Kayla Lewkowicz participated in the January 2016 cohort of HBX CORe. This is the final installment of a series of reflections inspired by her experiences. The original post appeared on her blog here, and the whole series is available here.

As my time with my cohort comes to a close, I wanted to pause and reflect on what I learned, and what I'll take with me moving forward in my career. HBX was incredibly time-consuming but ultimately, very rewarding and insightful.

To make a decision, look at all the factors

When you make a decision, you have to know everything that's at stake. Building a team of people that can help you see beyond what you want to see--your inherent bias--is essential to make an informed decision. Economic and market forces, cultural shifts, the political landscape, and how your product is received all impact the financial statements and the data. You can't look at one aspect of your business to know whether or not you're successful, but you do have to know what's most important.

Related: Know What's Most Important

This means that judgment can be more important than data collection or quantitative analysis. Though the numbers may tell one side of the story, they can be just as subjective as survey comments or customer sentiment. As a manager and decision-maker, taking a holistic view of all of the possible data points--qualitative and quantitative--and then looking beyond what the data says to get to the "why," will make you more successful.

Be an experimenter

Rather than going with "what feels right," use data to make a decision.

Most people know this is the right way to do it, but have trouble in practice not because they're data illiterate but because failure is psychologically painful. An experimental mindset--where you're tinkering and tweaking--encourages understanding your customer, your audience, and your performance in a well-rounded way.

Related: When In Doubt, Test & Learning to Experiment

To do this right, we need to ask questions. Experiment. Get curious. Test. Otherwise you'll never learn anything, and never ship products that really innovate.

Relationships matter

Where your business fits in the market matters, because its relationship to other companies matters. As consumers, it's how we figure out what we want; as managers, it's how we know how we're performing. In business, everything is tangled up in so many factors that it's often not clear what's what. After all, you can't find the solution if you don't know the problem.

Related: Kickstart Your Business With Networks & It's All Related

Making decisions isn't always so easy as "because of this, we should do that." Whether that's price, logo, or investing decisions, the world isn't so linear. With such high stakes, we need to separate what's important from what's not, and what's related with what's not. We can do that by experimenting, asking questions, or collecting data. Knowing that relationships matter, and seeking them, helps us make more holistic business decisions (see above) and maybe even predict the future.

Would I recommend HBX?

In short, definitely.

As a liberal arts student with very little in the way of business background, I feel more comfortable and familiar with the language of business. In our quarterly earnings presentation, I understood the CFO for the first time. I've been able to take a new look at social media data and performance for the Twitter handle I manage. And ultimately, I have a better understanding of the principles that make up business decisions.

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Interested to know more?

 

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Six HBX CORe participants share study tips to help incoming students get the most out of their learning experience.

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1. Supercharge your learning environment

I had three screens up when on the HBX platform: one for the closed Facebook group, one for the HBX platform, and one for taking notes (take lots of notes)!

 

One of the benefits of the HBX online learning platform is the fact that you can complete the coursework from anywhere, as long as you have access to a computer and a steady internet connection. We asked students in the September 2015 HBX CORe cohort to share their favorite study spots.

Participants opened up their laptops to connect with their peers and learn the fundamentals of business in all sorts of interesting places around the globe - in airplanes at 30,000 feet, at local coffee shops, and with their furry friends at home.

HBX brings together a diverse group of students from a range of countries, ages, and backgrounds to learn about business on our interactive online platform. Much to our delight, students have developed a strong sense of community throughout the program, and some have taken it upon themselves to organize in-person meetups in cities like Boston, London, New York, Tokyo, and Kuala Lumpur! 

We asked one of our past participants, Bethany Larsen, to share some tips and advice for anyone planning an in-person meetup:

1) Use Facebook

Create meetups as events on your cohort's Facebook group. It's the easiest place to access the majority of those in your cohort. Even if you aren't "friends" with everyone, anyone who sees the event posted on the HBX group page can opt-in to attend.

2) Send out invitations early

Make sure to tell others in your cohort about the event as soon as possible! Everyone is busy and schedules fill up quickly. Sending out invitations at least three weeks in advance is a good rule of thumb.

