A Personal Strategic Analysis Project for Jesuit Business School Students

Philip W. Glasgo Department of Finance Xavier University 3800 Victory Parkway Cincinnati, OH 45207-5162 (513) 745-3595 glasgo@xavier.edu

A Personal Strategic Analysis Project for Jesuit Business School Students

About a decade ago the authors university deleted a strategic management(or Business Policy) class from the required undergraduate curriculum. This was done at least partly due to a general unhappiness with students performance in the class and a widely-held belief that since 21-year olds would probably not be making strategic decisions for many years, the significance of the class was probably not apparent to them.

In place of the Strategic Management class, one required course in each discipline was designated as the Capstone class for that major and professors teaching it agreed to include a strategic management component. As the primary instructor teaching this class in the Finance Department at a Midwestern Jesuit university, the author was a part of this process.

Although the author had previously taught the Strategic Management class at the graduate level, it proved quite a challenge to select material that was relevant for the undergraduate students and even more of a challenge to maintain student interest in the material. Initially, students were required to choose a local company or a nationally or internationally known company and conduct: an analysis of their mission statement; a SWOT analysis; a five-forces analysis; an analysis of their business portfolio using a Boston Consulting Group(BCG) matrix. Additional company-specific assignments were

given by the instructor based on his knowledge of specific company that each student chose.

issues confronting the

While this exercise met the primary goal of introducing key strategic management concepts to the undergraduate students, the results were, frankly, pretty boring for the instructor to read, and not very well-received by the students, according to their comments in the course evaluation and also in exit surveys.

As a result of attending the Jesuit Business School Conference at Santa Clara in 2001, the instructor decided to try a different approach. Once of the participants there, Fr. Greg Konz(then at John Carroll but now at Marquette), mentioned a Personal

Analysis and Strategic Career Analysis assignment he gave to sophomore and junior management majors. This assignment was modified into a Strategic Management project for the seniors in the capstone class[Appendix 1] Students are required to: conduct a self-analysis including strengths and weaknesses similar to a SWOT develop a personal mission statement including personal, professional, and spiritual aspects(as appropriate) develop a simple business plan for the next five years of their life incorporating personal, professional, and spiritual goals

They are also invited to, on their own, perform additional analysis as suggested by Fr. Konzs original assignment, to investigate specific career options.

At first, students are somewhat reluctant to analyze themselves. However, once they are assured that the project will be graded based on thoroughness and the quality of

the presentation rather than what they say( a few have tested this promise with some pretty bizarre stuff), most of them seem to enjoy the exercise, and often mention it as a rewarding experience in the course evaluation.

Those who have never

taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator(MBTI)

are

encouraged to do it through the Universitys Career Planning and Placement Center. Many of them include discoveries they made about themselves by taking the MBTI in the self-analysis.

Occasionally it has seemed appropriate for the instructor to share his experiences with a similar assignment many years ago in order to assure the students that there is no correct answer to the assignment. In particular, discussion of a personal tragedy in the authors extended family that led to a time of questioning the goodness of or even the existence of a God seems to make the students feel more comfortable discussing their beliefs, lack of belief, or questioning of their spiritual values. The first time the assignment was given, several students were perhaps too thorough in discussing their personal backgrounds. The instructor is not a psychologist, psychiatrist, marriage counselor, or substance abuse counselor, and some of the stories told were probably better kept private, rather than revealed in a paper. Thus, subsequent classes have been told that if there is something they want to talk about, to include it, but if they would rather not, they are free to say there is something very personal that I thought about as a result of this assignment but would prefer not to write down. This option has been invoked by at least one student almost every semester.

