BY JUDY RAKOWSKY

Dean Kenneth W. Freeman has moved his office from a beautiful and spacious office suite on the fifth floor of the Hariri Building to the second floor, in closer proximity to the students.

“School of Management students are our products; we help them develop to take on the world’s challenges. At the same time they are our customers,” said Freeman. “I want direct access to as many of them as possible. Moving to the second floor makes it easy to engage with students on everything from addressing the economic crisis to providing individual career advice.”

“Energetic engagement” has been the operative phrase for Freeman, formerly the CEO of Quest Diagnostics and a partner at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, since his arrival in August 2010. Personal contact has been his hallmark through extensive conversations with faculty, alumni, and students about the best path forward for SMG. He assembled a database of advice and deployed teams of faculty in study groups leading to a white paper that was the foundation for the School’s strategy. Gathering support and specifics, that plan is the blueprint for change that Freeman is spearheading as SMG approaches its second century.

“Singular expertise in the management of healthcare, digital technology, and energy and the environment will become important differentiators for our School.”

“Great strategies and great institutions aren’t created by any one person; they emanate from the community,” said Freeman. He considers the deanship as an opportunity to make a difference, and has reached out widely to invite brainstorming and candid feedback. During the past 16 months, he had numerous one-on-one meetings, stopping into faculty offices to learn about each professor’s research, teaching, interests, and thoughts about what works well and what could be improved at SMG. Alumni viewpoints streamed in through surveys of recently-minted undergraduate and MBAs and one-on-one and group meetings all over the world.

“The best way to win is to have a strategy everybody owns,”he said. “It needs to be so clearly articulated that we all understand where we are going, and our individual role in implementing it.”

The dean intends to avoid the kind of exercise he recalls from the business world when lots of hours and effort went into producing thick strategic plans that were quickly relegated to the bottom desk drawer.

A BOLD STRATEGIC PLAN

That’s why he took a lesson from Toyota called Hoshin Planning, or putting the “plan on a page.” The School of Management’s strategy is now portrayed on a single page that focuses everyone on shared goals and actions. The plan-on-a-page will be updated each year, with new near-term goals in support of the longer-term vision, and additional initiatives to be implemented in support of the strategy. Freeman said the strategic planning process has yielded a clear vision that he hopes will continue to boost the School’s national and global reputation. He said the new strategy honors the School’s vibrant history and is aimed at sustaining and building upon the achievements that raised the School’s reputation under Dean Louis E. Lataif (SMG ’61, Hon ’90), placing it among the top 40 business schools.

“Our vision for the School is ‘Creating Value for the World.’ ‘Value’ is financial, certainly, and so much more: value for society, value for our communities, value for each other,” he said.

MANAGEMENT DISCIPLINES AND INDUSTRY SECTORS

A cornerstone of the strategy and the element that promises the most significant change for the undergraduate and graduate curricula is adding a focus on three industry sectors, in addition to the traditional management disciplines.

“We’ve identified three industries where we believe there will be more value created than any other sectors during the next 5, 10, 15, or 20 years in terms of jobs created, economic wealth created, and value for society and a better world.

“The sectors are healthcare, digital technology, and energy and the environment,” he said. “They will become important differentiators for our School.”

“Focusing on these three sectors will not dilute the School’s capabilities across the core management disciplines (accounting; finance; marketing; operations and technology management; strategy and innovation; markets, public policy, and law; and organizational behavior),” he said. “We will continue to provide students with an essential understanding of each of the management disciplines and how they interact with each other as part of an integrated management system. We will also continue to provide distinctive entrepreneurship and not-for-profit learning experiences.

“All of our academic departments will continue to strive for excellence and differentiation at the same time we build capabilities with respect to the three sectors,” he said. For example, each student will gain knowledge about financial principles, and also have the opportunity to do research and engage in classroom learning about how finance relates to the healthcare world. “Our students will understand the management disciplines, and have a basic understanding of the three sectors transforming the world.

As a result they will be very well informed, highly employable, ready to make a difference, to create immediate value for the world.”

In selecting the three sectors, the dean and faculty are harnessing the top economic engines in Boston. “It’s important for us to strive to create value nearby too,” he said. “Boston is our experiential lab, even though the value created by SMG has global implications, especially with a 30 percent foreign student population, and students from virtually every state in the US,” he said. The selected sectors are significant on a world stage as well as closer to home.

