I am enjoying my thoughts spurred by Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis' October 2007 HBR article "Making Judgement Calls". What I enjoy is a good intra-cranial dialectic.
One the one hand, I am unabashedly promoting entrepreneurial teahing, learning, and organizing. Experiment, see what works, grab opportunity as you fly by. Risky, even reckless come to mind.
On the other hand, Tichy and Bennis rightfully sober me up by reminding me of my obligation to exercise and demonstrate good judgement as a teacher for leaders, further, to help them realize how the results of calls they will make can and will effect the lives and livlihoods of others.
Perhaps there is only one hand on this question. Our management learners will be working in what Peter Vaill named "Permanent Whitewater" back in 1989. Events will come at them like those imobile bolders in a Wyoming Level 5 river. They must be ready to make judgement calls that first steer them and their followers around the immeadiate crashes, but then must be developed into well executed course corrections with little chance of steering to calm waters for deliberations.
I look forward to reading Noel and Warren's forthcoming book on this subject.
What do you think? Is entrepreneurial behavior in conflict with exercising well reasoned judgements?
Friday, November 30, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Curiously Strong
Altoids come to mind. "Curiously strong" is the legend on the box.
What if this were to be a legend representing those who propose to make offerings of our thoughts and practices on teaching at OBTC 08?
My trusty e-dictionary from Houghton-Mifflin offers these meanings:
curious (adjective)
1. Eager to acquire knowledge: inquiring, inquisitive, investigative, questioning. See investigate.
2. Unduly interested in the affairs of others: inquisitive, inquisitorial. Informal: nosy, snoopy. See investigate.
3. Deviating from the customary: bizarre, cranky, eccentric, erratic, freakish, idiosyncratic, odd, outlandish, peculiar, quaint, queer, quirky, singular, strange, unnatural, unusual, weird. Slang: kooky, screwball. British Slang: rum, rummy2. See usual.
4. Causing puzzlement; perplexing: funny, odd, peculiar, queer, strange, weird. See usual.
There you have it. This is what it means to me to be an entrepreneurial teacher, learner, and organizer (think manager).
Our work is curiously strong. It startles. It clears minds the way an Altoid makes our taste buds forget the last thing we ate. It lingers.
Our work is curiously strong, because we, who are attracted to this Teaching Society for Management Educators are, ourselves, curious.
Are we not?
What if this were to be a legend representing those who propose to make offerings of our thoughts and practices on teaching at OBTC 08?
My trusty e-dictionary from Houghton-Mifflin offers these meanings:
curious (adjective)
1. Eager to acquire knowledge: inquiring, inquisitive, investigative, questioning. See investigate.
2. Unduly interested in the affairs of others: inquisitive, inquisitorial. Informal: nosy, snoopy. See investigate.
3. Deviating from the customary: bizarre, cranky, eccentric, erratic, freakish, idiosyncratic, odd, outlandish, peculiar, quaint, queer, quirky, singular, strange, unnatural, unusual, weird. Slang: kooky, screwball. British Slang: rum, rummy2. See usual.
4. Causing puzzlement; perplexing: funny, odd, peculiar, queer, strange, weird. See usual.
There you have it. This is what it means to me to be an entrepreneurial teacher, learner, and organizer (think manager).
Our work is curiously strong. It startles. It clears minds the way an Altoid makes our taste buds forget the last thing we ate. It lingers.
Our work is curiously strong, because we, who are attracted to this Teaching Society for Management Educators are, ourselves, curious.
Are we not?
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Entreprenuerial organizing?
The third part of our OBTC 08 theme is entrepreneurial organizing. Consider this the output of the first two. Entrepreneurial teaching opens the range of possible ways to stir entrepreneurial learning.
Once one has become acclimated to riskier (few correct answers) management learning, would not it follow that her or his notions about the core act of organizing to do business be freed from usual conventions?
What are we talking about?
To organize is to bring into existence formally: constitute, create, establish, found, institute, originate, set up, start.
Is this not what business and social entrepreneurs do? My thought is that people do this at the start of each business day - bringing back into existence the way people organized to work the day before (but always open to invention).
To organize is to arrange in an orderly manner: methodize, order, systematize, systemize.
We see managers doing this; but must they do so according to the models we have drilled into their heads? It seems to me that global realities beg for new ways of organizing to conduct business.
The call is for entrepreneurial organizing. Who is teaching so that those who learn will heed and lead this call?
Once one has become acclimated to riskier (few correct answers) management learning, would not it follow that her or his notions about the core act of organizing to do business be freed from usual conventions?
What are we talking about?
To organize is to bring into existence formally: constitute, create, establish, found, institute, originate, set up, start.
Is this not what business and social entrepreneurs do? My thought is that people do this at the start of each business day - bringing back into existence the way people organized to work the day before (but always open to invention).
To organize is to arrange in an orderly manner: methodize, order, systematize, systemize.
We see managers doing this; but must they do so according to the models we have drilled into their heads? It seems to me that global realities beg for new ways of organizing to conduct business.
The call is for entrepreneurial organizing. Who is teaching so that those who learn will heed and lead this call?
Monday, November 19, 2007
What about Entreprenuerial Learners?
I see the object of teaching to be that others will learn. We teach managerial and organizational behavior so that others may learn what works, how, and why.
Here is the rub. Do we know what works, how, and why? Are we sure?
Despite the care taken by the researchers whose findings we assimilate into our own understanding of organizations managing to create and sustain business, are there sufficient truths to tell?
No, say I. Thus, I am attracted to the notion of entrepreneurial teaching and entrepreneurial learning.
