At the Hankamer School of Business, we have examined our work as an institution and are pleased to present our new strategic plan narrative within this magazine issue. Not surprisingly, leadership is central to our mission statement:

We cultivate principled leaders and serve the global marketplace through transformational learning and impactful scholarship in a culture of innovation guided by Christian values.

You will read about several alumni whose dedication and character, combined with their experiences, have shaped them into successful business leaders. In our Leadership Perspective section, alumnus David Hill discusses his higher calling and how Christian business leaders can activate their faith in their daily lives.

Our students are gaining experience in business leadership roles as they create and manage start-ups, launch products and services, and generate sales in our Accelerated Ventures Program. You will learn about the Executive MBA program’s Global Strategic Management course, a unique offering where students travel to two international destinations and become immersed in the culture, business practices and polices of the country.

In accordance with our mission, associate professor Mitchell Neubert fulfills a significant role by teaching students about business ethics in his Principled Leadership course. Faculty members Christopher Meyer, Blaine McCormick and Chuck Fifield share insightful business strategy research, which they gleaned from a timeless game: rock-paper-scissors.

This issue also marks the 30^th anniversary of the Baylor Business Review. We thank you for your support and hope you continue to enjoy the magazine for years to come.

Terry S. Maness
Dean, Hankamer School of Business

by Eric Krell

A valuable role model for 21^st century business leaders demonstrated his strategic prowess 100 years ago, after a series of tactical errors left him and 27 of his direct reports stranded on an ice floe near Antarctica.

Once the British explorer Ernest Shackleton’s ship The Endurance was swallowed by sea ice, he quickly revamped the expedition’s mission and strategy, kept his people focused on their mission in an extremely volatile environment, maintained a sense of purpose throughout ranks despite brutal conditions and constantly improvised. His leadership ultimately (after nearly five months) enabled him to get all of his men home safely.

Similar leadership capabilities remain valuable in a 21^st century business environment defined by extreme volatility, brutal (and global) competition and a growing need for innovation, improvisation and perhaps above all, purpose.

“Beyond operating as a profitable business, many companies confront an enormous challenge defining what success means,” notes Kirk Coleman (BA ‘93), an Irving-based Accenture partner who advises the global consulting firm’s banking clients and serves as a member of the Baylor Angel Network and the Hankamer School of Business Advisory Board. This definition, Coleman says, requires the identification of a shared purpose, an “articulation of what the company provides to its customers that they cannot obtain anywhere else.” Leadership success “all comes back to fostering that shared purpose,” Coleman continues. “How does a leader ensure that everybody in the company reflects that same sense of purpose in everything they do on a daily basis?”

Today, leading corporate captains understand that their organization’s people, process, technologies and even strategies change frequently and dramatically. What needs to remain constant and animated, if their strategic plans are to succeed, is the company’s sense of purpose and the values on which it is based.

It’s no wonder that Shackleton’s people-centered approach as well as his ability to derive order from chaos and manage extreme volatility remain relevant grist for 21^st century leaders and strategic planners. The type of survival improvisation skill Shackleton demonstrated parallels the product, service and relationship innovation leaders must foster today if they are to prevent their companies from perishing.

“Companies that don’t innovate quickly find themselves in a lot of trouble,” notes Kendall Artz, chair of the Management and Entrepreneurship department and director of the Baylor Entrepreneurship Program. “If they fall too far behind, they can never catch up.”

The notion that leadership capabilities displayed in 1915 still resonate today does not surprise Ed Fiske (BBA ’74, MBA ‘75), a retired Accenture managing partner and a former Hankamer Advisory Board member who now works as an independent investor.

“Many of the capabilities that effective leaders possess today are similar to the skills they needed 10 or more years ago,” he notes. “However, while these leadership competencies were important a decade ago, their importance to the organization has increased exponentially today, given the challenges companies face.”

These competencies (seven of which are discussed later in this article) include a mix of leadership qualities (e.g., integrity and organizational stewardship) and management capabilities (effecting change and managing an increasingly mobile and far-flung workforce). Together, these capabilities help executives develop and continuously adapt strategies for achieving growth, resiliency and comprehensive sustainability in a global business environment pockmarked with iceberg-sized challenges.

Drivers of Change

Last year, Forbes.com blogger Larry Downes, an industry analyst and consultant, wrote a captivating entry detailing exactly why electronics retail giant Best Buy “is headed for the exits.”

Downes’ argument combined astute business analysis of Best Buy’s strategic and tactical missteps with his own disappointing experience shopping with a friend in a California Best Buy store. Downes’ description of the impersonal service he and his friend received, as well as the culture that allowed this behavior to occur, gave voice to thousands of similar disappointing in-person experiences millions of readers have endured. To date, more than 3.3 million people have viewed his post. The blog entry was careful not to blame Best Buy’s demise entirely on Amazon’s disruptive pricing, selection, service and logistics offerings. However, the fact that a single negative shopping experience could attract 3 million readers and inspire 19,000 Facebook shares and 6,600 Tweets illustrates the disruptive power of social media as well as the need for companies to manage their cultures and the daily behaviors they generate in a more mindful manner.

The drivers of change influencing Best Buy and every other company as well as their leadership teams should be relatively well-known by now; they most notably include:

• Globalization: The number of multinational companies more than doubled from 1990 (35,000) to 2008 (80,000), when these global organizations operated an average of 10 foreign affiliates, according to Accenture research. The largest 100 multinational companies collectively employ more employees outside their home countries than within them, according to United Nations research. This trend intensifies the competition companies face while raising new challenges related to managing increasingly diverse, mobile and virtual workforces.
• Volatility: “Regardless of what industry you’re in,” Coleman asserts, “the pace of change is much faster than it was 20 years ago, 10 years ago or even five years ago.” The accelerating pace of change has dramatically reshaped strategic planning activities, notes Gail Auerbach, senior vice president of human resources for Masonite, a global door manufacturer based in Tampa, Fla. Auerbach spent the first half of her career, in the late 1970s through late 1980s, with General Electric, a company renowned for its long-term planning and decision-making. “We had 10-year strategic plans,” she recalls. “Of course, back then the organization charts seldom changed unless there was a retirement. Now, many organization charts change weekly. Global companies are constantly moving people around the world to leverage new opportunities.”
• Technological Change:  A formidable challenge corporate information technology (IT) functions face stems in part from tablet- and app-equipped children. “Top executives of companies walk into work and say, ‘My kids can learn anything they want to learn about any topic instantaneously via the technology they use; why can’t I get a financial report in less than a month?’” explains Gary Curtis, Accenture chief technology strategist and global managing director of the firm’s Technology Consulting. These types of questions, categorized as the “consumerization” of organizational IT, “are absolutely changing the nature of the CIO role,” Curtis adds.

Each of these forces qualify as risks in that they pose challenges and threats to be mitigated or avoided as well as opportunities that can be leveraged—with the right strategy. Developing the most profitable and sustainable strategy requires a new form of business leadership, one that exhibits many traditional competencies as well as newer capabilities.

