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Dean
Louis E. Lataif, SMG ’61, took on the leadership of the School
of Management in 1991 after serving 27 years with Ford Motor Company,
three of them as president of Ford of Europe. As a rising Ford executive,
Lataif remained closely involved with Boston University, his undergraduate
alma mater. Under his leadership, the School of Management has developed
its groundbreaking, cross-functional curriculum and has attracted
increasing attention from students and employers alike.
Q: The School
describes itself as “fusing the art, science, and technology
of business.” Can you talk about that?
A: All business schools have always taught management “science”—accounting,
finance, business statistics, etc.—and we do that well. However,
what is difficult to teach, but essential for business success,
is the “art” of business—how to manage the unmeasurables,
how to effectively interact in teams, how to lead, how to develop
an informed intuition. Those are the elements of “art”
incorporated into our curricula alongside the “science.”
Also, technology is dramatically affecting the conduct of business,
so understanding how technology can be used for strategic and operating
advantage is as important for a contemporary business student as
accounting or finance.
Q: The School
of Management’s undergraduate curriculum emphasizes cross-functionality.
How has the curriculum evolved since it was developed? What has
worked particularly well, and how do you see it evolving in the
future?
A: We’re trying to teach business disciplines, but teach them
in a way that allows students to appreciate the consequences of
decisions. That’s where business fails most. We ask our students
second- or third-order questions: Does this decision seem to be
the best? Under what circumstances might it not be? How will this
decision impact the next related decision? That’s our way
of emphasizing that we want students to think laterally about business,
rather than vertically. So the cross-functional curriculum has evolved
from a philosophy of teaching the ABCs of business, but doing it
in a way that emphasizes an understanding of the consequences of
decisions. We keep constantly fine-tuning our curriculum as we get
feedback from students. And we never declare victory.
Q: Can you talk about other elements that
set the School of Management’s curriculum apart from other
undergraduate student programs? One thing many students have said
is that they are able to start taking business courses much earlier
than students in other programs.
A: They are, and they are exposed to global thinking in a number
of ways. First, global thinking can be described as thinking laterally
about the issues within the organization. Then, of course, there
is geographic globalization, and all the issues and challenges associated
with it. One-third of our students here are international students,
and our students don’t select their own teams. Inevitably
there will be different points of view about the nature of the problems
being discussed and the potential solutions from these very different
cultural perspectives. Our students also learn to see business issues
through the eyes of these different cultures. That, I think, distinguishes
our students from other schools.
Thirdly, I don’t know another school that has a course like
the Cross-Functional Core, where for a whole semester students,
in teams, are immersed in a problem. The problem is how to devise
and design a product or a service that doesn’t exist and bring
it to market. So by their third year, students have to integrate
everything they know and make it real. That’s unique to the
School of Management, and it’s a wonderful way to provide
a unique level of self-confidence. It’s a difficult project,
but when it’s over, students realize that they’ve done
something very special.
Q: What are some of the other skills or qualities
students need to become a good manager in today’s business
climate?
A: Well, in today’s world and with today’s moral climate,
it’s very important to learn to think and act ethically. It’s
always easier to talk about than to practice. The students are exposed
to a number of ethical dilemmas in their courses, and we hope that
they develop and fine-tune their own moral compass, and realize
that the most successful people are, over the long run, usually
the most honest people. They may be very deliberate and tough and
demanding, but certainly honest. Leadership derives from integrity—no
one wants to follow somebody they can’t trust. So we lean
very heavily on this idea of integrity. One of the ways it manifests
itself is the way we treat academic misconduct here. We’re
the most difficult School in the University when it comes to infractions,
and we tell the students that that will always be the case, because
we can’t expect them to be proper executives anywhere or builders
of a business if the work they’re doing isn’t their
own.
Q: Builders and Leaders [the School
of Management’s semi-annual magazine] mentioned that faculty
met recently to discuss ways to bring questions of ethics into the
classroom more.
A: Yes. What we decided is that the more the ethical issues can
be spread throughout the curriculum, the better it will be. We don’t
want students to feel that ethics is a course that they have to
take and then forget about. Because it’s never over—it’s
there in accounting, it’s there in finance, it’s there
in marketing. So in all our courses, the faculty is incorporating
ethical questions.
Q: What is your approach to hiring faculty?
Many of the School of Management faculty members come from careers
in industry, while others come from a more academic/research-oriented
path.
A: I think we have a good mix of both, and we aspire to have both.
Researchers have a different kind of intellectual discipline in
terms of how they approach things. Obviously they can bring their
research ideas into the classroom. But whether we’re talking
about our practitioners or our research scholars, what they have
in common is a passion for teaching. Students pick up on that—they
realize that these faculty members have more than a job here, that
they are very committed. They work long hours and are available
and are committed in a special way. I think that’s one of
the hallmarks of the School of Management. The most effective learning
is not just from wisdom coming out of a professor’s mouth—it’s
the right people facilitating learning among stimulated students.
Q: What has been the biggest challenge in
the time since the cross-functional undergraduate curriculum has
been in place?
A: A very big challenge was the time the faculty took to coordinate
their work, their teaching, and their lesson plans. Historically,
faculty members used their own material in the areas in which they
had expertise, and they look at the course their way. That’s
fairly user-friendly for an individual faculty member, but when
you have to coordinate your teaching with the work of several other
faculty members, frequently upgrading the consistency and continuity
of the material, therein lies the challenge. I think that’s
the single biggest difference between the School of Management and
other undergraduate business schools. Most schools would have trouble
implementing a curriculum like ours, because it does represent a
unique faculty culture of collaboration.
Q: And on the flip side, what about your greatest
accomplishments?
A: I think it’s reflected in the letters that I get from employers
or from alumni who work alongside students from other schools. They
realize that School of Management graduates really do approach problems
differently and they are more comfortable in a collaborative environment
in the workplace. That shows me that our approach works.
Q: You mentioned letters from employers—have
you seen the demand for School of Management graduates rise in the
past few years?
A: There are more employers recruiting here all the time, and more
of our own alumni reach back for more students trained like themselves.
That’s been a delight to see, how many graduates want to become
recruiters here.
Q: Are there any alumni networking programs?
A: Oh, yes. This year we have 20 or more alumni events scheduled
around the world. And that serves us in two ways: it helps the students
network with alumni, but it also helps the alumni network with each
other and with the School.
Q: What do you see in the School of Management’s
future?
A: Well, there’s the perpetual challenge of constantly
refining what we’re doing, never being satisfied that we’re
good enough, always looking for improvements. I think we’ve
developed a culture here that doesn’t allow us ever to rest
on our laurels. Our goal is to become the preeminent school of management
by providing graduates who make a measurable difference in the lives
they touch.
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