect the dots in such a way that we fashion a constellation of actions that aligns with the goals to which either we or our communities aspire.

While it’s not yet certain whether this ethos of maximizing the output of uncertainty is a product of ASB’s unique culture or a function of the school’s startup state remains, I have watched as both my classmates and I have become practiced decisions-makers with a bias toward (thoughtful) action when unexpected ambiguity arises. I do hope that ASB continues to embrace this spirit, and I have no doubt that this is going to be a skill that we all bring to our future positions, and for which ASB develops a reputation of producing principled, transformative, and global leaders.

As an Indian national with an engineering background, my previous work experiences did not involve dealing much with a multicultural team or with business-related challenges. Working with my diverse classmates on Action Learning projects has pushed me beyond my boundaries. My summer Action Learning Project team consisted of three engineers from the US and India, as well as a lawyer from Malaysia.

Despite not having any experience in the banking industry, we spent the summer working with Citibank Malaysia because the bank wanted people with fresh perspectives. Our project at Citibank was focused on the digitization process of retail branches.

After three to four weeks of working together on our project, we were split up and sent to work in different departments. In the beginning, I didn’t really like working in a separate department. It took a few days of immersing myself in the environment to start enjoying it. Having been placed in the wealth management department, my work involved a lot of interaction with people. This was, of course, also due to the nature of my project.

My work was very dependent on people; I had to learn to approach them and to effectively convey and receive messages in person as well as via phone and email. I also picked up hard skills like financial modelling and market sizing, which were very different from skills needed during my previous Action Learning projects.

At the end of the three months, we presented our ideas to the Head of Consumer Banking for Asia Pacific, who really appreciated our solutions. Looking back at this experience, I feel like I have significantly improved my communications skills and am much more confident, responsive and attentive. ASB has definitely changed me for the better.

With those famous words from Steve Jobs, Bill Aulet, MD of MIT’s Martin Trust Center for Entrepreneurship and author of Disciplined Entrepreneurship, kicked off an exciting week of the Entrepreneurship module for our Class of 2018. Jobs and Aulet are certainly not advocating for people to attack and rob ships at sea. Instead, they are promoting the rebellious and anti-mainstream pirate spirit that entrepreneurs must aspire towards to challenge the status quo, a key lesson I learned through my MBA at the Asia School of Business.

Learning from the Pirates of Entrepreneurial Hubs

Our Entrepreneurship module was a great follow-on from our US Trek, a two-week exposure trip across three major US cities – from the techy, start-up hub in San Francisco, the global financial capital that is New York, and to public institutions and international organizations headquartered in Washington DC.

By exposing us to a wide range of companies, from start-ups and Fortune 500 companies to government institutions supporting entrepreneurship, the ASB US Trek gave us a better understanding of the options that await after we leave business school. Contrary to popular belief, many MBA students are not merely seeking a promotion at their current company but pursue an MBA to switch careers or explore new industries – something that the US Trek gave us the opportunity to do.

Nurturing Pirates in ASB

Given that ASB itself is a start-up, the pirate spirit is alive and strong in all aspects of the organization. Some of the ways this manifests itself:

We co-create our educational experience. We regularly provide feedback directly to our Dean, Professor Charles Fine, about how things can be improved for our class and subsequent classes. This experience of telling the Dean, an MIT professor with decades of experience, ways he could “do his job better” was initially a culture shock for me, having come from environments with more hierarchical-driven cultures!

We partner with the ASB community to impact the region. Not too long ago, a fellow classmate, Dr. Mimi Aminah Wan Nordin, and I organized a 10-day entrepreneurship program for 60 undergraduates from South Korea and Malaysia. ASB provided full support through involvement of faculty such as Professor Loredana Padurean, Professor Rajesh Nair, and Professor Willem Smit in the design and facilitation of the program. Our classmates served as mentors to the younger students and the event was hosted in the beautiful Sasana Kijang, where ASB is currently housed.

We attract a particular type of student – unconventional and entrepreneurial. ASB is one of the first business schools that makes exceptions for outstanding students without a GMAT score. Instead, the school looks for candidates who have demonstrated an extraordinary and unconventional career path. This has led to a diverse mix of students, ranging from musicians, physics professors, lawyers, start-up founders to even humanitarian workers with an equally diverse range of skill sets, perspectives, and backgrounds.

We have amazing mentors and role models. Finally, ASB’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center (IEC) , managed by Professor Rajesh Nair, is an open resource providing personalized guidance to students at different stages of their entrepreneurship journey. Raj—as we fondly call him—is always one WhatsApp message away from a mentorship session towards building your own business!

The dean and professors (who are start-up founders in their own rights) are also readily reachable and are invested personally in our growth. As a student of a start-up school with the ambition of changing the fastest-growing region in the world, ASB is providing us with entrepreneurial mindsets and skills. These skills will be crucial for shaping the business world, not only tomorrow, but even today.

I’m proud to be an ASB pirate!

