STUDENT CASE STUDY (1)

Fostering the true global leadership potential and key strategic management skills to enable my business student in my strategy class to gain the key skills/insight to succeed as a global-oriented strategic management consultant!

CLIENT PROFILE - Wataru Matsukage

Today: Native-Japanese management consultant at the largest consulting firm in the world, currently based in Tokyo with a Southeast Asia focus. The clients include 96 of the Fortune Global 100 and more than three quarters of the Fortune Global 500.

What’s Nigel like?
Thinking always about client satisfaction: Nigel Denscombe is always thinking about and strongly commits to attain the highest levels of clients satisfaction. In addition, he is a gentle-mannered person. He always puts his clients first, and he advises us through another person’s eyes with his nice smile and constructive humor. 
Providing not only enjoyable but also well-formulated humor: Something that should not be forgotten in introducing about Nigel is his sense of humor. His humor made me laugh whenever I took his class. But in fact, this humor is well formulated. I mean, this includes many contexts to navigate the key learning points in the class. He always developed high-quality augments in his case-study class. And his smile made me relaxed. Nigel delivered the key messages to us with his humor and smile, so I could understand smoothly and comfortably.
In the end, Nigel is … I was looking forward to discussing with Nigel in his class because he always inferred what I needed, and then he offered satisfactory suggestions for me. As a result, he made me very satisfied! Anyway, he is a kind and thoughtful person.

Value-added learning with Nigel

  Value-added learning with Nigel.pdf

In the class: Nigel gives us the skill –

“ASKING THE RIGHT CQA (Context/Question/Answer) ”
He can ask the right “Question” for the right “Answer“ in a right way based on the right “Contexts” through Harvard Business School-based case study discussion. Seriously, this skill is very important for truly effective & efficient problem solving as most of famous experienced executives often mention. I realized that my conception was stimulated in the right direction by discussing with Nigel.

There were intensive, massive, and interactive discussions as follows:
Nigel says “The CONTEXT is …” “So, WHY/WHAT/HOW do you …? ”

And I reply: “I think the ANSWER is … based on this context because …”

You might think the discussion looks pretty basic, but this discussion was really truly amazing!

First, I could fully recognize the contexts for situational analysis. Second, I could acquire the proper way to use “WHY/WHAT/HOW” for Goal settings. In this discussion, we verified again and again what the most important is and whether the questionnaire is essential in this context. And finally, I could focus on answering the strategic solutions to get the goals.
No one except for him can communicate with others so closely in a short time. All students who take Nigel’s class can focus their conception on the right and high-quality questionnaire naturally. This is the key to improve the sense of strategy. I don’t know anyone else who offers experiences of thought that were deep and meaningful after class as well as him.

The reason why Nigel can ask the right questions is that these questions are based on his own tough experiences (from VP of Bankers Trust and Managing Director of Bank of America). In addition, they are also based on his theory from his deep and wide knowledge (from Harvard and UCLA). After his class, I could often find his words in famous strategy books. They say many difficult things, but they were mostly equivalent to the things I discussed in the Nigel’s class! I mean, Nigel can simplify the valuable study and deliver in a reproducible way to us.

That is to say, his values deliver:

the right CONTEXT, the right QUESTION, the right ANSWER (CQA)

Recognize the right context. This leads to the sufficient situational analysis.
Make the right Question. This leads to the right goal setting.
Focus on the right Answer. This leads to the strategic solutions to get the goal. These are his values. This seemingly casual manner is the simplest answer based on the enormous study and his valuable experiences of trial-and-error in the progress of getting to an executive place.

After the class:

The Strategist “Nigel” lives in my head: After the discussion with him, I could review his lecture automatically, because his word is easy to remember and his tone of voice is relaxing, as a result, his voice always repeated in my head. When I have troubles in my work, Nigel’s voice in my head says to me;

I question “The CONTEXT is …” “So, WHY/WHAT/HOW do you …? ” and I reply “I think the ANSWER is … based on this context because …”In the results, I always get “aha experience” and this leads to the correct action spontaneously. I guess if you take Nigel’s class, you will have “the Strategist Nigel in your head“.
After all, he is the master of the right CQA (Context/Question/Answer)

Why Nigel offers us these values?: Finally, why he knows about a lot of topics and he can deliver high-quality CQA (Context/Question/Answer) in many areas of business? I realized the reason why that he became an expert on both the capital market and the business market. No one gets an overview of both markets in the right equilibrium. And I believe that his various abilities were developed by his bringing fulfillment to the dream of others, ”because” he always develops the best behavior for others in all kinds of problem. Anyway, he is a kind person who really wants to bring out the best in the business professionals like me who come to his classes!

Wataru Matsukage

Nigel’s recent business school strategy course student

Nigel Denscombe, CEO of Denscombe Corporation

Wataru Matsukage