“Ethics and an understanding of global issues will also be a critical part of the curriculum.”

“If we look at industries that make their mark in this region, healthcare is a vital industry in the Boston area and in Massachusetts,” he said. Digital technology has been a key industry historically and holds great promise for the future. Although energy and environmental companies are at an earlier stage, Freeman said, “We’re seeing startups and other companies that are evolving and will have a prominent role to play in the New England economy.”

The Health Sector Management MBA Program has moved up from #17 to #11 in the business school rankings in the past few years, Freeman said. Likewise, in the field of digital technology, the dual degree MS•MBA (an MBA coupled with a master’s of science in information systems) is a signature program of the School and is highly regarded by recruiters. The expectation is that with greater focus and resources the programs will improve in reputation even further.

BUILDING A HOUSE

One way to view this new strategy, Freeman said, is to consider building a house.

“We start with the idea that the roof is really the peak, and since ‘creating value for the world’ is our vision, it lives at the top. The vision represents the pinnacle of where we’re going, simple and memorable.”

Any house needs a roof, a foundation, and a residential floor. “We also have to have walls, and we have two pillars: ground breaking research and exceptional teaching.” The rise in the reputation of the School of Management in recent years comes in large part from the exceptional teaching here, he said. “We have wonderful faculty, truly committed to their teaching and the students.”

The other pillar, research, stands to get a boost from the new strategy. “Our research focus was not nearly as strong and intense,” he said. “Going forward we’ve ramped up our activities to focus on complementing our focus on teaching with outstanding research contributions from our faculty. For us to continue to rise in reputation, we must broaden and deepen our research output.”

That’s why Freeman intends to continue to recruit additional teacher/scholars who complement current faculty and will bolster the School’s research capabilities. “Both research and teaching need to be very strong pillars holding up the roof.”

The real energy in a house comes from what’s inside the living quarters. That is where the traditional management disciplines reside—from accounting to finance to marketing to operations. It is also where the three priority sectors dwell.

“Innovation will take place where the sectors and the disciplines intersect,” said the dean. “And if you ask me what really propels a school to become an elite business school, it’s innovation in teaching and research.”

Although the strategy started at the top with the vision of creating value, there is no question that the strength of the curriculum must come from its foundation. And that means preparing each student for the world with a practical understanding of ethical behavior and social responsibility and a global perspective on business.

ETHICS, SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, AND GLOBALIZATION

A recent survey of alumni pointed out an enhanced need for that preparation. “A key area where our graduates wished there had been more discussion in the classroom was ethics,”
the dean said. “Their feedback, coupled with the massive ethical lapses that have recently taken place in business around the world, make it clear that ethics must play a prominent role in our new strategy as well.”

“Some of the change in improving ethics education will come from integrating it as an element in many of the management disciplines,” said James Post, the John Smith Professor in Management, who teaches courses in ethics and responsibility and is leading the task force on entrepreneurship and social responsibility.

“Because of Ken’s proselytizing about this and his genuine belief that it is so important, there’s very little resistance to this idea among the faculty. It’s very welcome,”
Post said. Integrating a focus on ethics in the classroom will require changes, from team teaching to providing internal coaching for faculty members who don’t have strong backgrounds as ethicists, he said.

Ethics is hardly a new concept for a school whose founding dean, Everett W. Lord, wrote a ground-breaking book about ethics in business in the 1920s.

“The issues he identified in the 1920s are virtually the same as the issues we have now. Businesspeople deserve the reputation we have today, just above the US Congress [in the category of least respected].” Freeman said that he doesn’t mean to paint everyone in business as unethical. However, the public perception of business leaders who have behaved in deplorable ways underscores the obligation for the School to prepare students to address ethical dilemmas.

“Over 50 faculty have participated in the task forces. It’s a total team effort all the way.”

Globalization is another vital element in the foundation of the SMG house. Freeman said the plan is for every student to have a global leadership experience at some time in their SMG career.

“We believe it’s vitally important for our students to realize that although business has a common vocabulary around the world, how each country conducts business is different.” In a global economy, understanding that is more important than ever. “The world is made up of many distinctive cultures. Our students need to gain an appreciation for the differences.