3) Choose a central location

Big cities are best, as are places near public transportation. Otherwise, it isn't very likely that enough people will be in the same area and able to meet at a given time.

4) Choose a fun activity

5) Timing is important

Depending on who is in your area, you'll need to be conscious of the time of the meetup. Weekends tend to work better than weekdays with work schedules. Weekend afternoons are also better for anyone traveling for the meetup as attendees have the time to get home not too late.

6) Just do it!

If you want to attend a meetup and don't see one in your area, host one! There really isn't a formula for planning meetups. It seems like all of the meetups in my cohort were thrown together by people who saw there were other students in their area and just wanted to get together.

It's a bit intimidating, but everyone is nice and is probably eager to meet you too. They're just waiting for someone to take the initiative, so be that person!

To see more examples of past meetups, check out our post here!

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I confess - I thought I knew a lot about business. As a commercial lawyer with experience in transactions like M&As and project financing, as well as disputes involving vast sums of money, I felt I understood the "binary code" of business - the contractual mechanism and rules-of-play that seal or sever any commercial relationship.

Surely law was the key component in business, the gateway through which all activity needed to be funnelled if any outcome was to be achieved?

This is why I am grateful I signed up for the HBX CORe program in July 2015, which quickly put me right. The coursework filled in knowledge gaps in areas where I knew I was weak, but also greatly enhanced my understanding of concepts and topics I'd previously felt confident in.

While my legal education put an emphasis on the "how" of business, like how a company takes over another, how a regulator applies a rule or how a plaintiff enforces a right, etc., CORe taught me the "why;" the intuitions that underly any commercial decision before legal ink even hits paper.

And CORe did this by doing exactly what it says, by focusing on the fundamentals. In doing so, it not only gave me new understandings of business but new perspectives on law itself.

The fundamentals of business

I confess, I first expected Economics for Managers to involve bone dry theories and memorization of abstract curves. CORe quickly put those worries to rest. Harvard Business School’s signature case method brought real-world fidelity to each concept, putting us in the shoes of actual managers who struggle with them. One memorable case study demonstrated how a little device called the Kindle could transform an entire industry because of its impact on incumbents’ fixed and variable costs. This overturned my preconceptions on how companies think about and respond to competition, and showed to my surprise that disruptions could be opportunities as much as threats.

Then the revelations crept closer to home. I learned how regulation, that lawyerly domain, is what economists call a market “friction” that companies can exploit in maintaining a competitive advantage over competitors. I also discovered how the spirit of a law like anti-gouging, designed to ensure greater fairness, could produce opposite and sometimes worse outcomes in reality if it ignored basic economics. Law was not necessarily the determinant factor in a company’s considerations, but one of many.

Assets, Liabilities, Equity, Revenue and Expenses. I encounter these fundamental terms daily and, because I advised on legal “liabilities”, or “equity” financings, felt I understood them. Financial Accounting taught me their precise meanings and how they relate to and interact with each other. In the end I saw how financial accounting truly is the “language of business”, fluency in which enables you to gain insights into the present and future performance of any company, regardless of the seeming complexity of its accounts. This is empowerment in the truest sense as accounting principles apply everywhere, whether to your neighborhood corner store or Apple, Inc.

Finally, Business Analytics demystified “big data” and the tools companies use to contextualize information, challenge shibboleths and execute learnings for maximum results. Case again provided its vivid tapestry in demonstrating how everything from Amazon adding a single word on its homepage to Disney deciding a major home entertainment release is driven by data analysis. Most surprisingly, the daunting names of these analytic tools like “hypothesis testing” and “multiple regression” belie remarkably simple fundamentals which trace back to high school mathematics.

As an ex public prosecutor, I discovered that a trial is essentially a hypothesis test. The burden of proof (“reasonable doubt” in criminal cases) is the confidence interval of this test, which if decreased makes a false positive (a mistaken guilty verdict) more likely but if increased makes a false negative (mistaken not-guilty verdict) more likely. The same logic used in a court of law applies equally in the decision making of the world’s most successful companies.

