Entrenuerial Learning calls for Integrative Thinking

Are you like me on this? You have a stack of books nearby your favorite workstation (in my case, a bedroom long vacated by my son Dave, now my home office). When in need of a treat, a break from that fecund Do List which ads tasks autonomically, you grab a half hour and dive into a book to see what smart people have to say about managerial and organizational behavior.

Today, my break was with Roger Martin's, The Opposable Mind. My place was near the end. He presents the "Art and Science of Generative Reasoning". He talks about how at the Rotman School (University of Toronto) he leads his MBS students into using their minds opposibly.

This passage struck me: "We teach them how to seek insights that don't fit into the existing models. Then we ask them to proceed from those insights to visualize new models (the root of entrepreneurial learning). We also teach them how to prototype and refine their mental models, gathering additional data with each interaction."

What they say next is a message to all of us management educators. "Many students find it scary, and somewhat transgressive, to flex their abuctive logic muscles, having been taught to see deductive and inductive logic as the only legit mate forms of reasoning."

Comment, please. Are we the unwitting source of this Mind constraining teaching? Or, can and do we teach in ways that encourage learners to create their own models of how their work works (so far)?

What if it were to be blank?

I pause to think about what it might mean to experience a moment of entreprenuerial learning. I glance over at the Hitt et al OB text my students are reading this semester. I am proud to say I worked on that project for Wiley developing the teaching/learning guide. That plug given, here is the point of the title of this posting. What if a student were to turn the page of this text and find the next one blank? Would he or she feel rooked? Look to see if it resumes were she left off on the previous page of material? Would this breach have stopped the OB learning? Not if there were what I think of as the sort of learning we need to encourage. There were be intrigue. "How did the publisher allow this gaff? Or, is it a gaff? What if the white space were placed there just to tell me to pause and think over what was just read? Or, while I am at this spot, I might as well ask myself if there is not a better way to put this information into my head. An e-book? Not yet. I like to flip pages and mark them up. Hmm, what about an e-book that has pages and saves the markings? Too nutty? Well, I guess I'd better plow on with this chapter. I wonder if there will be more blanks up ahead?"

I am tracking the knowledge/work day of an older student right now. He is posting daily journals giving me an 7AM - 5PM accounting of significant moments. I mention this because he actually relishes the times when the clock ticks over onto the workplace equivalent of a blank page in his stored knowledge. He is in a high-tech, global manufacturing company coordinating now product development. When presented with a situation of unprecedented challenges, he seems to not panic, instead, to rub his mental hands together and dive into the newness of it all. He doing entreprenuerial learning because his position in the firm calls for entreprenuerial practice. There a lots of blank pages when you are learning your way across a day of surprises.

Pumped!

I am pumped! I just came back from opening still another semester of teaching. In this case, it is Business Organizational Behavior, a core course for our Management majors. The first semester I taught my first OB courses was Fall 1973. Yes, 1973. That was over 35 years ago - more years than many of you, my fellow teachers, have lived. Yet, I am pumped. I just plain love designing and running my classes. I tweak what worked from last time and install risky new practices to learn what might work better this time. I had 58 fresh faces looking at me this morning, some hopeful, some expressionless, some worried. My designs are entrepreneurial. Different that what most are used to in an undergraduate college course. For them to succeed, they need embrace the differences and let it fuel their learning.

I open the class with the "Dawn of Man" scene from Kubrick's' film of Arthur C.Clarke's sci fi novel, 2001: a Space Oddessey. The point is to show that before our species developed what I call a Mind for Managing, they just let life happen to them (and death happen to them, as in being eaten by a saber-toothed leopard). When they dare to encounter and learn about the obelisk that appeared in their space over night, it ignited imaginations which led to the invention of tools and weapons - ways to make life last a bit longer and go a bit better each day. The "beat goes on eons later - still making products and rendering services to make life last longer and go better each day. Nice cause.

Yes, the first day back to classes reminds this old veteran how fortunate I am, all of us are, to have this rare opportunity to start fresh and become better at our craft.

If you are out there, will you offer comment on your first day back to the classroom?

Hearing from the grads

A large number of our students graduated in December. I am hearing now from several who are either asking me for a reference or telling me about being hired for a job. It is these moments that frame all we do as teachers. Yes, yes, I know, we are not working in vocational schools. It is not all about jobs. Or is it? Were we professors of theatre, our graduates, hopefully, would work in the state or before the camera. Our learners will practice jobs. Jobs become their stages. They "stage" their professional and managerial work by enacting their interpretation of the requirements of the job. I think we prepare them, as entrepreneurial learners, to stage jobs that produce so much value to stakeholders that they flourish in their careers. I just read Tim's e-mail. He has been hired by Enterprise. He took three undergraduate courses with me. My hope and expectation is that how Tim practice this job will amaze the Enterprise management. "Give us more from Tim's School. Look what he can do with this job!". Tim wins. Enterprise wins, and we who taught Tim win.

