Attending the MBA program at HBS was a truly transformative experience for me. And I firmly believe that the case method of study coupled with world-class faculty makes the program one of the best educational experiences an aspiring leader could participate in. Below, I share just a few of the lessons I learned at HBS and some that took a bit longer to learn after I had left the program and spent time as a business leader.

What I learned at HBS...

1. It’s okay to be lucky, it’s okay to be smart, it’s not okay to be lucky and think you are smart.

This is one that speaks to hubris. Don’t be a victim of it. Effort matters. Intelligence matters. Perseverance matters. But there is always an element of luck. Don’t think you’ve had it? I know you have. If you hadn’t, you could read this … you won what Warren Buffet calls the “ovarian lottery.” You were born somewhere and raised in a way that allowed you to learn to read. That’s something, isn’t it? 

2. Companies only go out of business because they run out of cash.

Seems obvious, doesn’t it? Yet the vagaries of accounting, and particularly the calculation of net income, can trick you. Cash pays vendors. It pays employees (tried to buy groceries on a promise of payment?). It pays for everything. Don’t forget it. 

3. Culture eats strategy for lunch.

Said another way, you can have the best strategy in the world, but if you don’t have the right culture, you might as well use your strategy document as an anchor for a boat. Culture drives execution. It drives resilience. It drives unity of purpose. So, how do you get the right culture? See number one in the list of things I didn’t learn while at HBS.

And what I didn't...

1. Get the people right and everything else is easy

No lesson has been more stark to me than the importance of getting the people side of things right. And while HBS touched on this throughout my MBA studies, it was never as clear as it could be after 20 years in general management. People matter that much. And not just because of the skills they bring to the table but because of the culture they help build. A secondary lesson: never, ever be afraid to hire somebody better than you. Use the Tom Sawyer method of hiring: find somebody who can paint the fence better than you.

2. Never hire somebody at a manager level or above that has not terminated an employee at some point in their career

Perhaps this is an addendum to the first item above, but I felt it warranted it’s own place on the list.  It’s an uncomfortable reality but people don’t always work out. The question is what you do about it. While working to improve performance through consistent and respectful feedback is always a first choice, sometimes you reach the end of the road and have to let the under-performer go. Experience doing this is part of becoming a leader. I learned this lesson the hard way. I once hired a senior executive who had said during the interview process that he had never had to terminate an employee after a thirty-year career as a general manager in a manufacturing company where he managed no less than thirty people. When the organization he ran in my company needed to have some personnel changes made, he simply shuffled people around, changing their responsibilities, trying to delay the inevitable. Unfortunately, his inability to act led to me letting him go. 

3. Sharing as much as possible is always better than sharing only what you think is necessary.

It’s a maxim of human nature: in the absence of information, humans will fill in the blanks based on their own experiences. In doing so, you can be certain they will get it wrong. So why not fill in the blanks for them? I have learned that doing so is almost always preferable to the alternative. Obviously, some things cannot be provided to employees. But if you made a list of everything that legally and ethically can be shared and things that just can’t, you’d be surprised at how much would show up on the first list… and how much on that list you have arbitrarily decided not to share. Information truly is power. Help your employees feel powerful by being as open as possible whenever you can.

The simplest model of a market involves two things, supply and demand, and the price and quantity of the goods sold in the market are a function of both. When a natural disaster hits, the immediate effect can be two-fold. In such situations, it is not unusual that the demand for certain products may increase. For example, if everyone is trying to leave the area, demand for gas may rise. The other effect is that supply for certain products may decrease. For example, it may be more costly to transport gas in areas affected by a natural disaster, thus decreasing the supply of gas and in turn, increasing the price.

When supply decreases, the price of the good increases. And when demand increases, again the price of the good increases. So we would predict that the market price of gas, for example, would increase in areas recently affected by a hurricane. And in fact we do see this.

Price-gouging occurs when companies raise prices to unfair levels. There is no rule for what qualifies as price-gouging, but it is not an uncommon occurance. For example, EpiPen costs and Uber price surges are both current examples of price increases that have been labeled unfair. 

