Take care of the senses and the sounds will take care of themselves (A Lewis Carroll reflection)
A couple of days ago I spoke to someone that was having an executive education experience. He had sort of been immersed in a boot camp, hectic experience, out of his comfort zone, not a minute to rest. He had a lot of fun and he proclaimed he had came back sort of a changed person. Maybe he was.
Or maybe he wasn’t. Haven’t you ever had these kind of hectic touristic days in an European city, visiting everything, not stopping even to catch your breath, coming back in love with the city, sort of ‘I could live there’ thing and then… well, er… an exhausted but energetic Monday at work and, on Wednesday, everything is the same again.
Because experiences alone don’t have the capacity to change you. Experiences hold some potential to change you, yes, but most of the time, they simply don’t.
I choose the Lewis Carroll sentence to head this blog entry because it’s all about making sense of what happens to us. Yet I could have chosen a very different one:
One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. Which road do I take? she asked. Where do you want to go? was his response. I don’t know, Alice answered. Then, said the cat, it doesn’t matter.
How do you know you’re there if you don’t have it clear where you’re going to? Don’t fool yourself, you don’t.
Some fortune cookie sapience, this one was a cookie that Mintzberg was given with his dinner: “Get your mind set. Confidence will lead you on”. And another one by Mintzberg in a not so old “Harvard Business Review” article: “what managers desperately need is to stop and think, to step back and reflect thoughtfully on their experiences”. Well, so fortunate I did read this article. What my admired Mr. Mintzberg says here (or said some time ago) is what I’ve been saying all along!
And that’s my advice to my fellow executive education experiencer. If the experience is too hectic, it’s incomplete! If in your MBA you’re having excitement, rush and more excitement… something is wrong!
Don’t get me wrong, there are many things to be gained from such an experience, but insight isn’t one of them. Reflections come from flectere, to bend in Latin. One must bend inwards as opposite to just perceiving what’s around. What matters is the impact of the reflection on our own inner wall. Like Plato’s myth, we are the wall over which the shades are reflecting. And what we can really do is to learn about that wall. And in observing that wall, in a Heisemberg uncertainty fashion, there’s the reshaping of the wall.
Otherwise, indigested experiences will make nice anecdotes, we will have a lot of fun. We will recommend the experience to our friends for sure. But there’s no learning in that. The superficiality hides essential meanings interwoven with the fabric of organisations and people. Shortcuts deprive us of deep thinking, and so many things in executive education is about shortcuts discovered by the incomplete and un-rigourous experience of others.
Another quote from Lewis Carroll: “While the laughter of joy is in full harmony with our deeper life, the laughter of amusement should be kept apart from it. The danger is too great of thus learning to look at solemn things in a spirit of mockery, and to seek in them opportunities for exercising wit.”
So many self-labelled educational and learning experiences are witty combination of words and anecdotal evidence. So many advice we give is totally biased and based on erroneous assumptions and insufficient reasoning. What about if we decided to think more and speak (write, blog, whatever) much less?
Lewis Carroll at the rescue: “Courtesy while you’re thinking what to say. It saves time.”
And also knowing when to stop: “‘Begin at the beginning,’ the King said, very gravely, ‘and go on till you come to the end: then stop.’”. Yes, time to stop.
Add comment 20 November, 2009
Iberia and British Airways’ merger (two losers together don’t make a winner)
Finally they had to do it. Slumping for too long with revenues going down the drain finally made both companies not so choosy about each other, specially when the rest of the European partners are already married and the half-blood-European-Americans are not allowed. They finally had to sit together in the only remaining chair.
Borrowed from economist.com, thanks 
Okay, I’m being a bit sceptical here, or even negative. There’s a huge positive thing in the news. At least now the different boards will be able to focus on the real problems of both companies, which are not exactly small. The airlines’ world has been turned upside-down, with some new winners (namely Ryanair who have opened around a half of all the new routes in Europe this second half of the year, and yes, sorry again, I’m a fan of their capacity to generate efficiencies) and some losers: flagship airlines.
