Rice Business - Spring 2018

RICEBUSINESS M A G A Z I N E O F T H E J O N E S G R A D U AT E S C H O O L O F B U S I N E S S AT R I C E U N I V E R S I T Y

VIVA COLOMBIA!

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Rice Business students take on the world through the global experience program 1

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of the things I wanted to do when “One I moved back to Texas to work at Rice Business was reconnect with four friends I went to high school with and roomed with in college. We all turned 50 this year and decided to celebrate with something big. We decided on Machu Picchu.

Over four days and 51 miles, the five of us duplicated the sacred hike that the Incas took at an altitude of 14,000 feet.

It was arduous and difficult, but when you come over the Sun Gate and see Machu you are blown away.

�

George Andrews Associate Dean of Degree Programs Peru, November 2017

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contents

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RICE BUSINESS F e a t u r e s

20 The Things They Carried What mattered to us most during Hurricane Harvey

22 Viva Colombia! !

A refreshed global experience program

28 Rain Man

An interview with meteorologist and local hero Eric Berger

34 Sorry Not Sorry

How to make an apology that matters

36 Best in Class:

How Executive Education equips leaders to face today’s challenges

Rice Business is published semiannually for alumni and friends by the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business. Current and back issues of the magazine are available online at business.rice.edu/RB.

Dean Peter L. Rodriguez

Change of Address?

New Job? Update the online directory with your new contact information at business.rice.edu/alumni.

Design Director Bill Carson, Bill Carson Design

D e p a r t m e n t s

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Rundown Impressions Rice Business Wisdom Word Watch Around the Water Cooler Peter’s Page

Comments or Questions?

We’d love to hear your thoughts about Rice Business. Send an email to Weezie Mackey, editor and associate director of communications, at wmackey@rice.edu.

Left: The James Turrell “Twilight Epiphany” Skyspace (2012) at the Suzanne Deal Booth Centennial Pavilion at Rice University. Photo: Jeff Fitlow.

Executive Director Marketing and Communication Kathleen Harrington Clark Editor Weezie Mackey

Rice Business Wisdom Claudia Kolker Jennifer Latson Marketing Alexandra Constantinou Ashley Daniel Dawn Kinsey Eduardo Martinez Michael Okullu Kevin Palmer Contributing Writers Holly Beretto Claudia Feldman Claudia Kolker David Laborde ‘18 Jennifer Latson Weezie Mackey Contributing Photographers Bill Carson Jeff Fitlow Mireia Gonzalez Brent Humphreys Dave Rossman James Zhao ’15 Printing Chas. P. Young Co.

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FROM THE

DEAN

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or universities, falls are beginnings, the opening chapters in the story of our growth and transformation. Fall is the first embrace of a long-sought prize, the first gaze over a wide and unending vista at the end of a long climb. If fall is the start of a new drama, spring is the summit.

For colleges and universities, spring is all about competition. Students remember the agony of waiting for letters of acceptance that, at the time, seem as if they will validate all they have ever done and determine all they will ever do. The waiting can be merciless, but the balance of power completely shifts the instant the acceptances are sent. The symmetry of the process accentuates how deeply competition is written into the culture of higher education. We fight for everyone we attract here, and they fight to be here.

The NCAA basketball tournaments, also known as March Madness, are perhaps the most exhilarating celebrations of the spirit of college athletics and of competition itself. The tournament offers an idealized display of all we cherish in competition: preparation, teamwork, ambition, strategy and boldness. It also offers an unparalleled demonstration of failure and the heartbreak that accompanies it. With college admissions, with sports and with business, we rightly admire the passion of the competitors, their daring, and their will.

Some miss the point when they analogize sports to life or business and imagine that victory is ultimately all that matters. We celebrate the heart of the competitor, their dedication to craft, the time and energy put into preparation, their ceaseless effort to improve and yes, their willingness to fail. Fall is the beginning we all remember, but spring is the apex of our spirit. It’s a privilege to witness our students compete and to vividly display all the characteristics we cherish in competitors in any field.

At Rice Business, we live in a community of competitors who are bold, generous, tireless and always striving to improve. We embrace and embody each of these characteristics in our strategy and in all that we do, in every season. — Peter

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mba@rice by the numbers

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104,500

$

54

# of credit hours*

2

124 # of residential ILEs*

(intensive learning experiences)

# of global experiences*

# of months to earn an MBA*

22

2U’s # of educational partners

including Harvard Business School, Northwestern, UC Berkeley, Vanderbilt, Washington University and Yale.

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*Same as on-campus program Pending SACSCOC approval

rundown

A ROUNDUP OF NEWS FROM RICE BUSINESS AND BEYOND

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Within the walls of academia, research is cherished and revered, the genuine ‘coin of the realm’ for any serious scholar. Outside the walls, research often appears more like a dalliance, the luxurious hobby of the academic’s lifestyle or the abstruse and unproductive exercise of impractical but well-funded scientific minds.

The failure of academic leaders to communicate the fundamental honesty, rigor and power in great research is our most humbling marketing failure. It keeps us up at night.

And it keeps the good stuff, the scientific wisdom, the very

hard-won stuff, out of reach for so many who really need it. Now, more than ever, the value of science and of proven research and scholarship needs to be smartly and widely shared.

We can do better, by working hard to craft well-written, honest and authentic pieces on the best research done by scholars at Rice. I am immensely proud of the engaging, brief and refreshingly smart pieces in this inaugural print edition of the best of Rice Business Wisdom. There’s nothing more gratifying to a professor than knowing they helped make someone smarter — and through these works on our research, we can.

”

A HERO UT FOR ders who O G IN HOLD ed lea sses ne g. e in s u B in right th do the

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S S E N I S U B E RIC ISDOM W H hole E CLAS CULTUR Amazon and W l il How w rk together? wo Foods

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NES T H E JO IN E O F

N IV E R S R IC E U E S S AT IN S U B F HOOL O AT E S C GRADU

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distinguished faculty

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| In November, the College of Business, City University of Hong Kong named Haiyang Li a distinguished alumnus in recognition of his outstanding achievements and contributions to the profession, the university and society.

Changing the Face of Parkinson’s

Nancy Flatt and Honoree Robert Flatt

The Houston Area Parkinson Society hosted their Annual Awards Gala Changing the Face of Parkinson’s. Robert Flatt, adjunct professor in management, received the Lillie Cullen Quality of Life Award last November. His acceptance speech brought down the house.

“

I am a firm believer in serendipity. Much of life is spontaneous. That is why it is so thrilling to be alive. You never know what will happen next, winning the World Series, a hurricane or waking up one day to find you have Parkinson’s disease.

Thank goodness for HAPS. When we are diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, we are immediately surrounded by a support group, where we can learn new skills to cope with life and to thrive with the capabilities that we have left.

Li is a Rice Business professor of strategic management and innovation and area coordinator of the strategy and environment group. The College of Business has accumulated more than 40,000 alumni since its establishment in 1990. Many of the young, energetic alumni have used their professional or scholastic knowledge to contribute significantly to Hong Kong and the global community. Li graduated in 1998 with a Ph.D. in management.

tech pioneer

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Congratulations to Babur Ozden ’04 who was recognized as 2017 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum.

As our bodies degenerate, due to disease or aging, we can no longer do some things we really have enjoyed. Over 10 years ago, I could no longer work at my job.

Then I could no longer play tennis or drive a car. I will not be able to teach much longer. I have a choice: I can spend my time worrying about these changes, or I can decide not to let them ruin my day and get on with my life. It’s never too late to change your major.

”

Ozden, co-founder and CEO of Maana, speaking at CERAWeek.

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Aaron Davis ’10 was named one of Forty Under 40 by Oil and Gas Investor. He started Fortuna Resources LLC in 2016 with three partners and received $75 million in funding commitments from Oz Management to focus on the Delaware Basin. He says one of the most important elements of a successful business plan is to have the right team. “Most of my partners had worked alongside me at one point, so I knew their strengths and weaknesses. The result was partners that fully complemented each other.”

Fortuna Resources quickly built an asset base in the Delaware Basin and sold in two separate transactions in 2016 and 2017. Davis’ second company, TNM Resources LLC, secured a new commitment from Oz Management and is focused on proving up the horizontal San Andres play on the Central Basin Platform while also remaining a Delaware non-op player.

Adi Rangarajan ’19 and Teddy Bucher ’19 snap a quick selfie before tackling another exciting day at the 2017 ROMBA Conference in Boston.

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Are you ready to

ROMBA?

When more than 1,800 LGBTQ business leaders and MBA students from across the globe descended on Boston for the 20th Annual ROMBA Conference, 100 percent of the Rice Business LGBT student population attended. Students and professionals intensely networked, vying for internships and full-time positions at leading edge companies such as Google and BCG, and at night, gathered together to laugh at the comedy of Margaret Cho and be inspired by the heartfelt and personal stories of Anderson Cooper.

