Strengths and Weaknesses of My Public Speaking

I am now taking a January term course called, "The Arts of Communications". This course is intended to teach how to communicate effectively for students who want to be leaders in politics or the public policy area. During this two-week course, each student will do 4 speeches, and the teacher and students will give feedback on those speeches.

I have already made 3 speeches in class. I have learned that the most important principle of effective communication is to be "listener-focused". You can achieve this by three of the most powerful tools to persuade the audience are logos (argument by logic), pathos (argument by emotion), and ethos (argument by character). Reflecting on my own experience, I feel that persuading people only by logic is difficult. For example, when I decided to work at my current organization, not only the logic, but also the passion of the recruiter in his job and his reliable, charismatic character convinced me. In my life, I have mainly trained my logos skills because I majored in engineering as an undergraduate and graduate student. But I have not trained much about how to appeal to the audience's emotions by making use of story and how to influence the audience by my own character. Through this eye-opening course, I am learning how to persuade people by expanding my use of pathos and ethos in addition to logos.

I have received a lot of feedback which overrides what I thought was good style. For example, I was told the following: your first draft should be your voice since writing language and speaking language are totally different things. You don't have to show the structure of the speech, such as "there are three reasons for this", since those phrases are boring for listeners. Also, you don't have to say the general introduction, such as "hello, my name is so and so and today I will talk about such and such." This feedback has made me realize that there is no clear-cut answer to what makes a great speech.

In speech sessions, students are divided into small groups of 4-5. Each student gives a 4-minute presentation, followed by Q&A session. After that, the audience gives detailed feedback on the speaker's voice, body language, eye-contact, introduction, body, conclusion, story, and persuasiveness. To my surprise, I was highly rated for my delivery of speech, including voice, body language, eye-contact, pace of the speech, and utilization of silence. On the other hand, my persuasiveness was not so highly rated. This was a new finding for me because it was the opposite result from what I recognized as my strengths and weaknesses. Whenever I speak, I make sure to project my voice and speak slowly and clearly because I can't speak fluently like native English speakers. I think this effort makes my presentation easy to listen to, and gives a good impression to the audience. Until I took this class, I thought that the fact I could not speak fluently would be my weakness, but now I think I can convert this weakness to a strength in my speeches. 

Reflection on My First Semester in the U.S.

Last Friday, I submitted the last take-home exam on trade policy classes, and my first semester in the U.S. finished. I would like to write down several thoughts after finishing the fall semester.

1 Intensive Reading and Writing
Since I graduated from Japanese graduate school, I can compare graduate school education in Japan and that in the U.S. I feel that U.S. graduate school is an institution which provides intensive training of reading and writing a massive amount of English. As for reading, I had to read 30-50 pages of reading per class. Since there are two classes per week for one course, and I took four courses, I had to do reading which amounted to 240-400 pages every week. This number will increase more than double if I take more high-burden courses. In Japan, there were fewer reading assignments, and students did not have to read all of them. By contrast, in the U.S., all classes are conducted on the premise that every student has read the reading assignments. In addition, students cannot neglect the reading because active class participation is reflected on the students' grade.

There were a lot of writing assignments, too. For example, I wrote 4,000 words in the final report of energy policy classes and wrote 1,500 words within 24 hours in the take-home exam of trade policy classes. In negotiation classes, I had to submit a prep sheet and a debriefing sheet when I did weekly negotiation exercises. In energy policy classes, I had to write approximately 2,000 words of a policy memo and three problem sets. In the beginning of the semester, I had a psychological resistance against writing this amount of English. But now I feel less resistance against writing English and have confidence that I can write as much as 1,000 words in one day. Through the U.S. graduate education, I feel that I am receiving intensive training in reading and writing a large amount of English.

