The Monroe Street Journal

Issue date: 2/11/08 Section: Features

Media Credit: Kent Westlund

There is a cautionary tale that is passed among recruiters of the wrong-type of MBA hire: a Fortune 500 company hires an MBA from a top ten business school, and when the supervising manager checks on the new hire, she finds that the MBA has been sitting idly at his desk since he arrived. When she inquires about what the issue is, her staff informs her that the MBA has been waiting for the company's problems to present themselves in the business case format. Ross' approach to strategy develops the opposite type of leader-the leader that takes action to find information based on solid, actionable principles. Because of this, Ross was recently recognized by the Financial Times as being ranked #1 in the area of Corporate Strategy.

The case method is one of the most popular teaching techniques at business school. Every Ross student remembers wrapping his head around that first case in Strategy 501, Ryanair, or working the numbers of National Cranberry in OMS. But while these lessons will stay with us for a lifetime, there is an element of impracticality to just using the case method. Rarely will a company's problem reveal itself in a format with exhibits, and seldom will you be able to engage in a debate with seventy of your colleagues. The real world is a little messier.

Ross recognizes this issue and has opportunities in its curriculum for MBAs to solve real world problems through programs like MAP. UofM also provides top notch faculty who are illustrating current business issues in class through their various research and consulting topics. These are a few elements of Ross' approach to strategy that allowed us to be acknowledged as the top program for Corporate Strategy.

In response to our new rankings, Professor Aneel Karnani (pictured here) said, "It has become very trendy to publish rankings of business schools, and many of them are fundamentally flawed. However, occasionally along comes a methodically sound, accurate and insightful ranking. The Financial Times ranking the Ross School #1 in corporate strategy is one such instance. Seriously, the strategy group here is very strong… faculty are at the forefront of research in their field and have an appreciation for how to translate ideas into practical action."

From day one, Ross students are pushed to look at the big picture in our core Strategy course; other schools might wait to offer a similar course as a capstone. I remember the feeling of excitement as the information I was learning in economics or statistics was finally applied in my other classes. Okay, I am sort of geek in this way, but the coordination of each of the core classes helped me see how the theory I was learning could be applied to real world problems. This was definitely not something I had experienced in my undergraduate classes.

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