| Business
as (un)usual
Photo by Jeff
Watts
|
BY
MATT GETTY
Almost every Business 1.0 class session this semester began with
the Black Eyed Peas’ “Let’s Get it Started”
blaring through the Ward 1 lecture hall as the music video played
on two large screens at the front of the room. In other sessions
students learned investment strategies from a board game. As unusual
as this might seem, for Kogod School of Business executive in residence
Robert Sicina, who was tasked with redesigning the introductory
business course this semester, it was actually business as usual.
“I
approached the class the way I would approach setting up a business,”
explains Sicina, who came to AU in 2002 with more than 30 years
of experience that included CFO posts at both Citibank and American
Express. “I figure one of the best ways to teach business is
to put a business-like structure around the course.”
Accordingly,
when then Kogod dean Myron Roomkin asked him to take over the class
and rework it to give students a more grounded and cohesive introduction
to business, Sicina crafted a course vision statement, mission statement,
and even an integrated marketing strategy. That’s where the
Black Eyed Peas come in. “By starting every lecture with that
song, I’m putting a stamp on the class and teaching them about
marketing and branding,” Sicina explains. “I told the
students, ‘Any time you hear this song for the rest of your
life, you will think about this class. That’s integrated marketing.’”
Knowing
firsthand the instructional power of experience, Sicina also wanted
to give his students a chance to make business decisions with consequences.
The answer he found came in the form of a game—Cash Flow, which
covers such complex finance and investment topics as call- and put-options,
good debt versus bad debt, and balance-sheet accounting in an interactive
environment. “I read an article about the game in a Wall
Street Journal and I was intrigued by its potential as a teaching
tool,” Sicina recalls. “Then we used it in the Global
Business Institute this summer, and I was so impressed by the students’
reactions. They hung out for hours after class just to play this
game.”
In
the second half of the semester, then, Business 1.0 alternated between
lectures on financial concepts, such as how to analyze whether an
investment opportunity is worth the risk, and Cash Flow sessions
that brought theory to life by forcing students to decide whether
it was more prudent to pay off the mortgage on a beachfront condo,
save for a child’s college education, or invest heavily in
a pharmaceutical stock. “The game puts into play much of what
we discuss during the lectures,” Sicina explains. “It
helps the students get a sense of their own appetite for risk and
makes what we’re studying more real for them.”
As
students moved around the game board trying to make deals to get
out of the “rat-race” by elevating their passive income
(income earned through investments, interest, and business ventures)
over their expenses, they made decisions about what sort of return
on investment (ROI) justifies taking out a business loan, why decreasing
debt can sometimes be more valuable than increasing income, and
when it’s best to save for a future venture rather than jump
at an immediate opportunity. There may be no simple right or wrong
answers to these questions, but the process of answering them translated
what can often be dry concepts into virtual life lessons. As one
student, Danny Martinez ’08, observes, “Business is a
subject in which the answers aren’t always cut and dry, so
experience means a lot. You can’t just get all the answers
out of a text book."
While
indicators of the class’s success include a high attendance
rate and positive student feedback, the most impressive evidence
of a payoff from Business 1.0’s transformation this year comes
from simply watching students realize core class concepts as they
play the game. In one recent session, for instance, one student
came face to face with a financial lesson no lecture could teach
her. Landing on an opportunity to make an investment that could
help her escape the “rat-race,” Darcie Piechowski ’08
looked over her expendable cash to see if she had sufficient funds.
Her monthly income minus her debt-related payments left her with
enough money, but the $250 child-care expense she’d incurred
when the game sprung a baby on her a few turns back put the opportunity
out of reach.
She
had another idea though. “Wait a minute, a child costs me $250
each turn, but the ROI on that is zero,” she said, pausing
for a moment to consider that subtle but important difference between
expenditures and investments. “Is there any way I can sell
my kid?”
Perhaps
the class is teaching business concepts a little too well. |