Over three days, the student-led event hosted educational sessions ranging from “How To Make a Gay [Car/Drink/Pop Star]” to “Human-Centered Design and Empathy in Health Care.” Throughout the entire weekend, a small crew from Rice Business dominated the conference. Of the 70+ universities attending, Rice was one of the few able to boast that. The mighty pack consisted of three faculty, four alumni, five Class of 2018 and seven Class of 2019. In true Rice form, they did not just attend and watch from the sidelines, but actively worked to shape and improve the conference for all.

• Rhett Chase ’18 worked over the past year on the Student Planning Committee, a group of eight students who applied and were chosen by the ROMBA board of directors, to create, plan and execute all aspects and content for the conference.

• Katherine Dextraze ’18 and Mitchel Robertson ’19 volunteered to lead panel discussions on “How Big Data is Revolutionizing Marketing” and “Scalability: The Growth Elephant in the Room.”

• Two case teams competed among 20 in the Liberty Mutual Consulting Case Competition, with Team Ascent — Roger Liu ’18, Mitchel Robertson, John Blake ’19 and Adi Rangarajan ’19 — taking home third place and a check for $1,000.

• Alumni Kendall Toarmina ’17 and Elliot O’Glasser ’17 returned with their companies to not only recruit and interview great LGBT talent but also to speak on leadership panels for their respective fields. Rob Mark ’15 has held a position on the board of directors for the past three years, influencing the conference and the $6.5 million dollars in scholarships granted.

• As a testament to the strength of the Owl Network, when two of the four speakers for Mitchel Robertson’s panel backed out last minute, Will Pike ’10 stepped up to help out. Pike, a senior manager at Kalypso Consulting working on a project in New York, found out about the conference and Mitchel’s predicament and hopped on a train to assist a fellow Owl in need.

Every day, every session and every moment, the mighty crew from Rice Business walked into each room proudly wearing their custom rainbow owl pins, garnering praise and acknowledgement from not only recruiters and business leaders, but also fellow students for their warmth, poise and intellect. I am humbled to be chosen as their club president and could not be prouder of their incredible accomplishments. Rice Business at ROMBA was not only a success, but dominated the conference. And we will be back next year to do it all over again.

David Laborde ’18 Out & Allied President

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VALUE ADD What’s new for students this year? IREP. A homegrown student initiative that stands for integrity, respect, excellence and professionalism. This simple statement of shared values is meant to formally educate incoming students on the culture and serve as a guide for how to navigate a lifelong journey as part of the Rice Business community.

Envisioned by alums DG Gaus ’17 and Jerry Peruchini PMBA ’17 with help from Andrew DiBello and Matt Craig, both PMBA ’17, IREP came to life over the past year. Led by Ed Clark ’18 and Dave Bonem PMBA ’18, the official rollout began last summer during Immersion for first-year students and shortly after Hurricane Harvey for staff, faculty and second-year students. Other members of the Deans’ Student Initiatives team included Katie Fetterman PMBA ’18, Elena Engles ’18 and Stephanie Antosh PMBA ’18. #IREP #RICEBUSINESS Check out the fall issue of Rice Business for a longer story about IREP, the IREP awards given out twice a year and how alumni can be a part of it.

This year’s sold-out Women in Leadership Conference focused on empowering rising women leaders to create their own paths to success.

Students from the Rice

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Business chapter of NAWMBA organize the conference.

“The topic of conversation flowed from ‘critical factors for successful leadership in an instant information economy’ to ‘the future of oil and gas industry in the face of emerging renewable sources of energy.’” — Arjit Bansal ’18 commenting on the Thought Leadership Series with Lee Boothby ’92, who is

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chairman, president and CEO of Newfield Exploration Company.

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Rankings Recognition Rice Business ranked No. 10 in Bloomberg Businessweek’s analysis of the best full-time MBA programs in the nation in November. This marks the second year in a row that the school ranked among the top 10.

The U.S. News full-time ranking bumped up six places to No. 23 in the country.

For the third year in a row, Rice Business was mentioned in Poets & Quants’ list of 10 business schools to watch — “programs whose courageous visions and underlying fundamentals have positioned them to increase the value of their degrees,” according to the magazine.

Rice Business also made the Texas A&M/University of Georgia’s list of top 10 business schools based on appearances in management publications.

Student leaders from other top business schools exchange ideas and best practices with Rice Business students at the MBA Student Government Leadership Summit in November. Pictured: Ed Clark ’18, JSA president.

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newsfeed

RICE BUSINESS IN THE NEWS

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Tilman Fertitta showcases Houston mattress company you’ve never heard of

Professor Utpal Dholakia comments on how small companies can compete against larger companies — offer something different, like expert customer service.

Meet India’s top MBAs from the Class of 2019

Vishruti Jakhar ’19 is featured as one of the top MBA students from India.

Rice Business staff writer Jennifer Latson proposes Facebook-related time units such as “the memute,” the amount of time you have to respond to the latest viral meme.

By Jennifer Latson and Andrew Sessa January 30, 2018 Rice University to now host annual Veterans Business Battle

The annual business plan competition for military veterans-turned-entrepreneurs is slated for April 13 and 14 at Rice.

By Andrea Rumbaugh February 12, 2018

Professor Utpal Dholakia writes on the informational value of pricing.

By Utpal Dholakia February 5, 2018

By Jeff Schmitt February 26, 2018

Why you should not brag on social media

By Paul Takahashi February 28, 2018 Facebook has invented a new unit of time, ‘the flick.’

Why stop there?

When high prices attract consumers and low prices repel them

ExxonMobil plans to invest big, expect other energy companies to follow suit

Professor Bill Arnold breaks down the reasons for ExxonMobil’s investment plans and what to expect from other energy companies.

By Bill Arnold February 1, 2018

Current oil prices offer lesson in supply and demand, Rice Business prof breaks it down

Professor Utpal Dholakia writes on how boasting about professional accomplishments can have negative repercussions.

By Utpal Dholakia February 19, 2018

We’ve heard a lot of bad apologies lately.

What makes a good one?

Professor Anastasiya Zavyalova explains how apologies can fall apart and when organizations should stay quiet.

By Claudia Feldman February 27, 2018 Is our speech still free?

Professors Jing Zhou and Jennifer George’s research shows that stifling free expression can also stifle innovation.

By Jennifer Latson February 20, 2018

A Cure for Disconnection

Loneliness is worse for our health than smoking or obesity, research shows. In the cover story for the March issue of Psychology Today, Rice Business staff writer Jennifer Latson reports on the ways we can deepen our connections.

By Jennifer Latson March 7, 2018

Professor Bill Arnold reflects on rising oil prices and why we can expect continued equilibrium between supply and demand.

By Kelly Vo January 17, 2018

Mittal, Sridhar: The urgent matter of school safety

Professor Vikas Mittal explains how research on school safety and parent satisfaction ties into the national conversation about school shootings.

By Vikas Mittal and Hari Sridhar February 16, 2018

My dad’s cancer has made it clear: Our health care system is sick

Professor Ken Janda reflects on his personal experience with and professional expertise in Houston’s health care system.

By Ken Janda February 5, 2018

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Is getting an online MBA worth it?

A discussion about online MBAs that mentions MBA@Rice.

By Poets and Quants February 20, 2018

Why did so many Texas state employees quit in 2017?

Professor Scott Sonenshein comments on the problems created by high turnover and especially how this affects government processes.

By Florian Martin January 5, 2018 Iconic Midtown store not the only Sears to close doors for good

Professor Utpal Dholakia comments on why big retailers are shutting down and what to expect next.

Houston’s not eating that well. Can a new mobile grocery help?

Assistant Professor Doug Schuler weighs in on ways to change Houstonians’ eating habits, including alum Dustin Windham’s (’15) Grit Grocery.

By Allyn West December 29, 2017

Update: Academy gives stance on gun regulations after Dick’s alters policies

Professors Utpal Dholakia and Vikas Mittal argue that consumers should consider the big picture when companies speak out — or keep quiet — about polarizing issues.

By Jack Witthaus February 28, 2018

By Florian Martin January 29, 2018 The most beautiful gym in the world hits Houston

A feature on The Preserve, a full-service health and fitness facility founded by Rice Business MBA Molly Carter (’15).

By Annie Gallay January 19, 2018

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tweetsnappost

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impressions

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“ I think people have four things that motivate them — money, security, relationships and personal growth. My work with Transocean and Pacific Drilling fulfilled all four, but after seven years, I needed another catalyst for my growth. That’s when I decided to earn my MBA.” Vishruti Jakhar ’19 Full-Time MBA

A self-described ultra-deep water drilling expert, Vishruti Jakhar ‘19 grew up in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India interested in engineering and science. Her parents were supportive and a family friend introduced her to the field in which she eventually earned a degree: applied petroleum engineering. She secured her dream job with Transocean following school. Despite her short stature, Vishruti never doubted herself on a drilling rig, but it took two years to change her boss’ mind and gain the crew’s respect. “When I first started on the rig, no one could believe I was there. They thought it was a joke. They were afraid I would hurt myself.” Far from it. The work was so challenging physically that she decided to take up mountaineering when she had time off the ship. “I signed up for a hike in the Himalayas and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I was surprisingly good. I transitioned from one-day hikes to month-long climbing expeditions. It helped me in so many ways. I realized what kind of endurance I had, mentally and physically. There were things I was discovering in the mountains about myself that would help me in my work.”

