Perspective Winter 2016 by Gies College of Business

COLLEGE OF BUSINESS

Perspectives U N I V E R S I T Y O F I L L I N O I S AT U R B A N A- C H A MPA I G N

GREAT IDEAS START HERE

WINTER 2016

JUST ASK PAUL MAGELLI

"With the continued

ince becoming dean of our College in August, I have had the privilege of connecting and collaborating with thousands of students, faculty, and alumni on campus, across the country, and around the

COLLEGE OF BUSINESS

world. With each connection made, I have been struck by the shared commitment to build on our success and set even higher aspirations for our future.

of our alumni and friends,

During my deanship, our College will focus on three strategic priorities. First, we will create an innovative undergraduate curriculum and student experience that will set the standard for a 21st-century

we can truly become one of the great 21st-century business schools."

business education. Second, we will establish a global brand for our suite of MBA programs—including our new, innovative iMBA that launched in January—by building on our campus’ global reputation for technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Third, we will expand our scholarly footprint by increasing the size of our faculty through high-impact hires. To achieve these lofty goals, we will need your help. As we enter a new year, I would ask that each of world. Whether it is sponsoring an experiential learning project through our Illinois Business Consulting, hiring our graduates, serving on an advisory committee, or advocating for the University of Illinois in your community, your support is critical to our success. Your financial support is also critical. Many of our alumni and friends are surprised to learn that the College of Business is 100-percent self-financed through tuition and philanthropy. That’s right: even though we are part of a public institution, our College has not relied on taxpayer dollars for many years. Our ability to invest in excellence and innovation depends on the generosity of our alumni and friends. Your generosity has produced incredible results. Approximately 96 percent of our undergraduate Class of 2015 were placed in jobs, a number that to our knowledge is unsurpassed. We have received a record number of applications for our incoming class, surpassing 4,000 applications for the first time in our College’s history. The University of Illinois is ranked 10th nationally in producing venture-backed entrepreneurs coming straight out of undergraduate programs and is 7th in the nation in terms of capital raised. We have produced more Fortune 500 CFOs than any other school in the nation. Our faculty continue to produce groundbreaking research. But we are never satisfied to rest on our past accomplishments. We seek to aim ever higher. With the continued commitment and support of our alumni and friends, we can truly become one of the great

DEAn Jeffrey R. Brown MAnAGInG EDITOR Mary Kay Dailey

Perspectives 2

COnTRIBUTInG WRITERS Tom Hanlon Celeste Huttes Cathy Lockman

Pioneering Experiential Learning Real-world experience makes a difference. Just ask College faculty and alumni.

Game On

The Online Learning Revolution

High Energy, High Ambition

Life-Saving Economics

What’s the Big Idea?

Making Connections

EDITOR Cathy Lockman

How can gamification strategies change the workplace?

Our College of Business is taking the lead.

Al Goldstein is a serial success.

Matching markets extend the possibilities for kidney donations.

Innovation isn’t just for R&D labs. User entrepreneurs are making their mark.

Who are the connectors in your workplace and what do they mean for your business?

21st-century business schools. I look forward to leading our College into its second century!

PHOTOGRAPHERS Tricia Koning Thompson • McClellan Photography Wei Zhu

SHORT TAKES

DESIGnER Pat Mayer

Jeffrey R. Brown Josef and Margot Lakonishok Professor in Business and Dean

ON THE COVER Paul Magelli has always believed that experience is the best teacher. He led the effort 20 years ago to bring experiential learning to the College’s curriculum, an initiative that continues to impact the careers of former and current students.

PROOFREADER Anne McKinney

Perspectives has been named a Circle of Excellence Bronze Award winner by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and an Award of Excellence winner by the University & College Designers Association. www.business.illinois.edu

WINTER 2016

[ MY ] PERSPECTIVE

you think about how you can help elevate our College into the ranks of the best business schools in the

[ CONTENTS ]

commitment and support

We welcome your perspective, too. Send your comments or suggestions for future articles to our managing editor, Mary Kay Dailey, at mkdailey@illinois.edu.

CELEBRATING OUR PAST. CREATING OUR FUTURE.

The Main Event

Taking Our Qs

60-Second Proﬁle

Global Impact

100 Words or Less

The Reason Why

Parting Shot

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is an equal opportunity, affirmative action institution. Printed on recycled paper with soybean ink.

[ COvER STORY ]

IBC

PIONEERING THE STUDENT CONSULTING EXPERIENCE

hen Lesley MillarNicholson entered the Illinois MBA in 2000, she quickly became involved in the program’s student consulting initiative. One of her projects focused on assisting a spin out of a major telecommunications company that was working on telematics and speciﬁcally how communications devices could be incorporated into vehicles for voice and data applications as well as location devices. At the time, “the idea that you would have something in your windshield or your dashboard to help you communicate was totally out of the box,” she says. “In their product conversations, the company

In 2005, nearly 10 years after the College's student consulting organization was established, it changed its name from the Office for the Study of Business Issues to Illinois Business Consulting. This special memento marked the occasion.

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As the student director for IBC, I had an incredible opportunity to do a real deep dive into managing people, and that experience has been invaluable in my professional career. The project work never felt like an academic or group exercise. There was a real focus within the teams to provide innovative solutions for the clients and to add value and drive progress for their businesses. now as director of the MBA program, I also see IBC’s value from a diﬀerent viewpoint. Because it provides students with such a unique real-world experience, IBC is a huge diﬀerentiator from a recruitment perspective. The reputation the program has gained over the last 20 years provides opportunities that separate us from all other B schools.

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Mark Lockwood ’07 MBA Director, MBA Program University of Illinois College of Business

business.illinois.edu

was even exploring the notion of a Bluetooth-type device, despite the fact that there weren’t even smartphones. Our team was desperately trying to ﬁnd market information to assist the company with their decisions, but it was a huge challenge because there was no market and the idea was so ahead of its time." Just as the company was pioneering something new, so too was the College of Business when it began oﬀering students such consulting experiences. “The opportunity I had to be involved in projects like this is indicative of the realworld experiential learning opportunities students have come to expect from the College,” says

Millar-Nicholson, now the director of the University of Illinois Office of Technology Management. That’s because 20 years ago leaders of the College had a vision to offer something truly unique—the first self-financed, student-run consulting company.

SOLVING PROBLEMS That initiative, originally called the Oﬃce for the Study of Business Issues (OSBI), was established in 1995. It was part of a multi-year effort undertaken by then-Dean Howard Thomas to reengineer the MBA program. He tasked Paul Magelli, then the acting director of the MBA program, to explore the

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Working on OSBI teams, I learned a lot about the process of building something from nothing and making it a proﬁtable and helpful product or service. This process is the entrepreneurial journey, and I have taken an entrepreneurial approach from the MBA program to the workplace. I’m not sure I would have fully understood how to attack a business problem with a business solution if I had not experienced real corporations solving various problems of their own. And then to be part of a team—researching, seeking advice from professors, gathering and analyzing data while sharing responsibilities, ﬁguring out what was important and what was not—was an exciting and valuable experience. Since graduating from the program, we have hired eight IBC teams to help with research for the International Equity Income investment portfolio that I manage. As a student participant, I was learning from my peers and from the professors who advised us; as a corporate sponsor of IBC projects, I always learn a lot from the wellrounded, incredibly smart and capable students on our projects.

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J. Bryant Evans ’00 MBA Portfolio Manager and Investment Adviser Cozad Asset Management, Inc.

Paul Magelli (front) was instrumental in helping to establish the Office for the Study of Business Issues 20 years ago. Joining him in BIF are Mark Smith, one of the program’s first students and now a faculty member in the Department of Finance, and current student Liz Troyk, a senior majoring in supply chain management and marketing. College of Business I University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

options for expanding and improving curriculum. “Dean Thomas wanted us to provide opportunities for our students to work within consulting companies,” says Magelli, now in his 25th year with the College. “We had no history of sending students into consulting at the time, so some people were uncertain about the idea. However, the dean believed this was an industry that would be vitally important in the future, and he advocated for the establishment of OSBI.” Magelli, too, saw the need for adding such a component to the curriculum. “At the time, MBA programs were a collection of courses, but there was nothing that pulled all the material together,” says Magelli, a longtime champion of OSBI and its successor Illinois Business Consulting (IBC). “So we really didn’t know if the students could synthesize the knowledge they were gaining to manage an enterprise. Our goal was to provide a way for the students to engage in projects that would enable them to draw upon all the content they were getting in their classes to solve a real problem.”

in appreciation for the dynamic ﬁnancial model the students developed for them. “We knew that what we were providing had value in terms of curriculum and real-world learning for the students,” says Magelli. “With that gift, we knew the clients viewed the deliverables as valuable too, and so we initiated a fee-for-service structure. Within two years, OSBI went from handling 16 projects a year to 40. With larger clients and more diverse projects, there was an instant need to include graduate students from other disciplines across campus.”

“In IBC, we have a rigorous training ground in a safe environment where students can take risks. . . .They leave exceptionally prepared for the real world.” Andrew Allen Hundreds of successful studentclient relationships later, Thomas and Magelli have been proved right. For two decades, there has been no doubt that the experience is a differentiator. OSBI was the ﬁrst such

“

The OSBI experience helped me to develop the skills to solve problems and ﬁnd answers, which is so important in the work I do today as a sports agent. During our MBA retreat, I remember we had to climb a wall. As the biggest guy of the 15 team members, I helped everyone up over the wall, but then I had to get myself over even though I wasn’t in the greatest shape to do it. That experience, like my time in OSBI and the MBA program, helped me to realize not only the value of being a good team player but the importance of being ready to take things into your own hands when necessary.

