Thought Leadership, Business Leadership, Community Leadership

Transcription

1 Thought Leadership, Business Leadership, Community Leadership Living Up to Our Legacy: The Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business MBA Capstone Course Submission to the MBA Roundtable Innovator Award Program September 27, 2012

2 THE SPIRIT OF JESSE H. JONES AND OUR MISSION The most powerful person in the nation during the Great Depression and World War II next to Franklin Roosevelt was not a member of the president s Brain Trust; he was not a Wall Street figure, a military man, or a college graduate. He was Jesse Jones, an entrepreneur from Texas with an eighth-grade education who built the bulk of Houston s downtown during the first half of the twentieth century and who became such a uniquely powerful appointed official that he was rightly known by many as the fourth branch of government. Roosevelt even called him Jesus Jones. i Named in honor of the late Jesse Holman Jones, the aforementioned prominent Houston business and civic leader, the Jones Graduate School of Business (JGSB) at Rice University received its initial funding in 1974 through a major gift from the Houston Endowment Inc., a philanthropic foundation established by Jones and his wife, Mary Gibbs Jones. Full-time MBA, MBA for Professionals, and MBA for Executives degree programs are offered, as well as a Ph.D. program, undergraduate Business Minor and full range of non-degree executive education or customized business courses. CONCEPT: THE SPIRIT BECOMES ACTION Here at the JGSB, we take our name and the legacy of Jesse H. Jones seriously and are committed to our mission: We Excel at Developing Principled, Innovative Thought Leaders in Global Communities. The seeds of the Capstone program were sown with the need for an action learning/capstone-type experience for the Professional and Executive MBA students. That s when the spirit of our mission and the legacy of Jesse H. Jones took hold and we asked, We live in the fourth-largest, most-diverse city in the nation with a global presence. How do we (the JGSB family) use this opportunity to not just be in the Houston community, but rather have a recognizable impact on it and be principled, innovative, and experienced Houston community leaders? Five years later, the program has blossomed into a top-rated course at the Jones School, a competitive consulting services entity to the non-profit community, and a proud, visible realization of our school s mission. The Capstone program is an innovative, academic course that brings together teams of students to develop detailed, end-to-end strategic plans for Houston not-for-profit community organizations with critical challenges, such as major growth plans, turnaround strategies, and new ventures by the organization. Building the whole professional, it gives Professional and Executive MBA students the opportunity to learn in the classroom how to apply their theory and concepts to a real-world problem and then actually do it outside of the for-profit corporate and traditional classroom settings. Offered only in the spring semester of the second year, it is a 3-credit requirement for graduation that integrates the Jones School s commitment to innovative education and civic engagement directly into the programs curriculum. The Capstone course has been designed to provide value to three important constituents: the students, the school, and the Houston community. We believe that serving all three constituents builds long-lasting relationships which flourish in a self-fulfilling virtuous circle. And, we see its impact growing with a compounding effect as each year a new group of lifelong community leaders are produced. Finally, the program seeks big strategic challenges. As David VanHorn, Adjunct Professor of Management and lead for the Capstone program comments, We do not shy away from tough problems; instead, we purposefully take them on. Capstone was not developed to focus on the narrow or tactical it was developed to tackle the big and strategic and to make us a change engine in our community. Capstone was started with a 3-day pilot program in 2008 with a small group of Professional MBA students to test several course delivery concepts and then fully launched in Today, in , it will serve almost 240 students in a semester-long, core curriculum course and work with 24 community organizations on mission-critical strategic plans. It is fully scalable each year - both up and down - based upon enrollment in the Professional and Executive MBA programs. The course design is also easily transferrable to a full-time MBA program and/or serving the for-profit community, though potential student conflicts of interest should be carefully monitored. The small-business community is an ideal target market and the course could also be used as a start-up business plan incubator for entrepreneurial students. 1