Seven Must-Have Competencies

Talk to leading professors, management and search consultants, and corporate executives about leadership priorities in the past 18 months or so, and you’ll often hear terms such as “values,” “purpose-driven,” “stewardship” and “shared mission.” One of the top three findings from IBM’s 2012 survey of 1,709 global CEOs was that leaders are intent on “empowering employees through values.”

Coleman believes that successful leaders focus on values. And he points to Accenture’s implementation of “stewardship” as the core organizational value and one of the main reasons he has remained with the company for 20 years.

“Regardless of whether I work with banking clients, operate as an IT outsourcing guy or work as a back-office finance support person [at Accenture], I can translate stewardship into my job every day,” Coleman explains. “Am I being a good steward of the company in terms of the decision I’m making in that meeting? Am I being a good steward of my customer by looking out for their best interests? Am I being a good steward for the people who work for me by giving them the right opportunities and enough of my time? Am I being a good steward of my peers, especially when they request my help or time?”

This sort of core organizational value helps foster and sustain a sturdy cultural foundation amidst rapid and dramatic change, Coleman and others note. That’s why 21^st century leaders devote sufficient time and effort to managing their cultures. Successful leaders also devote attention to becoming:

Continuous Strategic Planners: The decades-old approach of conducting a strategic planning exercise once a year “has gone out the window,” Artz asserts, “because no one can predict what the future’s going to look like anymore given the pace of technological change and globalization.” Not that 20^th century strategic planners were 100 percent accurate, Artz adds, but the gist of their projections usually were relatively on the mark. That’s no longer the case, and leaders should recognize the importance of keeping strategy and strategic planning activities as current as possible. “You have to have a relevant plan, you communicate the plan to everyone in your organization, and you have to get them on board,” says Fiske, who acknowledges that strategic planning is becoming a more agile and almost continuous process. “This requires business leaders to have a clear vision, sharp communications skills and a strong ability to persuade.” Leaders need to flex these capabilities in the service of strategic shifts far more frequently than they did even five years ago.

Virtuous Leaders: Professor of Management and Chavanne Chair of Christian Ethics in Business Mitchell Neubert’s recent research on ethical and servant leadership indicates that leaders who clearly express and behave according to agreed-upon organizational values engender more trust throughout the entire workforce. “High-trust” organizations tend to employ workers who report higher levels of satisfaction, collaborate more effectively with colleagues, express a greater willingness to flex their creativity when solving problems and say they are more committed to the company, according to Neubert.  “We want integrity in our business leaders for obvious reasons,” Neubert says, “but leaders who act with integrity help generate benefits throughout the workforce.” This has long been the case, but the importance of engendering trust among workers has intensified. “The pace of change elevates the role of the leader in terms of providing structure and direction and meaning,” Neubert says. “When everything else is changing so dramatically, employees want to know what and whom they can trust.”

Cultural Caretakers: Ever since the term was coined, “organizational culture” largely has been viewed as a “soft” asset and more of a nice-to-have than a bottom-line-boosting competitive advantage. Today, mounting evidence suggests that organizational culture that is built on the right set of shared values and that fosters the right sort of behaviors can deliver quantifiable advantages. In a 2012 report, LRN, a company that helps corporations foster ethical, winning cultures and inspire principled performance in their operations, found that companies built on purpose, guided by values and permeated with trust employ workers who are 22 times more likely to take a beneficial risk—decisions and actions that ultimately enable eight times the levels of innovation—compared to companies with lower-performing (and less trusting, lower integrity) organizational cultures. Business leaders who want to develop cultures that generate these and related business benefits “have to create an environment that attracts and fully engages employees,” Neubert notes. “This requires creating meaningful work. In some but not all cases, this means inviting people to talk about their faith and to express different parts of their diverse backgrounds.” Employees typically feel more accepted and engaged in the workplace when they can discuss their unique backgrounds and beliefs; however, these activities must be managed carefully and intentionally. “Diversity has great potential to stimulate new ideas and innovation, but it does not automatically equate to more collaboration or better relationships,” Neubert adds. “Leaders need to become more skilled in building relationships among diverse people and thinking as opposed to simply inviting diversity into the workplace.”

Active Listeners: The “my way or the highway” leadership style many 20^th century leaders displayed no longer works in a business environment defined in large part by the unfettered flow of information. “Access to information works both ways,” Neubert explains. “Companies have more information about their employees, customers and stakeholders. And all of the stakeholders have more information about the company.” The leveling of the information playing field requires leaders to more frequently listen to and respond to stakeholder concerns in meaningful ways.

Change Managers: Change management represents a more tactical component of the 21^st century leader skill set, and a capability they must summon constantly. “If you don’t make changes quickly, your company can be out of the market before you know it,” Fiske emphasizes. “Your products can become outdated so quickly. When that happens, it takes a tremendous effort to retool to make the company relevant again. An effective leader has to be very good at enabling change or agility as organizational competency.”

Virtual Leaders: The globalization of business and technological breakthroughs (e.g., ubiquitous cellular connectivity, smart devices, cloud computing, mobile commerce, video conferencing and more) have transformed the traditional workplace into a highly virtual, constantly mobile workplace. This transformation affords companies access to new global opportunities, but it also poses threats. Managing organizational cultures is much more difficult with language and time barriers and without as much in-person contact, notes Fiske.  Leaders should strengthen their ability to wield influence virtually as a result. Leaders also should recognize that the management of virtual teams requires more attention. Forthcoming research (which will be published in the Journal of Management) conducted by Emily Hunter, Hankamer School of Business assistant professor of Management, shows virtual and telecommuting arrangements are not “a panacea solution for every project or every employee.” Virtual teams often contain members who slack off—often due to family challenges at home or insufficient work/life boundaries—and create more work for their virtual colleagues. “Managers should assign virtual work and telecommunications privileges wisely,” notes Hunter.

Open Innovators: Artz indicates that successful business leaders recognize that there are different innovation management models. Some companies, like Apple, invest significant time and energy engaging their customers in the product design process, for example. This approach requires technology that can support the collection and analysis of customer preferences, usage patterns and related data. Some companies favor iterative innovation approaches designed to achieve smaller improvements while others invest more money and accept more risk in pursuit of radical innovation breakthroughs. A new approach, open innovation, requires an open leadership mind. This model involves companies collaborating with competitors to share the risk of innovation investments; if the innovation proves appealing, each company then devises a unique execution plan for harvesting the advancement in the marketplace.

There is one more area that requires innovation and attention from current business leaders, according to Coleman: leadership development and succession planning. These internal processes need to be robust enough to ensure that a company, if its profits and purpose are to be sustainable, has access to a sufficient number of future Shackletons.

1983 marked the introduction of the first mobile phones to the public, the release of the Apple Lisa personal computer, and the debut of “Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.” Ronald Reagan was president, and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” was the best-selling album. The year also marked the launch of the Baylor Business Review (BBR) as the flagship communication of Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business, and we are proud to celebrate 30 years of the magazine this year!