2 The Importance of Professors
When I select courses in the beginning of a semester, I tend to put importance on the name of subjects, but I now feel that focusing attention on professors is the most important thing. In particular, it is important to look at not only the professors' reputations and influence in the area, but also how much eagerness to teach the professors have. For example, Professor Robert Lawrence, who taught me trade policy, was an economic adviser to President Clinton and has a strong voice in international trade fields. In addition, he was very supportive to students' learning and conducted classes with a strong zeal to teach the value of free trade to students from all over the world. Professor Barbara Kellerman, who taught me leadership, was not only recognized as a top scholar in the leadership area, but also had strong convictions and conducted classes with a strong eagerness to teach the concepts of leadership and followership. Now, as I am thinking about what courses I will take in the next semester, I would like to pay more attention to who teaches the class than the name of the subject.

3 Courses Which Give Me a New Way of Thinking
Reflecting on my course selection this semester, I regret that I selected classes from the narrow perspective of how much directly useful knowledge for my career I can learn through the course. For example, I selected energy policy classes just because I will be engaged in formulating energy policy in the near future. The classes were useful because I could learn the overview of oil and natural gas markets as well as other energy such as renewable energy. But, to be honest, I am not sure that the knowledge I learned in the classes will be as useful as it seems. There will be a possibility that new innovation will take place, and most of the knowledge in class might be seen out-dated in future. On the other hand, some classes taught me a new way of looking at things and a new framework for thinking. For example, in negotiation classes, Professor Julia Minson taught me the new perspective that "Everything is negotiable", which totally changed my mindset. In the leadership classes, Professor Barbara Kellerman provided me the new perspective that it is difficult for leaders to lead organizations using power and authority as they did in the past. Instead, leaders should pay attention to followers, who have increasing influence. Looking back at my graduate school days in Japan, I see that I have forgotten much of the technical knowledge I learned in classes, including finance and intellectual properties. Similarly, I will probably forget the technical knowledge I learn in the Kennedy School in several years. By contrast, for many years to come, I will definitely remember new ways of looking at the world and new frameworks for thinking which I learn in class.

Thus, I would like to take courses that will give me a new framework of thinking and change my fundamental way of looking at the world. So far, I plan to take a highly regarded leadership course, a course about democracy which I think is the basis of U.S. people's philosophy, and a course taught by Lawrence Summers, who served as an economic adviser to President Obama.

Last Class in the Fall Semester

This week, I finished all classes in the fall semester. All that is left is to write a final report and take a final examination. The last class of each course was really meaningful because professors told us aspiration and messages they wanted to convey from the bottom of the heart. It was difficult to notice during the semester, but I feel that every professor in the Kennedy School teach because they have messages they are eager to convey to students. Here, I would like to introduce Professor Julia Minson's message to students in her last negotiation class, which is the most memorable.

"Everything is negotiable. Even if you don't feel it is necessary to negotiate, both sides can gain positive results through negotiation. Similarly, just asking often gets you a long way. Some of you might feel that initiating negotiation or asking somebody is not comfortable. But try to get out of your comfort zone and think about why you feel uncomfortable."

In class, through the negotiation exercises, I learned a lot of things, including negotiation techniques such as being conscious about your and the opponent's Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA). I also learned the principles of  influencing people such as reciprocity and consistency, and psychological knowledge such as how biased people's perceptions are. But the most impressive thing for me is not this knowledge, but rather the mindset of "Everything is negotiable". This phrase means that instead of thinking that initiating negotiation is a waste of time, you should begin by talking with the opponent, and learning the opponent's interests which may be hidden in his/her position or words. You can then work to find the solution which lets both sides maximize their benefits. When I negotiate with people, I always find it difficult to know the opponent's true interests, especially when the opponent gets emotional, or is subjected to stress from a time limit. From this course, I learned that the most important ways to know the opponent's interests and priorities are (1) to manage emotions and talk calmly, (2) to ask various questions to the opponent, and (3) to throw every item on the table and discuss a package deal.