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“One thing I’ve learned here that I didn’t expect was the importance of soft skills, like team dynamics and communication. It’s not just what you work on, but with whom you work and how you work together.”

Adrian Trömel ’18, Full-Time MBA

Klaus Trömel ’85, Full-Time MBA Secretary General European Investment Bank

The McNair Scholar at Rice Business, Adrian Trömel wants to help bring new medical technologies to market. His master’s thesis at EPFL in Switzerland — where he earned an MS in materials science — involved building bioabsorbable heartvalve scaffolds.

Rice Business was a logical next step. “Rice was already on my radar for its renown in the field of materials science, as was the Texas Medical Center. And it made sense to go somewhere with a reputation for outstanding entrepreneurship,” he says. The fact that his father had earned an MBA at Rice was only one factor in his choice.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Klaus Trömel, Adrian’s father, reminisced about some of his Rice Business classes — especially accounting with Stephen Zeff’s and entrepreneurship with Ed Williams.

His advice to Adrian was: “Have fun. You will never again be in an environment in which so many will dedicate themselves to helping you develop, or challenge you to bring out the best in you.”

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The things they carried

BY CLAUDIA KOLKER

W

hen push came to shove, Diane Sanchez went for the hedgehog. As Houston reeled under Hurricane Harvey and putrid water rose in the 47-year-old teacher’s

Marketing plays a role, of course; infusing objects with meaning is the industry’s sole purpose, notes Utpal Dholakia, a marketing professor at Rice Business. The more compelling the story, the more valuable an item will seem. Yet it’s rarely marketing that determines the truest object of desire. Instead, deeper instincts — some universal, some utterly personal — make the decision for us.

Six months after Hurricane Harvey drove some 39,000 people out of their homes, the stories of what those Houstonians grabbed under duress can be instructive. Many survivors had time only to save themselves and the clothes on their backs.

But others could save a bit more. In the chaotic moments before plowing into the water to safety, these Houstonians grabbed an oddball array of objects from their old lives.

The items they took — and those they left behind — reflected more than what was just possible, or even practical.

They signaled who these Houstonians were, and what they felt they needed to survive.

Clearly, external sustenance like food and family are essential. But emotional rescue can take other forms.

Psychotherapist Rosalie Hyde, who specializes in trauma and works with Harvey survivors, notes that all people hold onto things that have meaning beyond the object themselves.

These choices, she says, can be conscious or unconscious, and often complex,

rooted in very early emotional attachments.

For Sharon Bippus, an ESL teacher who fled her townhouse, the cherished object was a deck of cards. This wasn’t her first encounter with disaster. More than a decade ago, Bippus lived in Izhevsk, Russia, with the Peace Corps when her apartment building caught fire. She left behind money and passport, but had just enough time to pluck a Russian English dictionary. “Totally impractical,” she says.

So when the water invaded her town house last fall, she had given some thought about what to grab. This time she took money, documents and a garbage bag of clothes. She also took a deck of Tarot-style cards, and not because she needed to understand her future. “They’re not for fortune telling,” Bippus says.

Instead, by randomly choosing one of the cards with their lush, Edwardian images, and phrases such as “rescue” or “unexpected visitors,” she can commune with her unconscious self no matter where she is. “It’s like doing artwork,” Bippus says. “A way to get in touch with my intuition, by meditating on pictures and symbols.”

She’s still pleased with the choice. “Everything in my house was torn up, everything was chaotic. I needed to do something creative, for my soul,” Bippus says.

Mark Austin, a music promoter who manages the

house, when it became clear she would soon lose the home where she’d lived for 13 years, Sanchez seized the family dog, slung a bag of clothes over her shoulder, and with her remaining free hand, grabbed Auggie the hedgehog. Disasters open unexpected win-

dows into who we are. The question of why, in extreme moments, we choose to save what we do has no single answer. Instead, after that first impulse to save loved ones, the last object chosen from a left-behind life can be a signal of what really matters.

Marketing plays a role, of course; infusing objects with meaning is the industry’s sole purpose, notes Utpal Dholakia, a marketing professor at Rice Business.

The more compelling the story, the more valuable an item will seem.

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much-loved Houston soul band the Suffers, saw similar priorities as he rescued people by van in Harvey’s wake. Shortly after the rain stopped, the Fender guitar company quietly asked Austin to distribute 30 new guitars to flooded-out musicians.

Ninety percent of the guitarists who fit that description, Austin discovered, had lost everything but their instruments. “Once you find that guitar,” Austin said, “you just know it can’t be replaced. One guy hid from the water up in his attic. His guitar was the only thing he saved.”

Another musician who lost everything else told Austin, “I don’t have a really good relationship with my father, but he bought me this guitar. It’s the only thing I have that carries a good memory of him.”

For people fighting to keep their heads above water long before Harvey struck, though, saving even one sentimental object was a luxury. When the giant NRG Center – home to the Houston Texans – transformed in one day into a shelter for 10,000, it was obvious which flood survivors had no clue where they would go next.

Many who came from poor areas held nothing but blankets and pillows, said Angela Blanchard, president emerita of Houston’s Baker Ripley human services agency, and the shelter’s organizer. Blanchard’s own childhood told her why.

“When you don’t have a lot of money, and you go somewhere to visit, you know they’re not going to have a couch for you, because someone will already be using it, and they’re not going to have a linen closet full of pillows and sheets for you,” Blanchard says. “You know you need to bring your own.”

Some arrivals at NRG had instinctively prepared for

“I just wasn’t thinking – I brought things that comfort me.

My clothes are a really big way I express myself. And my fluffyearrings: They were so fragile.I had to take care of them! These things make my life feel normal.” the worst. As each drenched, exhausted guest entered the stadium, polite guards gently labeled and confiscated all weapons. The center’s security locked away a couple of dozen guns, some 30 knives – and two rocks.

Other last-minute grabs were fueled by emotional concerns. At 2 a.m. on the night of the storm, after her mother woke her announcing the family of seven needed to flee, 19-year-old Allison Daniel knew what she needed.

Rushing to her closet, she stared for a moment at the water bubbling malevolently through the floorboards. Then she grabbed the soft pajama pants she wears every day after school and some giant fluffy green earrings suitable for a Dr. Seuss heroine. Saving these objects helped to stabilize her after the storm, she believes.

“Oh yes,” Daniel says. She has wide, espresso-bean eyes and a childlike jumpiness. “I just wasn’t thinking – I brought things that comfort me. My clothes are a really big way I express myself. And my fluffy earrings: They were so fragile.

I had to take care of them!

These things make my life feel normal.”

Clinically speaking, Daniel’s split-second choices were quite sound. Even for nonteenagers, what we wear has a measurable effect not merely on our moods, but on our ability to function.

Flooded by social media advice about clutter and author Marie Kondo’s exhortations to toss those possessions that don’t “spark joy,” Harvey survivors often apologize when admitting their sorrow. “I know they’re only things and it could be so much worse,” one man says, standing in the bare kitchen of his small townhouse.

Contractors had stripped but not yet replaced the drywall, making it possible to walk straight into his neighbor’s dining room. “But they were our things. “ That’s why, maybe, those items that Houstonians rescued still feel precious: not because of their monetary value, but because they embody the deepest feeling and investment of the individual.

It definitely explains why Diane Sanchez, bolting from her deluged house, grabbed her hedgehog.

The foulsmelling water

sloshed chest-high in the front yard. Helicopters were roaring.

Sanchez knew she’d have to leave the fish and the snail behind. But the family loved Auggie, even though one couldn’t truly know if he loved them back.

Undeniably cute, with pointy noses and moist button eyes, hedgehogs are largely inscrutable. “They are not cuddly,” says Sanchez. “They aren’t going to learn their names or snuggle with you.” They also dislike other hedgehogs.

What they do offer is the chance to lavish effort upon them. Without constant attention, Auggie would have been downright painful: His unrestrained quills might stab anyone who touched him. To gain a hedgehog’s acceptance, its caregivers must carefully hold him in their palms every night (and it has to be night, because they’re nocturnal). After several months of this, Auggie gradually began flattening his quills around family members — which is how Sanchez was able to pick him up.

After six months with relatives, the family has just returned to their house. “Figuring out how to put our lives back together is probably the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. And I’ve had cancer twice,” Sanchez says. “I feel more out of control now.”

But Auggie, impassive as ever, is a sure thing. Her teenage kids adore him, doting on him and taking comfort from the continuity he brings, Sanchez says.

Saving their small, prickly pet from the flood might have been her first step toward saving her family, and herself. u Read the full article online, where it originally appeared in the Houston Chronicle’s Gray Matters blog.