Stories of price gouging in Florida after Hurricane Matthew have recently made headlines. Price increases due to natural disasters are the classic example of price gouging, and the government will usually intervene and directly prevent companies from doing so. But there can be unintended consequences to market interventions such as these, which explains the ongoing debate among economists and policy makers about the proper response to natural disasters and price gouging.

Want to read more about the price gouging debate?

• The Problem with Price Gouging Laws
  Harvard Business Review 
   
• Post-Sandy Price Gouging: Economically Sound, Ethically Dubious
  Time
   
• Why Economists Love Price Gouging, And Why It's So Rare
  National Public Radio

My name is Aziz and I am a recent New York University graduate who enrolled in the June 2015 cohort of HBX CORe. Since completing CORe, I have nurtured my entrepreneurial skills to a new level and have successfully launched a start-up NGO, TajRupt, in my home country of Tajikistan.

TajRupt works on three fronts: renewable energy (providing solar lanterns to tens of thousands of underprivileged children), subsidized financing (allocating grants to gifted students to pursue university education), and anti-corruption (launching an online platform for reporting of bribery cases in universities). I have extensively used my HBX CORe skills to define the operational business model and effectively work on grant proposals with my peers. 

Business Analytics - Drawing conclusions from conducting randomized audits and analyzing data samples 

We were initially planning to launch a microfinance institution that would provide low-interest student loans modelled after the UK Student Loans Company system. To gauge public interest in the program, we posted surveys on Tajik social media groups and sent them out electronically in a randomized manner – exact steps taken in one of the course examples. After receiving survey results that pointed to low public interest in the microfinance venture, we were convinced that the student loan program would be tough to launch in a country where public trust in financial institutions is at an all-time low due to a stiff financial crisis. Thus, we decided to focus our efforts on strictly non-commercial aspects in the beginning in order to build a proper reputation that would then increase public confidence in the organization and strategically differentiate us (a concept from Economics for Managers). This strategy will allow us to launch a microfinance program in a period of one to two years.

Economics for Managers - Fixed and variable cost breakdown 

While my team and I were preparing our grant proposals for the Ministry of Finance, we conducted extensive contrastive fixed and variable cost analyses and adjusted the metrics several times in order to yield the least operationally expensive model by bringing down the variable cost to minimal levels. In our case, renting space for offices and Educational Resource Centers (ERCs) produced variable costs that were too high. To curb this, we transformed the office variable expense into a fixed cost by opting to purchase a small headquarters office as opposed to continuously paying rent. We also eliminated the variable cost associated with ERCs by formalizing an agreement with the Ministry of Education and Science to host ERC activities at administrative offices of the Ministry in five districts of our operation.

Financial Accounting - Cash flow analysis 

Due to the fact that we receive $3.3 million in international grant funds in continuous annual payments from the Ministry of Finance as opposed to one single transaction, we had to properly amend our income statements for annual categorization to prevent over-spending. This prompted us to use a number of course concepts including operating expense ratio (OER) to gain insights into our financial standing and ensure project sustainability.

Thank you, HBX CORe!

By utilizing the network of amazing individuals that I had the pleasure of meeting through HBX, I was able to pursue my dream project and secure over $3 million in grants from the Eurasian Development Bank and OPEC Fund for International Development. Thanks to CORe, I was able to make my dream of launching a start-up NGO come to life.

This post was originally published on Linkedin Pulse.

The greatest achievement of John F. Kennedy’s presidency was resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis in the fall of 1962.

Agreement wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Kennedy himself calculated that the chance of a nuclear catastrophe was at least one in three, maybe higher. But he had learned a lot about negotiating from his failed summit talk with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev a year earlier in Vienna. Those lessons still apply today. And they apply to everyday transactions.

First, Kennedy was agile strategically.

Among his own advisors, hawks argued strongly for immediate attacks on the missile sites being built in Cuba. Kennedy understood that military action might soon be necessary but he was determined to use the limited time available to pursue alternatives that wouldn’t trigger World War III. Imposing a blockade on Cuba (he called it a “quarantine”) was less provocative and gave him the chance to negotiate.

Second, he stress-tested his options by actively seeking counsel from experts with widely divergent views.

