Bentley University News

During my time at Bentley, I took a variety of business courses. We all know that to be a successful business person in today’s world, you need a variety of skills and exposure to many different ways of thinking.

In one class, Professor Tim Anderson introduced the talking stick.

He explained to us that it was an ancient tradition. Whoever held the talking stick was the person talking. They could hold on to it as long as they wanted, say whatever they wanted  and everyone else had to allow them to speak and not interrupt.

In the past decade, the presence of women on the boards of public companies has been increasing virtually everywhere in the world — except in the United States.

Internationally, the 16.6 percent of female directors serving on U.S. Fortune 500 boards falls somewhere in the middle; Japan sits at slightly over 1 percent and Norway at 40 percent. But that U.S. number is only 3 percent higher than it was 10 years ago. 

The numbers are surprising, considering:  

I am a baby boomer, one of the many Americans approaching their dream retirement age. I am also one of the many baby boomers who has a little panic attack every time I look at my retirement accounts and my exposure to the whims of the stock market.

One of the questions that I often get as a financial planner (and one that I ask myself) is: Should I take money out of my retirement account to pay off the remaining balance on my home’s mortgage?

The answer: It may make you feel good, but it is an expensive decision.

The MBA is in trouble. Organized and taught in the same way for generations, the traditional MBA program is increasingly anachronistic.

I am a risk taker, and I urge others to take risks too.

That doesn’t mean I encourage hasty or reckless decisions. Mine have actually been pretty well thought out. But I do say: trust your instincts, listen to your gut, and take chances.

It is something that has worked for me, although it has also raised some eyebrows. Take my first job out of college. I went on countless interviews and turned down multiple offers. My family was about to have a meltdown. I remember my 94-year-old grandmother’s advice to “ … just accept something already.”

After 30 years in college admission, I am still surprised by how challenging it is to explain to prospective parents and students the art and science of college admissions.

Most would love nothing more than to be given a set of specific numbers by which to measure oneself.

Malaria, that ancient scourge, survives. Over the past century, as sanitation and medical advances have conquered or controlled other diseases, malaria has resisted eradication. In 2010, the disease infected about 219,000,000 people and killed 660,000, almost all in developing countries.

Why?

After 20 years at work, first in the corporate world and then building my own business, I began to think back on when I was 20 years old. A sophomore — recall that the root of the word is “wise fool” — I thought I knew a few things about what awaited me in the world. Nothing beats experience, though. Midway through a successful career, with several professional peaks and valleys, here is what I would have advised that young Bentley student when she was halfway through her college education.

Mohammed Yunis came up with a good idea: Give small loans to people who don’t have access to capital. A high percentage of the world’s population lives at a subsistence level. They spend all they make on food, and have none left for an “investment” that might make their microbusiness more profitable. If you could buy more bananas in the first place, your profit would be higher. If you could buy a cart, you could bring more bananas back to your village to sell than you’ve been able to carry yourself.

It’s often said that students attend business school because they want good jobs when they graduate.  Naturally enough, they tend to focus on class work that will help them reach that goal. However, classroom learning can take them only so far. As business school faculty, it’s up to us to make the necessary link between classroom theory and how it is applied in the workplace. When this link is made, students learn more and retain better. Seeing their studies “in action” makes it stick.