As one who teaches this way, I am publicly exploring. My students see me as an optimistic skeptic. I acknowledge that the concepts I have them read for use are quite good, but I say, "Until they, you, or I find a better explanation.". After all, we are talking about senescent humans behaving, not gears and pulleys. So, like the opportunistic business entrepreneur, I am constantly looking for threads, leads, smart folks, themes, patterns, rumbles. I want to be formed, not just informed.
I want my students to believe that this is authentic learning behavior for a PhD with over thirty years in the profession.
Why?
I don't tell them to be entrepreneurial in how they go about OB learning, I behave it (as best I can). I design my courses and classes to foster making, testing, and communicating one's own sense of what is before us.
What do you think about this? Am I just having a solo peacock moment, or is this helpful to you in understanding the theme of our conference?
Here is the rub. Do we know what works, how, and why? Are we sure?
Despite the care taken by the researchers whose findings we assimilate into our own understanding of organizations managing to create and sustain business, are there sufficient truths to tell?
No, say I. Thus, I am attracted to the notion of entrepreneurial teaching and entrepreneurial learning.
As one who teaches this way, I am publicly exploring. My students see me as an optimistic skeptic. I acknowledge that the concepts I have them read for use are quite good, but I say, "Until they, you, or I find a better explanation.". After all, we are talking about senescent humans behaving, not gears and pulleys. So, like the opportunistic business entrepreneur, I am constantly looking for threads, leads, smart folks, themes, patterns, rumbles. I want to be formed, not just informed.
I want my students to believe that this is authentic learning behavior for a PhD with over thirty years in the profession.
Why?
I don't tell them to be entrepreneurial in how they go about OB learning, I behave it (as best I can). I design my courses and classes to foster making, testing, and communicating one's own sense of what is before us.
What do you think about this? Am I just having a solo peacock moment, or is this helpful to you in understanding the theme of our conference?
Monday, November 5, 2007
Entreprenuerial learner?
Our OBTC 2008 conference theme is: Entrepreuerial teaching. Entreprenuerial learning. Just what is meant be the latter? Management educators share responsiblity with those who come to us for teaching for what they become thereafter. Convention would have it that they become managers, or better at managing. Our job is to show them how it is done. Speaking only for myself, I don't know how it is done. I have research that tells me something of how is was done and how it seemed to work yesterday. What managing will take tomorrow is, for me at least, an open question. Thus, I must adapt and adjust my teaching to favor learning over knowledge aquistion. My mission is to model and support what it means to be an entreprenurial learner. This is one open to every opportunity to extract valuable lessons from our daily experience. Entreprenuers are restless seekers; a human-sized itch from head to toe, to discover the early edges of something the future will reward, if only someone would create it. I want to point my learners to where I see those "early edges" of new ways to practice and join them in scratching the itch of curiosity that encountering new ideas inflames. I know I am torturing an analogy here, but itch it is. How would your teaching change if the body of formal knowledge about managerial and organizational behavior were to be presented as interesting history, with the most time and energy devoted to what it will take next to make history? When you come to Babson College for OBTC 2008, you will see their Entrepreneur Hall of Fame. Read their stories. They made business history. Nothing less than entrepreneurial teaching and learning will give me assurance that many, not just a few, of my students are going to earn their places in business history.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
A familiar silence
So far, it appears that no one who has come to our OBTC 08 Conference page has both clicked into this Blog and posted a comment. I know that I have to promote its existence overcome this stony silence. In the meantime, I will use "it" as an object lesson for what it means to be an entrepreneurial teacher (and learner).
We initiate something so new that no one is looking for it, expects it, even recognizes it. When I do this in class, there is a stunned silence. Students look down or at each other. "What?" "Do what?". "How could this possibly help me learn this material?"
They wait for me to break the silence. I wait for one of them to break the silence. This is the sort of silence that hurts deep inside where our ears are rooted in our brains.
Break.
Energy released.
A few timid steps taken in the new direction.
More engagement.
Entrepreneurial (risky) learning happens.
Wow! Now that was a nifty way to understand motivation, conflict, leadership (you fill in the concept).
Minds are blown.
Or not.
After the broken silence and a flurry of activity, my idea may blow up i our faces, not blow our minds. It does happen. After all, it is something I am trying out for the first time.
Here is the good news. A flop becomes the subject of managerial attention and thinking. Just pass the noise and heat of once silent and cold pre-tryit behavior is a conversation about if and how to try it again in a new way. THIS is the conversation that prepares us all to be more entrepreneurial in how we will do business in the future.
We initiate something so new that no one is looking for it, expects it, even recognizes it. When I do this in class, there is a stunned silence. Students look down or at each other. "What?" "Do what?". "How could this possibly help me learn this material?"
They wait for me to break the silence. I wait for one of them to break the silence. This is the sort of silence that hurts deep inside where our ears are rooted in our brains.
Break.
Energy released.
A few timid steps taken in the new direction.
More engagement.
Entrepreneurial (risky) learning happens.
Wow! Now that was a nifty way to understand motivation, conflict, leadership (you fill in the concept).
Minds are blown.
Or not.
After the broken silence and a flurry of activity, my idea may blow up i our faces, not blow our minds. It does happen. After all, it is something I am trying out for the first time.
Here is the good news. A flop becomes the subject of managerial attention and thinking. Just pass the noise and heat of once silent and cold pre-tryit behavior is a conversation about if and how to try it again in a new way. THIS is the conversation that prepares us all to be more entrepreneurial in how we will do business in the future.
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