As a result, he avoided the “confirmation bias” trap, that is, being told only what others thought he wanted to hear. As a result, he fully understood the risks entailed in whatever path he might take.

Third, he used multiple channels of communication, instead of relying solely on formal messages telexed back-and-forth between Washington and Moscow.

Much later it was learned that Kennedy’s brother Robert (who was also Attorney General) held three secret meetings with Soviet Ambassador to the US, Anatoly Dobrynin. In these private sessions they floated proposals and developed a measure of personal trust.

Fourth, the President understood that the other side was not monolithic.

Just as with his White House advisers, there were hawks and doves within the Kremlin. He had to craft a resolution that would have sufficient support within both governments, but he didn’t have to please the hardest-to-please parties.

Fifth, Kennedy allowed Khrushchev to save face.

In return for the Soviets’ removing their missiles in Cuba, the president publicly pledged that the United States would never invade that country. Given the humiliating Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961, there was little likelihood that the US would make another such attempt, but the guarantee gave the Premier something he could trumpet as a victory. My friend Bill Ury calls this tactic “building a golden bridge.” It enables a counterpart to justify an agreement to others (and also to himself).

Finally, Kennedy enriched the deal with a side agreement.

On the twelfth day of the standoff, with tensions mounting, Khrushchev sent a letter that made it seem that a deal was imminent. But then several hours later a more belligerent message appeared, with added demands, including insistence on US removal of Jupiter missiles it had installed in Turkey, bordering the Soviet Union.

That issue was potentially a deal-killer, as the Americans didn’t want to appear as if they were blackmailed into making a significant military concession. But it was suggested (apparently by Secretary of State Dean Rusk) that President Kennedy reply formally to the initial, more conciliatory Soviet proposal, and then have Robert Kennedy privately ask Ambassador Dobrynin deliver the written letter to Khrushchev along with an oral message to Khrushchev that the US missiles in Turkey would be withdrawn.

These six elements were all critical parts Kennedy’s negotiation strategy. They were bound together by a tough-minded appraisal of the situation. Like a chess master, Kennedy played both sides of the table, thinking several moves ahead, trying to anticipate how the Soviets might respond to American actions. He didn’t wish away the risks. He allowed for possible miscalculation on their part, rather than counting on them to respond “rationally” to the carrots and sticks he might deploy.

The same kind of tough-mindedness is essential in our own negotiations, even though far less is at stake. Having that attitude compels us to confront that whatever unfolds won’t be fully under our control. Whoever we deal with may be as determined—and fallible—as we are ourselves. Recognizing that reality compels us to be both agile strategically and creative in executing our plans.

Robert De Niro and I have a lot in common – we are both a little old to be interns. But, like in the movie, my internship at HBX was a fantastic experience. Since I was completing a MSc in Russian and East European Studies and then beginning an MBA three months later, I figured an internship at HBX would be a great way to spend my summer. Luckily, HBX thought so as well!

I decided to pursue an internship with HBX for a few different reasons. First, it was an opportunity to work at Harvard Business School and second, I was looking to gain experience working for a larger organization (I had started my own small business, but I don’t count that as formal working experience). In addition, I got paid (which was an extra bonus!), I was able to work in areas that I wanted to (marketing and product management), and I love Boston. To be honest, it couldn’t have worked out any better.

While I said that Robert De Niro and I have a lot in common, I am about half his age (that’s just a clarifier). Still though, while my fellow interns were (at most) 20 years old, it didn’t stop me from forming meaningful relationships with them and my with other coworkers. I became good friends with my fellow interns and coworkers, playing Checkers and Sorry at lunch every day (yes, HBX has board games), and grabbing dinner sometimes as well. I even played tennis once a week with a coworker (unless he bailed on me), and will stay in contact with a number of others. I felt welcomed from my very first day and I loved the atmosphere – it seemed far less stifling than I had imagined an office being. On top of that, everyone was willing to meet with me, introduce me to their specific fields, and help me understand what they do. Because of this, I was able to gain insight into the different facets of HBX and how they all work together, which I consider one of the greatest things I gained from my internship.

