How to succeed in business

Rude clerks. Snippy receptionists. Belligerent managers. Insufferable co-workers.* We’ve all experienced this not-so-great side of the business world. On the other hand, we’ve also had great experiences. What’s the difference?  Interpersonal skills!

COB's home, Showker Hall

While I was pondering what to blog about this morning, Phil DuBose, professor of management in the College of Business, walked into my office. Phil and I started talking about summer and jobs and business. He teaches COB 202, Interpersonal Skills, an innovative course required of all JMU business majors, who take the course during their sophomore year.

When the course was initially offered more than 10 years ago, only two or three sections of the course were offered each semester.  Now 15-20 sections are offered a semester, with class sizes averaging around 24 students. Class sections need to be that size because of the highly experiential nature of the course.

Unlike many other courses, COB 202 is not about sitting and taking notes but rather is about doing. Students learn many skills, such as working in teams, negotiating, managing conflict, running a meeting and making effective presentations.  In almost every class, students are either engaging in some skill-building activity or discussing a skill-building activity that they have just executed.

It is to the college’s credit that they recognized the essential need for this kind of instruction and institutionalized it with COB 202. The course fits into a very specific niche and is offered by very few schools. Most schools offer courses in communication and in organizational behavior, but interpersonal skills is something different from either of those courses, and is really unlike any other course offered at most schools.

When initially conceptualized and implemented, the course had a very specific short-term goal of preparing students to function effectively as team members in COB 300, a course integrating management, finance, marketing and operations. Students, in teams of five or six, spend an intensive semester creating a business plan — not unlike how the real world does things. Throughout the process, they must work together, integrating the four business components.

COB 300 is not easy.  Any business major will tell you it’s intense and demanding. But it’s how the real world works, and success often depends on how well a team gels.

“If you can’t function as part of a team or get along with other people, you’re doomed to fail,” one recent COB graduate told me. COB 202 and COB 300 change the playing field for COB graduates in the job market. It gives them an edge.

Validating this is what recruiters and employers often report back: how well JMU graduates do in the boardrooms and offices. Their edge is what COB calls the Madison Quotient.

And it begins with COB 202 because it all comes down to connectivity. Interpersonal connections. That’s how to succeed in business.

You can read more about the impact of the Madison Quotient on job prospects for students at: http://www.myvirtualpaper.com/doc/jamesmadisonuniversity/MadisonSummer09/2009061101/12.html#12

* I have no insufferable co-workers. All of mine are wonderful.

Willing to “wwoof”

Image via Wikipedia

Imagine working in the hot sun all day weeding row after row of beans or trimming olive trees or herding pigs.

Sound fun? No?

If you think not, you need to consider the “wwooffers.” All over the world, the young and the able  are volunteering weeks and months of their time to do intensive labor on organic and small farms. In return, they get a place to sleep and three meals a day. And no pay.

What began in England 40 years ago as a way of finding an opportunity to experience the wonders of nature has grown into an international movement that supports organic and sustainable farms. Thousands of volunteers fan out to small operations to offer a week, a month or more of free labor. Given the condition of the world’s environment, sustainable and organic farming — much of which is accomplished on small, family farms — is critical for the future, one that students are especially attuned to. After all, it’s their future.

By one count, some 50 organizations in more than 100 countries have networks the coordinate “wwoofers.” While it is an opportunity for students to experience the world in a new way, it also makes the world a little better. Think of it as changing the world one weed at a time.

For JMU alumna Nicole Martorana (’07) “wwoofing” meant herding pigs and trimming olive trees as part of a summer of travel last year. Earlier Nicole had spent a semester abroad in Florence. “I always knew that when I left Florence, I’d be back,” she says.

Go back she did. Like so many of today’s students, travel means far more than a traditional tourist adventure to exotic locations. For many, travel is an opportunity to learn and to make a difference. Other countries are different parts of the world — but parts of their world.

This summer, after his own study abroad experience in Florence, rising senior Peter Jackson (’12) took his own turn “wwoofing.” He writes: “I went to an organic farm in Piemonte in the Alps. There I learned all about organic farming techniques and worked everywhere the family needed my help. In return, I got a bed and three meals each day (a good deal).”

That’s not all Peter did.  After “wwoofing,” Peter headed to Zambia, one of the poorest countries in the world.  In a future blog, I’ll share about that experience. (You will not want to miss it!)