Each time I sat down with CORe I encountered “Aha!” moments like these which showed me how much I had yet to learn about the world of business. Simultaneously, I was humbled by new insights into the role law plays within this world.  

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Want to hone your business skills to help you advance in your career and feel more confident contributing to conversations about finance, economics, and business analytics?

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HBX Live is our new virtual classroom and one-of-a-kind digital environment that collapses geography and allows participants worldwide to interact in real-time with one another and a faculty member.

We recently held an HBX Live session for some members of our July cohort of HBX CORe and two students, Chris and Saurabh, volunteered to discuss their experiences on the platform. 

Chris is a United States Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton in California who is transitioning to business school next fall. In his spare time, he volunteers for The Wingman Foundation. Saurabh is an Operations Business Analyst who enrolled in CORe to perfect the analytical skills and strategies that will allow him to both advance to a senior position and to obtain an MBA.

What was it like logging into HBX Live for the first time?

Chris: When I first logged in, I didn't know what to expect. When I saw everyone's face on the wall, I was shocked. Quickly I realized that HBX has created the best virtual classroom I have seen. The wall reminded me of students sitting in an auditorium listening intently to the professor. I felt like I was in class. The ability of the instructor to look at you, call on you, and hear your response made me nervous, but also made me engage in the virtual classroom much more than I otherwise would. I expected much less and was blown away by the innovative setup.

Saurabh: It was amazing! I was excited to be a part of such a great initiative. The entire experience was immersive, and seeing myself on the wall with others and faculty members was pretty impressive. I guess the only time I have been a part of anything remotely close to this was in a video conference, but HBX Live was at a different level.

How did Live compare to a real classroom?

Chris: Live was the closest thing to a real classroom environment without actually going to class. In fact, one could argue that Live improves on the classroom experience because you can learn from the comfort of anywhere in the world. Since students can login anywhere around the world, the diversity of the students is a big advantage to foster collaborative thinking.

Saurabh: The Live experience was very engaging compared to a real classroom. Discussions and participation were just amazing. The only part that was distracting me was the chat. I too participated in chat but was more interested in what was happening in front of me than following chat. I did participate whenever I was given a chance. No complaints there at all!

What was your favorite part of the experience?

Chris: My favorite part of the experience was meeting [Ace Ticket founder] Jim Holzman and asking him questions about his business experience. In true case study form, each student had the opportunity to learn from Jim by engaging with him on business decisions. I have sat in a case study class offered at a business school, and Live captured the exact same environment. The students were able to ask Jim any question.

Saurabh: I could name many, but the most favorite part was when I could see the faculty member as well as Jim Holzman from Ace Ticket live on stage sharing their experiences. Seeing and listening to the business owner about whom we studied so much was definitely worth an applaud. He not only shared his experiences but took constructive feedback from many of the HBX participants and responded genuinely.

Do you have any other insights or advice for people?

Chris: I would suggest signing up for Live and HBX CORe. The course has been amazing because I am learning the same concepts and am able to discuss the concepts with students who are taking similar courses at other prominent business schools. I have discussed HBX during my job search, and every employer has been very impressed with my knowledge of business analytics and financial accounting. As Live grows and becomes a larger part of the HBX CORe, the course will only get better.

Saurabh: You need to be there to experience it!

Would you want to participate in another Live session?

Chris: Yes!

Saurabh: ABSOLUTELY!

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To learn more about HBX CORe or Live, visit hbx.hbs.edu!

As a captain for American Airlines, former USAF pilot, and veteran, my entire career focus has been on perfecting the skills and knowledge that would make me the best pilot I could be. After upgrading to captain, I decided to make an assessment of how I fit into the larger picture of my company and how I could contribute to other areas of the operation.

The results were a wakeup call: I had a solid background in the technical aspects of my profession, but my knowledge of airline economics, American’s financial performance, and how we forecast and plan for the future was thin. I realized that if I wanted to broaden my career, I would have to step up my game and approach these areas with the same rigor as I took to flying.

But how could I find time for an MBA with a flying schedule that changes monthly and sends me to different cities across the USA, Canada, and Mexico?