Another thing I loved about my time at HBX was that I felt like I was given meaningful projects that actually made a difference. Over the 2 ½ months I was there, I worked on changing the messaging of email workflows, ran the Instagram account, and helped design and carry out a variety of projects. I was also given a range of types of tasks: from more data-heavy to research-heavy to creative-heavy projects. I learned how to use Excel better, conduct market research, and craft messages. The unique part about all of these projects is that I had a say in them; it wasn’t just my colleagues giving me tasks that they themselves didn’t want to do. I felt like I added real value, and that was something I was not expecting from a summer internship.

On top of being given meaningful projects, I had access to CORe and Disruptive Strategy with Clayton Christensen for free. I was allowed to work through Disruptive Strategy at work and have been doing CORe at home in my free time. I feel like these have given me a better foundation of “the language of business” that most certainly are beneficial as I begin my MBA.

And then there was being in Boston. Who doesn’t love Boston? Having spent time here before, I knew that I wanted to get back if I could. While here, I went whale watching, took a trip to Maine, went to a Red Sox game, and ate some of the best food in the country. I had an opportunity to sit down with the Creative Director of HBX, speak with the videographers and photographers for HBX, and explore what a career in creative might look like. My time in Boston has not only provided me the work experience I was looking for but also opened doors to other exciting opportunities.

All in all it was the perfect summer – a meaningful internship at a world-class institution with incredible staff in my favorite city.

Gone are the days when people paid cash for the goods and services they needed. More often than not, companies (and individuals) prepay, or pay later for goods and services. The form of accounting that allows companies to keep up with these more complicated transactions is called Accrual Accounting.

Accrual Accounting: An accounting method that recognizes revenue in the period in which it is earned and realizable, not necessarily when the cash is received. Similarly, expenses are recognized in the period in which the related revenue is recognized rather than when the related cash is paid.

Accrual Accounting is helpful because it shows underlying business transactions, not just those where cash is involved. Most transactions that a company has are straightforward, with payment happening at the time of the transaction. Other, more complicated transactions, involve buying and selling on credit, which requires a company to account for monies that they will have to pay at a future date or receive at a future date.

Even more complicated are transactions that require paying for goods or services in advance or receiving money from customers in advance. The timing of when revenues and expenses are recognized related to these more complicated transactions can have a major effect on the perceived financial performance of a company.

How does all of this work in the real world?

Deferred Revenue

When a company receives cash before a good has been delivered or a service has been provided, it creates an account called deferred (or unearned) revenue. This account is a liability because the company has an obligation to deliver the good or provide the service in the future.

Suppose you paid a gym $1,200 on January 1, 2016 for a year-long membership. Using the accrual accounting method, the gym would set up a deferred revenue account (a liability) for the $1,200 to show that they had received the cash but not yet provided the service. As each month of 2016 passes, the gym can reduce the deferred revenue account by $100 to show that they have provided one month of service. They can simultaneously record revenue of $100 each month to show that the revenue has officially been earned through providing the service.

Prepaid Expense

When a company pays cash for a good before it is received, or for a service before it has been provided, it creates an account called prepaid expense. This account is an asset account because it shows that the company is entitled to receive a good or a service in the future.

Suppose that a dental office buys a year-long magazine subscription on January 1, 2016 for $144, so patients have something to read while they wait for their appointments. At the time of the payment, the dental office will set up a prepaid expense account for $144 to show that they have not yet received the goods, but they have already paid the cash. As each month of 2016 passes, the dental office can reduce the prepaid expense account by $12 to show that they have ‘used up’ one month of their prepaid expense (asset). They can simultaneously record an expense of $12 each month to show that the expense has officially incurred through receiving the magazine.

