Foro Europeo TAMPOCO BAJA!

Los alumnos de Foro Europeo quicimos hacer estos dos videos como gesto de apoyo y admiracion a un equipo con tanta tradicion en Navarra (nuestro hogar provisional) como es OSASUNA , quienes trabajan arduamente dia a dia por ser excelentes en el campo y en lo que se proponen como personas; es por esto que YO NO BAJO! Y NOSOTROS NO BAJAMOS!!!

Short video: Learn about MBA / EMBA Coaching

An MBA's Defense of His MBA

To continue with the debate whether the Mba's are the problem, here is another point of view defending the issue by David Champion. We hope you enjoy it!

Management education has been taking some heat this week. No less an authority than McGill's resident business guru, Henry Mintzberg, has been pointing the finger at Harvard Business School, many of whose alumni have figured prominently and to disadvantage in the current economic crisis.

It's an easy shot to make, especially as HBS alumni include such luminaries as George W. Bush. It also happens to bolster an approach to management education that Mintzberg has been advocating for years.

HBS alumni are among the fiercest critics of the MBA. Former Daily Telegraph Journalist Philip Delves Broughton wrote a lively and opinionated piece. Delves Broughton is more direct than Mintzberg in fingering prominent alumni tainted with the crisis: Stan O'Neal, Fred Goodwin, John Thain, Christopher Cox...the list goes on. But as it happens, little of what Delves Broughton says is new. He's essentially reprising his conclusions from a popular "exposé" that he wrote shortly after graduating with a Harvard MBA in 2005.

OK, so these commentators may not be the most objective as they have their own axes to grind, or messages to sell. That said, they do seem to be hitting a nerve.
As it happens I am nearly 50, I have been an editor of management articles for ten years, I used to work as an investment banker, and yes, I hold an MBA ('92), from INSEAD, a business school founded by an HBS professor that has produced many corporate titans on the European side of the pond. After graduating, I worked at INSEAD as a research associate.

I have to say that the media portrait of MBA students as soulless fiends bears very little resemblance to my classmates. Few of my contemporaries were obsessed with numbers, though many of the more numerically gifted enjoyed grappling with valuation spreadsheets. Finance courses were taken with a pinch of salt. Yes, my Applied Corporate Finance professor, Pekka from Finland (he looked almost bionic), liked to tell us: "Cash is King." But it was obvious to all of us that he was making a point about accounting, not expressing his values.

Nearly all of us wanted to achieve a reasonable work-life balance. I guess that was partly why many of us were there in the first place. I shared an old riverside house with six other students. Each Thursday we each invited two guests and sat 21 down to dinner. My party piece was TS Eliot. I used to think of him as the banker's poet (he worked in one): "Time Present and Time Past are both perhaps contained in Time Future."

I think we were a compassionate crew. I remember the howls of protest that greeted Stefan, an economics professor, when he tried to argue that unions actually did their members a disservice. He was probably right, but we were reacting with our hearts, not our minds. The year after I graduated a bunch of students some of whom I shared another house with banded together to form INDEVOR, a non-profit volunteer group that tried to raise awareness of the developing world among the student body. It has brought many speakers from NGOs to the campus and has helped many MBAs find jobs in that sector.

What about what we were actually taught? A common criticism of the MBA course is that it fools people into believing that the world can be reduced to frameworks and models. None of us believed that. I think it is Carl Weick of Michigan who likes to tell the story of a bunch of soldiers who got lost in the Alps. When they finally found their way to a town they credited their success in finding their way to the fact that one of the soldiers had a map. It was a map of the Pyrenees. Weick's point is that a framework is no more than a starting point. You don't necessarily believe it, but you need to put structure on what you're doing.

So I defend the MBA, but that defense begs two questions. If HBS isn't to blame, then who is? And does that mean that HBS need not take a cold, hard look at what it's teaching?

On the question of blame, psychologists will tell you that people are far more shaped by their early experiences than by their adult ones. What we learn from our parents says a lot more about what we become than what we're going to pick up in a year or two in our mid-twenties. I would also say that, intense as it can be, an MBA does not affect you as much as your workplace.
You paid for the MBA and you can within reasonable limits be your own master. But at work, you're paid to serve other masters and you'll feel more pressure to fit in and do what other people want you to do. So if there are culprits in this crisis, we could as easily point to the culture of parenting in the 1960s (though if the people I knew are any guide, it can't have been that bad) and the people dynamics of large organizations like banks as we can point to the MBA.