The Baylor Business Review (BBR) communicates stories about how the university’s mission and values manifest in the lives of our alumni, faculty and students, as well as other business leaders around the world. The magazine also serves as a forum to discuss current business issues from the perspectives of academics as well as practitioners.

The publication was launched under the leadership of Judith Corwin, who dedicated 20 years to serving as the magazine’s first managing editor. Beth Barbee Hubbert served as managing editor from 2003 through 2007. The magazine’s current editor, Kristin Todd Stires, has managed the magazine since fall 2007.

Published twice each year, the magazine averages 60 pages per issue and reaches more than 40,000 subscribers, alumni and friends of the business school. Each issue of the magazine has a designated theme. Past themes include The Workforce; Customer Service; Small Business; Hankamer’s Faculty, Graduate Programs and Undergraduate Programs; Innovation; Sustainability and Social Responsibility; Real Estate; Energy; Entrepreneurship; Sports Marketing; and Technology.

As the business world has evolved, the BBR has evolved with it. The magazine was first published as an 8.5” x 11” glossy, two-color magazine. Under the direction of C.J Jackson, director of Communications and Marketing, extensive research was conducted in 2002 and 2003, which resulted in the introduction of the Baylor Business market position and brand. In conjunction with the school’s re-branding, the magazine underwent a major redesign with the fall 2003 issue. The magazine is now a colorful 9.5” x 11.75” publication with creative photos and graphics, and it is easily distinguished from other collateral mailed to our readership.

In 2005, the BBR was offered online for the first time. As for the printed publication, the magazine went green with the fall 2007 issue. The magazine is currently printed on FSC-certified 100 percent postconsumer waste entirely with non-polluting, wind-generated energy and contains 100 percent postconsumer recycled fiber. In 2011, the magazine’s website was redesigned for more readership engagement and moved to the domain bbr.baylor.edu. We became digital trailblazers in 2012, as we launched the BBR iPad app, which serves as an additional content platform and a way to further connect with our audiences while expanding our readership. The free BBR app offers readers an enhanced experience through videos, audio podcasts, interactive features such as hot spots and flip pages, and additional photos not published in the magazine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQFKC3pP3Ww

The BBR has proven itself as a reputable publication on a national and international level, earning more than 40 awards over the last 10 years. In 2005, the redesigned publication won the Gold Circle of Excellence Award for magazine improvement from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). Most recently, the magazine earned an Award of Excellence from the 2012 Communicator Awards sponsored by the International Academy of the Visual Arts (IAVA). The publication earned a 2012 Award of Commendation from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) as well as two 2013 ADDY awards in a local competition sponsored by the American Advertising Federation-Waco chapter (AAF).

Additionally, the magazine’s website and the BBR app both earned a 2012 Silver W3 Award from the IAVA. The app has garnered over 1,400 downloads from more than 43 different countries. The BBR app was ranked #65 out of all free business iPad apps in the U.S. on the iTunes App Store shortly after its release and holds a near-perfect 4.5-star rating on iTunes. The app was also featured in the November/December issue of BizEd, the magazine of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. All awards were shared with Pollei DesignWorks and Baylor University’s Photography Department, and the app awards were also shared with App Studio (formerly PressRun).

We thank you, our readers, for your support. While we won’t be covering “front room” versus “back room” computers in our next issue (as discussed in our fall 1983 issue), we hope you look forward to reading the Baylor Business Review and that it continues to prove insightful and stimulate discussion.

The Hankamer School of Business strives to produce graduates who will become ethical leaders with integrity. We caught up with several alumni to gain insight about leadership and management within corporations and start-ups. Their stories revealed that dedication and character, combined with experience, have shaped them in to business leaders making an impact in their respective industries.

Juniper Networks, the networking giant, doesn’t have it easy. Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, they’re locked in a ferocious battle for talent against big-brand neighbors like Google, Facebook and Apple. That’s why, says Juniper executive vice president of human resources Steven Rice, they have to offer something different. But it’s not an arms race over who has the best free cafeteria food or pet-sitting services. Instead, it comes down to one question Juniper asks at the beginning of the recruitment process: “Where will you do your best work?”

Says Rice, “We’re able to attract and retain talent because of our belief in how work should be done, and how we interact and collaborate. While there’s a shortage of talent, we can still find the right people for Juniper, even though we’re competing with companies that are in the press a lot, because talent selects itself based on how companies organize and structure work.”

So what’s Juniper’s secret sauce? Rice says it’s a willingness to radically re-examine assumptions about the workplace. “I feel we’re on the cusp of what I call the next generation of work design,” he says. Working with professor Robert Cross of the University of Virginia, Juniper has created “network maps” of its relationship with two major customers, and has plans in the works for several more. The process is intricate—and revealing. “We’ve mapped 900 individuals that surround a particular customer and then we evaluate who the connectors are in terms of how information flows, why people go to them, and if the organizational structure is an inhibitor or an enhancer in getting the work done,” says Rice. “What is the structure and hierarchy we need in place for the next generation of work? What are the implications for how many layers of management you need, and do you organize around your products, or around a customer, or maybe a combination?”

Adopting a “network” outlook—appropriate, given Juniper’s business—can lead to new efficiencies and better ways of serving customers. “A network looks for the easiest path to move information and context at a very fast rate,” says Rice. “You’re not concerned with hierarchy, and there’s an assumption that information should flow freely and frequently, and go to the source of who needs that information in order to solve customer problems. What differentiates us in terms of where you can do your best work is looking at how to organize around the free flow of information that allows you to do your best, unencumbered by hierarchy.”

Juniper is also embracing other cutting-edge research, including insights into the neuroscience of leadership by David Rock, which has informed their perspective on employee professional development. “A lot of leadership development training prescribes that you need to behave in a certain way,” says Rice, “and we want to break that paradigm. There are thought patterns all of us have that are entrenched, and forcing people to comply with a set of principles is an unnatural way to think about it.”

Just as two people will configure their laptops differently—one preferring a million files on their desktop, and the other organizing them within folders—we all have natural habits of thought we fall back on, says Rice. “We’re trying to understand how that translates to how they coach, mentor, and define work for the people who report to them, or how people like to work together in teams. Neuroscience and leadership helps us appreciate those differences and how to use them as a positive, rather than getting people to perform in a certain way.”

As Rice sees it, the future of work is flexible and customized—responsive both to individual learning styles, and the unique needs of customers. A factory-era, hierarchical mentality is rapidly becoming obsolete. “Organizations that are able to be very clear and deliberate about how culture, talent, and structure come together are the ones that will continue to thrive and out-innovate their competitors,” he says. “My own mission is to figure that out better than our competitors—and that’s how Juniper’s going to win.”

