Erika Hayes James

Learning to Lead While Giving Back. Part II.

In Part I of this series, I introduced you to the innovative new concept for Darden’s graduate students’ Capstone class, that not only highlighted the art and skill of running a business, but also gave back to local Charlottesville charities.

The business ideas were uncovered in the final presentations, and they were certainly unique and innovative. They included:

§ Butler services

§ A “Can You Read Braille” Art Exhibit

§ An original play that was that was written and performed for the Darden community by the team

§ Production of a new e-mail management service

§ GRE and GMAT coaching service

§ Shoe shine business

§ Language translations services

And some of these concepts were tougher than others to produce and sell within the course of only one week!

Read the rest of this entry »

Learning to Lead While Giving Back: An MBA Capstone Leadership Experience. Part I.

What do you do with a group of talented and savvy first year MBA students once they have completed the core business school curriculum (including classes in finance, marketing, accounting, operations, organizational behavior, communications, and more), and before they start work at their summer internships? At the University of Virginia Darden Business School, you challenge them to put their newly acquired business knowledge to the test in an intense, hands-on, time-sensitive, and team-based leadership task. Touted around the school as “Donald Trump’s Apprentice meets Oprah’s Angel Network,” the experience provided students ending their first year curriculum requirements at Darden with a capstone leadership experience that not only highlights the art and skill of running a business, but also gives back to the local community.

I must say, as I was helping to develop this program, I was a little apprehensive. It was definitely non-traditional, and much of the City of Charlottesville and the Darden community were going to feel the effects. But I also believed that this type of “doing” was necessary for the students.

All 330+ members of the first year class participated in the capstone experience. Within Darden’s five section classrooms, students were placed into teams of 12. Each team effectively became a mini-organization and students were required to self-organize in order to carry out the task of creating a business venture that actually earned money. Each team was seeded with up to $100 to start their business initiative. Over the course of four days, the teams were asked to determine an executable business idea, create an organizational structure that identified various leadership roles and responsibilities, devise a marketing strategy for their product or service, manage sales, and implement accounting procedures. In addition, they were asked to document their process throughout the week and deliver a professional presentation at week’s end.

Coupled with their business venture was yet another challenge. Read the rest of this entry »

In Celebration of Women

March is Women’s History Month. Shamefully, it was not until this time last year (2010 mind you), when I was invited to be a keynote speaker at an ExxonMobil Women’s History Month event, that I even realized such an honor for women even existed. So I did some research and found out that the roots of Women’s History Month can actually be traced back one hundred years—1911—to the first International Women’s Day. Several decades later the U.S. Congress passed a resolution to recognize Women’s History Week; and in 2001, two senators co-sponsored the first Joint Congressional Resolution proclaiming a Women’s History Month.

So, in this posting I honor the women of the world whose strength, perseverance, and loving nature continues to make this world a better place. I am proud to be a woman and I am particularly grateful to be a woman in America where there are liberties and opportunities for women that simply do not exist in other parts of the world. Read the rest of this entry »

What’s Happening to J&J?

Johnson & Johnson has been the indisputable leader for decades in corporate reputation, trustworthiness, and effective crisis handling. The company has achieved such acclaim in no small way because of a widely held set of corporate values. J&J has one of the most clearly articulated corporate credos in the world.

We believe our first responsibility is to the doctors, nurses, and patient, to mothers and fathers and all others who use our products and services… We are responsible to our employees, the men and women who work with us throughout the world…We must respect their dignity and recognize their merit…We are responsible to the communities in which we live and work and to the world community as well…Our final responsibility is to our stockholders. Business must make a sound profit…”

In reading their credo I think to myself, “This is a company I would be proud to work for.” As a crisis expert, that sentiment was heightened over the years following the Tylenol poisoning in the early 1980s and seeing how swiftly and effectively J&J responded to the crisis. They lived their credo under the most challenging of circumstances and became admired throughout their world as a result.

Given this backdrop, I find the recent scandals surrounding J&J to be a conundrum. For example, there have been increasing complaints that cost saving measures in the company have led to a decline in product quality leading to a growing number of product recalls. Equally as egregious is that the firm allegedly sent employees into stores and other outlets, posing as customers, to buy defective product (e.g., Motrin) rather than issue a recall. The lack of transparency and the perceived inconsistency with the company’s long-standing credo is not only an enigma but a problem they must rectify. Sadly, another recent event leads me to believe they have a long way to go to reclaim the public’s admiration and trust.

Below, Darden MBA student Amelia Finnerty recants her own story of J & J’s woes and the effect it has had on at least one consumer.

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It all started on a routine shopping excursion to pick up tampons (squeamish boys need not read any further). What would normally be a quick outing turned into a drawn out event that turned me into a detective on a hunt. Read the rest of this entry »

To Pause or Not to Pause

Last week I led a group of students through a week-long intensive class called Crisis Leadership.  It is an elective class for 2nd year MBA students, and the one-week format where we meet all day everyday lends itself to doing some non-traditional activities that are not possible in the standard 90 minute class session.  One of those activities included spending an afternoon in the Darden studio practicing “media moments” on camera. I have often said that most leaders are ill-prepared for crisis, and consequently say things or make decisions that at worst create more negative publicity for the firm, or at best might get their organization back to status quo.  Rarely do the untested actions and communication of leaders under pressure lead to improvements in the form of growth, innovation, or other forms of positive organizational change.

The goal of my Crisis Leadership class is to influence how students (our future leaders) think about, prepare for, manage, and learn from crisis situations in order to reap the proverbial opportunity.  As part of their deliverable for the course I have asked them to write a brief reflection on an “aha” moment from the class.  With their permission I will be sharing several of these reflections in this and future postings.  Below is a reflection from Seth McGuire, Darden MBA Class of 2011.  Seth writes of the impact that a metaphor used by Retired Coast Guard Admiral David Ciangalini made about he learned from the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
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I’ve been thinking a great deal about something Retired Admiral Ciangalini said early in our discussions on Monday. When discussing the many challenges he faced in managing the 1989 clean-up effort for the Exxon Valdez oil spill  (including managing multiple stakeholders, the lack of infrastructure, limited data available to help them navigate the situation, unprecedented scope of spill, etc.) he used a football analogy to describe the need for occasional patience. Read the rest of this entry »