Ep. 7 How People and Organizations Learn, Aravind Chandrasekaran, Ohio State

Join Suzan and OSU's Aravind Chandrasekaran as they discuss how leaders can make the space necessary for allowing teams to solve the biggest business challenges.


January 2023
ExecU Podcast
Episode 7:  How People and Organizations Learn with Aravind Chandasekaran, Ohio State University

BRIEF SUMMARY OF EPISODE

Aravind Chandrasekaran (AC) is the Fisher Distinguished Professor in Operations and Business Analytics at the Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University. He received his PhD in Operations and Management Sciences from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Chandrasekaran’s research investigates innovation, learning and knowledge creation issues in a variety of industries including high-tech R&D, manufacturing and health-care delivery. 

In recent years, he has begun to study the challenges involved in developing patient-centric healthcare models by conducting field experiments in collaboration with several physician and nursing leaders in the United States.  

His research has been published in all top OM journals including Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (MSOM), Journal of Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, as well as other premier journals.

Make sure to subscribe to the ExecU Podcast to learn from the most forward-thinking business professors about how to build a better future. 

KEY TAKEAWAY

 “As soon as you start saying, “okay, let's fix the problem, and I know the solution, just follow me,’ things fall down because solutions have to be invented by the people who are doing the work. So people who have the problem should find their own solution. What, as a leader, you can do is create the opportunity for them to find that solution. But, we make that mistake of saying, I know how to solve it, so I'm gonna help you solve it.”

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/aravind-chandrasekaran-0234a96/

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Transcript

Aravind 0:00

As soon as you start saying, okay, let's fix the problem, and I know the solution, just follow me. Things fall down because solutions have to be invented by the people who are doing the work. So people who have the problem. Should find their own solution. What, as a leader you can do is create the opportunity for them to find that solution But, we do that mistake of saying, oh, I know how to solve it, so I'm gonna help you solve it.

0:21

welcome to Executive the podcast, bringing you actionable insights from faculty at the world's top business schools. I'm your host, Suzanne Brinker, and today I'm speaking with Arvind Chandra Seran. He's at the Ohio State University, Fisher School of Business, and together we'll be discussing how people and organizations learn.

Suzan 0:40

Arvin. Hiya. It's so great to have you on the show. Thank you for being with.

Aravind 0:44

Thank you, Suzanne. It's nice to be here too.

Suzan 0:47

You are, at Ohio State Fisher College of Business, and I would love to hear the story that took you there. How'd you get interested in the research that you do and in being in higher education and how did you end up at ohio State?

Aravind 1:00

That's great. First of all, it's the Ohio State University and, the College of Business where I am is called the Fisher College of. I had an interesting story because, I was born and raised in India in, in a city called Chennai. And I did my undergrad in mechanical engineering. Mechanical engineering is something that was a passion for me when I was growing up as a child is to understand engines and how like physics and engines come together and things like that. But then, in my last year of, mechanical engineering, Introduced to some ideas of, how, how things work in the business world. I started doing some work with, a company in India that produces, cars. And I found out that, there is a lot to hit more than the engineering and there is a lot of management to it, more than the engineering that makes these companies very successful. So that's where I started. Getting some more interest in and hence, I started to pursue a master's in industrial engineering and I moved to University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis, and I started pursuing masters in industrial engineering. That led me towards a business degree in operations. Again, the industrial engineering and operations are very, tightly connected in the operations world. We talk about how process helps, companies and organiz. Get more efficient. So that's where I started my earlier research on. In fact, my, my PhD thesis was in this idea of process innovation. So how companies like 3M and other well-known innovative companies, how are they innovating effectively and what kind of organizational systems and culture allows them to innovate, more effectively. My first job after graduating from Minnesota was at the Ohio State University. And then as I started, looking at innovation and process, I found that there is more and more of, applications on innovation and process and standards in the area of healthcare. And especially I was modified when I read, a report published by the Institute of Medicine. Way back in 1999 where, it goes like about a hundred thousand people die every year because of preventable medical errors. And that number actually in like 2015 is about 250,000. So we all think progress is made and numbers go down in terms of medical errors, but we see that, it's going up because of the complexity of medicine, the complexity of care, and all those things. So I started understanding how to really. Understand care and how to really think about process differently in healthcare. And that's, a research stream that I'm really pursuing right now. I've worked with several. Healthcare institutions actually very well known institution throughout the US and that's something that I'm really passionate about, is working with companies, working with hospitals, trying to understand their challenges and bringing a research dimension towards it.

