Avi Turetsky, PhD Student: "My Experiences as a Doctoral Student and Frequent Conference Attendee"

One of the major advantages of the Case Western DM as compared to other executive doctorates is that it gives students the option to transition to a full PhD two years into the program. The ability to make this switch is important for those of us who would like to move from the practitioner world into academia, and a fair number of DM students seem to find themselves drawn in this direction (myself included). The DM by itself is a great degree for practitioners who want to complement their “real world” work with either research or teaching, but a PhD is really necessary for anyone who wants to move seriously into academia.

 Another major advantage of the Case DM program is its rigor. Whether students decide ultimately to stick with the DM or pursue a PhD, Case expects all of us to produce serious academic papers, and the faculty give us the intensive training in both qualitative and quantitative methods to be able to do so. My work focuses on the growing realization that a small number of “stars” seem to create the vast majority of value in fields as diverse as sports, acting, and even business, and that the results of human behavior frequently appear to follow power laws rather than normal distributions. (Think the 1% in economics, where a small number of people accumulate the majority of the world’s wealth). The idea for my work came from a class that Professor Richard Boyatzis taught in the first semester of the program. I need a very strong grounding in quantitative methods for the statistical part of my work, and also a strong grounding in qualitative methods in order to get “under the hood” and understand what really differentiates stars. Fortunately, the DM program equips us with both.

Case also expects us to submit to top academic conferences, and the most common one is the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, or AOM. This past August, I presented my paper “Competencies, Clusters, and Star Performance at a Leading Private Equity Firm” at AOM, which took place in Anaheim, California.

The conference was a great experience for a number of reasons. One is the ability to present your work. First, not every paper gets accepted to AOM. (I believe about ½ do). Each submitted paper is reviewed by a number of peers (i.e., professors or other doctoral students). The people who reviewed mine provided some very useful comments that I incorporated into the final version of my paper, which was then published in the Journal of Private Equity. The actual presentation day is also a fun chance to showcase your work to other academics and to get helpful advice and feedback. I should also mention that some of my fellow Case students attended my presentation and me theirs and we were a great support network.

Another benefit of AOM is the ability to participate in Professional Development Workshops, or PDWs. Among the PDWs that I attended were a session called “Halfway There” for mid-program Organizational Behavior PhD students, and another one on multilevel modeling, which is a topic in which I am particularly interested. The Halfway There PDW was a very useful opportunity to listen to doctoral students from other schools discuss their research, and also to get some tips from the people who led the session, who are more advanced in their academic careers. The multilevel modeling PDW was a great chance to hear from some of the major “methodologists” who study the impact of one level of an organization or industry on another (e.g., employees on companies on industries or vice versa), and to talk with other people who are conducting projects that are similar to mine.

 AOM was also an exciting networking opportunity. I was able to meet professors and other students who have interests that are similar to mine, discuss ideas, and also to learn more about moving from the practitioner world to the academic track.

One more note on conferences: I have become a regular conference presenter and attendee, beyond just AOM. Since starting the program, I have presented at the Engagement Management Scholarship Annual Meeting (the conference of executive doctorates), to the Emotional Intelligence Consortium, at a symposium on stars and outliers held by the Strategic Management Society, and at a number of practitioner conferences for “real world” folks. I probably present more than most students do, but I highly recommend it. The specialized events such as the emotional intelligence meeting and the stars and outliers symposium were particularly helpful, in that they allowed me to subject my work to the critical gaze of experts in my field, and the practitioner conferences have also been extremely helpful in ensuring that my research is useful in the real world. (Keeping our research useful is another primary goal of the Case DM program).

In short, I am a big fan of the Case DM program, and couldn’t be happier to be part of it. If you are a practitioner considering a doctorate and are looking for real rigor, I would argue that this is the best program to choose. And if and when you do enroll, seriously consider spending time at the major academic (and practitioner) conferences in your field.

 

Carolynn Cameron, PhD Candidate 2017: Are Leaders Made or Born?

It seems an everlasting question about the origins of leadership; can anyone be made into a leader?  Is someone a leader or not, a condition anointed at birth?  I’ve spent my career working with leaders of all levels and capability levels seeking to understand the answer to these very questions.

To be clear, we’re talking about true leaders, big “L” leaders; those of whom most of us are in awe for their vision, ability to inspire others, do new and unprecedented things.  Those who succeed in making an indelible mark on their part of the world.  The world is mostly comprised of little “L” leaders who can lead departments and groups through variations of the status quo.  There is also a sizable number of little “L” leaders masquerading as big “L” leaders, sometimes causing harm but usually their self-delusion is benign to everyone except themselves.

