In Class...

For the past 2 lessons, we have been talking about the “7-S Matrix” which is a part of the Strengths and Weaknesses(internal factors) of a business. And this lesson, we learned

what it is and deeply analyzed it with many examples. I now

know how to generate strengths and weaknesses by looking at 7 –s and how they’re related to each other and whether the relation is powerful.

The dictionary meaning of “matrix” is the material in which something develops; a surrounding medium or structure.

In terms of business, the 7-S Matrix represents represent actually the same thing.

First of all, we started with the core of the matrix: shared values. To make it more clear, Mr.Sen asked us what values do we share? We replied: Friendship, respect, ho

nesty as positive values and prejudice, hate, intolerance, selfishness etc. for the negative values. And then Mr.Sen said do we steal? Do we claim that we can win

by pushing someone on the ground? The only way to succeed is to kick the next guy down? Do we all agree that that is a good/bad thing? Yes. That’s why it is called “shared” values. And we saw that the reason why shared values are so central was that it illuminates and shapes up everything else, all the other elements of the matrix.

Mr.Sen gave the example of a human body; organs, cells, skeleton, location of the organs, digestive system, respiratory system formed a 7-s matrix of the body.

We discussed and figured out why 3-s were on the top and why the other 3 were on the bottom. Strategy, structure and systems are the top 3; they are more powerful, less changeable, and related to the organization itself. Style, staff and skills are the bottom 3; they are related to the human beings of an organization who create the top 3 and use that framework, it is more changeable. The top 3 are created because the people in the bottom 3 decided that they need them. Looking at it that way, it made sense to me because I saw that you cannot have an organization without people in it, once there are people, then th

e top 3 can be created.

We started by giving examples from our school to the top 3.

STRUCTURE; it is the departments and sub departments. For the school’s hierarchy, we can say that there are employes, stud

ents, teachers and deans.

SYSTEM; in school, there are service bus, purchasing, academic, grading,

exam, food, extracurricular activities, data management (ara karne, e-okul) systems. Also, we stated that filling up a CAS form, keeping track of students what they’re doing where are procedures that belonged to a system. Additionally, our school had a system of reporting parents ab

out the students; conferences.

STRATEGY; we already know that it is the answer

to the 3^rd question of planning (How do we get there?) It is to improve the performances of the students.

The bottom 3: This part is in more detail since we were divided in groups during class and our group was responsible from the bottom 3.

STAFF; it means all the employes, teachers, deans working in the school and the students, their genders etc. The employees, teachers’ and students’ genders are approximately at equal rates. The Koc School provides face-to-face and close interactions between students and teachers. Every student can take appointment from his/her teachers any time. Teacher/student ratio is high, which provides a better education.

SKILLS; Teachers, deans and the management board are at least university graduates. The school is well known for its IB Program. There is a high average of sending students to good universities.

STYLE; Teacher-Student relationship is more informal compared to other schools. Disrespectful behavior is not tolerated, however, there is a friendly environment in classes. Even though teachers are centralized by their department heads, they are also decentralized with the way they send students to detention, or the way they teach. Teachers’ actions are restricted by ministry of education. This sometimes prevents teachers from going their way.

EXTRA NOTES FROM THE CLASS

While discussing the 7-S Matrix, some topics got deeper and shifted to other important points, so I decided to write them apart from the matrix explanation.

Shared values are like a light in a drawing room : light is the way the drawing room looks : everything looks gentle and bright because of the lighting it has.

While analyzing the systems, Mr.Sen said that in some countries, there is nothing calle

d “grades”(!!!). We were all surprised to this fact. However, he said that the teachers were writing reports to the parents whenever is needed saying this is what we did in class, this is where your kid could improve, this is where she/he’s going, which is a method that is very efficient to the parents.

Then Mr.Sen started a good TOK discussion .

He said that structure is looking at students, and system captures one tiny aspect.

