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A report about: The third International Management Conference (IMC 2005) Tehran, Iran - December 2005 Prepared
by: Taghi Vahidi 1. Conference Opening: In the late December 2005, the 3rd International Management Conference (IMC 2005) entitled "Efficient strategy and necessity of being pioneer in competition scope" was formally commenced after voicing few verses of Quran and Iranian national song. The lecturers of the opening ceremony were mainly from "Sharif
University of Technology", "Iranian Academy of Management Sciences",
"Aryana Industrial and Research Group", and "Industrial Development and
Renovation Organization of Iran (IDRO)" who spoke about the
following topics: Then Professor Kamran Kashani from IMD institute in Switzerland delivered his lecture entitled "Commoditization forces of change and counter strategies" who mainly addressed to management development via changing individual prospective and focusing on customer desires and giving value to manufacturers and having appropriate relations with suppliers. The next lecturer was Professor Alexander Roberts from Edinburgh Business School in England who lectured about "The way forward strategies focus engineering". In his speech, he focused on the natural resources and their optimal usages as strategies in engineering products and global competition markets. Professor M. Yamin from Manchester University was another lecturer who gave his speech entitled "The Changing Strategy and Structure of Multinational Enterprises". He described the change strategy structures of multinational companies and their development cycles from beginning to competitive scope, and then explained the activities required for international markets. The other part of the ceremony was a videoconference communication between Professor John Sterman from the American University of MIT and Dr. Ali-Naghi Mashayekhi, the head of the conference secretariat, which their discussions was in connection with the managerial decisions and solutions for temporary problems in organizations via a methodology named open-loop problem solving. Professor John Sterman addressed to appropriate decisions in organizations based on the goals, environment, goals of other agents, actions of others, and side effects in achieving the goals, and also emphasized that recognizing the aforesaid factors are essential for a suitable decision making. 2. Selected workshops and papers: In the two following days, some papers and educational workshops were presented which I've selected them as below:
An educational workshop on "Introduction to
International Institute for Management Development - IMD" presented by Professor Kamran Kashani
who was one of the lecturers of the opening ceremony. Firstly he showed a film about IMD institute located in Lausanne, Switzerland and
notified:"
Although IMD is located in the small and less population country of
Switzerland, but most of its students are from different
nationalities and some Iranian students are studying there as well. In
other word, IMD is the global meeting place.". 2-2. A workshop on ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) by Mr. Ali Tavakoli: A workshop entitled "Successful ERP Implementation
in Iran" was the result of a common research by Professor Grzegorz B. Grutchman
from German company of IDS Scheer Polska and Mr. Ali Tavakoli from
Yamanzar industrial group. This workshop presented by Mr. Tavakoli
and at first, he
described the implementation methodology of ERP system via business
process analysis and staff active
collaboration in comparison with their passive acceptance and
added:" In some companies, number of personnel are in charge of sensitive and stressful
jobs and since the employer does not mind their jobs sufficiently
and also
new responsibilities were assigned to them, they were filled with anger and try to
give up some of their duties by repeating denial. In other word, when the employer follows up
their tasks, they postpone them by making excuses. In this case, as
the company meets deadlines, it may come to crisis and for preventing this, it's essential to consider the
priorities and
run the business by implementing ERP.". Addressing to
the problems and crisis resulted in lack of ERP in Iran, he
expressed: " In foreign countries not only the ERP system is to be
considered, but also business process is managed to stop the
crisis.". He terminated his speech by stating the following
statement: 2-3. A lecture on " Leading to get results" by Dr. Cheryl Anne Thomas: Dr. Cheryl Anne Thomas from Canadian company of Results
Performance Management Inc, presented a lecture entitled "Leading to
get results" and emphasized on having vision, integrity, and
communication with leadership and management in teamwork as
effective and efficient elements in organizations. Then she defined
management and leadership as below: 2-4. Educational Workshop presented by Professor Seyyed Farrokh Safavi: Seyyed Farrokh Safavi, the professor of business and
industrial management in Western Washington University and also the
professor of management in Tehran university, presented his workshop
entitled " Measuring Iran's Energy Subsidies: Local Protection
versus the WTO " . It was one of the best specialized topics of the
conference and at first, he addressed: " Energy containing oil and oil
products, natural gas, and power has been supplied to customers
under the real price. Based on the former policy, only government
was an exclusive official for selling the aforesaid energies
particularly oil. Thus, there has never been any motivation for private sector to
work in this field.".
Then he defined the technical terminology "Value Chain"
for power generation cycle from natural
gas as used in
the US for natural gas and electric power. In addition, he said that
there wasn't any coordination in value chain among the related organizations
because each of them had a specific system for calculating energy
expenses. He also added that he had been
able to obtain some statistics about the real price of energy after research and study
during several months and could offer some strategies
for optimal usage of energy and then expressed hope for mutual and
collaborative coordination for eliminating energy disturbances in
Iran. Therefore, he addressed to the following factors and added that these elements
have been created energy crisis in the country: 2-5. An educational workshop by Dr. Cheryl Anne Thomas: Another useful workshop which entitled as "Leading to
put Strategy into Action" presented by Dr. Cheryl Anne Thomas from
Canadian Institute of Results Performance Management Inc. She
described Strategic Leadership in Iran and addressed that the
strategic planning may cause the following measures: Then she described Effectiveness as below: In addition, she said that the employers want employees
to implement, so they must: She terminated her words by listing Keys to Success as
follows: And finally, she mentioned her e-mail address as cthomas@rpmbiz.com for any possible question.