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What going global looks like now

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During the trip to Colombia, Dean Peter Rodriguez visited Old Town Cartagena and met alumni working in Bogota. So did the students. He heard from the Economic Counselor at the U.S. embassy, and was riveted by an historic and geographic overview from a Financial Times correspondent. So were the students. Open-air restaurants, scuba diving and coffee tasting were fringe benefits to the latest global experience for MBAs at the business school.

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“One of my expectations was that students would leave invested in Colombia, wanting to know more and having a much deeper understanding of all those things — economics, politics and society — than they could ever get in a classroom,” Dean Rodriguez said.

The Colombia intersession abroad during winter break was a glimpse into what the new global programming looks like at Rice Business and what will be required for all MBA students beginning with the class of 2020.

Going forward, the school is committed to highlighting Houston as a global community and is able to do that by offering global experiences that require students to apply what they’re learning in unfamiliar contexts and cultures. “For students who want to work in a global market, understanding differences in cultures is critical if they want to succeed,” says Abbey Hartgrove, associate director, MBA Global Programs.

“Plus, employers value the diverse background that global experiences provide and list ‘strategic international understanding’ and ‘cross-cultural experience’ as two of the top four employee traits they seek.”

• Alejandra Calad ’15, with Johnson and Johnson Medical, shared her experience of diving into a career with no prior health care experience and discussed the importance of keeping your options open.

Where we are now

By the fall, it will be required — and included in tuition — for Rice Business students from all MBA programs, including the new online MBA@Rice cohort, to engage in a global experience. This spring kicks off the first academic year students will travel by program and include in-country consulting projects with a variety of companies.

The trip to Colombia assembled company visits in Bogota with a diverse set of industries and speakers with various knowledge of the country, its history and its potential for future business leaders.

While Rice Business has offered international trips for years, they’ve had a refresh. In Colombia, Dean Rodriguez says, “we had it just about right. And that’s a fine balance. That comes with a lot of experience, and I can tell that this trip evidenced a lot of that deep experience.

I was very happy about that. It’s also the case that we drew a very good, diverse group of students.”

Students travel with their classmates for short-term, highly intensive educational opportunities that immerse them in the cultural and business practices of the country.

“We want to differentiate ourselves from other business schools,” Hartgrove says. “We want to take the steps to make their experience even deeper.”

In Colombia, several of the speakers were Rice Business alumni:

What’s about to be different

While all incoming students will be required to take a global experience beginning next spring, the driving force that sets these trips apart from former trip structure is this experiential learning component.

“We will be partnering with more companies, completing consulting projects in a compressed setting and making connections with alumni from Rice and Rice Business,” Hargrove says.

For now, however, Hargrove’s plate is full with making these experiences a reality. “We’ve got four trips to follow this Colombia trip for this academic year,” she says. They need to be and will be even better. The EMBAs and Full-Time students travel to Brazil in April and May, separately. The MBAP Weekend cohort travel to Argentina in June, and the MBAP Evening travel to Chile in October.”

While Hartgrove focuses on the final preparations for those global experiences she also wants to emphasize that beyond the built-in trips, the school wants to make other opportunities a flexible and attainable option for students.

“We are also providing one-off opportunities for schedule reasons and for students who would like more than one global experience during their time at Rice.”

That vision for the future and the dream to make this experience more meaningful has shaped the dean’s expectations. He is looking to add non-profits and frontier markets, not just emerging markets, so students will have the opportunity to flex their expertise and help solve problems at a global level.

“Getting outside of the box, moving to another country, seeing things from a different perspective,” Rodriguez says. “It really helps you challenge your own internal assumptions and leave with a bigger, richer model.” u

Daniel Osorio ’14, Lamitech Construction and Operations, gave an overview of the growing laminate industry in Colombia and the opportunities it has provided him at the management level.

•

Felipe Gallego ’15, team leader at Ecopetrol, shared insights into the future of oil and gas in the country as well as how Ecopetrol works alongside American oil and gas companies in country.

•

The priority is to build on the success of previous international trips, as well as broaden the opportunity and deepen the impact for our students. The global experience is intended to combine education and networking to ultimately lead to a transformational impact socially, culturally and professionally.

“In the end, Rice Business goal is for students to look back and say that their experience abroad made all the difference in their overall time here at Rice Business,” Hartgrove says.

Watch video to learn more: https://business.rice.edu/colombia

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26 RICE BUSINESS

JAMES ZHAO â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;15 NATIONAL PARKS TOUR (in his spare time)

This photo was taken at the Jiu Zhai Gou Valley National Park located in the northern region of Sichuan Province, China.

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Rain man.

Rice University sent its first email about Tropical Storm Harvey midday on Thursday, August 24. By 6:25 that night, the storm upgraded to a hurricane, and Rice announced early closing for the following day. With safety as the highest priority, the business school cancelled Friday afternoon and evening classes and all Saturday events and classes. No one expected the weather to unfurl as it did over the next few days.

No one, except Eric Berger.

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d love nothing more than to write a post expressing some optimism about the rainfall forecast ahead, but as of now it looks really quite grim.

3:15 pm Friday 8/25/17 Now is the time to get off the roads, get to your residence, and wait out a potentially long night of flooding.

9:14 pm Saturday 8/26/17 Houston is on the cusp of a major, widespread flood event that could affect thousands of homes.

10:53 pm Saturday 8/26/17 A bad situation has turned worse.

12:40 am Sunday 8/27/17 28 RICE BUSINESS

29 29 SPRING SPRING 2018 2018

Y

ou may have heard of Eric Berger if you live in Houston or you read Wired or you caught his interview with Elon Musk just before the Falcon Heavy rocket launch.

He’s a certified meteorologist and senior space editor at Ars Technica, a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics and society. Before that, he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist at the Houston Chronicle for his coverage of Hurricane Ike, and before that he was the SciGuy blogger writing about nanometers and parsecs (a unit of distance in astronomy, by the way).

30 RICE BUSINESS

PHOTOS COURTESY OF BRENT HUMPHREYS FOR WIRED MAGAZINE

Berger covers everything “from astronomy to private space to wonky NASA policy” to the Tesla CEO and his designer jeans.

Mostly, he untangles the language of science and medicine for the general public. And the general public is loving it.

In October 2015 Berger founded spacecityweather.com to “cover Houston weather news and forecasting with accuracy and without hype.” Since Hurricane Harvey, Berger and the site’s managing editor Matt Lanza have become household names and unexpected heroes in Houston. Before, during and after the storm their clear, calm updates were posted several times a day.

Most comforting was the sense that they were in the eye of the storm with you.

For the first time ever, the National Weather Service just issued what it is calling a “Flash Flood Emergency for Catastrophic Life Threatening Flooding.” And not to sound too flippant, but that sounds really bad. You should probably heed their advice — WHICH IS SIMPLY DO NOT TRAVEL. DO NOT IMPEDE WATER RESCUES IN PROGRESS. Is that clear enough?

My wife, bless her, just asked me if Band 3 was it for the night. I wanted nothing more than to fall in her arms and tell her yes, this was it. By God, yes. Let’s go to bed and forget this ever happened. It had to be it, surely.

2 a.m. Sunday, 8/27/17 One week he’s covering the eclipse for Ars Technica, the next he’s got the biggest storm to ever hit Houston. Daily website traffic tripled along with speaking engagements since then. When asked why people are obsessed with weather, Berger’s quick to answer, “They’re not obsessed with weather until it makes a difference in their lives.”

During Hurricane Harvey, it’s safe to say, weather made a difference in a lot of lives. Berger and Lanza’s voices became a safe harbor during the storm. People who had never heard of Berger or Space City Weather before were impatiently awaiting the next post, more than 60 in all, some only a few hours apart at the height of the storm.

On Sunday, August 27, they posted nine times, twice in the middle of the night.

Below is an edited interview with Eric Berger.

Why is “no hype” a tagline of Space City Weather?

Why is that important?

It was something I started doing. Writing weather reports without any nonsense. There’s an audience for the other stuff too. I’ve been doing this since Katrina and Rita, it’s evolved from recognizing that need and style that fits with my personality. In Houston, it’s boring most of the year, until there’s a storm. People are obsessed during extreme weather. TV people have known this for a long time. And the internet has allowed people to get even more obsessed. Our coverage is the alternative to the craziness.

How much has Space City Weather grown since Harvey?

Daily traffic has about tripled.

Maybe 12,000 page views on a slow day. Originally, it was a struggle to figure out how

to build it, monetize it at all, create an LLC, taxes. But the growth is all word of mouth.

Honest to god, people sharing the site, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit. On Facebook there are 20,000 to 100,000 followers by just organic sharing.

What is it like to be a celebrity?

My kids are 10 and 14. They give me a hard time. It’s nice to have people thank me.

They appreciate the site. It happened after Ike. My picture was on the front page of the paper — sciguy hurricane coverage. Blog. Livechats. The intense hunger for information was eye opening. It wasn’t celebrity; it was recognition.

Would you say you have a personal brand?

No hype guy. I’d been pushing the Chronicle to create a weather site. There’s an opening in Houston. TV was covered. Internet was a reve31

lation to weather communication. I built it around this idea of no hype. That was really rewarding. I met Matt in 2014 and brought him in to help out.