What are you hearing and learning from your recent grads?

The day after January 15

The day after our final deadline, January 15th, we have 208 submissons. Each have had or will have 3 independent peer reviewes; some 4, when I felt I needed another assessment. 183 of our colleagues have completed or are currently completing over 625 reviews. I see in those documents and bios that OBTC 2008 is attracting a wonderfully diverse, energetic, reflectie community of management educators ready to share lessons learned inside those sessions and in every nook and cranny of time from Wednesday night, June 11 until we close Saturday afternoon, June 14. Babson College or Bust.

Nearly done reviewing

This is the text of an e-mail being sent to our over 175 volunteer reviewers. We are almost there!

"Subject: OBTC 2008 Reviewing Nearly Done

Today, Tuesday, January 15, 2008 is the final deadline for OBTC 2008 session proposals. Over 150 of them are fully reviewed, or pending a fourth opinion. I am assigning reviewers to the last batch of about 15 that are in or I expect will be in by the end of the 15th. Unless I have a need for a fourth opinion, that will be it. No more calls for reviews cropping up in your mailboxes!

Our goal was to be able to notify all of our colleagues on the outcome of their proposals by the end of January, so that travel plans can be made.

This sets us up to design the bulk of the Program in February. Colleagues will have more time to polish their sessions and submit them to a Proceedings can be handed out at check in.

We had over 175 colleagues volunteer to review. All had at least 3 to review. Some kindly reviewed as many as 6. This gave us extraordinary coverage of each. In that we had many more proposed sessions than space and time would allow, it was indispensible to have such cogent evaluations made in advance of deciding on acceptances.

I will thanking each of you again, but perhaps the thanks you need now is to learn that we are almost done!"

Progress

The first wave of decsions on the proposed sessions has been made. Notices will be mailed by Monday, the 14th. There are proposals still under consideration that were posted by the first call deadline. Those went out for further review. Those submittted more recently are under review. Notices on both sets will be sent as soon as the review process allows. That said, it is shaping up to be a fascinating conference.

Reviews are essential

Spending most of the last three days and evenings working up through the proposals for sessions, I have come to more fully realize what a vital service our 178 OBTC reviewers are giving us. The ratings are important, no doubt about it, however, the constructive and detailed comments to the author(s) and to the Program decision makers are essential. One mind, even mine that has been marinated in over 40 years of OB teaching, reading, writing and presenting, could not possibly provide the thoughtful, insightful attention each deserves. We are giving each proposal three blind reviews. More, when I see issues that need one more point of view to settle my mind on a go, no go decision. Many of you who see this post are among our reviewers. Please know that your timely attention to this opportunity to shape OBTC 2008 makes this critical step in our building process almost pleasant! Thank you.

Where we are in the process

Our Last Call for proposals due January 15th went out late last week. In the meantime, most of the over 160 session proposals submitted to date are under review or have been reviewed. Those reviewed are being considered this week for acceptance. Notices on those decisions will be e-mailed from the OBTC 2008 site early next week.

Old Wine in New Bottles?

Forgive the cliche, but I just got through reading Gary Hamel's newest book - The Future of Management, a Harvard Business Press publication (2007).

The "old wine" is what he calls conventional management theory. Principles, mind sets, mental models, it all clusters around us teaching hierarchy as an uncontested given.

"New bottles" would be entreprenuerial teaching, learning, and practice. To be different in each venture - teaching, learning, doing - would it not require management to be conceptualized to guide and energize being different?

I loaned Hamel's book to a colleague today, so I cannot do justice to the innovations of management (theory) itself that he helps the reader envision. His awowed purpose was to ignite our thinking about our most deeply held assumption, even convictions, about how to best organize human endeavor to bring out the best in all concerned.

My point in posting this tonight is to place a bookmark where "new and better management theory" ought to be factored in to our conversation on line and at OBTC 2008.

158 proposals

Here is an update on submissions to OBTC 2008. We have 158 proposals for sessions. The average authorship is 2. Thus, we have potential of 316 attendees from this pool, should all be accepted. There are under blind review. Some will not meet our criteria, many, perhaps most will. During the first two weeks of January, those fully reviewed will be notified via the OBTC 2008 Web-based system of the decision. It is an exciting moment. With January 15th being the final deadline, we may have nearly 200 sessions to consider for around 120 time slots. Stay tuned.