Day 9 – Thursday Sept 16th 2010

Got up early and did my 5k run in 33 minutes today - felt good that I am improving ! Worked with Kev to complete the case writeup, so that it can be circulated to others before class. Grabbed a quick breakfast and was ready for class.

Today we had a relatively light day - with only three classes. And since we were starting at 8 AM today, the sessions ended by 1:45. Most of us spent the time in the afternoon preparing for the sessions tomorrow - I did not have to spend too much time in reading one case, which was on India. Wrote an exec summary for our group on India. Still have not fully absorbed all the GDP and fiscal deficit numbers.

Today there was a live broadcast of CNBC from the HBS facility near Baker's library. I would have loved to watch the proceedings live, but did not have the time for it. Apparently, Dean Nitin Nohria and Michael Porter were on the show. Next week we will have a session by Porter - looking forward to it.

AMP staff told us that next week we will be having our group photo, with all dressed up in formals ! And since it is becoming colder, they are also giving us a nice HBS fleece jacket - I tried a sample today, looks good.

Today sessions on Organizational effectiveness was interesting and I could see many similarities with real organizations. Couple of points, which I felt was relevant:

• Knowledge of the history of the organization or division is crucial for leaders; it is also quite important to know about the leadership style of the predecessors.
• Strategic intent articulated thru a vision, should be attractive to employees (existing and new), shareholders, society and customers as well; many times it is only focused on shareholders.
• Understanding of performance gap and opportunity gap; if there is a performance gap, fix it first before going to address an opportunity gap.
• Most leaders, who come from an engineering mindset, are quite uncomfortable with culture - they are more comfortable with structure and processes. How true !

Strategy session by Prof. Rivkin was riveting - we were discussing the cola wars - the rivalry between Coke and Pepsi for almost 100 years ! Some general principles of how to break into an industry and catch up with a dominant player:

• Attack indirectly, at least at first (either segment, channel or geography)
• Take advantage of changes in the environment
• Put the dominant player in the horns of a dilema (Example : Pepsi came up with an ad stating " For the young and young at heart" ; Coke was in an obvious dilema on how to react)
• Don't undermine the industry structure

The third session on bidding process followed in the auction of a Peruvian mine was something I did not fully comprehend. It was a complex issue and I was not well prepared. Our team also did not do well, our bid was the lowest :-(

Later in the evening, went to the Gym for 20 min on the stepper and about 20 min doing strength training. The weather was cloudy today - otherwise a relaxing day , which is a rarity. Dinner was with the adjacent living group today - but few attended, as people were busy with reading. Mixing outside of living groups happens only during meals. More later.