For students like Peter and Nicole, changing the world is only a matter of taking a step out of the ordinary. It’s part of the culture of JMU, whether it’s in Europe or Harrisonburg or Zambia.

You can learn more about wwoofing at: http://wwoof.org/

You can also follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/WWOOF?sk=wall

The ought-to-be-bridled freedom of speech

Language is a magnificent construct with which we can express beautiful subtleties, clever thoughts and challenging ideas. We can discuss thorny issues. We can visit controversies. We can work toward solutions.

Or we can beat each other over the head.

Anyone who peruses the Internet frequently will have noticed a trend in the discussions: an unfiltered proliferation of words flourishing on Websites, blogs, online publications, Facebook pages and Twitter. The ability to “speak” with inflammatory, disparaging and downright mean words is a temptation that apparently befalls many people.

Here some samples that I found posted today (and these are the mild ones):

Alas, the GOP field of candidates reminds me of going to the supermarket to find that this year’s crop of fruits and vegetables is rotten to the core. (Washington Post)

No matter what happens the US is done, finished, over.  All bow to your corporate masters. (New York Times)

I am ashamed of the people who are supposed to be running this country…it’s a “my way or the highway” attitude in Washington DC.  They are a disgrace. (CNN)

We Americans take our freedom of speech very, very seriously.  It’s right up there with breathing.

We speak fearlessly and the press foolishly takes our “pulse” with such comments. How many times have you heard “news” people, say “this is what people are saying?” Add in the “tabloid effect” — the likelihood that the most sensational, outrageous and often the most irresponsible comments will rise to the top of the discussion — and one has to wonder: How valuable is this, anyway?

While often people are blowing off steam as they pontificate, such loaded, thoughtless rhetoric rarely advances civil discussion. Political correctness has banned whole categories of words; it’s a shame that all malicious phrases (akin more to baseball bats than words) aren’t banned from print or posts. But alas, they are not, and I don’t suggest it. Instead, we should dispense with them ourselves.

Far too frequently, online “discussions” — and I use that term with a certain amount of sarcasm — sound more like verbal beat downs. (“McDonnell is an idiot”; “Obama is the anti-Christ”) Reason and civility are lost to the unbridled sentiments of frustrated individuals. The status quo seems to be “say anything you want and turn a deaf ear to the consequences.” Piling on this way in expressing one’s dislike for a particular political candidate, an elected official or a specific piece of legislation is common, and frankly, quite unhelpful.

Far more infrequent are discussions that explore interesting, controversial and divisive ideas with candor and civility, with honesty and open mindedness. Sadly, these are exceedingly rare.

Once in a while, however, you’ll come across a thoughtful comment that makes you think and that adds to understanding. Earlier this month, Nathan Alvado-Castle commented on a post on this blog about being “green.” In the same thoughtful way, John Reeves commented on a post about Sudan. What they wrote added  new dimensions to the discussions.

Both Nathan and John exercised “free speech” in positive, reasonable and valuable ways. Perhaps commentators elsewhere should follow their lead.  Neither yelled, condemned, name-called. They expressed viewpoints with reason and consideration — and frankly, it was refreshing. So, Nathan and John, thank you!

Somehow we need to change the tone of discussion from the current dismissive rants to comments that further discourse. And while I would never imply that freedom of speech should ever be quelled, I would suggest that thinking before one “speaks” online — or anywhere else — is a policy that might make our sacred freedom far more productive. So let’s change the tenor of of freedom of speech; let’s bridle our own, so we can really talk.

You can read Nathan’s comments here: https://jmubethechange.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/the-green-pen-and-the-yin-and-yang-of-modernity/#comment-4684

You’ll find John’s comments here: https://jmubethechange.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/pickaxe-and-elbow-grease-peace/#comment-4682

Outback health care

Last week, my uncle,  ill and miserable, spent seven hours stuck in an emergency room before he was admitted to the hospital. He’s 84 and for him and his wife who was there as his advocate, it was not a pleasant experience. I couldn’t help but think about our American health care system. Few would disagree that it is in a state of flux. Some say it’s horribly broken. Others say we’re headed for medical Armageddon. No one, however, disagrees that change is needed. Certainly, not my uncle.

Whenever a problem like health care or the national debt or immigration piques our national attention, it leads to an flood of opinions (some considered and some not). The degree of rancor and the distribution of misinformation from all quarters is frustrating and mostly useless, if not destructive.