That doesn't let HBS of the hook, of course. But it does give us all a better sense about where it should go.

Buscar trabajo cuando se es recién graduado

Responden Jack y Suzy Welch, autores del libro 'Winning'. Jack Welch, fue presidente de General Electric durante 20 años.

Hace cerca de un mes me graduaré como experto en administración de empresas y no tengo trabajo. He estudiado en una institución académica respetable, he tenido dos años de experiencia como asesor de comercios al por menor, y buenas referencias. He pasado meses enteros haciendo todas las cosas correctas para ser contratado. Por favor, ayúdenme.
Nombre retenido, Chicago

Usted se halla en una terrible situación, como miles y miles de personas. Se dice que en algunas escuelas de administración de empresas, inclusive las más famosas, más de un 30 por ciento de los graduados no han obtenido trabajo. Los reclutadores no suelen ir a las universidades como lo hacían antes. Y si lo hacen, es solo con propósitos de obtener información.

Muchas compañías, afectadas por el empeoramiento de sus resultados y alarmadas por pronósticos sombríos, han pospuesto las fechas para que graduados en las escuelas de administración de empresas comiencen a trabajar. En otras ocasiones, han rescindido sus ofertas. Eso es peor que una jungla: es un funeral.

Pero usted no nos pide que simpaticemos con su situación, nos solicita consejos.

Por lo tanto, veamos las tres recomendaciones que le ofrecimos a un graduado en administración de empresas, un veinteañero que nos visitó esta semana. Nuestro amigo, como usted, está todavía con las manos vacías y empieza a sentirse desesperado.

1. Puede asentarse y terminar amando lo que haga.
2. Puede volverse un poco loco.
3. Puede hacer su propia empresa.

Partamos de lo primero: asentarse. Es la opción más rápida y más fácil.

Mire, tal vez ya esté enterado que posiblemente no conseguirá el tipo de trabajo con que soñó cuando comenzó a estudiar administración de empresas hace algunos años. Aludimos a la empresa en que pensaba que iba a trabajar, al título y al salario. Cuando recién comenzó, creía que el cielo era el límite. Pero existe probablemente un trabajo, en alguna parte de este país o en el extranjero. Y ese trabajo le ofrecerá una razonable cantidad de experiencia relevante y un salario razonable.

Puede aceptarlo. Y, lo que es aún más importante, puede dedicarse a ese trabajo con gusto. A pesar de su decepción, podría comenzar a laborar de manera ardiente para innovar procesos, mejorar su equipo y hacerse indispensable ofreciendo más de aquello que le exigen.

Por ejemplo, en su caso, puede trabajar en algún negocio al por menor. Y su objetivo podría ser conseguir un desempeño tan estelar al punto de obtener un puesto de ejecutivo.

Quizás eso atraiga la atención de la sede nacional de la empresa. Por cierto, la labor cotidiana de hacer ventas y escribir cifras en la caja registradora podría parecer un lastimoso reintegro en relación a todo lo que gastó en sus años como estudiante en la escuela de administración de empresas. Al menos al principio.

Pero debe pensar en la estrategia que quiere seguir en su carrera. Si es un astro en una empresa sólida, eso es eventualmente un pasaporte a una mejor oportunidad allí o en otra firma. Con el transcurso del tiempo, su humildad y sus resultados, posiblemente serán recompensados.

Ahora vamos a tocar el segundo punto: volverse un poco loco. Ese es el enfoque que preferimos recomendar a egresados de escuelas de administración de empresas en las actuales circunstancias.

Pero un enfoque que solo recomendamos con cierta inquietud, pues no todos pueden llevar a cabo una campaña orientada hacia el ruego y la súplica, y seguir siendo al mismo tiempo una persona altamente simpática.

La idea es elegir uno o dos lugares donde siempre quiso trabajar, o los dos ejecutivos por los cuales usted daría uno de sus riñones a fin de poder laborar para ellos, y presentar su caso una y otra vez, y de la manera más creadora, atractiva y persuasiva que pueda.