Unfortunately, most of the online classes I looked into were more theoretical in nature and followed the usual format of lecture, homework, and exam. I wanted something that would be real-life, not theoretical. Being a fan of HBS’ case study method, I visited their website and learned of a new program called HBX CORe. I signed up before the ink was dry.

Finding A Work/Life Balance

My biggest challenge was trying to fit HBX into my daily schedule while balancing time with my family and the challenges of my job. As an airline pilot, I am usually away flying at least half of the month. Trips usually have erratic hours, include long duty days, and require me to cross multiple time zones, which can make studying difficult.

Using a whiteboard, I identified what pilots refer to as “threats,” or obstacles interfering with accomplishing my goal and ways around them.

Next I used a mission planning format from my USAF days and came up with a plan to fit HBX into work and family life:

• Organize & Prioritize: Identify deadlines for quizzes and writing assignments, paying particular attention to “max effort” weeks with multiple deadlines.
• Execute: Allocate “hard” study hours per day. Attempt to fly trips that keep you on a normal body clock. Put a pad between each module’s targeted completion date and the quiz deadline. Stay focused and remember there is no “freeze” button once HBX starts—the clock is always running.
• Assess your progress: Are you meeting your goals?

While I was away a lot, a big plus was our layover hotels: they’re quiet, have a stable internet connection, and offer a good desk. My big takeaway from this aspect of the course is that with the right plan, you can find the time to devote to coursework.

Adjusting to a New Way of Learning

HBX is a revolutionary approach to education and several aspects of it are definitely worth sharing with any prospective student, especially if you have been out of college several years or are well established in your career. First, it’s essential you “wrap your arms around” the inductive learning model. While I’m not an educator, many of us learned from the deductive model—which is structured around concept, examples, and application. However, in the inductive model it’s the other way around: you’re presented with examples and have to derive the concept. Since one person can’t see as many relations between examples as a group, inductive learning is supercharged when you form a team of learners.

The HBX platform’s peer-to-peer help or peer messaging features will help you build a team and better understand concepts—use it! Another important aspect of the class is to be what pilots refer to as a “good wingman.” Seek and give help freely. And don’t have thin skin—welcome honest feedback from your classmates. The end of module reflections are a great opportunity to fill in gaps in your knowledge and offer constructive comments to classmates that have a great take on a concept.

Remember: HBX is a collaborative learning experience, not a season of Survivor.

Without a doubt, HBX has exceeded my expectations for learning. The platform is easy to navigate and well organized. The video, graphics, and interactive exercises will bring life to important concepts in an unforgettable way. You’ll get to sit in the seat of analysts, managers, and accountants and solve real world problems—it’s like practicing your flying in the simulator before you go out on the line. And most importantly, it takes subjects like Business Analytics, Economics, and Accounting and presents them at the customer-product level. That’s where a business either wins or loses.

What's on the Horizon

Now that I’ve finished HBX, I am looking at a variety of ways to apply what I have learned to help make American Airlines a better company. One example is American’s Fuel Smart initiative. Created during the great fuel price spike of the last decade, this program looks at ways to save incremental amounts of fuel on every flight (consistent with safety, of course!). With over 2,500 flights each day, small savings on each flight add up to big savings over the long haul. And there is a greater good to this program as well—a portion of the savings goes to aid wounded veterans. Fuel Smart also helps reduce American’s carbon footprint, too.

Another program that interests me is the Aviation Safety Action Program, or ASAP, for short. ASAP is a safety improvement program jointly administered by the Federal Aviation Administration, American Airlines, and the Allied Pilots Association—the professional association representing our pilots. Under the ASAP program, events or conditions that affect flight safety are “self-reported” by pilots to the program. This information is analyzed and recommendations are made to improve procedures, purchase equipment or upgrades, or correct conditions that affect flight safety. By the way, ASAP is probably the biggest contributing factor to the drastic reduction in aviation accidents or incidents in recent years.

