Transcript:
Good evening everyone. This is Shawn Daugherty, the Director of Marketing for Florida Tech University Online. I would like to welcome you to the Strategy, Principles of Management and Goal-Setting webinar. We appreciate you taking the time to spend with us. And I know that you’ll enjoy the presentation.
Just a little bit of housekeeping before we get started and I introduce our panelists. Any time during the presentation, if you have a question and you would like to go ahead and ask it, you can do so by going up to the top of the screen, you’ll notice there is a green bar where you can go and type in, or click on the chat button, and ask questions through chat throughout the presentation. We will have a Q&A at the end of the presentation, where we will answer as many questions as possible. And with that said, I’m going to go ahead and get started by introducing our panelist this evening.
Our panelist is Dr. Keiron Hylton. He is an assistant professor at Florida Institute of Technology, responsible for management in the online programs. He is the chair. And with that said, I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to Dr. Hylton.
Okay, well good evening everyone. Thanks for taking the time to spend with us. I hope you find this interesting and valuable in terms of advancing your careers, and thank you Shawn for setting this up. So, I’m going to try to make some connections between strategy, principles of management and goal setting, which are two courses that I teach both on campus and online at Florida Tech.
So a little bit about me; I’m a former entrepreneur, management consultant and merger advisor. I started a radio station many years ago which is still on the air. I was a management consultant to publishing companies for about ten years, and then I did merger and acquisition work in New York.
And this is my fourth career in academia. And I saved, I give you that information, A) to tell you a bit about myself, and B) to tell you it is okay to change careers and do different things and have different dreams, and I’m, living proof of that, that it does work. So that’s to encourage you in that direction.
So I teach a couple of courses on campus and online. One is called strategy and the other is called principles of management and within the principles of management course there’s a very interesting segment on goal setting. I also teach a law course, but that won’t be particularly relevant tonight.
So those are the connections I’m going to try to make for you. And since I’ve talked a little bit about myself, I’m curious about you what functions are you in? Marketing, operations, finance? What industries? The military? Telecom? Healthcare? Where are you in the country? Anything you can tell us about yourselves will help me to be a better speaker and help you more.
Hey, Dr. Elton, it looks like we have a few folks that are in in management, and that obviously makes sense. We have somebody that is in manufacturing. Let’s see here, somebody else that is in marketing.
Okay, great.
Getting a few others here.
We have somebody that is in the commercial debt collection area. Let’s see, somebody else that is in construction. Wow that’s interesting.
Yeah, absolutely. That industry is definitely turning around now. That’s great.
We have somebody that has just raised their hand and said that they are in healthcare management. A couple people now have signaled that they’re in the telecommunications business.
Okay. Excellent.
Alright, we’re going to go ahead and hold it there.
Sure. Wonderful, and I’m glad to hear that there’s that variety of industries and functions. And wherever you are, I hope you’re making it through this rather cold winter.
So I’m going to try and make a connection between your education and your career and compare value and need. So, some of the sort of simplistic views of why an education is good might be phrased as; you need the piece of paper because it sort of documents that you’ve done some academic work. Or you need the formal education to get ahead, which is met perhaps a little more focused and targeted. But I’m going to try to help you go beyond those statements. So to think more clearly and precisely about exactly how an MBA or an undergraduate degree might help you in your careers and perhaps even in your lives.
So, a couple of examples from sort of everyday experience but from the mobile cell phone market and from social networking sites. So, my first question is about cell phones or PDAs, as they used to be called, I guess. They’ve converged now. How many of you have iPhones and how many of you have Android devices?
Alright, the responses are starting to come in. We have about 60/40 iPhones to Androids.
Okay, and how many of you have Blackberries?
I’m allotting some time, but I’m not seeing any, Dr. Hylton.
Okay, well, that’s the point. Good. And then in terms of social networking sites, how many of you have Facebook accounts or profiles?
Waiting for the responses. I would say about 70% of the participants.