Envíe cartas, mensajes por correo electrónico, haga llamadas telefónicas, cualquier cosa que sea necesario, para conseguir una entrevista de cinco minutos. Y si la logra, tendrá que concretar su objetivo mostrando una brillante pericia y gran energía positiva.

Sí, es una apuesta arriesgada. Pero si funciona -y esto es lo que nos agrada de ella- usted iniciará su carrera en el sitio adecuado. Y habrá tenido experiencia de qué es lo que necesita para ir adelante.

Finalmente, si asentarse o volverse un poco loco no funciona para usted, tal vez le convenga iniciar su propio negocio. Trate de determinar qué cosas sabe, y en qué puede descollar, encuentre un amigo que pueda aportar algo, como cerebro, contactos, capital inicial o escasa necesidad de descanso. Luego, como cualquier otro empresario, tendrá que salir y ponerse a vender.

Por ejemplo, si descuella como consultor, entonces acepte trabajos por cinco mil o diez mil dólares. O negocie con clientes por un porcentaje en el incremento de ganancias que usted podrá conseguir, o en los ahorros que creará. Conoce la rutina y posiblemente también conozca los riesgos.

El actual medio ambiente en materia económica hace que la opción de convertirse en un empresario sea un extraordinario acto de coraje. Solo usted sabe si cuenta con ese tipo de temple.

No queremos parecer duros: solo intentamos ser realistas. Estas son épocas sin precedentes para los egresados de las escuelas de administración de empresas (y para todos los buscadores de trabajo).

Eso requiere un nivel desusado de estar al tanto de uno mismo. La crisis económica global seguramente durará uno o dos años más, y carece de sentido estar esperando a que ocurra un milagro.

Tiene realmente solo tres opciones. Elija una y siga avanzando.

Pueden enviarles preguntas al correo electrónico a Winning@nytimes.com.

Jack y Suzy Welch /

Are MBAs the Problem?

We were seeking for a good article to share with you all and suddenly we found this interesting topic:

''Debating the MBA''Are business schools to blame for the current global recession? And if so, what can be done to fix them?

By Julia Kirby

It took only a few months, and now the search for culprits behind the current economic mess has arrived on campus. What caused the recession? America's business schools. As the New York Times points out, some of the most prominent poster children for the crisis and bailout are financial sector leaders who learned their management chops at top-ranked MBA programs. Naturally the question arises: just what are these people teaching?

As someone who's seen quite a lot of what business school professors focus on, I'm convinced that the curriculum is part of the solution, not the problem.
It still might be true that an MBA holder is more likely to focus too narrowly on investment returns--to the detriment of the greater good--than a non-MBA would. But it's not what they're learning that causes this, rather it's who they are. I say this in light of a concept that is familiar to educated managers: self-selection bias.

Why is it, after all, that aspiring managers choose to earn an MBA? Sure, they may deplore their current knowledge deficit, having gained skills in only one business function and industry.
But whether that's true or not, they've certainly figured out that the MBA offers an attractive return on investment. That payback can happen in different ways. The low-risk option is to enroll in a relatively inexpensive program on a part-time basis (especially when tuition reimbursement is available from one's employer). A higher risk, higher return option is to enroll in a top-ranked school, quit your job, move your family and pay maximum tuition for a chance to earn an elite degree.

You see where I'm headed. The type of person who has the appetite for this second kind of risk-reward equation--plus the brains to excel in a rigorous academic setting--is the same type that Wall Street firms have been so eager to hire. The financial sector hasn't valued people for what they learned in their top-tier business schools, but for the kind of intestinal fortitude that got them there, their willingness to make huge sacrifices, and the drive they have to attain that MBA, at nearly any cost.

That's suggests a correlation between the MBA and the financial sector meltdown, but not causation. So does that let top MBA programs off the hook? Not at all. As B-schools consider what to teach and how to teach it, they need to keep this self-selection bias in mind.
When building an MBA program, a great B-school used to ask: What does the average manager need to become a great manager? Now the B-school has to ask: What does the average manager who's motivated to enroll in a top-ranked MBA program need to become a great manager?

We would be pleased to know about your opinion about the issue in our blog...