In my pinion, the educational workshop on "Innovation Management"
presented by Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis from the USC
(University of Southern California), was the best workshop which I
enjoyed it a lot. Then the professor introduced one of the famous Erich
Forum's books named "To have or to be" and recommended every body to
read it. In addition, he proposed reading the book "Taoism" and also the
fruitful book "Gradual steps to visit God" compiled by Iranian writer Dr.
Abdol-Hossein Zarrin Koub and added:
He also added: " Let's do something to be alive and never die. It can be possible only by leaving our effects in this world and become immortal. That's why the religions persuade us to do our best for a good life in the other world. In addition, remember that creativity path is very difficult and full of failure. As an example, Thomas Edison, the great inventor, worked on the project of making electric light bulb for two years and didn't succeed. He was told that why he was continuing his experiments after two years without any result and he had replied that he had found 2000 methods which was not possible to prepare lamp by applying them. Notice that there's an intention for a seed to change into a plant, so if a seed is placed in a restricted environment for ages, and then is planted in an appropriate condition, it will grow up. Thus, if we have an intention for promotion and there's an opportunity to enhance our ability, we will definitely make progress.". Addressing that everyone should forget him/herself and become empty and ready for new thoughts, he continued: " Russian Space Agency had worked on a project for several months to launch Luna 16 Moon Lander. One of the problems which the aforesaid agency encountered, was how to provide a filament in a vacuum space surrounded by a big tube to enable them to use it for lighting in the moon. The tube had a large volume and for this reason, launching the spacecraft was a serious problem. After several research and study, they found out they didn't need such a big tube, because there wasn't any oxygen in the moon to make the filament oxidized. Thus, if the scientists didn't know the oxidation process in the filament as it happens in the earth, they will definitely succeed sooner. Hence, you should put aside what you know and make yourself empty to be able to think about new ideas. Life without change equals death. So do not mind your knowledge and seek for what you don't know and try to change yourself and make a difference". Then the professor continued: " You should try to activate your right cerebral hemisphere and by this activation, creativity will be appeared. Unfortunately, in engineering fields all the jobs related to the left hemisphere were taught to the students. In kindergartens, some activities in connection with the right hemisphere activation have been taught to us such as drawing, but after that period, all the instructions have been based on left hemisphere activities. Notice that the right hemisphere can direct the left one because the right part of the brain is for creativity and can consider everything continuously and in addition, the creativity concepts originate from continuity. On the other hand, creativity can appear in the absolute silence and emptiness. There is no failure or success for a creative person. Everything is success and achievement. Remember that honesty is very important and dishonesty damages the creativity. Thus, do not take your time by negative thoughts or politics, because they can mislead you. Notice that everything around you is formed by imagination, so do not frighten to make imagination and be informed that the best moments of everyone's life are the moments of making imagination. Find the silent moments to enable your right brain to make imagination. It would be the best pleasure for you, if you care. As stated before, everything around you is made of imagination and unreality. Firstly, imagination is formed in one's mind and secondly, it changes into reality. Einstein has told: Imagination is more important than knowledge. In the Middle Ages which there were traditional thoughts among the church officials, Leonardo Da Vinci went to the church secretly and tore the dead bodies using a knife to find the human anatomy. He was a renaissance person and you may recall that the best drawing of the world is Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci. Samuel Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, was one of the best drawers of the world and it reveals that he had activated his right brain. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, was a music teacher who applied his creativity. He was the founder of National Geography and Genetic Engineering as well. So, let's promote our competencies and try to be artists. let's make attachment to humanity. Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.". Then the professor tried to prove that sometimes our knowledge can
mislead us and again emphasized: " It's good to know many things but
you have to put them aside and try to look for the new ideas and
approaches.". After that, he showed a slide containing about 20
color scripts so that each word had been written by a different
color, for example, the word Red had been written by blue color, the
word Blue had been written by yellow color, the word Yellow had been
written by pink color, the world purple had been written by brown
color, etc. and thereafter, he asked the participants: "Say the
color of each word?". The participants couldn't answer properly.
Then the professor showed the same slide by translating the words to
the Chinese language. In this case, all the responses were true. And
the professor continued: " The Persian language prevented you to
respond correctly and in fact it was a disturbance for answering,
but lack of Chinese knowledge could help you to answer properly. So
in this example, the color frequency is important not the
conventional names instructed to us before. Notice that in each stage of
your life, you must add your knowledge, but you have to suspect them
to be able to learn new things. For instance, Einstein was familiar
with the Newton's rules in physics, but he suspected them and could
declare the Relativity Theory. Tao has said: We shape clay into a
pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want.
So the emptiness is good and an empty person can make
imagination. Anything is better than Everything because it has the
potential of making progress, but instead, Everything does not have any
potential for promotion. Thus, in the process of creativity: In summary: For Creation, it's necessary to have Imagination with a grand intention as stated in the following chart:
As you see in the above chart, Knowledge is shown with
a discontinuous line and it means that the knowledge must be put aside for appearing creativity and
finding new sciences".
After that, he listed Team Creativity factors as
below: He also continued: " All the team members must be creative and feel
that they need
each other and notice that everything is known by all people. In
Persian, there's a proverb stating that: One hand does not
have any effect.". Thereafter, he introduced the book "Good to great" and right after,
listed the discipline of innovation as follows: Then he notified characteristics of a
team player as following list: He also added: " As a human resource of an
organization, we have to listen to good and bad ideas and
attempt breaking inhibitors and barriers. Remember that a company is
its people and the following elements should be considered for
recruiting new employees:
Therefore, the greatness doesn't depend on company size and also greatness doesn't depend on monetary success, but greatness depends on the valuable work which is done in it. And as a final result, always remember that: The main part of our lives is what we can leave from ourselves"
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