Since starting my MBA journey at Asia School of Business, I’ve had the chance to work with people from all walks of life. In fact, ASB’s diversity is inescapable and is one of the school’s defining characteristics. With a class full of students hailing from different backgrounds, every Action Learning experience is an opportunity to discover new ways of looking at and resolving real issues that affect our host companies in the ASEAN region. Having varied vantage points within the team makes for a collaborative and constructive approach to each situation, where new ideas build on previous discussion points and look at the issue from new angles.

More than once, my teammates have thought up approaches to business issues that stretched me well outside my comfort zone, forcing me look at a problem from angles that I would never have contemplated had I been working on my own. I consider these growth opportunities some of the most valuable and memorable aspects of my entire MBA experience. An example is a recent Action Learning project I worked on in Bangkok. I was on a team with students from four continents and our project was to advise a Thai-owned supermarket chain on the expansion plan of its national distribution network over the coming decade.

Over the course of a semester, we visited Thailand on three separate occasions for a combined total of four weeks. We were tasked with identifying opportunities for regional distribution centers, assessing their financial feasibility and recommending a roadmap and timeline for execution. In order to understand the full extent of the issue, we started by visiting and interviewing people at company headquarters, warehouses and stores. Hierarchy and respect are deeply embedded in the culture of this region, so our teammates from the region provided guidance on how best to navigate this environment deftly to ensure a successful outcome.

We discovered constraints on the expansion plans — such as contracts with logistics companies, loading bays that could only accommodate for certain types of delivery trucks and short delivery windows for stores in city centers, among others. Luckily, our team’s collective expertise included diverse fields such as engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, financial modelling, insurance and consulting, as well as law and sociology. We borrowed from these past experiences to come up with useful insights into ways to assess the host’s issues and deliver a project outcome that would create the most value.  Our hosts were very pleased with our recommended roadmap and timeline, which provided a 15% reduction in projected costs compared to the status quo.

Thanks to this project I have great memories of Bangkok and was able to work on my business, cultural and personal development in many ways.

With a background in the solar energy industry, Alex is passionate about sustainability and using big data, behavioral economics, and process optimization to deliver impact and efficiency. The former Marketing Director was also a Venture for America Fellow, trained in principles of entrepreneurship and holding experience working in a startup. Hailing from the United States, an MBA at ASB gave her not only a world-class education, but the chance to explore and discover a region of the world she had never visited before!

We caught up with Alex, who is from our MBA Class of 2018 recently for a quick Q&A about her experiences at ASB.

Tell us about your career background and what you were doing before ASB.

As an Environmental Science major, I was daunted and somewhat disheartened by the career search process. Everything pointed toward academia or activism, neither of which seemed to be a great fit for me. I stumbled upon Venture for America through a friend that had gone through the same dilemma and ended up living in New Orleans for three years.

My two jobs there were as an energy efficiency consultant and a marketing director at a solar firm. I use the term “consultant” loosely, because my job involved climbing on roofs and poking around mechanical rooms to see how well equipment was running, or typing in numbers from utility bills, or troubleshooting our connection to a building’s operating software. As a marketing director, my job description was more conventional, but covered everything from making brochures and infographics to tweaking ad campaigns to optimizing sales operations. I learned a ton of skills at each position, but higher-level strategy always felt elusive to me, hence enrolling at ASB.

Why choose ASB?

For me, it was a unique chance to explore a region in which I had a lot of interest but had never visited. Not only that, but it was a way to get an MIT-quality education in a unique environment with a diverse class. If I had gone to any other business school in Asia, it would have been mostly geared toward local students, and if I had gone to business school in the US, I would not have received many of the learnings and opportunities that ASB offers.

What has been the highlight of the MBA 3.0 curriculum?

The ability to travel. Period. A person’s environment does a lot to shape their behavior, so it’s been interesting to learn from both the businesspeople and the business environment in a variety of cities, countries, and organizations. Even beyond business applications, travel has made me broaden my perspective and become more open-minded. I’m able to quickly adapt to new environments, whether it’s in the context of working out travel logistics or developing respect for different cultures. It’s one of those skills you don’t even realize you have until after you’ve developed it.

What has been the highlight of Action Learning?

Working in groups, but not because it’s fun. It’s more difficult than you would imagine working in a group of diverse nationalities, work experience, work styles, and opinions. Nearly every group experiences conflict at some point throughout their project, and that’s okay. We’ve all learned a lot over the past year about how to identify personality and work style differences and accommodate for them. At the same time, there is a lot to learn from each group member’s unique experiences, and when we do the right amount of listening and collaboration, we can greatly increase our learning beyond what we would have been able to do on our own.

What has living in Malaysia/Asia been like for you?

Living in Asia has been interesting in ways that I could not have anticipated. I’ve gotten my first real taste of being a minority and not being able to blend into the crowd. I’ve also become a lot more curious about what most people feel are everyday behaviors, and have been trying to uncover the nuances of each country’s culture. That said, it’s also been striking to see how different each country within Southeast Asia is, given that they’re all relatively close geographically. Overall, the program has made me realize what aspects of cultures and societies I value most, and will hopefully guide where I’m going to live next.

How have you balanced personal projects / social or family life and a hectic full-time program?

