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How my MBA Project created an opportunity to change lives for young people in state care

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How my MBA Project created an opportunity to change lives for young people in state care

” There were numerous moments of young people engaging with their stored memories, sharing and communicating more with others, and being proud of their achievements. For many of them, this is something that was previously difficult to do.”

Vaughan Broderick

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Most people do not realise how our childhood memories shape our present as well as our future. We lean on our memories and become who we are as a result of them. But, some people are born into less fortunate circumstances and struggle to cling onto important memories – sometimes because they have none. 

In New Zealand, there are thousands of young people in state care who could benefit immensely from having important moments preserved for their future. The social services sector understands the importance of the life story of a young person but has struggled to consistently enable tamariki to collect, maintain, and share their life story in a way that was powerful and engaging for tamariki and their whānau.

In this article, I share with you how studying towards the MBA at the University of Canterbury created an opportunity to impact the lives of untold young people in care. One of the core courses of the UC MBA degree is a paper called Innovation by Design. This course challenges students in identifying problems in the real world and turns them into opportunities. It was here where I found a chance to increase the belonging and self-esteem of young people, the connection and trust with their support workers and whānau. Outcomes of this course were later revisited and enhanced in my final consulting project within the sector by developing an app that enables young people to capture important moments of their lives.

What emerged from the work is a system that enables the collection of collaborative life stories. This includes design principles, communication tools, insights, change management approaches, visuals, and the app. We achieved the significant milestone of enabling busy support workers to capture meaningful moments for young people, and we are now sourcing funding for development.

More importantly, is the impact this project has had on young peoples’ lives. There were numerous moments of young people engaging with their stored memories, sharing and communicating more with others, and being proud of their achievements. For many of them, this is something that was previously difficult to do.

I describe the shared impact within the following representative story of a young person in care that experienced and continues to use the app:

David came into care as a young child. Although he has had a good connection with whānau, it has been primarily through visits, reports, and occasional photos sent by staff. Storybooks were not part of his life, and he had difficulty making connections with people on his own terms. A two-way relationship was very difficult, repetitive, and limited.

Staff help David to use the app and they also take photos of important moments for him. They work together to build a rich story.

David is proud to show the photos he has to EVERYONE! He now owns and leads connections and discussions about things that are important to him and can describe the events in detail.

Whānau enriched David’s story and they were able to stay connected in the present moment, providing encouragement for the things he’s been doing and also being a constant part of his life. David really enjoys staying connected with his family in this way.

I wish to acknowledge how the UC MBA program provided me with the foundations of rigorous traditional and contemporary business leadership skills necessary to adapt to a fast-changing world. The MBA challenged me to translate those skills and apply them to make a difference in a real-world and complex environment. More profoundly, the project took me on a journey of personal growth and discovery towards a better understanding of the courageous lives of young people in care and forming considerable respect for the workers who take care of our vulnerable young people.

Finally, I am immensely grateful to Brackenridge Services Limited, the support workers and young people involved, for the opportunity to work on the project. I hope that we are successful in sourcing funding so that this project can make a difference to all young people in care to have the opportunity of a rich and meaningful life storybook.

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About Vaughan Broderick

Vaughan is currently a Change and Innovation Consultant to his project sponsor. He is inspired by service design, innovation and entrepreneurship to solve complex problems and improve people’s lives. Vaughan thrives in situations that require a human-centred approach drawing on his empathetic, critical thinking, collaborative and practical skillset.

Connect with Vaughan on LinkedIn

International Business Negotiations In Multi-Cultural Environments

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International Business Negotiations In Multi-Cultural Environments

“This course enhanced my skill set for survival and success in a complex and changing world.”

Matthew Cowan, UC MBA student

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I don’t know how to get what I want. Do you?

A charismatic master negotiator with international experience and a penchant for illustrative anecdotes layered like fine pastry enters the classroom.

He has an orange.