Suzan 3:41

Yeah. Thank you so much. It's funny because I always think of innovation as something that brings new things into the world that make people's lives better. But now because of what you shared about healthcare and those statistics about how many people die because of problems, and those problems could be prevented by innovation, it makes it even more critical that organizations innovate. And I know that in your research you're looking at innovation from this lens of knowledge creation and learning and how organizations and individuals learn so that they can bring about innovation. And, why is that so critical, to innovation in healthcare and across all industries is that organizations and people learn continu.

Aravind 4:21

That's a good question, right? If you think about it, actually only very few organizations consistently do it. That's been the core, conclusion that I have come up after about two decades of work in this area. And by the way, I also, I'm not alone. There are several scholars in this area that I've asked this question about what makes certain organizations different than the others. And it's that ability and consistency to. Differently, and it's very important for a couple of important reasons. One is obviously, the world is changing around us, so again, As an organization, let's think about healthcare as a good example. We are living in this whole, era of Covid 19. In fact. I was reading about how China has opened up its own, country and how it's creating more and more, pressure on hospitals in China to actually take care of, patients. Like these are institutions and health systems and organizations. a lot of new things start coming up, be it covid 19 in this case, or like, again, if you look at a similar thing in, in the, in the manufacturing area, because of all these uncertainties happening, there's a lot of disruptions that could come up, be it supply chain disruptions, be it more environmental disruptions. So a lot of, we, we are living in the world right now where every year we hear about hurricanes and all. So as you think about this, our organizations have to be more resilient. We've got to be more. in terms of how they can actually meet those emerging needs and urgent needs. And the only way you do that is constantly learn and constantly improve. So this idea of innovation and learning, the core thinking about that, around that is improvement. How do I actually know where I am right now And how do I actually think about where I need to go? How do I understand the markets and how do I actually improve it? So that has been a core, core, uh, I would say a competitive. Capability that makes certain organizations different than the others. A lot of organizations can do it once, but to do it more consistently. in fact, I have a, a thesis that, the way you have to think about, what makes this organizations learn better. I would say it, it has to have three things. One thing, it's about strategic a. So it has to have very clear metrics outlined so that everybody in the organizations behave in the same way. So that's the first thing. And then the second important thing is transparency, process transparency. It has to have a mechanism that everybody understands and everybody, can decipher what's going on and really operate. And it's very, very important in terms of the process. And the third and the most important thing is leadership behaviors. And when I say leader behavior, it's not just the c e o or the middle manager or a gentle manager. It's everybody. Everybody's a leader in their extent. They've got to behave in a consistent fashion. So think about this whole idea of innovation and learning. You can unpack them into these three components and you only see very few organizations have these three components intact. That makes them very success. So it's

Suzan 7:15

building a culture of innovation that is not, an impromptu kind of situation where people are just inspired on any given day and decide to become more resilient or learn, but rather it's kind of baked into the d n A of what happens on a day-to-day basis. But to your point, there are these three critical factors that have to be in place that are actually not that common, as far as consistency goes. In, in one of the, publications that I reviewed you, write in the intro that learning by doing is a fundamental driver of productivity among knowledge workers. And that line just stood out to me because I thought that's interesting. Learning by doing obviously is something that helps with innovation and then, Productivity is something that is probably a result of how people feel about the work that they're doing. So are, is that how they're linked and can you say more about this? Yeah. This claim that you're making. Sure. Yeah.

