Interview with Darden Dean Robert Bruner(2)

2007-02-06 13:06:20 Zongxing[ Big Normal Small ]

　　
　　 Other kinds of modeling and statistical techniques will help practicing managers understand the world better. These techniques might not have been discovered had it not been for intellectuals, struggling with the problems of the world. Business schools serve a great mission by providing the deep research and inquiry that can help the practicing manager.
　　 Universities and business schools around the world are sometimes accused of being so-called “ivory towers,” that are totally shut off from the world of business where scholars only talk to each other. These scholars devote themselves to problems that are relatively uninteresting to the world of business. Such problems have little relevance to the world of practicing managers. The solution should be to leaven the mixture of faculty, to include some theorists as well as people who are deep practitioners who understand the problem of management. I don’t think it makes sense for faculty to consist only the theorists or only practitioners. Truly a good business school should be a blend, so that the two sides of the intellectual community have a conversation with each other of what might be the problems and what might be the solutions.

　　Z: What do you consider to be an optimal ratio?

　　B: I think that depends on each different school. The desirable outcome really depends on the quality of the conversation between the two sides. I will give you an example. We have an entrepreneurship discipline within business administration, which is a young field. It is a field that has one or two scholarly journals. It is describing what entrepreneurs do, how they think, what it takes to succeed. The qualities of this field in our school really depend on scholars who would like to listen to the practitioners. It also helps with practitioners who really love the world of ideas. So if you get the right personalities together, you can stimulate great exchange and great idea making.

　　Z: The Darden MBA education is based on case method of instruction. This earns it the reputation of “Small HBS” and “West point in B-school”. For me personally, I am a big fan of ancient Chinese military, therefore I would like to make an analogy: in order to become a great general, you have to know all the previous battles and the strategies used. The business world is also like a war, you have to understand the classical cases to better prepare for the business world today.

　　B: you are raising an excellent question. There are many metaphors we want to use to describe the business. Another metaphor is making music. Managing is like conducting symphony orchestra, which contains many virtuosos, many experts. But it takes a great deal of coordination and skills of leadership to get the orchestra to add together. You can talk about classical music which has rigid rules, and then you have jazz, which doesn’t have much rigidity but it brings people together to interact so brilliantly and create something that even composer can’t imagine.
　　 What makes a great leader? We might ask. I believe the leadership is defined in many ways. One of them is to recognize problems and opportunities. The great leaders should be able to shape vision and respond to the strategy. Again, military helps that as well. This requires strong communication skills. Being a leader, pointing people to different tasks, setting deadlines, help those people to operate at their best. Being a leader also means you have integrity so that you win the trust for the people who follow you.
　　In the military setting, you only have the lines of command and control. But in business, it’s like running a volunteer organization. Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, has 200 people in his sphere of control. They are so talented that everyday, they are constantly recruited by headhunters who would like to steal the talent from Jeff. So Jeff really needs to appeal to their sense of loyalty, excitement and engagement. You only do that by continuing to win the heart and mind of those people. Finally a great leader is an effective action-taker. They want to achieve things and get results.