I’m amongst 10 students divided into two adversarial teams. The orange is placed on a desk. Our teams occupy seats on opposite sides as if preparing for trench warfare. The task is simple: “The winning team negotiates for 51% of the value of the orange.”

As an engineer, I entered this negotiation course with the naïve view that people will collaborate to find a pragmatic, objectively optimal solution to common problems. But needing 51% of an orange has me fired up, unwilling to compromise, and focused so tightly on getting what I want I’m blind to the people seated across the table.

Our first negotiation is an unmitigated disaster. Neither team wins.

Fortunately, not everyone on the course is an engineer. Over the coming days our mixture of personalities and experience, from a company director to a pharmaceutical representative, clash, grow, and develop our understanding. Sometimes the negotiation process works. Sometimes our negotiations degenerate into a destructive spiral. We always learn.

I had no idea how to get what I wanted. It turned out I had no idea what international business was, either.

We proceeded through real-world case studies examining how businesses negotiated key moments in their survival and development. Every time we thought we had a handle on the situation and a well-crafted solution, our eyes would be opened to the complexity of international business.

This is not a safe course with well-defined problems.

This course enhanced my skill set for survival and success in a complex and changing world.

The master negotiator guided us through the details and creativity required to solve the practice problems and how we could apply these principles to our own industries and careers.

Understanding negotiation and the creativity of international business has allowed me to make personal projects successful, plan my career trajectory, and optimise the outcomes and recognition of my professional work.

One last thing.

I’ll happily hold that orange while you enrol.

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Learn more about the UC MBA

About Matthew Cowan

Matthew Cowan is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Canterbury specialising in separations science and materials development. With a background in chemical engineering, Matthew was keen to expand his network and business skills to share the benefits of his research with the world. He saw the UC MBA programme as the perfect vehicle.

Connect with Matthew on LinkedIn

The value of consulting during the MBA

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The value of consulting during the MBA

“Making the decision to change the course of my career was my first big challenge. The second, was embarking on my MBA with the University of Canterbury. This is a reflection on my MBA journey and the significance of the skills I developed when completing the final consulting project.”

Love Joshi, MBA graduate 2021

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Both pursuing an MBA and then having the opportunity to complete a consulting project for the Christchurch City Council aligned with my purpose of making a small impact on the community.

The project mainly focused on improving the usage of the Council owned and managed community facilities which are available to the larger community in Christchurch. The goal of my work was to provide a strategy that focuses on improving these facilities and the services related to them in order to make them fit for purpose to meet the changing needs of the community. Thus, making them modern, robust and more desirable. Throughout this project, I tried my best to keep the community at the centre of my research as that provided a sense of fulfilment to me. This strongly aligned with the Council’s strategic goals and vision they have for the city as well.

The outcomes of the project focused mainly on two areas of opportunity, one being improved community consultation through a real-time and regular feedback mechanism between the council and the community. The second outcome of the project helps the council communicate effectively the good work and initiatives they take to support the community through various marketing initiatives. The willingness of the community to be a more active part of the decision-making process as far as community facilities are concerned set the foundation for my work. The result of this project was a prioritised list of recommendations to be implemented over a period of next one year.

The specialist skills I developed during the MBA programme through the Design Thinking and Digital Transformation papers provided me with the best methodological tools to successfully deliver the outcomes for the project. In addition, the Data Informed Strategy paper helped me realise what a big role data plays in the decision-making process of almost all the successful organisations today. This remained with me while working on this project and I invested almost 70% of my time and energy on collecting and analysing a substantial amounts of data. Importantly, the papers focusing on Leadership and Sustainability taught me how to effectively communicate my research to key stakeholders especially when you believe in and are passionate about your work.

During my journey, the most beautiful feeling was being able to confidently and successfully use a range of tools introduced to me as a part of the MBA programme. I remember using these tools for the first time in the classroom and failing miserably. However, the lecturers were so supportive that this never impacted my confidence. I think this enabled me to use these tools in the real world with confidence and effectiveness.