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Deryk Gilmore ’96 MBA Sports Agent, Priority Sports and Entertainment

student-managed consulting business on a college campus, initially working for companies on a pro bono basis to build a portfolio of clients and deliverables. That changed in 2000 when a client gifted OSBI $100,000

PRODUCING LEADERS Today, IBC (renamed in 2005 to more clearly reﬂect the organization’s focus) is the largest studentmanaged, fee-for-service consulting business in American higher education. Students are clamoring to be a part of it. Businesses are strong advocates for it. Recruiters are anxious to hear about it. In short, it’s a big success. Why? According to Andrew Allen, IBC’s current director, it’s

“

business.illinois.edu

“We had a wonderful cadre of colleagues in [OSBI], and everyone committed a great deal of time, creativity, and thought to the work.” Lesley Millar-Nicholson

salaries than the national average and than their peers in the College, and they receive promotions at a faster rate, says Allen. In addition, students report that the IBC experience improves their leadership,

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When I was assistant director of OSBI, we took student teams on truly special projects that provided unique experiences for them. Three stand out in particular. The first was taking teams to the “nASA Means Business Competition” and seeing them win first place. This was followed by visits to Congress to explain their conclusions; the students got to see how government operates firsthand. The second was taking a team to London to analyze the potential for a start-up that eventually proved immensely successful. This provided a taste of the high-powered consultant life: traveling on short notice to one of the leading capitals of the world and working very long days once there! Finally, taking a team and joining them in a red teaming effort hosted by a major consultant firm to look at future space developments. We were surrounded by domain experts, but the students brought their out-of-the-box thinking to the task and thus came up with a few curves balls that gave all reason to think. These were great experiences, and the students responded in kind with great ideas, positive attitudes, and determined work effort.

For me, the most valuable takeaways of my time at OSBI were the project leadership opportunities and the mentorship of OSBI’s invaluable faculty leaders. First, you find yourself leading teams of individuals with different motivations and expectations, and candidly, each bringing to the table their own level of commitment. This is exactly what a leader deals with out in the real world. We are finding ways to put a project plan together that makes sense but also contemplates a hodgepodge of participants at diverse places in their careers, with diverse backgrounds, fluctuating incentives and objectives, and bringing that all together, utilizing the best that each has to offer, to create a real deliverable that has the ability to measurably affect the direction of a company. Secondly, my time with Paul Magelli and others had an immeasurable impact on my development as a person as well as a professional. I felt like we were working and developing under the tutelage of great people whose primary interest was our growth and eventual success. It means so much to have such incredible people in your corner, believing in you and helping you reach your goals.

Normand Paquin ’97 MBA Associate Director for Research University of Illinois Coordinated Science Laboratory

Reese B. Reynolds ’02 MBA, ’02 MHRIR Director, Human Resources Management Space Systems Company, Lockheed Martin

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because Illinois does it better than anyone else. “Experiential learning is no longer a new concept, but when you have one of the best models out there, it leads to success,” he says. “We aren’t focusing on training students in a discipline, such as marketing or finance. Our goal is to produce leaders with T-shaped skills that are both deep and broad. And that pays off for the student and the client.” He explains that companies want employees who know how to solve difficult problems, how to manage a client, how to deal with conflict and ambiguity, how to delegate work, and how to be part of a team. “In IBC, we have a rigorous training ground in a safe environment where students can take risks and learn those skills. They are placed in situations where they are forced to lead or be led. They present to high-level managers or executives. It’s an experience that can’t be matched. They leave exceptionally prepared for the real world.” And they leave with some very tangible benefits. Successful IBC graduates have higher starting

”

teamwork, and public-speaking skills and is beneﬁcial in both interviewing for and landing a job. Liz Troyk, a senior majoring in supply chain management and marketing, is one of those students.

“In IBC, you get exposed to a variety of industries, clients, and projects, which opens doors to so many opportunities,” says Troyk, who recently accepted a position with KPMG in the advisory practice. “Plus, you have the benefit of working with a team of students from many disciplines, from community health to computer science to engineering, who all look at the project through a different lens. And within those teams, there could also be graduate students who are earning PhDs, master’s degrees, or law degrees. Their perspectives and experience are so valuable, and their participation makes our program unique.” Troyk, who is one of 270 current IBC students (65 percent of whom are undergraduates), explains that the experience has been instrumental in her skill development as well. “There is no substitute for the real-world experience IBC provides to fine-tune your professional communication, presentation, and research skills. You have to be ready to think creatively, to be flexible, and to dig deeper. There’s a lot to be

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In IBC, we developed the ability to think critically on a global scale, questioning more of the ‘why’ than the ‘what.’ Most of your studies require the regurgitation of specific information. As you embark on a career, entry-level positions follow a similar pattern of completing specific tasks in your area of responsibility. If you desire to progress in your career, you have to display the ability to take on increasingly vague objectives with expanding boundaries and little to no direction. IBC provided opportunities outside of the classroom to work collaboratively with team members and to really challenge ourselves to dig below the surface-level noise of the symptoms of the problem to find the root cause. At that point, we had to think more globally to develop a solution that not only alleviates the problem but takes into account the greater impact on the business as a whole and their strategic objectives.

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Jake Panek ’12 MBA Senior Audit Professional, nike

College of Business I University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Welcome Home

HOMECOMING 2015

learned from the project itself, but even more to be gained when you listen and collaborate with others. It’s critical for success.”

ACHIEVING SUCCESS Mark Smith’s experience in OSBI has been instrumental to his career success as well. In 1995, after earning his PhD in engineering from Illinois, he enrolled in the newly reengineered MBA program. He led one of the first OSBI teams to provide assessments of promising technologies for the University’s Research and Technology Management Office, so the RTMO could decide which ones held the most potential for commercialization. Alpha Shapes, a 3D modeling software application developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, emerged as one of them. And when the company’s founders Ping Fu and Herbert Edelsbrunner were ready to launch their company in April 1996, Smith became a business partner and the first employee of the newly formed venture, Geomagic.

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In 15 months, the company raised $1.6 million in three private investment rounds and developed and released two commercial products. The company was acquired in 2013 by 3D Systems for $55 million. For OSBI, the relationship with RTMO was the beginning of a growing reputation for providing realworld opportunities for students in the areas of innovation, technology, and entrepreneurship. For Smith, the OSBI opportunity provided a launching pad for a successful entrepreneurial career. Now a faculty member in the Department of Finance, he brings that knowledge and experience to his work with students in the College.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE Millar-Nicholson’s career path was also forged through her OSBI experience. In addition to working on the telematics project, she led an OSBI team, similar to Smith’s ﬁve years earlier, that spent a summer assessing a backlog of 750 technologies for RTMO’s successor, the Oﬃce of Technology and Management. In

In my opinion, OSBI/IBC has always been the forward-thinking arm of the Illinois MBA program. The group has provided innovative solutions to companies in the face of complex global problems requiring a profoundly diﬀerent mindset. They were doing HACK-A-THOns before they were formerly named!

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Camille Chang Gilmore ’96 MBA vice President, Human Resources Boston Scientiﬁc Corporation

2002 when there was an opening in OTM for a technology manager, Millar-Nicholson was tapped for the job. She became its director in 2006. “OSBI provided opportunities and paved the pathway to help me make decisions on the next steps in my career,” says Millar-Nicholson, who began her association with OSBI and her pursuit of an MBA after leaving a career in the U.K. “The OSBI experience was very fulfilling. We had a wonderful cadre of colleagues in the program, and everyone committed a great deal of time, creativity, and thought to the work.” That commitment, says Magelli, has been one of the true differentiators of the program over the past 20 years. “Yes, the idea of a student-run consulting company was unique, but the real story is the students who made it work and continue to make it work by embracing the concept, by logging the hours day and night, and by committing to the highest standards of professionalism. That’s the real differentiator of our program.” • Cathy Lockman

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My experience at OSBI was amazing. As a young professional, I was given the opportunity to work on, and ultimately lead, teams of strong professional students working directly with clients on meaningful projects that mattered. We were forced to think creatively and solve problems on our own, reminded that we were representing the University and that our clients were looking at us as a consulting team—not as a student project. Being given this opportunity and experience outside the classroom truly made my MBA at Illinois incredibly unique and incredibly valuable.

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Steve Vivian ’97 MBA Founder & Principal, Kestrel Capital Group

business.illinois.edu

[ THE MAIn EvEnT ] When Business alumni returned to campus for Homecoming this fall, many took the opportunity to tour campus, visit the Business Instructional Facility, cheer on the Illini at Memorial Stadium, and enjoy the camaraderie of other loyal College of Business alumni at our traditional Business Bash tailgate. Hosted by the College of Business Alumni Association, the event provided alumni and their families with a chance to mark the College’s Centennial year as well as to reconnect and share their Illini pride as you can see here. Plan to join us for these upcoming alumni events: February 26, 2016 MBA Alumni Banquet (JW Marriott) March 10, 2016 Roundtable: Leadership (Illini Center) April 27, 2016 Spring Luncheon (Hyatt Regency) May 11, 2016 Roundtable: Women in Business (Illini Center)

Smitha and Raja Krishn an, one of the first st udents adm itted to th iMBA progra e m, with De an Brown.

Much has changed since the College promoted OSBI’s early eﬀorts in this 1997 MBA publication. Find out more about today’s successes by visiting the IBC website at www.ibc.illinois.edu. And if you were involved with OSBI/ IBC in the last 20 years, we hope you’ll share your story, too. Contact us at ibcinfo@business.illinois.edu.

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Joining IBC was one of the wisest choices I made in college. The hands-on experience to solve real business problems has been very beneficial to start my career. The business acumen, leadership, and communication skills that I obtained in IBC play a key role in my current daily routine. Furthermore, the experience to work in the diverse environment was unparalleled. I can still recall the dynamic discussions with people from different parts of the world as well as the valuable perspectives from people across another field—that's the best experience of IBC.

