Jananas

One of my classes this semester is a new/trial course called the Management of Private Wealth. Its been good thus far – interesting readings, good discussions & lectures, and an informative prof. Today in class we did an exercise from the 21/64 Foundation, where we took 25 cards with single word attributes (family, tradition, friendship, integrity, risk, power, etc.) and had to place them in our priority order. My top three were personal & spiritual growth and friendship. The rest of the class had family and tradition in their top three. As if I needed more confirmation that I’m a bit of a fish out of water in the MBA world.

I was knitting another cabled ear flap hat in class this week for a friend (yes, I will sometimes knit hats to order). I had finished the ear flaps and was all set to join it in the round when I realized that I’d forgotten my stitch markers at home. Because of the cables, it is important that I be able to count each round so that I don’t mess up the pattern. I had a moment or two of panic about how I was going to be able to keep track of each round, before I started looking around the classroom to figure out if there was something I could appropriate to use. I had a can of Arizona Iced Tea in front of me. And then it dawned, the pop can tab could be used as an ad hoc stitch marker. I can slip the knitting needles through the holes in the tab. Really, not an elegant solution but very effective!

Also awesome about the lecture was that two of my classmtes asked me to knit them hats. If I consider the price I’ve paid for my yarn stash to be a sunk cost anything I can earn helps! Or I just need to rationalize my addiction…

In this week’s Opposable mind lecture, Roger Martin went through a brief overview of the conventional methods for how we resolve clashing ideas/models. One of the common methods is “Choose & Move On” wherein we lay out all the options, consider the pros & cons of each (evaluate them), and then choose the least worst option from the bunch. A common business practice of this is the use of NPV/IRR when deciding between projects & priorities.

At Rotman, we hear a lot about Integrative Thinking and how we’re supposed to be practicing it everywhere so that we gain a new (and arguably more important) skill set. Outside of our actual IT courses and maybe our marketing course, I feel that Integrative Thinking hasn’t been incorporated into our curriculum. What triggered this thought was having NPV/IRR referenced as a way to choose from one of a set of clashing models and then move on. This is precisely what we were taught in our Finance course. So if this is a conventional way to resolve model clash and we are supposed to be practicing more integrative thinking, is there a better way for us to be making decisions about which projects get the go ahead? Are there other criteria that we could be considering? And shouldn’t the fact that there are other options be mentioned so that people are aware that we are not limited to merely that which we are told is true?

I don’t know what the answer is (yet), but I do feel like the school is missing out on an opportunity to more actively integrate these techniques into our everyday lives. And if they do this, we would get even more active practice and in many different kinds of business settings (economics, finance, marketing, accounting, etc.).

This semester I’m taking Roger Martin’s course on The Opposable Mind, based on his most recent book. Roger is the Dean of Rotman (the school I attend) and the advocate of Integrative Thinking. For those of you who don’t know what Integrative Thinking is, here is a brief definition, taken from the Rotman website.

“Integrative Thinking is the ability to constructively face the tensions of opposing models, and instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generating a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new model that contains elements of the individual models, but is superior to each.”

In our first year we took two classes on integrative thinking. The first introduced the concept of the unconscious biases & assumptions that impact our daily lives and decisions. The second was a practicum (ITP) where we practiced developing argument maps and identifying the assumptions behind our models, and put theory into practice in a rather intense group project. Hey, you try getting five very different people to agree to a common defintion of a problem, develop a solution, and present to a board. At the time I conceptually understood why they were important, but struggled with actually beginning to implement any of the techniques or thought patterns. In fact, I often found myself railing at the way the ITP class had been set up and the manner in which it was taught.

I think that a part of me had shrugged the entire thing off as a bunch of hooey. Until this summer, when I realized that Integrative Thinking had somehow snuck up on me. This is not to claim in any way that I am practiced or well versed or the best of the best at it, but rather that it had somehow begun to manifest itself in my everyday life without me really being aware. The first time was when I was having a discussion with the mister about the future. We were both making assumptions about what the other wanted without having asked if they were true. So I asked. I asked him about what he wanted and expected and what he thought I wanted and expected. We talked about it and began the process of making our assumptions explicit. We communicated.

The first step for me in the Integrative Thinking process was that I recognized a situation where a model clash could occur based on differing assumptions. The second step was that I did something about it – we talked and communicated and asked questions. I was more surprised by how some of the skills started creeping up on me in the rest of my life, which is an observation that several of my other classmates have echoed.

Strangely, I find myself starting to ask more questions about the world around me. For example, do pdfs have to be laid out the way they are or is there a better model? Will call centre models change as mobile usage takes off? And most recently, why is our curriculum laid out the way it is? However, I think that this post is long enough so I’ll save that for the next post.

Jason made vegan french toast using some of the homemade bread from earlier this week. Surprisingly the bread was still fairly fresh, even if the ends (where the aluminum foil wouldn’t quite wrap around) were a tad stale. He had to triple the recipe to cover the same number of slices of bread, so apparently this was a really big loaf! In a twist, he used Vegenaise on the bread before covering it in a faux-egg mixture. It turned out amazingly. He also made tofu scramblers (his default meal of choice) with a hearty helping of veggies thrown in – spinach, red pepper, green & yellow zucchini. Soooo good.

For dessert, I iced the vanilla agave cupcakes I made earlier today. I made a rootbeer butter cream icing (so icing sugar, earth balance & rootbeer flavouring). The rootbeer flavouring was even a little bit fizzy, which was a neat touch. I was aiming for a rootbeer float-type effect which wasn’t achieved. I’m not 100% happy with the way it looks. I think it needs a light sprinkling of cocoa to fancy it up. Regardless they taste amazing!

I think that’s enough food related entries for one day.