Results for STRAMGT

This course examines fundamental issues of general management and leadership within an organization. You will learn about setting an organization's strategic direction, aligning structure to implement strategy, and leading individuals within the firm. You will master concepts, frameworks, and tools to assess an industry and a firm's competitive environment, and to craft alternatives. You will study the interplay among formal structure, informal networks, and culture in shaping organizational performance. By integrating leadership theory, the lessons of practical application, and your own experience, you will develop skills and capabilities essential to leading others. And you'll gain a better understanding of your own leadership preferences, strengths, and weaknesses.

In the Managerial Skills Labs we examine several common managerial challenges faced by executives. Together with Faculty, students explore these topics using four case examples, each asking students to evaluate a series of situations, develop alternatives for their resolution, and ultimately recommend and implement a course of action from the point of view of the company's owner/manager. We have selected small to midsized businesses as the context for these discussions in order to highlight the impact that key decisions and their implementation can have on the broader organization. Class preparation should include not only analysis and conclusions, but also specific recommendations on implementation. Students should come to class prepared to role play important conversations between management and other key individuals.

Generative Leadership: How to Create Innovative Ideas and Convey Them with ImpactnnThere are three major sections to this course - Design Thinking, The Improvisational Mindset, and High Performance Communication.nnDesign ThinkingnnOutcome:nParticipants learn to employ User Centered Design as promoted by the Stanford d.school. They become adept at Empathizing with the end user, practicing focused Need Finding, Defining the Problem, Ideating, Rapidly Prototyping and Adapting to Feedback.nnExperiences:nParticipants learn the Design Thinking process through a hands-on, collaborative design challenge, like redesigning the Briefcase for a specific user.nnThe Improvisational MindsetnnOutcome:nThe participants increase their ability to respond flexibly to novel situations and to generate innovative solutions on a collaborative, creative team. The mindset is cultivated by practicing 5 key principles. Say "Yes, and". Treat Mistakes as Gifts. Inspire your Partner. Dare to be Obvious. Notice the World.nnExperiences:nThe key principles are taught through a series of immersive theater exercises derived from Johnstone, Spolin, and Ryan. Valuable readings include IMPROV WISDOM, by Patricia Ryan and journal articles on improv and brainstorming.nnHigh Performance CommunicationnnOutcome:nThe final segment of the class is a chance to apply the principles of User Centered Design and the Improvisational Mindset to design and deliver messages that go beyond just transmitting information - they get results. Participants successfully use a version of the Design Thinking process to rapidly develop content that is tuned to the audience's needs, and that they can deliver in a way that is agile and responsive to real time feedbacknnExperiencesnGenerative Leadership culminates in a group presentation designed to influence key stakeholders. To be successful, participants will have to draw on all sections of the course. AS WE SPEAK is our text.

The purpose of this course is to provide students with insights into the newest innovations in healthcare service delivery, information technology, biotech and medical devices and how venture and private equity investors evaluate and determine where to invest their money among these areas to maximize return, minimize risk, and capitalize on a highly fluid marketplace that represents nearly 20% of the U.S. GDP. Through presentations by leading entrepreneurs in the field, students will be challenged to reach conclusions regarding which healthcare sectors are the most promising for venture investing and which individual companies presented reflect the best opportunities, particularly in light of the seismic shifts currently underway within the healthcare industry driven by both public and private considerations. This is not primarily a finance class, but more substantively about the nuances of emerging healthcare businesses and venture finance as applied to this very unique sector.

