What am I doing?

I'm about a week and a half from attending Kelley Connect Week. My travel plans are set, and I'm excited to be staying at the beautiful Indiana Memorial Union. It's hard to believe that I'm so close to starting the program. Lately I've been thinking about how I got to this point. I've been thinking about my (shall we call it) pre-MBA journey, so that I can articulate my story to the fantastic people I expect to meet during Kelley Connect.

Why am I pursuing my MBA? What kind of masochistic-traits must I have to put myself through sleepless nights in order to shell out thousands of dollars? What will this do to my family?

Before you begin to think, "This guy is just thinking about this now!?!" Let me assure you that I have spent ample – and I mean AMPLE – time considering these questions and a hundred others. It's just that now that I'm so close to beginning the program the main questions I had during my research arise again. Obviously this is typical for consumers. I will begin the program with questions swirling, then I will move steadily into the cognitive dissonance stage, and ultimately I will once again realize that pursuing my MBA was the best decision I ever made.

Any way... first thing's first. Why am I pursuing my MBA? I'm doing so because I knew that business is ever-changing and not that long ago it was pretty special to have an undergraduate degree. I knew that to keep pace I needed to become more aware... I needed to become more knowledgeable. I also wanted to give myself the challenge. I wanted to see if I could do it.

Being a relatively-new father and a naturally frugal individual, I was always concerned about the financial commitment of the program. I read countless articles espousing the pros and cons of the MBA ROI, and I drove my wife crazy with Excel analysis proving and disproving the ROIs. What got me over the hump is I realized that there's a price for quality. There's all sorts of financial reasons not to complete an MBA, but it really came down to one simple question: Do I think that the MBA will lead me to a better and happier life? And, the answer was a firm YES!

I've always said that "things work for you if you make them work for you." I think an MBA is exactly like that. I know I will make it work for me... and really, that's that.

The First Few Days in Germany

This week, I, along with four other Kelley Direct students have had the opportunity to travel to Heilbronn, Germany to study at the German Graduate School of Management and Law. The goal for this week is to learn about what makes the small to mid-sized enterprises in Germany (referred to as Mittelstand companies) market-leaders in their niche markets. They play a vital role in Germany’s economy, and we have been learning many ways to transfer their successes to businesses back home.

The five of us from Kelley Direct are pleased to be joined by a wonderful group of fellow MBA students from around the world. This includes several students from Leeds University in England, and two students earning their MBA at our host school. In addition to residents of the United States, England, and Germany, there are students here from India, Taiwan, China, Japan, and Switzerland. This past Sunday evening, the day before class started, we had the pleasure of meeting many of our fellow classmates and instructors over beer and typical German food in a restaurant attached to our academic building. This proved to be an excellent opportunity to get to know each other, and begin the week with a sense of camaraderie.

Each day we have had the opportunity to learn about doing business in Germany from some of the most qualified professors in Germany on the subject, in addition to hearing from executives of the companies described in our textbook. We have visited three different corporations of varying sizes, and along with a tour, were able to hear directly from their management about how to succeed in the business world while operating within both Europe and the global marketplace. In addition to these excursions, each night we have been taken out to dinner by the director of this summer program, Prof. Markus Vodosek, to many different local eateries. They have included biergartens, wineries, and even a dinner on the grounds of a castle. Every day has been filled with informative lectures, in-person visits to companies, and more food than any one person should eat. While I’ve enjoyed the past week, I look forward to the next few days, which is scheduled to include a winery tour and a cultural visit to the city of Stuttgart.

Kelley Direct Graduation

I will start my last quarter with Kelley Direct this week and finish the entire MBA program in August. Even though I still have one quarter remaining, I was able to participate in the graduation ceremonies in May because everyone who will graduate this year had the opportunity to participate in the spring commencement activities. It was great to be back on campus in Bloomington.

I've been looking forward to this the graduation ceremony since the day I started the program because I wanted my two young sons to see me graduate from a great university. I wanted to inspire them to do great things in their lives and get as much education they can.