With great difficulty. I’m someone who likes structure and organization, so the best way to enforce my priorities is to adapt my schedule to them. For example, I make sure to exercise and make myself dinner when I get home before working on schoolwork, because I know that otherwise the latter will take up my time. I call my parents and my boyfriend at the same time every week or every day. I make sure to have at least one event to look forward to each weekend day. It’s not a perfect system, but I think I’ve come a long way toward being a more balanced person.

Who should apply to ASB in future rounds of applications?

Flexibility and open-mindedness are two qualities that come to mind. As a student, you will constantly be exposed to new people, concepts, and cultures, and it will all come at you at the speed of light, so you need to be prepared for, or even excited about, this type of environment. “Unconventional” sums it up, because if you are interested in a conventional career on Wall Street or in a large company, you will have an easier time of it elsewhere. If you want an adventure, maybe ASB is for you.

An engineer by training and a successful former manager in the aerospace and aviation defense industry, Jatin Sehgal has worked with industry giants including Reliance Defence and Engineering Ltd. Recently, as part of his recent Action Learning trek, he fulfilled a dream to work with a company he has always admired: Boeing. Jatin is a hard-working and good-natured New Delhi native whose plans after his MBA are to further his newfound passions in corporate finance and investment banking.

We caught up with Jatin from MBA Class of 2018 recently for a quick Q&A about his experiences at ASB.

Tell us about your career background and what you were doing before ASB.

I was an engineer by training. After graduating, I chose to pursue a career in Business Development in the Defense Aerospace Infrastructure Development industry. I have worked across the private sector on Joint Venture (JV) projects as well as with government departments to sign Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs).

Why choose ASB?

ASB provides you a platform that blends the west’s education with east’s application. This is a must-have for today’s globalized corporate world. To complement the blend of east and west, ASB also blends rigorous classroom theory with practical onsite action learning projects where we apply what we learn. In short, it prepares battle-ready soldiers for the corporate world.

What has been the highlight of the MBA 3.0 curriculum?

Every day has been challenging, every class has been interesting, and every professor has taught me new concepts. It’s difficult to pick a single highlight – but it’s the full package combined that makes this experience so worthwhile!

What has been the highlight of Action Learning?

Going through more half of the project and then realizing that the initial project scope was incorrect, modifying it and completing the project well in time with client’s complete satisfaction. In short: fail, forward, excel!

How have you changed as a person since joining the course?

On a personal level I have become more independent, more curious, more open, and more of a risk taker than I was before.

How have you balanced your personal life and a hectic full-time program?

I have a saying when it comes to ASB: “At ASB you can have only two out of three: studies, friends or sleep.” Well, I love my friends and hate to compromise on my academics. Not to worry, though; one gets enough long weekends in Malaysia to catch up on sleep and ensure one’s well-being.

Who should apply to ASB in future rounds of applications?

If you have passion to be a leader in the Asian ecosystem, the drive to lead, take calculated risks and make an impact, then you are the perfect fit for ASB.

A year ago, I made one of the best decisions of my life: to embark on an MBA journey with the Asia School of Business established in collaboration with MIT Sloan. Having always been fascinated by the different cultures and diversity across South East Asia, I was very excited to work with Procter & Gamble in Myanmar for my first regional Action Learning project and with Axiata, a regional telecommunications conglomerate, in Cambodia for my second.

Working with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures in growing markets such as Myanmar and Cambodia has taught me invaluable lessons both personally and professionally. I’ve summarized some of my favourite takeaways from my Action Learning projects below:

Team and host communication are crucial to project success. We would meet our hosts regularly within the week to keep them updated of our progress. I found it very helpful as our hosts would provide feedback on our market research and the data we analysed. We also learned our hosts’ management styles so we could align our expectations to theirs.

Your team will always have your back. During our second onsite visit in Myanmar, which lasted almost two weeks, one of our team members caught a bad viral infection and needed to be on a drip, and I severely injured my back which, as a result, limited my range of movement. It was very stressful because there was so more market research that needed to be done but we learned to realign our team’s expectations to our current situation. Luckily, we had each other to rely on.

Want to understand local culture and brand perception? Conduct home interviews. Home interviews are the best way to understand the local culture and the end user’s perception of a brand: Many Burmese families, especially in cities, live in apartments and buy most consumer products including cosmetics from the stores below their apartment blocks. My Action Learning team and I would visit home after home with a translator to conduct interviews. It was an exhausting task, as we needed to climb many flights of stairs just to talk to a handful of people. Nevertheless, it was truly a pleasant experience as they are very welcoming even though they barely knew us.

There’s a world of possibilities in start-ups and incubators. The start-up community had never been particularly exciting to me until I joined ASB and started engaging with entrepreneurs in Cambodia. Among these entrepreneurs, a common trait is grit – they would get back up as many times as they needed to, because failure is never an option. I remember meeting an entrepreneur and talking for over 2 hours about his idea and how passionate he was about the potential for growth of his business!

Value bonding time with team members. We would spend time exploring food in Cambodia and I got to know my team on a personal level as we ate most, if not all, of our meals together. I even had a memorable birthday celebration with my team while we were there. This bonding helped with our project too, as we understood how each team member thought individually and could increase overall team effectiveness through honest feedback amongst ourselves.