We share a similar philosophy, and he picked up on the vibe immediately. When I left the paper, I turned to him and asked, “Do you want to be a part of this?”

Tell me about your fundraising campaign.

We have two ways to build up support to pay for server expenses. One is an annual fundraiser where we sell a t-shirt. There was a tremendous response this year. And then we stopped doing ads on the site in May 2016, so we tried to find a monthly sponsor.

Reliant came on board for the second half of this year. I like that because I don’t have to deal with the hassle. When there’s weather, you’ve got to be there. A lot of people gave me advice after Harvey. But as long as I’m getting a decent

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amount of compensation for the time, I’m fine with that.

Are there words responsible weather casters avoid?

Until Friday [August 25, 2017], I would avoid comparing any storm as the next Tropical Storm Allison. Because Allison was extreme flooding. I would consciously not use it. The word now is Harvey. u

Since Eric Berger visited Rice Business, his star continues to rise. Read more about him in “Meet the Unlikely Hero Who Predicted Hurricane Harvey’s Floods” at Wired.com.

Eric Berger has an astronomy degree from the University of Texas and a master’s in journalism from the University of Missouri.

He previously worked at the Houston Chronicle for 17 years, where the paper was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2009 for his coverage of Hurricane Ike.

MBA@Rice = New Online MBA Questions? We’ve got answers.

What’s MBA@Rice? It’s our new hybrid online MBA. First announced last June, the inaugural cohort begins this July. Tuition is the same as the Professional program, and it takes 54 credit hours to graduate. Students will collaborate with classmates and professors in business settings at the Rice campus in Houston and abroad through residential Intensive Learning Experiences and global experiences.

“The launch of our online program marks a significant milestone for our school as we prepare to welcome a new group of business leaders to our family,” said Peter Rodriguez, dean of Rice Business. “MBA@Rice will make our outstanding programs accessible to working professionals who don’t live in Houston. Their contributions will, in turn, strengthen our existing programs, allowing students and faculty to draw new inspiration from diverse experiences and industries across

ON-CAMPUS MBA VS MBA@RICE SIMILARITIES

DIFFERENCES

Application Selectivity Diversity Tuition Class Offerings (Core and Electives) Grading System Office Hours Offered Required Global Experience Professors Credits Hours to Graduate Intensive Learning Experience Invitation to campus events Alumni Status

Smaller cohorts Quarterly intakes Review professor videos before class Instructor-led live classes via online platform

The new online MBA is more similar to our on-campus MBA than you might think.

the U.S.”

Still need more info?

32 RICE BUSINESS

Why did the school decide to create a hybrid online MBA?

Are other top business schools doing online education?

The MBA@Rice is a way to deliver our program to working professionals with extensive experience who may not have the option to study on campus. This new format will reach students we have long sought but who have not been able to join us on campus.

Yes, all top business schools have some form of online education. 2U, our technology partner, has 22 partners in higher education and works with Harvard, Northwestern, Berkeley, Georgetown, Yale and UNC, among others, on their online education.

Delivering an online MBA benefits our on-campus programs by increasing awareness, which positions Rice Business for the future and offers the degree to more students than ever before.

Why is it important for alumni to understand why weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve done this?

You are part of our Rice family, and we want you to know what is happening here on campus. By extending our reach, we will be able to attract students who canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t come to campus but still want to join a top MBA program. These are people you will want in your network.

How do we ensure that the reputation and standards of the school are not compromised?

From its launch, we will ensure that the quality of students admitted to this new MBA format helps raise the admissions standards of our MBA programs. We will have the same admission process and charge the same tuition as we do for our on-campus programs.

The state-of-the-art technology requires faculty and staff to approach teaching and delivering services in a new way, enhancing the overall experience for the campus-based students.

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How can alumni be a part of the positive message going forward?

We want you to be a part of the changes happening at Rice Business. Help spread the word about MBA@Rice. Talk to us throughout Reunion to learn more. The first cohort will start in July and will be visiting campus this summer.

We would love for you to welcome them to campus for the first time.

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Sorry Not Sorry What Does It Take To Make An Apology That Truly Gets Heard – And Makes A Difference?

BY CLAUDIA FELDMAN

M

Think of some of the apologies we’ve heard in the past few months:

• Film producer and alleged abuser Harvey Weinstein urging dismissal of a federal sexual misconduct suit lodged against him because actress Meryl Streep once described their working relationship as “respectful.”

• United CEO Oscar Munoz’s tone-deaf line, “I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers,” after four passengers who had already boarded a plane were asked to leave because the flight was overbooked and one refused — at which point airport police wrestled him forcefully off the plane, injuring him in the process.

• Celebrity chef Mario Batali offering a seemingly sincere written apology for alleged sexual misconduct, then adding, as a postscript, a recipe for pizza dough cinnamon rolls.

en — or women — who will not take responsibility for their awful behavior are really nothing new.

What is different today is the #MeToo movement, an outpouring of women sharing their stories of abuse, and the omni-presence of social media. Stories about misconduct of all sorts — and the insincere apologies that tend to follow — go around the world in the length of time it takes to hit the “send” button.

That may explain why primers on apologies, for individuals and business leaders, also are trending now.

Apologies can’t heal all wounds; sometimes they make things worse, says Anastasiya Zavyalova, an assistant professor of strategic management at Rice Business.

But sometimes a serious apology can break a fall.

Roy Lewicki, professor emeritus of management and human resources at The Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business, started focusing on apologies in the wake of JetBlue’s detailed explanation of a major equipment shutdown in New York, Tiger Woods’ mea culpa for extra-marital affairs and British Petroleum’s attempt to atone after the deadly Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

As such clippings piled up on his desk, Lewicki saw links between his extensive research on trust and the importance of trust repair. Did apologies help mend torn business relationships, he wondered? What did an effective apology look like?

After several years of study, Lewicki found six key components to a good “sorry,” and the more of those components included in the apology, the better. They were: An expression of regret (I’m sorry), a specific explanation of what went wrong (this is why I’m apologizing), an acknowledgement of responsibility (it’s my fault), a declaration of repentance (it will never happen again), an offer of repair (here’s how I plan to fix this) and a request for forgiveness.

Lewicki’s research also showed that the six elements are not equal in importance. What matters most are the acknowledgement of responsibility, declaration of repentance and offer of repair.

A different kind of apology, between individuals, lies at the core of psychologist Harriet Lerner’s recent book,

“Why Won’t You Apologize?” She recommends a message that is short, sincere and designed to open lines of communication. Here’s an example: “The comment I made was offensive (and name it). It was insensitive, uncalled for and it won’t happen again.”

But, as Lerner says, it’s one thing to forget to return a friend’s Tupperware and another to sleep with her husband. In cases of more egregious behavior, Lerner says, “I’m sorry” is a good first step in a long distance run that requires the offender to drop his or her defenses and simply listen.

“There is no greater gift, or one more difficult to offer, than heartfelt listening to that kind of pain, especially when the other person is accusing us of causing it,” Lerner says.

• • • Oberlin College psychology professor Cindy McPherson Frantz researched a subset of “I’m sorry” etiquette after a student vented about a boyfriend’s apology.

It was too early, the young woman said; she wasn’t ready to hear it.

At first that sounded ridiculous. Then it wasn’t.

“Yes, there is such a thing as a too-early

34 RICE BUSINESS

apology,” Franz says. “It’s usually in the interest of the other person to say ‘I’m sorry’ as quickly as possible, but the victim really needs to feel heard and understood. The perpetrator needs to get what he did wrong and be committed to not doing it again.”

Other common missteps include repeated apologies that don’t ring true and statements like, “I’m sorry if I offended you” or “I’m sorry if you feel that way.”

“Sorry I offended” means the perpetrator is not expressing regret or taking responsibility for what he did wrong, Frantz says. “‘Sorry you feel that way’ implies your reaction is not legitimate.” Says Lerner, “Humans are wired for defensiveness, so there are endless ways that we slip into vague, obfuscating language that obscures what we are sorry for.”

Frantz’ vote for worst apology of the year goes to Andy Savage, a pastor in Tennessee. By video he apologized to his congregation for a “sexual incident” with a high school girl that took place on the way home from a Houston area church 20 years ago.

“He was in the power position — he was bigger and older,” Frantz says, “and he described what happened as a regrettable encounter as opposed to sexual assault, which it was. He got a standing ovation from the congregation — he was patted on the back for confessing his sin and seeking forgiveness. But she wasn’t patted on the back.

She didn’t get anything.”

According to media accounts written after the video went viral, Savage said he apologized to the girl those many years ago. Jules Woodson, now a middle-aged woman, wrote on an online site for abuse survivors that the only comment even close to an apology came immediately after the encounter. She wrote that he said, “‘Oh my God, oh my God. What have I done? Oh my God, I’m so sorry. You can’t tell anyone, Jules, please. You have to take this to the grave with you.’” Frantz says Savage talks about the assault today as if they both behaved sinfully.

“That is completely blaming the victim and side-stepping responsibility.”