You enjoy writing, instead of capturing your ability, you are given an exam, given a passage from 1895 and are expected to comment on it in 40 minutes.

OR

You have the ability to think mathematically, but are given a problem “evaluate this expression: 10u3901p39743974 infinite, is that supposed to be good?

Social skills are the quality of your mind. The education system does not work, nobody’s bothering to change it! Shared value is “It’s good to keep things the way they are.” They silently collaborate with each other and teach the things the way they are. We are used to a system which is predictable, ordinary, and we became just like machines. Every question has an a

nswer; if a question is a bit out of the ordinary, we say it is a problem. What is a rubric? Why do you do what you do? We have no clue!

In Harvard University, at a conference of educators, they are complaining; “You don’t know how bad our education system is.” The education system is terrible!

The weaknesses outnumber the strengths except a few exceptions; Singapore, Finland; their strength is that they are considered with what the students are going to be able to do for the future? They are much more future-based, they don’t worry about sitting and solving long set of problems, they teach useful stuff, they teach students to be able to be comfortable with

new situations. Any system that is not teaching students for the unknown is failing. Their goal is wrong; it should be the future life, not the karne gpa. Whatever is known now is going to be obsolete for the students. Also, students have to see that it is GOOD to be confused. Confusing subjects with facts are like confusing piles of bricks. And what makes the piles construct a building? The 7 – S Matrix. Just like a building is more than just a pile of bricks, every single organization is more than just a collection of people.

Even the nature of the work system is changed, learning how to learn, think and analyze are the keys to a successful life. While hiring someone to a job, almost everyone tries to see how you can solve a problem, how do you approach to certain things, are you socially interactive. Your GPA comes after that.

Another subject we talked about was that the 7-S’ were all interconnected. We cannot say this definitely belongs to this element or that; it’s difficult to differentiate between the

elements of the matrix.

If there is an engineer in an organization, it means that there are specialists, therefore departments which form the structure part of the matrix and this is called departmentalization.

We also talked about how external factors can influence internal factors; economic crisis can cause change in systems, structure and so on.

Then we talked about the terms centralized and decentralized.

I looked up the meaning and saw that centralized meant that there was a single authority, whereas there were more authorities in decentralization. To be honest, I couldn’t understand these terms clearly until Mr.Sen enlightened us with various examples.

Example 1) You go to a bank for a loan, you ask for $100 000 to buy a house, they say “I’ll go to the headquarters”. It is obvious that getting a decision will take you a while. So you say “I don’t like it”. You go to another bank, they say “You want this loan? Okay, sign this, here it is!” Then we saw that the first bank was centralized; the employee could not make the decision him/herself, whereas the second bank was decentralized; the employee made the decision and provided the loan quickly. We thought that the second bank was better. For customers; decentralization is better. But for the bank, centralization is better.

PAR = power, authority, responsibility all together. If they’re located in few places in the business, the business is centralized; people low down have no discretion to “do”, they can only propose.

Example 2) Suppose I want to teach the IB program in my school, I need to take approval from The Ministry of Education, who sit and decide on what should be thought etc.

The 7-S Matrix, centralization and decentralization terms are now very clear to me and more and more, I’m beginning to understand the business concepts and how they work.

In Class...

Today, we analyzed 3-S' of the 7-S Matrix : Skills, Style and Staff.

Here's what we did!

SKILLS	Teachers, deans and the management board are at least university graduates.	Teachers are taught ways of efficient teaching methods. They are required to attend conferences/courses through out the year.	The school is well known for its IB Program. High average of sending student to good universities.
STYLE	Teacher-Student relationship is more informal compared to other schools. Disrespectful behavior is not tolerated, however, there is a friendly environment in classes.	Teachers’ actions are restricted by ministry of education. This sometimes prevents teachers from going their way.	Even though teachers are centralized by their department heads, they are also decentralized with the way they send students to detention, or the way they teach.
STAFF	Our school has several departments and systems.	The koc school provides face to face and close interactions between students and teachers. Every student can take appointment from their teachers any time.	The employees and teachers’ genders are at equal rates.