They used to be so protected. In fact, they are doing what they are doing in order to be able to attain efficiencies (at least I hope so) but at the same time keep their privileged status (in Heathrow and Madrid) where they have been allocated far more than what they deserved, sometimes in the shape of priceless slots they are holding onto, and sometimes in the shape of better premises than competitors at the same price.
What’s funny is that they intend to do everything at the same time, both rejuvenating themselves and both retaining those beautiful curves. And for that they have chosen the least aggressive partner, of course. God forbid that they had to wake up earlier now they are married. Or maybe it’s the other way round and they are expecting their partner to tell them what they couldn’t tell themselves: to clean their share of their house.
Well, they say you can’t want to follow all the strategies at the same time and be successful. Anyway, Mr. Porter will be proud if they do it. Good luck to the newly wed. Let’s hope that the festivities are short. Inefficiencies and pensions are piling up and, most worryingly, the business model is outdated. Other airlines are becoming more efficient, and I’m not only thinking of low-costs. Time to work seriously. Time to finally realise that an airline is not a ministry!
Add comment 14 November, 2009
A kill is a kill (my MBA Integrated Management Project is finally done!)
Hectic days. I was in Oman for a presentation with a British company (I had so much fun, they are great and the experience was great, maybe one day…), and then a dozen days in India (trying to move forward the management centres for Delhi’s airport). I did also manage (although I don’t know exactly how) to finish two more assignments for my MBA, closing my second stage.
The biggest one was the Integrated Management Project: an assignment that spans three subjects: Global Business Environment, Strategic Direction and Corporate Finance and Governance. They must be all taken into account and integrated into one big assignment, having an holistic view and approaching the analysis through different angles. It’s about tackling some challenge for your company… analysing the context, creating strategy by means of thinking strategically and assessing the value that each strategic option is going to add.
In my case I analysed a proposal that Ryanair made to Barcelona’s Airport: establishing one of their operational bases there in exchange for a drastic reduction in fees. Studying the case took me lots of hours but it was really interesting as I began with a very specific point of view on what to do, influenced by my preconceptions and, through the systematic application of models and sound reasoning, reached very different conclusions. The intellectual journey was more than interesting. The conclusions as well. I could finally prepare a clear strategy for the airport while identifying the issues that must be changed internally. (Sorry I can’t publish my conclusions here publicly). The exercise was really useful as it provided me with the chance to reflect over my previous project, something we tend to obviate as we go straight ahead into new challenges.
This means I’ve completed the “Managing the organisation” and “Making business choices” stages, and I’m now facing the third stage “Making a difference” which includes Leadership, Reputation and the huge, scary “Management Challenge”. My proposal for the management challenge has been already accepted so I’m getting back on track. (more info about my management challenge quite soon)
Perfection would be great but, when you’re finishing assignments in airport lounges and while flying ten kilometres high, while living an hectic life, well… perfection means asking too much. My engineer side tells me to find a balance between time, cost and quality, a compromise to move forward. My economist side tells me to focus on substantiality, to choose the right granularity so that the figures are meaningful. That’s what I’m striving to do right now.
In those circumstances, a kill is a kill. Let’s move forward 
Add comment 9 November, 2009
To boldly go where no man has ever gone before
The last workshop at Henley is over, and I’ve already started feeling that something is missing. Still in the Greenlands, it’s hard to interiorise that two and a half years of MBA have gone so fast. And with them the successful completion of a huge airport terminal, my first steps in India, and other huge, very relevant projects that have meant a qualitative leap in my career.
I still have a lot to go. Not only my Management Challenge that I’m starting now (If any expatriates in India want to participate, please contact me!), but also the assignments I still have to finish. And the decisions I may have to make to move my career forward can possibly entail a considerable amount of thinking.
This last workshop has been especially eye-opening. We’ve reached a degree of companionship with my colleagues that I never though possible. We’ve taken care, supported each other. I have to find a way to make it last, for this feeling to survive, for these links not to dim into oblivion. To my colleagues for their support through the process (that I still need for the next half year): thank-you.