Reflecting on my life, I have often made a judgment that it is no use to negotiate because there will be a high possibility to fail, and initiating negotiation itself might make a bad impression on the opponent. In particular, Japanese society puts much importance on harmony and conformity. Japanese people tend to think that negotiation has a bad connotation that only the person who initiates negotiation will gain a profit. But through this course, I have experienced many successful negotiations through which both the opponent and I became happier than before without making a bad impression on each other. In addition, as a by-product, I have gained confidence that I can manage to negotiate one-on-one with native English speakers although I think I am far from perfect. As I continue my career, I would like to live a life actively with the mindset that "Everything is negotiable".

Mid-Term Feedback on Negotiation Class

Last week, students gave a mid-term feedback for the Negotiations Classes. This Monday, the contents of the feedback were introduced anonymously. That feedback was interesting.

1 The Professor should manage class discussions more, including managing students who discuss unrelated topics or who digress..

2 I’d like to listen to the Professor’s explanations, not the statements of students.

3 I am always irritated by students who come to class late. I always give these people a cold stare, but they don't seem to notice that at all. Being late for class should be reflected in the class grade.

This feedback made me think about many things. The first thing I considered was the feedback systems of U.S. graduate schools. In the Kennedy School, students give feedback to professors at the end of the semester. It is a five stage assessment, and students evaluate professors’ total performance, including whether they manage class discussions well, whether they respect students’ opinions, whether they are accessible or not, and so on. Last week’s mid-term feedback in negotiations class was voluntarily done by the professor. I think this mid-term feedback is good because it is a sign of the professor's willingness to improve classes. The feedback system in U.S. graduate schools enables universities to remove low-quality professors or lecturers. Japanese universities, at least the university which I graduated from, do not have this kind of system. I think the feedback system is important in maintaining quality of classes because it puts pressure on professors to improve teaching.

The second thing I considered was the students’ views on class participation. I was surprised to learn that other students also thought that particular people were talking too much in class. In many of the classes at the Kennedy School, 20%-40% of the grade is decided by class participation. That is why some students seem to talk in a class; they want just to distinguish themselves and ensure their class participation grade. I am always bored by these statements. But when I started to heed other students’ statements carefully, I noticed that some students made good comments which were enlightening, and helped develop class discussions. In my opinion, it is difficult to have an effective class discussion which involves every student if professors are inexperienced or if the number of students in a class is over 60. I hear that the number of students in the average Harvard Business School (HBS) class is 90, so I am curious about how the professors at HBS manage class discussion.

When I go back to Japan and start to attend international conferences, there will be people who make statements just to distinguish themselves. So I think the class discussions at the Kennedy School are close to the typical business environment. I would like to regard class discussions at the Kennedy School as good training opportunities to make meaningful statements at appropriate times and to make contributions in unfavorable environments.

Campus Visit from Japan

The past two weeks, Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) held an open house for potential applicants. There were several Japanese people who visited the campus, of whom I met four. I was often asked about advantages of HKS compared to other schools. I only spent one month here, but I would like to write down what I think are the characteristics of HKS. While there are many things I enjoy about the school, there are also ways in which it has not met my expectations.

1 Much Value on Social Activities
I feel that HKS students put much emphasis on social interactions between themselves, professors, and other professionals. There are not many students here who study desperately and strive to get good grades at any cost, or who wish to go into academia. In my program, the MPA2, half of the eighty students are pursuing joint MPA/MBA degrees. They seem to focus much of their energy on social activities rather than academic work because these activities directly affect their career development. In order to get good jobs at companies and international organizations, unofficial processes seem to exist. Thus, networking is important.

You can gain opportunities to work with professors if you are proactive. I know a graduate of HKS who did research with a professor in macroeconomics, eventually publishing a research paper during his stay. While this sort of research is possible here, it is difficult to pursue because it is not the norm. If you want to focus solely on academic work, it would be good to consider other graduate schools such as Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University or Goldman School at UC Berkeley.

But you can learn many things from these social networking activities. I am trying to attend as many social events as possible, though my main focus is academic work. I feel that I need to be a more extroverted person than I was in Japan in order to utilize the opportunities and maximize learning at HKS.

