Support for MBA Students

Professionalism, Social Responsibility, and the Purpose of the Corporation” is designed as an introduction to ethics in business, with a focus on business management. Over 13 sessions, students will have the opportunity to explore theoretical concepts in business ethics, as well as cases that represent the challenges they will likely face as managers; they will also have the opportunity to work with guest faculty and business and other professional practitioners. Individual sessions will take the form of moderated discussion, with occasional short lectures from the instructor.

We know it can be challenging to talk about race and gender, and in particular, to talk about race and gender with others we see as different than ourselves. At work, this challenge often seems risky, at best, and insurmountable at worst. Yet, it is a mark of leadership to be able to engage in these crucial conversations—if leaders can’t do this, who can? This course gives us an opportunity to understand why it can be so hard to talk about race and gender and to explore what is at stake for each of us as we consider navigating these crucial conversations. It raises important questions about how who we are influences when and how we engage, if it all, in conversations about race and gender. We will explore strategies for approaching the topics that are hard for each of us to talk about. Most importantly, we will practice preparing for, participating in and assessing the impact of conversations about and across difference.

This course address key challenges faced when attempting to lead a group, of any size, where authority to make decisions may be constrained or limited. It explores the distinction between leadership and authority and helps individuals to critically examine their willingness and capability to guide and make decisions when working in project teams, (such as on action learning projects) organizational groups or other business or community contexts. Students will use systems thinking tools to look at the complex leadership dynamics that can arise and will explore options for making decisions when dealing with the unexpected or when faced with potentially uncomfortable situations.

Designed to provide a practical understanding of the skills of improvisation and their application to leadership. Examines the essential elements of successful leadership, including creativity, emotional intelligence, adaptability, and the capacity to develop effective influence strategies and build strong teams. Cultivates students' ability to respond to the unexpected with confidence and agility. Each class offers a highly experiential learning laboratory where students practice a wide variety of improvised business scenarios, interactive exercises, and simulations.

Organizations Lab addresses the question of how individuals can transform organizations and, in doing so, the communities in which those organizations reside. The centerpiece of the course is a semester long action learning project in which students will assist a local nonprofit organization in improving its efficiency and effectiveness. To support this effort the course introduces two complementary perspectives. First, Dynamic Work Design, a framework and supporting set of tools (developed at MIT) for designing and creating more effective and engaging work. Second, we offer several frameworks for thinking about the impacts, both positive and negative, that organizations have on their surrounding communities. The goal is to build your ability to link specific interventions to larger transformations, and, in doing so, build your capability to transform both organizations and your career. 

Competitive advantage is often built on the quality of teamwork that happens within the organization. Great teams stimulate creativity and innovation, enable rapid adaptation to market changes, and produce breakthrough results. But building, developing, and leveraging effective teams is a complex process and success is far from guaranteed especially in a global and often virtual environment. Effective teams start with leaders who can objectively analyze and understand the inherently subjective experience of all of a team’s members. Enabling each participant to reflect on how they are contributing to both negative and positive team outcomes sets the stage for great performances. Teams Lab is designed to help you develop the skills and frameworks necessary to diagnose the key barriers and strengths that determine team performance and to intervene in ways that improve effectiveness. The course will be organized the following topics: Self-Awareness and Emotional Regulation, Perspective Taking and Perspective Getting, Conflict Management and Conflict Construction, and Context Awareness. Teams Lab will integrate weekly class sessions, facilitated experiential exercises, professional executive coaching (at the individual and team level), personal reflection, and assessments.

Explores key organizational and strategic decisions in founding and building a new venture. Through a series of cases, readings, and activities, students examine the trade-offs and consequences of early founder decisions: whom to include in the founding team, how to allocate equity among co-founders, how to determine founder roles, how to hire and motivate early-employees, and whether to involve external investors. Aims to equip students with tools and frameworks to help them understand the implications of early decisions, and to build enduring resources that enable the venture to execute even if the original plan changes substantially. Meets with 15.3941 when offered concurrently. Expectations and evaluation criteria differ for students taking graduate version; consult syllabus or instructor for specific details.

This hands-on course will integrate the 4-Capabilties Leadership model with arts processes using cases, discussion, and experiential sessions that translate the capabilities into practice. There will be a strong focus on developing individual practices that maintain and nurture these capabilities. The course is structured for students to immerse in visioning, relating, sensemaking, and inventing activities through experiencing arts processes that facilitate effective individual and collective perspectives, enable adaptive collaboration in a changing world, and generate connections between diversity and creative outputs.

This interactive and experiential class is about leading profound innovation for pioneering a more sustainable economy and society. It focuses on the intertwined relationship of the following three questions: 

• Transformation of Capitalism: How can capitalism and society evolve from its current forms to an emerging future form that creates well-being for all (society 4.0)?
• Multi-stakeholder innovation: What leadership does it take to create profound innovation at the scale of the whole eco-system of stakeholders and partners?
• Presencing: How can people access their authentic self — their highest future possibility — and “act from” that heightened state of awareness in the now?

The class facilitates a journey of profound self-knowing and change and is organized around personal reflection practices, relational practices, and well-being economies.

Prepares students to lead teams charged with developing creative solutions in engineering and technical environments. Grounded in research but practical in focus, equips students with leadership competencies such as building self-awareness, motivating and developing others, creative problem solving, influencing without authority, managing conflict, and communicating effectively. Teamwork skills include how to convene, launch, and develop various types of teams, including project teams. Learning methods emphasize personalized and professional skill development.