The best organizations in every field maintain an edge by identifying trends, responding to market demand and by introducing the concept of cross-enterprise leadership in their curriculum.

And one of the world's top business schools is doing that.

"The days of a finance person or an engineer always rising to the top in certain organizations are gone," said Carol Stephenson, dean of the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.

"Companies now need leaders with a depth of background knowledge and peripheral vision. Decision making is easier if you have that."

Dr Stephenson said that the school had devised a unique approach to teaching based on using complex case studies that involved diverse aspects of finance, marketing, IT, organizational structure, operations and commercial strategy.

The cases focus on Asian and North American companies and put the spotlight on key business themes such as entrepreneurship, innovation, expansion in emerging markets and managing sustainable growth.

Examining all the different angle presents an intellectual challenge and is a true reflection of the choices, challenges and problems facing any modern business.

It is also guaranteed to stimulate interactive discussion in the classroom, giving students the chance to jump in with ideas, comments and practical observations drawn from their own professional experience.

The cross-enterprise concept sprang from an internal strategy review the school conducted in 2005.

The review's aim was to see if the established curriculum for MBA and EMBA courses was providing what students and employers required.

"The business world is changing at quite a clip but business schools are traditionally slow to change.

"We took a look to se if we were really equipping business leaders with what they need," Dr Stephenson said.
The process involved talking to alumni, senior executives dealing with global issues, and employers in finance, investment banking and management consultancy, which attracted many Ivey graduates.

Each respondent described the type of issues they had to tackle in the Workplace and the range of skills they saw as most essential.

Managers in charge of recruitment gave very clear feedback.

Their general view was that business schools tended to spend too much time on running spreadsheets and not enough on the soft skills needed to lead and motivate others.

They said the best candidates were those with a broader perspective, good interpersonal skills and the ability to think" outside the silo".

The consensus that emerged was that people in, say marketing or product development had to understand the full implications and impact of what they were doing. They had to understand what was happening in the rest off the company and in the industry. Only then could they "think like a CEO" and see how an acquisition or a new product launch would affect everything from costs and revenue to marketing and IT.

Noting this, a team of Ivey faculty members set about developing a new curriculum and individual course modules, with less emphasis on the standard teaching of separate business functions.

They jointly selected and wrote up new case studies and now co-operate on teaching them.

Therefore, during a four-hour class, a finance professor might kick off presenting one perspective, but a marketing or organizational behavior specialist would later step in, leading the discussion towards other equally important aspects of the case.

"The feedback has been excellent," said Dr Stephenson, who was chief executive of Lucent in Canada before taking up her present position in 2003.

"Students really like the cross-enterprise approach and find the way they learn the issues is very beneficial," she said.

Ivey's EMBA classes in Hong Kong will use the same approach from August.

However, rather than having two or three teachers in one class as in Canada, one professor familiar with the details of each case will highlight problem areas and alternative strategies for consideration.

"Teaching a business issue is a lot more complex." Dr Stephenson said. "But that's how something comes at you in the real world; not as separate problems involving just marketing, finance or people."

She added that a module on building leadership style had also been incorporated in the curriculum.

This includes role-plays and emphasizes the need to be authentic, while learning one's strengths and weaknesses.

The module extends to covering leadership in times of crisis, allowing students to wrestle with examples such as dealing with the aftermath of a major oil spill.

While advocating the advantages of the cross-enterprise approach, Dr Stephenson noted that it might not suit everyone. "If you want to be the best hedge fund manager in the world this is not the place to study," she said.

"But if you want transferable skills for different industries, or the breadth of experience to be one of the next generations of global leaders, then we can definitely help."

She also said that other business schools were following Ivey's lead by introducing their versions of "cross-functional" teaching.

"To some degree it takes a group of people and a leader who are willing to take a risk," Dr Stephenson said.

"You need to get the faculty excited about embracing the change and not just doing the same old thing.

"It's not a slamdunk for every business school to do what we did."

Fascinating case study focuses on corporate social responsibility

Of the several hundred case studies used in the Ivey EMBA programme, one favourite of Coral Stephenson's the dean of the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, concerns pharmaceutical giant Merck. It centres on decisions the company faced when considering whether to invest in a drug to cure river blindness, a disease afflicting some of the world's poorest people.

In class discussions, students look at the case from multiple perspectives. They consider, for example, the financial aspect of developing a product which is almost certain to be unprofitable; the element of corporate social responsibility; the duty to protect shareholders' interests and the dimension of organizational behavior.

Some students take the "strictly business' point of view, which sees no sense in pursuing a project with little prospect of a return on investment. Others argue that big organizations should give something back, saying that healthy profits from other products can more than offset expected losses.

Then, there are various compromise positions. These perhaps recognize that going ahead will enhance the company's image, but aim to set an upper limit on the amount spent.

"It makes for a very good debate," said Dr Stephenson. "it is a fascinating and moving case, and students really remember it. In the end, the company went ahead to make the drug."

Dr Stephenson was reminded of the relevance of the case on a recent holiday in Costa Rica. When a family member got dengue fever, a debilitating mosquito-one disease affecting millions a year, it became clear there was no quick and effective cure.

"The disease is not fatal and is normally found in poor rural communities," she said." But it is amazing that no one has developed something for this. The pharmaceutical companies say "where's the market?' and don't want to touch it."

South China Morning Post
March 6, 2007