Is your company breaking down traditional hierarchy? How are you organizing now, and what results are you seeing? *

Dorie Clark is CEO of Clark Strategic Communications and the author of Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future (Harvard Business Review Press) available at http://amzn.to/VzNRkZ. She is a strategy consultant who has worked with clients including Google, Yale University and the Ford Foundation. Listen to her podcasts at http://dorieclark.podmatic.com or follow her on Twitter @dorieclark. Contact at dorie@dorieclark.com.

*This article first appeared on Forbes website (August 8, 2012)

At age 14, Aaron Fitzgerald began looking for ways to earn money. He started doing odd jobs for neighbors and family friends. Less than five years later, he had 15 employees and more than 500 clients. And he had yet to graduate from high school.

So when the senior Finance and Entrepreneurship major from Conifer, Colo., heard about Baylor’s Accelerated Ventures program, it seemed like a natural fit.

Accelerated Ventures is a two-semester course that supplies students with the information, resources and funding to start their own companies. Each semester, 12 students are selected for the program and are expected to, with $5,000 in start-up money, create real companies, launch products and services and generate sales. And they do this while taking a full course load of other classes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig1QN4pD3TA

“It’s easily the most stressful, most fun experience I’ve ever had. I love it,” said Fitzgerald, whose start-up company is Oliver Hair Growth. “It encompasses everything you’ve even remotely learned in every other class and brings it together: accounting, marketing, finance. Every skill you’ve learned in business school comes into play and you use it again, in the real world.”

The program began in 2011 when Les Palich, the W.A. Mays Professor of Entrepreneurship, and Kendall Artz, director of Baylor’s Entrepreneurship program and chair of the department of Management and Entrepreneurship, began discussing how social media was being used in entrepreneurship. They began thinking about a course that could teach the use of social media and other emerging technologies that would be timely and relevant.

“At the same time, Dr. Artz was having similar conversations with an alumnus, David Grubbs,” Palich said. “I asked them to come up with an idea for a course. When I heard what they had in mind, it was all I’d imagined and more. It’s more than just a course, it’s a program.”

Their choice to facilitate the program was Grubbs, who graduated from Baylor in 2007 with a BBA in Finance. Grubbs is a serial entrepreneur who has founded seven Internet service and marketing companies, and is currently the CEO of Campus Cellect, a business he founded while a sophomore at Baylor. He is also a partner in several companies and serves as a consultant.

“In the past several years, I have built and launched companies in 30 days and was making a profit in 45 days, with very little start-up money,” Grubbs said. “Others have started companies with as little as $7,000 that were launched in 30 days and had $400,000 in profit in 90 days. I started thinking, we really should be teaching this in school. And so Baylor did.”

For Grubbs, the practical experience of entrepreneurship is an essential part of the education.

“If you had my favorite violinist Itzhak Perlman in class, would you teach music theory all day, or would you hand him a violin?” Grubbs asked. “Entrepreneurs are also artists, just in a different form, and they have to be able to practice their art.”

Upperclassmen from any discipline can apply to the program. The month-long selection process begins with written applications, and finalists are interviewed.

After the 12 students are selected, they meet to learn about their classmates and begin to choose team members. They are immediately expected to begin studying the books and curriculum. They are also given the parameters for the businesses they will run.

“We don’t accept family business or out-of-home businesses,” Grubbs said. “We also don’t want anything you can’t scale from $5,000 to seven figures. In other words, no T-shirt companies or lemonade stands.”

On the first day of class, students are given their final exam for the course, and present their teams of three students and their initial business idea. They also receive their $5,000 per team in funding.

“Choosing the right people for our team was really important to me,” said Rachel Sload, a senior Entrepreneurship major from Montgomery, Texas. “I felt strongly that we should have diverse perspectives, so I am working with an Engineering major who has a strong computer and technical background because that’s not my strength. I also wanted a guy’s perspective, so our other team member is male.”

Sload’s team created Avundas Skin Solutions, a line of skin care products.

“We each have our roles and we’ve each grown in them,” she said. “I feel like I’ve gotten to sharpen my communication skills, and I’ve really enjoyed that. I’ve learned so much more than I thought I could. I never thought I could negotiate with a large company in another country as a senior in college, but I have.”

The Baylor Angel Network provides start-up funding for the ventures. The investing group retains 10 percent of the companies; the students on the team each retain 30 percent of the company. From the second day forward, the students are building their companies, which are required to launch in 45 days. By the end of the first semester, companies are expected to be generating revenue. By the end of the second semester, they should be profitable.

“It’s a huge workload; they assign it to themselves. I assign none of it,” Grubbs said. “They are extremely motivated.”

Allison Kusenberger, a senior Entrepreneurship and Marketing major from Little Rock, Ark., said the program is teaching her to prioritize her work.

“It’s a tough balance,” she said. “You can’t think of this class as just a class. It’s a job and it never ends. But you set goals and work on a timeline. It’s very time consuming, but your partners are counting on you. You can’t slack off without affecting them, too.”

Kusenberger and her teammates are selling a high-end men’s shaving kit, called Shavespeare.

Once the class is over, teammates must decide whether to continue as a group, sell their share of the start-up to the others, or sell the company outright. Many of the details are worked out ahead of time, when the companies are legally formed, but much depends on the outcome of the course.

“Our plan is to move to Addison [Texas] and continue to try to get into as many retail locations as possible,” said Sam O’Brien of his team’s company, Whol-E Water, which sells an alkaline-enhanced bottled water that is touted as a healthy way to balance the body’s pH levels.

The senior Public Relations and Journalism major from Austin, Texas, hopes his company continues to grow.

“We want to generate enough profit to start our own distribution center,” he said.  “Our goal is to be self-sustaining and in 50 retail locations by the end of the year.”

O’Brien’s desire to move to Addison is not just because of the town’s growing economy.  The town has offered the students some amazing incentives.

The town will provide the student-run businesses the opportunity to move to the community where they will receive free office space and support for 12 months after graduation. Additionally, the Greater Waco Chamber has partnered with Baylor to launch ThInc Space, a business incubator for creative start-ups that also will be the headquarters for the Accelerated Ventures Program. While enrolled in the program, students will receive free office space from the Greater Waco Chamber. Upon completion of the course, students can continue to use the free space for one year while they expand their businesses.

“This will be a tremendous opportunity for these students, and another example of the business community helping this program to be successful,” Palich said. “Like the Baylor Angel Network, we’re getting help from so many places.”

And Palich hopes the program can help other universities as well.

“Our goal is to create a national model that other schools can adopt,” he said. “Next year, we expect to have three other schools starting up their own programs using our model. This is another situation where Baylor Entrepreneurship is a leader among schools, and that’s exactly where we want to be.”

www.acceleratedventures.com

Leadership is not a choice—it’s a calling. To truly lead, we have to serve. My father taught me that true leadership “gives away credit and takes blame.” This is no fun. I had always thought leadership was power, control and prestige. Plus, it looked really cool to be a leader. Experience has proved me wrong. Dad was right—imagine that!