The primary objective of this course is to introduce students to the fundamentals of how to sell and to what selling is truly about. The course is appropriate for anyone who wants to understand and show proficiency with the skills required by different selling situations (e.g., direct sales of products and services, selling oneself in an interview, raising money for a new venture, running a company as CEO, etc.). The course looks at the entire selling process of lead generation, prospecting, qualification, discovery, understanding value, customizing presentations, objection handling, negotiation and closing. This is not a typical GSB case-study-based course. Students who have taken the class describe it as a hands-on, practical, skills-based class. Students will work by themselves and together in groups to complete individual and team-based exercises designed to introduce them to and give them practice with selling fundamentals in each stage of the selling process. Students will be practicing and utilizing newly learned skills in real life each week; the focus will be on doing stuff (e.g., using curiosity in a situation outside the classroom) rather than thinking about and talking about stuff. Students will then come together in class with the instructors to share and process the learning from these exercises.nn

This course is offered for students who at some time may want to undertake an entrepreneurial career by pursuing opportunities leading to partial or full ownership and control of a business. The course deals with case situations from the point of view of the entrepreneur/manager rather than the passive investor. Many cases involve visitors, since the premise is that opportunity and action have large idiosyncratic components. Students must assess opportunity and action in light of the perceived capabilities of the individuals and the nature of the environments they face. The course is integrative and will allow students to apply many facets of their business school education. Each section will have a specific focus, please select the instructor(s) with your interests: Leslie, Rachleff - High tech ventures; Ellis, Chambers, Childs - Diverse types of ventures; Foster - Diverse types of ventures; Siegel, Brady - High tech emphasis, but diverse types of ventures; Reiss, Chess - Very early stage ventures.

This course is offered for students who, in the near term, aspire to the management and full or partial ownership of a new or newly-acquired business. The seminar, which is limited to 45 students, has a strong implementation focus, and deals in some depth with certain selected, generic entrepreneurial issues, viewed from the perspective of the owner/manager. Broad utilization is made of case materials, background readings, visiting experts, and role playing. Throughout the course, emphasis is placed on the application of analytical tools to administrative practice.

Startup Garage is an intensive hands-on, project-based course, in which students will apply the concepts of design thinking, engineering, finance, business and organizational skills to design and test new business concepts that address real world needs . Our aspiration is to help teams identify an unmet customer need, design new products or services that meet that need, and develop business models to support the creation and launch of startup products or services. Even those teams that do not successfully launch a venture, or individuals who decide not to move forward, will learn critical, cutting-edge techniques about starting and launching a venture. Collaborative, multi-disciplinary teams will identify and work with users, domain experts, and industry participants to identify and deeply understand customer needs, then proceed to design products or services and a business model to address those needs. Each team will conceive, design, build, and field-test critical aspects of both the product or service and the business model. This course is offered by the Graduate School of Business. It integrates methods from human-centered design, lean startup, and business model planning. The course focuses on developing entrepreneurial skills (using short lectures and in-class exercises) and then applying these skills to specific problems faced by those users identified by the teams. Teams will get out of the building and interact directly with users and advisers to develop a deep understanding of the challenges they face and to field test their proposed services, products, and business models.

This course seeks to provide a survey of the strategic, governance, and management issues facing a wide range of nonprofit organizations and their executive and board leaders, in the era of venture philanthropy and social entrepreneurship. The students will also be introduced to core managerial issues uniquely defined by this sector such as development/fundraising, investment management, performance management and nonprofit finance. The course also provides an overview of the sector, including its history and economics. Cases involve a range of nonprofits, from smaller, social entrepreneurial to larger, more traditional organizations, including education, social service, environment, health care, religion, NGO's and performing arts. In exploring these issues, this course reinforces the frameworks and concepts of strategic management introduced in the core first year courses. In addition to case discussions, the course employs role plays, study group exercises and many outsider speakers.

This course focuses on the strategic management of technology-based innovation in the firm. The purpose is to provide students with concepts, frameworks, and experiences that are useful for taking part in the management of innovation processes in both startups and large technology-focused organizations. The course examines how leaders can manage fast-changing technological innovations effectively. Specific topics include: assessing the innovative capabilities of the firm, managing the technical function in a company, navigating the interfaces between functional groups in the development function in the firm, understanding and managing technical entrepreneurs, building technology-based distinctive competencies and competitive advantages, technological leadership versus followership in competitive strategy, institutionalizing innovation, attracting and keeping entrepreneurs.