Great. And how many of you have Myspace sites? Excuse me MySpace accounts
Negative, no MySpace accounts, nobody’s raising their hand.
Okay well okay. Well that’s what I though and there’s a reason for that.
So you might say, if I asked you why, you might talk about, well, better products or better marketing, or maybe better finance. I would propose to you without, I can’t teach you a four year or a two year curriculum in, you know, a 20 minute presentation.
But I would propose to you that those victories in the market. And those failures in the market on the side are because of strategy, which is a synthesis of better marketing, better finance, better operations, and better generalship, for lack of a better word. So I’m going to talk a little bit about that.
Okay so to make the connection between you and your careers. Who do you think, thinks about strategy, the corporate ladder? Well I guarantee you that your CEO thinks about strategy all the time. They may not use the word, but they’re thinking about it all the time. Your Division Head is more than likely thinking about it, 70% of the time. And your managers are probably thinking about it, maybe half the time. Okay. So how do you think that might be of value to you?
So, let’s take a very practical example. So you may be involved in the technical details of selecting the right person for a particular job. Whether it’s, you know, a finance manager in construction or a marketing manufacturer in, marketing manager in manufacturing, or an accounting person in debt collection, or somebody in a new part of the country.
37:38 So why do you think that job description was written in a certain way? Why was that area of expertise? Rather it’s functional expertise or geographic expertise, or industry expertise, why was it important for the organization at that particular time? Well I would propose to you that those hiring tactics that you’ve lived with, because presumably all of you have been involved in hiring, are driven by departmental strategy, you know finance, operations, marketing, which is driven by divisional strategy, which is driven by corporate strategy.
And the CEO and her division heads or functional heads are and functional heads are in charge of that corporate strategy. So you are connected to the strategy thinking of the CEO and the division head by your day to day activities even if you don’t know it. So what’s the connection between goal setting and strategy?
I said I was going try to make some connection. So, strategy shows how corporations fulfill their mission, achieve their vision and live by their values in a competitive setting. So, it’s really a means to an end. And corporate vision is the business equivalent of your personal goals. So, I’m sure many of you have heard about a corporation’s mission, vision, and values. Well, mission is sort of the motherhood and apple pie big picture, why we would exist. Vision is a more specific, description of where we want to be in one year or three years or five years. Whether that’s in terms of, profits or new products or, geographic expansion or market share, however you want to define that, or all of the above, it’s usually done, in terms of all of the above.
And then values, which are kind of interesting, sometimes those devolve into a situation where they are sort of like that motherhood and apple pie but sometimes they are actually quite quirky and actually do help to differentiate the company. And there are several online companies that have very interesting stated descriptions of values that are really quite, quite unusual.
So anyway the point is that vision is the corporate term that most closely corresponds to your personal goals. And so you can maybe see the connection between how you are progressing in your life and how the corporation is using strategy to make progress in its life.
So one of the wonderful exercises that I do in this “principles of management course” is a goal setting exercise and over the last five years my students have consistently told me that they really love that exercise because not too many people ask that question. So what are your goals?
Now, we don’t have time to do the exercise in this brief talk, but, do you have any financial goals in one, three, or five years? Do you have personal goals in one, three or five years? What about family goals in one, three or five years? What about educational goals? And then, of course, since this is about strategy. What is your personal strategy for achieving those goals? So, you can see the parallel there between, you know, again, your life and the corporation’s life. So what’s the business version of strategy, what does strategy entail? We already know that it’s a means to an end.
So I would say a strategy is a sophisticated way for a corporation to achieve its long term goals, by taking account of perceptions of its future and global markets with global competitors, customers and suppliers. And, of course, this is perhaps is the legal side of my training coming out, but frankly, it is important for everyone, you have to be aware of local, state, national and increasingly, overseas government policies and laws.
