During a 25-year career at the multinational technology giant IBM, Marlene Biseda provided training to strategically managed global operations and consulting services for the company. The experience made her aware that even professionals with long-term, insider knowledge of an industry have much more to learn.
"I realized that, although we were called in to resolve technical problems, the real issues were often about business. There was either a lack of clarity about strategic objectives or an inability to implement the objectives," she says. "It was that recognition that led me into management consulting and the Ph.D. program."
She left IBM in 2002, became an adjunct business instructor at California State Polytechnic University and the University of La Verne, and embarked on her own continuing education at Claremont Graduate University, where she is expected to receive her doctorate in executive management in January 2010. As both a teacher and a student at once, she looks forward to training Pepperdine students in management perspectives and helping them to apply their learning in the workplace to become better leaders. "I also look forward to learning from them," she adds.
We ask: What do you think is a vital characteristic that every manager, leader, or strategist should possess?
"We all have a variety of demands on our time, but I think it's important to fully focus on what we are doing at that moment: to live in the present. I also believe that we need to be flexible. The only constant is change, and we all need to change with the times."