3 Capstone is an innovative melding of academic, strategy consulting, and non-profit worlds. There are several factors that we believe make this distinctive to other national or international action-based educational programming, including: Exclusive use of not-for-profit community organizations as laboratories for projects these organizations are slightly different environments than the corporate ones students that are familiar to students, though they have very similar strategy and management problems that allows students to translate this experience into application to their professional careers. This makes concept application more challenging, but still highly relevant. High-level differences between non-profits/for-profits are discussed through lectures. Strong commitment to student academic growth in this course in short, we want students to maximize their learning opportunity. We aggressively look to close the gap between core curriculum theory and their real-world application. Rather than just passively sending students to do a project, we actively work with them to build content and experiential knowledge and look for the assurance of learning in their work. The contact time and interaction with Capstone faculty can be higher than some traditional academic courses. Commitment to consistent, professional-level excellence in the assignment and deliverables expectations are set high for the assignments, but the students are also guided through templates, examples, and instructor coaching that reflects their professional experience. The Capstone community organizations deserve and recognize this level of quality; they regard the program as a competitive provider of non-profit consulting services. This level of performance is achieved across the full-range of MBA students in each class, as opposed to a self-selecting elective group with an affinity/experience in strategy consulting PROCESS & EXECUTION: THE COMMITMENT TO CIVIC ENGAGEMENT AS EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING The Capstone program can be compared to a machine that runs on four interlocking gears: 1) cases and community organizations; 2) the students; 3) the assignments; and 4) instruction, faculty, and learning opportunities. To be successful, each of these gears needs to run smoothly in a live-action environment supporting critical needs for all parties involved: community organizations use it for their strategic planning; students must pass to graduate and want to maximize their learning in their last semester; and the Jones School must maintain its reputation in the community and with corporations who have Board members at the organizations. Thus, a formal risk management plan and process is wrapped around the gears to detect and address issues as early as possible. Cases and Community Organizations: The Capstone program s reputation in the community has quickly grown demand to exceed the supply of student teams, so an application/selection process determines each year s portfolio of cases. Capstone faculty work directly with potential organizations to scope cases that meet organization needs and are complex, enterprise strategic challenges to support the course. The optimal portfolio of selected cases balances causes and types of cases; e.g., growth strategies, stabilization strategies, turnarounds, replication, and new major program strategies. Student non-profit start-up ideas have been built into cases. Each selected organization will collaborate with Capstone faculty to build a standardized, 8-10 page written case document with detailed background and the problem statement. This is a launching pad to quickly ramp-up the teams at the start of the semester. However, no organization that applies is left behind if not selected, they are deferred for a year or immediate support is arranged through local consulting organizations (e.g., United Way). Students: Capstone is team-based with 4-6 students working together on one case for the entire semester. Students participate in selecting teams and the programs are not inter-mixed to provide a good foundation for high performing teams. Uniquely, 2-3 teams are assigned to each case to solve it independently. Diversity of team interests allows assignment of their first or second case choice ~80-85% of the time and teams from different programs may work the same case. The community organizations love this facet of the program, since they get 2-3 different solutions and find value in both the commonalities and differences across the solutions. Finally, a rigorous competition is run within each program for the Owl Award which goes to the top teams based on composite grade score. The teams work closely and collaboratively with their community partners and Capstone instructors. They learn to use a wide variety of techniques to thoroughly understand the organization/cause and develop their solutions, including individual interviews, focus groups, workshops, market/customer research, and field observation (Board meetings, program service delivery, etc.). Capstone teams pour their heart and countless hours into their projects; VanHorn observes, We spark something in January with each team that turns into a blazing fire in them to make a difference with their community partner, to learn by doing, and naturally to win the competition! It s exciting and extremely fulfilling to go on this journey with each team and organization each year. 2