And also to tap into the great reservoir of people that enrol in the Henley MBA. We had our last party along with a group of Henley Nordic that had their starter workshop. I was chatting with some of very interesting Swedish guys. By one side, they made me realise the march of time, on the other they also made me verbalise why it was worth it. Thank-you.
And to the staff, from support to feeding us, to motivating and pushing us out of our comfort zone to challenging our proposals and trying to dismount them. I can write no names as any list would be unjust but, thank-you.
Thanks to you all, and many more that have supported me from my personal sphere, I’m on my way, my own way, to boldly go where no man has ever gone before. My own personal challenge, my own special journey.
And to those reading this sometimes I wonder how is it possible anyone could be interested in what I write, lest thousands. Thank-you
3 comments 4 October, 2009
For the pain in Spain, the banks are to blame (amongst others, let’s say)
Being these days in Barcelona I’m amazed how several publications, I’m thinking of Forbes and their “Spanish banks in top form” article, can be so blind and misleading. If Spanish banks are in top form, buckle up Dorothy, as the ride is going to be very rough all over the world, you ain’t seen nothing!
And the ride is going to be long and rough for Spain. How else could a developed country withstand more than 20% unemployment in a deflationary context, with a plunging internal demand. Sounds contradictory with Forbes’ article? Just keep reading.
- The real state bubble was worse than people predicted. And the worst was in Spain where we constructed, and have yet to sell, at least as many new houses than in the US alone with around six times more inhabitants, and around one third of the European Union with ten times more inhabitants… does that make sense?
- That had to be financed, obviously. Huge inflows of capital made sure of that. And the banks were the ones financing the developers to an amount roughly the size of half the GDP. Banks had been selling their interests in real state at the peak, getting rid of that business in the best moment. The capital markets bought them all.
- Once the developers failed, as they necessary had to, their assets and debts reverted to the banks. Now the banks are again on the business of real state in Spain, in fact leading it. The part of that business that was in the capital markets has obviously slumped (more than 80%), but of course that’s just one part of the financing they had. Those losses are mostly latent.
- In short that means that Spain may have bad debts roughly the size of 25% of its GDP. And that part is in the hands of the banks. But as they have been forced to absorb those, they are the first interested not to write off any of those debts, but to convert them to overpriced assets. In fact they bought the whole failed developments for the price of the mortgage. But that price was not right anymore. Which incentive do these banks have to lower the asset prices thus assuming losses and revealing the truth? None at all.
- Search for the balance sheets! The truth is still there, albeit hidden somehow. And they know, obviously. Why else would small Spanish banks be frantically merging with each other? There is a reason for that.
Spanish banks are simply hiding their losses. The real state market has not found its equilibrium yet. While they can, the main owners of the real state will try to contain the offer, placing things selectively in the market trying not to overwhelm the current tiny demand and betting for a better future where they will be able to reign on the real state business again.
In the meantime, Spanish banks are trying to con their customers with preferred shares. Issuing them and selling at nominal prices while re-buying those at the capital markets at real prices (half the price?). So, how is that for responsibility? What will their customers think of them in the future when they discover they actually have made an illiquid investment that they will not fully recover?
And yes, they have been more prudent in some aspects than their European counterparts. But that’s not enough. What would happen if they started marking loans to market? or assets to market? That would definitely be an eye opener, and a disaster.
Add comment 8 September, 2009
Recovery or rebound? (long lasting pains)
It’s always nice to hear that Japan has grown a 3.7%. It makes eye-catchy headlines. But if you go deeper you see that the figure is just the annualisation of a mere 0.9% between April and June, and that in the first quarter the slump was around 11%. What does that tell us about statistical significance? After all, interpreting the figures will always be mediated by our wishful thinking.
