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An example of a Clockwise summary of a Connect 3 Charting the Thought Process "Clockwise" Analyses Harry F. Byrd Jr. School of Business Shenandoah University Winchester, Virginia BY GILES JACKSON In their book Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Cam- puses, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa find that at least 45 percent of the 2,300 students they studied made no statistically significant gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning, or writing skills during their first two years of college. That finding is especially alarming when employers want to hire graduates who can ask the right questions, gather relevant information, assimi- late it quickly, and use it effectively to solve problems. Students who can think independently are in high demand, but in short supply. Why? One reason is that the educational system trains students to answer questions, not ask them. To address this deficit, I cre- ated what I call the "Clockwise" method, which guides students through a circular, three-step thought process. (See an example of the chart on this page.) First, students analyze the content of a Financial Times article to summa- rize key points; next, they critique the author's approach to the topic; finally, they connect the article's content to other related materials, such as newspaper articles, research papers, book chapters, presenta- tions, think tanks, and trade groups. Clockwise integrates analytical, critical, and lateral thinking into 44 January/February 2012 BizEd ARTICLES #848: Dual-CEO governance model #134: Swarovski case study #787: Executive burnout #1075: Shareholder activism THEORIES Theory of the firm; agency theory; stewardship theory; stakeholder theory ORGANIZATIONS • Institute of Directors (iod.com) • National Association of Corporate Directors (nacdonline.org) article, "A very British split at the top," by columnist Geoffrey Owen. The U.S. norm is to combine chairman and CEO posts in one person. The U.K. norm is to keep these roles separate Spencer Stuart study: most say U.K. system is best. Appointing lead director as counterweight to CEO doesn't work However, it's unclear whether a split structure leads to higher performance Boards are often dysfunctional due to conflict and confusion at top, e.g., • chairman used to ruling the roost second-guesses executive team • chairman ignorant of the industry fails to stand up to chief executive, so becomes a puppet The ideal is to have a dynamic CEO and wiser chairman with the company's best interests at heart. But this seldom happens The chairman's job is becoming more complex and demanding. A wider range of skills is required, such as the ability to engage directly with stakeholders Critique 2 What recourse is there if a founding chairman no longer acts in the best interests of the company? How do you prevent a train wreck? • greater shareholder and investor activism Boards must be better prepared The U.K. Walker review said the capabilities of a good chairman are partly innate and partly learnable. Its recommendations: • give industry knowledge greater weight in the selection process • emphasize learnable parts of the job What about alternative governance models? • two CEOs (e.g., Research in Motion, Wipro) • no CEO (e.g., Swarovski's executive and supervisory boards) Chairman's role is contingent on many other factors not mentioned by author, e.g., type of entity, ownership, stage of development, financial health of company, cultural context (e.g., social status is different in U.S. than in India) How are new appointees best prepared for the demanding role of chairman? Mentors? In-house training? Professional qualifications? This is unclear Conflict at the top may stem from other factors not mentioned by the author, such as executive burnout Summarize 1 a single framework. This method gives them a way to process large volumes of information more effec- tively and "think things through" systematically prior to a decision. The Search for Structure I have long used the Financial Times as a starting point for class discus- sion, because it uses a common lan- guage that bridges the gap between academics and real-world business. However, many students struggle with the content of its full-length articles. For that reason, I have built a corpus of summaries of FT articles, which now exceeds 1,500 entries, to make the newspaper's content more accessible for my students. I've assigned each summary to one of three categories: issues, cases, and biographies. Issue sum- maries address a specific question: "Which governance model is best?" or "What do the best leaders have in common?" Case summaries pro- file individual companies, bringing one or more business issues to life. Finally, biographical summaries profile entrepreneurs, executives, thought leaders, and other important figures in business. Financial T imes