Carlson Scholar·18 — CHEMBA19班 邱红Coco

Good afternoon, Distinguished Leadership Team, Dear Alumni, and the Cohort of 21:

My name is Coco QIU and I am from Cohort 19 and I work as Finance Head in a Joint Venture of Henry Schein China. It’s my great honor to be here, to share some of my reflections and thoughts with you.  

Just an hour ago when I arrived at the North Gate of this campus, I was stopped by the security guard and was asked the three famous questions: Who are you, where do you come from, and where are you going to?  Literally there is a philosopher in every security guard, that they can always provoke your in-depth thinking.

Very similarly, every time when I recommend the CHEMBA program to my friends, I was also asked with three questions: Is this EMBA learning beneficial?  Is it good timing in this VUCA situation?  Are the professors and classmates good enough?

It seems that I only have two choices for these closed-ended questions: Yes, or No. But, for someone who has completed CHEMBA course, that Yes-or-No answer seems too simple and naïve. So my answer is: It depends.

On what? Before going into the details, I want to recall a few moments that I feel most precious out my two-year journey.

One of my favorite courses is Law and Business, taught by Prof Wang Chuanhui. 

During the break, I had some discussions with him on the topic of “liability without fault”. For example, if someone gets hurt by a bottle falling from an apartment building while the authority fails to identify the responsible person, all those living in that building will share the responsibility to make compensation. To me, this principle of “liability without fault” doesn’t present fairness or justice for those innocent people, So what’s the principle behind? Prof. Wang explained, that represents the good-will of the whole society before the level of individual civilization is well improved.  

As a professor of law, he quotes Kant: There are two things filling our mind with admiration and awe: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.  That’s the moment I see a beautiful mind.

Another story is about Tim, Professor for the course of Finance Management.  Due to the pandemic, he cannot come over to China but he prepared the course with a lot of very structured video-recordings.  He is already 75 years old but he often worked late into the night to take the video. Then in the live-course I asked him a question about the how the traditional financial booking could be updated to reflect the real assets and liabilities of some new types of companies, such as the tech giants who actually do not own much fixed assets. Tim responded: “that’s not included in my original teaching schedule, but I will adjust and make a new video to explain the topic as it’s worthy of the efforts.”

That’s the moment I see how the professors are paying serious attention to our questions and willing to go extra miles to help us to grow.

In another case, the story is about Global Team Project (GTP), which is the most important business case write-up in CHEMBA. The project team is consisted of EMBA students of Carlson school from China, the US and Europe. In that project, we had a lot of differences: time zone, cultural background, ways of thinking, and English accents (think about dear Indian counterparts). That’s where you can have the immersed experiences of diversity. Our foreign peers would start with great confidence that their business model proposals are innovative with new technological applications, while ultimately, they might marveled to find those are already common practice in China. And they also admired that we can already travel to work and take business trips around China, while they still work from home for a long period of time due to the constant Covic outbreak in their cities.

And this is the moment I feel proud to be a Chinese, and to be someone who can act as an ambassador to showcase a strong and developed China.

There are many more moments I want to share, and such moments are what made up the whole two- year journey.  And what’s more, the journey continues. Up till recent days, there are some alumni who “monitor” me to do physical exercises, there are classmates who are not only friend of mine but also coach of my son, and there are professors who role modeling life-long learning and has always been my aspiration to stay hungry and stay curious.

So back to the questions we had in the very beginning: Is this EMBA learning beneficial?  Is it good timing in the VUCA situation that filled with tensions and uncertainties?  Are the Professors and classmates good enough? And my answer is still: it depends. 

• It depends very much on each one of us. 
• It depends on how we interact with the professors, actively participate to ask the right questions to get the most of what you want from them, as we own our own learning.
• It depends on how you connect with your classmates and alumni, to find out their shining points and get inspired.
• It depends on how we position ourselves in this VUCA world, that we could be the messenger to deliver the right message to the outside world and be the bridge to close the gap of perception between the East and the West.

I am sure that you will find the right answer for yourself. And finally, enjoy the great moments that you all work together to create for yourselves in the years to come.