In Class...

(18.10.2010)

At the beginning of our lesson, we had our first business quiz of 5 questions:

1.Define private sector ; the sector that is not owned by the government.

2.Name the service sectors of the economy : Tertiary and quaternary sectors

4. The mission of a business is… its purpose of existence.

5. Why are we analyzing the external factors that affect a business? : Because they let us know where we are right now. Only by knowing where we are standing right now, we can improve ourselves, move ahead and proceed, that’s why we need to analyze STEEPLE and the internal environment (the 7-S Matrix) of our business. By knowing them, we can plan our actions about the future.

After having the quiz and discussing the answers, Mr.Sen presented a new acronym called SWOT.

We figured out that “SWOT” represents strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of a business.

The “SW” part of SWOT represents the internal factors (7-S Matrix =Structure, Strategy, Shared Values, Systems, Style, Skills, Staff), while the “OT” part represents the external factors (STEEPLE) affecting a business:

All the negative external factors are Threats.

All the positive external factors are Opportunities.

All the negative internal factors are Weaknesses.

All the positive internal factors are Strengths.

Mr.Sen informed us that we can conduct SWOT to a lot of things; we can even make a personal SWOT analysis by conducting this concept when were choosing our colleges for example. While looking at a collage’s brochure, we can ask ourselves “Is this collage a weakness or an opportunity for me to develop my instrumental skills?”

The next question was “Why do we need SWOT analysis?” The answer was to know where we are NOW, to look ahead and plan our actions.

Mr.Sen made a great metaphor to help us understand the SWOT concept better. He said “Imagine flying with a helicopter. When you look below, you can see everything from a bird’s eye view. You can see everything that is below you, what is surrounding them in a whole etc”. And the helicopter view of this subject is SWOT. It is the first step to determine where we are.

4 STEPS OF PLANNING

Planning is the process of answering these questions: (The time factor applies to all of them, time x = horizon)

The plans and goals change according to SWOT, but what does not change is the mission statement since it is the broad purpose.

Also, control, that represents the 4^th question is a process which is sometimes regarded separate from planning.

While discussing, Mr.Sen told us that a business cannot get anywhere without constantly checking where it is. Then he asked us the difference between “goal” and “target”. Goal is what, target is why. Target is the “push thing”, while goal is the reason why you’re going there.

Then Mr.Sen said “Put yourself in the shoes of someone who wants to walk to Ankara.” First of all, he has to figure out a few things.

1) How far he is from Ankara?

2) By when he wants to get there?

3) What does he do to get there?

After this example, we understood the planning concept better.

Moreover, Mr.Sen mentioned about the time factor : Businesses cannot make a plan based on hopes, they cannot say “Hopefully we will get there.”

Additionally, he claimed that “where do we want to be” is NOT a business question.

“Where do we want to be BY THIS TIME” is a business question. He said that everything is related to time; without its precision, a business cannot go anywhere.

In Class...

(15.10.2010)

In the beginning of the lesson, Mr.Sen said “let’s get down to business.” We all laughed at first, but then realized that he really meant it. Also, when one of us used the term “money”, Mr.Sen warned us and said that as

business students, we should say “cash”, “currency”, “means” etc. instead of “money”.

Through out the lesson, we talked about STEEPLE, an acronym which refers to the external factors that affect a business. STEEPLE analysis informs a company about their current environment.

Mr.Sen said that a real STEEPLE analysis should be as complete as possible, unlike in classroom and exams where we are limited with questions such as “C

ite 2 examples of the social factors affecting a business.” He stated that even though our exams are like that, it does not mean that we only do “2 examples” in real life, claiming that the quality of our strategy depends on our planning and that planning cannot really be separated from goals.

