Department of Supply Chain Management
MBA Corporate Curriculum Review, July 2014
Team Challenge #2: Risk Management
What should students be prepared to do to tackle risk analysis as new hires?
Team 4:
- Leadership principles
- Ok to fail
- Reality expectations
- Make data matter-Analytics
- Engage/Participate/Dig – Communication
- “Why”, curiosity, root cause
- Work ethic/do’er (learn)/drive
- Interpersonal skills/Collaborative
- Work well with others
- People humility
- Effectively manage hourly as well as salaried workforce
Team 3:
- Critical thinking through risk analysis; NOT being myopic
- Ability to build relationships
- ASU could do “role play” to highlight pressure points in issue
- Ensure relationship & solution can be sustained over time
- Scenarios: carry over a full life cycle
- Ability to understand elements
- Personal risk
- Minimize
- Awareness
- Develop relationship & influence: must understand what motivates and what the common goals are across groups
- Business acumen and application-trade offs
- Business must provide (and prepare) front line managers to help “microwave” the new hires
- Set boundaries but allow for new perspective
- Students must understand there are different managers
- Ability to learn from mistakes
- Failure will happen
- Be accountable but recover and learn from it
Department of Supply Chain Management
MBA Corporate Curriculum Review, July 2014
Team Challenge #2: Risk Management
What should students be prepared to do to tackle risk analysis as new hires?
Team 2:
- Attributes
- Understand the business
- Anticipating the questions
- Selling skills
- Autonomy-ability to work independently with ambiguity
- Creativity
- Problem solving
- Persuasiveness
- Influencing skills that drive decisions
- Packaging capability
- Communication skills
- Adaptability
- How to integrate business skills to translate to cultural implementation
- Mobility for development
- Data miners (analytical)
- Find it tie to business model
- Confidence in the outcome
- Opportunity-not solely the process
- Understand the business
- Stakeholder engagement
- Culture −company−mentoring & sponsorship
- Thinkers vs. creative-how to get thinkers & creative
- Risk awareness
Department of Supply Chain Management
MBA Corporate Curriculum Review, July 2014
Team Challenge #2: Risk Management
What should students be prepared to do to tackle risk analysis as new hires?
Team 1:
- Analytical potential (Excel presentations)
- Understand audience (chart vs. presentation)
- Team environment (cross functional) – Awareness of different personalities
- Some can’t be trained
- Recognize other ability (adapt & move)
- Awareness of own potential
- Recommendation for solution
- Not just problem identification
- Bravery to try solution
- Bring ideas to table
- Creative
- Problem solving (root cause/fix problem)
Summary
A newly minted MBA, thrown into risk analysis needs to be the following: First, aware of general sources of risk within and across functions and general industries. Second, able to take raw data and dig out information from it – driven by curiosity, skepticism and problem solving ability to dig out what the data means. Third, willing and able to influence others around by laying out a case appropriate to the business model and context, targeting their audience, and building relationships. Fourth, the ability to learn from failure and bounce back with a better understanding applicable to future events. A technical focus – especially an ability to analyze processes – is particularly helpful in reaching root causes; in general a willingness to engage in the “details” will help in finding sources of risk and planning responses.