By Kara Sherrer
What if you could walk through a case with a major business leader in an informal environment, with no competition or prize at stake? Students got to do just that last week with alum Mike Dallas (MBA’96), Senior Vice President of Human Resources at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Dallas came to campus as part of the Leader-in-Residence (LiR) program, which brings in executives from major companies to host presentations, group lunches, and one-on-one conversations over the course of several days.
Dallas worked with the Leadership Development Program (LDP) office to add a new element to his Leader-in-Residence programming: an informal case study, written by Read McNamara, Assistant Dean, Corporate Partnerships at Vanderbilt Business. Students were given the case the night before, worked on it the next morning and presented to Dallas shortly thereafter. The Senior Vice President then spoke with the group about the case and made suggestions.
Mike Dallas (far right) talks with students over lunch
The case: The case involved Unilever’s $1 billion acquisition of the Dollar Shave Club, announced in July 2016. Students were tasked with identifying opportunities for successful integration into the Unilever family, as well as areas where DSC’s successes should not be tampered with. Dallas played the role of Unilever’s CEO, Paul Polman, and students presented as if speaking to the CEO himself. “We picked (a case) that we thought would be a little bit of a different industry (from Hewlett Packard Enterprise) but give people a chance to apply what they heard the day before into a new space,” Dallas said.
The students: The 14 participants comprised first- and second-year students in the MBA and Executive MBA programs. Some had prior acquisition experience, while others didn’t.
The format: While they were given some background material ahead of time, students weren’t given the exact case or assigned teams until Thursday night, after Dallas’ presentations that day. On Friday morning, students were given 90 minutes to work on the case after breakfast, then took turns presenting to Dallas and dialoguing with him and other student teams about the case. No winners were declared, and the focus was on learning rather than presenting the “best” case form the outset. “It’s much more about the case being a vehicle to expand their thinking and apply their learning. The difference (as opposed to a case competition) is: what is the case there for, and what is the focus of their experience?” Dallas said.
Students prepare to review the case with Dallas
The feedback: Dallas said that while students understood the financial architecture of the acquisition case very well, they also expanded beyond it in their analysis. “I was pretty impressed with concepts in marketing, concepts in human capital, their awareness of line management and some operational constraints.” He says this solid grounding in major business concepts helps students succeed in HR careers. “Pick a school that has a strong business foundation and HR curriculum will serve you well. It served me well,” he said. “Don’t ever forget, even though you’ve chosen (human and organizational performance), that it’s a means to a business outcome.”
To learn more about leadership development opportunities at Vanderbilt Business, click here.
