Empowerment in Action - Willamette MBA Empowerment in Action

What are some of the most pressing issues facing today's managers and how do they deal with them? Join us for our First Thursday events in Portland as Willamette University's top management professors lead discussions, share expertise and present research. Our Empowerment in Action series allows you to experience why the MBA and Executive Development programs at Willamette can take your career and your experience to new heights.

SPRING 2010 Dates/Speakers:

NEXT SESSION - Thursday, April 1, 2010 - "Career, Life and the MBA: Making it all Work"

They are fathers and mothers, experienced executives, just starting out in their career, looking to move up in their organizations, taking over a business or seeking their next professional step. MBA students represent a diverse group with unique personal goals and motivations. How do they make it all work? Hear from a panel of MBA current students and alumni about the experience of earning a graduate degree at different career and life stages.

Location:

Living Room Theaters
SW 10th and Stark Streets
Portland, Oregon [Map]

[RSVP Online]

Past Session:

Thursday, March 4, 2010 - "Can We Innovate Our Way Out of This Recession?: Black Swans Cast Long Shadows
Mark Ahn, Associate Professor of Global Management"

Black swans are flocking. Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book ‘Black Swan’ chronicled the period when the Western world thought that swans were only one colour—white. When they arrived in Australasia, however, they discovered the presence of black swans and their world was permanently changed. This story is used as an illustration of “our blindness with respect to randomness, particularly to large deviations.” We’re living in an interdependent world of unprecedented pace and intensity of change. From financial market meltdowns to terrorism to climate change, the stakes are higher than ever and the long shadows of black swans seem to be everywhere.

We didn’t leave the Stone Age because we ran out of stones. Turmoil and change is a great equalizer precisely because it shakes the foundations of the status quo. In short, disruptive innovation is unreasonable and perfect for the times in which we live. Customers are expecting unreasonable amounts of product performance at impossibly low prices. Investors and funders are unreasonable because they want predictable economic returns in a fundamentally unpredictable world of black swans.

Are we ready for the challenges ahead? This discussion will explore the hype, hope, and opportunities ahead in the context of innovation, performance and value creation.