Tag Archives: MBA

[Thinking] Delegate vs. Get Your Hands Dirty

I am attending the Summer Workshop provided by the Haas School of Business of UC Berkeley for our new incoming MBA students.  The workshop is ongoing, and one of the components, the Quantitative Method camp helped us review the very basic quantitative concepts in a business setting.

An interesting point was that from Day One, the instructor talked about that the importance for us is to understand the fundamentals, and the rationale behind, but not the mathematics tricks, because it is very likely in the future we, supposed to be the future managers, will delegate the work to someone else.

I understand and agree with the instructor, but here in this post I would like to extend my thoughts to a question:

Delegate vs. Get your hands dirty (GYHD), which is better?

It depends, I would say.

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Hello, Berkeley

Finally I started my two years life as an Berkeley MBA student.

It took me 11 hours to fly directly from Shanghai Pudong airport to San Francisco airport.  Eleven hours, not too far away from my perspective.  Could I imitate the famous words “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” from Neil Armstrong by saying: “That’s one small step for a flight, one giant leap for me.”  🙂

After a couple of hectic days, I settled down in Albany, CA.  It is not very close from the UC Berkeley campus, but I can take a very convenient bus to commute.  So far everything is pretty much fine.

I took a shot of a slight bay view at Albany.

Hello, Berkeley, and Albany.

Slight Bay View at Albany

Travis Darrow: a Social Connector

Before I got known Mr. Travis Darrow, I was proud of my fame of “resourceful/social hub” in my friends circle.  But now I think I am wrong.  I am definitely not the best living example of social hub.

Travis is the most social guy that I have ever met.

I just met Travis in June 11 evening at Shanghai, in the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business party featuring Dean Lyons.  Then I got known Travis is a very active Berkeley alumnus based in Hong Kong.  It was truly enjoyable talking with Travis in the event.

Then the next day I found Travis’ entry on LinkedIn and Facebook.  This guy has 500+  connections on LinkedIn, and 1500+ friends on Facebook.  Oh my god.  🙂

Then I read recommendation words like this:

As the #1 volunteer for UC Berkeley in Hong Kong, Travis is at the hub of so much activity. Travis knows everyone; he is responsive and creative; Travis never hesitates to help fellow alumni.

Travis has been an enthusiastic and professional member of the steering committee of the Berkeley Club of Hong Kong since 2001. Thanks to Travis’ continual and inspiring efforts, loyalty and dedication, the Berkeley Club membership and event participation has grown enormously, which has resulted in countless benefits for the campus.

Oh, then I realized that Mr. Travis must be the “social connector“:

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