So here’s the clincher, I think, to really understand strategy, you need to understand the core business functions like marketing, finance, operations, organizational behavior, human resources. So, to give you an example, if you happen to be in marketing and you don’t really understand accounting or finance or operations, it’s going to be difficult figuring out how to infuse that overall corporate strategy into those different business functions, which you would need to do as a CEO or as a division head. And if you’re not the CEO or the division head, you need to kind of understand how they are thinking and how they are infusing that corporate strategy into the different functions.
And even more practically in terms of how you get to study this. The reality is that at Florida Tech and at, I would say 99% of all MBA and undergraduate business programs, strategy is the capstone course, meaning it’s the end of the course, the capstone in architecture is the final stone that connects two arches together, or two columns together that makes it into an arch.
So the strategy’s the connecting course, the integrative course, and so literally you do have to study those subjects before we even let you study strategy. So whether you want to think about it in terms of enhancing your career prospects or understanding your peers in other departments, or in terms of the practicalities of actually getting into a strategy class in a curriculum, it’s really important to make that connection between the business functions and strategy.
So, do you think that you’re capable, at this point in your career, of being a CEO or really thinking like a CEO? If so great, that’s fantastic. Maybe we can help you in broad ways to sort of formalize what you already know, but if not then maybe we can help in the ways that I’ve been trying to describe.
So, I guess my proposition as somebody who does have a graduate business degree that either an undergraduate or graduate business degree from Florida Tech will help you to understand other functional business departments that are not within your core expertise, and all those business and corporate unit strategies that drive all the technical actions you are involved in on a daily basis.
And my proposition to you is that that would thereby enhance your job performance and also enhance your prospects for career enhancement. So, I guess that’s it for me I’ll be happy to answer any conceptual questions about strategy and principles of management and goal setting. And I think Shawn wants to talk a little bit about Florida Tech Online and he can also answer questions about the practicalities of the program.
Thank you Dr. Hylton. We appreciate that. I’m going to reintroduce myself. My name is Shawn Daugherty, Director of University Marketing for Florida Tech University Online. And I’m just going to take a few moments and tell you a little about Florida Tech and a little bit about the program.
Florida Tech is a traditional brick and mortar university, that’s been around for more than 55 years, and, it’s private and non-profit. I’ve listed many of the accolades that the university has, but, just a few to point out that it’s ranked the Tier 1 Best National University by U.S. News and World Report. And that’s a very prestigious ranking, there are lots of criteria that go into those rankings, and Florida Tech is ranked among the Tier 1 Best National Universities. The other one that I would point out is the 2011 and 2012 College Salary Report ranks Florida Tech graduates’ mid-career salaries first among Florida universities, and that’s all Florida universities, not just private universities.
Moving on to the faculty obviously Dr. Hylton has dedicated himself to spending some time with you this evening, and that’s the type of dedication that we have from the faculty at Florida Tech. You know, a great number of our faculty are full time and we also have subject matter experts in the field that are able to provide, not only theory, but also practical applications of subject matter. Florida Tech is a regionally accredited institution; it’s accredited by SACs the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award associates bachelors, masters, education specialist and doctoral degrees.
And then, you know, again I said Florida Tech is a traditional university, we have athletics, we are an NCAA Division II and we’ve got 22 different sports including football. We just recently started a football team, so go Panthers!
The last two bullet points that I have are online convenience, and I know there’s, you know, many different options for online but what Florida Tech does is truly unique. The enhanced virtual classroom provides many different tools to really help, not only to make it convenient, but also make it the fullest experience that you need. Through streaming video lectures mp3 and mp4 video, you know, those videos are there to allow you to, really grasp the subject matter. And it gives you an opportunity to really take full notes and you know, fast forward and rewind and, you’re able to go in and search for specific concepts, topics and theories throughout the video, again, trying to make sure that you have every opportunity to gain an advantage when it comes to your engagement.
There’s also group study, which is a function of, more or less, a live classroom. But it is a synchronous and asynchronous, meaning that you get to study on your time. We also have social and mobile points to the classroom. Really again trying to make this a very engaging and fun place to come and learn. And we do all this at very competitive tuition rates.
