Washington, D.C. - The Nation's Capital

In DC, it's all government, museums and memorials. We stayed in the middle of all these federal departments which is not much fun after the sun has set (and also not too safe, according to my sources). Apparently its because Residence Inn is the only one with kitchens and dinner provided. Well, at least the dinner was better than that in Residence Inn Cambridge. But I'd rather be a little nearer the centre of action rather than next to the Trade Commission.

Our programme in DC focused on visits largely to various federal departments, one aide to a Senator and visits to the World Bank and an NGO (with links to KSG). We also had dinner with Amb Chan and met Derwin Pereira of ST (I learnt that he had studied at the LSE and graduated one year after me). But the meetings were not particularly memorable. The folks we met were relatively senior (at the Asst Secretary level) but some didn't spout anything but the party line, particularly the political appointees. The professional diplomats at the State Department were more willing to be open and frank by comparison and didn't treat us as though we were schoolchildren. It was interesting to get a sense of the type of people there and to see how they perceived us as a group (clearly not that important).

But there were plus points too. One memorable moment was our visit to the Pentagon. The official hosting our visit told us that he had been sitting in the very room we were in when the airplane hit. No one knew what had happened but they evacuated the room and left the building. Only then did his group realise what had happened. We also visited the memorial at the portion of the Pentagon which was hit. It is a small quiet room with panels listing the victims and a book with a page for each victim - both in the Pentagon and in the plane which hit the building. There is a small chapel next to it as well. The Pentagon itself is a huge complex. There is a courtyard in the centre of the complex and a building right in the centre of the courtyard. The rumour (so our guide told us) was that in the midst of the Cold War, the Soviets were very suspicious as to why there were so many people entering and leaving the building and so trained one of their missiles to hit the structure - which was, of course, the hotdog stand.

We also met one of John Kerry's aides. It was a good session - I thought he handled our questions well eg he threw back questions for us to respond to besides just answering what we asked him. But later that day Kerry made a rather tactless statement to some schoolchildren that if they didn't learn their lessons well they would end up in Iraq. Kerry had to apologise and say he didn't mean to insult US troops in Iraq, and that the original script had a line saying, "just ask President Bush", which he had omitted. But why? Hmm. After making such a statement apparently some candidates told Kerry not to campaign with them any more. Not that they had to worry too much, the Democrats were hot this time round. Other than this chap, we didn't meet anyone else from the legislative side of the US government. Apparently it was because of the elections - everyone is campaigning. I am not sure what alternatives there could have been - perhaps we could have met journalists, and people from other think tanks? Anyway, I didn't really mind too much that we didn't have a packed program. I spent the first three days spending my spare time finishing my last assignment (rather disappointed with it even so) so any extra time was beneficial to me.

But DC in general is really the US in glorified, institutional terms. We visited the executive, legislature and (for some of us) even the judiciary (saw all 9 Supreme Court Judges in action!). Also the National Archives where the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution are kept. Their state buildings are pretty grand and imposing (all that marble!), in very classical architectural styles. It reflects the great pride Americans have in their institutions, and the famous check-and-balance system of government. I frankly think that there could be a few less checks to achieve the same level of balance but well, apparently the Americans like it that way.

We also got a chance to observe the US in the run-up to the congressional elections (held on Nov 6, the week after we were in DC). Massachussets is such a Democrat stronghold that most of the Republican campaigning is perfunctory in nature - there was only a rather vicious and nasty campaign over the Governor job. In DC, on the other hand, numerous TV ads, for Senator/Governor in both Virginia and Maryland flooded our TV screens. And instead of reading the rather parochial Boston Globe, we got the Washington Post which has far more analysis and reported more broadly on the elections as a whole rather than on a single race.

The DC field trip marked the end of our official stay in the US. In a sense it has been interesting living in closer proximity to my classmates and I certainly know a few of them a little better than before.

2nd Last Night in Boston

I started off this week with 3 assignments due end of this week, got a take-home exam due mid next week. I finished off one assignment on Thursday, a second one on Friday and am now 25% through the third one.