I have had the privilege, since graduating from Baylor almost 25 years ago, to work in mergers and acquisitions, entrepreneurship, private equity, investment banking and corporate America. It has been an amazing ride reliving my MBA many times over. I have seen the best and the worst. Highs and lows. Good and bad. A lot of scar tissue is layered on my backside. I have been involved in a number of businesses, investments and corporate transactions, big and small. Some were successful, many were not. These experiences gave me the chance to see leadership in action and to practice it.

As a banker, I am constantly working to refine my approach to due diligence and understand what factors lead to success. Interestingly, in the unsuccessful ventures I’ve experienced, failure was never a result of the “deal,” the opportunity, the structure, the terms and conditions or the value. Rather, I am disappointed to report, in 100 percent of the cases, the failure was due to the people—namely, the leaders. Not the transaction. Not the price. Not the employees. Not even the market conditions. The leaders were the problem. In the end, bad leadership kills good opportunity. Ouch!

What about a leader destroys a deal? When determination outweighs truth—failure is certain. Call it hype, excitement or shooting for the stars. Getting caught up in the “dream” can offer as much harm as motivation. Every deal I have seen crumble has been, in the end analysis, due to a lack of truth. A failure to disclose, determination at all costs, hidden inexperience or weakness, and most disappointedly, misrepresentation, lies or a willful ignorance of what is real. Again, it is dangerous to let persistence justify “white lies.”

This set me on a mission. How can I figure out a process, a paradigm that yields the truth? What produces a quality deal? Who can I trust? What calculus can I use to figure people out—avoid the torpedoes of failed leadership? How can I determine if what a leader says is real? How can I know that I am given the truth?

Organizations, big and small, are great at espousing their mission and corporate values. They all typically include words like integrity, honesty, trust and quality. Does that really reflect how the leaders behave? There is also the “goal.” We are taught to have a goal and be goal-focused in order to achieve success. There are many leadership and management consultants that work to help companies and organizations “align” their mission, values and goal. Experts craft business plans, presentations, offering circulars and strategic initiatives all with a promise to achieve the mission, values and goal of the organization. Even so, most fail. Just ask any investment banker or private equity executive how many business plans that are “promised” actually come true. Is the leader’s aim really the same as the organization’s or are there other motives like power, control and prestige—wanting the credit? One early morning it hit me. The “promise” IS the problem.

Leaders are typically great at talking the talk. I have sat through many business plan presentations, corporate pep rallies, conference calls, budget meetings and investment pitches promoting the mission, values and goal of organizations. Big plans! There is nothing like the collective excitement. But usually, the energy dies down and things get back to normal—reality sets in. I have found that it is easy to talk but much harder to walk and actually practice what you preach. The revelation? Without the promise of truth, a commitment to “walk the walk” and a pledge of trustworthiness, the mission, values and goal are, in the end, worthless. The leader has to live it.

The “promise” of an organization is found in the truth and trustworthiness of the leader. Are you the same person at work, at home and in your community? Do people, your employees, vendors, customers, spouse, kids, family, neighbors, friends and community trust you? Do you tell the truth? When the leaders are truthful and the organization trusts them, deals work. The mission, values and goal drives the organization toward success and the promise insures the success. It works.

OK. Having figured out the problem, I had the painful task of self-assessment. Had I been guilty of not fulfilling my “promise”? Had deals that I was involved with failed because I failed to deliver or even worse, ignored the truth? What are my personal mission, values, goal and promise? I had to take the blame. In many cases, my leadership had indeed failed and missed the opportunity for success. Then I realized that, as a Christian, I have a higher calling. I have to give the credit to God.  His plan is eternal. In order to be an effective leader, my promise, mission, values and goal must align with those taught in scripture. This would make me a true leader and give me the focus and consistency that others can trust. I must simply be a Christian—in all that I do.

Are you a true leader or are you a world follower? Do you set the standard and stick to your plan or do you work to be accepted and approved by your peers? Are you leading the way? This is a loaded question because as Christians, we should be leading others to the truth of scripture in all we do—setting an example regardless of the consequences. I was inspired to develop the “Real Pyramid” model based on a real view of my mission, values, goal and promise to give me a guide to activate my faith in my daily life. It has changed the way I look at my family, my business ventures and my community.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOPNql-Gxbs

MISSION

As Christians, we have been given a clear mission:  to make disciples, baptize them in love and teach them to obey. This is a high calling. We have to activate our mission. Most business missions hang on the wall in the foyer. And that is as far as the mission goes. As Christian leaders, our mission has to live and drive our business vision and venture. We have to make sure that the mission of our organization is ultimately aligned with our personal mission.

VALUES

Our values have to be based on Biblical principles. We are tricked into believing that we should follow a certain belief, political group or pattern. The truth is, we have been called to live under a different pattern. Being transformed means that we are changed, we are different (see Romans 12:2). We stick to values, not dictated by the norms and popularity of this world, but of what is God’s will.

We must focus on our needs, the needs of our organization and the needs of others. We have to use our skills to meet these needs. And our time, our most precious resource, must be used in a way that is focused on the right challenge. As noted, the values of the organization will always reflect the values of the leaders. Live and operate in truth and service to others.

GOAL

Our goal should be to glorify God. As leaders, we are regularly challenged with driving down a road that follows that which is directed and guided by the world. Whatever is popular; whatever is wanted; whatever brings immediate satisfaction—or the least resistance. In truth, we are called to seek what God wants for our lives, in all aspects of our lives. As Christian leaders, we should not conform to the ways of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. This renewal makes us better—in everything—focused on His good, pleasing and perfect will. The renewal comes from recognizing that God has more for us and for those we lead.

PROMISE

Renewing our minds allows us to lead in a different direction—live and lead in truth and trust. This leads to true success. It allows us to guide others, our families, our business colleagues and our communities, in love, to places they believed that they could never go—true service. It gives us power to lead.

Remember:

God has a plan. If I am a Christian, then everything I do should be for His Kingdom. Everything. When I go to work, I am in kingdom business. When I take my kids to school, serve at church or lead a school volunteer group, I am in kingdom business. When I take a business trip or go on vacation, I am in kingdom business. When I coach a team, go fishing or even take out the trash, I am in kingdom business. I am called. You ARE called. The beauty of your life in Christ is that He lives in and through YOU. IF you are a Christian, THEN you cannot separate yourself from HIM—or His plan for YOU.

2 Timothy 1:7 – For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.

Lead in a way that takes others down the road of power, of love and of self-discipline. Be the source of transformation for those you influence in all you do.

James 2:17 – In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

Our faith has to be active in all that we do. Even as a banker. In the end, in trying to find out why everyone else was causing failure, I really found out that I’m the one to blame. The real credit for my success goes to God, who has had a plan for me from the beginning. I have to lead in truth and live out my faith—following His plan. Take the blame and give away the credit. Again, dad was right.