I was fortunate to have a lot of family support at the graduation. My wife Emily and my sons Jacob and Andrew flew with me from our home in Seattle. My dad flew out from Colorado, and my mom and step-father flew out from Utah.

One of the things that makes Kelley Direct a top online MBA program is the on-campus activities it provides to the students. While students participate in a majority of the MBA program from a distance, on-campus activities like the Kelley Connect Weeks and graduation provide an opportunity to be on campus, talk to faculty and fellow students face to face, and enjoy the full academic experience.

Kelley Direct graduates are invited to attend two different graduation ceremonies. The first is the IU graduate student commencement, which is the ceremony for all graduate students from all programs at Indiana University. The second graduation ceremony is just for graduates of the Kelley Direct programs.

I attended the IU graduate student commencement on Friday at the Assembly Hall. I was able to meet students from several of the other Kelley School programs including the in-residence MBA program and the MSIS program.

On Saturday I attended the Kelley Direct graduation ceremony at the Indiana University Auditorium. It was fun to see many of my fellow students. I had worked with some of them in person at the in-residences. Others I had only ever talked to on the phone and via email. For those friends, it was nice to be able to put a face with the voice.

As the ceremony began, Dean Daniel C. Smith commented that he heard several small children in the audience. He said didn't want parents to feel like they had to take the kids out of the auditorium if they made too much noise. He welcomed the children because they will be the next generation of Kelley School of Business graduates. I applauded his remark because he was right. And, the truth is, my kids were probably the ones making the most noise.

The keynote speaker for the ceremony was Alan B. Gilman. Mr. Gilman earned his MBA from Indiana University in '54 and went on to serve as CEO of Federated Department Stores and Consolidated Products Inc. I enjoyed hearing him talk about his experience and insights because he is such an accomplished professional.

It was a great feeling to walk across the stage and shake the hand of Dean Daniel C. Smith. I really have a lot of respect for him. He made a comment during his remarks that left an impression on me. He talked about the analogy of seeing the glass half full or half empty. He said people who see the glass half full add to the glass and make it more full. People who see the glass half empty take away from the glass and leave it more empty. He encouraged us to be the kind of people who add value and make things better, rather than the kind of people who just point out problems and deficiencies.

This is a wonderful MBA program and has been very worth while. I have seen it improve over the 21 months that I've been in the program. As a Kelley Direct MBA student, I've tried to add value and help make the program better too. That's one of the reasons I worked with the faculty and Student Advisory Board to create the Kelley Direct Investment Club.

I was humbled to be selected as a recipient of the Student Leadership Award along with my friend, Jen Oberholtzer. It was a great addition to a wonderful night.

I'm glad I made the trip out to Indiana for the graduation ceremonies. I'm especially glad that my favorite people could be there to share the experience with me.

The Feeling of India

I’ve been home from India for about a month now and have put off writing this final reflection simply because I’m not sure what to say. While we were in India, we knew that no story or picture or video could capture what we were experiencing, and now that I’m home, I find myself running into the same problem again and again when people ask me about my trip. As India was so different than any other place I’ve been, I don’t even feel like I have the right words in my vocabulary to describe it. No verbal picture I attempt to paint could even begin to do our experience, the country, the people, or the culture justice.

So, without trying to capture my first taste of India in a few paragraphs, there are a couple of closing thoughts I can offer. Before we went on the trip, we were told that many people don’t enjoy their first trip to India. Rather, it takes most people multiple trips to get passed the point of feeling overwhelmed so that they can begin to enjoy and even fall in love with the culture. Well, for most of us, this was our first trip to India. And every single one of us loved it there. We certainly hit our share of literal and non-literal bumps in the road, faced some very long days, and had to navigate many things outside our comfort zone. But through it all we remained open, flexible, and grateful to be there, and as a result, we had an amazing time. I think Kelley and this course gave us that gift, the gift of being able to not only appreciate but embrace a culture so very different from our own. While nothing could completely prepare us for the experience, the 6 weeks of coursework leading up to the trip gave us the self-awareness and desire to take in all that India had to offer. And the opportunity to explore the country while learning from India faculty and visiting local companies certainly gave us a perspective that many tourists don’t ever get.