Aravind 8:09

So again, like, think about it, like, one of the best ways we learn is by, we, we do certain things and we repeat those doing the certain things. Let's take a con concrete example. Let's say, in a healthcare, a knowledge work is some work where again, you don't have, you have a capability of actually like working in professional industries where again, there is a lot of, constant units and you've gotta adapt yourself. That's what I would call as a knowledge industry. The more and more a physician is, performing, even let's say a simple routine surgery like, let's say hip replacement. I just finished a study where we talked about how to improve or efficiencies, operating room efficiencies when we do hip and knee replacements. So think about hip and knee replacements these are like procedures where again, Physicians are the conductors. If you were to, visualize an operating room, an OR room, and then like also visualize an opera, a physician is actually the conductor of the opera, so he or she really understands how to coordinate how to do things because there are, when a procedure is performed on a patient, be it a hip or a knee replacement, it's not just a physician that's at work. You have an anesthesiologist who's very important in terms of making sure the patients are unconscious and watching their. Conscious levels. You have a nurse, you have, um, sometimes residents in the room, residents and fellows because they're getting learning about how to do things as they're preparing themselves to be a physician one day. So a physician, the way he or she works is to actually coordinate actions across and if you look at it, and it's quite amazing. I've seen several award procedures now. It's amazing to find that these physicians are remarkable in how they do they, that because of their experience that they've gotten by doing the same things over and over again. Like, I've watched physicians perform surgery where they don't even take their highs off on the patients. They are focused on the patients or the, the place where the incisions are made and they're actually moving their, um, right and left hands in a way. everything is orchestrated. Everything is orchestrated. Everybody acts in a certain way that they're not losing focus. So that repetition that the physician has been doing more and more and more of these surgeries allow them to operate in a way that the focus is there on the patient. Because when a patient is in a OR room, the longer the patient stays in the OR room with, um, with their, uh, like the wound open or their body open, the more they are prone to like having infection. So you wanna minimize the time that they spend in the OR room, but you also want to maximize the value that the physician and the team actually does in terms of doing the surgery itself. This whole learning by doing where you've been doing more and more procedures, allows you to be more accurate and not waste any time on the patient. And the patients are reeled in and wheeled out in the, in a way that only the value is added to the patient. So it minimizes any surgical infections and so on. So that's the point when I, when you mentioned about, um, learning by doing to be a fundamental driver of productivity, the more you get experience doing things, the more you're able to automate those things in a way. The mundane task about like moving your eyes right and left becomes more habitual and the more knowledge work in terms of okay, uh, really understanding the complication of the patient, that becomes your primary driver. So that e eliminates some of the variations that you have and improves the outcome. So that's what I mean by learning, by doing, being a very critical, factor of productivity and.

Suzan 11:38

You also in your research, focus on the effects of specialization, on organizational innovation and individual outcomes. And I'm curious because there's this one line where you say that, specialization is dysfunctional. And I would love to have you elaborate on that.

Aravind 11:54

Sure. Again, if you think about specialization, right? What does specialization mean to you? You gain a core knowledge in one. If you think about oncology, which is about treatment of cancer, you have very much more and more specialization in the particular fields, right? And you need that. You need that to actually think and develop, uh, best kind of care for a patient because of the knowledge that you get. But at the same time, what happens is specialization, and this is something that. We've absorbed across multiple settings, not just healthcare, but even in terms of like knowledge work in, in, in call centers. I'll give you another example. In call centers where you are, you're actually processing one type of call from a customer, complaint from customer. You know exactly how to work on this because you abundant experience back, processing that call. It makes you more and more specialized in that topic. when there is an opportunity or a need for you to change to a different, setting or a different thing that you need to do, there is more resistance to change because again, like I've been doing this a lot, I know how to do these things and so if I wanna do a, another activity that is slightly tangential to this, not the same activity, there is a lot of resistance to change and sometimes even reluctance to do that. So that's what we found in a various setting is again, too much specialization sometimes could actually inhibit you doing more of. variety of tasks, and it's, it's a common human behavior, right? How do we like really create that balance between specialization and task variety? Because again, you still, in certain fields, you still need to do variety of tasks. one way to do that is actually think about this as a team and then having variety of people with, different skill sets as well as different levels of special. allows you to create some heterogeneity in teams, allow you to perform better. So that's where you see a lot of trade off between specialization and

