Teaching
Leadership wasn't always something Broad students were known for. Several years ago, Broad MBA teams often performed poorly on group projects and, in national benchmarking surveys, Broad MBAs reported dissatisfaction with their colleagues' skills. So, in 1998, Broad School management faculty decided to use the Team Lab and the DDD simulation to actually teach a class about teamwork and leadership based on the lab's research outcomes.
The chance paid off. While Broad students were once ranked in the sixth percentile nationally compared to other MBA students, they are now highly regarded by recruiters as tops in leadership and communication. In fact, in the recent national Wall Street Journal ranking, Broad School MBAs were ranked 10th in leadership and fourth in communication and interpersonal skills among all students worldwide, showing that MSU's Team Effectiveness Lab has truly been effective.
In the fall of 2003, the Eli Broad College of Business Team Effectiveness Teaching Lab opened its doors in the Eppley Center - a part of the Broad School complex. The new lab is used for both teaching and research, while the original lab still exists in Berkey Hall for research purposes only.
Students currently use the Team Effectiveness Teaching Lab for the following classes:
Leadership and Teamwork (MBA 808) is a short, one-credit course that is required for all first-year MBA students in their first five weeks of the program, led by Eli Broad Professor of Management John Hollenbeck. The students work in the same teams that they are with for the entire first year of the program and undergo several lab sessions that focus on building specific skills that are useful in the MBA program and beyond.
During the course of the class, students learn how to effectively decompose large tasks into smaller individual components that match members' skills, develop trusting working relationships that stand up under stress and motivate team members in difficult situations. They also learn to make decisions when each member has a different area of expertise, manage conflict that results from differences in culture and values, and adapt to unforeseen changes in the competitive landscape. In addition, students receive anonymous survey feedback from their peers regarding their strengths and weaknesses when working within a team and their future leadership potential.
Leadership and Team Management (MGT 840) taught by Associate Professor of Management Frederick Morgeson and Assistant Professor of Management Remus Ilies, is a more in-depth, three-credit elective course for second-year students in which the MBA students work with undergraduate students and serve as leaders of competitive teams. The undergraduate students involved are completing their management capstone course (MGT 460), and they learn how to work in teams before they enter the real world. The MBA team leaders perform all the tasks that would normally be required of a working manager, including selecting and recruiting undergraduate students who they think would make the best “employees” and then developing, motivating and leading them through a series of computer-based simulations.
During the semester, MBA-led undergraduate teams compete against one another, and this competition brings out lessons for both winners and losers in terms of what worked well and what they might like to do differently the next time they work in a team situation or are responsible for building and leading a team.
“These courses are a wonderful way to leverage our smaller MBA program with our large undergraduate population,” Morgeson says. “It enables us to apply our research expertise on teams and leadership to create a cutting-edge learning environment that is unique among MBA and undergraduate programs.”