Searching for a balance between studies and work. Taking steps towards becoming a whole manager..

When discussing with my MBA students I often hear them wondering about how to manage to study effectfully while you are busy at work, how to manage your time with both “studies” and “the other life”.

My counterquestion is: why are these two things kept on two separate files? The idea with University of Applied Sciences MBA studies is that the student has the possibility to work and study at the same time. To learn new thinking, new theories, new ways of doing things, and take the new knowledge and skills directly to work. Test the theories in practice. Students can get actionable takeaways with them when they leave study sessions and workshops and go back to workplace.

In the following I discuss some of issues taken up in an article in the  Talouselämä copy 27/2014. The article is about how the managers combine work and life. Maybe we get some ideas from this article to take with us to the studying..

People often discuss the importance of the balance between them. The concept of balance between work and life includes an unrealistic thought that a business manager should have a “healthy life” to counterbalance “stressful and unhealthy work”. Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy say that one solution is to optimize and strengthen your performance capacity both at work and outside the work.  This is what is meant with the idea of “becoming a whole manager”.  There is a lot of proof about the benefits of retaining the balance, for example from the research “The Energy Project”.  Read more about this in here.

Managers with a lot of experience speak about the importance of motion and pondering. Managing and leading is more than just running a business. Maximizing your own motivation and mental strength is also part of it. Helle Bundgaard, a neuropsychologist, says that this is “becoming a superuser of your brains”. Experts talk also about emotional health, finding happiness and reasonableness in one’s own work. The article refers Jorgen Vig Knudstorp, the CEO of LEGO, who says that managers and companies can become and remain alert and effective by regarding work as a “serious play” which includes learning, creative problem solving and joyfulness! 

Wish you inspiring moments during your studies!

The next industrial revolution is ahead us - some say, it is already here

We are in front of the third industrial revolution. Are the managers and leaders prepared for it? Same can be asked all of us, as even handling daily affairs can cause confusion and feelings of disability. 

Are the managers and leaders/are we, abreast to face all the changes? Although the drivers of digitalization are the new smart technologies and the information removing to cloud services it is a question of a wide cultural change, ultimately. Gainig competitive advantage in the digitalized economy and business requires holistic viewing and systemic thinking.

IOT Internet of things, Big Data, Gamification, Social Media, reading Silent Signals - all these today's new things challenge all managers, not only marketing managers. Let us keep this in mind during our MBA studies. Studying in these times is so pretty rewarding and hooking because we see so much change, so many different kind of phenomena around us to think about and investigate. Curiousity pays! Enjoy yourself of your studies.

Talents and talent management, one of the top-10 topics today!

Studying for a MBA degree is one way of talent management, for the student we can say it is talent self-management and for his/her employer it is one way of talent management. I often find myself thinking that MBA studies are actually very effective experiental learning and development for leadership as the student can all the time reflect how it feels to get new understanding and skills.

How does Talent Management differ from Human Resource Management? Some would say that they are about the same... According to one definition, Talent Management is an organization's commitment to recruit, retain, and develop the most talented and superior employees available in the job market. Note "most talented and superior" - that is the point.

There are many good articles and research reports available on Internet. I attach here a link to a page where you can visit and order the report "What talent wants" into your email.

http://www.paconsulting.com/our-thinking/talent-management-raising-corporate-performance-by-understanding-what-talent-wants/

Interview of Elizabeth Moss Kanter, who is one of my absolute favourites among researchers and writers!

I some times go to Youtube and listen to professor Elizabeth Moss Kanter. She has been one of my favourite gurus over decades, and she never fails! Hope she could inspire even you. Try this video clip:

MBA studies cover a lot of academic articles and research reports - here you will find some examples of the kind of texts

The following article is about new business models. Hope you find it interesting! This is the site address in Internet (http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-to-identify-new-business-models/).



This is another article which was found in LinkeIn, and has this site address: (http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130829124922-284615-dealing-with-ambiguity-the-new-business-imperative).


The next text deals with our way of thinking and acting and asks: Are you a strategist?



You are welcome to visit this blog regularly! I will update it with new texts!

Welcome to study the amazing and ever again interesting issues of international business management!

Dear MBA student,

You will start your MBA studies at Turku University of Applied Sciences in September 2014. In this blog you will find some texts and articles to orient yourself into the studies and the topics which will be studied throughout our programme. We have many years experience in cooperation with MBA students and therefore we know quite much about how it is to study MBA degree. We know for example that it takes some time to get familiar with academic text and therefore we recommend new students to start reading research reports and business books. In this blog you find some examples of preferable reading. Welcome to visit our blog, we hope you enjoy reading these texts!