In closing, I’ll share our “theme” from the week, a thought that was first put into words by Eric Richards during a dinner with our Indian faculty. You can’t describe India, you can’t fully understand India. You have to feel India. And so while I want desperately to share everything I saw and did while I was on the other side of the world, here is where I’ll stop myself. There is a beauty to the land and architecture, a kindness in the people, and a feeling of connectedness in the air that just has to be experienced first-hand.

Online MBA student on fast track to a brighter future

Kelley Direct Online MBA student Robert Edwards, who works for Sam Schmidt Motorsports, helped his racing team win the pole for this year's Indianapolis 500. True Speed Communication made note of Roberts contributions to Sam Schmidt racing and his personal advance through Kelley Direct in a recent press release:

Double duty: In addition to working as team manager for Alex Tagliani’s No. 77 Bowers & Wilkins Dallara/Honda/Firestone, Rob Edwards is also in the process of earning his Master’s Degree in Business Administration (MBA) from the prestigious Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. He began obtaining his MBA in 2008 while still employed at Walker


Racing. Since then, he’s worked as team manager at FAZZT Racing, which was purchased by Sam Schmidt Motorsports just before the 2011 season. “I think one of the important things, for all of us, is to sort of reinvent ourselves as we go forward through life,” Edwards said. “Racing forces us to keep doing that because every season there are new challenges. I think tackling the MBA is sort of the same view. It’s a chance to reinvent myself, if you like. I did all my schooling in the U.K. (United Kingdom) and so as I’ve been doing the coursework, it’s been a challenge to understand how the education system in America works. It’s been a great chance to meet a very diverse group of people outside of racing. So, it’s all about reinventing yourself and I think you get more experiences and you can then draw into what you do in racing. At the end of the day, running a race team is running a business and hopefully it makes one more effective running a business.”

Obtaining an MBA is challenging for anyone, let alone someone like Edwards who works in racing, which is notorious for its long hours.

“First, I don’t think you can do it without a lot of support from your family, so that’s been the number one thing that’s helped me achieve it. There have been a lot of sacrifices from my wife and my girls. It’s actually provided a good foil. As someone who’s not very good at switching off, I find it actually helps what I’m doing in racing being able to have something to keep my mind working away from the racetrack. And, likewise, doing the school work and the course work and being so intense at the racetrack with what we do, I find that it helps to actually provide focus in both areas. When you’re in Sao Paulo (Brazil) for example and you go back to the hotel at night, it’s a good way to keep your mind active, but in a different manner. I find it helps to keep me focused in both areas.”

Read the full press release via True Speed Communication >>

See how you can earn an AACSB Accredited Online MBA

Failing Forward

What’s up KD! I hope this blog finds you well. It’s been a while – I have been meaning to get this blog out, but I have been swamped.

This month’s blog is about failure… Well, at least, it’s about how to fail forward. Failing Forward is the title of a book from John Maxwell, whom you know is a favorite author of mine. The book talks about how people view failure incorrectly, which leads to lots of problems. In fact, the premise of the book is that there are 15 steps to failing forward. Since the book is awesome (I highly recommend it!!), I want to focus on the steps Maxwell states we need to take to fail forward.

I don’t know where each of you are in your career’s, but thanks to my experience in the MBA program, I am in the process of making a career change – from Education to Business. And while I know I have the skills and intellect to do well, the process has been an exercise in failing forward. Between the difference in communication between the fields, especially as it has to do with resumes, interviews, and jargon, it has been quite the learning experience. However, as I have continued to move forward with my plans to change careers, I have often reflected on the following 15 steps to fail forward, according to Maxwell.

