LM : What is Berkeley Executive Program?

LM: Why did you choose this particular course?
Thay Lee: The University of California, Berkeley is an established university with a reputable track record. In the Times of London global survey among 1300 academics in 88 countries, UC Berkeley ranked second out of the 200 best universities in the world, just behind Harvard University, and ahead of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Yale University and University of Chicago. The ranking took into account the amount of research produced by the faculty members and the small student to professor ratio.

The professors at UC Berkeley are distinguished experts in their own fields. Several of them used to work in major corporations like IBM, Wells Fargo, before moving into academia. All of them are consultants with business organisations such as Cisco, Texaco, Morgan Stanley, Levis, Citibank, Nissan, Hewlett Packard, to name but a few. A number of them sit on the business advisory boards of these prominent organisations. A few were founders of companies in the Silicon Valley.

LM: What were the most important lessons you took away from the course?
And why are they important?
Thay Lee: The acknowledgment and power of CHANGE and the need for clarity of responses.

The environment that we operate in is ever changing. The challenges we face everyday are ever new. And because technology integrates and binds the world closer together, people and situations and businesses are becoming more related, more complex.

A successful organisation has to stay a step ahead – it has to predict and respond by planning its own change early. It has to re-invent itself to be relevant always. It must adapt and adjust, be flexible, think ahead of the competition, it must be creative and innovative in order to gain a competitive edge.

On a more micro-level, an emerging key trait of successful managers is the ability to handle ambiguity. They have to hold two seemingly opposing concepts or ideas, even behaviours, in constructive tension. This is an essential prerequisite for strategic managers.

LM: And the workers? Will there be a big change?
Thay Lee: The demand for talent is no longer within a nation or a region but on a global basis as a result of a more connected world. With rising automation, productivity will become increasingly important. Greater infusion of technology into work processes means faster and more accurate work is expected. But it also means shorter life span of skills so workers need to constantly upgrade. There will be an increasing number of free agents, contract workers, more committed to their profession rather than to the organisation. There will be a blurring of personal and corporate lives as with higher connectivity more people will be working from home.

There is a need to develop a complete inventory of talent in and outside of the organisation to ensure the best mix of cost and capability. Using the supply chain method in managing human resource in the organisation, we need to manage the location ‘stores’ of available talent, manage the inventory level at these ‘stores’ to ensure adequate supply and minimise costs.

We have to adjust work arrangements and locations as needed to gain maximum capability and cost benefits. We have to get HR resources to where they are needed quickly, consistently and efficiently.

We also need to identify core talent and outsource non-core capabilities.

If we can do these well, we will be able to lower fixed costs, efficiently utilise our employees thereby reducing recruitment, training and outplacement costs. We will also be able to more rapidly scale up and down to respond to market requirements. We need to constantly seek ways to do the same with less and to get more from what we have.

The most successful companies are those that have managed change well; Toyota, Nissan, General Electric under Jack Welch, Southern Airlines etc.

LM: Was it hard going back to school after all these years?
Thay Lee: It was thoroughly refreshing to be in a different environment. I consider it somewhat like a sabbatical leave. It wasgreat to get away from the day-to-day business operations and to concentrate on learning about developments in the business world – to learn about how companies achieve and manage business excellence, how others overcome all odds to succeed and many other examples. I realise that many of the challenges we face are also confronted by companies across industries and cultures. Sharing them provided a refreshing perspective to what we are planning to do at Far East Organization.

I must admit though I was itching to get back to the office, to the thick of action, in the last week of the course.

LM: How big was the class? What were the business backgrounds of the participants?
Thay Lee: There were 16 of us. We come from all over the world – Australia, USA, Pakistan, Japan, Korea, Spain, Taiwan, Indonesia and Hong Kong. We got to know each other quite well very quickly. All my course mates are senior executives from major government agencies and business corporations including a Deputy Secretary in the Hong Kong Government, a Group General Manager from Itochu, an Executive General Manager at Hitachi, a Corporate Director at General Dynamics Corporation, several General Managers and Vice Presidents. The median age is mid-forties.

LM: Was it a very competitive environment?
Thay Lee: There was very little competition. There was a lot of sharing of experiences and frank discussions of the topics presented. If there were any competitive spirit, it was who managed to read all the pre-lecture assignments the night before the lectures. The only time there was really some competitionwas when the group was divided into teams to play a business simulation game. The competitive streak in us showed up during the game. The objective was of course to make the most profits and to raise the share price by the highest margin. Still it was filled with fun and laughter when decisions that were made turned out to be less than ideal and the other teams got ahead instead.

LM : What was it like being a mature student doing a one-month course?
Thay Lee: It’s invigorating to be among young people in the university, you feel young quite naturally. And it was stimulating to be able to discuss business issues with the professors who have done consultation work with some of the largest MNCs in the States.

I also learnt a great deal just by interacting with the people of California outside the campus grounds. Observing how the service staff multi-task, yet do their jobs with pride and speed, is by itself a learning experience. The opportunity to travel further up to visit Silicon Valley and Stanford University is another enriching experience.

LM: Has the programme impacted the way you deal with things, at work and at home?
Thay Lee: Yes and No.

Yes, in that it has widen my perspective of things. There is a world of knowledge out there, a huge reservoir where we can draw from to augment experience in order to facilitate our work in the organisation.

And no, in that fundamentally, it is our core values that guide us in the way we manage ourselves and everything around us.