Several student papers will be available for inspection(with names removed, of course) at the CJBE conference. The real purposes of the assignment are to help the

student develop some understanding of Strategic Management concepts while doing some introspection and personal analysis. Hence, the instructors critique of the paper is intentionally supportive and positive. But several common threads exist: a majority of the papers fail to recognize any weaknesses beyond superficial things(They are told: If you dont think you have any, you just identified one) Being Happy is usually one of the most important goals a majority of the students are questioning their faith, and the university experience has clearly fostered this development. A number of them feel guilty about this ethical issues and doing the right thing are important to the vast majority of the students. Since ethics was not even mentioned in the assignment(although ethical issues are discussed in class) this seems very genuine most of the students realize the potential tradeoff between being financially successful and having quality of life and are already struggling with this

Appendix 1 Personal Evaluation and Mission Assignment

This assignment is designed to help you perform a strategic analysis of a very important organization: You, Inc. For the rest of your life you will be CEO of You, Inc. Thus, it is important that you have a mission statement, strategic analysis, and business plan for this organization. If you choose to do this assignment, rather than the strategy questions distributed in class, you should perform steps 1,2, and 3 below. The remaining steps go beyond the scope of this assignment, but would be necessary if you were to do a more complete analysis including an analysis of your chosen career in financial analysis, financial services, sales, etc. 1. Self-Analysis (Strengths/Weaknesses) Aspirations Education/Special Training/Certification
Experience

Knowledge/Skills Values Personality Traits Spiritual Needs Family Needs Mobility Job/Position/Company Characteristics Preferences Limitations 2. Develop a Personal Mission Statement. personal, professional, and spiritual life. The best ones include aspects of your

3. Develop a simple business plan for the next five years, but include personal and spiritual goals(as appropriate) along with professional goals. Some of the items on the next page may be helpful in developing your plan, so they are included although they are not a part of this assignment.

Thanks to Dr. Gregory Konz, S.J. , Marquette University, for Parts 1 and 4-7 and for providing the inspiration for this assignment.

Personal Evaluation and Mission Assignmentpage 2 These steps are recommended by Fr. Konz, who developed the assignment as a Personal Analysis and Strategic Career Analysis. I am not asking you to do thisjust giving it to you as an interesting way to follow up the analysis for my class and convert it into a career analysis if you want to. Since I think many of you have already done some of this, I think it is more appropriate for juniors or sophomores than for you. 4. Environmental Analysis (Opportunities/Threats) Occupational Analysis 1. Occupational Options/Outlooks 2. Level of Geographic concentration of Jobs 3. Educational/Knowledge/Skills/Experience Requirements 4. Key Desired Personality Traits 5. Time/Travel Demands 6. Total Compensation (Starting, Average and Ultimate) Industry Analysis (Identify the one of interest) 1. Define Industry SIC code 2. Markets 3. Size: Number of companies and Sales over past five years 4. Major Firms 5. Channels of Distribution 6. Degree of Vertical Integration 7. Analysis of Competitive Forces (strong, moderate, weak) 8. Critical Success Factors 9. Environmental Influences 10. Future Prospects (growth, decline, stagnation, et cetera) Company Analysis (Select one or two of interest) 1. Reason for Selection 2. Brief Description of Ethical Standards/History/Culture 3. Human Resource Policies/Practices/Upward Mobility 4. Relative Compensation 5. SWOT Analysis 6. Long Term Strategies 7. Future Prospects

Personal Evaluation and Mission Assignmentpage 3 5. Career Strategy Analysis/Choice Identify Your Long-Term Objectives Career Options Available 1. Identify the strategic options that are opportunities of which you wish to take advantage (occupation, industry, specific business or firm, job, et cetera) 2. Identify the options that will allow you to avoid environmental threats 3. Provide the pros/cons of each strategic option in terms of the information identified in your Self-Analysis and Environmental Analysis Career Strategy Choice (explain rationale for choice thoroughly) 6. Implementation Identify and prioritize self-improvement, skill development and other tasks/activities Categorize the above in terms of time frame (short, intermediate, or longterm) Identify all means that you plan to use to build on your strengths and to reduce your weaknesses 7. Evaluation/Control Explain how you plan to monitor your progress toward your long-term objectives Indicate any contingency plans