Earlier tonight we had our farewell dinner at the Harvard Faculty Club. It was a pleasant event and we received our certificates of attendance at the end. I'd been griping about the assignments all day and so one of my Indian classmates sidled up to me on the way back and asked me, "Why are you worried about outputs when you have the outcome in your hands"? Meaning, that with a certificate of attendance why did I want to bother with assignments? He then started pulling aside his shirt to show me his own certificate which he had tucked beneath. Not only was he keeping it close, it was keeping him warm as well!

Anyway, enough of procrastinating. Back to typing.

Carly Fiorina at the KSG

I've attended two talks over the past two days at KSG.

Yesterday's talk was by Richard Holbrooke, former US Asst Secretary of State and Former US ambassador to the UN. He was talking on the topic, "Fighting the War on Terror: A Short-Term Vision for a Long-Term Conflict?". It was an interesting talk - he was attacking the semantics of "War on Terror" - terror is a tactic and not any individual, who exactly is the war on? Of course he is a Democrat. Lawrence Summers (Treasury Secretary under Clinton, also former President of Harvard) was in the audience and he exchanged pleasantries with Holbrooke. And whilst we are talking about Harvard big names, I suppose I should add that last Friday Amartya Sen was walking through the KSG Courtyard.

Anyway, let me get to the true subject of my post - the talk by Carly Fiorina, which was this evening. Now I must admit I had pretty high expectations. Carly has a reputation for being a good speaker. And she has just published her book and is promoting it (she was signing copies after the event at the COOP). So I expected a few excerpts (of the more exciting points).

So the session starts off with what was a pretty fawning introduction (Carly said thank you for a very "generous" introduction), and if that was not bad enough it was long-winded as well so we cringed through this lengthy speech.

Carly focused her own comments on leadership - business is about the people, so you have to address people issues in leadership and managing change - and uttered truisms about how people are people wherever they are. She alluded to her own departure from the Board but sort of slipped around what happened. Difficult for people who weren't following the fortunes of HP or didn't skim through her book prior to the talk (which I did) to work out what was going on. I can look at it charitably and say that she didn't want to bad-mouth people in public, but I can also say that she wanted to increase the incentive for people to buy the book! And although her book is titled "Tough Choices" she didn't actually tell us about any of these choices except that it was her decision to say openly, despite the bad press it would attract, that she was fired from HP rather than that she had decided to step down.

I suppose my takeaways are as follows:

• Change - it's a slow process, especially in large organisations. Individuals don't like change - it's great in theory, but should preferrably happen to someone else. So needs patience and discipline. Changing during bad times is even worse - more difficult for people to stay the course and easier for them to lose faith in the leader.
• Importance of processes to appraise and enhance the performance of Board members.

She spoke for only about 20 minutes and then there was some Q&A. The two hosts on stage monopolised the Q&A for about half an hour. Unfortunately the fawning host asked some fawning questions. Whilst the other gentleman asked better questions, I must say the student questions were excellent! One asked Carly to respond to unfavourable reviews of her book (in The Economist and Financial Times) which questioned her leadership but she chickened out! and said that everyone is entitled to their opinion. Another asked her to talk about what she felt her weakness was and how she addressed that. She said that her weakness was that she didn't know anything about technology and therefore it was important to have people around her who were good at technology, that it is about being aware of your weakness and having the humility to acknowledge and address it. Again, I see this as a cop-out because I thought that the question pertained to a personal weakness rather than a knowledge gap. (Oh, and she didn't answer the question on whether she intended to run for public office!).

I personally respect Carly and what she has achieved and I do think (from the little I know) that she was hard done by her Board. And maybe after having high expectations it would have been a let-down in any case. So it is a bit of a pity because I do think she had an opportunity to gain supporters (esp if she wanted to run for public office) this evening and it ended up being a bit of a "poor me" session.

Dinner Time

There are two good things about our hotel.

First, it not only provides breakfast, it provides dinner. Second, it is possible to take food upstairs to eat. So we hoard food in times of plenty and cook it in times of famine (also known as the weekends, when the dinner reception is not available).

Let me say that the dinner food is not remarkable. Except for the main dish, it is exactly the same every night:

• chips with salsa
• green salad (with vinegar and olive oil on the side, also croutons)
• mixed salad - raw califlower, broccoli, capsicum, baby carrots.
• main dish - could be meatballs, sausage with peppers, tacos, soup, baked potatoes, etc. Comes with bread or rice.
• fruit - green apples, or red apples
• chocolate cake or carrot cake.