Finally, both American and the Allied Pilots Association need individuals to work on contract initiatives that are a win-win for both sides. By seeking creative contract initiatives, my company can differentiate itself from the competition and create a competitive advantage. While these programs (there are more) aren’t apparent to you as you board your flight, they allow American to operate more efficiently and deliver a safer, more reliable product to the customer at a better price.

Although Fuel Smart, ASAP, and contract negotiations are from different ends of the management spectrum, they all represent a practical use of what I learned at HBX. Statistical analysis, hypothesis testing, budget forecasting, relative cost analysis, and product differentiation are just a few areas where HBX will help me make a big contribution. And I’m sure that other adult learners that are established in a career will see similar opportunities in their fields. My recommendation: expand your horizons, you’ll be glad you did. When I was a new-hire flight engineer almost twenty-four years ago, a senior captain gave me this admonishment: leave the profession better than when you started in it. I hope to do so.

One final note: thank you to Professors Hammond, Anand, and Narayanan as well as the HBX staff for a great experience. Also thank you to my February 2015 classmates for your insight and camaraderie. 

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Want to hone your business skills to help you advance in your career and feel more confident contributing to conversations about finance, economics, and business analytics?

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As a museum professional with an academic background in Art and Art History, I never focused much on business in school. My career in curation and exhibition design didn't require me to make many business decisions, so when I heard about HBX CORe last year, I applied with the vague thought that expanding my business knowledge might be useful in the future.

Well, the future came pretty quickly. Less than a year after completing CORe, I founded my own company, Rxhibition, a non-profit organization that curates, designs, and installs art exhibitions in chemotherapy treatment areas. Research has shown the positive effects that art and music have on the physical and psychological health of people undergoing chemotherapy, and we hope to encourage further research so that engaging healing environments become the new hospital norm. 

The idea came suddenly, and within two months we were incorporated, pending tax-exempt status, finalizing a deal for our pilot exhibition with a major hospital, had secured two significant sponsorships, and had reached over 1,000 supporters in 62 countries!

There is no way I could have brought Rxhibition to this point without the skills I gained from CORe. From the start, Economics for Managers proved to be immensely helpful in forming the business plan. The range of sample scenarios that were woven into the curriculum provided a great foundation for key things to look out for when building a marketing strategy as well as ways to differentiate and perform a thorough competitor analysis.

The skills I gained in Financial Accounting and Business Analytics became more important once the organization was up and running. Because we are still a small organization, I am responsible for all of our accounting and budgeting. While the HBX program is centered on for-profit business, these skills are vital in non-profit management as well. While our financial statements look slightly different, the methods of entry and forecasting procedures covered in CORe have been essential as we plan our budgets both for our own operating purposes as well as for various grant applications.

As an educator, I feel that I am somewhat at a crossroads. Being traditionally educated at a small private liberal arts college, I am a big defender of the Ivory Tower and learning simply for learning’s sake. At the same time, I sensed a disconnect between my educational experience and that of my students’ when I began teaching. Wikipedia was the norm for scholarship, and deciphering answers to big questions began with a Google search.

I am not a dinosaur myself, but I do remember my high school teachers telling my classmates stories of how they had to trudge hours in the snow to do research at the library and use “calling cards.” Having grown up in California most of my life, the idea of a library was as foreign as the idea of snow. I can’t imagine how archaic I must seem to my students.

This year marked my transition to diversify my education experience and to start the conversation about making education relevant to the youth of today. It did not take much to learn about MOOCs, edtech products, and digital schools where every student received an iPad with The Great Gatsby already installed. This research ultimately led me to CORe, and I’m happy to be one of the earlier pioneers of this platform. Branching off in this mysterious, at times for-profit, world, has drawn confusion and even anger from my colleagues in education. Can business and education co-exist?

Surprisingly, the two came to head when a colleague forwarded a part-time college counseling opportunity while I was in the middle of CORe. Initially, it would just allow me to work from home and not disrupt my ultimate plans of studying CORe, volunteering, and applying to business school this coming fall. However, during the phone interview, my now future coworker was so impressed with my education journey and how I thought about the intersection of business and education that we just had a conversation about this instead of my responsibilities. Eventually, he admitted to going “off script” and was hoping I’d consider a different role with the company. It would still be a short-contract position but instead of working from my couch in California, I would be in BEIJING!