Suzan 13:46

variety. So it's about creating the right balance between specialization and variety so that people don't get too resistant to opportunities to contribute to innovation and change. That makes total sense. We imagine our listeners being in mid-level to senior level leadership positions who might currently be trying to get their organization to be more innovative or to have people learn at a. Pace or with more enthusiasm. So what are some of the current barriers that you imagine they're facing, and is there any advice you have? Sure. In terms of clearing them.

Aravind 14:19

Yeah. In fact, I could go on, I could teach a whole course about this because that's what I do. That's what you do. Yeah. But think about this. This is, again, this is what common human behavior is. So, um, I'll give you some concrete example maybe that will help your listeners. So I was working with this very large organization, uh, but I would say it had, um, uh, like centuries of, I don't wanna name the organization, but imagine it's probably one of the leading healthcare organization in the. and uh, and again, everybody in, in any corner of the world would know this organization. So that's the level of organiz. It's a Midwest organization. There was so much focus in what they do and so much things in what they do. And sometimes that actually provides a resistance to change. So in the healthcare field, for instance, we are moving away from, having patients come to a hospital, to patients are there at their homes, and, more focused on ai, more focused on telehealth. There's a lot of where, again, like you, you want the most sick patients to occupy your beds and the less sick patients to be, taken care of differently. That means, again, from a value creation standpoint, physicians are now incentivized not to see a patient. Physicians are now incentivized to have like asynchronous messaging with the patients in a way that they're taking care of any issues immediately, rather than having the patients come to an ER or, or like an emergency room or are come to your own clinic, right? That kind of a mindset change is very difficult in in, in any organization, but in this organization, which has like almost centuries of experience in. Physicians are physicians. They're one of the smartest peoples in the, in the, in the planet. I mean, they've had decades of experience. They, they actually have specialized these things. So it was a very difficult thing to do in terms of bringing change, not having them to do things differently. Right. So the best, I would say that the four things that are very much the, the common barriers are, okay, this does not work. or I don't have time to change. Time is always a, a common excuse. I get, uh, or this is going to distract myself from adding core my to my main value at all. Uh, and then the, the, the most common mistakes that, uh, people do, several managers I've seen them is, okay, let's go and see our, um, another organization. Oh, let's see again, let's go. And in my world, I, I've had hospitals say, oh, let's go and see a automotive company. Or, uh, let's go and see how Toyota works. And, uh, if, if it works in Toyota, it should work for you, right? I mean, like, that's the kind of sometimes this whole, uh, okay, let's go and see another organization. That kind of a thing would not work at all let's say you are in a big organization like a Mayo. and then you, you wanna like, um, change the behaviors of your physic. you don't want to tell them, oh, let's go and see how Cleveland Clinic works. Even if within the same industry you find this kind of benchmarking, I call them as benchmark bullying. Actually, it, it doesn't work in creating change because people are going to see I'm different. I'm a different provider. I have, uh, different skill sets. My patients are different, my customers are different. So the biggest mistake that, uh, managers make is this whole idea of benchmarking. Um, you can benchmark metrics, but you can't benchmark. and that's where we find a lot of, um, uh, important ways to things. So, um, I can tell you like three things, three or three important things that, uh, managers should think about. First of all, you've got to make sure to make any change happen possible. You've got to make sure that there is a realization among those units or teams or individuals, but there is a problem there, okay? If you don't, if they don't realize that there is a problem there, there's no need to change. They're not going to. So that's the first thing is how do I realize, how do I show that the problem exists in that unit? That's the first thing. The second thing I would say is once your problem exists, the solutions to solving the problem or changing should not come from you as a leader. Let's say you are a part of a big organization where you're the manager or the senior of the company and you have people below you and you see a problem. The the As. As soon as you start saying, okay, let's fix the problem, and I know the solution, just follow me. Things fall down because again, the solutions have to be invented by the people who are doing the work. So people who have the problem. Should find their own solution. What, as a leader you can do is create the opportunity for them to find that solution. But, we do that mistake of saying, oh, I know how to solve it, so I'm gonna help you solve it. But that's it. Once you do that, that solution is not gonna sustain. So that's very important. So making sure that the problem exists, making sure that they actually, the solutions are found by them. And more importantly, third thing is making sure that there is a system to improve that over. And these three things are extremely essential for an organization to really think about change differently.