2 Courses
One of the advantages of HKS is that it has a wide range of courses, from practical one to philosophical and ideological ones. For example, HKS has a course named Politics and Ethics of the Use of Force, which examines in what cases nations should intervene militarily. HKS also has a course named Economic Justice, which examines what kind of economic policies are regarded as fair and equal. These courses might not be used immediately in your work, but through them you can develop important philosophical thinking.

On the other hand, a class called the Business- Government Relationship in the United States, which I am taking now, is taught by Roger Poter, who served as an economic adviser to President Reagan. From this course, I can learn practical things such as what I should know when I give advice to the President as an economic adviser, and how to manage the relationships between business, labor, and lobbyists. Similarly, in a negotiation course, I can learn practical negotiation techniques and know-how by dealing with real-world cases and doing one-on-one exercises every week. I feel that this wide variety of courses, from practical to philosophical, is an asset of HKS.

Office Hours for the First Time in My Life

Universities in the United States have a system called "office hours." This is the system where students go to meet professors in arranged time slots to talk one-on-one. Last week, I went to office hours for the first time in my life because Japanese universities don't have this kind of system.

The first professor I went to talk to was Professor Barbara Kellerman. I visited her because I had been stuck on the short paper which she had assigned. She was warm and interested in my new life in Boston and Harvard Kennedy School. At the same time, she pointed out the lack of my logic and evidence in my draft report. Thanks to her advice, I could figure out where I needed to further focus in my writing. It was only 15 minutes, but it was a highly concentrated, meaningful time.

After that, I also made use of office hours with Professors Henry Lee and Robert Lawrence. With Professor Lee, I talked about Japan's LNG (Liquefied natural gas) strategy and nuclear power policy. With Professor Lawrence, I talked about Japan's recent trade deficit, the influence and opportunity of China's rise for the Japanese economy, and the way to increase competitiveness of manufacturing industries in Japan. I also sought advice from both of them regarding what courses I should take at HKS in order to pursue my interests. Both of them were empathetic and gave me useful advice. These office hours were really meaningful opportunities for me. At the same time, I felt that I needed to prepare and study the subjects more beforehand in order to have deeper discussions with those professors. Next time, I want to prepare more before going to talk with them.

Since we have to talk with professors one-on-one, and it is easy to disclose our lack of knowledge during office hours, we tend to hesitate to go. But I think the advantages I can gain by using office hours are greater than the disadvantages, because I can talk with professors directly about my own interesting matters. I'd like to continue to make the most of this valuable opportunity.

Fall Semester Courses

Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) classes started last week. I finally decided my fall semester courses. My selection criteria for courses are that they (1) can only be taken at HKS, and (2) will broaden my perspective and knowledge. As for (1), I thought that microeconomics or statistics could be learned through web-based courses such as MIT Courseware, or could be studied independently. As for (2), I thought I needed to build my knowledge on American history, economics, and philosophy in order to actively be engaged in social activities in the U.S. Taking these criteria into account, here is my final selection of courses:

1 MLD224: A Behavioral Science of Negotiations
Professor Julia Minson once taught negotiations at Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and has a reputation as a good teacher. There are several other courses on negotiations at HKS, such as a course by Professor Brian Mandel. Her approach, however, is unique: Professor Minson has a background in social psychology, so her classes put emphasis on emotional and psychological aspects of negotiations. Every week, I will do negotiation exercises with my partner, and we will review the strategy and results in the subsequent classes. One of my objectives in studying at HKS is to train my negotiation skills, so I would like to prepare well and learn as much as possible from this course.

2 ITF110: The Political Economy of Trade
Professor Robert Lawrence served as an economic adviser to President Bill Clinton. In the course, I will study the theoretical background of international trade, the structure of the WTO, and regional integration. There will also be WTO simulation exercises, which simulate trade negotiations with groups. Each group, made up of four students, will represent a different country in these trade negotiations.