If you've been following the election at all, you've probably noticed that some polls give very different estimates of who's likely to win the presidency in November. For example, at 1:00 PM EDT on Tuesday, September 27th [this will probably change by the time you read this]:

• The New York Times shows Clinton leading 45% to 42%
• The Los Angeles Times reports Trump leading 46.2% to 42.7%
• HuffPost Pollster shows Clinton up 47.6% to 44.1%
• Data analysis site FiveThirtyEight gives three different estimates:
  • Their Polls-only forecast is 55.8% to 44.2% in Clinton's favor
  • Their Polls-plus forecast (which includes such factors as the economy and event-related spikes in either candidate's favor) is 55.2% to 44.7% in Clinton's favor 
  • Their nowcast (what they'd expect if the election were held today) is 52.7% to 47.3% in Clinton's favor

There are a number of reasons for this: they poll different people, using different questions, via different media. For example, polls that use only mobile numbers, and exclude landlines, tend to under-sample older voters. And wording changes as simple as which candidate is mentioned first by the poll can affect responses.

But the biggest differences may be caused by weighting, a method used to make the sample (which may be demographically different from the expected voter turnout) look like the population. Each organization uses its own weighting algorithm, leading to a diversity of predictions. In fact, the New York Times recently shared poll data it had collected with four well-respected analysts.

Even with the exact same data, the different weighting methods led to results varying from a four point lead for Clinton to a one point lead for Trump. That's because each organization has a slightly different idea of what the electorate will look like in terms of gender, ethnicity, education, socio-economic status, etc. These assumptions about who will vote influence what the polls tell us.

One thing is pretty clear: this will be a tight race, and people seem more emotionally invested in it than they have been in many recent elections. And given last night's debate, the numbers will likely fluctuate in the upcoming days.

Army veteran and past HBX CORe participant J. Holden Gibbons talks about how CORe allowed him to understand the language of business and help grow his non-profit, Veterans Combating Child Hunger.

Tell us a little bit about your organization.

When I was serving in Afghanistan with the Army, I saw how it had little arable land and lacked a lot of core assets, making it hard to support life. It made me see the United States in a new light; we live in this bountiful nation but don't value the land, water, or natural resources in the way we should. There are a ton of areas where we can improve efficiencies and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and technology.

I asked myself, how can we sustainably reuse this land, reduce greenhouse gases, get veterans involved in their community, and improve certain communities that oftentimes have poor nutrition? So, upon returning home, I founded Veterans Combating Child Hunger, an organization that seeks to involve the veteran community in sustainably farming undervalued real estate assets in communities throughout the United States.

How has CORe has helped with this venture?

HBX CORe is the type of program that helps you make a quantum leap and take what's in your head and translate it into real world success. One of the really nifty things about CORe is that the skill set they give you is directly applicable to what you are going through as an entrepreneur or a small business owner. On a day-to-day basis, I'm literally astounded by how often I use the coursework.

For example, with Economics for Managers, I'm constantly weighing how to utilize the farm's assets. Is it worth me spending a few hundred dollars to take a flight? That might not seem like the best short-term expenditure, but if I can expand the network which then amplifies later on, that may be a good decision to make. I am asking myself questions like what's the cost basis of this? What am I giving up to pursue that? Would I be better off not pursuing that?

Financially speaking, I really wanted Veterans Combating Child Hunger to be a self-sustaining corporation. We want to offer value added, we don't want to consistently be asking people for funds to get started. In accounting, we learned about “going concerns” so now I ask myself, what is the best way we can use our time, use our assets, to be able to bring sustainability and add more value to society?

What advice would you give entrepreneurs considering CORe?

Before you sign up or apply for CORe, I’d suggest you do a gut check and ask yourself whether you have the time to dedicate to mastering the material and building a network. To truly be successful in the program, it takes a lot of effort, it takes a lot of proactive decision-making, and you're really going to be expected to bring a large amount of focus. Not only that, you're also expected to integrate with your cohort and to help them through the platform.

You're expected to be a member of a community, and you are expected to put in a healthy amount of work. You need to look within yourself and ask, “Am I prepared to take three very intensive courses that require me to be the fulcrum of my learning?” In CORe, you’re conducting your own train. That train can take you as far as you want to go, and if you're on board all the way, there's really nowhere that you can't go.

The CORe community consists of a rich and diverse group of learners. Want to learn more about other students who've participated in the program?

This article was originally posted to Fortune Insiders and can be found here.