Same time next year!

PMBA Class of 2015 classmates celebrate Homecoming. Go Illini!!

Members of the College of Business Alumni Association Board enjoy the festivities. The Board sponsors Homecoming.

o be Good t ! home

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Jiaying (Jen) Bao '13 FIN and ACCY valuation Consultant, KPMG

College of Business I University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

[LEADERSHIP]

TAKING OUR Qs

Jim Hackett ’75 FIN has been CEO or president of several major companies, most of them in the energy field. As CEO and president of Anadarko Petroleum from 2003 to 2013, he turned a back-of-the-pack company into a frontrunner with $45 billion in strategic deals. He has extensive experience in building upstream companies both onshore and offshore and in global deepwater exploration; he has held positions in engineering, finance, and marketing; and he has served as an independent director for many companies and as a chair or member of numerous boards, both philanthropic and otherwise. Hackett is currently a partner of Riverstone Holdings in Houston and is also completing a master’s in theological studies at Harvard Divinity School.

business.illinois.edu

Q: How did you choose to come to Illinois? Hackett: I came to Illinois after leaving the Air Force Academy, which was a very tough decision because I loved the place, for two reasons that were out of my control. One, fortunately for the world, was the war ended in my sophomore year. The second was my eyes went from 20/19 to 20/50 in two years, so I was no longer pilot qualified, and the reason I went there was to fight in vietnam and to fly jets. So my two reasons for going were gone. Both Georgetown and Illinois accepted me for January. But [the fall before that], there was a young man who had just left Illinois after matriculating there for his junior year, and he was a James Scholar, so there were two years of a scholarship left if I wanted to go to the business school. Q: How did your first job after graduation, at Amoco, influence your career path? Hackett: When I went to Amoco, I found out how magical was the energy field, and I ended up loving

business, which I thought I would hate. When I finished my MBA at Harvard, which was required to get ahead at Amoco, I went back into engineering. So the two things to which I was completely indifferent— —business and engineering—were the things I ended up really focusing on, and the Russian [which he had studied for five years and assumed he would use in the military] and flying airplanes became secondary hobbies. When I look back on those things, I say God, thank you. What did I do to deserve all this? And I’m grateful to the U of I for the role it played in preparing me for a marvelous journey into a field that, before the U of I, I never dreamed would be part of a mission to make the world better. Q: You have been highly successful in business. Why did you decide to enroll in Harvard Divinity School? Hackett: It was an evolution in my thinking from experiences in business and due largely to the failures I saw at Enron in 2001. Jeff Skilling [former Enron CEO] was in my business class at Harvard. I knew all the people at Enron pretty well because I was in a competing

business for a number of years. We were viewing their culture from a distance, and I admired what they did strategically, but not at all their culture. However, I saw a post audit and the values of the company one day in a review of Enron’s culture, in 2002 or 2003. And I thought, these are values I could live with, [so what made me] different from these folks who ran Enron? I believe Enron had intellectual values, but at the end of the day, they completely failed when tested because those values weren’t really felt in the soul. That’s what brought me to Divinity School. [I came to realize that] I wanted to study the difference between intellectual and spiritual values and why ethics is diluting the power of God’s role in the world and making businesses more susceptible to failure. I’ve come to see an added purpose. My interest in teaching and research was enhanced by the 2008 backlash against global capitalism. I want to teach that there’s a mission to be made out of free enterprise—that there’s a difference between moral values and ethics, and it’s important to become religiously literate to a certain degree to conduct global business.

Q: What do you think is the relationship between business and faith, and how does that impact corporate ethics? Hackett: It is important for everyone, but especially for those who did not receive much instruction in morals, to realize that ethics are diﬀerent from morals. Morals can beget ethics, but it is impossible to reverse that relationship. Enron is a strong example of how ethics are not the same as morals. I believe that dependable ethics are an outgrowth of a moral philosophy and framework formed within each individual leader; where this is not true, I believe that ethics are very likely to fail, especially in times of institutional crisis. Q: How can a CEO instill corporate ethics in a company? Hackett: In a host of ways. First, don’t call them ethics. Call them values. Tell employees that you, as a teammate, care deeply about why you are all joined together in that industry and that company, which must be reconciled with the question of why we are all here on earth. It is not just about winning, especially in the short term. It is about winning in the long term and

trying to ensure that no one’s life is ruined by moral lapses by either the leader or the teammates. Once the values are agreed upon by a diverse employee team, then the leaders and teammates need to talk about them “out loud.” They should hold each other accountable, even at the risk of publicly embarrassing teammates, and especially the CEO, for not living by the values the ﬁrm has adopted. The CEO needs to talk about these values in written and oral communications and, importantly, needs to practice them as a witness to others. This means that no one gets intentionally promoted despite their exhibited values but rather because of those exhibited values. It means people who repeatedly violate the values need to be demoted or asked to work somewhere else. It can also mean including the values in the formal appraisal systems for compensation determinations. Q: What are your plans for when you graduate? Hackett: To stay active in business, and to keep working on a book I have started on faith and leadership. I will also go back to teaching

at Rice, where I previously taught, or at the University of Texas at Austin. I have been developing a course tentatively called “Religion, Ethics, and Spirituality in the Practice of Business.” The course will have three major segments: Morals and Ethics, Religious Literacy for Global Business, and Creating a Mission in Free Enterprise. Q: How do you think students can best find a fulfilling career? Hackett: The third part of the syllabus that I’m going to teach is about developing a personal mission in free enterprise. I want students to make recruiting decisions based on the mission that they have for themselves and what their objectives will be for their ﬁrst two jobs. Your mission statement has to reﬂect what your personal interests, skill sets, and desires are that God gave you, and it has to include what you’re hoping to do to make society better. It may evolve, but you can screen job opportunities against that. I want students to be able to do that as an intellectual practice their whole life.

College of Business I University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Game on T

he next time you buy something at Target, you might notice G, Y, and R flashing on the monitor as your items are being scanned. The letters stand for green, yellow, and red, and they give cashiers immediate feedback on whether they are serving you quickly enough. The monitor provides the cashiers with an aggregate score and their average speed for the last several transactions—so they are, in that sense, competing against themselves, or rather, focusing on improving their own performances. This strategy of gamifying work isn’t new, but in recent years it has increasingly picked up steam. Why? A lack of engagement on the part of today’s workers provides much of the answer. According to a recent Gallup poll, 70 percent of employees are disengaged. Eighteen percent are actively disengaged. Such malaise can spread through the workforce and lead to a significant lack of production. Gamification is one of the antidotes being applied to counteract the problem. “Companies see gamification as a vehicle for performance management at one level, and there’s this extra feature of a game-like aspect that provides the potential to make work more fun, more engaging,”

business.illinois.edu

“A lot of companies are interested in gamification because they see using these game features as a vehicle to energize and direct desired employee behavior.” Teresa Cardador says Teresa Cardador, who earned her PhD from the College in organizational behavior in 2009 and is an assistant professor in the School of Labor & Employment Relations. “A lot of companies are interested in gamiﬁcation because they see using these game features as a vehicle to energize and direct desired employee behavior.” Greg Northcraft, professor of business administration, says the

primary goal of gamification is engagement. “Gamification is a way to try to make less intrinsically interesting jobs more engaging,” he says, adding that there are two main applications of gamification. “One application is training, where you want people to learn something quickly, so you make it game-like to get people more engaged in the training and to learn the task faster,” he explains. “The

[TECHnOLOGY]

second application is if you have a job that generally is not very interesting, gamification is a way to make it more engaging on an ongoing basis.” Another reason why gamification has gained such significant traction could be that for many it literally has been a way of life. Since the introduction of Nintendo in the early 1980s, millions have grown up playing hand-held games and getting instant results. For millennials and those who follow, there is a familiarity and ease to the concept that makes it second nature—and even fun.

A LEADING PLAYER Neda Schlictman, an Illinois alumna and chief talent development officer, Deloitte Tax LLP, says that her firm has developed programs that have gamification elements integrated holistically into the design. It is a learning design strategy that has been woven into their technical, industry, professional, and leadership curriculum. “We use gamification, integrated with other design approaches, across all curricula and throughout all channels of learning,” she says, noting that all four of Deloitte’s businesses (tax, audit, advisory, and consulting) have specific curricula for their business as well as

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numerous Deloitte-wide shared curriculum. “In most cases, we use gamification to supplement our live training and virtual training,” says Schlictman. “We use it less frequently as a standalone element. Gamification is delivered via mobile app, laptops, and live sessions in order to increase engagement and interaction among our learners. We have some element of gamification in the majority of our programs.” Gamification is also used to raise awareness about various content areas outside of the classroom. Some of Deloitte’s businesses use gamification tools to reinforce strategies and priorities in an interactive and creative way. “Relationship building, teaming, and networking don’t come naturally to a lot of people,” Schlictman says. “In our business, we’re building relationships internally and with our clients, and that’s a really important element. Relationship building, networking, and teaming elements are embedded into all of our curricula, and gamification gives us another way to reinforce and enable these concepts while we engage in teambased activities throughout our learning programs.” Schlictman notes that gamification can be embedded in any subject area and is particularly helpful for heavy technical learning. “It can take the dryness out of it,” she says. “The more our people engage, they more they retain the content.”

12 business.illinois.edu

make sure it’s still working. “What works for a week or a month or even a year may not work forever,” he says. Cardador agrees. “We get bored with games after awhile,” she says. “If employees become bored with gamiﬁcation, it undermines the motivating potential. One option is to use it on a shortterm basis, like leading up to a big project launch, or on short-term projects where you want to direct and energize behavior in a shorter time frame. Once the goal is accomplished you don’t necessarily use it for day to day.”