Lerner describes most public apologies as performances. “At the time of the public apology,” she says, “the wrongdoer wants to save his own skin.”

Zavyalova, the Rice professor who studies reputation management after negative events, has no trouble remembering bad apologies in the corporate world. Just two examples: The apology offered by United Airlines last year after a passenger was dragged off a plane, and by BP in 2010 after its Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and spilling millions of gallons of oil.

In the United case, four passengers who had already boarded a plane and found their seats were asked to leave because the flight was overbooked (a situation that arose when four off-duty United employees arrived and wanted seats on the full airliner). Three passengers acquiesced and left but one man, an elderly doctor, refused and raised his voice in protest. The United crew summoned airport police, who wrestled the man off the plane. His next stop was a nearby hospital because he sustained injuries to his face.

After cell phone videos of the ruckus circulated, United CEO Oscar Munoz might not have been able to say anything to avoid public outrage. But his first, terse statement was defensive and tone deaf, including the line, “I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers.” It took several more statements from Munoz before he sounded truly sorry.

• • • In navigating the aftermath of public relations disasters, Zavyalova says, part of the challenge is knowing when to keep quiet. “Business leaders may have legal advice to not make public statements until the details of a particular situation are clear,” she notes. “On the other hand, executives have to consider that the decision to remain silent allows for others to take control of the story.”

Adds Lewicki from Ohio State, “That question — to apologize or not — arises with very serious violations which reflect on one’s integrity. Some research argues that when an apology reveals a defect in character, that person might be better off denying — or saying nothing — than acknowledging the real problem.”

Lerner agrees: there are times to remain mum.

“It is not useful to apologize to someone who truly does not want to hear another word from you,” Lerner says. “In those cases, it’s intrusive to offer an apology, whether by voice, email, text, flowers or carrier pigeon.”

In that same vein, Lerner says, “It is unimaginable to me that the victims of abuse want the offender to show up at their door and make a personal apology. They (the victims) just want that person to go away — and in some cases — to jail.” u This article originally appeared online in the Houston Chronicle’s Gray Matters blog.

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Best in Class: How Executive Education equips leaders to face todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s challenges

36 RICE BUSINESS

W

hat if you could take some time to think deeply about a challenge you face at work?

What if you had the chance to learn new strategies and evidence-based solutions?

Would you do it?

Associate Dean Michael Koenig sees alumni as “partners, who can dig deep in co-designing and consulting to solve their organization’s specific needs. We want our alumni and their organizations to work with us and experience measurable outcomes.”

The Executive Education courses at Rice Business are designed to give professionals the time, space, and support to do just that, enhancing their ability to tackle new issues and preparing them to overcome obstacles along the way.

“In its broadest sense, I think our programs can serve as a sabbatical for people,” says Professor Brent Smith, senior associate dean of Executive Education. “The opportunity to take a few days — or maybe a few weeks — away from the day-to-day work schedule and reflect in ways that most people can’t with their normal responsibilities and duties. This sabbatical is an opportunity to really think about new and different ideas and how they apply to work.

It’s an opportunity to stretch their minds a bit, which is a powerful and unique tool we can provide.”

So, what could a problemsolving sabbatical mean for alumni? We asked the leaders of our Executive Education program, who offered this collective wisdom: Alumni are partners, leaders and ambassadors.

Associate Dean Michael Koenig sees alumni as “partners, who can dig deep in co-designing and consulting to solve their organization’s specific needs. We want our alumni and their organizations to work with us and experience measurable outcomes.”

The pace of change in the business world today calls for trusted partnerships, and Rice

37

Business Executive Education offers the best opportunity to bring together professors with cutting-edge research and peers from leading organizations to produce fruitful collaborations.

Leaders and managers take responsibility for shaping their own development and their teams’. New courses, like Leading Creativity and Innovation, help them do that. In the classroom, participants from different industries and backgrounds connect and “deepen their pool of resources,” says Director Sheree Ahart. “They strengthen their resiliency to stave off burnout or mitigate career derailment, and often develop a more meaningful relationship to their work.”

The best endorsements come from those who have personally experienced and benefitted from a Rice Business education. “As ambassadors,” says Marketing Director Vanessa Sobers, “alumni are the bridge between Rice and their community, however that community is defined – their teams, organization or network.” They are the examples of the innovative work taking place every day on campus.

Leaders are increasingly expected to quickly adapt to changing technologies, trends and economic forces — and Executive Education is adapting just as quickly to help make them more nimble and better equipped to face these challenges head on.

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5 REASONS TO TAKE EXECUTIVE EDUCATION COURSES

1

Investment in self-improvement

2

Collaborate with best-in-class faculty

3

Solve complex problems creatively

4

Learn in a flexible time frame

5

Expand your network

Photo opposite: Executive Education leadership Standing: Michael Koenig, Associate Dean for Innovation Initiatives and Executive Director; Vanessa Sobers, Director of Marketing Communications Seated: Sheree Ahart, Ph.D., Director; Brent Smith, Ph.D., Senior Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Management and Psychology

HIRING

MY BRILLIANT CAREER

Overqualified Workers Can Offer Employers An Edge • Past research warned against hiring overqualified workers.

• In fact, slightly-to-moderately overqualified workers are more likely to be valuable and to reimagine their duties in ways that advance their institutions.

• To capture this advantage, employers need to give workers a strong sense of connection with the company, and the flexibility to expand their vision of their jobs.

You’re a rocket scientist. You’ve worked for NASA. You won a Nobel Prize. Shouldn’t your qualifications give you an edge on a job at the local soap factory?

According to typical hiring practice, the answer is no.

You might not even get an interview for a job sweeping the floor. That’s because, for years, research has warned that hiring applicants with too much experience or too many skills will saddle you with employees who don’t appreciate their jobs.

Now there’s good news for rocket scientists and others who happen to be overqualified for their work. According to a groundbreaking new study coauthored by Rice Business professor Jing Zhou, workers who are slightly to moderately overqualified are actually more likely to be active and creative contributors to their workplace. As a result, they’re more likely to be assets. The study adds to a new body of research about the advantages of an overqualified workforce.

Zhou’s findings have widespread implications. Worldwide, almost half of the people who work for a living report that they are overqualified for their jobs. That means Zhou’s research, conducted with Bilian Lin and Kenneth Law of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, applies to a vast segment of the labor market.

38 RICE BUSINESS

To reach its conclusions, Zhou’s team launched two separate studies in China. The first looked at six different schools with a total of 327 teachers and 85 supervisors. The second analyzed an electronic equipment factory with 297 technicians. Both studies revealed a strong link between perceived slight and moderate overqualification and the frequency of “task crafting,” that is, expanding the parameters of the work in more innovative and productive ways.

In the school study, teachers who were slightly to moderately overqualified set up new online networks with students and parents. They also rearranged classrooms in ways that made students more engaged and productive.

Meanwhile, in the factory, workers took tests to gauge their abilities in complex tasks designing a ship. The ones who were slightly to moderately overqualified built more complex versions that reflected their superior competencies.

The key to both sets of workers’ superiority was their impulse to “job craft.” Every worker leaves a personal imprint: meeting the bare minimum of criteria, pushing to exceed expectations, innovating or imagining new or more useful ways of getting the job done. Expert “job crafters” turn this impulse into an art. Some redraw their task boundaries or change the number of tasks they take on.

Others reconfigure their work materials or redefine their 39

jobs altogether. Still others rearrange their work spaces and reimagine their work procedures in ways that can catapult their productivity upward.

For overqualified workers, Zhou’s team found, task crafting is a psychological coping mechanism – a welcome one. Workers want to show their superiors the true level of their skills. Doing so fortifies their self-esteem and intensifies their bonds with the company they work for. Far from being dissatisfied, these overqualified workers are more productive, keen to help their organizations and interested in finding ways to be proud of their work.

So how did the outlook on such workers go from shadowy to brilliant? Past research, it turns out, focused rigidly on the fit between worker experience and a task.

It didn’t consider the nuanced human motivations that go into working, nor the full range of creativity or flexibility possible in getting a job done.

Thus, older studies cautioned that overqualified workers are likely to feel deprived and resentful. Zhou’s research shows the opposite: a statistical correlation between worker overqualification and high job performance.

Organizations do need to do their part for this alchemy to work. Above all, Zhou writes, it’s crucial to build a strong bond between worker and institution.

This is because workers who identify strongly with their workplace feel more confident that their job-crafting efforts will be well received; those who don’t feel this strong bond often feel mistreated and give up the project of crafting their work.

Similarly, companies also need to grant workers flexibility to expand the scope or improve the process of their jobs. The outcome can be the evolution of the entire business in unexpected and often creative ways.

Not all super-qualified workers will be inspired to recraft their tasks. When the gulf between skills and task is extreme, Zhou writes, workers are bored and job crafting loses its juice as an incentive. For more moderately overqualified employees, however, their expertise should rocket their CVs to the top of the stack. For seasoned workers, the evidence shows, a job is not just a job. It’s an adventure in finding ways to be excellent. u

See business.rice.edu/wisdom for more.