19:04

executive. The podcast is sponsored by ViiV Higher Education, a full service marketing agency and enrollment strategy consulting firm for colleges and universities. ViiV is passionate about executive education and lifelong learning. Today's episode is brought you in collaboration with the Ohio State University Fisher School of Business.

Aravind 19:26

This

Suzan 19:26

idea that the solution should come from the employees is so compelling and probably also sometimes counterintuitive to a lot of managers across, um, all the people that I've interviewed for this season, one of the executive podcast. It's also something that has been reiterated across the different business school faculty members and, uh, especially one of them who's at N Y U Stern, who studies high performing teams. She, uh, introduced. Sort of paradigm where she said, um, be dictatorial about the process, but democratic about the content. And you're getting at that exact same thing is that you have, as a leader, you have to identify where the gaps are and you have to set goals to fill those gaps. But how they get filled is not necessarily just up to you.

Aravind 20:15

Yeah. And that's absolutely important. I mean, there are so many examples from, from industry. Those kind of leaders are the most successful leaders in bringing change. A a, a good example of that, I would say, which is a little bit over like, is this person named Paul O'Neal? And Paul O'Neal used to be the c e o of this company, alwa. And, uh, and, and he, he, when, when he took over alwa, the story goes that, uh, the company, which is an aluminum manufacturing company, was actually losing money. Productivity was low. Um, everything was. and Polo O'Neal created a culture there where it's saying where they found like, okay. One of the main reasons why things were happening long was that the workers' safety was very low. I mean, like the workers were getting more and more injured, and Polo O'Neal as a CEO of the company said like, okay, what I can do is I can be at a culture, a psychological culture, safe culture, but the solutions of improving your processes and your plan productivity, those should come from the workers itself. So he created incentives. He created a process that enable. Each one because a plant in Philadelphia or Pennsylvania where there is a safety incident, and, and, and the solution to that could be completely different than another plant in Tennessee. So rather than just centralizing those decisions, s decentralized it, but then what decentralized is the support? Safety incidents and safety accidents at the company and the plants were coming down one. Productivity and profits and everything was going the opposite way. So completely, uh, intuitive, but still like very powerful way of achieving things. So that's what Paul O'Neal did in terms of empowering people, but owning the responsibility of creating those opportunities for the people.

Suzan 21:54

We've talked, a lot now about managers and the importance of balancing specialization and variety, the importance of that to. Creating a culture of innovation. And what I would also like to touch on is for individual performers who are not in management positions, how can they maximize their learning growth and impact as well and shape the culture in the process? Yeah,