“Gamification is like performance management on steroids.” Greg Northcraft FINE-TUNING STRATEGY Regardless of whether gamiﬁcation is used for training, for motivation, or for engagement, the key to success, says Cardador, is to tie it to goals and metrics. “Companies need to be really clear on what they’re trying to motivate in terms of performance metrics and goals, and tie the game features to those speciﬁcally,” she says. “It is this kind of fun, novel tool that companies have at their disposal, but it’s important to consider whether that tool is helping them accomplish what they want to accomplish.” Northcraft says it is essential that companies include the targets in the design process.

“If I’m going to gamify your job, I’m going to get you involved in the discussion,” he explains. “I need to find out what information you need to perform your job better and at what frequency you need it. Maybe you don’t need a scoreboard that is updated every minute. Maybe a daily or a weekly dashboard would be useful. Maybe the pieces of information that I think you should be interested in are not necessarily the pieces of information that you are interested in. So I need to get you engaged to make sure that the information I’m giving you is information that’s going to make a difference in your performance.” In addition, Northcraft says, firms need to revisit the process to

undermine the motivation potential there.” That motivation potential is great for companies and employees alike, Northcraft says. “In traditional performance management, the feedback is often annual or maybe quarterly,” he notes. “With gamiﬁcation, you shorten that feedback cycle to real time. Gamiﬁcation is like performance management on steroids. “Think about what performance management means: it means

getting people information in a timely manner so they’ll know what to do and delivering that information in a way that motivates them to do it.” Gamiﬁcation, Northcraft says, is quite useful in engaging people and turning work into play. But it also goes much further. “Gamiﬁcation uses performance management feedback to draw people in and to make sure they have the information they need to be more successful,” he says. Tom Hanlon

•

WHO WINS? Cardador warns that gamification can sometimes prompt undesired outcomes. “If you’re using gamification to speed up cashier time at checkout, that might mean that employees begin to compromise the quality of customer service,” she says. “Companies need to be aware if they’re using this system to motivate some behaviors, it could have unintended consequences.” In addition, she says, any time you collect data on employee behavior—which gamification does—it might feel like surveillance. “To get the biggest bang for the gamification buck,” she says, “it might be important to use it more for rewarding and directing employee behavior than for punishing bad behavior or failure to achieve the goal. If people think of it more like a surveillance system, it’s going to

AHEAD OF THE GAME

ust as gamification can be a valuable employee training tool, there is a place for it in higher education as well, says vishal Sachdev, a lecturer of business administration and director of the Illinois MakerLab. “The principles are the same,” he says. “The main focus is engagement. This is as much of an issue in the classroom as it is in the workplace.” Sachdev uses gamification in an introductory IT class to crowdsource questions for quizzes and says the process helps the students learn more because each student reads through quiz questions that all the other students create. “Instead of a quiz with 10 questions that I created, they are looking through 100 questions,” he says. “They are required to answer only five questions each week, but they are probably looking through 20 questions to see which five to answer.” Sachdev says it is important to cater to intrinsic, rather than extrinsic, motivation. “We incentivize behaviors rather than outcomes,” he says. And it doesn’t mean you have to create a new curriculum. “You don’t need to rework your content,” explains Sachdev. “You just rework how you present it. You keep the same content and assignments and just rephrase it in terminology that Gen Y uses, while incorporating some elements of gamification.” Sachdev says that gamification has resulted in his students reading more of the text, interacting more with each other, and receiving immediate feedback. He uses Twitter in BADM350 to get students to share relevant articles with the class, and he creates leaderboards. “People are retweeting other people or answering them,” he says. “So it’s not always up to me to make students feel acknowledged. I’m leveraging these principles to make students acknowledge other students and learn about concepts in the external world as well.” Tom Hanlon

•

“In most cases, we use gamification to supplement our live training and virtual training. . . .We have some element of gamification in the majority of our programs.” Neda Schlictman

College of Business I University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

[ InnOvATIOn ]

“[The College’s online MBA] is the first of its kind, and we think it will be a home run for a variety of reasons.”

The iMBA program, an initiative between the College and Coursera, is accepting applications for the August 2016 cohort. This innovative online approach to executive education ensures an academically rigorous experience that is convenient and, at $20,000 for an MBA, affordable. For more information and to apply, visit onlinemba.illinois.edu.

Rick Levin, CEO Coursera

The Online Learning Revolution OUR COLLEGE OF BUSINESS TAKES THE LEAD

business.illinois.edu

ick Levin is convinced that online learning enables professional success. Granted, as CEO of Coursera, a leading provider of Massive Open Online Courses, he may be a bit biased. But as president emeritus of Yale, he also says that “access to quality education is the key to transforming learners’ lives” and believes that innovative models, like the College’s recently launched iMBA, is a way to do just that. At a recent presentation honoring the College’s Centennial, Levin shared his thoughts on how online learning is revolutionizing education. He pointed to the changing world of work as a significant factor in this revolution. “Today’s employees will change jobs an average of 11 times over their lifetime,” he told the audience of students, alumni, staff, and faculty. “Finding ways to increase skills will be an ongoing activity throughout a career.” Online learning is the way to make that happen. Levin pointed to Coursera surveys indicating that 88 percent of course completers who were seeking educational benefits reported receiving those benefits and one-third of those seeking

Rick Levin, CEO of Coursera (far left), joins faculty panelists (from left to right) Madhu Viswanathan, Aric Rindfleisch, and Raj Echambadi in a discussion on the future of online education.

career beneﬁts reported material changes, such as a raise or a promotion. “So we know this is having an important impact on people’s lives.” With 16 million learners and 77 million course enrollments, Coursera is taking the lead. “We want to create universal access to the world’s best education,” said Levin. “We’re totally global. From day 1, the majority of our learners were from outside the U.S. Today, that number is about 75 percent, with 45 percent from emerging market countries. We also oﬀer courses from top universities on six continents.”

PIONEERING AN INNOVATIVE MODEL The University of Illinois is one of those top universities and “one of our most active providers of open online courses, with 35 courses, an active pipeline, and 2.16 million enrollments,” Levin said. “And the College of Business is pioneering a highly innovative model of executive education” through specializations and the iMBA program, which welcomed its first class of online learners in January. Levin explained that the specializations are “valuable units of educational content that can stand alone and also offer an opportunity for a degree.” The College is offering eight specializations ranging from Entrepreneurship and Strategic Innovation to Global Business. Learners can complete a specialization through the free option, choose to earn a certificate for a fee (an option that is growing in popularity because

the certificates are increasingly recognized by employers and valued by learners), or add an additional layer of content for additional cost if accepted into the iMBA program. Six specializations are required for completion of the degree. “This concept is the first of its kind, and we think it will be a home run for a variety of reasons,” said Levin. One is the fact that it’s backed by the strong academic reputation and commitment of the College of Business. Another is the ability of the specialization model to “provide a route of access that is a huge avenue of opportunity for learners and [has] the potential social impact of offering upward mobility” for people around the world.

GLOBAL MISSION According to Raj Echambadi, senior associate dean and a member of the panel discussion that followed Levin’s presentation, that global mission is key. “Our biggest aspiration is that this initiative can enable us to extend our land grant mission and make it truly global,” says the James F. Towey Faculty Fellow. “It will allow us to reach people in their own homes and in their own languages. It will allow us to broaden the definition of who an MBA student is and to break down silos, so that an entrepreneur from Bangladesh can connect with an entrepreneur from southern Illinois.” That’s an especially significant benefit for the learner and the institution, says B. Joseph White, presi-

dent emeritus of the University and the moderator of the presentation. “At some institutions, there is a feeling that ‘scarcity is good,’ that exclusivity equates to prestige,” he said. “But that focus is a complete reversal of the land grant mission that we have at Illinois. The College’s commitment to online delivery reaffirms our dedication to our land grant roots and solidifies our reputation as a home for innovation and faculty excellence.” Madhu Viswanathan, Diane and Steven N. Miller Endowed Professor, agreed that online delivery offers immense opportunities and is a space where our College should be a leader. He certainly has taken the lead himself through his work in marketplace literacy, where he has reached 30,000 women across the world using a multimedia approach with no physical teacher present. “Through this online effort, our faculty is on the cutting edge,” Viswanathan told the audience. “It may be a different model than we’re used to, so it will challenge us and require flexibility, but it is a space we definitely should be in.” Aric Rindfleisch has taken on that challenge. The John M. Jones Professor of Marketing acknowledged during the panel discussion that he had some trepidation moving to the online model. “I’d never done it before, and it’s a fundamental shift in how we deliver knowledge. It means approaching it as a new opportunity, a new modality that enables us to move beyond the

classroom.” The 84,000 learners enrolled in his “Marketing in a Digital World” course available through Coursera prove that the modality has a broad reach. Coursera’s recent announcement that our College’s Digital Marketing specialization is its #1 most coveted certiﬁcate for 2015 proves the success of the initiative.

FUELING IMAGINATION The technology may be intimidating, but it’s also what makes the experience transformative—whether you’re reaching 84,000 learners in one marketing class or 100 MBA students from across the world. “Technology is going to give us more and more opportunities for human imagination to ﬂourish,” said Levin. The College of Business is on the forefront of that endeavor. “Years from now, as we look back on the beginning of our College’s second century, a prominent feature will be the advent and increasing use of MOOCs and other online education tools and resources,” said Jeﬀrey Brown, the Josef and Margot Lakonishok Professor in Business and Dean. “We are entering an era of transformation, aided by the creative uses of technology and the Internet and fueled as always by a bright and inquisitive faculty who do not settle for how it used to be done, but press forward to how we can do it better.” Cathy Lockman

•

College of Business I University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

1953

The year Lester left Chicago for the first time traveling by train to the Urbana-Champaign campus after two years of studying at navy Pier; he earned his degree in accountancy in 1955

Lester McKeever, Jr. is a loyal alumnus of the University and the College. When he returned to campus this fall for a meeting of the Dean's Business Council, it marked his 23rd year of service to the DBC. In addition, Lester has served as treasurer of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees for the last 21 years.