Dr. Hylton would you like to talk about the programs for just a moment?
Yeah, sure, we offer a variety of programs at the undergraduate and MBA levels, beginning with the introductory AA in business administration, which is a good beginning basic degree to get you focused in the field of business. The BA in business administration and management, that I think, you know, over the last 30 years a bachelor’s degree has become, sort of normal, it’s not as unusual as it used to be and, it’s getting to the point where an MBA is, sort of getting to be what a bachelor’s degree used to be, so the price of admission. So we also offer an MBA in information technology management and an MBA in Management or a for-credit graduate certificate in Management, which might be a way to begin this whole education process without making the formal commitment to an entire degree. Shawn?
Thank you, Dr. Hylton.
And that brings us to what I had talked about earlier which was our question and answer portion of the session. And so we have received several questions throughout the presentation. And we’re going to go ahead and see if we can address as, as many as we can as time allows.
So the first question that we had is, what is the difference between an MBA in management, and the four credit certificate? Dr. Hylton would you like me to take that one?
I’ll just give a broad over view and then maybe you can give your perspective.
Certainly the MBA in management is longer. It would take more time to complete. It’s a more formal, more powerful designation. The certificate is shorter, more introductory, and could then be applied to the MBA program. Correct me if I’m wrong, please.
No I think that’s, the for-credit graduate certificate is a graduate certificate. It’s four classes, three credit hours for each class so it’s a total of twelve credit hours. And the great thing about the for-credit graduate certificate is that you can take those credits and apply it directly towards the degree, there isn’t any type of credit evaluation process those are automatically or can automatically be counted towards a full MBA. And, you know, taking the for-credit graduate certificate, it might be something, you know, you can get a credential. You know, on your way to getting your MBA, or your degree. It’s something that may be, something you could put on your resume, sooner than later and really show your boss, or maybe if you’re interviewing you know, just how serious you are about getting your education and advancing and your commitment to your career.
Can you elaborate on the enrollment process?
So the enrollment process, and the last slide that we have here under questions, you’ll see there’s several different ways that you can reach out to us and talk with an enrollment adviser. If you actually, wanted to ask Dr. Hylton a question, you could do that directly with the email address that you have here. But, if you’re interested in getting more information and talking with an enrollment adviser, he’s got a number as well as the URL. But the enrollment process, undergraduate and graduate is a little bit different. But you know again talking with an enrollment adviser; we try to take the guess work out of it and help walk you through the process. Of course, you know, there are requirements to enter the program, going through the admission process. We help you with understanding what is required for you know for applying to the university, as well and we are able to help you understand what your financial aid options are, so again, we would be glad to speak with you about it and help you out in any way that we can.
Do graduate admissions require, or is there a need for significant management or work experience? Dr. Hylton, would you talk to that one?
Well we certainly appreciate it. We certainly appreciate, excuse me, a number of years of work experience, I really honestly do believe that, with some work experience, the MBA program is A) easier, B) more valuable, and you really get more out of it, if you can, you know, you’re not just looking at concepts on a page or computations on a page but you can connect it with some real world problems. So I do think that it’s a valuable thing, Shawn, maybe you could talk about more formal requirements but I personally believe that it is a valuable thing before beginning graduate work to have some work experience.
I would agree Dr. Hylton. It’s not a requirement, but it’s very, very helpful. And as the university reviews each candidate, they take that into consideration as they review the candidate’s file.
Yeah, there’s some, you know, very prestigious MBA programs that literally at this point, requires something like, well requires again a strong word, but let’s put it this way; most people who get in have four to five years of business experience, that’s how valuable they think it is. So, it doesn’t mean that if you’re very smart and very driven that you can’t go straight from undergrad to an MBA program, but it is relatively unusual nowadays. For all the reasons that we’ve just talked about.