A quarter may take us out of a formal recession but won’t make a new trend. I am the first whose wishful thinking would like this to be over, but it doesn’t seem likely to me. Still a lot of pain to endure to reverse the trend. Many things are pending to be able to grow healthily, albeit I admit that growth doesn’t need to be healthy to be growth.
And when growth gets here again, there will be more pain to endure. Companies have made put themselves in protection mode, rightsized…sorry, I meant downsized; they may have made extraordinary things to get their products moving, to appease their customers and investors. Everything to get to the end of the tunnel. But that won’t be enough.
I hate to seem gloomy. I am not. My message here is quite simple. Even if we find the right path for recovery, we won’t be at the same place we’d left. Things will have changed. When the scared company opens its shell again, it may find itself in a very different place. Some currents will have dried out. Fortunately, and that’s where my optimism lies, new wells will start flowing, somewhere. But they won’t be at the same place we took for granted long ago.
Also we will have proven our customers there are other ways, that we can do more with less. That we can remove that slack, streamlined our operations, adjusted our overheads and given better quotes. Hopefully, they will have based their recovery on that, they won’t let us go back again to the previous business conditions. And we will have to adapt to that: more pain. The leakage of jobs will go on after the recovery is here. And no sense of urgency can last forever. Sometimes it’s easy to retrench than to transform oneself.
A silly example from my daily life. Calling from India to Spain five minutes costs 10€ with my Spanish cell. Driven by the necessity not to waste resources, the experiment is to do the same with my Indian cell: 54 rupees, which are approximately 0.85€. Do you think I’m going to use my Spanish cell here again?
Although this might seem irrelevant, it’s a sign that we customers are not that stupid after all.
Did you know that the Hilton Group is about to become extinct? Blackstone bought it for $26 billion in 2007, right now they owe $21 billion in debt. Refinancing that debt won’t cost that much right now, that’s not the problem. The problem is somewhere else: executive customers have massively forgot their loyalty to the firm seeking cheaper alternatives.
Did you know that the huge amount of money that Air India is losing just required its intervention? Probably you did. Same happens with other main Indian Airlines. The interesting part is that the low cost carriers that operate here are not losing money.
And when we are out of the crisis, if Air India and Hilton make it, surely by reducing prices and streamlining operations, the customers they will face will get accustomed to the new conditions and will keep asking more for less. After all their own streamlining depends on that. What used to be exceptional will become somehow the norm and the companies not aware of that change will suddenly open their shells in a dry desert.
5 comments 18 August, 2009
New challenges (new continent, new airport, new terminal)
It’s been a while since my last post. Lots of things have changed. Suddenly I was pushed out of my comfort zone, something very healthy that we should experience once in a while and now, today, I realise this is the first day in weeks that I’m able to sit and reflect over what has been happening. And I also realise that a dose of personal development is what I currently need. You know my recurrent idea: it’s only when you reflect when you really learn!
So here I am, resting for a few days in an old strip of coast in Catalonia, a small thousand-year-old country that resists his identity to be dissolved into those huge empires of today and of the last centuries. This coast has witnessed countless invasions, and we’ve also invaded from here, made a Mediterranean empire and, as well, sent the boats that discovered America (yes, we did, although the Spanish Inquisition spent centuries to erase almost every trace of it, and to build a different story from another place that never had a good naval tradition, or good sailors, or even the willingness to discover anything).
But let’s not get into politics, and accept my apologies if I have offended anyone. After all the macro-economic data shows who works and who gets the subsidies in this unemployment prone Spain where some territories send the money for the others to keep procrastinating.
Sorry again. It seems that too much work has taken my knives out. Again, this is not about politics, it’s about entrepreneurship.
And I hate to boast, but this time I’m proud of having commissioned a terminal which with 544.000 square meters is the biggest in Europe, and, opposite to what happened in London or Madrid, it worked the first day. Yes, we did some things differently. Yes, we were also lucky. Yes, we learnt so many things in the process.
Well, the thing was that everything worked from day one. And kept working in day two, three, four and five…
On day six, I’m not sure what happened. I was on a plane. Day seven I was in India. Day eight I was starting a new project there. A local partner, new customer, new airport, new terminal, different continent, different culture, speaking in English 24/7, living in a different place.