234

The number of square miles in Lester’s beloved city of Chicago, where he has served in countless leadership positions, including the Federal Reserve Bank, the United Way, the Urban League, and the transition teams for Mayors Harold Washington and Richard M. Daley

The number of years Lester has been married to nancy, a retired Chicago Public Schools teacher; family includes son Steven (Candace), an Illinois graduate, daughter Susan (Jeffery Larry), and five grandchildren, one of whom is currently attending Illinois

191

The number of units in the Oglesby Towers property the McKeevers owned for 40 years; long-time residents say the building at 6700 S. Oglesby had a strong sense of community because of the couple’s efforts; the street has been named in Lester’s honor

5675

The number of miles Lester and his family traveled last summer for a trip to Ghana, where they participated in an African naming ceremony

2011

The year Lester earned the Distinguished Service Award from the University of Illinois Alumni Association; he was also named Chicago Illini of the Year in 1998 and the Distinguished Commerce Alumnus in 1996

Class of 1955, B.s. in aCCountanCy

250

The scholarship dollars Lester McKeever, Jr. received from the Allen and Frances Beasley Foundation that allowed him to attend the University of Illinois

Lester McKeever, Jr.

[ 60-SECOnD PROFILE ]

1939

The year his firm was founded as the country’s second oldest African-American-owned accounting and consulting firm; Lester joined the firm in 1959 and has served as managing partner and head of Washington, Pittman & McKeever since 1976

2015

The year the Illinois CPA Society renamed the Advancing Diversity Awards to the Lester H. McKeever, Jr. Advancing Diversity Awards

business.illinois.edu

College of Business I University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

[ALUMnI COnnECTIOn ]

High Energy, High Ambition E

arly in life, Albert Goldstein’s endless energy became a running joke in the family— and a source of speculation as to where it would take him in life. “I was a super high-energy kid. My parents used to joke that I would either be pretty successful or totally useless,” recalls Goldstein, who channeled much of his energy into sports like wrestling and football. Still, “I got in trouble more than my fair share.” Fortunately, Goldstein found a way to use that boundless energy to build businesses that move as fast as he does.

LAND OF OPPORTUNITY Goldstein was just seven when his family left their home in the former Soviet Union, settling in the Chicago area. After graduating from high school, Goldstein set his sights on attending the University of Illinois—along with about 50 of his classmates. “The University of Illinois is a great school,” says Goldstein, who majored in ﬁnance and minored in math. “It’s got amazing programs, and it was close to home, without being too close.” Goldstein thrived at Illinois. He also enjoyed what he laughingly considers some of his longer-term employment experiences working at a couple of campus bars.

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“You have to have a deep bench of folks to jump on your cause. You can’t really do anything big by yourself.” Albert Goldstein

His first full-time job, however, came after graduation in 2002 and took him all the way to Wall Street. “I got my first job through the career center,” says Goldstein, joking that he held that job as investment banker “for like 12 minutes.” Actually, it was more than 12 months. While he didn’t make it to any major service anniversaries, that first job taught Goldstein an important lesson about his own limits. And it wasn’t the 18-hour days that bothered him. “Even though I was working insane hours, I loved the first six months because I was learning so much,” recalls Goldstein. “But when I hit a learning plateau, I hated it.” Frustration eventually got the better of him, fueling ideas of selfemployment. “I would wonder why I couldn’t move faster and why we did things that seemed process-driven rather than things that add value,” he says. “It just felt like grinding without an end in mind. I started wondering: ‘how do you do your own thing?’”

An opportunity from his mentor David Shorr would answer that question.

TRIPLE THREAT Goldstein has never forgotten his mentor’s perfectly timed words: “I want to put you in a position to benefit from your own hard work.” As it turns out, that may have been a significant understatement. With Shorr as co-founder and chairman, Goldstein and his brother Alex ’97 ENG launched CashNet USA in 2003. The online payday loan company quickly took off and paid off. The brothers sold it for $265 million in 2006—just before the economic meltdown. Goldstein followed up that success two years later by co-founding Pangea Properties, a company that purchases and renovates distressed properties in lower-income neighborhoods. Pangea currently owns more than 10,000 apartments in Chicago, Indianapolis, and Baltimore and aims to have 30,000 units in 10 different cities by 2023. Rev-

enues skyrocketed from under $500,000 in 2009 to a predicted $150 million by 2016. Pesky matters like the recession and a lack of real estate experience did not deter Goldstein. “In 2009, we started buying real estate—when everyone was terrified about the economy,” says Goldstein. “But when things look scariest, there is generally nowhere to go but up.” Never one to rest on his laurels, Goldstein founded his third company in 2012. Avant provides middleclass consumers a better borrowing experience. Using advanced technology, Avant’s streamlined online process gives customers instant answers—and funds as soon as the next day. As a startup valued at more than $1 billion, Avant joined the ranks of other high-growth “unicorns” like Uber and Snapchat. In 2015, Forbes magazine named Avant to its list of America’s Most Promising Companies. Goldstein plans to live up to that promise by building Avant into a $100 billion company. His secret recipe for success begins with a frustrated consumer and a healthy dose of timing. “You have to find a segment of the population that is not being served well and find better ways to provide value,” says Goldstein. “You have to look for holes in the market

College of Business I University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

[GLOBAL IMPACT]

From Illinois to Shanghai

and be willing to come in a little early, when all the pieces aren’t refined yet. Once it’s well defined, it’s too late.” The heavily regulated industries that might scare some entrepreneurs are the very ones where Goldstein sees the most opportunity—so don’t be surprised if you someday see his fingerprints in healthcare and education.

the one with Steve Joung ’02 FIN, Goldstein’s co-founder in Pangea. Even his very ﬁrst boss at that investment ﬁrm has been both investor and board member in Goldstein’s businesses. “You have to have a deep bench of folks to jump on your cause,” says Goldstein. “You can’t really do anything big by yourself.” In keeping with that sentiment, Goldstein, who was named 2015

“In general, location shouldn’t matter, but it’s still much easier to ﬁnd capital and like-minded people in Silicon Valley, where you can walk to a neighborhood bar and trip over a venture capitalist,” says Goldstein, who started all three of his business in Chicago. With the help of visionaries like Goldstein, that may change—but it’s going to take time and a track record of success.

PEOPLE POWER Committed to surrounding himself with the best and the brightest, Goldstein takes networking to a new level, defying conventional wisdom about doing business with friends and family. “I have partnerships with so many friends, and my wife is the founding chief compliance oﬃcer at Avant,” he says. Many of his business partners, investors, and employees are fellow Illini, including brother Alex and Avant co-founders John Sun ’07 FIN and Paul Zhang ’09 ENG, who worked as interns in Goldstein’s ﬁrst company. “The University of Illinois produces some amazing technical talent, and I formed some amazing relationships at Illinois,” says Goldstein. “There is a pretty heavy Illinois contingent throughout the Avant executive team.” Some of his business relationships date back to high school, like

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“The University of Illinois will continue to be a huge source of talent and support for entrepreneurial endeavors.” Albert Goldstein Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Midwest, spends time mentoring young entrepreneurs. However, he is quick to caution anyone who would be lured by the perceived glamour of entrepreneurship. “Entrepreneurship gets gloriﬁed, but being an entrepreneur is actually really hard,” he says. “There are a lot of really tough times, and that’s where most people give up and quit —but that to me is the fun stuﬀ. You have to really enjoy building things that are hard to build.”

A MIDWEST MECCA? And why not build those businesses in the Midwest?

“The challenge for the Midwest is to get big wins,” says Goldstein, referencing Amazon and Starbucks, the iconic startups that put Seattle on the map. As the force behind three stellar Midwest startups, Goldstein is clearly doing his part to create those wins. And he believes the University of Illinois also plays an important role in positioning the Midwest as a ﬁrst choice for entrepreneurs. “The University of Illinois will continue to be a huge source of talent and support for entrepreneurial endeavors,” says Goldstein, who cites the University’s Illinois Launch Program and Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership.

“We need to provide resources early,” says Goldstein. “You can never identify people early who will be successful entrepreneurs—so it’s important to oﬀer resources on a broad scale.”

the future of business depends on strong entrepreneurial efforts, and sharing the challenges and successes of those efforts is one key to expanding them. that’s what happens in business classrooms on our campus every day. the College is also committed to nurturing entrepreneurship way beyond Wohlers and Bif by initiating dialogues on the topic across the country and even the world. this fall the College organized an alumni forum on entrepreneurship in China. More than 150 attendees came to the Grand Hyatt shanghai to hear the personal entrepreneurial journeys of several College alumni who have helped build successful global businesses, including: Ming Zeng ’98 PhD in Ba (left), executive vice president of alibaba Group Holding ltd., who presented the keynote address on the future of business; Chris lu, ’80 aCCy, ’81 Mas aCCy (middle), executive director of foxconn interconnect technology ltd., who spoke on Chinese firms, global expansion, and opportunities for College alumni; and Dingkun Ge, ’01 Ms in Ba, ’03 PhD in Ba (right), managing director of infinity sagebank Capital, who shared his perspective on the reality of entrepreneurship.