“We believe the power of that experience alone will help our students become more valuable creators of value for the world,” the dean said.

A NEW WAY OF TEACHING

An essential enabler of the new strategy is the transformation of the teaching process from taking place almost exclusively in amphitheater style classrooms with a “sage on a stage”
lecturing or leading case discussions to a highly interactive technology-enabled classroom format, offering real-time problem-solving opportunities with businesses and multiple feeds through videoconferencing, and digital networking among students. A team under the leadership of N. Venkatraman, the David J. McGrath Professor in Management, is finalizing the design of the new classrooms.

The classrooms will feature several video screens that accommodates video conferencing with participants in locations around the world, enabling live connections. This format will allow students to go live with a company that wants to take advantage of faculty and student researching and consulting capabilities addressing a current business problem.

CONVERTING STRATEGY INTO ACTION

The strategic plan is the outcome of extensive efforts that began in the fall of 2010, when Freeman assigned several faculty study groups to examine big themes. They reported their findings at the end of the fall semester that year.

“The strategy began to take shape during the winter months and in the spring it came together at a faculty retreat. We ended the academic year having a clear view of where we will head as we begin our second century.”

“We will also develop partner with other Schools and Colleges at BU that have sector expertise to leverage SMG’s efforts.”

Since then, teams of faculty have been hard at work redefining the undergraduate and graduate curricula. They’re identifying ways to infuse globalization, ethics, and social responsibility into existing courses and programs. At the same time, they’re considering a reduction in the number of required courses so that students will be able to tailor their education with electives in the health care, digital technology, and energy and the environment sectors.

More than 50 faculty members have participated on the task forces. “It’s a team effort all the way,” Freeman said. “We now have the SMG house—a compelling vision, and the building blocks for executing the strategy. Now we are at the time to move on to implementation.”

Freeman anticipates that the faculty will approve the new curricula during the next few months. Initial changes and innovations will be implemented in the fall of 2012. “By the time we begin the academic year in the fall of 2013, our 100th year, we will fully deploy the curriculum changes,” he said.

CHANGING LIVES

Freeman appreciates the unique role faculty have in shaping the lives of our students. “At Bucknell, a faculty member and a trustee made incredible differences in my life trajectory. My hope is that we can make a difference for our next generation of leaders during their time with us as well. We are here to serve our students; we are here to make a difference for the world. The opportunity to engage with the next generation—that’s what gets me hopping out of bed early every morning.”

He also hopes that the new strategy will motivate everyone across the SMG and BU community to participate in the School’s strategy.

“We can make a difference as a community by leveraging our 45,000 SMG alumni in a way that hasn’t happened consistently in the past. We must broaden alumni engagement through time, talent, and treasure, to help change this place for the better, and the world for the better.

“We will also develop partnerships with other schools and colleges at Boston University that have sector expertise to leverage SMG’s efforts. Today, for example, nine Schools or Colleges engage in healthcare, from biomedical engineering in the College of Engineering, to health economics in the College of Arts and Sciences, to global health issues in the School of Public Health, and more.”

MOMENTUM

Freeman sees a level of energy at the School that gives him optimism about the future.

“We have momentum within our faculty, which is quite exciting,” he said. Last spring, the School gathered for its first annual Faculty Research Day. “Seeing senior faculty and junior faculty working together on research ideas is a joy to behold,” he said. At the same time, faculty who are grounded in practical working experience rather than being academically trained scholars are energetically providing new ideas to improve the classroom and field experiences for students.

As the curriculum changes are implemented, Freeman hopes that each member of the faculty will participate in a unique way with creative teaching and research contributions to help advance the School’s agenda.

Freeman aspires for the School to evolve from being recognized as a strong program today, to become an elite business school. He indicates that it won’t be easy to accomplish; it will take time, and will not be a straight line of improvement. “Change is difficult under the best of circumstances in any organization. Academia is highly competitive and there are no proprietary secrets. We are blessed with a faculty that is embracing change, a student body that is eager to make a difference in the world, and a staff that stands ready to provide the support services needed for the School to succeed.”

“I came here with very high expectations,” he said. “After three semesters, we have a path to turn those expectations into reality and are on our way. These are exciting times for everyone associated with the School of Management.”