Aravind 22:16

and, and I'll tell you this is, um, very important. There's a study that I'm doing right now, and I'm more and more convinced, um, and that, uh, the best way for individuals to learn every day is through what I call daily. So what I mean by daily reflections, and this is something is like we all, we all tell all our people that to reflect every day, and then sometimes we even do that, right? But then what we find is several of them actually when they do reflections, they just like, um, maybe they type something in a, in a computer or maybe they are, um, driving in a busy road when they're coming back from work and they're thinking about how their day went and all, where they're not doing what I call as documented reflect. So what I see individuals that are really Remi, and this has also been shown in the cases, what I see is like what, who, who are those individuals who are really successful and learning every day? What they do is they'd spend about five minutes in the evening, um, no matter how busy they are. And we have followed, we have done this across several CEOs and C Cspe executives and all, no matter how busy they are, they spend five minutes every. And they document three things. They, in fact have a journal, reflection journal, and they document three things every day and they write it. Okay. There's a point, which again, I'm not a cognitive scientist, but my colleagues who are cognitive scientists tells me that, um, when you write things not type, when you write it in a physical paper and all. What happens is you have your left brain and right brain. You have your um, uh, causal thinking and counterfactual thinking, and the counterfactual thinking works better when you write, meaning the counterfactual thinking asks the question, why? And that's very important for you to change and really improve because why is the way, if you think about it, like asking questions five times, why, why, why allows you to really go to the root cause and then really improve, right? So what this, uh, reflection activity does is every day, spending five minutes and documenting three things. The first thing is. What did I do and my team did that day? It was very productive. That is something that I'm proud of. It could be one instance, it could be something that you helped another team member. It could be something that you're very proud that you did it for the company, but you always start with a positive role. The second thing is, what did I do and my team did that did not go the way we expect? Uh, very, very important. Recognize that again, because we all do the everything every day, but there might be certain things. did not go the way this planned. It's important to spread it out. The third thing is, what are you going to do as a, as a leader, as a, as a, as a manager, or as an individual to actually fix that thing. So essentially all you're doing is, and, and then very clearly, what is one thing you did well? What is one thing you did not do well, and how are you gonna fix that thing? So anchoring it and writing it down, and we've done this across several, um, managers and students. We find that this ha practice of daily reflection allows individuals to actually learn better. So what they're doing is they're not only thinking about it, but they're also thinking how to improve every day. And the counterfactual thinking really comes into be. and that allows them to learn every day better. So I encourage your listeners to think about this and, and is an exercise, like spend five minutes in the evening, uh, and then document it. Not like write something on a, on a cloud or on a computer, but physically write it and see again how they're actually changing it the next day. And doing this over a, a, a certain period of time creates a habit in you that allows you to do things differently and much effectively.

Suzan 25:46

Very inspiring, activity for people to try. I also, in terms of neuroscience, have read research that, talks about the importance of what you were saying. Physically writing things down by hand rather than typing it in, or the potential in physically writing things down when it comes to. Shaping new neural pathways, right? And so if you're asking yourself these three questions every day, and you come up with answers that inspire and motivate you, you will carry that into your day the next day and the next day, and you will train your brain to have that layer of reflection on at all times. That is

Aravind 26:22

absolutely right I think there is some science to it. When we write things, we actually think more better. We pause and think and all those things allow us to behave differently and improve.

Suzan 26:32

Is there a problem or a research challenge, whether it's directly related to your research that you've already done or a new direction that is sort of keeping you up at night, that you're looking to crack next?