BEYOND THE BOARDROOM Beyond his businesses, Goldstein has seen life-changing growth on the home front as well. In less than four years, he and wife Anna welcomed three young children, two boys and a girl, into their world. As a new parent, Goldstein has a new appreciation for his own parents’ willingness to venture into the great unknown. “As a parent, the example you set matters, and I saw my parents pick up and leave anything they’ve ever known to give their kids opportunity,” he says. “Setting a good example for my kids is a big motivator.” Though his free time is as rare as a unicorn startup, Goldstein does ﬁnd time to indulge his passions for snowboarding and travel. It will always be the uncharted territory that lures him most. If you ask his favorite destination, Goldstein responds in true entrepreneurial fashion: “Anywhere new.” Celeste Huttes

•

attendees at this inaugural forum also heard from entrepreneurship panelists frank shi ’96 Ms EnG, ‘04 PhD EnG, CEo and co-founder of PhotoniC technology Company; Jason Duan, ’90 MBa, ’98 PhD in Ba, chief security officer for appCan; and yang Zhang ‘07 Ms EnG, founder and president of Palmap shanghai information technology Company, ltd. the panelists were joined by Dean Jeffrey Brown and Paul Magelli, senior director of the academy for Entrepreneurial leadership. in addition, several College and university staff members assisted with the forum and the dinner that followed.

College of Business I University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

[On THE FOREFROnT ]

Economic Thinking That Saves Lives

lvin Roth knows economics, and the former professor in the College of Business has a Nobel Prize to prove it. Roth earned the award in economic sciences in 2012, along with UCLA Professor Emeritus Lloyd Shapley, for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design. But it’s Roth’s ability to apply economic theory to real-world problems that gains him accolades from people both inside and outside the world of economics. Roth, a member of the Illinois economics faculty from 1974 to 1982, has applied his knowledge in areas as diverse as the healthcare labor market, the American labor market for new PhD economists, and even teacher assignment and school choice systems across the country, all areas where matching is a key fac-

business.illinois.edu

tor in success. In these markets, most of the focus is on choosing and being chosen, so transactions can be more complicated and take more time than they do in commodity markets, where pricing does much of the work. And while most economists’ research isn’t a matter of life and death, some of Roth’s work, specifically his efforts to design a matching market for kidney exchanges, certainly has been just that. Roth, now a professor of economics at Stanford University, recently returned to the College to share his thoughts on his work with faculty, staff, and students. His lecture, in honor of the College’s Centennial, reflected the brilliance of a long career and the power of pushing relentlessly forward in applying complex economic theory to solve practical and large-scale problems.

MARKET DESIGN FOR KIDNEY EXCHANGES One of those large-scale problems is the need for kidney transplants. “More than 100,000 people are on the waiting list for deceased donor kidneys in the U.S.,” he said. “We do about 11,000 deceased donor kidney transplants each year. The wait can be many years.” Now, thanks in large part to Roth’s work in designing the market for kidney exchanges, about onethird of transplants are from live donors. Still, in 2014, more than 4,400 died waiting and another 3,600 became too sick to receive a transplant. “Kidney exchange began for me at the U of I,” Roth said. “The work I began here in 1974 led to a lot of work I’m still doing.” In 2004, Roth coauthored a paper on kidney exchange with Tay-

fun Sönmez and M. Utku Ünver. Roth sent the paper to numerous surgeons, but the consensus was that the logistics were too diﬃcult to do largescale kidney exchanges. Doctors were, however, willing to do two-way exchanges—where you had, for example, two donors and two recipients in Cincinnati and two donors and two recipients in Toledo. The exchanges required four simultaneous operations. In 2006, Roth and his colleagues convinced surgeons to attempt three-way exchanges. One challenge with kidney transplants is donors and recipients need the same blood type. In addition, highly sensitized people—those with a percentage of reactive antibodies less than 79—have great diﬃculty receiving a kidney. But the computerized pairings of groups of donors that Roth conceived of have opened the door to far

Alvin Roth, 2012 Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics, visits with students after his presentation on market design for kidney exchanges. His visit was one of many on-campus and oﬀ-campus events marking the College’s Centennial in 2015.

more kidney exchanges. In 2001, there were only four kidney exchanges; that number grew to 590 in 2013.

FORMING EXCHANGE CHAINS “The majority of these exchanges are accomplished through chains, and the vast majority of highly sensitized patients receive kidneys through chains,” Roth said. “In 2012, we had a 60-person chain, with 30 transplants. We have some very long chains and some short ones. More than half the transplants in the U.S. now come from long chains. So that’s been a big change in what we do.” Non-directed donors—those few hundred per year who give a kidney with no speciﬁc recipient in mind— are important links in those chains, Roth added. “The non-directed

donor can form a bit of a chain,” he explained. “Before we had kidney exchange, a non-directed donor could give a kidney and save a life. So a non-directed donor was linked to a wait list. But now they might be able to spark a whole chain of donations.” The irony, Roth pointed out, is there really is a surplus of kidneys; most healthy people can aﬀord to give up one of their kidneys. “You could take care of that problem [the wait list] by paying people for their kidneys,” he says. “But that’s against the law everywhere in the world except for Iran. I don’t know why it’s against the law.” He mentioned the rise of black markets for organs and said that the idea of selling a kidney is seen as repugnant by many people. “Kidney exchange is a way of bringing some beneﬁts of exchange to transplantation without running

into the barrier of repugnance,” Roth said.

EXTENDING THE EXCHANGE PROGRAM Roth and his colleagues are working to extend kidney exchanges to parts of the world where transplantation is not readily available. “When you look at rates of transplantation per million, the U.S. ranks pretty high in the world, but in other places, for example the Philippines, the rate is very low. They have excellent surgeons available, but health insurance isn’t adequate for people to get transplants,” he said. “People are dying there because they aren’t getting transplanted.” In America, Roth said, every time someone gets a transplant, Medicare saves $250,000. If they’re on private insurance, depending on

their age, the insurance carrier saves half a million. “That’s more than enough to finance these surgeries and post-op care for patient and donor that we could invite patient-donor pairs from the Philippines to come and take part in an American exchange, and the extra transplant they brought for an American for their part would allow us to finance their care,” he said. The first Philippine pair is already back home after successfully receiving, and donating, a kidney. It’s success made possible, in part, by an economist dedicated to finding solutions. • Tom Hanlon

College of Business I University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

[ EnTREPREnEURSHIP ]

What’s the big idea? THE POWER OF INNOVATION THROUGH USER ENTREPRENEURSHIP

hen Drew Houston was a student at MIT, he worked on multiple desktop computers and a laptop. He also had a USB drive but often neglected to keep it with him. As a result, Houston frequently was unable to access the ﬁles he needed when he needed them. Then one day his desktop’s power supply malfunctioned, destroying one of his hard drives. Houston found himself with no back-up but plenty of frustration. So he started searching for a product that could solve his problem, and when he couldn’t ﬁnd anything on the market that worked the way he wanted it to, he developed his own. That was in 2007. Today, 400 million people around the world use his product, Dropbox, to work on any device wherever they are. Dropbox’s beginning is a classic story of an unsung form of innovation and entrepreneurship: that is, the creation of products and services by users.

RETHINKING INNOVATION “When we think of where innovation comes from, we tend to think of academic labs or corporate R&D labs,” says Sonali K. Shah, assistant professor of business administration. “But many important innovations come from ‘regular’ people who create an altogether new prod-

business.illinois.edu

“Our theories of innovation and entrepreneurship have traditionally focused on the profit motive. [With user entrepreneurship], the story starts with a need and only then turns to profit.” Sonali Shah uct or service or improve upon existing products or services because they want to use it. For these individuals, there are no products or services on the market that serve their needs. Our theories of innovation and entrepreneurship have traditionally focused on the profit motive. Here, the story starts with a need and only then turns to profit.” That certainly was the case for Apple Computer, whose seeds were planted in 1975 during meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club. This loosely organized group of technically inclined people met to help each other learn. As Steve Wozniak wrote later: “Each session began with a ‘mapping period,’ when people would get up one by one and speak about some item of interest. . . . During the ‘random access period’ that followed, you would wander outside and find people trading devices or information and helping each other. . . . The Apple I and II were designed

strictly on a hobby, for-fun basis, not to be a product for a company.” Says Shah: “Some users oﬀer a simple solution to a small problem, while others open up altogether new technologies and product categories.” Such was the case with Dr. Thomas Fogarty, who set out to improve upon the dismal success rate for blood clot removal, which at the time stood at 40 to 50 percent. While still a scrub technician at Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati in 1961, he developed a balloon catheterization tool that became the industry standard and was instrumental in decreasing deaths from blood clots. “He was innovating on behalf of the patient, and his embolectomy catheter has saved the lives and limbs of upwards of 20 million individuals,” says Shah. “He created an entirely new technology.”

College of Business I University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

USER EnTREPREnEURS MAKE THE UnCOMMOn COMMOn How do they do it? • By providing novel solutions to unsolved or imperfectly solved problems • By often creating breakthrough product categories • By creating brands that often become synonymous with the product category

THE ACCIDENTAL ENTREPRENEUR Shah first became interested in user entrepreneurship while working as an investment banking analyst where she observed that many hightech industries were founded by users. “I talked to a number of founders with roots in user entrepreneurship,” she says. “They experienced a problem and set out to solve it. Their stories resonated with me, yet the stories were also at odds with established accounts of how entrepreneurship happens.” Later, during her doctoral studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Shah began formally researching the under-studied phenomenon and found it occurred far more frequently than originally thought. “Previously, it had been considered a one-off and ignored,” she says. “We find that user entrepreneurship is widespread.” In fact, in a study with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Shah and her colleagues found that user entrepreneurs account for nearly half of innovative high-tech startups. In 2015, the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal awarded Shah and Mary Tripsas, associate professor of management and organization at Boston College and a 1982 LAS graduate of Illinois, with the Best Paper Award for their 2007 work, “The Ac-

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“It is an emergent process and is driven by a need, and it is often, but not always, a collective process involving sharing and feedback.” Sonali Shah cidental Entrepreneur: The Emergent and Collective Process of User Entrepreneurship.” (To allow time to assess a paper’s impact, the award is given for papers published at least ﬁve years prior.) “As an academic, you hope to make an impact and beneﬁt society through your research,” says Shah. “And you hope to push theory forward as well, so it’s wonderful when others see value and promise in the work you’re doing.”

