Archive for December, 2009

By Frederick Andresen
Author of Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia

“Their starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.” Alexis de Tocqueville had it right in 1831 about America and Russia. And his perspective is right today. How does the United States interact with its closest neighbor next to Canada and Mexico? Many Americans have worked hard at this. Some have failed and others have succeeded. Based on one of those successes, this nine-part series focuses on the issues and practices that make success happen in Russia today.

Part 9: Five P’s for success

Is there a secret for success in Russia? Not really. Of course, there are no secrets to success in Russia, Japan, China or anywhere else. Everyone has his different experience and his own road to walk. Progress has to be built on a basis of personal trust and honest relationships. However, if I have to list my guiding principles, here are five “Ps” that make the point:
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By Gregory Unruh, Thunderbird Professor

I admit I got caught up in all the climate optimism. In last year’s election the candidates of both parties were vocal climate policy advocates. President-elect Obama’s YouTube-blasted speech “A New Chapter on Climate Change” raised expectations that policy action would come at this month’s Copenhagen Climate Summit. But even if a face-saving, compromise agreement can be forged at the last minute, the reality is that Hopenhagen has become Nopenhagen. I, of all people, should have known to be skeptical. Read the full commentary at www.forbes.com.

Business students need to steer clear of ethical “gray zones” as they seek big salaries in the corporate world, keynote speaker Rafael Rangel, Ph.D., told Thunderbird School of Global Management graduates Dec. 11 during the winter commencement. “Many of the great problems we have today started with small activities in what I call the ‘gray zone’ of what is and what is not ethical,” said Rangel, the parent of two Thunderbird alumni and president of Thunderbird’s partner school, Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico. | Video: Avoiding Ethical Gray Zones (1:29) | Video: Dr. Rangel answers the Thunderbird Question (2:49)
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By Frederick Andresen
Author of Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia

“Their starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.” Alexis de Tocqueville had it right in 1831 about America and Russia. And his perspective is right today. How does the United States interact with its closest neighbor next to Canada and Mexico? Many Americans have worked hard at this. Some have failed and others have succeeded. Based on one of those successes, this nine-part series focuses on the issues and practices that make success happen in Russia today.

Part 8: Power of Human Capital

In Washington I took a course in negotiation from the very people who trained the American side in the nuclear arms treaty discussions. They stressed that if you can’t figuratively sit on the other side of the table and understand where your opponents are coming from, you will never be able to come to a mutual and sustainable agreement.
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Slovakian entrepreneur Peter Petrik, a 2000 Thunderbird graduate, talked Nov. 2 in Dallas, Texas, about changes he has seen in Eastern Europe since the end of the Cold War. Petrik, who grew up in the former Czechoslovakia, says he could look from his apartment across the Danube River and see into Austria.  ”I had front row seats to the Iron Curtain,” he says. Petrik is a business owner and management professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. He has lived and worked in many countries and speaks five languages. Watch a video of his presentation here (60:17).

Thunderbird graduate Ryan Schuchard, Manager of Research & Innovation at BSR, is in Copenhagen this week at the COP15 climate treaty negotiations. During his stay, he will participate in panel discussions for the International Emissions Trading Association and the China Climate Registry. He also will send postcards to Thunderbird Global Citizenship, a blog on the Thunderbird Knowledge Network. Introduction: Meet Ryan | Postcard 1: Information, Please!

Thunderbird graduate Laurence Lipsher has watched Shenzhen grow from a small fishing village to a sprawling metropolis of 13 million people in less than 25 years. The city’s rapid development has been astounding, but Lipsher says China will need to repeat the feat again and again to keep pace with growth as the country’s rural poor move to big cities looking for new opportunities. “China has to develop a half dozen cities like this over the next 50 years, plus take 100 million more people and put them into the current existing cities,” Lipsher says. He calls this China’s big dilemma. | Video: The Shenzhen-Hong Kong megalopolis (1:43) | Podcast: Laurence Lipsher on China’s vision for 21st century (15:50)
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By Frederick Andresen
Author of Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia

“Their starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.” Alexis de Tocqueville had it right in 1831 about America and Russia. And his perspective is right today. How does the United States interact with its closest neighbor next to Canada and Mexico? Many Americans have worked hard at this. Some have failed and others have succeeded. Based on one of those successes, this nine-part series focuses on the issues and practices that make success happen in Russia today.

Part 7: Deciphering the Culture

Where do we start when it comes to understanding Russian culture? Back with the Princes of Kiev, 1,000 years ago? Back when they hired the Vikings to solve their arguments and chose the Orthodox Church to organize and control their people? Or in the recent headlines -– the Russian/Georgian debacle. It’s all connected. But let’s start with a word.
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MBA programs do a good job preparing managers to run existing businesses, but Thunderbird President Ángel Cabrera, Ph.D., said Nov. 6 during a question-and-answer session in Macau that the world also needs entrepreneurs who know how to build businesses from scratch. “Business schools need to experiment,” Cabrera told an audience of about 125 alumni at the Thunderbird Global Reunion at the StarWorld Hotel. “We need to help future business leaders not only be masters of business administration, but also masters of business creation — MBCs — or masters of business design — MBDs.” | Video: What MBAs don’t do well (2:26) | Blog: Read Dr. Cabrera’s blog on the Thunderbird Knowledge Network
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Opportunities abound in China, but not for entrepreneurs who enter the country unprepared. Timothy Lamb, a 2002 Thunderbird graduate, has seen plenty of Western companies fall flat in the emerging market. As director of foreign direct investment services for The JLJ Group in Shanghai, his job is to help clients succeed. But Lamb says this won’t happen unless companies have at least four things in place before they make their move into China.
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