We are plenty tired of this menu. But it is amazing how much food ends up in our rooms. So last Friday evening, when we had a pot luck dinner, it ended up something like this:

• fried vegetables I (from the buffet)
• fried vegetables II (someone bought Chinese lettuce and so this dish was actually made up of "original" ingredients)
• cucumber and green apple in vinegar (the cucumber was actually bought)
• red chicken curry (the chicken was from "fajitas night" and the baby carrots in the curry from the buffet)
• fried rice (all ingredients from the buffet)
• Fig pizza (I must admit this was from my doggie bag - went out for dinner the previous Wednesday)
• bread with cheese topping (this was freshly purchased)
• fruit salad with yoghurt dressing

The cooking was quite tasty but it was a little sad eating the same food ... albeit presented in different ways. But the company was good and my classmate hosting us had a tablecloth (!) plus classical music playing in the background (she turned her radio on loudly). So it was a lot more classy, so to speak, than our dining hall.

Ethics Class - Public and Private

One of my classes in KSG is this "compulsory" course for LKY Fellows, "Ethics in Public Life". One theme of the course is the tensions which arise between different types of moral and ethical obligations.

One particular class focused on the difficulty of reconciling personal morality with public life. The class read a speech by former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who is a Catholic. Cuomo gave a speech which essentially defended his public position on abortion - why he would not move to make legislation illegal (which he cannot anyway because of the Roe vs Wade ruling) and why he even provided funds for low income women to have abortions. We have to post responses to the readings each week and here is an extract of mine:

"An interesting argument he made was that the church is interested in "principles or ends", ie the ideals rather than determining which technical solution is best suited to achieving a certain end. Whilst this is, in some sense, a convenient rationalisation (which also leaves a lot of room to manoeuvre), Governor Cuomo has also usefully highlighted the need to address problems at their root causes rather than at the symptomatic level. In the case of abortion, for example, he calls to Catholics to set a personal example by respecting the right to life and thus moving others to this point of view, rather than seeking to change the law. He has also noted that it is always
possible to work on areas of common agreement, for example programmes which help pregnant women have a "real choice" by assisting them to give birth to healthy babies, in subsidising pre-natal and in-patient care. In NY City, Governor Cuomo also introduced a programme to help teenage mothers continue with their education and acquire job-relevant skills."

Whilst I do think that this argument is, in a sense, Cuomo's rationalisation of his actions, it is also in a way a response to the many criticisms of the Church's position on AIDS prevention in Africa. The Church is not about means, but ends. The Church's solution to AIDS (abstinence) may be too idealistic, and not practical in the eyes of many. But ideals are surely expected of a religious organisation! God's ways, unfortunately, are not always man's.

A Week at KSG

This has been a pretty busy week. Not sure if it is typical of all weeks at KSG, but let me try to give a sense of the intensity of work now.

First of all, we have to take 4 courses each (say A-D) and each course has 2 classes per week. In my case, one of my courses has a single class but I sat in on another class as well so that made a total of 8 classes. Classes for each course meets Mon/Wed or Tues/Thurs; I have 2 classes per day. Each class has something like 50-70 pages to read and some classes have more. So most of my time is spent reading and reading, and most of this is deep stuff which takes time. Let me give an illustration:

Monday: Course A, 1 class (+1 class sitting in): 1 case study, total of 2 + 3 readings for a total of some 100 pages worth of readings. Submit: 150 word response to the reading for the first class, half-page summary and response to readings for second class on Tuesday.

Tuesday, Courses B and C, so 2 classes : 1 + 3 readings, some 100 pages again

Wednesday, Course A and D, so 2 classes (this includes the class which meets only once a week): 4+6 readings, totalling what must be an astounding 250 pages or so. Got cold called for second class on Wednesday. Submitted para on self to lecturer for the first Wednesday class.

Thursday, Courses B and C so 2 classes: 2+ 4 readings, total of some 150 pages of which some 40 is John Rawls' Theory of Justice which is heavy going and of which I can read only 10 pages at a time.... Must submit response and summary of readings for second class.

Friday: deadline for submission of 2-page memorandum for Tues class.

Then it all starts again. How to find time for blogging!

