COURSE NUMBER: MBA 295T.11

 

Please note the unorthodox format of this course which meets all day on two Saturdays (2/1 & 3/8).

 

COURSE TITLE: The Other “F” Word: An Exploratory Course about Failure & Its Significance For Innovation and Entrepreneurship

 

UNITS OF CREDIT: 1

 

INSTRUCTORS: John Danner and Mark Coopersmith

 

E-MAIL ADDRESS: danner@haas.berkeley.edu ; markcoop@haas.berkeley.edu

 

MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: Saturdays 9:00AM – 5:00PM on February 1 and March 8.

 

PREREQUISITE(S): None

 

CLASS FORMAT: A mix of mini-lectures, case discussions, in-class exercises, and guest speakers

 

REQUIRED READINGS: Cases, articles and videos.  See assignment discussion below.

 

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Obviously, given our topic we’re tempted to suggest that grading be on a pass/fail basis; but we'll resist it in favor of a mix of course participation (35% - includes both in-class engagement and completion of the failure forays and journals described below) and a "final" presentation in our 2nd class (65% - could be either individual or team, depending on our enrollment; includes the Failure Vignettes described below).

 

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES: This is version 2.0 of a 1-unit pilot course last year exploring the unspoken world of failure. Key facts: most new ventures fail, as do most acquisitions, mergers, major IT projects, new products and many other efforts in business. In a very real sense, most of the time we live in and with failure of different varieties and severity; but we persevere. People usually don't cite their failures on their resumes, and few corporations mention them in their annual reports. But failure is often essential to success, and is probably the fuel that ignites innovation and entrepreneurship.

This short course will look at failure, its various forms and how you can anticipate it, prepare for it and - most importantly - learn from it. We will look at failure through the lens of other disciplines as well - from engineering and science to art and architecture (with probably a few examples from athletics and warfare thrown in for good measure). Come prepared for a collaborative and candid learning experience. Our intention is not to encourage you to fail, but to improve your odds of success in your efforts to be an innovative leader and/or creator of a new venture. While failure may be inevitable in many circumstances, success is also possible in others.

One final note: we are in the process of writing a book for executives on “The Other ‘F’ Word.” Depending on the timing of its publication, there’s a chance that some of your ideas and suggestions might become part of that effort (with your permission, of course). At the very least, we’d like you to be an early sounding board for some of the concepts and tools we’re developing as part of this initiative.

CLASS ARCHITECTURE: Given our unorthodox schedule of two daylong Saturday sessions with more than a month in between we have some freedom to create a different kind of assignment portfolio. Here it is:

 

·         Failure Vignettes – between our 1st and 2nd class, you will act as an intellectual scout on behalf of all of us, by reading about, and writing an executive summary of, a relevant organizational and/or team and/or leader failure. These could be drawn from business or other settings, so long as we approve your selection in advance. Business certainly does not have a monopoly on failure. We’re particularly interested in understanding situations where failure led to subsequent success/innovation and why and how that happened. We’ll pool our collective insights into a simple class “wiki” that will ground our discussions and exercises in our final session.

·         Journal – each of you will keep a personal “failure journal” to capture your observations, musings, ideas, examples and insights about the other “f” word. This is not intended to be an intimate diary, but rather a convenient way for you to keep track of your thinking about our topic during the semester.

•       Failure Forays – we rarely seek out failure, and most of us tend to avoid situations in which we’ve failed before or fear failing in the first place. This assignment turns that around. We’d like to invite you to try something new you’re likely to fail at, and later reflect on your experience with your colleagues, and how, if at all, it changed your earlier thinking about the Other F Word. Please do not risk limb or life in this experiment.

·         Bonus Territory – if any of you are interested in pushing further, we have several ideas of projects that should be worthy of your creativity and analytical prowess, including developing a pragmatic taxonomy of failure, designing organizational metrics that could help executives monitor the failure frontiers of their own organizations, etc. Speak to us if that appeals to you, and there might be a possibility for a parallel independent study project, or projects that later build on work undertaken and insights gained in this class.

 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:

John Danner is Senior Fellow of the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship. An experienced entrepreneur, he has also consulted across a number of industry and organizational settings. He has advised senior executives of multi-billion-dollar international enterprises on issues of strategy, value management and business growth; as well as management teams of emerging ventures on matters of competitive positioning, marketing and product strategy.  His clients over the years have ranged from leading companies in the healthcare, energy, entertainment, food products, telecommunications and information sectors to startups in newer markets like biotech, personal digital assistants, e-commerce and supply chain integration. He has held senior positions in both state and federal government. He is also an annual Visiting Professor at Princeton University, where the idea for this course was hatched. He has a JD, MPH and MAEd from Cal; and a BA cum laude from Harvard. Finally, if you’re a TED fan, he’s the guy who came up with the idea for “TED U[niversity],” which is now a popular feature of the TED and TEDGlobal conferences.

 

Mark Coopersmith is a leader and innovator in consumer products, technology, media and branding. He has spent more than 20 years launching, building and restructuring high-growth global businesses. In addition to his role as Managing Director of ET Water, a smart irrigation venture, he is Managing Director of The Argonauts Group, driving change and growth with clients. He sits on numerous boards, mentors ventures at the UC Berkeley SkyDeck Accelerator and Venture Lab, and teaches both at Haas and elsewhere on the UC campus including a recent intensive entrepreneurship exchange program with Polytechnique, France’s answer to MIT. His prior experience includes senior roles at Sony, Ernst & Young Consulting, Newell Rubbermaid, and numerous technology/consumer products/media ventures. He earned both his MBA and BA at Cal.

 

And yes, both John and Mark have had their share of failures along the way – which they will be happy to share with you during this course.