3 IGA410: Energy Policy: Technologies, Systems, and Markets
Professor Henry Lee has a wealth of experience in teaching energy courses at Harvard. I will study oil and natural gas markets, nuclear power, renewable energy, and electricity markets. In the latter half of the course, we will do a case discussion on Japan's energy policy after the Fukushima nuclear accident. I don't have any experiences in studying energy issues in a structured manner, so I want to take this opportunity to study hard.

4 BGP100: The Business-Government Relationship in the United States
Professor Roger Porter served as executive secretary of the Cabinet Council on Economic Affairs in the Reagan administration. This course examines US business-government relationships and industry and trade policies, compared to those of other countries, including the EU, Japan, and China. This course will help me deepen my understanding of how political decision-making in the United States works.

5 MLD-352M: The Leadership System - Leaders, Followers, Context
HKS has more than 20 courses on leadership, but out of them, Professor Barbara Kellerman's approach to learning about leadership is most unique. She clearly says that the objective of this course is not to learn how to be leaders, but to examine followers who lack power, authority, or influence. She also prefers examining the context of leadership and followership we are in. We will look over several Western and Eastern philosophers, such as Confucius, Machiavelli, Locke, Mill, and so on. I am interested in how leadership and followership changed after the Fukushima calamity in Japan, and I will write a paper about that.

Class Selection of HKS

Curriculum of MPA2

As the fall semester approaches, it has been very enjoyable to consider what courses I should take. HKS offers more than three hundred courses annually. Considering that I can take courses in other Harvard graduate schools, as well as cross-register courses in MIT and the Fletcher School of Tufts University, the options seem to be infinite. Since my program (MPA2) has no requisite courses, I can make my own two-year tailored curriculum by myself. This means that if I can make a curriculum wisely, the coming two years will be a supreme learning opportunity. On the other hand, were I to take courses without careful consideration, I would spend my two years totally in vain, with a  finger in every pot but only a shallow knowledge of many subjects.

In one semester, I can take no fewer than three classes and no more than six. MPA2 students usually average four courses per semester, completing a total of sixteen courses in two years. Looking at the syllabi of courses in HKS, I find that all the courses look intellectually stimulating. To be honest, I would like to take as many as five or six courses in a semester. At the same time, I am afraid that I would not  be able to digest any subjects if I take more than four courses in a semester, because this is my first time studying in an American graduate school, and I am not a native speaker of English.

In addition, I have to take into consideration how to balance policy-related courses and soft skills-related courses. The reason why I say this is that I chose to study at HKS because I thought I could take courses of distinguished professors in my fields of interest such as energy policy and economic policy, as well as courses on building soft skills such as leadership, negotiation and general management. I think this is one of the biggest advantages of HKS.

My Reflection on Graduate School Experience in Japan

When I look back on my graduate school days in Japan and consider which courses were impressive and taught me the most, the following three points come to my mind:

1 Having a Group-Work Exercise

Through group-work, I learned how to tackle issues as a  team and how to coordinate among people with different opinions. In addition, I deepened my understanding of subjects by discussing the issue with other group members. Moreover, I developed friendships with other group members and my social life at graduate school was enriched.

2 Having a Presentation

When I took courses which required me to make a presentation, I studied the subject hard and prepared for the presentation earnestly in order not to make a fool of myself in front of everyone. As a result, I remembered much of the content of these courses and learned a lot. Also, listening to presentations from other students allowed me to understand what my colleagues were thinking and to develop friendships.

3 A Small Class Size

In large classes, it was difficult for me to maintain my concentration during the class because I did not have many opportunities to get called on in class. On the other hand, in small classes, I could not help being actively involved and maintaining high concentration. As a result, I learned a lot from those classes. A small class size also enabled me to have close relationships with professors. In small classes, I had many opportunities to talk with professors directly and be given feedback from them.



I would like to choose courses considering the above perspective, and enrich the quality of my two-year study in HKS as much as I can.