Then we took the SCHOOL as an example of an organization to discuss its STEEPLE. Since we were all students, it was not hard for us to come with many examples about school. Here are the results of our discussion! :

STEEPLE FACTORS AFFECTING THE

SCHOOL

SOCIAL :

¨ Parents’ backgrounds, their demographic profiles, occupations, ethnic identities and religion

¨ Expectations that parents have about their children; Koc School has a certain reputation; almost every parent has the expectation of his/her kid going to a university after graduating from school

¨ If the school decided to make more scholarships available

¨ If an alumni wanted to donate money to school, then that donation can make a spot available for a student who can not afford this school

¨ Assuming that Turkey changes its lawsuit, saying that people in different religions should study in different school. This regulation would cause and unfortunate social change, affecting the state of the school.

ECONOMIC :

¨ In 2001 economic crisis, people woke up in the morning, and sawthat their assets had turned into 0, this was a traumatic experience for the country.¨ Mr.Sen told us to suppose the dollar goes very weak, and worth less than lira. This means that the lira is strengthening. Moreover, he explained that weakening of the dollar is bad for the exports, therefore, if someone’s ear

ning income is in US dollar, it would not be a beneficial thing for that person. On the other hand, Mr.Sen clarified that if your company has 1 million dollars of loan, it is a good thing since lira worth’s more than the dollar.

After understanding the crisis concept, we started talking about the effect of crisis on the school, Mr.Sen said that it would be major.¨ Since our school buys its equipment, books, and pays in Euros, it has to check the Euro-Lira relationship. If the Euro strengthens, the school would still be getting the same fees, but those fees would cost more and therefore, there would be a squeeze on its resources

· While talking about the political effects on school, Mr.Sen asked us which ideologies affected schools and which did not. He explained that “educations and politics have never been independent”, stating that there are very few countries where education is independent from politics. The school cannot teach anything that is against the politics and current government. In some schools, it is not even allowed to have political discussions.POLITICAL:

LEGAL :

¨ Employees’ working hours, labor conditions

¨ Mr.Sen said that laws are not always written, sometimes laws work simply by courts and judges agreeing that this is how they interpret the law, and we discussed on this for a while. He gave an example and said that in the United States, the cooperation is considered to be having the same legal states as individuals do. You and I are persons but cooperation is also considered as a person, even though you cannot “hit it, shake hands with it or speak to it”. However in law, you can find a suit against it. Then we discussed how it would affect the votes and parties. You and I can vote, and just like us, the cooperation can vote too. Say both me and a cooperation want to contribute to a party and make a donation. The cooperation would pay much more. In law, you, the cooperation and I are all the same, however in practice, we are not the same, our powers are not equal. In practice, “you and I absolutely have no say in what is going on.” Laws don’t tell you what is right or wrong and you do not find all the laws written down somewhere. You have to interpret the law. Mr.Sen informed that in 1896, the law said in the particular case that “this is the judgment, people interpret the judgment to me”. A few months ago, the Supreme Court of The United States said that “cooperations could not contribute to parties in their own names.” But then, they changed the rule. The cooperations could contribute them in their own names. That means that for instance, Chinese companies can buy up American companies, and actually influence the voting process. So where is the democracy then? ----“Right off the window.” Of course it can also happen vice versa.

¨ After deeply discussing about this subject, we stated a point: When you look at the legal environment of the schoool, the law is not only written and does not only depend on the articles.

¨ Students have rights because courts behave in this way saying they do have rights.

¨ Looking at legal factors, a school decides what can or cannot be taught.

¨ There’s a reason why the law is there, but we live in another world, so it does not contribute to the students.

ETHICAL:

¨ Ethics are the unwritten laws of the society and are not equal to law.

¨ While discussing the ethical factors affecting the school, we had a laugh about what Mr.Sen said: “A teacher teaching business and management class, he tells his studens; “You better come and meet me at home and ill give you some help.” That would not be ethical.

¨ Teachers judging and grading students according to whether they like them or not would not be ethical either.

