Book Review (Building Trust)

This is the first book I have to read for class. As stated on previous posts one of the main concepts in the course is team and team building. Our course trust is one of the main ingredients in having a successful team.

The book has 5 main points:

T - Transparent: means to be open and readily readable. What you see is what you get.

R - Responsive: give honest feedback respectfully and nonjudgmental.

U - Use Caring: whatever I say or do comes from my heart.

S - Sincere: keeping my actions consistent with my words.

T - Trustworthy: be honest , to honor my word, and manage my agreements.

1st Day of School

On Saturday the 11th I attending my first day of class. It was a technology and orientation day. We received our laptops and instruction on how to use they web based program. We also discussed the expectations and the general class format. We will be meeting next week (Tues - Sunday) for the class kickoff. We will be placed into teams of 6-8. We will work with these teams for the next 18 months. Friday - Sunday we will be meeting at THE RIDGES, it is a retreat center in the North Georgia Mountains. We will start to develop our team charter and constitution as well as continue our teaching times. On Saturday we will be doing a simulation called Income/Outcome, this is a full day event, should be interesting I give an update after I return.

Accepted

I have been notified that I have been accepted into the class of 2010 for my EMBA from Kennesaw State University. My first class is to begin on Saturday 10/11 (yes, that's right this Sat). It is suppose to be an orientation and a technology day. It will begin at 8AM and last until the late afternoon (no later than 5PM).

Timing

Well….

As I said in my last post, I have completed everything I can do, the school as confirmed they have all my paperwork and are reviewing and doing all the other things they do. During the past few days I have really started to wonder if now is the right time to be going back school. I ask that because of what has been happening to our economy. I believe my job is relatively secure, although the short term is weak (we are laying off some hourly workforce), the mid and long term look OK. However what is the job market going to look like when I graduate in 18 months? Will my company be able to promote me or will I find a different job to offset the expenses I have accumulated? If the answers are no, then do I want to saddle myself with debt without seeing a fair chance at a potential upside? I guess this is the way banks and other financial intuitions might be feeling as well, do they want to loan money out without having a good feeling that as to what might happen in the future. Or is it that nobody wants to take the money (companies/individuals) because they are not sure what the future holds so they do not want to increase their debt load. Thankfully, I can place my trust in The Lord and not in the wisdom of man or the security of the financial markets.

Applying for Grad School

Well...

It has been a week today since I began the admissions process. Last Monday 9/29 was when I when for an interview. That was when I found out that this program (Executive MBA) began on 10/11. I had thought it began sometime in Jan 09. So beside answering the interview questions I was preoccupied with a host of other questions running through my mind, questions that I thought I would have weeks to ponder, you know: is this what I REALLY what to do, how will this affect other things we already have scheduled, is this what I REALLY what to do, is this what I REALLY what to do??? I guess you can see the basic question.

Even with being distracted, the Director of Admissions said that I had passed the interview and she felt that if I was still interested that I would make a great addition to the EMBA class, I would need to complete the admissions process, which would be possible, however I would need to begin immediately. So I began filling out paperwork for transcripts, immunization records, application for admissions, get letters of recommendation, getting a GMAT waiver, financial aid applications...

I completed all that I can as of today, we will see how it all shakes out.

An Executive MBA (is it right for me?)

Well....
During the past few years I have often ponder whether or not I should go back to school and acquire another degree. I have looked at different degree programs and thought about timing options. In the past I never felt it was the right time and I never found a degree that made sense for me to pursue. About a year ago the question came again to my mind and I decided I would explore the options in North Atlanta, since I had not done that yet. I went to an open house for the Graduate Schools at Kennesaw State University. I discovered they had a graduate degree in Applied Statistics, which looked appealing. You know I do a lot of statistics for my work already so it would most likely be a fairly easy degree to pick-up. However as I thought about it and talked with Heather and some friends I realized that it would not be very helpful it my long range goals. What are my long range goals you may ask, good question. I would like to have the flexibility to work in almost any geographic location and have the flexibility to move out of the Manufacturing Sector. Clearly a specialization degree like Applied Statistics would not support these goals. So it appeared that an MBA would most closely fit the bill, however the issue of timing is also an important factor. I do not believe Heather was pregnant with Kyle when I visited the open house at KSU. Knowing we were going to have Kyle cooled my jets a little, however since we have seen that God has blessed us with a very content child Heather and I began conversations again. We talk about the many different factors of timing, the age of our children, the activities they were involved in, the amount of extra work Heather has going to have because of my "school time". We thought about waiting a year or two, what that might mean, and many other things. The Executive MBA program was designed to best accommodate working professionals. They meet one weekend per month (Sat and Sun 8-5) with some meetings on a Friday. The program lasts 18 months. I am working out the details, school records, work schedule, ... so we will see.