And here I am still riding the wave. The beginning of a project is usually tough, specially when you got little time for the wheel to start spinning, specially when everything is different than what you used to have, specially when you’ve spent many years in a huge project, building a new airport from scratch, playing every role, mastering every trade.
This is what I wanted to share with you. I’ll keep blogging, this time from New Delhi, or Gurgaon. I’ll keep working, trying to have a small impact in another terminal: T3. I’ll keep learning, as I passed my MBA second year final exams, which happen to be the last ones. Now almost in my third year, I only need to finish an assignment for that.
And, in the meantime, Barcelona’s T1 keeps working
Next post next week, back in India…
9 comments 5 August, 2009
On reorganisation and micromanagement temptations in times of crises (holding the steering wheel tight)
Note to the occasional reader: I had this post saved from long ago as a draft and I decided to let it go like it is, I’m in a different mindset now… see next post which is really today’s
In times of crises, and by this I mean, for instance, when you’re in the latests stages of a project and you spend a lot of time fire-fighting (where have I seen that?), it’s more important than ever to keep in mind the structure of your organisation and use it for good.
What do I mean with that? Well, there are two well know roads that tend to be followed in this kind of situations:
- Forget about structure and just go straight-ahead-no-matter-what. We are all fighters and we can go down as much as it’s needs to be done. Many senior executives really love to envision themselves as being able to reach the ground level when necessary, even brick layering when they see fit.
- Focusing on structure: reorganising again. And with this new focus, we forget the problems at hand and we think of organisational architecture. Some senior managers love to envision themselves (again) as not rushed by circumstances but able to keep a cold mind. And with that suspending the activity of the organisation for the sake of more effectiveness and efficiency.
Neither is effective at all.
The first kind thinks that setting an example is useful, which is not exactly true. You expect a captain able to know every detail about his boat, true, but his main purpose is to steer the wheel. When the conductor of an orchestra starts playing the piano, the rest of the orchestra, mesmerised, feel as if they were directors themselves, and look at the empty place in front of them with scepticism, and the senior manager playing along in disgust. Instead of leading the way, this senior manager is seen as exercising and hipocritical and unsustainable exercise.
Please, don’t micromanage us if you still want our initiative! Otherwise brick layering will turn into brick breaking.
The second group think that it’s trading off time for effectiveness. But in fact is wasting both. Crises are not the best occasions for organisations unless you want to make a crisis-prone organisation.
To change, there has to be the will to change, which will hopefully melt the existing structure and (a small) part of the culture, and a road to follow, a new vision, a new strategy to be implemented that will derive a new structure, that will have to be built and solidified. Does anyone really think that can be done in the rush-hour? I don’t.
What we risk is increasing the chaos, destroying the slowly established learning-by-doing that make the organisations increasingly efficient, is simply a waste of time and energy.
Then, what should we be doing? Structure is still important, yet it should be interpreted flexibly. That doesn’t mean it should be forgotten. Leaders must lead more than ever, inspire more than ever and, if they want managers to be entrepreneurial and problem solvers, they need to keep away from blame orientation at all times and be the first to adopt a problem-solving mindset.
In the moments of stress and crazyness, that’s when you need leader the mosts, to guide, to nurture, to worry about people, or at least to prevent them ending up throwing bricks at each other.
Add comment 5 August, 2009
Opening day (the commissioning of Barcelona’s Airport Terminal 1)
Unbelievable we’re already here. After six years of dedicating an important part of my professional life to Barcelona’s Airport, today Terminal 1 is officially born. We’ll listen to the politicians’ speeches on how they made this possible. Maybe they did, but we worked all the way through. And this feeling, this pride, this sense of belonging will carry on with us the rest of our (professional) lives.
A huge, unique project can only be done with the commitment of a group of people. A group of people ready to withstand many pressures and surmount uncountable odds. Very diverse people, some very qualified, some able to star and shine without that qualification.
