As an alumnus of Stanford and executive director of the Exploratorium in San Francisco, Dennis Bartels had always assumed that East Coast thinking was too conservative. But all of that changed with his experience at HBS, where he learned to reexamine his professional relationships and anticipate new trends in the Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management (SPNM) program.
I got my graduate degree at Stanford, so I had the impression that the East Coast would be a little bit more conservative and traditional. I had accepted the notion that the West Coast is more disruptive and more open to provocative ideas. But I was very impressed with the level of unconventional thinking at HBS—and the fact that it's connected to some very good empirical research. The combination of research, experiences, and case studies is designed to overthrow some conventional thinking, and I like that very much.
It's a great way to learn. I like the fact that they didn't ask us what we would do in that position, but instead treated the case as an analogy and metaphor for our own circumstances. Each of us examined how similar or not the case was to a particular challenge or problem in our organization and what lessons we could derive from it. If it wasn't similar, it just became interesting content and I stored it in the back of my mind because it could become useful someday. And in some cases, it was dead on, although I might not have previously framed my challenge exactly the same way. By reframing my challenge based on the case, I found that it was possible to discover a breakthrough or a solution that I hadn't thought of.
Definitely. One of them had to do with the notion of having the courage to be bad. The program's case studies and research backed up the idea that it's okay to make tradeoffs when pursuing excellence. There are just some things we're not going to be great at, and there's a good reason why we've chosen another area to focus on.
Absolutely. The amazing number of international participants has been one of the best parts of the program because I think that kind of diverse perspective only leads to aha moments. It makes the whole experience foolproof because we encounter diverse viewpoints that surprise us and make us think.
One great takeaway is that HBS is really on top of trends that I had not thought about or even imagined. That presents brand-new opportunities and ways of thinking about how we might solve some of our own problems—everything from open data and destabilizing control over our brand, to really fluid strategic situations. Is it smarter to think about mergers and partnerships rather than being proprietary with our brand and our information? So it's invaluable to get a jump on things that are happening in other sectors and may eventually hit our sector.
Also, there's the tension around mission and brand and focus. I was challenged to rethink my relationship with my closest donors and my board in a way that doesn't feel oppositional or stuck. Sometimes they want something I can't deliver, and so it can become difficult to engage deeply with them. The program introduced new ways to go right back at them instead of sheltering and protecting the organization from them.
I was extremely impressed with the brilliance of the faculty in this program. Every one of them is world class.