Sometimes we need to step back and think reasonably. To do so means learning about and considering other points of view — a novel approach, I know.

Earlier this year, I had some email conversations with psychology graduate Jennifer Stanley Dunkle (’78). Jennifer is a licensed professional counselor and for the past eight years, she’s worked as the intake coordinator for a psychiatric hospital. After leaving Madison, she and her family lived in New Zealand and Australia while she worked on and off in the travel industry and raised her two children. Jennifer says, by the way, that the best part of her Madison Experience was friendship with her roommate Karen Greene Copper (’79).

While abroad, Jennifer experienced first hand a different health care system. Her experience is informative and interesting. And as you’ll read, she is doing more than talking. Jennifer is taking what she’s learned and is actively involved in changing and improving health care for others.

Here’s what Jennifer had to say…

My family and I lived in New Zealand and Australia between 1995 and 2000.  We were permanent residents of Australia and then became dual-citizens, American and Australian.  Therefore we were eligible to participate in their health care system and got to experience it first hand.  I was very impressed because ALL permanent residents and citizens are eligible for their Medicare system — nobody is left out.  Unlike our country, nobody has to declare bankruptcy due to medical bills.  Rarely would anyone die prematurely due to a lack of access to medical care (this happens to about 45,000 Americans per year, according to Physicians for a National Health Program).  All pregnant women have access to prenatal care, and all children have access to well-child check-ups and immunizations.  Adults can get physicals and needed lab tests every year as well.

Everyone can choose their own doctor.  Most doctors are privately employed. Typically, one would pay the doctor (a much more reasonable rate than it is here), and then take the receipt to the local Medicare office to be reimbursed about 85% of the cost. Prescriptions cost no more than about $32.00 AUD per month.  (Low-income people paid even less, and some clinics would “bulk-bill” the government for the cost of seeing a doctor, so that the patient didn’t have to pay anything).

There are public hospitals and private hospitals. For those earning over a certain income, the government encourages them to buy private hospitalization insurance; otherwise they pay a tax penalty. But you can go to a public hospital if you want to. Emergencies and urgent needs are obviously seen right away.  There might be a slight wait for elective surgery, but it wasn’t usually too bad. For example, I had elective bunion surgery at a public hospital and only had to wait a couple of months.  There was no out-of-pocket cost for this surgery whatsoever.

Australia uses a “single-payer” system, meaning that the government collects taxes for Medicare and then pays the doctors, pharmacies, and public hospitals.  Administrative costs are much less than they are here, where we have thousands of for-profit insurance companies, all of which have different pre-authorization and billing procedures.

Other countries, such as Australia, are definitely faced with the increasing costs of health care, but they have health care for all of their citizens.

So, when we moved back to the States I became involved in a group at my church, trying to help move our country toward universal health care.  This group is called the Health Care Justice Action Team.  We write to and speak with legislators, have an information table set up in our church social hall, and give presentations at church and in the community for the public and for business groups.

Despite the passage of last year’s health care bill, it is unfortunately rather flawed and is a far cry from universal coverage. It doesn’t do enough to contain the spiraling costs in health care.  So we still have a lot of work ahead of us!

So, do you agree with Jennifer?  Is your experience different? My uncle’s experience certainly was. He’s better now, but not so the long ER waits that sadly are common. Do you have thoughtful perspectives to bring to the table? If so, let us know.

To read about other JMU people involved in health care, go to: http://www.jmu.edu/bethechange/healthcare.shtml

You can also read more about the Physicians for National Health Care Program at:  http://www.pnhp.org

GOAALLLLLLLLL…..

Soccer has rarely attracted so much attention as it has this week. Even a stadium of vuvuzelas would not drown out the enthusiam for the victorious U.S. Women’s Soccer team. All over Harrisonburg — in some surprising and unexpected places — I’ve overhead people talking about it. That this is a women’s event makes it even more interesting.

I suspect that among those following the story are two JMU professors emeriti

Lee Morrison and Pat Bruce

of physical education: Lee Morrison and Pat Bruce. They understand, perhaps more than many of us, how far women have come in the realm of sports and athletics. For them, it has to be exciting. During their careers, Dr. Morrison and Dr. Bruce contributed significantly to the revolution in women’s sports. The change they have witnessed — the changes they promoted — have been exceptional.