Jing Zhou is Houston Endowment Professor of Management and Director for Asian Management Research and Education at Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University.

To learn more, please see: Lin, B., Law, K. S., & Zhou, J. (2017).

Why is underemployment related to creativity and OCB? A task-crafting explanation of the curvilinear moderated relations.

Academy of Management Journal, 60(1), 156-177.

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word watch

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The Language Police What happens when we censor our own words — and the ideas they represent?

By Jennifer Latson

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ou don’t have to ban words to get people to stop using them.

That became evident in December, when reports emerged that White House officials were preventing health researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from using hot-button terms like “diversity” and “science-based.”

This turned out to be a miscommunication — but one that revealed a great deal about the guarded way we’re using language in these polarizing times.

According to the Washington Post’s original story, “The Trump administration [was] prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases… in official documents being prepared for next year’s budget.” (The other five words were “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “evidence-based,” “fetus” and “transgender.”)

The truth was more complicated. The “banned words” were not banned at all; they had been changed by the CDC’s own employees to eliminate triggers that might attract the wrong kind of attention from the administration — and get public health projects cut from the budget. In effect, these seven words weren’t the target of an assault from above but friendly fire from below. By replacing them with euphemisms and abstractions, the health workers revealed

their best guesses — and worst fears — about what would rub their bosses the wrong way.

It’s not the first time vague wording has made its way into government documents, but as an indicator of a larger trend, it’s troubling.

Self-censorship is on the rise in the U.S., according to recent surveys. And it’s a hallmark of institutionalized fear, according to Corey Robin, a professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the author of “Fear: The History of a Political Idea.” We normally associate fear-driven self-censorship with totalitarianism, but it can crop up in democracies as well, Robin explains.

Brutal regimes, of course, plant the seeds of fear especially effectively.

Robin quotes a psychoanalyst who lived through Uruguay’s military dictatorship during the 1970s. “Our own lives became increasingly constricted,” the psychoanalyst said. “The process of self-censorship was incredibly insidious: It wasn’t just that you stopped talking about certain things with other people — you stopped thinking them yourself.

Your internal dialogue just dried up.”

This is the danger of restricting speech: When people avoid discussing taboo topics, ideas themselves begin to disappear.

Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of education and

history at the University of Pennsylvania and author of “The Case for Contention: Teaching Controversial Issues in American Schools,” says there’s a crucial difference between choosing our words thoughtfully to avoid demeaning others and constraining our discussion of controversial topics altogether.

These days, he points out, you hear very few racist slurs on college campuses — and it’s no loss that these words have become unofficially banned. But the fact that we rarely hear an open debate about affirmative action is problematic.

He was surprised to learn that a recent poll showed that 40 percent of professors oppose the consideration of race in college admissions — a stunning revelation because he’d never heard any of his colleagues voice that opinion.

“Obviously it’s because a lot of us are self-censoring,” he said. “And that can’t be good for the university or for affirmative action. I’m in the 60 percent: I support affirmative action. But I understand that it’s difficult to do it well and fairly, and we inhibit our ability to do it well and fairly if we can’t speak freely about it.”

Free speech is, after all, a hallmark of American democracy, broadly protected by the First Amendment.

The Supreme Court has ruled that this protection doesn’t apply to speech that’s likely to cause “imminent lawless action.” But for the most part, using offensive language, including so-called hate speech, is a constitutional right. And the freedom to speak our minds is mostly a good thing, argues Mikki Hebl, a professor of psychology and management at Rice University.

“People should be able

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to speak for actions they believe in. However, I do think there are exceptions, particularly when it is hate speech that is used to terrorize, intimidate, or psychologically harm certain groups of individuals who are protected by laws,” Hebl said. “And there is research that shows that discriminatory speech does psychologically and physically harm individuals.”

So what’s the best way to fight the more hurtful forms of hate speech? Draconian measures are not always the best, Zimmerman believes: They can actually reinforce the beliefs of people who use derogatory, discriminatory language. And such measures can have a ripple effect, stifling speech that isn’t hateful by making certain topics off-limits.

A case study in harsh punishment for hateful speech emerged last April, when Harvard University rescinded admissions offers to 10 incoming freshmen who had posted racist and obscene messages on social media.

“Their behavior was unacceptable, and there should have been consequences,” but revoking their admission was not the best response, Zimmerman argued in an op-ed for the Chronicle of Higher Education.

“My fear was that the penalty would not inhibit the stuff these kids were saying, which should be inhibited, but would inhibit other forms of open public discourse,” he said. “The best reply to bad speech is always more speech, not less.”

Surveys confirm that college students are warier now than ever about voicing an unpopular opinion, but self-censorship isn’t just an issue on college campuses.

The rest of us are increasingly wary, too. A 2017 report by The Cato Institute found that

“ Our own lives became increasingly constricted,” the psychoanalyst said.

“The process of self-censorship was incredibly insidious: It wasn’t just that you stopped talking about certain things with other people — you stopped thinking them yourself. Your internal dialogue just dried up.

”

a majority of Americans — 58 percent — were afraid to share their political beliefs.

Why? It’s partly that political debate has become increasingly polarized. A 2014 study by the Pew Research Center concluded that “Republicans and Democrats are more divided along ideological lines — and partisan antipathy is deeper and more extensive — than at any point in the last two decades” — and that was before the 2016 election. The rhetoric embraced by President Donald Trump has only deepened the divide. “We’re being led by a polarizer in chief,” Zimmerman says. “He didn’t create this situation, but he absolutely built on it.”

But it’s also true that frank public discussion has become increasingly fraught in the digital age.

Another Pew report found that social media users were not only reluctant to express their views online, but had become less likely to share them in face-to-face settings as well. The stakes are higher now if you voice an opinion that a majority finds offensive: social media posts endure forever, are easily shareable and open you up to virulent — and viral — public shaming. And the consequences of online shaming aren’t limited to the digital world, as British journalist Jon Ronson writes in “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed:” people have lost jobs, reputations and relationships over things

they’ve said on social media.

Ronson argues that these consequences are wildly disproportionate to the crime of offensive speech.

So what if you’re a Google employee who believes women are biologically ill-suited for roles in tech and leadership (partly because, as Google computer engineer James Damore wrote in a memo last summer, “women are on average more prone to anxiety”)? Should you be fired for voicing those beliefs?

Zimmerman doesn’t think so. And while the professor says some of Trump’s public comments make his blood boil, he doesn’t punish any of his students for agreeing with the president’s political ideas.

“What I say in my classes is that anyone can agree with Trump on anything — immigration, China, anything — you just can’t act like him,” Zimmerman said. “You can’t vilify anyone who disagrees with you as beneath humanity. You can’t call women ‘pigs.’ You can say whatever you want to about Title IX 41

and how it affects women, but you can’t call them pigs.”

And according to the Cato Institute survey, most Americans tend to agree that you shouldn’t lose your job for holding an offensive belief. While the Google case served as a reminder that the Constitution doesn’t specifically protect free speech in the workplace, there are arguments to be made for allowing employees to voice unpopular views.

For one thing, stifling free expression can also stifle innovation and creative problem-solving, as research

by Rice Business professors Jing Zhou and Jennifer George demonstrates. They found, in a 2001 study, that disgruntled employees (those with “high job dissatisfaction”) came up with some of the most creative, and the most effective, solutions to workplace problems — but only when they also got “perceived organizational support” and useful feedback from coworkers, in the form of a candid exchange of ideas rather than criticism for an unorthodox opinion.

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“We found that when employees experienced job dissatisfaction, it was often because they detected problems. Their dissatisfaction could be channeled into creativity — the employees coming up with new and useful ways to solve the problems they detected — if they were reasonably confident that voicing their dissatisfaction could bring about needed change,” Zhou said.

“Leaders play a key role in boosting this confidence,” she added. “They should seek, encourage and listen to employees’ input, even when (and perhaps especially when) those ideas are different from the views the leaders hold.

Otherwise, the leaders and the organizations ultimately lose, because they don’t get creative ideas and solutions from their employees, talented employees may quit and those who stay will do the minimum.”

In other words, leaders can make it known that dissenting opinions are allowed by, well, allowing them — and better yet, by encouraging candid debate in which employees are able to agree to disagree.

“The most important thing we can do is to try to actually practice free speech, which is different from saying you support it,” says Zimmerman. “Otherwise it’s just an abstraction.” u This article originally appeared online in the Houston Chronicle’s Gray Matters blog.

On the Move Rice Business Celebrates Partnership with the Forté Foundation

By Holly Beretto Kendall Toarmina ‘17 Management Consultant, PwC As a Forté Fellow, Kendall Toarmina felt not only supported, but empowered. “The confidence and skills I gained through being a Forté Fellow, and the contacts I made in the program were so helpful,” she says. The combination of Forté and Rice’s MBA program has helped her find career success.

“I feel I am exactly where I am supposed to be right now.”