If you, like me, have children, you’ve probably become convinced that the most common word in the English language is “no.” In fact, you may have concluded that “no” is the perfect sentence unto itself — no modifiers, adverbs, or adjectives needed. It’s always on the tip of the tongue with offspring around, no matter the question. “Dad, can I …” “NO!”

The word is also one that children learn to use frequently because of how prolific we parents are in uttering it. It is among the most common first words an infant says. They say it to siblings, to us, and to playmates. It’s just so easy to say — until, that is, we become adults in the working world.

At that point, the word seems to get lost. Why? Warren Buffett famously said, “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.” But if that’s true, then why does the word go missing from our vocabulary? Why do we become selectively dumbstruck?

Volumes have been written about this, but the most common explanation is that we are wired to avoid conflict and to seek approval from those around us. So we often say “yes” even when we don’t mean it. In almost all situations, this is bad. A wedding proposal, a request to do something shady, agreeing to pick up somebody at the airport — saying yes when we don’t mean it can be a really miserable experience.

So, how do we say no? If you accept the premise of why it’s hard to say, then you need to find ways to lessen the likelihood of creating a conflict or disappointing someone.

First, remember that saying “no” by itself is almost always provocative. So one key is to provide context when responding to a question or request. People are much more likely to accept a “no” when they understand the train of thought that led to your response. “No” or “I can’t” should always be followed by a “because” clause. For example: “No, I’m not going to be able to get that report done by Tuesday because I’m concerned that rushing it will mean we have inaccurate data.”

I’m not suggesting that such an answer will always be well-received. Interactions between humans are rarely that simple. But by providing a “because,” you have offered information that can be the basis of a discussion if the other side pushes the issue. Without this qualifier, defenses immediately come up and all parties can quickly feel aggrieved.

In addition to explaining your refusal, saying “no” can be more effective if the word “no” is never actually part of the response. In place of it, use information and data to lead the requester to understand they are being turned down.

Using the example from above, let’s suppose my boss asks me if I can get the monthly production report done by Tuesday. The response I suggested above still has a bite to it because it begins with “no.” What if, instead, you responded, “I’m not sure if you know, but I need to gather information from our global sites and I’m concerned that if we don’t give them time to respond, the report will be less useful.” As long as the information presented is legitimate, this can be an effective way to respond without ever having to say the dreaded “no.”

Take it from Mahatma Gandhi: “A ‘no’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.”

The U.S. Competitiveness Project is a Harvard Business School initiative led by Professors Michael Porter and Jan Rivkin. This year's report was released today and included research from HBX Professor Mihir Desai on U.S. tax reform. Professor Desai teaches the new HBX certificate program Leading with Finance.

Harvard Business School (HBS) launched the U.S. Competitiveness Project in 2011 as a multi-year, fact-based effort to understand the disappointing performance of the American economy, its causes, and the steps needed by business leaders and policymakers to restore economic growth and prosperity shared across all Americans. Read the full report here.

This year's report outlines an eight-point plan for restoring U.S. competitiveness. Professor Desai's research focuses on tax reform, an area where much attention is given. According to Professor Desai's research, "tax reform is the single area with the greatest potential for immediate impact on the economy and is long overdue given changes in the global economy. Corporate tax policy has become a key obstacle to U.S. competitiveness and economic growth, and reforming both corporate and personal taxation is essential to achieving a sustainable federal budget."

The report goes on to say, "the top corporate tax problems, according to the surveyed business leaders, are the high corporate tax rate and the taxation of international income. Business leaders reported overwhelming and bipartisan support (over 95%) for corporate tax reform...The feasibility of corporate tax reform is promising given the broad consensus on the nature of the problem and the required direction for reform."

The report calls on leaders to be frank about the challenges the U.S. faces and to work harder to move the U.S. economy in the right direction. "To achieve the right kinds of tax reform, leaders must begin to speak more realistically about the fiscal realities America faces. In addition, simplistic polarizing and protectionist rhetoric must be avoided. The time for tax reform is long overdue."

Read the full press release on the U.S. Competitiveness Project here.

Professor Desai teaches Leading with Finance, an online program designed to provide business leaders with a thorough understanding of the principles of finance and a toolkit for making smart financial decisions.