¨ A student bringing fake health reports would be unethical and the school cannot do anything about it.

¨ We also talked about the ethical values which are accepted around the school. For instance, if the parents are considered a lot with God and religion, in school they won’t judge those notions.

¨ Moreover we said that in some cultures, not being interested in teamwork’s, pushing yourself in front of others, and being over-ambitious is considered to be wrong and unethical.

¨ Law fails to reflects ethics sometimes and vice versa.

¨ What is considered to be ethical in the past may not be considered to be etchical now, for instance, in the past, girls couldn’t go to school and it is completely reversed now.

¨ Apart from the school environment, we wanted to discuss ethical values affecting businesses. We discussed whether it was right or wrong for a business to project itself as “green” and environmentally conscious. Mr.Sen said that when companies are responding to the environment changes, they are changing their policies and strategies in order to be in conformity with what the rest of the community work for. For example, one of our previous assignments was about Kellogg’s, by placing its stores near their businesses, Kellogg’s was reducing the carbon footprint and the transportation cost.

We said that being environmentally friendly was a business strategy, since if the businesses’ ethical reputations decline, their image would be harmed, they won’t be “popular” anymore and will begin to slide downwards. Mr.Sen informed that that’s why companies should be image-conscious. If they cannot keep up with the updates and ethical strategies, they will be out of the field by no time.

¨ Then we discussed whether it was hypocritical for a company to adopt green policies not because it’s ethical but because it is good. We decided that whatever the motivation behind it really is, it actually pays to be green and eventually it is profitable.

¨ Mr.Sen stated that there is a major risk if you think too much like a business-person and a great danger in starting business since you start losing sight of business thinking and ethical thinking. If you think in terms of costs&benefits, whether benefits exceed costs or not, this is unethical. But what is good is not always defined as cost or benefit, said Mr.Sen. We cannot always say something is good or bad simply because its beneficial. Sometimes a matter can be good but not beneficially -well, initially-. And finally, we stated something really cliché but still so true: Happiness does not depend on benefice.

_________________________________________________________________

Through out this long lesson FULL of new information and new point of views, we discovered STEEPLE. I learned lots of new terms and gained more knowledge about how businesses work and what should they be concerned with.

Here are some other important notes I took during the lesson that are not directly related with STEEPLE.

We discussed about brainwashing and what it was. It was a bad kind of influencing. In schools, we are given certain options. They show things and alternatives – isn’t that brainwashing too?

-Would you want to open a business in Afghanistan? It is very risky. However, the higher the risk, the higher the reward.

-the students forget about the risk business

-In the absence of competition you tend to get very much higher profits.

-More the competition, the lower the profit; unless you are amazing!

-Mr.Sen said that there is a newly developing branch of law called environmental law, and advised us consider that occupation.

-If something becomes common in the external environment, it becomes part of the SWOT. But what is SWOT?

Coming Up!

In Class...

"What makes a blog good?" was the question that Mr.Sen pointed at us, and we came up with some. Then, we were asked to make a "blog rubric". So here's the one that I made with my group mate : Eslin S.

Hope that we will all reach the "excellent" category with our blogs!

