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25 Jun 2021, 10:00
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| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: Defining Decency Quotient, “DQ” at Fuqua |
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When I was researching business schools, Fuqua’s idea of, “leaders of consequence” or “good leaders who create good consequences” stood out. As someone looking to grow as a business leader, who cares about more than just the bottom line, it is the primary reason I accepted my offer of admission. When I got to Fuqua, “consequential leadership” was alive and well. For example, we learned about the importance of diversifying portfolios alongside the importance of diversifying teams. We learned about GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) alongside inequity gaps. While these discussions were memorable, I still did not feel like I understood the core of what it meant to be a leader of consequence. Then, Dean Bill Boulding started talking about IQ + EQ + DQ: intelligence quotient, emotional quotient, and decency quotient. Dean Boulding emphasized the need for a decency quotient alongside intellectual and emotional intelligence while writing in the Harvard Business Review: “DQ implies a person has not only empathy for employees and colleagues but also the genuine desire to care for them…DQ implies a focus on doing right by others.” DQ was the differentiation I sought in leadership. However, the community did not have a strong sense of how to define the phrase “DQ”. It became clear that we needed to crystallize the meaning of DQ in order to create meaningful opportunities to hone it. The Gender Equity Working Group, a student group committed to systemically reducing gender inequity at Fuqua and beyond, took on this challenge. We spent months exploring what it means to be decent with our peers. We shared some stories with each other, such as: “A second-year student helped a first-year student prepare for an interview not only in the late hours of the night, but also the night before her wedding.” “Members of the cabinet of my section individually called and checked in with 75 classmates to see how they were holding up in the early weeks of quarantine and isolation during the pandemic.” The more stories we collected, the clearer it became that although each example of DQ was unique, each converged on shared success. We can (and should) succeed and bring others along with us. Our definition became clear. At Fuqua, decency is, “achieving greatness through doing right by others.” We believe that definition also has four underlying principles:
Now that we have defined DQ, we can more clearly see out how DQ shines through in every aspect of the Fuqua experience: our interpersonal interactions, our classroom discussions, in our building, and our engagement with those beyond the walls of Fuqua. I look forward to sharing more about that in our forthcoming follow up, DQ can’t be contained to one article! The post Defining Decency Quotient, “DQ” at Fuqua appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
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29 Jun 2021, 13:00
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| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: Helping an Asset Manager Tackle Climate Change as a CASE i3 Fellow |
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“If there is a project with the words climate change and risk management in the description, I want it.” The CASE i3 program lead, Carrie Gonnella, smiled and told me to wait until the projects were released. Prior to business school, I spent seven years as a dedicated public servant working at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. I came to business school to learn how to make the business case for taking action on climate change. My time as a CASE i3 Fellow offered a remarkable opportunity to apply what I’d learned to the real world. My CASE i3 Consulting Practicum (CASE i3CP) project was leading a team to develop a strategy for how our client, SEI, should approach climate change risk management. SEI is a 50-year-old technology and investment solutions provider, with approximately $1 trillion in assets under management and administration (as of March 31, 2021). In early 2020, SEI hired a Fuqua alum, Jana Holt, to be their first Global Director of Sustainable Investing Solutions. When Jana needed fresh thinking on an impact investing project, she turned to CASE i3. Call it fate, luck, or happenstance, I wanted to take on the project from the moment I knew it existed. The CASE i3 Process Being a CASE i3 Fellow is a truly unique experience. After putting in your sweat equity as a first year CASE i3 Associate, you undergo a competitive process to continue on as a CASE i3 Fellow during your second year. Once selected, the transformative leadership experience truly begins. The CASE i3 team spends the summer sourcing a variety of projects related to advancing the field of impact investing. Upon arrival back at Fuqua in the fall, the newly minted CASE i3 Fellows take over, conducting due diligence calls and making their ultimate project selections. Next up is recruiting a team of four to six students to work on the project with you as Associates. With your hand-selected project and team of Associates ready to go, the work slowly ramps up. Throughout the fall, you work on project scoping and a Letter of Agreement, so that by the time Spring Term 1 starts, you and your team are ready to hit the ground running. Twelve weeks (two terms) later, you send off your final deliverables and write a personal reflection on the experience, realizing how much you’ve accomplished and grown in such a short amount of time. The Project Armed with my dream project and hand-selected team of five associates, it was time to get to work. We conducted extensive stakeholder engagement, as well as desk research, to understand: (1) what SEI’s internal needs were and how a climate change risk management strategy could fit within existing processes; (2) what external best practices and capabilities existed; and (3) what the emerging regulatory landscape was.  We bake too! An amazing cake my team member, Kat Cummings made with a “world on fire” theme, May 2021 To kick off our interviews with internal stakeholder groups at SEI, and to get ourselves smart, we developed and presented a training on climate change risk covering the current state of climate change science and its anticipated impacts on the financial sector. We also explored the inverse relationship between physical and transition risks and the growing momentum around the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD). Externally, we engaged third-party service providers of climate change data and scenario analysis tools and then interviewed about a dozen of SEI’s subadvisors, who are the asset management field’s leaders on climate change risk management. Almost 30 interviews later, the team came together and developed a customized set of recommendations for SEI, spanning the areas of governance, investment strategy, corporate strategy, and risk management. Going beyond the impacts of climate change on asset valuation, we learned there are many other important levers for change, including client attraction and retention, maintaining a strong corporate reputation, preparing for regulatory changes, and employee retention and motivation. The Leadership Experience  Me on the left with a few members of our SEI Team, Kat Cummings (middle) and Ayush Mohanty (right), May 2021 Through this process, I learned a lot