1. Realize there is one major difference between average and achieving people.


2. Learn a new definition of failure.


3. Remove the “you” from failure.


4. Take action and reduce your fear.


5. Change your response to failure by accepting responsibility.


6. Don’t let the failure from outside get inside you.


7. Say good-bye to yesterday.


8. Change yourself, and the world changes.


9. Get over yourself and start giving yourself.


10. Find the benefit in every bad experience.


11. If at first you do succeed, try something harder.


12. Learn from a bad experience and make a good experience.


13. Work on the weakness that weakens you.


14. Understand there’s not much difference between failure and success.


15. Get up, get over it, get going.

As KD students, either in the program, personal life, or career, you are going to have a time when you feel like you failed at something. For me, it has been various moments during this career change process, among several other things; just reflect on these 15 steps as you think about failing forward. When it comes to failure, as the great philosopher Jay-Z says, “It’s one to the next one…” For me, it has been truly helpful.

As a closing aside, I want to say thanks to Allyn Curry and the Kelley Graduate Career Services office. It has been quite a learning experience working with them so far during this career change process. I can’t imagine how lost I would be without Allyn straightening me out…

Well, KD, I hope that you think of some of these tips the next time you need to fail forward. Until next time, I’ll catch you later!!

In addition to sightseeing around Delhi and Agra (including seeing the Taj Mahal!), we somehow managed to fit in several days of classroom time, company site visits, and even a case presentation. Just like an in-residence week in Bloomington, our days were packed full.

We took class and stayed at the Indian Institute of Management Lucknow in Noida. The campus was quite beautiful, and our Indian professors were exceptional. We also had numerous guest lecturers, who covered a range of topics including rural marketing, supply chain challenges, public private partnerships, cultural differences, and more. In addition, to deepen our learning experience, we spent a day touring two companies, Genpact and Maruti Suzuki, and received a unique inside look at India’s advanced auto manufacturing and service industries. Each day, we walked away from class so excited about what we learned. The opportunity to interact with prominent experts and visit Indian companies was incredible.

While our Indian classroom experience was similar to that of the US in some ways, at the same time, the cultural differences were evident. We quickly realized that actually applying our material on cultural differences was much more difficult than writing a paper on the topic. Our Indian faculty noticed the differences as well. Just as we had to adjust to a new classroom setting and different lecture styles, our professors had to adjust to our way of looking at things and our particular types of questions.

Tea times quickly became an important part of our classroom experience. Unlike the class breaks I was used to in the US, where everyone went their separate way for a few minutes to make a call or check email, in India these breaks were highly interactive. For around 30 minutes, both the professors and students engaged in conversation, using the time to build and strengthen relationships. I found this time to be very refreshing, an acknowledgment to the importance of spending time with one another.

During class, the electricity would cut out from time to time. We expected brownouts but what caught us by surprise was that our Indian professors didn’t miss a beat when the lights went off. They continued to seamlessly lecture (the computer and projector were on a back-up generator). We later joked that if something like this happened in US, half the class-time would be spent rebooting computers and getting everyone back on track. But in our Indian classroom, literally not a second of time was lost. In this, we found a lesson in flexibility and adaptability.

Just like in a US MBA program, case studies are a big part of the India curriculum, and we had to do a case analysis presentation for our final project. We found that the case was written in a different manner than what we were used to, and it took a little time to fully work through the material. In the end, our Indian professors were impressed with our work and really appreciated the fact that we approached the case differently than their Indian students. Although neither approach was superior, it reminded us that because of our culture, we see things differently.

Although we were completely exhausted at times, everything we fit into our days was necessary, as each element added so much depth to our learning experience. For example, our discussions around marketing in rural India wouldn’t have been nearly as impactful if we hadn’t seen some of India for ourselves first. The company visits emphasized that India has advanced and rapidly growing businesses, the tea times highlighted the importance of relationship building, the brownouts reminded us of the things we took for granted and the need to quickly adapt, and interactions with our Indian professors revealed that, through our cultural differences, we had a lot to learn from and teach one another.