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Volume 15, Number 4: Faculty Focus
April 2009
 

Listen to a 5-minute interview with Professor Jim Hatch on Cross-Enterprise Leadership in the Classroom   Listen (4.4MB)   Subscribe

In 2005 Ivey introduced a new strategy called Cross-Enterprise Leadership. Cross-Enterprise Leadership entered the classroom resulting in a new approach to teaching and the evolution of the case method. The Ivey classroom has been transformed with multiple faculty members teaching the same case, longer classes, bigger issues, and engaged students. Jim Hatch, Professor of Finance at the Richard Ivey School of Business is a strong supporter of the strategy. Ashleigh Nimigan started by asking him for a definition of Cross-Enterprise Leadership teaching.

Jim Hatch: What is unique about Cross-Enterprise Teaching is that we take an enterprise-wide approach to whatever the issue we're considering as opposed to a narrow functional approach. So that means, for example, if we are dealing with a merger issue, as the finance person teaching that, rather than just bring out the valuation of the acquisition target, we would include things like the strategic implications of the merger; the human resources implications; and how are we going to measure results from the merger, and so on and so forth. So what Cross-Enterprise Teaching does is it broadens the student's perspective of the issue at hand to a total enterprise approach to the problem.

We create an environment for learning. We provide an opportunity to discuss issues. It's not a one-way transference of some material from the faculty members to the students who then record it all and repeat it back to us at the end of the term. We provide them with an environment within which they can learn.

Ashleigh Nimigan: What does Cross-Enterprise Leadership teaching look like in a classroom?

Jim Hatch: We believe that in order to learn you have to be engaged. In our classes, first of all you would notice that virtually every student is at every class. They know they could be called on at any time, and so they have to be engaged. They can't just sit there and watch because the professor is liable to single them out at any moment and force them to say something and defend themselves. That means they have to be prepared. And so the result is that we have all of the students in class, all of the time, always prepared, and always engaged.

And then we have a Cross-Enterprise case, you ratchet that engagement up a whole other level because you could have come in all prepared to discuss Finance if it was a Finance class. But if Gerard is sitting there, you've got to be worried that at any moment he's liable to grab you and take you off into a Leadership issue. And so this is the part that blows your mind; you are so incredibly engaged for 4 hours. And so when they come out of this class, it is on a high. The adrenalin is just flowing like you can't imagine.

Ashleigh Nimigan: How does the Case Method fit in with Cross-Enterprise Leadership; how do they complement each other?

Jim Hatch: It's hard to distinguish between those two, because virtually by definition a well-written case is cross-enterprise in nature, it always is, if it's an Ivey case. Cases as used in some schools are simply little problems. They're two pages and you give the students a bunch of numbers; they have to do a calculation; there is an answer; and some schools call that "a case." That is not a case at Ivey. A case at Ivey tends to be more complex than that; it draws in broader implications than just the narrow functional issue at hand. And so virtually every case is Cross-Enterprise.

Ashleigh Nimigan: How do students benefit from Cross-Enterprise Leadership even after they leave the classroom?

Jim Hatch: Sometimes when you talk about leadership people think that you're taking on the position of the president of the company and that's who the leader is. We view leadership in a much eclectic way: that is, you can lead from the bottom; you can be in an entry level job and you can demonstrate leadership.

Bosses can't always define for you very clearly what all of the issues are, so what often happens is they give you a fairly narrow task. We're hopeful that even at an entry level position our students are capable of seeing the bigger picture. So then when they get a task, no matter how minor it is, they can take the whole organization into account, and they can produce a product that is more useful to the organization than even perhaps the narrow task they've been assigned. And if you continually do that in life, you will get ahead in that organization. You will be recognized; you'll be called on, because you're the go-to person that sees the issues, and it's much more helpful.

That was Jim Hatch, professor of Finance, at the Richard Ivey School of Business.