This seminar provides the opportunity for students to study the structure and dynamics of the U.S. health care industry, and some of the ways it intersects with the global health care industry. The U.S. health care industry represents over 15 percent of the nation's GDP and is rapidly changing as a result of government regulatory reform enacted in 2010. The seminar's aim is to develop participants' ability to create strategically informed action plans that are imaginative, inspiring and workable in this highly dynamic environment. The seminar's pedagogy involves informed debate to evaluate and hone well-researched views by the participants and instructors, as well as the writing and presentation of position papers by small groups of seminar participants on the key dynamics of the industry. In the course of the seminar discussions, we aim to deepen our understanding of strategic dynamics and transformational change at the societal, industry and organizational levels of analysis. After developing a complete picture of the structure of the health care industry and the strategic relationships among the key players - the strategic landscape -, the seminar will focus on how health care reform and other external forces will affect the strategic opportunities and challenges of four types of players in the strategic landscape: (1) Incumbents (e.g., pharmaceutical companies, hospital companies, insurance companies); (2) entrepreneurial startups (e.g., home monitoring, genetic testing companies, information services); (3) cross-boundary disruptors (e.g., health clinics, Wal-Mart, Cisco, Google); and (4) international health care providers (e.g. in Mexico, India, Thailand) Four student teams will be formed to focus on one of the four types of players. Each team will prepare a research paper focused on determining how their type of player can take advantage of the regulatory, technological, social, cultural and demographic changes, and who will be the likely winners and why. During the first round of discussions (sessions 2-5) all participants will take part in examining the different parts of the competitive landscape. During the second round (sessions 6-9), the different teams will present their research findings and perspectives about the strategic opportunities and threats which exist. As part of the second set of sessions, the instructors will bring in domain experts to further augment the discussion.

This case-based course is offered for students who want to refine their ability to manage challenging professional conversations. The class, which is limited to 32 students, will focus on the preparation for and execution of role-played dialogue as well as on postmortem analysis. Most of the respondent roles will be external to one's company, and some will be front line or mid-level people with limited educational credentials. Broad utilization will be made of background readings plus visiting case protagonists and experts. There will be nine class sessions, each of one hour and forty-five minutes.

This seminar provides students with practical solutions to some of the challenges faced in family business transitions.nnFamily businesses are by far the dominant form of commerce world-wide, albeit the majority are small "mom and pop shops." Some research shows that large businesses, whatever the form of ownership, have an average lifespan of around forty years, while small businesses (at least in Japan and Europe) average around twelve years. So, if businesses in general do not survive, then it is a wonder that any family business can survive from one generation to another, let alone two, three, four or more.nnThere are three essential requirements to succeed in a family business transition. First, it may seem obvious that the business must succeed, but it is less obvious what advantages a family business has over its non-family-owned counterparts. Second, the ownership structure must effectively maintain family cohesion and support the business. Finally, family members need to organize in thoughtful ways to work effectively with one another.nnThe beauty of a family business is that it can be more profitable than companies with non-family ownership. Two fundamentals, at least, provide this advantage - a strong value system and a long-term economic perspective. The operative word above, however, is "can"; it is by no means a foregone conclusion that a family business will be more successful. Families must thoughtfully develop their advantages, while at the same time avoiding the pitfalls that are inherent in any family business.nnAccordingly, this course is offered for students whose families own a family business or who are interested in the special challenges faced by family businesses. International students are encouraged to register as different cultural perspectives to family business will enrich the experience for everyone. Particular focus will be given to the transitions from one generation to another and the lessons learned that can be applied during the entire life of the business.

For aspiring entrepreneurs who don't have a burning idea or desire to start a company from scratch, acquiring a small business can provide a direct route to running and growing a business. This class will explore entrepreneurial acquisition (EA). As the course covers topics such as what makes a good industry, raising capital, how to source deals, dealing with investors, due diligence, and negotiation, the course is also applicable to those interested in private equity, venture capital, start-ups, and general management. The class relies heavily on the case method, and each class includes guests (often the case protagonists) who bring practical and current experience to the classroom. The two group projects are intended to be highly practical, simulating real-world situations. Professors Dodson and Kelly each have over 20 years of experience in the subject matter.