The past 18 months has been an extremely emotional time where my cognitive abilities have been developed beyond my expectations. I realise how this hasn’t just impacted my professional life in positive manner but also my personal life. Through this journey, I saw my dream getting defined as a goal and was achieved as a successful outcome.

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About Love Joshi

Love, once an aspiring actor, is now pursuing a professional career that combines his performance skills with business consultancy in strategy, training and analysis. Thanks to the specialist skills gained through completing his MBA at the University of Canterbury in 2021, Love is now inspired to work with businesses to have a positive impact on their community.

Connect with Love: https://www.linkedin.com/in/love-j/

Can We Communicate Ourselves to a Better World?

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By Professor Ekant Veer

The University of Florida’s Centre for Public Interest Communications seems to think so and they discussed this at their recent ‘frank’ gathering in Gainesville, Florida. The Centre’s Director, Prof. Ann Christiano, and Director of Programs, Ellen Nodine, visited Christchurch in October of 2019 to work with the city and UC on developing communications programs and practices that would benefit the city after the March 15 terror attacks.

During their short stay both Ann and Ellen gave a public lecture as well as held meetings with members of the UC faculty, students, mana whenua, local city officials, and practitioners all to discuss the role that public interest communications can improve social cohesion and well-being. On the back of this visit I was able to visit Gainesville and take part in the frank gathering as ‘The Curator of the Love Track’ (more on this weird title, later). Gabrielle Huria from Ngāi Tahu was also in attendance to speak on the role that she and her iwi were able to play in bringing people together after the shootings.

The frank gathering aims to bring together an equal proportion of practitioners, activists, academics and funders to all share their own ideas about how communications can improve society. So, while I would normally go to a conference and get excited about sitting next to a prominent professor in my field, here I was sitting next to the person who started the Arab Spring revolution in Egypt, then have dinner with a Muslim hip-hop activist, followed the next day having breakfast with a professor from Cambridge, then giving a talk alongside creator of The Daily Show. It was an experience that was completely out of my comfort zone, but showed how important it is for us, as academics, to engage with the full gamut of influencers out there.

The gathering is in its 7th year and this year all the talks were split into different tracks based on an emotion. We heard from people talking about anger, hope, pride, love etc. Each track had a curator that would coach the speakers and tie together each talk together with an opening. This is where I became the ‘Curator of the Love Track’ and was given the privilege to open the set of talks with some experiences of working in Christchurch after the shootings and what the role of love plays in driving action forward. In between all these very inspirational talks were breakout sessions where we were able to put some of the experiences into practice in a more hands-on fashion.

Both Gabrielle and I were there to see what we can do better back in Christchurch and whether a similar gathering could work here. Perhaps a local collective of people from all walks of life sharing their knowledge and experiences about public interest communications and what things we have learnt in our own journeys that others may benefit from. Watch this space as we develop plans in this area.

Many thanks should be extended to Bruce McTaggart and his whānau, whose passion and vision for seeing betterment in our society funded both Prof. Christiano and Dr. Nodine’s visit to Christchurch in 2019 as well as Gabrielle and my visit to frank last week.

Dr Ekant Veer is a professor in marketing in the UC Business School at the University of Canterbury. His area of expertise is in social marketing and social well-being.

A Life-changing Trip: A Student’s Journey to China

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by Jules Haus

I had the honour and pleasure to spend five and a half weeks in China as part of the MGMT228 programme. Prior to this trip I had never been to China. I was nervous but excited to spend nearly six weeks ingrained in China’s day to day life and feel like living like a Chinese local.

The first three weeks we spent in Hangzhou at the Zhejiang Gongshang University (ZJSU). Here we attended lectures about Chinese business practices and consumer trends as well as Chinese culture and participated in the Second Language Promotion Programme (SLPP). The SLPP was one of the best experiences about the trip. We got assigned two Chinese student buddies at the start of our trip who would help us feel at home. Every day we spent a few hours with them participating in activities.