I would still do the college counseling I originally signed up for, but I would mainly be hired as a strategy consultant doing personal projects of my own creation to grow the business, train the staff, and develop a model of ethical college counseling in China. What a great bridge to business school! Since it was a self-created position, he asked that I think about how I would handle the business side before my next interview with another member on staff.

"The business skills and concepts I learned through CORe will be invaluable in helping me assess the Chinese market, the demand and pricing of our service, and how to differentiate ourselves from our competitors."

Thinking about what I had learned in CORe along with my prior college counselor experience, I wrote out projects to tackle, including some of the concepts I learned from Professor Anand’s Economics course, like determining the customers' Willingness to Pay and how to assess the market demand and pricing for the service. I also wrote about determining the average amount of time to counsel a student and where there may be bottlenecks in the process; Professor Hammond’s Business Analytics course will play huge dividends here. Lastly, though Professor Narayanan’s tough Accounting course gives me nightmares at times, I have learned enough from it to understand the company’s financials and journal entries. The numbers would help in determining the recruiting and marketing machine. After submitting my outline, my interviewer was impressed and surprised I just called them “some notes.”

I leave for China next month and am excited to start a new adventure. While I originally took CORe mainly for personal enrichment, I hope the concepts I've learned and the education I've gotten will ultimately enrich the company. I still have a lot to learn, but CORe has given me just enough to talk the talk and walk the walk when I’m in China. I really owe it to tools like CORe that allow people anywhere in the world to learn for learning’s sake and also put it to practical use when the moment arises. Years down the line, perhaps I will be a thought leader in both education and business.

I’m writing this post on the shady terrace of my office in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. After nine months of searching I connected with my dream job in May of this year: I work as a consultant for Trickle Up, an NGO that uses the graduation model to provide a comprehensive economic development program to the poorest of the poor in West Africa. I arrived in Burkina three weeks ago to contribute to a Randomized Control Trial of Trickle Up’s program, and I’ll be living in Ouagadougou and coordinating with partner organizations in rural areas for at least the next three months.

Trickle Up participants at home with dried millet and sorghum

This is a very exciting time to be working at the intersection of impact evaluation and the graduation approach to poverty alleviation. A recent NYTimes article by Nicholas Kristof gives an overview of the fascinating and effective ways that new economic development interventions can treat poverty, and the article mentions Trickle Up’s work specifically.

Meeting a of a village savings group

Impact evaluation fieldwork requires one to be versed in diverse and numerous fields. In the coming weeks, I’ll be designing program materials in French and communicating with the headquarters office in English, moving around Ouagadougou and out to the field by motorcycle and 4X4, tracking partner activities on Excel spreadsheets, considering budgets to find cost-effective ways to implement programs, helping to produce monitoring and evaluation surveys and tools, and coordinating contracts with partner organizations.

My transport in Ouagadougou

My HBX CORe experience prepared me well for the adaptability, patience and quick thinking that this job requires. I have a much more rapid and intuitive understanding of Excel shortcuts, survey techniques, data analysis, financial incentives, asset investments and depreciation, and cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. All of these are skills that I acquired over painstaking hours of study in my basement in Boston, and can now apply to my work in Africa.

Notebook tracking contributions to the communal savings fund

I’ve been interested in pursuing an MBA for several years. I now have a much more realistic understanding of the subjects I can expect to study and the relevance of these subjects to my field of interest. I appreciate the CORe program because it was both intensive and adaptable. On our cohort’s Facebook group, I’ve seen investment bankers, computer programmers, English majors and airline pilots talk about how the concepts that they’ve studied in CORe give them insight into their chosen profession.

A program participant brewing sorghum beer to sell in markets and from her house

I would recommend this program to anyone who wants to expand on their interests and expose themselves to new subjects, with the important caveat that the work is HARD, and you only get out what you put in. Best of luck to my fellow classmates, and to all the future cohorts! Wherever you’re going, I hope this program will help get you there.