What sort of relationships, that can perhaps be relied upon, does Florida Tech and/or its professors have with corporate America that may help graduates towards a new career? Would you like to talk about that Dr. Hylton?
Yeah. Sure. Well it’s, first of all I apologize to you all for my cough. I’ve been fighting this for the last couple of days and I’m slowly losing the battle. But yeah it’s funny because, just literally, just yesterday we had a career day here on campus which was attended by, I don’t know, we had a huge hall that was full, so I’m guessing maybe 30 to 40 employers. And it was attended by a number of, maybe, several hundred undergraduates on campus. So the online program, to the best of my knowledge, doesn’t have a formal system like that. But as, as legitimate and complete and full Florida Tech graduates, you are, you are able to access all the resources of the university in terms of accessing the career center itself, and access to libraries for research on companies, etc.
And of course, in terms of personal relationships, I mean, the reality is since, you know, I think everyone in this, telephonic room is a grown up, for lack of a better word, you do know that contacts are important in life, and in business.
And so, you know, if you develop a relationship with a professor, in terms of really doing, really, really good work, it’s much more likely that there’ll be some kind of connection there where the professor would be willing to go to bat for you. I have pretty extensive experience in a variety of industries, I’ve been an investment banker, I’ve been a management consultant and I am a Harvard MBA, so I have some pretty good contacts around the world, and if somebody impresses me then I am willing to help them. So, I think, I guess, I’m trying to say that, yes, there is help available, and it ranges from the formal in terms of accessing university resources that are available to everyone, to the relatively informal. Whereby, you know, as in life everywhere, if you impress someone, they’re more likely to help you than if you don’t. Fair enough?
Do the graduate programs require me to take the GMAT?
For the Florida Tech programs if you have taken the GMAT we would accept the GMAT, and we would be able to utilize the GMAT as part of the admissions process. But it’s not required. There are other things in lieu of the GMAT that Florida Tech utilizes in the admissions process. But again, if you have a GMAT we would be more than happy to take it and use that as part of the evaluation process, but it is not required.
With the online degree, how do you create the relationship with the student when you only have them for possibly one class? Dr. Hylton would you like to take that one?
I think that’s a really good question actually. I would say that it is, you know, in some sense a challenge, because frankly the online program is, it’s all text based. There’s almost no visual contact. You do get to see each other in terms of your photos because people get to upload their photos onto what’s called the class roster. But it’s really not the same exactly as you know, being in a class with the same person three times a week. Having said that, the reality is that human beings are very sophisticated creatures and, if you read someone’s written work, you know, two or three times a week because you’re required to post comments on bulletin boards or discussion boards a couple times a week and you read their formal responses, and sometimes we get emails from students asking good questions on various topics. Whether it’s how am I doing in the course or explain that topic a little better or etc., you do get a sense of the person.
And so yeah, I have developed, I would say, very, maybe friendships would be too strong a word, but I developed personal respect, for a variety of my online students, just, again, based on their work. You know, I kind of only know their face and I don’t know what their voice sounds like. But, you know, again, if you read enough of what they say and you get a sense of their values and how hard they’re working, etcetera, you do make a connection.
Thank you, Dr. Hylton. I would add to that, as I have taken classes in the online space before, that you really can truly build relationships and network with folks, because of, you know, being able to you know, interact with them on a daily basis for eight weeks. One of the things that we try to do through the classroom is promote that engagement. You know, people are always welcome to, you know, introduce themselves, talk a little bit about who they are, and what their motivations are and you know, a lot of people really open up. And there’s a lot of camaraderie that occurs in class. And so, in some ways, there are the things you know, because you are, working through the written word, we find that there’s a lot of engagement and whenever we go to campus and go to graduation, we always find there are our online graduates that are searching for the person that they went through multiple classes with so that they can, introduce themselves and meet face to face. So it can be a very rewarding environment.
What is the job satisfaction for MBA’s? Dr. Hylton?