My personal favourites were the amazing race around the campus and a pick-up basketball game with an historic comeback story. Almost every evening we had dinner together and talked about our cultures and the differences between our countries. My buddies and I became such good friends that we still talk to each other over WeChat. Funnily enough while I was writing this blog, my friend Wang messaged me asking how my summer is.

We didn’t just spend time in the classroom, the cool thing was we were able to visit many historic sites during our time in China. Hangzhou was the perfect place to start our journey as many describe it as heaven on earth. You think Hagley Park is cool? Wait till you see West lake! In the centre of a city with 10 million people you will find the beautiful West Lake. As we learned it is regarded as one of the must-see sights in China and its beauty is the subject of many poems and paintings. Words don’t do it justice.

We graduated from the SLPP and our time in Hangzhou came to an end. Shanghai was up next, and I have never seen anything like it. Our whole group fell in love with Shanghai and over the next week it felt like everyone was trying to figure out how to land an internship here. We visited a number of multinational (mostly Kiwi) companies with operations in China. My personal favourite being the visit to Zespri. It made realise how important marketing was and made me fall in love with the subject again.

Shanghai is a multinational city and you can feel its historical western influence throughout the bustling streets. One of my favourite experiences in Shanghai was sitting on the 120th story of the World Financial Centre watching the sun set, while the skyscrapers lit up. A week in Shanghai was not enough and I left thinking of a plan to convince my friends to come back with me in the future.

Time flies by when you are having fun and suddenly, we were in Beijing. This meant it was our last week in China. During this trip I have made some incredible friends and at this stage I was sad thinking my time exploring with them would be over soon. It meant we had to make the most of it. Visiting the Great wall, Olympic Park, Summer Palace, Hudong district, Tiananmen Square, Forbidden city, Temple of heaven, and my favourite location, the Art District.

This blog is just a small glimpse of my time on the MGMT228 trip.  Being able to learn about Chinese culture and business etiquette first hand instead of in a lecture theatre is a once in a lifetime experience. Not only did I learn a lot about China, but I have made found some fantastic new friends who I would not have met otherwise, whether it being the other students on the trip or everyone who participated in the buddy programme. At the end I didn’t want to leave, there was so much more I wanted to see and experience.

If you are thinking about signing up to MGMT228 and would like to talk about the experience, feel free email me at jlh152@uclive.ac.nz or add me on WeChat:

Jules Haus is in his fifth year of a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in Marketing and Management. He is also the COO of Entré.

You can also read about the recent trip on the University of Canterbury website.

UC Economist Publishes New Edition of Well-Received Book on Monetary Policy

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UC Economist Publishes New Edition of Well-Received Book on Monetary Policy

Optimal Monetary Policy under Uncertainty (second edition) links previous and current research of monetary policymaking, offering a valuable resource to new and established researchers. The book traces the development of monetary policy analysis over the past 50 years.

The first edition (2007) of the book received favourable reviews that saw it become a staple resource in research libraries and central banks all over the world. Early reviews indicate that the second edition will make a similar impact, with reviewers praising it as being a lucid exposition of monetary policymaking at the macroeconomic level.

The second edition features an entirely new section motivated in large part by the world financial crisis of 2007-09. The crisis has led to a major re-thinking of the way central banks conduct optimal monetary policy. The new edition covers a broad range of new developments in the model-based literature on optimal monetary policy in the presence of uncertainty, including an entire chapter dedicated to the implementation of monetary policy when the central bank has run out of room to lower interest rates further.

Insights from the authors’ joint published work is woven into the new book, and Associate Professor Guender says that it will continue to underpin his postgraduate course in monetary policy. As a result of Guender’s teaching in the field at the University of Canterbury, many postgraduate students from the Department of Economics and Finance have been recruited by policy-making institutions in New Zealand and abroad, including the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, NZ Treasury, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.

Further information about the contents of the book can be found here: https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/optimal-monetary-policy-under-uncertainty-second-edition

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