We may convince ourselves that we must teach and our learners learn in within the confines of syllabus, program, institution. Thus, our OBTC call to be entrepreneurial is incongruous at best and a hell of a tease at its worse. After all, business entrepreneurs can venture away uninhibited by convention. Bunkum. What my students call the "real world" is just as constraining, perhaps more so. Those who breakthrough create their own conditions for innovation within. I see it not as thinking and working outside the proverbial "box". I see entrepreneurial behavior as making the interior of that box as different as it takes to "blow minds". We who have designed, run, and published experiential teaching exercises over the past 20 or 30 years have been doing just this. You get your 75 minutes twice a week, a classroom, tables and chairs, and a bunch of registered potent learners. That's the box. Today, in my two 75 minute periods of OB teaching, my students will be playing an adaptation of Trivial Pursuit to draw them into inquiry about the nature of motivation. Steve Meisel and I demonstrated this way of re-decorating the "box" at last year's EAM conference. See the 2006 Proceedings. When I leave that room at 2 for the next professor and class of students, it might go back to being just a box. But, for my 150 minutes, it was the scene of eight teams battling with their knowledge of popular culture to win beans redeemable in December for (maybe) a new car! They will be posting reflections on that exercise in our Vista Blackboard blended course site.
Entrepreneurial teaching? Yes, for I never quite know how these experiments in active learning will turn out (thank goodness).
Entrepreneurial learning? Sure. They don't know what they have learned, until they look back and probe this fresh, novel experience. It could be a flop. It could be an event they'll not soon forget, when thoughts of motivation swim into mind.
How about you? Can you bring to OBTC 08 a way you have turned that "box" into an exotic realm?
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Why us? Why now?
Why entreprenuerial teaching? By us OB and Management educators? Now?
I picture Earth as a ball scaled down to about 10" x 10". The North and South Poles are on a post that runs through and sticks out each end. They are tipped to sit on two braces, so that it can spin freely. We mount a set of stairs. We stand on the verge of stepping out onto that spinning orb. The challenge is seductive. We have to run as fast as it spins, to keep from being spun off into the Void. Why try it? It could be fun. We'll get a heck of a workout. With our feet on that ground, we'll be connected to the World. With our feet on the top step, we are just observing, counting its rotations, perhaps noting how some tiny human figures are flying off its face, no longer able to keep up.
As one flies past our nose, a nearly inaudible voice squeaks out, "Are you just going to stand there watching us fail?!". "Sorry", we exclaim, looking back fondly at the bottom stair and the path that led us here.
Forgive the tortured analogy. To the point - OBTC '08 is about stepping out there, and running with all we've got.
We have to run with those who are fleetest of foot and still able to stay on the Ball. We have to learn how they do it. How they stay so fit, so balanced, so determined to run businesses that not just keep pace, but set the pace.
These are the practitioners who are making the Globe spin as fast as it does now. We can try to talk them into pausing with us for long, lingering lectures, but they those who cannot stay on the ball flying out to that Void. Here is their proposition. "Keep up with us. Learn with us on the fly. Teach at this pace. Share our risks. But, we are not getting of the World to spend a fortune in time in money, just so that we can say that you say that we are proficient in business."
Well, my feet actually hurt. I am pooped. My mind is flooded with defenses against this exhortation. Why me? Why now?
It is us. This is the time. Period.
I picture Earth as a ball scaled down to about 10" x 10". The North and South Poles are on a post that runs through and sticks out each end. They are tipped to sit on two braces, so that it can spin freely. We mount a set of stairs. We stand on the verge of stepping out onto that spinning orb. The challenge is seductive. We have to run as fast as it spins, to keep from being spun off into the Void. Why try it? It could be fun. We'll get a heck of a workout. With our feet on that ground, we'll be connected to the World. With our feet on the top step, we are just observing, counting its rotations, perhaps noting how some tiny human figures are flying off its face, no longer able to keep up.
As one flies past our nose, a nearly inaudible voice squeaks out, "Are you just going to stand there watching us fail?!". "Sorry", we exclaim, looking back fondly at the bottom stair and the path that led us here.
Forgive the tortured analogy. To the point - OBTC '08 is about stepping out there, and running with all we've got.
We have to run with those who are fleetest of foot and still able to stay on the Ball. We have to learn how they do it. How they stay so fit, so balanced, so determined to run businesses that not just keep pace, but set the pace.
These are the practitioners who are making the Globe spin as fast as it does now. We can try to talk them into pausing with us for long, lingering lectures, but they those who cannot stay on the ball flying out to that Void. Here is their proposition. "Keep up with us. Learn with us on the fly. Teach at this pace. Share our risks. But, we are not getting of the World to spend a fortune in time in money, just so that we can say that you say that we are proficient in business."
Well, my feet actually hurt. I am pooped. My mind is flooded with defenses against this exhortation. Why me? Why now?
It is us. This is the time. Period.
Monday, October 15, 2007
"Blow their minds"
We are adopting a rather audacious logo for the conference. It is a figure of a very surprised little version of the classic Smiley Face (see it on the Webpage for our Call www.obtc.org ) The message is "Blow their minds!". Why this? I believe that most conventions of teaching management and organizational behavior, while effective, do not stir oneself as a teacher to entreprenuerial ways of teaching nor learners to break lose from custom and learn differently. Our review process will, of course, consider all proposals. I'll be looking for the ones that can at least make the windows of the Mind shake and rattle. Even I, the originator of this theme, might not be teaching on my best days to lift those heads in utter surprise, but I do love to be reminded that our hiring world is counting on innovation to sustain them. Conventional thinker/learners are not likely to bestir and invigorate. What do you think?
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