A New Shopping Experience

We have just finished two days of "shopping" for classes. This is a massive exercise whereby the whole student body moves from class to class for half the normal lesson time, so that we can decide upon what courses to take. Lecturers will essentially give the same introductory spiel twice, once for the first half of the lesson and again during the second half. Of course, people will attend far more shopping sessions than is necessary so as to get a better sense of what courses suit them or which lecturers suit them, to find out more about a particular programme or just because they have some free time and nothing better to do. Basically there are a few categories of courses -

• Courses taught by "big name" professors, like Ronald Heifetz (leadership), Robert Lawrence (international trade), Joseph Nye (International Relations) and so on.
• "classic" KSG courses - like the strategic management course above or "Reasoning from History" which apparently has been run ever since the beginning of KSG.
• Niche courses, like "Economics of Immigration" or "Introduction to the Non-Profit Sector".
• Skills-related courses like "Arts of Communication", "Negotiation Skills"
  

The most popular would of course be the first two. These courses are packed, with people sitting in the aisles and standing at the back. KSG students have a certain number of points they can use to bid for the courses which are oversubscribed; the trick for them is to have a good mix of courses which are popular/oversubscribed and the less popular courses which may suit their niche interests. For us, we have to get the lecturers’ permission to sit in their class which may be difficult if it goes to bidding.

As for the lecturers, they conduct the shopping sessions differently. Some talk about how they don't believe in shopping and treat the students to the first introductory class of the course. Others just treat it as a logistics session and a few try and do a bit of both. Some are very formal, and others fairly relaxed in their lecture styles. Some come in suits and others in old woolly waistcoats. One particular lecturer, for "Strategic Management for Public Purposes" looks, sounds and even uses the same phrases as my lecturer on the equivalent course in Singapore! Of course, since it is a similar course, they are using the same cases and more or less the same textbooks. So of course I am not doing this programme.

What am I looking for? One course is already selected for us (ethics). The rest – criteria would be quality of the lecturer, workload (of course), level of interest in the course content. I don’t think that the subject matter is too important but of course there should be a balance between content-type and management-type courses. Fortunately, only one of the courses I want to attend requires bidding. And I have an alternative selected in case that doesn’t work out. The only problem is the alternative is the same time as the first choice course :0

Are American students extremely vocal, do hands pop up at every opportunity? Well, they are certainly more vocal than Singaporean students but it is not impossible to get a word in. Just takes persistence and sitting in a good spot where the speaker can see you :-)

Boston – First 3 days

Well, we have been here in Boston for 3 days now. Arrived on Sunday 6pm and ate at Legal Seafood for dinner. On Monday, walked around the area in the morning and had lunch at Legal Seafood (compliments of the SPP). This was followed by Trolley Tour of the Boston area by “The Professor”. Fun, but I think I need to go around a second time on foot.

Went to Chinatown yesterday evening, and ate at a Vietnamese restaurant, "Pho Pasteur". Reasonably priced, generous proportions. Gave a menu to our Vietnamese classmate and await his imprimateur. Pho Pasteur is opposite "Penang". We will go there when the craving strikes. Both restaurants are pretty crowded, with queues forming ever so often.

This morning, we had a tour of the streets and shops around Harvard Yard, and of Harvard Yard itself. The afternoon was spent in an orientation session on KSG. Harvard itself is not quite what I had envisioned. Well, partly because it is in “Cambridge”, I had a certain mental image in my mind to compare it with and of course that mental image of Cambridge, UK is completely different from Cambridge, MA. It is much younger, for a start and like Oxford, is more a "town with a university" than a "university with a town".

As for KSG, I liked the look and feel very much.
KSG is essentially four buildings around a quadrangle. There is a volleyball court in the middle; there is beer and volleyball on Friday evenings. One of the buildings has a large open forum/lobby area with theatre type seating, and discussion areas along the staircases going up all the sides of the forum. We were told that this interesting concept was developed based on one student's feedback that he had learnt the most on the steps outside the building (from his fellow students). So the forum was developed to "bring the steps inside", so to speak. It reminds me of discussions in a previous life about how "corridor conversations" brought about opportunities to reflect on the day's discussions - and hence the merits to structure such discussions into formal programmes. Perhaps this is what the SPP needs to do also for the MPM- identify and put in place structures and fora to better infuse the academic/theoretical more with the experience of practitioners.