What I’ve observed about big “L” leaders may sound trite or mitigated, but I think accurate.  Leaders are both made and born.  In other words, one cannot turn anyone into a leader, and a naturally born leader must have the benefit of certain experiences to allow their innate leadership attributes to flourish into something the rest of us can appreciate.  So what are these innate characteristics, and what are these critical experiences?

Again, my responses lead me to conclusions which are more ambiguous than I would like.  And the characteristics and experiences are inextricably linked. 

Leaders must have an internal desire to serve a purpose; they must desire to serve something larger than themselves.  They must also be exposed to a situation that inspires them to discover and articulate that purpose and then the drive to pursue it in the face of countless setbacks.  Leaders must also have a desire to learn, be curious and perpetually improve.   They must consequently have the benefit of education, coaches and mentors, and those who provide clear, honest and constructive feedback.  Leaders must be humble and invest themselves in the service of others.  True humility comes from love and so leaders must have had the opportunity to experience real, self-sacrificing love in any of their relationships.  So long as the person also has the ticket-to-entry level of intelligence, he or she will make their mark.

I’ve spent years of my life and tens of millions of dollars trying to turn people into leaders.  The sad discovery has been that in any group I’m privileged to work with, there are only 1 or 2 with all the natural prerequisites.  My job became simply providing the experiences to help their capabilities emerge, and by consequence help improve the little “L” leadership of all the others.  And how can you tell who’s who?  The little “L” leaders became easily identified as they sooner or later migrate to the sidelines, discouraged and worn out by the prevailing headwinds but comforted by the legions of little “L” sideline cohabitants.    The big “L” leaders by contrast forge on, oblivious to naysayers and frustrated by the legions of comfort-seeking little ”L” leaders, racing only against themselves, for themselves.

 

Jodi Berg, PhD Candidate, 2017: Don’t Lose Sight of Your Personal Purpose

If you are considering joining the DM program, or already fully entrenched - and questioning your sanity - don’t lose sight of the personal purpose that brought you here in the first place. This personal purpose may very give you the focus and energy you need to see it through to the end.

I joined the DM program because I had a very specific purpose – a practical problem that I wanted to solve. I, like many other leaders around the world, was seeking ways to focus, energize, and retain good employees. We were told to increase the levels of engagement and commitment because employees experiencing greater levels of engagement perform better than companies whose employees are not as engaged (Macey & Schneider, 2008), and commitment has been tied to retention (Boyatzis et al., 2012; Cardador et al., 2011; Mowday, 1979;). Clearly engagement and commitment are important; yet according to the 2015 Gallup Poll (Adkins, 2015), less than 33% of the US workforce feel engaged with their work and even more distressing is that the percentage has not moved very much in 12 years (Beck & Harter, 2014). Recognizing that engagement and commitment positively impact performance and retention apparently is not enough. This part I knew. What I did not know was what to do about it. (Some people would seek the answer by reading a book. Not us. We want to not only find the answer, but understand how to find it so we can tackle other equally challenging questions down the road.)

It was clear to me that cracking the code to positively influencing engagement and commitment would require identifying tangible things that we, as leaders, could wrap our arms around. Two and a half years later, my research led me to three tools that I can say with confidence will move the dial on engagement, commitment and even better - life satisfaction:  1) helping employees develop a personal purpose, 2) tapping into a higher purpose for the organization and 3) building a culture in which relationships that support sharing these visions are encouraged and supported.

I (yeah me – how cool is that) was able to empirically demonstrate that having and sharing a company higher purpose positively impacts the level of an employee’s workplace engagement and organizational commitment. What is even more exciting is that when an employee has a personal purpose - their level of engagement and commitment to the organization are even higher AND they experience a sense of life satisfaction that does not come from a company higher purpose.

Having a personal purpose is powerful! You are considering, or have embarked on, this journey because you have a personal purpose. Don’t lose sight of this purpose, in fact, hang on to it. It will give you the wind beneath your wings necessary to persevere through this program and to ultimately explore, discover and demonstrate a truth that will lay a foundation for others to build upon.

References

Adkins, A. 2015. Majority of U.S. employees not engaged despite gains in 2014. Gallup, January 28. Retrieved from http://www.gallup.com/poll/181289/majority-employees-not-engaged-despite-gains-2014.aspx.

Beck, R., & Harter, J. 2014. Why good managers are so rare. Harvard Business Review, (March). Retrieved from http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/03/why-good-managers-are-so-rare

Boyatzis, R. E., Smith, M. L., & Beveridge,  A. J. 2012. Coaching with compassion: Inspiring health, well-being, and development in organizations. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 49(2): 153–178.

Cardador, M. T., Dane, E., & Pratt, M. G. 2011. Linking calling orientations to organizational attachment via organizational instrumentality. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 79: 367–378.

Mowday, R. T., Steers, R. M., & Porter, L. W. 1979. The measurement of organizational commitment. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 14(2): 224–247.