David W. Hill is co-founder and chief executive officer of BancAssets, LLC, providing loan syndication servicing and administration through a proprietary network of more than 700 community financial institutions. He is the principal of Hill Asset Management, LLC, responsible for strategic and financial business guidance to companies engaged in complex business transition, growth, and development. Hill is a managing director for Innovation Capital and holds Series 79 and 63 securities licenses. He earned an MBA from Baylor University in 1989, and a Bachelor of Science in Economics-International Trade from Texas Tech University in 1987. Hill offers the promise of servant-leadership. He has a mission to encourage, lead and empower Christian business leaders to serve their businesses, families and communities with active Christian faith.  Hill promotes this ideal through his blog at www.ServantSpeak.com.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbiRnzvQIdo

A document with a long shelf-life that does not spend time on a shelf—that is the vision of those who are developing the Hankamer School of Business’ new strategic plan.

Are those two images—a fluid, active document that stays fresh over multiple years—mutually exclusive?

Not if the strategic document is realistic, said Van Gray, who shepherded the development of the plan. Not if the document has the key leadership of the dean’s office, as this one does, said a consultant who helped the planners.

“Realistic,” to Gray, who is director of Strategic Planning and Accreditation for Hankamer, means that the business school has the human and financial resources to achieve the plan.

“It means we have the organizational capability to achieve our aspirations, and that the plan fits within our mission and vision and is not outside of our culture or what we want to accomplish,” he said.

Strategic planning is an ongoing process for the university and business school. Baylor 2012 was the most recent university-wide blueprint. Now that the year 2012 has come and gone, Pro Futuris is Baylor’s new strategic vision. Pro Futuris focuses on five aspirational statements: Transformational Education, Compelling Scholarship, Informed Engagement, Committed Constituents and Judicious Stewardship.

Work on revising the business school’s document began in 2010 to coincide with the university-wide planning process. Terry Maness, dean of the Hankamer School of Business, asked Gray to guide the teams. A Strategic Development Council was already in place, so the business school continued using the group to review and revise goals.  The dean asked Gray to help lead the process because of his strategic planning mindset and his ability to think about the big picture.

“He has a real interest and passion for planning strategically and looking to the future,” Maness said. “I like the way he thinks. He also looks at planning from the university perspective, as opposed to just his area of operations. He has a real interest in seeing the school succeed as well as the university.”

Hankamer’s planning process included outside consultants, faculty and staff, students and alumni. Without multiple perspectives, the business school could not develop meaningful curriculum or programs, noted Gray. “Including them is part of knowing who our audience is and who our constituents are,” he said.

Toward the end, the planning process also included a business school town hall meeting to broaden the conversation once again and to discover whether the process had omitted perspectives that needed to be included. “We had a revised document at that point,” Gray noted. The meeting was one more way to include all voices.

To organize planning early on, the university created five planning themes: Undergraduate Education; Graduate and Graduate Professional Education; Scholarly Productivity and Creative Endeavors; Christian Commitment; and Community.

Within that framework, business school planners set up panels to handle each theme. “We created committees that had, from a process perspective, questions to ask and members charged with transcribing notes from meetings,” Gray said.

Academic Leadership Associates LLC (ALA) of Los Angeles, an organization that offers advisory services to higher education institutions, began helping in the fall of 2011. This was the third time for Mike Diamond, senior partner of ALA, to work with Baylor. His relationship with Hankamer dates to the 1990s, and he worked with the university as a whole after that.

“I have done planning for 50 or 60 different institutions for 15 years,” Diamond said. “You try and figure out which processes work better than others. This really hits home with Baylor.”

A shared value system among faculty, staff and students is something he sees often in faith institutions, and at Baylor that strength extends to a belief in the institution, he noted. This time, Diamond and his two colleagues, Mark Robison and Rich Flaherty, worked with the business school once again. Diamond said Dean Terry Maness’ leadership was crucial. The dean conveyed to participants that he would use the final plan in decision-making.

“Eyes often roll when you tell someone you are going to do strategic planning because plans often sit on a shelf,” Diamond said. “Terry was able to show the faculty that he was serious about this and that he would make decisions based on it that would affect them all.”

As the consultants began their work, the business school formed a Strategic Planning Task Force of 35 faculty, staff, students and advisory board members. This group began reviewing the Hankamer School of Business mission statement, focusing on the six topics of mission, people, scholarship, internal operations, external relationships and educational programs.

Co-chairs of Hankamer committees included Dean Terry Maness; Gary Carini, associate dean of Graduate Business Programs; Mark Dunn, associate dean of Undergraduate Programs; Cheryl Kay, manager for Assessment Data, Strategic Planning and Accreditation; Mike Stegemoller, associate professor of Finance, Insurance and Real Estate; Jeff Tanner, professor of Marketing; Mitchell Neubert, associate professor of Management and Entrepreneurship and Chavanne Chair of Christian Ethics in Business; Anne Grinols, assistant dean for Faculty Development and College Initiatives; Cindy Riemenschneider, associate dean of Research and Faculty Development; Christopher Meyer, associate professor of Management; Kevin Ludlum, former executive director of Development; Steve Green, professor of Economics and Statistics; and Ken Buckley, director of Career Management.

Committee transcriptions went to the dean and to Gray, who combined them while omitting duplicated information, taking care to include complete conversations and points of view.

In spring 2012, facilitators held four off-campus planning sessions that Academic Leadership Associates led. Those sessions included feedback from students who were willing to say what was on their minds. Diamond noted, “You don’t see that all the time.”

He also found helpful the dean’s idea of using a “why, how, what” approach as an organizational tool.

“I had not seen that before and found it really useful,” Diamond said. “It was a good way to encapsulate what the school is now about and what it aspires to be about.”

Gray attributes the sophistication of the business school’s planning mechanism to experience.

“We have been doing this with the school of business so often that we are raising the maturity level of planning,” he said. “The group is pretty comfortable engaging in planning; it’s not foreign to them. And people are used to being able to have input. That is very meaningful.”

Implementation of the plan will likely involve the Strategic Leadership Council restructured around new themes. The process also may include a new series of task forces responsible for developing short-term action plans in a two- or three-year time frame.

Putting the plan into action will ensure that the Hankamer School of Business achieves everything it is capable of achieving, said Maness.

“Without a plan, we will keep our days busy reactively instead of proactively,” Maness said. “Pro Futuris calls us to think in terms of transformational learning opportunities for students and research that has impact.”

Hankamer School of Business Strategic Plan Overview

Mission

We cultivate principled leaders and serve the global marketplace through transformational learning and impactful scholarship in a culture of innovation guided by Christian values.

Shared Values

Our shared values are the principles that guide all of our work:

Strategies

Our Areas of Strategic Focus are: Calling, Character, Climate and Connections.