IT TAKES COLLABORATION Shah’s research has identiﬁed two key features of user entrepreneurship. “It is an emergent process and is driven by a need, and it is often, but not always, a collective process involving sharing and feedback.” In stark contrast to tight-lipped laboratories and R&D departments, user entrepreneurs often work in groups, taking advantage of diﬀerent skill sets and knowledge.

“The process can be very diﬀerent from the traditional entrepreneurial process,” says Shah. “Sharing is part of the development process.” Often, that feedback process occurs organically when others ﬁrst see the product in use—like the jogging stroller created by a new dad. “He realized his regular stroller couldn’t handle the demands of jogging, so he improved the stroller,” says Shah. “Then, when he used it while running at races and with friends, he found out that others wanted one, too.” The consumer-goods industries, in particular, are hotbeds of user innovation and entrepreneurship because many people are interested or passionate about those types of products. In fact, up to 86 percent of startups in the children’s market can be traced back to user entrepreneurs, who also have a strong presence in sporting goods. While women and minorities make up a small fraction of entrepreneurs, they are more prevalent among user entrepreneurs in consumer-good industries. Shah suggests that “it may be that their needs as consumers are not being met, so these populations are opening up un-served or under-served market segments and niches.”

ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION FOR ALL Shah is eager to share her findings and paint a more realistic view of today’s entrepreneur. “User entrepreneurship provides a striking path to becoming an entrepreneur and making a difference by providing consumers with novel products and services that truly make life better,” says Shah. “We need bankers, venture capitalists, government agencies, and established firms to see this as legitimate and support startups with these stories. For example, it took a decade before a company agreed to manufacture Fogarty’s embolectomy catheter and the technology’s use became widespread. Many more lives might have been saved.” Considering that innovation is the strongest predictor of economic growth, Shah is understandably passionate about entrepreneurial education. “Entrepreneurship is not just for the elite few—access to education for innovators ought to be widespread and accessible,” says Shah. “Many people think outside the box.” As one of those people, Shah appreciates the intellectual freedom she has found at Illinois. “The University of Illinois is a fantastic institution—a special place that allows new ideas to percolate and simmer, and you as a researcher to pursue them,” says Shah. “It is a real luxury to work with ideas—especially ideas that sound unorthodox at the start.” • Celeste Huttes

COMPANY

PRODUCT

PROBLEM

AirBnB

Website for ﬁnding, listing, and renting overnight accommodations

Unable to aﬀord their San Francisco rent, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia decided to rent out their living room to attendees coming into the city for a conference.

GoPro

Digital action cameras

During a surﬁng trip to Australia, nick Woodman hoped to capture quality action photos of himself surﬁng but found that amateur photographers were unable to get close enough or access quality, reasonably priced equipment. He developed a camera system to meet those needs.

Black Diamond Equipment (formerly Chouinard Equipment)

Mountaineering, skiing, and climbing equipment

In the late 1950s, expert climber Yvon Chouinard began hand-forging high-quality pitons for use during his climbing expeditions and began selling them from the trunk of his car. The improved pitons were a big factor in the birth of big-wall climbing from 1957 to 1960 in Yosemite. Chouinard’s pitons quickly gained a reputation for quality, and Chouinard Equipment was born soon after in ventura, California.

Spanx

Foundation garments

Getting ready for a party, Sara Blakely slipped on a pair of control-top pantyhose in order to eliminate panty lines under white pants. She cut the feet oﬀ her pantyhose and wore them underneath, but they rolled up her legs all night. She said: ‘”I’ve got to ﬁgure out how to make this.”

Diaper Dude

Diaper bags for men

After the birth of his ﬁrst child, Chris Pegula sought to design diaper bags that dads would want to carry: "My wife came home with a dozen diaper bags. I thought, 'no way I'm wearing these. They're way too feminine!'”

Cochran’s Crescent Washing Machine (now part of KitchenAid)

Dishwasher

Socialite Josephine Cochrane was tired of her servants chipping her ﬁne china. In 1883, she decided: “If nobody else is going to invent a dish washing machine, I'll do it myself!"

Baby Jogger (now part of Newell Rubbermaid)

Strollers made for jogging

Wanting to jog while watching his infant son, Phil Baechler found that existing strollers were "awful for running and come to a complete stop on grass or sand." So in 1984 he designed one that made it easier.

College of Business I University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

[THE WORKPLACE]

Making Connections

uring the past year, the communication and ideas flowed at your creative team meetings. The process was smooth, even enjoyable. Everyone contributed. And the end result always seemed to be greater than the sum of its parts. And then, suddenly, mysteriously, the flow stopped. The meetings stagnated. The process stuttered and stopped and started. Some people clammed up. Others tended to dominate. A few sulked. You wrack your brain to figure out what happened. The only real change was that one regular contributor at those meetings—not Elvis, but someone as important as the King—had left the building. That person was your team’s connector.

IDENTIFYING YOUR CONNECTORS “If you don’t know who your connectors are you might accidently lose them,” says Romana Autrey, assistant professor of accountancy. “It’s not clear until they’re gone. A lot of connectors are so natural at it that you don’t realize they facilitated that meeting; you just realize, Hey, that was a great meeting. You don’t know who it was that caused it.”

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“Connectors may not be the top performers in the company on metrics that the company keeps, so there’s a risk that companies are letting this valuable resource walk out the door because they don’t know what they actually bring to the table.” Kevin Jackson It’s a company resource that’s “ﬂying under the radar,” says Kevin Jackson, associate professor of accountancy and PwC Faculty Fellow. “Connectors may not be the top performers in the company on metrics that the company keeps, so there’s a risk that companies are letting this

valuable resource walk out the door because they don’t know what they actually bring to the table.” For the past four years, Autrey, Jackson, and PhD student Elena Klevsky have been researching connectors. And one thing Jackson has learned is that most everyone thinks

they know who their connectors are—and typically they’re wrong. “We have conversations with people about connector traits, and they respond, ‘Oh, we know someone like that,’ because they know someone who’s extroverted and charismatic and fun-loving. But that’s not enough to be a connector,” Jackson says. So what, exactly, is a connector? “A connector is somebody who coordinates everyone to pull in the same direction,” says Autrey. “Connectors are other-focused, pro-social rather than pro-self. They influence others. They have the propensity to introduce people or be the links between people who otherwise might not know each other. They have an instinctive ability to sense what it takes to influence people, to facilitate relationships.” In addition, Autrey says, connectors are likeable and positive. “They are dynamic, they care a lot about other people, and they like influencing how people interact with each other,” she says. In other words, they’re that person who made your meetings flow.

THE VALUE OF CONNECTORS Autrey, Jackson, Klevsky, and Fritz Drasgow, professor of psychology, created a personality survey that

helps organizations identify their connectors. Using it, Jackson says, will help companies avoid losing their connectors. “We suggest you don’t rely on what you observe because that could lead you down the wrong path,” Jackson says. “It’s easy to misidentify connectors and overlook who your real connectors are.” And that can be a huge loss since your real connectors do great good when they are most needed. “Connectors sense when the relationships within a group are not working well, and they have the savvy to bridge those gaps,” Autrey says. For example, a connector placed in a group of individualistic people— loners who don’t relate well or who have diverse characteristics that put them on the outside of a group—can bring a synergy to that group that can facilitate superb results. “Connectors get such individuals to interact in a healthy way,” Autrey says. “In fact, the creativity is higher in such groups than in groups where people already enjoy working as part of a group.” The reason, she says, is the connector elicits unique ideas from everyone—as opposed to the groupthink that often occurs where people simply agree with the ﬁrst idea prof-

“A connector is somebody who coordinates everyone to pull in the same direction. Connectors are other-focused, pro-social rather than pro-self. They inﬂuence others.” Romana Autrey

fered—and those individual ideas result in a higher collective creativity. “If you want to have brainstorming sessions or problem-solving sessions whereby it will be helpful for a group to work cooperatively, then having a connector be part of that group will help your cause,” Jackson says. “One of our papers suggests if you have people from diverse back-

grounds within a group, then people from that diverse background will have a better experience if a connector is involved. They will also be less likely to want to leave the organization. So one strategic approach is to look at high-priority groups that are important to retain and deploy a connector in their workspace to build a relational environment that

keeps them there and makes them want to stay.” Yet sometimes you may not need to deploy connectors at all because their services are not as needed. “Connectors are like Nanny McPhee,” Jackson says, referring to the movie character with mystical powers. “This magical housekeeper showed up when she was needed, and when she wasn’t needed, she was gone. That’s what connectors do. When you have a group that is cooperative, the impact of connectors isn’t as strong. When you have a group that is predisposed not to be cooperative, that’s when a connector matters most.”

“THE SKY’S THE LIMIT” “There are things we know about connectors,” Autrey says, “but there’s a lot we don’t know yet. We know they can help teams be more creative, they can help reduce turnover intentions. Where brainstorming, teamwork, and synergy are important, they matter. And that’s just scratching the surface. Our research opens up an enormous set of possibilities. The sky’s the limit.” Tom Hanlon

•

College of Business I University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

[ 100 WORDS OR LESS ]

What did you hear from Sam Zell at the Rho Epsilon event that resonated most with you about how to achieve success in real estate?

