Frohe Weihnachten!

Merry Christmas! Here is a collection of Christmas related photos from the past week or so. Most of them are either from the PwC-Berlin office Christmas party a week ago Friday or our GP Christmas party on our last night in town. The office Christmas party was in an old church that is now used for large social events. It was a rather odd venue for the customary drinking/dancing, but charming nonetheless. Despite my plans to have an early night, I was there until 2 am, which made catching a 6:45 am train to Prague the next morning especially delightful!

As part of the GP party we had a massive gift grab with an added twist. The twist was designed to raise money for charity (we try to incorporate elements of fundraising into many of our activities). In order to steal or "protect" a gift, you had to pay a fee. However, the end result was that most people liked the gift they got and paid to protect it, and so there was limited stealing or swapping... which takes away all the fun! So not an added element I'd recommend again.

Since it doesn't look like I'll get around to posting separate blogs about my most recent trips, here are pictures from Amsterdam and Prague. The trip to Amsterdam was especially great because almost half of my classmates went, so it felt like a big event. Rens, our Dutchman, organized a nice dinner for us on Saturday evening and then we went to see Boom Chicago, an improv show which was hilarious. Other highlights from the weekend included the Van Gogh Museum, Anne Frank's house, and a boat tour through the canals. Sadly, the customs officials coming back to the States confiscated the tulip bulbs I bought at the flower market there. Apparently, I didn't buy the expensive pre-certified bulbs. So no tulips from Holland. Guess I'll have to go back. :-)

The trip to Prague was a much small crowd - just 5 girls. It was freezing cold the weekend we were there (even with four layers and leggings to keep warm), so we would walk around outside for a bit and then duck into a shop or cafe to warm up. We walked along the Charles Bridge and visited the old Jewish Quarter, but otherwise most of our time was just spend wandering through the town (and, of course, the ubiquitous Christmas market). It was a beautiful, old city and another place I could go back to again!

Finally, last week we had a photographer take a picture of our class:

Finished!

Well, not exactly... but today was the end of the first half of the GP program. It seems like time is flying by. The past two weeks have reminded me of coming to the end of the semester at college when all your projects and assignments come due. In addition to our regular workload, there were also a couple longer-term projects that had to be finished before the break. Consequently, the days (and nights) have been packed and sleep was lower on the priority list. However, though there was a lot of work, it wasn't too stressful, which makes a big difference.
A couple of the sessions we've had recently include Present with Power and Strategic Problem Solving. The Present with Power session was focused on communicating with impact. The consultant shared a number of really valuable principles to keep in mind when creating a presentation and was also a rich source of tips and tricks. I was amazed how quickly he could take a situation and craft the perfect way of communicating, quite a skill to have. After this session, the bar was really raised for our next presentations! Shortly afterwards, we had to individually present an overview of our local practice - what kind of work we do and what our local market was like. Hearing each person describe their work highlighted a number of the similarities and differences across territories and also gave me a much better understanding of the range of services PwC provides, especially in the Advisory line of service.
The Strategic Problem Solving module presented a framework for approaching a problem and was based on the McKinsey model of analyzing an issue. The theory they presented - define your key question, construct an Issues Tree that addresses everything you'll need to know to answer your question, organize the research, conduct the analysis, and determine the results - was very logical and was especially helpful in showing how a large question or issue could become manageable with the right approach. It was a 2-day session, with most of the time allocated to team exercises. In our teams, we were given a large, business case and had to apply the strategic problem solving concepts to solve it with the final output being a presentation of recommendations to the company's board. This project was one of the culprits that contributed to the lack of sleep, as most teams were in the office until past midnight finalizing their results/presentation. The exercise led nicely into our coming strategic projects.
While the first half of the program is structured to teach us various analytical, leadership, and communication tools, the second half is focused on a strategic project where we can implement and practice much of what we learned. However, the stakes are higher because each strategic project is sponsored by one or more senior partners who have a vested interest in the output. There are 3 project teams in Berlin and the one I am working on is developing a strategy for the Public Sector in Germany. It is sponsored by the leader of the German Public Sector. Luckily for our team, his office is in the same building as GP, so hopefully we'll have plenty of opportunities to interact with him during the course of the project.
Well, that's a summary of the program content of the past couple weeks. In the next day or two I'll also post more about some of my recent weekend trips. I'm coming back to Baltimore this Saturday and will be around for almost 2 weeks, so hopefully I'll have a chance to catch up with many of you during that time.

Good to Great

Have you ever heard of, or read, the book Good to Great, by Jim Collins? The author conducted an extensive research project with the goal of identifying what causes a company to go from being merely 'good' to truly 'great'. Based on his research, he puts forth in this book a number of characteristics that define 'great' companies. This morning we had a partner from the Australia practice visiting and he facilitated a session on this book. He took us through a critical evaluation of PwC based on the criteria given in the book. It provoked a lot of interesting discussion among the group.

This week PwC has been conducting an online forum to solicit input about our assurance (i.e. audit) business. It's a 72-hour forum during which people can go online and post comments or respond to questions. It's essentially a big chat room or blog. The Genesis Park participants have been helping the monitors of the forum with some of the more detailed work. Thankfully, with the group in D.C. helping too and the 6-hour time difference, no one has to be up in the middle of the night. Our role is to be continuously reading through the posts and then summarizing the themes and topics periodically to report to the monitors, who then might respond to comments or post additional questions to encourage debate. There's been a health level of participation in the forum (I think we were pleasantly surprised). I took my turn at monitoring yesterday, and found many of the comments to be very interesting. For example, one person suggested we change the name of an "audit" because of the negative perception associated with the word. Another person thought we should broaden the knowledge base of our employees by hiring 1 analyst for every 10 clients. Our next challenge will be to create an overall summary of the forum and strategic suggestions.


On a different note, I finally visited the Berlin Zoo this past weekend. Going to the zoo in the winter is a great way to avoid the crowds! I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was quite impressed with the layout and the variety of animals. Practically all the animals were out and about too, despite the cold weather. Tragically, I forgot my camera. If the admission wasn't so steep (12 euro!), I'd go back again. Surprisingly, there were a ton of babies - baby giraffe, panda, polar bear, zebra, hippo, monkeys, lions, and of course my favorite, the cutest baby elephant! The cubs were probably about 1-2 months old, but the rest of the babies were probably closer to a year.


While I didn't get any pictures of the cute babies, I do have pictures from my day trip to Dresden to share. One of my favorite parts was seeing this Raphael painting Sistine Madonna which has the famous little cherubs at the bottom. It's funny to me how they are a relatively minor part of the original painting, but now the most well known. The other exciting part of the trip was renting a car and hitting the autobahn to get there. The road trip was a great chance to see more of the German countryside... and listen to "All I Want for Christmas" about 13 times!