Aravind 26:43

Yeah. There are two different things. I'm, I'm actually more and more interested nowadays. One is in the area of like, I'm both in the area of AI and AI and, and now AI can help. uh, 1, 1, 1 research is how AI can help you do things differently and things be do differently and do better. Uh, that's one plan of research and that's what I'm working on with a very big organization right now, healthcare organization. Because as you can imagine, like, um, like, um, uh, diagnosing patients and patient images and all having, having AI really do these things, there is a lot of ways that they can actually. Predict diseases, prognosis of pro, pro progression of diseases very early. Identify again, the in, in medicine, it's called precision medicine, where it allows you to like, um, uh, identify individuals and like problems in a way that the big data allows you to specify and create more accurate solutions for individuals. But adapting these kind of AI platforms in healthcare is a big challenge. Again, going back to resistance to change. Uh, doctors are. Thought about AI when they do their medical education or residents your fellowship, but there is more applications towards it. So one of the, uh, research projects that I'm engaged in is the idea on, uh, AI and, and, uh, how AI can actually help in decision making in medicine. But on the other side also, I'm, I'm also involved in another research project, which looks at the downside of AI in terms of ethics. So, There's a lot of people you can imagine nowadays. I, I'm, I was just like in, um, in a, a meeting with the other, uh, associate deans from the, uh, college of Uni, Ohio State University, where we were talking about how now AI can help, uh, students actually write essays. Uh, the all you have to do as a student, to be honest with you, to write the first line of an essay. and then like, um, the, the, the AI tool, we can fill that safe for you. And guess what? Any um, platform like Turnin or any place where you can, uh, identify patterns, they would not detect anything because of the, the AI tool. Now and, and not just in the university, but like, um, uh, I was, um, I have a, a interdisciplinary work with, um, some fellows from the, uh, school of engineering and the last school where we have studied this idea called Big data ethics, where again, how companies, um, like several big companies that we all know how they have started using ai. And then those Ai uh, algorithms were giving you decisions that were perfectly legal, but were un. So again, this whole idea of, and there is no laws right now and this is something that, uh, with GDPR and other things, Europe is somewhat ahead of the game than the US and I know there is a lobbying going on with respect to laws and uh, regulations around AI in the us but we are not there. And there is a lot of downside towards AI in decision making and, and and management. So that's the topic. I think it's fascinating for. Because it's something that, um, um, is a real problem right now. and people don't know how to do it, but there are, some companies are doing better than the others. So the idea would be like, what's going on in those companies are doing better and how can that create a a different process and how can that create different, maybe hopefully regulations at some point? That's a stream of research that I'm doing. So those are two areas of using AI in the right way in medicine, using AI in the wrong way, creating more ethical dilemma when we look at big data and AI applications. So tho those are some things that I'm working on at. Sounds

Suzan 30:16

innovative and aligned with what you've studied also, because it could potentially even help organizations learn, uh, differently as well. In terms of the executive learning environment, at Fisher College of Business at the Ohio State University, what would you say makes it unique and how do you think it compares in the, business school world and the executive education world to comparable places? What do you offer people that they wouldn't necessarily be able to get else?

Aravind 30:50

Actually a very good question, Suzanne. Individuals learn by doing things and, solving problems, right? One of the things that we have done in Ohio State, and, I teach across the executive MBA program and the Master of Business and Operational Excellence two executive Masters program that we have at the College of Business. And these are all programs where we have, very seasoned managers. So the average age of, students in the programs, about 41, 42, they've had about 15, 20 years of experience, and then they're trying to go to the next level in the organiz. In all these programs, there's always case-based teaching and all those things, wonderful things that schools follow and we follow them. But one of the important, differentiator at the Ohio State University is the idea of problem-based teaching. So when we say, okay, every, every student in the program is bring a problem from your company and, and I, and we don't want it to be a small micro problem, it has to be a massive problem. And we are going to use our classes to actually really understand the problem and even sometimes solve the problems in a way that you're creating value immediate. to the company, but also you're learning through that problem solving exercise. So the idea of this learning by doing that you pointed out, is what we design our curriculum in. So as a matter of fact, we have our M B E program that I talked to you about. We have students that actually order a period of one year. Bring a problem, a big challenge from their companies, and then they solve it. And then they actually show how it works back in the organization, and then they graduate. So, we've had students from all various companies, like U S PS is a good example. We have great students from U S P S where they have actually taken some big challenges. US PS is a, is probably one of the largest organizations in the us right? Even in the. and they have different parts, different things, and they have different challenges and they have, a big competition from other, companies like FedEx and all. And USPS is a fascinating organization in terms of how they've actually learned and how they've innovated. And so we've had like several great students from that company working on really important problems that allows, actually helps all of us as individuals, right? Like the whole Saturday mail, the Sunday mail things of some of those. Again, those are all solutions that came up by these individuals and AC that have gone through the program. So the point again, is, that's the biggest differentiator that we have in our program, is actually the learning by doing and actually bringing a problem and then looking at it from various angles, from a finance angles, from an accounting angle, from an operations, from a data analytics angle, and then really solving it so that there, there's also learning and value creation happening at the. It

Suzan 33:21

sounds really applied. It also sounds like the companies where people work are really incentivized too, to have people participate in your program. So there's a win-win. You know, it's not like somebody's taking time away from work to go learn something completely unrelated. It's actually solving a big problem that exists at the organization. That's

Aravind 33:37

exactly right. And that's why we get a lot of these programs. We have these kind of repeat customers because they have sent one group of people, they've got value, they send the other group of people. And I think it's very important to do that and the curriculum has to adapt to those kind of, problem solve.