        下午好，尊敬的领导们，亲爱的校友们，以及CHEMBA21届的同学们，我叫邱红，来自CHEMBA19，我目前在Henry Schein在华的一家合资企业担任财务负责人。今天很荣幸来到这里，与大家分享我的一些想法和感想。

        一个小时前，当我到达这个校园的北门时，我被保安拦住了。他问了我三个著名的问题:你是谁，你来自哪里，你要去哪里？所以说，每个保安叔叔心理都住着哲学家，他们总能激起你的深入思考。

       同样的，当每次我向朋友推荐CHEMBA项目的时候，也会被问到三个问题:这种EMBA学习对我有益吗？在充满紧张和不确定性的VUCA（volatility易变性，uncertainty不确定性，complexity复杂性，ambiguity模糊性）局势下，现在是一个选择进修的好时机吗？教授和同学们足够优秀吗？

        对于这些封闭式的问题，我似乎只有两个选择：是或否。但是，对于一个已经完成CHEMBA课程的人来说，这个是或否的答案似乎太简单，也太天真了。所以我的回答是:看情况。那么应当依据什么作出判断呢？在详细展开这个问题之前，我想为大家讲述一下这两年的旅程中，我觉得最珍贵的几个时刻。

        我最喜欢的课程之一是商法，由王传辉教授讲授。在某一次课的课间时，我和王传辉教授就“无过错责任”这个话题进行了一些讨论。例如，如果有人在当局未能确定责任人的情况下被从公寓楼掉落的瓶子砸伤，所有住在那栋楼里的人将分担赔偿责任。对我来说，“无过错责任”这一原则对于那些无辜的人而言既不公平也不正义，那么背后的原则是什么呢？王教授解释说，这代表了个人文明水平提升到足够高的水平之前全社会的善意。

        作为法学教授，他引用了康德的一句话：世界上唯有两样东西能让我们的内心受到深深的震撼，一是我们头顶浩瀚灿烂的星空，一是我们心中崇高的道德法则。那一刻，我看到了人类美丽的心灵。

        另一个故事与Tim，财务管理课程的教授相关。由于疫情原因，他不能来中国，但他精心准备了大量成体系的视频授课。他已经75岁了，但他经常为了拍摄视频而工作到深夜。在某一次直播课程中，我问了他一个问题，关于如何更新传统的财务记账以反映一些新型公司的真实资产和负债，比如那些实际上没有多少固定资产的科技巨头。Tim回应说：“这并不包括在我原本的教学日程中，但我会进行调整，制作一个新的视频来解释这个话题，因为这个话题非常有价值，值得我们在课堂上进行讨论。”

        那一刻，我看到了教授们愿意为我们付出的时间和精力，他们愿意尽自己的最大努力来帮助我们成长。

        还有一个关于全球团队项目(GTP)的故事，GTP是在CHEMBA学习过程中中最重要的商业案例撰写作业。项目团队由来自中国、美国和欧洲的卡尔森商学院EMBA学生组成。在GTP项目中，成员们各不相同，时区不同、文化背景不同、思维方式不同，甚至英语口音都不相同(想想亲爱的印度同行们)，因此我们得以沉浸在多样性的体验中。我们的外国同行一开始会非常自信地认为，他们的商业模式提案在新技术应用方面具有创新性，但最终他们会惊讶地发现，这些提案在中国已经很普遍了。他们还羡慕我们已经可以去中国各地工作和出差，而由于他们所在城市疫情仍在不断爆发，他们依旧需要留在家里工作很长一段时间。

        那一刻，我因自己身为一个中国人而自豪，也感觉自己成为了一个能够展示中国的强大和进步的大使。

        除了这些，还有太多太多的宝贵时刻我想要与你们分享，这是这些点点滴滴，组成了我在CHEMBA两年的旅程。然而，除了回忆以外，更重要的是旅程还在继续。直到今天，还有一些校友在“监督”我做体育锻炼，有同学既是我的朋友，也是我儿子的教练，还有教授是我终身学习的榜样，他们激励着我时刻保持饥渴，保持好奇。

       现在让我们回到最初的问题：这种EMBA学习有益吗？在充满紧张和不确定性的VUCA局势中，现在是一个选择进修的好时机吗？教授和同学们足够优秀吗？而我的回答依然是:看情况。这些问题的回答在很大程度上取决于我们每个人。取决于我们如何与教授互动，我们是否积极参与提出正确的问题以获得更大的收获，因为只有自己才能控制自己的学习态度；这还取决于我们如何与同学和校友联系，发现他们的闪光点并从中学习；这也取决于我们如何在这个VUCA的世界中定位自己，我们可以成为向外界传递正确信息的使者，成为弥合东西方认知差距的桥梁。

      我相信大家能够自己找到正确的答案。最后，祝大家享受你们在未来的几年中共同努力而自己创造的伟大时刻。