Rho Epsilon’s 2015 reunion luncheon in Chicago featured a Q & A with Sam Zell, founder and chair of Equity Group Investments. The pioneer in modern commercial real estate shared his insights on success with nearly 400 alumni, faculty, and students, several of whom told Perspectives what they took away from his presentation.

Rho Epsilon’s event gave our large college student, it’s hard for resonated with me during “group “meAstoaimagine “theWhat of experienced alumni profestaking on the risk of interview with Sam Zell is how sionals and young aspiring professionals the chance to hear from an exceptional student of business economics. Sam applies that study every day in his real estate investment activities. As business colleagues over the years, I’ve witnessed his remarkable ability to pre-forecast economic situations and I’ve seen his commitment to establishing and building an exceptional team that supports his success. His performance in the profession has been outstanding, but he doesn’t rest on that. He is always thinking and moving ahead. There’s a time to buy and a time to sell, and Sam Zell always knows what time it is.

”

Sheldon Good '55 Founder of Sheldon Good & Company and The Good Realty Group, LLC

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acquiring and managing properties as Sam Zell did while at Michigan. It’s even harder to imagine having the time and skills to renovate them myself without the help of a contractor or other professional. But that’s a challenge he took on. It was obvious from listening to his story that Mr. Zell was not afraid to take risks or to work hard. And it’s paid oﬀ for him, ensuring his legacy as a leader in the real estate industry and a respected self-made entrepreneur. Although he made mistakes, he learned valuable lessons and never hesitated to take a risk. I came away inspired by the path he took to success: Work hard, learn from experience, and have conﬁdence in your own abilities to succeed.

”

Ines Andrade ’18 Philanthropy Chair for Rho Epsilon 2015-16

his contrarian point of view has created so much value. By looking for opportunities where other investors only saw challenges, he limited his competition in many markets and outperformed his competitors. His mantra has been ‘when everyone is going right, look left,’ and that has made both Mr. Zell and his investors very successful. The fact that he is selling so many assets today makes you wonder if he sees another real estate market peak.

”

Andrew Wiedner ‘04 Vice President, Draper and Kramer

“

Early on Sam Zell demonstrated a genius in recognizing market demand and real estate opportunity and boldly moving upon it once identiﬁed. Opportunity can present in unexpected ways or take an unconventional path. A creative mind can envision property transformations that others may not see. Risk/reward assessment and strategic planning are essential, but Zell reminded all to be fearless and likewise to listen to your gut because ‘you don’t know what you don’t know.’ Success can start small by managing apartments and can grow with each newfound opportunity when multiplied with ambition, passion, humor, and a trusted partner.

”

Janice Podlesak ‘78 Investment Operations Manager, Prudential Mortgage Capital Company

“

When an iconic real estate billionaire speaks, real estate professionals listen. Sam Zell’s presentation to Rho Epsilon members past and present caused me to stop and identify what brings business success. Perhaps you either have it or you don’t. Sam Zell manifested early entrepreneurship skills by identifying the supply-anddemand ratio of Playboy magazines as he sold them to his junior high school peers. Irrespective, he proved to be the wheeler-dealer by managing, leasing, and buying homes and apartments while in college. Incredibly he managed over 4,000 apartments before graduating law school. By grasping economics and being relentless and fearless, Mr. Zell found a path of gold.

”

Alfred Klairmont ‘78 President, Imperial Realty Company

image of this legend, dressed Mr. Zell has amassed larger port“inThe “folios jeans addressing a sea of ‘business by focusing on overlooked seccasual,’ was as unforgettable as were his words, reinforcing the message that his approach to business and life are inextricably linked. Simplicity, common sense, and authenticity trump conventional wisdom, conformity, and meaninglessly complex analysis every time. Overreliance on models, formulas, and conventions hinders critical thinking and innovative problem solving. The key to Zell’s formula is to trust yourself above all else. It only seems like risktaking because nobody else is doing it. Dare to go left when everyone else is going right and always in jeans.

tors and geographies where there was limited competition, a theme he reiterated several times during his presentation at The Standard Club. As we enter the eighth year of record-low interest rates and competition for assets continues to increase, this notion remains an ever-present thought on my mind.

”

Alan Lagunov ‘09 Vice President—Acquisitions Kaufman Jacobs

”

Sofia Sianis ’06 PhD student, Urban and Regional Planning; instructor, Department of Finance

College of Business I University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

[ THE REASOn WHY ]

WHO Lisa Linke, actor, improviser, writer, executive presence coach, and corporate workshop facilitator WHAT Uses tips, tools, and techniques from the world of improvisational comedy to improve organizational communications and collaboration

FUnnY BUSInESS

ou might expect to see stressedout students seek relief from the rigors of Illinois’ MBA program at the gym or a favorite campus watering hole. And then there is Lisa Linke. “I needed a break from studying for my MBA,” recalls Linke, a 1999 graduate. “I read in the Daily Illini about an improv group—I auditioned and I just loved it.” This perhaps comes as no great revelation to those who know her. After all, Linke’s flair for the dramatic earned her the nickname “Sarah Bernhardt” early in life. “I performed at home all the time and did all the school plays,” says Linke. “I always felt at home on stage.” And thanks to her father Charles, emeritus professor of finance, she felt equally at home on the Illinois campus as a child. “I was always around the School of Business,” she recalls. “I loved growing up on a Big 10 campus. I have very fond memories of the U of I.” After earning a sociology degree from Indiana University, she returned to her old stomping grounds in 1997 to pursue an advanced degree in human resources, followed by an MBA. With all due respect to those hard-earned degrees, it may well have been that ad in the Daily Illini that led to the unique career Linke enjoys today. MBA in hand, Linke joined Deloitte & Touche as a human resources strategy consultant. In the evenings, she began training at The Second City, Chicago’s legendary improv the-

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atre, where the likes of John Belushi and Tina Fey got their starts. “Like a lot of people in improv, I was living a dual life,” says Linke, who soon noticed an overlap between the seemingly disparate worlds she lived in. “When I started performing improv, I became a better consultant almost overnight. I had more meaningful conversations with clients because I was being authentic and in the moment.” After leaving Deloitte & Touche to more actively pursue performing, Linke soon found herself delivering improv-based corporate workshops through Second City Communications. “Business and improv might seem very far apart, but they’re not,” says Linke. “Excellent communication is the root of all improvisation.” And, one could argue, the root of organizational effectiveness.

“YES, AND” Fourteen years later, her work as a corporate trainer and executive presence coach has taken Linke to five continents and countless meeting rooms. Heavy-hitters like Pepsi, General Mills, and Goldman Sachs have turned to Linke to learn how the fine art of improvisation can fine-tune corporate communications. Her popular workshops share practical skills and philosophies from the world of improvisational comedy. But fear not: participants need not be as funny as their trainer. “We do exercises in small groups just to loosen them up. They don’t

have to give their tight five on airline food,” says Linke, referring to the traditional five-minute sets stand-up comics have at the ready. Instead, she teaches concepts like “Yes, And,” a basic improvisational tool where you acknowledge what your partner says and then add something new to keep the conversation alive. “In improv, you recognize an idea and share an idea. It’s an excellent tool to keep focus on the other person—and in the corporate world, to keep from saying ‘no’ too soon,” says Linke. Another improvisational saying— “bring a brick, not a cathedral”— reminds us that the best solutions are built together. “In improv, there are no sets, no props, no agreed-upon story— everything is discovered together in a collaborative environment,” says Linke. At the end of the day, it’s all about listening—a lesson that improvisers often learn the hard way. “If you are not listening on stage, it’s very uncomfortable,” says Linke. “It’s a very palpable feeling when the entire audience—and you—realize you were not listening.”

THE BEST THINGS ARE UNSCRIPTED Along with the Second City brand name, Linke has found that her Illinois degrees serve her well when working in corporate environments. “I love having my MBA—I get a lot of credibility in the room with the introduction,” she says.

That’s not to say she “feels the love” at every corporate gig. One of her more memorable “heckling” experiences took place at a prestigious university when an MBA student stood up and shouted: “This is dogma —I will not stand for this!” and stormed out of the workshop. not missing a beat, Linke lightened the mood—and engaged the audience— by cheekily asking: “So, is this a great example of ‘yes, and’…?” As an L.A.-based actor, Linke embraces it all. She says her experiences have honed her ability to work a room and maintain presence under the critical eye of casting agents— precious skills for any performer. “As an actor, the best part of having my MBA and working as a facilitator is that I’ve never had a cold room—it just doesn’t bother me,” says Linke, who continues to act and perform with improv groups when she’s not training. (You may have seen her in the 2015 season premiere of ABC’s hit comedy, Black-ish.) The stage—and life itself—have taught Linke that some of the best things in life are unscripted. With a chuckle, she recalls the prophetic words of Professor Larry DeBrock following her final MBA presentation, where she used some of her improv skills: “You’re very good at this—you could do this for a living.” She recalls thinking: “Who actually does that for a living?” Celeste Huttes

WHERE Facilitates corporate workshops around the world but lives in the Hollywood Hills, where she acts and indulges her love of improv WHEN Earned her master’s degree in human resources from Illinois, followed by an MBA in 1999; discovered a love for improvisational comedy while an MBA student at Illinois WHY Because this funny lady means business

•

College of Business I University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

[

PARTING SHOT

]

Since his first day as dean on August 17, Jeff Brown has been on the move. He’s traveled to Chicago, St. Louis, New York, and Shanghai to share the College’s success and future vision with alumni. And he’s worn a path from BIF all across campus to collaborate with students, faculty, and University leaders. In his first 100 days, our new dean has covered a lot of ground.