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YourTurn The Paradox of 'The Box' My eyes were opened to the limitations of traditional business education when I overheard an exchange between two teams of students, one from the university's business school, the other from the school of industrial design. They were all part of an ini- tiative called InventureWorks, which pairs cross-disciplinary teams with corporate partners exploring new product development. The business students were astounded when they were con- fronted by the design students. "We're sick of this. None of you can think outside the box," the design students said. Shocked, my students responded, "Yeah, well, you can't think inside the box." The silence that followed was awkward but instructive. To me, this confronta- tion between design and business students—between creative and ana- lytical thinkers—represented a para- dox that has become more promi- nent in the business world. Should we think "inside the box" or "out- side the box"? Who's right? In fact, business leaders often have to think both ways. It's only when we take a step "beyond the box" that we can see that fact, and then begin to teach students what business already knows—creativity and analysis go hand in hand. Unfortunately, it's still routine for business schools to choose one side or the other. Some business schools have moved from lectures to experi- ential learning, emphasizing hands- on projects while skimping on the traditional teaching methods that provide a vital foundation for best practices. Others remain mired in 56 BizEd NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 by Marianne W. Lewis ing if he was sent to a job site with a toolbox full of hammers—without the screwdrivers, wrenches, and pli- ers that would enable him to do everything the job requires. Yet business schools routinely send their graduates into the professional world equipped with the managerial equivalent of nothing but hammers. Business schools attempt to solve traditional teaching methods—lec- tures, readings, and case studies— that oversimplify and overrationalize business challenges. A common product of the first approach, I fear, is a street-savvy yet impulsive and reckless graduate; a common prod- uct of the second is a book-smart yet narrow and naïve graduate. Neither has the comprehensive skills required in the modern workplace. Creativity or analysis alone can't solve every business problem; in isolation, nei- ther approach can replicate the intri- cacy of business. Take my academic field, organi- zational behavior. For the moment, let's consider this field to be a "tool box" of managerial knowledge and methods. In the classroom, we typi- cally teach one theory at a time to provide students with clarity and structure. Each theory puts another "hammer" in the student's toolbox, a means to understand one facet of human behavior. A carpenter's apprentice could hardly make a liv- the problem by offering students experiential, hands-on learning ses- sions to round out their educations, but often fail to put the traditional lessons of the classroom into a real- world context. For example, when students participate in global field studies, many business schools treat them as little more than tourists. Students are herded onto buses to see the sights; then, they are herded back to a college campus. There, the students are given classroom instruction identical to what they would receive at home. They return with no more tools at their disposal than they had when they left. The opportunity to integrate the class- room and the real world, to join "inside the box" thinking with "outside the box" applications, is lost. national studies can bring about a remarkable transformation in stu- dents and faculty. They come to understand that the two ways of thinking are not mutually exclusive. For example, I've witnessed how these intense programs bring tradi- tional international business con- cepts to life, helping students to "think globally and act locally." On a recent field study in Queretaro, Mexico, my students spent each morning in a different company, each afternoon at the national uni- versity, and each evening with their When done right, however, inter-