Calling

We are a community committed to excellence and service to others, and we believe our potential is God-given and our life path follows a calling. The Hankamer School of Business helps students meet their calling by providing relevant, transformational educational programs and professional immersion characterized by a culture of innovation, excellence, Christian values and a global perspective. To enhance our ability to accomplish this most fundamental goal we will:

-Develop holistic career and professional development efforts that help students navigate the path from matriculation to their profession.

-Develop educational programs that connect the Hankamer experience with the competencies our students need to succeed and flourish in their professional and personal endeavors. These programs will be developed and delivered in partnership with professionals, they will be personalized through the discussion of values, and they will reflect the inter-connectedness of disciplines in a global society.

-Increase student opportunities to build professional competencies that broaden their perspectives and experiences while also cultivating leadership skills. Through professional life and service, students will be equipped to positively impact organizations and communities both locally and globally.

-Restructure class schedules and spaces to promote experiential learning opportunities and student participation in difference-making scholarly research.

Character

All members of the Hankamer community provide principled leadership and service guided by Christian commitment. This is the character we instill in our students, and the commitment that guides our faculty and staff in their work. A central feature of this effort involves the selection and development of individuals whose values and character are consistent with the school and university missions. As such, we will:

-Recruit, retain and graduate an excellent, diverse student population.

-Attract and retain diverse faculty and staff who are called to serve and committed to excellence.

-Motivate faculty, staff and students to maximize God-given gifts to meet their career goals within the school’s mission.

Climate

The school’s culture of innovation is shaped by our faculty, who produce research that illuminates transformative solutions to significant business and societal problems. Our culture also supports students, faculty and staff through efficient internal processes dedicated to excellence, effective stewardship and nimble service. This climate is the foundation for our work and the means through which we provide the Baylor experience.  To foster this climate we will:

-Select and retain outstanding faculty who produce research at the highest level.

-Align faculty incentives to better support scholarship.

-Create a meaningful performance evaluation process for faculty commensurate with rank and the individuals’ stage of career development.

-Ensure thoughtful and deliberate use of time in support of enhanced scholarship.

-Align incentives to better support teaching excellence.

-Enable technology to fully support educational goals.

-Encourage more timely responses to emerging opportunities and enable the hiring of highly qualified faculty.

-Continue planning the development of a new business campus that supports engaged learning, enhances building community, expands our global connections, inspires innovation, supports our integrity and sustainability values and fosters the development of principled leaders.

Connections

Communication amongst and between our stakeholders is vital to our success and the fulfillment of our mission. Our faith-based heritage and commitment to integrity provides the foundation for collaborative and mutually beneficial relationships with our stakeholders. To promote and support communication we will:

-Maintain a collegial and supportive environment that fosters a community driven by excellence.

-Enhance decision making by collecting and utilizing relevant data.

-Establish a formal external relations strategy.

-Develop and implement an online engagement system (CRM) providing a concierge system for alumni, a clearinghouse of engagement opportunities, a smart reservation system for guests and survey tools.

-Formalize and further develop a career management structure that supports professional opportunities for students and alumni.

This strategic plan represents a blueprint for the future of the Hankamer School of Business. We cultivate principled leaders in a transformational learning environment steeped in impactful scholarship. All of our work is guided by Christian commitment, and as we strive to achieve our mission, we will do so through our values of character, integrity and service. We will accomplish this by rising to the challenge of our calling. We are guided by our strength of character. And we succeed in an innovative climate enriched by connections that leverage the talents of the Hankamer network. Together, our students, alumni, faculty and staff contribute to the global marketplace through their leadership, their scholarship, their commitment to lifelong learning and a broad range of for-profit and nonprofit endeavors.

It’s one thing to study world news and read about doing business in a global economy. It’s another one entirely to pack your bags and travel to the places you’ve read about. A semester-long course in Baylor’s Executive MBA program has students doing exactly that.

In their final semester of the Executive MBA programs in both Austin and Dallas, every candidate is required to take the Global Strategic Management course, which culminates in a 10-day trip to two international destinations.  While they are there, they are immersed in culture, business practices and policies of that country.

“Fairly early on in their studies, in the first semester of their program, they begin talking about where they would like to go and which economies are most relevant to this group of students,” said Gary Carini, associate dean of Graduate Business Programs. “We offer suggestions, but they vote on the countries they will visit.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkMRILy0Xtg

Immediately, the students begin preparing in class by reading articles that focus on those countries and the major companies there.  When international issues are discussed, those countries are highlighted.  When possible, guest lecturers with ties to the countries are brought into class.

Midway through the program, the class also visits Washington, D.C., and in addition to other seminars and meetings, they visit the embassy of the country they have chosen for their last-semester trip.

During their international trip, they visit corporations that represent the best in that region.

“In every country, we try to visit the industries that represent excellence,” Carini said. “If you were to visit Germany, it would be to see how they build cars; in China, you would focus on ship-building; in France you would visit the wine making or fashion or fragrance industries. Those are the industries with the depth of excellence we’re looking for.”

The class visits two cities, one with a developing economy and one with a developed economy, in order to see the contrast between the two.

Andrea Salinas’ class chose to visit Singapore and Chennai, India, last year.

“The differences were stark,” she said. “Singapore was almost like a glorified Houston, but when we landed in Chennai, you could immediately see the difference. The level of poverty there is stunning.”

Salinas (MBA ’12) is the chief administrative officer of Goodwill Industries of Central Texas. She said the course and the culminating trip changed not only the way she does business, but also the way she lives her life.

“The whole experience reminds you not to just assume everything is like it is in the United States,” she said. “We visited the Ford plant in Chennai, and while the working conditions were not poor, they were certainly different than what we would expect here. There was no air conditioning, for example. And they were being paid what we would think of as a very low amount, but they were working very hard and were appreciative of what they saw as a high salary.”

She noted that Ford provided transportation and meals to its employees in India, which made her look at her company differently.

“I apply things I learned there back to my own work because I now look to see what employee engagement really is,” she said. “It truly opened my eyes to seeing things from other perspectives. I find myself thinking of ways to care for the whole person.”

Salinas said the trip changed the way she evaluates difficult issues as well.

“Before the trip, when you see that companies are outsourcing to other countries for cheap labor, you are quick to judge them for that,” she said. “But when you see that they are going in to countries and paying a high, high wage for the region, you see that they are changing lives in those communities. I still debate whether it’s a good thing or not, but it really makes me think harder about developing my own opinion and not being so quick to jump on an easy opinion.”

For Aaron Reed, the course and the trip also changed his way of thinking.

Reed, who graduated from the Dallas Executive MBA program in 2011, is the chief operating officer of Hannon Offshore Drilling Equipment. His class had planned to go to Tokyo, but had to make a quick switch after the country experienced a devastating tsunami and earthquake. They chose, instead, to visit China and toured the cities of Hong Kong and Shenzhen.

“It was my first time to travel to Asia, and it does give you another perspective,” he said.  “It’s one thing to talk about a country and discuss it in class.  But unless you have been there, you have a pretty limited perspective.”

Since the trip, Reed said, he finds himself thinking about things differently.

