The Stern Opportunity

We've all seen how the world of business has been changing and we know that it will always continue to evolve. A few of us have felt that we need courses to specifically help us work within this ever-changing environment. Similarly, professors relish the opportunity to develop and teach courses that are more hands-on and address skills that are oftentimes overlooked in b-school because that are seen as subjects that are better learned on the job.

This semester, the need for these types of courses has met with the passion of Professor Stehlik and Professor Wolff, and inspiration from the discipline of creative thinking resulting in two brand new courses:

-innovative thinking for turbulent business times taught by Professor Wolff -communication for consultants taught by Professor Stehlik

Professors Stehlik and Wolff attended a conference in Florence focused on creativity in the classroom. They were intrigued by breakthrough concepts such as the connection between creativity and neuroscience and design thinking and wondered about its potential application to b school. Additionally, the professors strongly believe that we need to enhance the way we think about business problems and the way frameworks are taught in the classroom. After researching the creativity concepts more, each enthusiastically developed a new course that focused on their respective area of interest.

Innovative thinking focuses more on learning to think creatively and by exercising different techniques to explore problems in new ways, in order to form completely new solutions. Some topics that will be explored include design thinking which focuses on using a creative process based around the build up on ideas, without judgment and critique early on, since there is potential value in link between one thought and another. This way of thinking is very different from the analytical thinking that we are exercising in most of our courses. Another concept that will be explored includes biomimicry which focuses on studying the way things are in nature to potentially apply to something completely different, "biologically inspired engineering". A popular example of biomimicry is the development of velcro, which resulted from an engineer's observation of how burrs stuck to his dog's hair.

Communication for Consultants is unique in that it is teaming up with NY Initiatives' Stern Consulting Corps in order to pair students with real clients with real business problems. The course is designed so that 50% of the time is spent in the classroom and 50% in the field working with the client. Professor Stehlik wants to focus on those critical elements of consulting that are oftentimes not discussed such as how to gain your clients trust and how to listen to what is being said to understand that the real problem is, because oftentimes the problem that the client comes in with is not the core issue.

Both courses are very different in terms of their areas of focus, but they have very clear similarities. The professors of both courses are very passionate about their disciplines and want to help their students connect in a deeper manner with this material. Furthermore, these courses are extremely relevant to the world we live in where the advantage goes to the individuals who understand the strength of innovative solutions and who have a keener understanding of communication and interpersonal dynamics.

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