Suzan 33:52

for sure. One of the things we're trying to do with this podcast is also highlight the opportunities that exist at the top tier business schools in the US for people to learn without enrolling in an MBA or an executive mba. Right? There are all these non-credit options, non-degree options that are cheaper, faster, and really applied. So is there a specific program certificate program course that you would highlight for someone who's listening, who's thinking, I could really use more applied executive learning in my.

Aravind 34:20

Actually there are three I would say. One, one would be something what we call as a green belt, learning program. It's a learning curriculum, which again, green Belt, an executive green belt program that allows our individuals to get those problem solving skills and in a very short duration of time rather than like, um, a graduate program or even a certificate program that allows you to come for six to nine months. These programs actually, um, are happening over a period of three months. But they're separated in a way. You start a program, again, very similar principles. You bring a problem, you work on a problem, but then you actually like, uh, get some domain knowledge and then you solve the problem in the next part. I think it's a very unique program that we have at the Fisher. It's called, uh, uh, Greenbelt, uh, and Black Black Belt Program. And um, it's something that I encourage, like again, for you to look at and like. That could be one. But even understanding and asking the right questions around big data is another important thing. And, and several executives fail to do that properly and that does not provide proper solutions. So we have some curriculum in our, uh, program, uh, non-degree program on data analytics that is worth looking. The last thing I would say is that we have started a new program. It's coming up in April, on the area of sustainability. People talk a lot about E S G and environment and all those things, but again, how does, how, how should you think about carbon footprinting? What should, uh, your remanufacturing recycling things should be? How do you motivate your customers to go more greener? There's a lot of things there that, again, is very new and some of our faculty in, in, in Ohio State have done really great work in that area, so we have used some of those. And actually are, are planning to launch a program in April of 2023 on sustainability. So I would say these three are, are opportunities to actually get some skills as well as training. And these are non-degree and these are non credit pairing programs. that allows you to get the knowledge quickly and then readily really apply back in the companies. Yeah.

Suzan 36:19

To quickly apply it and solve big, timely problems like sustainability and writing policies for your company around sustainability is top of mind for everyone, right? And there's help that they can get. There are peers they can work with on resolving big questions, and that's what we're passionate. With this podcast, it's just showing there are these opportunities to learn. You don't just get your undergrad and graduate degree and then you check out and just lead. You know, it's this continuous learning and, it's so inspiring to get to talk to you and, and hear about not just what's happening at. Fisher College of Business, but also how you have learned in your research about how to best have organizations continue to learn and evolve. It's been an absolute pleasure to have you. I'm gonna end with the question that I ask everyone, which is, in a nutshell, what does leadership mean to you?

Aravind 37:08

Okay, leadership for me, it's a very philosophical question, right? I would say leadership, for me, again, being the operations and process guide is the ability to ask the right questions. You are a leader, you should have the ability because you wanna motivate others to lead and others to follow you and others to really do things differently. The best way to do that is actually this idea of asking the right questions, more humble. So that's the thing, that's a very important skillset. I, I don't, I don't see a lot of her leaders having those skill sets. Again, uh, if you want ask the right questions, you've got to be patient, you've got to be listening. Uh, you've got to be empathetic. All those things are handy enough. But again, if you are a good person who can know how to ask the right question, I think you're a phenomenal reader. So that will be my answer to you in terms of what, what is a, a short definition of.

Suzan 38:00

Asking the right questions more humbly. I love that. Thank you so much for your time, for your insight. Really appreciate it

Aravind 38:07

thank you so much, Suzanne, for having me. Really appreciate it too.

Suzan 38:10

Thank you.

38:13

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