There are some pass-byers as well. The latter will be all in the official celebration today, even publicly displaying their self-attributed mothering. Isn’t it sad that people that have not appeared in the life of the project, and could have done things to support it, they come now for the medal?
We’ve learnt many things here. We’ve lived through many successes, and mistakes too. Fortunately! You can’t learn if you always do everything well. It would give you a false sense of security that would undermine your judgement.
But even if you make mistakes, you can’t learn unless you can reflect on past experiences. Unless you can evolve. That’s our duty today as nucleus of the project that has created the biggest Spanish airport terminal of all times, the biggest infrastructure that has been built in Barcelona for the last decades. We must make this exercise and learn.
Nothing of this would have been possible without the engineers. People think of architects, but they only make a small part of the project: they don’t make things work. Specially star architects that have seldom appeared during the project and have been more of a nuisance than anything. Till now this was the realm of the engineers. It was our time. Not any longer. Now it’s turn for the airlines and for the people that maintain the airport to work. It’s time for the passengers, for Catalans, to make this terminal their own. This terminal will be the first, and last, thing that visitors to Barcelona, and Catalonia, will see. It’s for all of us.
Yes, that was yesterday. And I was there. And from the experience I can tell you that I felt that my commitment for this project for so many years had been worth it. I feel as I have participated in something big, something important for my country. And this, in itself, is a reward as well for me.
5 comments 17 June, 2009
A weekend in Cologne (Köln) and some bits of European construction
I’ve been this weekend in Cologne, an amazingly thriving city on the Rhine born about 50BC as a Roman outpost. A city that grew in the industrial revolution thanks to the enterprisingness of its inhabitants that strategically used their proximity to the coal of the Ruhr region.
Catholics, in 1248 they began the construction of their cathedral. It would stop in 1560 for as long as four centuries, with a crane that would be Cologne’s symbol and witnessed lots of generations live and die. Until 1848 you could have seen something like this…
This was the tallest building of the wold as well, until the Washington Monument’s capstone was set in 1884.
Let’s make another step in time to 1945 after the second World War. Cologne was obliterated with bombings. Less than 10% of its buildings survived. One of them was the Cathedral. Although hit by several bombs, maybe miraculously, the Dom still stood in the middle of a lake of rubble.
Little remains of those years. Where Adolf Hitler rallied his troops, now there’s a lake where students gather instead to have fun and drink beer. Now Cologne is a cosmopolite city, a mix of cultures and lifestyles, somewhat disordered for a German city, but very much alive and breathing. It is the broadcast centre in Germany, the fourth biggest city and see to many international art festivals. Their inhabitants celebrate the good weather sitting in the terraces at night and have one of the largest Karnevals, or Mardi Gras, in Germany. Last Saturday’s view was quite different:
Yes, I went there to study, to prepare the forthcoming exam on Strategic Direction and Corporate Finance and Governance with my German peers on the MBA. We had a great time and also worked a lot.
Now for European construction. We saw the next election’s publicity in many streets. I saw it again in Barcelona, when I came back yesterday. I read the newspapers and saw, to my amazement, how Spanish politicians are using the European elections to talk about local issues, even to try to condone some misbehavings some of their numbers have committed.
Our politicians, and I do thing that’s an European wide issue, are inadvertently but irresponsibly turning us away from democracy with their constant cynicism, hypocrisy and abuse. And our democracies, our peace, our union and our prosperity are the most valued shared good that we have. They are the only guarantee that neither Cologne nor Barcelona’s inhabitants, both cities whose civilian population have been bombed by air, each from a different political side, as if it mattered now or then to any crying child whose life had been severed, are not going to endure that cruelty anymore.
We are the ones benefiting and inadvertently collaborating to the European Union by travelling, by getting to know each other, by learning to respect our difference, by meeting to study an MBA from a British business school in a German roaring town.
I’m going to miss Cologne… it is a city I could live in!
2 comments 25 May, 2009