“For me personally, I tend to try to be a little bit broader in my judgments and perceptions,” he said. “I’m not so quick to judge.”

In addition, he feels that the trip has allowed him to understand parts of the business community that he may not have had a chance to otherwise.

“You see and hear things from a different perspective when you travel with people with different backgrounds and from different industries than you,” Reed said. “My company is manufacturing, but on the trip we saw manufacturing and retail because we had people from both of those areas. It’s an opportunity you’re not going to get again. Traveling for business is quite different from traveling for academic purposes.”

After visiting Hong Kong and Vietnam on his trip with the Austin Executive MBA program in 2009, Mike Milovich couldn’t agree more.

“The Global Strategic Management class was a huge, delightful requirement of the program,” Milovich said. “I would suggest to people looking at MBA programs that, if there is not an international trip in your program, there’s a whole level of education that you’re missing.”

In addition to classroom preparations for the trip, Milovich also began scouring the business section of The Wall Street Journal daily for any mentions of the cities they would visit.

“I clipped everything and kept it all in a binder, and I felt pretty prepared,” he said. “But spending actual time in those cities, seeing the real inner workings, is very different. You can learn all you want about currency conversion rates and those types of details, but once you get there and shake hands with people and bow politely to them, it’s not the same. For me, that was the value of the program. It connected the dots for me.”

Milovich is currently a full-time PhD student, working on his doctorate in Information Systems at Baylor. He said the experience is helping him to remember to look at both domestic and international approaches to research as he works toward his doctorate.

The future of the course and its trip are changing each year to reflect current economic and business trends.  For the first time ever, the classes will be visiting South America in 2014.  They plan to visit Buenos Aires and Santiago.

Carini and his colleagues are also working on expanding the program into African countries in the near future.

“We would be going to Africa in a different way than we’ve approached these trips in the past,” he said. “We are looking at more of a mission-driven trip where we would be consulting for companies or teaching business concepts. It’s a vision that’s in line with Baylor’s mission, and our students love that. That would be incredible.”

Rock crushes scissors. Paper covers rock. Scissors cut paper. Playing the rock-paper-scissors game to settle a conflict is almost universal. In fact, rock-paper-scissors (RPS) fans say that they can “get on a bus in just about every city in the world and play (rock-paper-scissors) for the last remaining seat without speaking a word.”

But a group of Baylor University business faculty contends one can learn how people face zero-sum conflict situations when there are definite winners and losers by observing their strategies while playing RPS. They share their research and findings in “Scissors cut paper: purposive and contingent strategies in a conflict situation,” which was published in the Journal of Conflict Management (Vol. 23, No.4, 2012). The paper was written by associate professors Christopher Meyer and Blaine McCormick; Charles Fifield, senior lecturer in Marketing; Rachel Woods and Aimee Clement.

“Rock-paper-scissors is a seemingly random way to resolve things. People believe it is fair, but actually the game may not be as random as people think,” McCormick said. “In fact, there are many systems in our society that are set up to function fairly, and most are fair. But some are not as neutral as we think. For example, a jury selection should end up with a neutral jury. But there are lawyers who have learned strategies for selecting jury members that will benefit their clients.”

Indeed like learning strategies to pick a favorable jury, there are strategies developed by the RPS Society and others to affect the outcome of the game. These experts have designed a series of throws, such as “the avalanche” (all rock) or the “toolbox” (all scissors), and have determined when to use each series.

But the researchers were more interested in RPS contestants’ styles of strategy in a situation in which there is a definite winner and loser than in their particular RPS strategy. To research strategies in a zero-sum conflict situation, the group had students enter an RPS competition.

Participants were 211 upper-level and MBA students enrolled in negotiation classes. Each contestant was assigned to a bracket with the student who had the best two out of three throws progressing to the next round. The tournament was single elimination with only one winner, who collected a $200 grand prize.

Fifield said the idea for the competition and the research sprang from a chance remark at a meeting between Meyer, McCormick and him.

“I was teaching negotiation and conflict resolution in the graduate school. I mentioned during a meeting with Chris and Blaine that I had read a story about the president of a Japanese corporation settling a dispute by playing RPS,” he said. “Chris and Blaine thought this sounded like a good exercise for the students.”

Before the group knew it, they had a research project under way.

So how does this RPS tournament demonstrate strategies in a zero-sum conflict situation? First, contestants must embrace the idea that RPS is not a random game of chance and that the outcome can be influenced by strategies.

The researchers also determined the contestants’ strategy style through a series of questionnaires before the tournament. These instruments measured each participant’s typical behavior in conflict situations. Sample statements included “I am willing to select a challenging work assignment that I can learn a lot from,” and “I prefer to work on projects where I can prove my abilities to others,” to “I intend to employ a strategy to perform the task,” and “I intend to try to distract my opponent during the task.”

Participants generally fell into two specific strategy mindsets—purposive and contingent. Purposive strategists set a strategy and stick with it, regardless of the moves of the other party. It is a proactive strategy and is often utilized by people with a “proving goal” orientation or a desire to demonstrate their superiority over others on a specific task. They also had a high degree of self-efficacy or the belief in their own ability to succeed.

Contingent strategies are reactive in nature. Those employing this style try to disrupt the strategy of their opponents by blocking or frustrating that party. Contingent strategists are more likely to have a learning goal orientation, in which individuals learn from the data and adapt. They also have a collaborative conflict resolution style.

The researchers hypothesized the purposive strategists would be more successful during the RPS competition, a belief that was born out.

“We had a pretty even split between purposive and contingent strategies, and that was good for the experiment,” Meyer said. “The student who won had a different strategy for each round, and these strategies would get more complex each time. One time he actually wore a sign that said ‘I’m going to play rock,’ and he did. But he decided ahead of time what he would do, and it paid off for him.”

Meyer said that in a competitive situation, having a clear vision of “who you are” is better. He points to Apple versus Samsung as an example of purposive and contingent strategies in the business world.

“Apple takes a very purposive strategy, and they don’t really care what the rest of the marketplace does,” he said. “Samsung employs more of the contingent strategy and reacts to Apple’s products. In fact, Samsung even has a commercial that slams Apple’s iPhone 5.”

Meyer acknowledged that it can be unnerving to stay on a path when the marketplace changes. Those employing a purposive strategy have to be aware of changes. The authors also contend that using an integrative resolution in which both parties gain is most desirable.

“What we try to teach in negotiation classes is the best result is a win-win situation,” Fifield said. “The world of business is a lot about winning, but you don’t want to win at everyone’s expense. You don’t want to beat up on everyone time after time because it will backfire. The challenge is to know when to stop competing and start cooperating.”

Meyer agreed. “Zero-sum conflicts are unfortunate because those in dispute would frequently get more with an integrative solution,” he said. “When I worked in sales, I sold a lot to the head of Oldsmobile. He had concern for my outcome and how to benefit me because he wanted to keep me coming back. He understood the value of the integrative solution.”