Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/57462
a student—or a professor— of management! What a great time to be industry: LEED-certified buildings; plug-in hybrids; organic foods; carbon offsets; nano-solar startups. Sustainability, in fact, has swiftly become mainstream. energy to the grid than they use. Microenterprise strategies are eradicating poverty through profitability. Supply chains are getting greener, and venture capitalists are pouring bil- lions into alternative energy sources such as wind and solar. Breakthroughs in sustainability are happening in every Retail giant Wal-Mart is advancing sustainable value creation across multiple industries, from the design of sustainable fisheries and farming to the advancement of organic apparel to the greening of the electronics industry. Its CEO, Lee Scott, has noted that the company intends to completely eliminate waste in its operations. Consulting firm McKinsey & Company has created a new practice in the areas of cli- mate change, carbon, and social impact management. And company, to find a new business opportunity for its core product, fine silica sand. The idea? To use the sand in a water filtration process in developing regions where millions of lives are lost because of putrid water. The prototype worked—the low-cost water filter is now being distrib- uted in 44 countries. Other students have worked with the Dalai Lama and the United Reli- gions Initiative to create a worldwide alliance of 400 networks to end religious conflict and create interfaith cultures of peace. Another team brought Case faculty and students together with faculty and students from the University of Arkansas to work with Wal-Mart to make its supply chain and opera- tions "waste-free"—a project that might be the largest sustainable design proj- ect in the world. Another team helped us design Kofi Annan's first U.N. Global Compact Leaders Summit— and they were thrilled to be at the table with CEOs from BP and Novartis. In many ways, each of these projects has been life- changing for the students involved. They learn that managers are not just situ- ation analysts and decision makers, as they are often portrayed. Managers are also true designers, who design ad campaigns, project teams, incentive systems, financial instru- ments, sustainable business models, and the processes through which these proj- ects are integrated into an organization's success. B-Schools of the Future Many businesses and business schools are discovering how design can transform 21st-century corporations and inspire innovation and sustainable value creation. Exciting collaborations are emerg- ing, for example, at Stanford University between the design and business schools. The University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management in Canada has centered its curriculum on integrative thinking and design. McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management in Montreal, Quebec, has a long history of using the arts to teach leadership. And Ira Jack- son, dean of Claremont Graduate University's Drucker School in Califor- nia, sees a future where design thinking, multistake- holder strategy, and sustainability all combine to "link innovation to social progress." (See Jackson's commentary in "Your Turn," page 62.) These curricular shifts are generating important ques- tions: What might b-schools of the future look like if they incorporated the best strate- gies of our d-schools? How might cross-fertilization between the two serve to inform, strengthen, and enliven interdisciplinary education? And what could be the transformative effects of such collaboration on business, especially in the areas of sustainability, social entrepreneurship, and global citizenship? The positive effects of more integral collabora- tions between design and business—in companies and business schools— promise to be great. What should be clear to managers everywhere is that designers have developed skills for responding to complex situ- ations creatively, holistically, and productively. Designers approach problems with the desire to create innovative, long-lasting solutions that not only fulfill requirements, but also improve on the way things are done in unexpect- ed but valuable ways. BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2008 35