BW: How Failure Breeds Success

Professor Chris Trimble via Business Week about the importance of companies embracing their mistakes and learning from them by providing Intuit's case as an example:

Unlike Intuit, most companies don't spend enough time and resources looking backward, says Chris Trimble, a professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and co-author of 10 Rules for Strategic Innovators. That's a mistake. "How do you learn if you don't examine the past?" asks Trimble.

Source: Business Week by Jena McGregor July 3, 2006

BW: Détente in the Admissions Office

Christie St-John, a senior associate director of recruiting and enrollment at Tuck, via Business Week about Tuck's rather an unusual approach in dealing with for-hire B-school admissions consultants:

Rather than keeping consultants at arm's length, for two years in a row Tuck has invited groups of them to campus to learn about the school and about MBA programs in general. "People who have worked with consultants know they serve a purpose," says Christie St-John, senior associate director of recruiting and enrollment at Tuck. "A lot of students feel more secure in knowing they've done the best they could possibly do on their applications."

Along with telling the consultants about the application process and what Tuck looks for in its students, St-John says Tuck spoke to ethical issues, informing the consultants that having essays written by anyone other than the student, or recommendations written by anyone other than the recommender, is strictly against Tuck's honor code.

Source: Business Week by Kerry Miller June 27, 2006

BW: The Art Of Motivation

Professor Vijay Govindarajan via Business Week about the U.S. steel-maker Nucor, a company that treats workers like owners:

Unusual? No Doubt. But Vijay Govindarajan, a professor at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business, teaches Nucor as an example of outstanding strategic execution, placing it alongside highfliers such as JetBlue Airways and eBay. "My
students say: 'I thought Nucor created steel.' And I say: 'No. Nucor creates knowledge."'

Source: Business Week by Nanette Byrnes, with Michael Arndt in Chicago May 1, 2006

BW: If You Know You'll Get An MBA...

Dean Paul Danos via Business Week about the suitability of undergraduate business degrees for MBA programs:

Another problem with using the undergraduate business degree as a stepping stone to the MBA is that it duplicates much of what students will encounter in grad school. Many classes students take as undergraduates, such as economics, accounting, and statistics, are also required for the master's. Some MBA programs allow students who have already taken these to substitute with electives. But few students do, believing they'll miss out on all-important networking. Explains Paul Danos, dean of Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business: "MBA programs aren't designed for people who have a lot of formal business training."

Source: Business Week by Geoff Gloeckler May 8, 2006

BW: From New Hampshire to the World

Richard McNulty, director of the Career Development Office (COD) at the Tuck School of Business, via Business Week about the COD's task of "helping Dartmouth's 240 graduating MBAs get on the right job track each year."

Assisted by about 50 full-time faculty, 96% of graduates looking for a job had an offer by the end of the summer. Similar trends are expected in 2006, says Richard McNulty, director of the CDO for the past three years.

Source: Business Week by Janie Ho May 03, 2006

BW: The World's Most Innovative Companies

Professor Vijay Govindarajan via Business Week defining the innovation in business:

In the 1990s, innovation was about technology and control of quality and cost.
Today, it's about taking corporate organizations built for efficiency and rewiring them for creativity and growth. "There are a lot of different things that fall under the rubric of innovation," says Vijay Govindarajan, a professor at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business and author of Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators: From Idea to Execution. "Innovation does not have to have anything to do with technology."

Source: Business Week by Jena McGregor and others April 24, 2006

BW: Bausch & Lomb: Crisis Management 101

Professor Paul Argenti via Business Week about how Bausch & Lomb initially managed the scandal with the infections linked to contact lens solution:

"This is a classic crisis communications problem right out of my textbook. They should be able to take out the playbook and just handle it...You don't wait five days to do something [recall the product] that you knew you had to do on Day One....
In the first days of a crisis, you should be managing communication. Figure out the problem, explain it, and apologize to customers. People will forgive you when you admit your mistakes. The problem happens when you dig in your heels and don't get out there and say: 'We screwed up.' Bausch & Lomb hasn't done that...People's memories are short and their forgiveness is large." -- Paul Argenti, professor of corporate communication at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

Source: Business Week by Phil Mintz and Francesca Di Meglio April 17, 2006