How do you get the best new social innovations to reach the hundreds of millions of people who need it the most? And how do ensure that they are developed, deployed and scaled in a way that is relevant, appropriate and sustainable?nnInnovators tackling the world's most difficult problems often ignore, misunderstand, and under-invest in the critical business challenges involved in crossing "the middle of the value chain." This is innovation's valley of death: product and system adaption and evaluation; evidence generation and design validation; formal or informal regulatory approval and registration. How do you design, introduce, and optimize the intervention's uptake before it can be taken to scale by markets, governments or other systems? nThe class is taught be Steve Davis, President & CEO of PATH (www.path.org), the leader in global health innovation, and former global Director of Social Innovation at McKinsey & Company. nnWe take an inter-disciplinary approach to look at the factors that pull innovation forward, push it from behind, and (often to the world's detriment) block its successful implementation and scaling. First grounding the discussion in research on innovation and social change, we then apply business principles, real world experiences and several important case studies in global health to examine the way good ideas get stuck, and how good ideas can turn into innovation that matters. We focus on root causes for failure, success factors, and business practices and tools to enable millions of lives to be impacted by social innovation. The seminar combines lectures, case studies, visiting practitioners and team projects focused on the business case for scaling specific social innovations. The goal is to help the next generation of social innovation leaders think more about some of the mistakes of the past, lessons for the future, and new ways of approaching old problems, all from a practitioner's point of view.

As technology-driven ventures are having more and more impact, entrepreneurial ecosystems have been emerging in recent years in developing economies. Following the lead of Silicon Valley, these newly formed industry networks that include universities, incubators and accelerator programs, angel investor networks and venture capital firms can now support local entrepreneurs and innovation better than ever before. As these economies grow and get more connected, exciting opportunities arise across markets and industries such as replicating a successful business model, leapfrogging the last technology, targeting the base of the pyramid or starting a venture capital firm. Despite the fertile ground for new endeavors, entrepreneurs face particular challenges and risks that they would not encounter in Silicon Valley.nnThis case driven course will include the participation of investors and entrepreneurs that have seized these opportunities across the world. By taking this course, you will be better equipped to observe and explain emerging ecosystems and the opportunities they present. It is targeted towards students who are thinking about creating or investing in new ventures in emerging markets.

This six-session 2-point Bass seminar will involve students (maximum 20) in using strategic thinking to analyze the evolution of the semiconductor industry through the eyes of several key companies. The purpose of the seminar is to help students sharpen their skills in strategic recognition and in leading strategic change in large complex systems where technology trends play a major role in business outcomes. While the instructors will provide relevant pre-readings related to these topics, students will be expected to complement these materials with their own research of theoretical and empirical sources. After an initial lecture reviewing tools and industry dynamics, class discussions will focus on the situations of specific industry leaders. For the first 90 minutes of each of the next four sessions, we will be joined by a C-level executive from a leading semiconductor player to discuss his or her perspectives. Students will be expected to help structure the discussion and move it forward toward conclusions. Students will organize into 3-4 teams each focused on one of the sub-sectors or companies and prepare a five-to-ten page group report and present their most important findings and conclusions during the last class.

This six-session 2-point Bass seminar will involve students (maximum 18) in analyzing the emerging global electric automotive industry by focusing on: (1) The electric automotive industry in the U.S. and Europe, (2) the electric automotive industry in Japan and Korea, and (3) the electric automotive industry in China. We will each time examine the strategies of the key automotive companies as well as that of the government and other key players such as infrastructure providers. The purpose of the seminar is to help students sharpen their skills in identifying facilitating and impeding forces of strategic change, and in assessing and estimating the direction and rate of strategic change. While the instructors will provide relevant pre- readings related to these topics, students will be expected to complement these materials with their own research of theoretical and empirical sources. They will also be expected to help structure the discussion and move it forward toward conclusions. Students will organize into three teams each focused on one of the regions and prepare a five-to-ten page group report of their most important findings and conclusions that extend current knowledge.