James G. Clawson

Managing cross-gender mentoring

Abstract For many years, men have been helped to advanced in their careers by the interest and personal guidance of a mentor. Now, when women in business merit this special professional attention, problems can arise—including sexual attraction, marital disruption, and damaging gossip. These authors provide suggestions for men and women who must deal with this potentially dangerous situation.

Creating a learning culture : strategy, technology, and practice

Creating a Learning Culture features insightful essays from industry observers and revealing case studies of prominent corporations. Each chapter revolves around creating an environment where learning takes place each day, all day - fundamentally changing the way we think about how, what, and when we learn, and how we can apply learning to practice. For the first time contemporary work on this subject appears in one volume. Three sections address key aspects of learning culture: the modern business context and the importance of learning at every juncture; the organic and adaptive approaches organizational leaders can take to design enduring success; and the expanding role of individuals within organizations and the implications for business leaders, educators, technologists, and learners. Identifying the steps companies must take to remain competitive for years to come, this book explains how learning strategies applied to all aspects of every job can provide swift returns and lasting results.

Mentoring in the Information Age

Presents mentoring as a valuable social development phenomenon that has endured historical paradigm shifts and will survive the present transition from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. Views mentoring as one of several types of developmental relationships that will be important to people in the new age. Raises questions about how mentoring might be shaped by the operating realities of the new paradigm and offers some preliminary suggestions.

How Course Portfolios Can Advance the Scholarship and Practice of Management Teaching.

The authors believe the development, peer review, and sharing of course portfolios can significantly improve the scholarship and teaching of management. To make this case, they provide background information about course portfolios, including origins, defining features, purposes, and potential benefits. They then identify actual portfolio projects and resources that are currently publicly available, including an Organizational Behavior course portfolio they developed. They conclude with recommendations for further action by business schools, individual faculty members, and professional organizations such as the Organizational Behavior Teaching Society and the Academy of Management.

Seeing the Unseen: Initiating an MBA Program Committee Change Process.

Purpose – This article describes one way for committee chairs, program administrators, and/or task force leaders to effectively galvanize an educational program change process. In particular, it introduces and describes the successful use of an assumptions audit (AA) to expose, challenge, reinforce, and/or discard a variety of educational program design and delivery assumptions under‐girding one top‐ranked, MBA programs required first year.Design/methodology/approach – From a case study perspective, this paper chronicles the actual process pursued by a faculty committee chair, to successfully and effectively initiate an educational program review and change process. The paper also roots the AA in the literature on creativity, teams, educational administration, and organizational development.Findings – As a result of the insights provided by the AA, a successful educational change process was launched with high collegiality amongst the change team and with high clarity regarding avenues of change to pursu...

Level Three common sense

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show that “common sense” is rooted in genetic and memetic legacies developed early in life and is not so common based on where those legacies were developed. To show that managers who are unable to review and adjust their common sense are not likely to be effective managers locally or globally.Design/methodology/approach – The logic developed here is based on eclectic literature sources in psychology, anthropology, and management and from personal consulting activities all over the globe. The logic converges on the border between common and uncommon “sense” and reports data from sessions held in every quarter of the globe.Findings – This discussion finds that much of management behavior is based on “common sense” that is neither accurate nor effective. For example, managers who focus on visible professional behavior and results at the expense of feel, which is common sense to most, may find their results to be, ironically, less than they could be.Practical implica...

Leadership as managing energy

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provoke academic and practitioner thinking by asserting a set of leadership principles first in oneself and then in others.Design/methodology/approach – The paper asserts a set of leadership principles, including a new definition of leadership, namely to manage energy. First, most managers seem to use more traditional definitions, like getting people to focus on a common goal, and, second, to focus on others at the expense of recognizing how their own energy level affects those around them.Findings – Leaders and managers should first reflect on leading themselves and their own energy, while paying more attention to real buy‐in rather than superficial buy‐in. Moreover, leader/managers should pay more attention to the degree to which they live “outside‐in” and therefore behave less “leader‐like” on the inside. Leader/managers can begin to use “level three” techniques rather than the more superficial “level one” (visible behavior) and “level two” (conscious thought) ...

Custom executive education program charters: a beneficial task and useful template

Purpose – This paper introduces readers to the usefulness of, design of, and an example of a custom executive education program charter. As such, charters are posed as a key task to complete at the outset of a new custom executive education provider/client relationship. Design/methodology/approach – This paper codifies the attributes of a well-conceived and well-crafted program charter based on a number of years of having led custom executive education program design, development, and delivery activities. Findings – Six components of a useful and substantive custom executive education program charter are identified. Each is discussed as are the roles that a completed charter can contribute to in an ongoing custom executive education provider/client relationship. Practical implications – The field-inspired custom executive education program charter insights presented are immediately actionable by program providers and/or the client sponsors of such programs. Originality/value – Readers are provided with a ...

Fundamental Elements in Teaching

This note, an introductory conceptual framework for a doctoral seminar on pedagogy, outlines seven key contributors to effective learning and discusses the relationships among those elements. The seven elements are institutional culture, program culture, instructor, students, materials, setting, and methodology.

Balancing Your Life: Executive Lessons for Work, Family and Self

The balance between work and family life is the single most commonly mentioned issue among senior executives worldwide. This book provides a framework for analyzing immediate and long-term balance. Using case studies of how twelve or more executives in various industries have handled the challenge, readers are invited throughout the volume to compare their current structures with those of the subjects in the cases presented.