4 Assignments: The course s five graded assignments build a comprehensive solution assessment, strategy, detailed designs, and implementation plans - for the community partners from January-May. Students are provided templates and best practice examples from previous years to accelerate their work. The templates show high-level deliverable structure, so teams focus their time and creativity on content development and organizations see consistent, professional consulting firm-quality deliverables. The examples stimulate student thinking with best practices for content needs, analyses, presentation styles, design, etc. Faculty, Instruction, and Learning Opportunities: The quality and quantity of instruction is a differentiating factor for the Capstone program. The two-pronged strategy outlined below uses broad-based instruction through lectures and focused team-based instruction. Both approaches have their advantages, but the team-based instruction is especially impactful with the students. Each Capstone instructor takes lead on a specific case to allow them the time to immerse themselves in the specifics of the case and potential solutions. Naturally, that instructor will also take lead in working with the student teams assigned to that case. The optimal ratio is 5-6 teams (2 cases) per Capstone instructor. In addition, the case instructor will also maintain regular contact with the community organizations throughout the semester to manage the client relationship and help facilitate the process, as needed. In essence, Capstone faculty members wear two hats: professor and consulting firm partner. VanHorn, as lead Capstone professor, manages/administers the overall course, delivers lectures, and serves as case instructor. The instructor team is comprised of adjunct faculty with executive or strategy consulting experience, as well as some non-profit experience. Full-time JGSB faculty members are used as ad-hoc subject matter experts. This brings the real-world, practical experience from the adjuncts, while allowing full-time faculty to focus on their area of deep expertise and frees their time to fulfill their research and core course teaching demands. Active identification and follow-through on each student s set of learning objectives in the course is embedded directly into the program. All students will experience a core set of learning opportunities, such as application of core curriculum concepts and theories spanning the range of business school disciplines. However, the Capstone program s content is so diverse that students can choose to emphasize specific areas, in addition to the core set, that are critical to their professional growth and careers; e.g., project management and leadership, organization design, change management, market and competitor research, risk identification and mitigation, financial analysis and pro forma design, implementation planning, business case/value proposition design, services design and pricing, marketing planning and design, governance, development/fundraising, communications, operations & supply chain management, leadership capabilities assessment, organization lifecycle analysis, etc. Starting this year, each student s unique learning objectives will be formally identified and incorporated into the Research & Work Plan assignment. Though students are not specifically graded against these objectives, Capstone instructors will informally follow-up with them throughout the semester to confirm their progress and implicitly drive assurance of learning against them. OUTCOMES: THE ON-GOING IMPACT OF THE CAPSTONE PROGRAM Now entering its fifth year, the Capstone program will have taught over 900 MBA students and worked with over 75 Houston community organizations by the end of the school year. Its success can be seen through the impact that it has had with the students, community organizations, and the Jones School s presence in the community 3

5 STUDENTS COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS JONES SCHOOL Course ranked at top quartile of all JGSB courses over past 3 years On-going involvement with their Capstone organizations as alums: - Employed by organization - Board of Directors or Advisory Board member service - Fundraising event participation (e.g., galas, luncheons, etc.) - Ad-hoc project support by individuals or groups of alums - Workshops with organizations to integrate the multiple Capstone solutions into single plan The Rice Capstone provided my organization with valuable strategic insights which will make an impact on achieving our mission - 100% of Capstone participants strongly agreed with this statement Several organizations have already done multiple Capstone projects in back-to-back years; more have expressed interest for a 3-4 year follow-on cycle Very Likely to implement student recommendations - 73% of 2012 community partners, as of May 2012 From partner responses: - Implemented most recommendations (25%) - Implemented some recommendations (75%) It can also be seen through the words of our Capstone community partners: Multiple community recognitions and awards (e.g., Big Brothers Big Sisters named Rice University as one of its Key Community Partners in 2012) Estimated annual open-market value of services provided is $10-12M Provide more strategic planning projects and service hours to Houston community organizations than other consulting services provider in the area Capstone program has been a factor in admitted students decisions to attend the Jones School The Capstone program can continue to grow in the coming years by expanding the number of community organizations reached each year and adding more types of services through the program (e.g., implementation support); and, it will continue to push the frontiers of thinking for closing-the-loop methods (processes and effectiveness measures) and assurance of learning. Expansion may include opening the program to Jones School alumni as an additional source of capacity that allows more organizations to be served and a broader range of services provided. This would also provide more lifelong learning opportunities an opportunity sought by our alumni, while keeping the core of the program in the Jones School family. We feel that the Capstone program shows, through principle and practice, two important things that can impact the field of MBA education: Applied management is a critical academic discipline that should be actively taught in MBA programs. It connects traditional core disciplines to the real-world. The experiential component of the discipline must be rigorous and complemented with principles and methodologies. Strength in this capability is critical to recruiters and accelerating our students professional careers. The non-profit community can be an integral part of MBA education. As our namesake believed, business leaders should strive to be community leaders, where the community integrates business, non-profit, and public worlds. He recognized that the business world does not live in a bubble and addressing the global/local societal issues that have such a large impact on business must be done by leaders with experience in all of three of these worlds. Non-profit organizations offer students laboratories to hone management disciplines, strong role models to demonstrate world-class leadership, and unlimited opportunities to begin experiencing this part of the community. They are unique in that all of these learning opportunities are also avenues for service that directly provides an impact payback to our communities. In conclusion, we hope that you agree that the Capstone Course and Program at the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business is a curricular innovation that lives up to our namesake, legacy, and mission by producing valuable thought leadership through a commitment to business leadership that is grounded in community leadership. For more Information, please contact David VanHorn (281) , davanhorn27@yahoo.com. i Fenberg, Steven. Unprecedented Power: Jesse Jones, Capitalism, and the Common Good. College Station: Texas A&M UP, Print. 4