	Excellent 5	Good 4	Satisfactory 3	Mediocre 2	Poor 1
Engaging	The ideas and information are truly engaging, compelling and convincing. The blog is visually appealing and matching colors are present with a catching layout. The visuals and writings are in an excellent harmony.	Generally there are interesting, relevant ideas with few visual elements. The blog is mostly engaging.	The ideas are sometimes irrelevant with few major errors but the blog is overall catching.	No use of visual elements, the blog is frequently flat, the ideas are repetitive and mostly not interesting.	The blog is tedious, including very poor or no ideas. No visual elements.
Informative	There is a use of also other resources, the information is rich, highly accurate and precise. Excellent interpretations, point of views and comments are present.	Generally informative, there are no other resources used. There are limited point of views which sometimes include minor errors.	The information is mostly accurate with few major errors about business concepts, theories and models, but the comments are not enough and sometimes wrong.	The business concepts, theories and models are frequently not applied correctly, there are few accurate information, with major errors.	The information is not accurate; there are lots of mistakes and misconceptions about business terms, theories and concepts. There’s no proof of critical thinking.
Persuasiveness	The rich information and highly interesting ideas contribute to the general idea. Excellent comments, interpretations and opinions which truly affect or add to the audience’s point of view.	Ideas and information are generally related, the resources and examples mostly support the ideas and there are almost no major errors.	The information occasionally justifies the ideas but the resources and examples given are limited and poor, which do not create a truly persuasive effect on the audience.	There is an attempt in persuading and convincing the audience, but the ideas and information are not justified correctly.	The ideas and information are not convincing and mostly wrong. Unrelated/opposing ideas are defended.
Language	Able to captures the interest of future employers. The language used includes the correct utilization of business terms, concepts and theories with excellent interpretations and metaphors.	The business terms, concepts and theories are generally used correctly. The interpretations are mostly logical.	The business terms, concepts and theories are occasionally irrevelant and there are some major business language mistakes.	There is an attempt in using the business terms, but not successfully used. Unable to draw future employers’ attention.	No business terms used or the used ones are mostly wrong. Major errors and misconceptions. The language is simple and not official enough.

In Class...

As IB Business students, we have to start/join a Junior Achievement Company in our school. That's why, in our October 8 business class, we hosted two 12th grade-IB Business students from our school, Can T.&Can S., who came to let us have an idea about how to start a company, what are the liabilities and what should we do in order to succeed.

When I was a 9th grader, I worked as an employee in the Public Relations Department of our school's first Junior Achievement company called "JADE" (Junior Achievement Developing Educations). As the members of JADE, we were very disciplined; we were attending every meeting on Thursdays, keeping meeting reports, brainstorming, discussing product ideas and performing events on special days. The same year, we attended the Junior Achievement global competition and gained two awards, which we were very proud of. It was a great experience for me to learn how businesses work and I decided to continue this "extra school". Therefore, in my sophomore year,

I decided to join JAGS (Junior Achievement Goods and Services), another Junior Achievement company in our school. To be honest, I found the working environment more intimate and was able to develop better ideas. That helped me understand how important it was to have a warm working atmosphere and how it contributed to your success. This year, on January, the founders of JAGS will announce me as the new CEO, and pass the company on me. I'm looking forward to it and hope to improve it as much as possible!

After telling about my company experience, I want to mention about our friday lesson. The guest students said "You can even start a company by planting tomato in your garden and selling them," adding that it doesn't continue as easy as it was in the beginning. They explained the founding process which took 1-2 months. Then they talked about the key points where we should pay attention to and warned us.

Their advices were:

-Every department should focus on their own area

-The employes and heads of the finance department should be taking business/economy lesson

-Every meeting should be recorded, keeping records is really important since they ask you to show them during the JA competitions.

-Companies may not stick with their foundation purposes

-You can donate your profit to the charity which also make your event a social responsibility project, save it for the following year or spend it for other company events.

-Think big!

-Don't worry, succeeding takes time!

-You should hire your employes by interviewing them and making them fill up forms

-You should make sure that you chose your employes not according to your relations but according to their skills

-It is better if there are less members in each department who are working more, rather than more members working less. More people=less profit, less people=more profit

-The things thought us in our Business Books are enough to win if applied correctly.

-You will learn about terms such as balance sheets, income statements, liabilities in the following business lessons and understand the concept better.

-Human relations are really important!

-Always make a signed contract with the people you are dealing with; there can be problems in the future.

-Everything, every mistake is an experience. Being a part of a company really helps!

The last 15 minutes, Mr.Sen told us to form groups and brainstorm about new business and product ideas, and we came up with some!

In conclusion, these advices, warnings and brainstorming really reduced my concerns and I thank them again for enlightening us!