Well that’s a really good question and I think one of the things you’ll find that as you advance in your education is that the more advanced you get in your education, the more likely you are to confront questions that nobody in your current circle of friends has the answer to. And that’s actually one of those questions. I’ve been wondering about that myself. I’ve seen surveys sort of in the distant past talking about relative satisfaction for MBAs and, how they enjoy their work and how it has helped them advance up the corporate ladder. But I would encourage you to whoever asked that question to do some research on it and maybe email me and develop some kind of connection on it. Because that’s again, that is one of the ways in which you build a connection with a professor or with a classmate, by talking about an issue. So I would sort of bounce that one back for the, the educational purpose of having you think a little bit more about that, and why this might be a valuable thing for you to pursue.
What is the salary increment for an MBA versus a BS in business? Dr. Hylton would you like to speak on that one?
Well, I think it really varies by function, and varies by industry, and varies by part of the country. But just intuitively if you think about it, most undergraduates are going to be, starting out between, I would say between $30-50 thousand perhaps. And there are lots of MBA graduates who, you know, start at $60-70 [thousand]. At the very top schools, they start at over six figures. So again, you know, that increment could be significant. I mean it could be, as high as $30-40 thousand a year. Again depending on which school you go to and depending on, you know, where you are in the country and what industry and what function you’re in, but it can be significant. And again, I would encourage you to, sort of, do some homework on that because you want to get the right answer for someone in your industry. Or if you’re thinking about changing careers and switching to another industry or another function, you need specific numbers, not my sort of general principle, that, yeah, you do make more money and here’s a ballpark estimate. So again as a teacher and professor I’m going to bounce that one back to you precisely because I want you to go look it up yourself. Because it will help you to make a better decision.
Do online students find a way to establish study buddies. And is that common? Dr. Hylton?
I think the answer’s yes. There are, excuse me, a number of for example-and the reason I know that, is because if you look at the posts in my online classes, you will often see person XYZ saying, “hi, person ABC, nice to see you again because we were in the last class together. I enjoyed talking to you.” And you know, it was interesting-or perhaps it was, “I enjoyed working with you on a project,” because there are a few projects, not many, but a few projects in our courses that do require group work. So yeah, and, you always have access to the other person’s email. Of course it’s the email within what’s called our learning management system, it’s not their personal email, but you do have access to their email. So yeah, you can always email a classmate and say, “how about this,” and, “what do you think of that?” So, absolutely it’s possible, and yes, it does happen.
And just to build on that Dr. Hylton, we also have a functionality in the learning management system, in the virtual classroom that is called group study. And people from, all over the country can decide that they want to study together. And they can do it through this group study which allows them if they have Webcams to use Webcams, or they can communicate through audio. And I think the other interesting part is that it’s a functional area, where they can share documents they can you know, show each other documents and look at presentations, at Word documents, at Excel documents, and then have conversations around those you know, concepts and topics and theories and coursework that is, something that they you know, want to study with somebody about. And so again, you know, there are great opportunities for connections between the faculty and students, and students and students through the virtual classroom. So, I think the answer to that question is yes.
And with that said that’s all the time that we have for questions this evening. I would like to say thank you to everybody that participated in the webinar. I’d like to give a special thank you to Dr. Hylton.
Thank you for the presentation and all the kind words. Dr. Hylton, do you have anything left to say?
Just to say thanks very much, folks, for joining us. It’s been a pleasure to talk to you. Virtually so to speak and if we can help let, let us know you know I can help more with sort of conceptual questions about the connect between your MBA or your undergraduate degree and where you are in life and what you want to do and you’re welcome to email me on that.
And Shawn and his team can help you a lot with the mechanics of applying, the course of study, etcetera. So it’s been great, and I wish you all the best! I think, you know, we live in exciting, interesting times. And I hope you’ll be able to make the best of your educational opportunities, whatever you decide.
So, take care.
Thank you Dr. Hylton, and thanks again to everybody and goodnight.