When Pat and Lee joined the faculty of Madison College some 50 years ago, opportunities for women were very limited. There was no Title IX or girls’ soccer leagues. For many women, housekeeping was the height of their physical activity, and for those who might have wished to participate in sports, they had few options — or none at all. In Dr. Morrison’s homestate of Georgia, and in neighboring South Carolina, no colleges had teams for women. In fact, one of Virginia’s drawing cards for both women (Bruce grew up in Massachusetts) was that some colleges in the state had women’s teams. Madison was one.

As faculty members, Lee and Pat both coached and taught. As mentors, they encouraged and inspired an entire generation of women to pursue sports, not as an occupation, avocation or a temporary hobby — but as a lifestyle. Their contribution to the change in attitudes and opportunities for women did not go unnoticed.

In their honor, the Morrison-Bruce Center for the Promotion of Physical Activity for Girls & Women opened on JMU’s campus in 2006. The center has a three-pronged approach. It encourages and generates opportunities for women to be physically active. The center also sponsors and conducts research into exercise science, and it disseminates information about women in sports. An extension of what Morrison and Bruce did during their half century careers, the center takes their philsophy of physical activity and promotes it to women of all ages, and especially to young girls.

What makes the center so important is that the emphasis is not on sport. It is on women, and finding the right motivations for them. The center’s website explains it best:

“The interscholastic, intercollegiate, and elite programs have grown and many opportunities are there”, says Dr. Morrison. “However, those with average skills (and in some cases those from low income or immigrant families) have not had the chance to learn or have been cut from participation. Also, there are many women who did not have opportunities while growing up to participate in physical activity and as adults have an interest yet they find it difficult to find a place to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to maintain appropriate physical activity behaviors. I am interested in helping those women and girls and in supporting research projects that produce results that can be translated into practice. My message to girls and women is this: Include some physical activity in your lifestyle as young as you can and find groups (co-ed and female) for participation. And if you don’t know the sport or skill, don’t be bashful. More than likely the others are also. Be brave.”

Although Pat and Lee are both retired, both are very much still “in the game.” They contributed their expertise to the planning for the Morrison-Bruce Center and regularly participate in activities there. One need only witness the throng of former students and hear their praise of these two pioneering women to understand the extent to which each has contributed to significant change — and why we will soon add them to our Be the Change website.

So next Sunday, when the U.S. Women’s Soccer team squares off against Japan for the 2011 Women’s World Cup championship, you can be certain that if Lee Morrison and Pat Bruce aren’t watching, they will definitely be cheering.

To read more about these two inspiring women, check out Class Notes in the next issue of Madison magazine.

You can also read what their former students said about them in Professors You Love essays:

Lee Morrison
http://www.jmu.edu/professorsyoulove/morrison-butler.shtml
Pat Bruce
http://www.jmu.edu/professorsyoulove/bruce-fairbanks.shtml
And learn more about the Morrison-Bruce Center here: http://www.jmu.edu/kinesiology/cppagw/index.html

Wisdom from a fortune cookie

Image via Wikipedia

I once loved Mediterranean furniture — that heavy, ornate, often red Morrocan-influenced or black wrought iron furniture. It was beautiful, and when I grew up I was sure my house would be filled with Spanish drama, bold colors and all of the trappings of a real Mediterranean Villa. Something right off the Costa Del Sol —  you’d almost be able to hear the crowd roar from a bullfight.

Something happened, however, as I “traveled” through four years of college.  My tastes changed. My penchant for all things Mediterranean gave way to an appreciation of traditional and classical styling. Black and red lost its luster. I gravitated toward more serene colors, blues, yellows and creams.

I opened a fortune cookie recently at a great new Asian restaurant in Harrisonburg. The message inside read, “When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.” It made me think about all of the changing we do in life, but how on a university campus, change is endemic.

I’m not sure there’s a point in our lives save infancy when we humans change more than we do during our college years. That transformation from childhood to adulthood (ask any parent of a college student) is exciting, exhausting, sometimes scary and troublesome, but most of all, it’s wonderful.  On a college campus, every student is exposed to new ideas, new people, new points of view and new opportunities which — please forgive the cliche — open doors literally, figuratively and in every way possible. College is a plethora, a smorgasbord, a D-Hall full of experiences opened for students to learn and grow and change.