more than just the technical and practical details of implementing a climate risk management strategy. I also learned a great deal about leadership, team management, and project management. I learned how to effectively strike a balance between engaging the team in the decision-making process and getting bogged down by logistics, and how to empower team members to own certain elements of the project, leading to increased engagement. Finally, I learned how important it was to provide a psychologically safe environment that encouraged open and candid (sometimes even a little heated!) discussions over major project decisions and our final recommendations. In my time as a CASE i3 Fellow, I was not only able to apply what I learned during my time at Fuqua to a space I am passionate about, I also learned that being a good leader, building a strong team, and coming up with the best solutions all take significant investments of time, energy, and effort. More importantly, what I learned about myself is that I wholeheartedly believe those investments are worth it. The post Helping an Asset Manager Tackle Climate Change as a CASE i3 Fellow appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
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02 Jul 2021, 09:00
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| FROM Fuqua Student Blogs: How Fuqua Taught Me to Lead with Authenticity and Grace |
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One of the great opportunities we have at Fuqua is to learn from leaders across a multitude of industries. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CEO of P&G, anthropologists turned successful venture capitalists—there are leaders who come to teach us about leadership development, leading through crises, building organizations, the list goes on and on. This exposure is, simply put, invaluable. However, one thing I’ve come to learn over this past year at Fuqua is that this knowledge gathering is only half of the equation. Similar to curriculum blending case studies and lectures, we, as students, also get a chance to exercise leadership at Fuqua on a daily basis. I’ve seen my own personal leadership style develop immensely over the past year, both as a result of the leaders I’ve listened to, but also in part due to the work I’ve been involved in completing. Prior to enrolling at Fuqua, my leadership principles were based on the core tenant that leadership is about synthesizing the voices you hear at the table around you, making sure to encourage the quietest, and then moving forward towards a common objective. While I believe that this approach holds true, and I intend to carry it forward, I have also begun to think critically beyond what the action of leadership is and more of what the characteristics of good leaders are. Two characteristics that I have recognized as invaluable, and will strive to continue developing and exhibiting, are authenticity and grace. The past year has brought about many challenges for the world, and exposed divisions deeper than we ever could have imagined across every imaginable line. From the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, we saw the emergence of a national, even global, movement around racial justice in our country, echoing the cries of the Civil Rights Movement half a century ago. Surrounding this critical (and overdue) national conversation, we found ourselves immersed in a global pandemic, unlike any we have seen in more than 100 years. We were reminded that none of these problems exist in a vacuum. But rather, we saw manifestations of systemic racial injustice in the disproportionate disease, burden and mortality rates in Black and brown communities. Over and over, we saw examples of injustice, division and anger. While the scale of these moments was national and global, the impact was very much local. At Fuqua, I was so proud to see how our community rose to these distinct crises. From organizing virtual trivia sessions for our entire class, to organizing virtual runs in solidarity with Ahmaud, I saw my classmates step up for what they believed in, time and time again. I saw my classmates exhibit leadership qualities that I admired deeply, and was able to emulate these and identify important leadership qualities of my own. In a world with an excess supply of injustice, quick judgment and anger, I see a desperate need for an inordinate supply of grace. Not only as a leader, but just as a community member, I had to take stock of my everyday interactions and choose to allow grace to guide my judgments. Understanding the immense mental pressure our environment had placed upon us meant allowing for individuals to process in different ways. For me as an individual (reflective, I think, of a broader community sentiment), we demand much for ourselves and each other. This year has been an exercise in assuming positive intention and allowing for imperfect execution, and instead of assuming a posture of disappointment, assuming a posture of grace. I asked my classmates to explain themselves when they had a perspective I fundamentally did not agree with. When interactions over email were tense and assignments were missed, I worked hard to not jump to conclusions, but to offer support instead. And the biggest challenge, when I failed to meet an expectation I had set for myself, be it grades or recruiting, I had to remind myself that it was OK. In learning to allow grace to enter my leadership characteristics, I am realizing grace doesn’t mean allowing for mediocrity. Grace allows for the imperfection of the human experience. It allows for the margin of error that all of us are guilty of in our interactions, our beliefs, our work and our relationships. The next characteristic that I’ve worked hard to develop is that of authenticity. As an individual, I consider myself to be authentic and genuine. But the learning for me from this past year has been around allowing myself to act more authentically as myself in leadership roles. I firmly believe that the best execution of leadership can only occur when you bring your full self to your task. In this space, you improve creativity, drive for success, and build a more welcoming environment. In my role as co-president of the Design & Innovation Club, I have been asking myself how, (if I’ve been thinking constantly of racial justice this summer) I can integrate what I’m consumed with mentally with the work I do daily. Together with my peers, we planned a session to talk about the intersection of race and design thinking and how our technology products can be designed with more inclusion in mind. One of the speakers at the spring Design Summit spoke exclusively on the topic of designing with accessibility in mind. This intersection of what I care about as a human, with what I do as a leader, has been critical in surfacing a more engaged, engaging and motivated community member. I’ve had the great fortune of being able to act as a leader at Fuqua, in both formal and informal settings. While I pride myself in giving back to my community first, I also take great pleasure in watching my own leadership development process. I take pleasure in the knowledge that the experience I have today will shape me into the leader I will become tomorrow. And, with the lessons I learn here at Fuqua, commitment to my leadership philosophy and strong doses of authenticity and grace, I hope I can be the leader my communities deserve in the future. The post How Fuqua Taught Me to Lead with Authenticity and Grace appeared first on Duke Daytime MBA Student Blog. |
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