On April 16th, the EMBA class was treated to a fascinating panel discussion on growing enterprise.  The panel comprised people from three very different milieux, each with tremendous success in growing enterprises:  Stephen Jarislowsky, a self-made man sometimes referred to as the Warren Buffet of Canada, Nancy Neamtan, President/Executive Director of the Chantier de l’économie sociale, a Quebec-wide organisation whose mission is the promotion and development of collective entrepreneurship, and Salvatore Guerrera, President and founder of SAJO, a retail solution service company that covers projects worldwide in retail environments.  Despite the tremendous diversity in their backgrounds, the class identified some common threads in their paths to growth.  All three set very clear end goals – they knew where they wanted to get. They stayed very focused on these goals, and their focus enabled their organizations to stay focused as well.  But, interestingly, apart from the goal, there was lots of flexibility. As Mr. Guerrera put it, it’s important to remain open to possibility. They were able to adapt and change direction because they weren’t fixed to a plan, but rather to a goal.  This was an interesting demonstration of what Henry Mintzberg, who moderated the panel, refers to as emergent strategy.  The panel gave the class a real opportunity to understand growing enterprise from ‘in the field’, which underscores the philosophy of the program: grounding learning in reality, making strong links between theory what happens in ‘the real world’.