Some students enter college knowing exactly what they want to do. Those fortunate few know from day-one exactly what they want to study.  Many, however, go through many iterations. Some students change majors as frequently as birds change branches before they settle into a discipline that feels right.

Today on campus — right now in fact — some two hundred members of the class of 2015 are getting their first real taste of Madison. With the help of dozens of FROGS — the acronym for Freshman Orientation Guides — new freshmen are scheduling classes, learning the ropes, making friends, and without a doubt, quelling some fears and generating some others. They are getting ready for enormous change. Some will be sharing a room for the first time. Some will choose an major because it sounds interesting. Some will agree with their new roommates on a blue rug and loft beds. Some will remain undecided on a major and others will learn about a field that intrigues them or meet a professor who inspires them. And while many are likely to change their minds several times, what’s essential is that they are willing to change and grow and leap into the Madison Experience.

This kind of change is exciting. It is a new phase of life, but more importantly it is the beginning of a growth spurt unmatched in their young lives thus far. They will grow up, grow wiser, make good decisions and some bad decisions, learn a heck of a lot, stretch their thinking, hone their abilities, explore their talents, have a whole lot of fun and, in the end, they will come out ready to change the world.

So, today, we welcome part of the Class of 2015.

To read more about JMU’s FROGS (for some it will take you back!) and the orientation process, go here: http://www.jmu.edu/monty/WelcomeLeapFrogs.shtml

The sound and the music

Soon Hee Newbold and Erin Rettig

Have you ever been standing in an elevator or sitting in an office when a particular song lilts through the air. Suddenly you are transported to another time and place? For me, it’s Gershwin’s Preludes or a Rachmaninoff concerto. Then there’s any Beatle tune. I’m there — back in school with my friends Myra and Beth, dreaming.

Music is a medium that fires us up or soothes us — and leaves us changed. During the Great Depression and throughout the 1930s, it was the voice of a little girl, Shirley Temple, that lifted spirits. More recently, it was the gritty soundtrack of Saving Private Ryan coupled with raw imagery that delivered a message about WWII we should never forget.

Music can make us soar, send us back in time and inspire us. Experts have their reasons as to why, but we all know it by experience. It alters our brains. It touches our senses. Music and sound change us.

Two special JMU alums — and recent additions to our Be the Change website —  use music everyday to enhance lives. Husband and wife, Erin Rettig (’96) and Soon Hee Newbold (’96) capture the impact of sound and spread it far and wide. Soon Hee is an award-winning composer who inspires student musicians all over the world. Erin, a sound-engineer working with some of Hollywood’s heavyweights, brings exciting dimension to films. They have followed their passions and changed lives along the way. One need only read the responses from Soon Hee’s young fans on her Facebook page to understand that connection. Here she generously engages with students whose lives her music has touched.

In a similar way, Erin is having an impact. Through film — a medium that unquestionably has influenced the past few generations in an mammoth way — Erin is fine tuning the experience through engineering the sound to enhance and bolster what one sees on the screen. Imagine Madascar, X-Men or Night at the Museum (a few of Erin’s many credits) without sound. It just wouldn’t be the same.

In a world where savagery, war, hate and conflict assault us all in surround sound, the music and sound that Soon Hee and Erin produce lifts us, makes us all better, and in the end, makes us more civilized.

You can read much more about the life and careers of Soon Hee and Erin in the upcoming issue of Madison magazine. Watch for it in your mailboxes in mid-August.

You can also read Soon Hee and Erin’s profile at: http://www.jmu.edu/bethechange/people/newbold_rettig.shtml

The corollary to independence

We Americans love our independence, today more than ever. But while we celebrate it with fireworks and festive food, I think we should all remember something as important … our interdependence. It is this corollary to independence that produces change. Here, as we interact and cooperate, is where we enable the most good to change the world, rather than through our solitary pursuits or our expenditures of personal freedom.

I am thinking of people like Justin Constantine assisting returning soldiers as they reacclimate to American life or students like Tyler McAvoy sitting down with officials from the Sudan to understand their historic conflicts or Marcia Angell contributing thoughtful commentary to
the healthcare debate.

Of course, the freedom to act and participate in society is paramount, but it is only when we exercise that freedom by creating webs of interdependence that real change occurs.

So today…celebrate freedom, join a cause, support an initiative, collaborate on a plan or join a friend to change the world.