Caitlin Crotty ‘17 Senior Consultant, Deloitte “At Rice, you get a strong business foundation,” Caitlin Crotty says. “And as a Forté Fellow, I felt I had a group of women around me encouraging me to be successful.” Today, she focuses on helping clients with supply chain optimization and inventory management.

“I love it,” she says of her career. “It’s a great place with great people and I feel so supported and challenged.”

I

t’s been four years since Rice Business and the Forté Foundation joined forces. During that time, Rice Business has awarded 126 Forté Fellowships and solidified its commitment to supporting women and their journey through the MBA. “I think it goes to the core of the culture at Rice,” says Sue Oldham, executive director for recruiting and admissions. “It’s always been very giving in its nature. It opens doors for people who didn’t even think there was a door to open. The Rice culture has respect for differences and opinions. It’s respect for the unique individual.”

That respectful environment, coupled with academic excellence, makes Rice a natural partner for Forté. The foundation is dedicated to attracting, recruiting, enrolling and graduating more women from MBA programs. Its comprehensive program of networking and mentoring events, conferences, webinars and extensive career development seeks to close the gap between the number of women and men earning MBAs (in 2016, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council, 37 percent of full-time, two-year MBA program applicants were women).

Forté partner schools are a select group of institutions — only about 50 — that foster a culture where women are present in the classroom, as students and faculty; take on leadership in student groups; and go on to complete the program and step into positions at leading firms.

Women who are selected as Forté Fellows receive scholarships and access to Forté’s conferences, events and wide-ranging alumni

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network, all of which are vital to helping women succeed.

For Caitlin Crotty ’17, being a Forté Fellow wasn’t just a chance to meet fellow women MBAs, some of whom would go on to be classmates, it was a chance to see women in business leadership roles. “Forté has such great women speakers and role models at their events. It allowed me to see lots of different pictures of what success as a woman in business looks like,” she says.

“The best part of my job is finding potential in people that they may not see in themselves,” Oldham adds. “And then helping them to be aware of what programs are out there. That’s what I love about Forté, just making women aware that this is available to you. You can get this coaching. You can get this preparation.

You can get an MBA.” Kendall Toarmina ’17 earned her undergraduate degree at Rice and was familiar with the business school. She’d been working in the Jones School when she decided to pursue an MBA, and Rice pointed her to the Forté Foundation, which helped her financially earn her MBA. “It’s so important that we provide more people these kinds of opportunities, without barriers,” she says. “Forté helped me foster relationships and I see the foundation as a resource. It helps women determine what they need, and how to ask for it, which is so necessary in recruiting the next generation of MBAs.” Oldham says that in addition to being excellent educational opportunities, MBAs are a transformative experience, and working with the Forté Foundation for the last four years to ensure that more women are taking part in MBA studies has been a source of pride for the school.

“We value this partnership. We spend every year working together, trying to get the message out there to students. We all have the same cause, making sure as many women as possible have the exposure to MBA programs through a great organization like Forté.” u

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Laurie Stewart Director of School Relations Forté Foundation “We were thrilled when Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business joined Forté as a sponsoring business school in 2014. Since that time, they have been fully engaged as a partner in our mission to launch women into fulfilling, significant careers in business. Rice Business has awarded 126 MBA women Forté Fellowships and Rice MBAs have participated in many Forté programs over the past four years — including the MBA Women’s Leadership Conference and the Financial Services Fast Track. Forté’s corporate partners are excited to meet the talented sstudents from Rice at these events.”

Men As Allies Initiative The Forté Foundation’s Men as Allies Initiative provides a comprehensive tool kit that helps men at Forté sponsor schools understand the unique challenges women face in the MBA classroom and in the business world. It’s a program designed to show how men can support women, and partner with them to increase gender equality. This fall, the Jones School launches its own Men as Allies program.

“Our faculty were first to jump on board – no questions asked,” says Oldham. “Scott Sonenshein, Alan Crane and Kevin Crotty have committed to be part of this, even encouraged us to use their names in recruiting other members to the group. We’ll be adding five or six student leaders, and we’re excited to kick it off.”

around the water cooler

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Class of 1986 Angela Minas, who serves on the Rice Business Council of Overseers, was named to the Weatherford International Board of Directors.

Class of 1990 Robert Foye recently moved with his family from Shanghai, China to Piedmont, California as part of a broader job expansion with Treasury Wine Estates as global chief operating officer.

His family includes Kristianna (undergraduate class of 1991, maiden name Schmitt), their sons Robert (see In Memoriam) and William and their daughters Meredith and Annabel. The job front is looking very positive and he looks forward to continued ties with the Jones School. Last year, they hosted the entire EMBA graduating class to Singapore for a full week immersion on international business.

Class of 1992 Mark McMeans works for Brasada Capital Management in Houston, which was started by alumni from AIM ten years ago. They recently announced a merger with Friedberg Investment Management, a firm with a 38-year record of accomplishment. The combined firm is doing business under the Brasada name Class of 1997 Steven Ebel joined DistributionNOW (DNOW) last year to head up business development for the supply chain services organization. This group provides services aimed at lowering total supply chain costs for energy sector customers by setting up dedicated supply chains for maintenance, repairs and operations (MRO) materials to

reduce expense and working capital while improving service metrics. Steve and his wife Sonja live in Magnolia with their four kids.

Class of 2004 In June 2017, Dan Tinker was promoted to president and CEO of SRS Distribution, a national building products distributor based in Dallas. The company has 205 locations in 41 states and has grown dramatically since its inception in 2008 through 55 acquisitions and 86 new startup locations to current revenues of over $2.5 billion. They are 31percent owned by over 500 employees and 70 percent owned by their private equity sponsor, Berkshire Partners.

Class of 2007 Victoria (Walsh) Cooper is now a financial advisor with Majors & Mondragon in the Houston area.

Class of 2010 Leonardo Esteban was featured in Hispanic Executive Magazine, both for his professional and personal journey and for his role as director of procurement at Veolia. Read the article in its entirety https:// hispanicexecutive.com/2017/ veolia/ Lauren (Grabski) Brooks and her husband, Nathan, welcomed their daughter, Alexandra Leigh, on January 16, 2018.

Class of 2011 John Ofield (Rice ’84, MBA ’11) and Jacky Noons are both entrepreneurs, both Rice grads and both have exciting news to share! They tied the knot on October 5, 2017, exactly

10 years after the day they met.

Around the same time, John added a new company called Collaborative Office Interiors, which complements his existing office furniture company ROSI Inc. The new showroom is in the Greenway Plaza complex and focuses on creating great spaces that attract the millennial workforce. Jacky owns and operates 3 Men Movers.

Lorie Clements launched her own business, Springboard Solutions, to help entrepreneurs get what they want from their business.

Class of 2014 Laura (Spencer) Mott and her husband, Parker, welcomed their first child, Russell Adrian, on December 20, 2017.

Isaias Alonso and family welcomed daughter Leila McKinley Alonso.

Class of 2015 Larry Strader moved from his role at Jacobs and is now the general manager of GeoControl Systems, Inc. With headquarters in Houston, Texas, GeoControl Systems is a certified HUBZone firm providing engineering, technical and logistical services in support of NASA and the Department of Defense. Larry began his new role at GeoControl Systems in January 2018.

Karan Sihota was engaged to Aishwarya Raju on February 10, 2018 in Dallas. They are excited to plan their wedding and even more ecstatic to start this new chapter in their lives.

Laura (Runkel) Messier left Citigroup and is now the vice

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president of MidstreamInvestment Banking at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey in its Energy Group.

Sukh Kaur moved to San Antonio to work for City Education Partners as a portfolio manager overseeing investments.

In Memoriam Robert and Kristianna Foye are very sad to announce that their oldest son Robert, 19, passed away accidentally on January 13 while attending Trinity University in San Antonio.

“He was an amazing person who brought so much love to our family and he will be missed dearly. Thanks so much for everyone’s thoughts and prayers and concerns,” Robert shared. His son’s full obituary can be found in the New York Times on March 12.

A scholarship fund has been founded in his name, and donations can be made through PayPal at: https://www.paypal.me/ RobertLawrenceFoye

Amelia Rai, who graduated in 2009, passed away in December 2016. She was 43. She was preceded in death by her mother, Amy Rai, and was survived by her husband David Rutishauser, daughter Maya, father Edward, brother Edward (Maria), and sister Anthea (Narendar).

Photos: 1. Mark Means (’92) 2. Dan Tinker (’04) 3. Leonardo Esteban (’10) 4. Alexandra Leigh Brooks, daughter of Lauren Brooks (’10) and husband, Nathan 5. John Ofield (Rice ’84, MBA ’11) and Jacky Noons with their marriage certificate 6. Lorie Clements (’11) 7. Leila McKinley Alonso, daughter of Isaias Alonso (’14) 8. Robert Foye (’90) and family

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Special Mention

Ed Coles ’18, Crownover Scholar and new father, shared a snap of sleeping twin baby girls Charlotte and Jenny.

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Associate Dean Michael Koenig and Dean Peter Rodriguez are photobombed by the state capitol before catching a Rice Business alumni event in Austin.

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