THE GAIL PALMER ASHTON GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS:

THE BALANCED SCORECARD INITIATIVE

"Are we as distinctive and as good as our literature says we are? I'm not so sure," half-
jokingly mused Jack Watkins, dean of the Gail Palmer Ashton Graduate School of
Business, to his long-time faculty colleague Jane Martino. "We need to be honest with
ourselves. Maybe we are still singing the same song of our founders, but the tune has
changed and it is no longer just us singing it!"
"The rankings consistently place Ashton in the top 20. I think that is pretty definitive
evidence of the good thing we have going here," countered Martino.

Watkins confided in his close friend. "True," he said, "We all know those rankings are
important. I feel, though, like I am trying to lead a school that is running flat out on a variety of
dimensions without really knowing how well we are doing on most of the dimensions of
our mission that we say are important. As I interact with my counterparts around the country,
and the globe for that matter, the differences in terms of what we do and how well we do it
between Ashton and their schools seem minimal. We use fewer real case studies and less
case method teaching than we once did, while the others are using more. We offer
students overseas experiences, they do, too. We have numerous student clubs, they do, too.
We compete in the market for the same faculty, the same corporate recruiters, and the same
business press coverage. Moreover, our faculty writes more academic articles now than we
once did, but they are out in businesses less. Students are satisfied with Ashton, but it is not clear
they are learning as much as employers would like. Applicants' GMAT scores are up, but
classroom intensity is down."
"Do you firmly believe in the four strategic goals you enumerated for Ashton when
you were appointed dean?" asked Martino.
"Yes, I do," replied Watkins. "I just wish I had a better handle on how we are
really doing on some of those dimensions. Jane, I have to admit, I was a bit stunned when I
took office at the volume of performance metrics the administration had and how few of
them were truly Ashton-centric. We need a few key performance metrics that really fit our
environment and mission."
The Ashton School
The Gail Palmer Ashton Graduate School of Business was mid-sized relative to its
avowed peer group. Founded in the early 1960s, the school had quickly become regionally
known for its rigorous two-year MBA course of study, real-world business applications, and a
faculty closely connected with contemporary businesses. Students did not always enjoy the
demanding Ashton curriculum or the long hours of study that went with it, but within a
couple years of graduating, they were believers. They regularly shared their positive
perspectives with all who asked. The companies that hired Ashton graduates in those early
days felt the school was an unheralded gemthe Ashton graduates frequently outperformed
other hires from more prestigious institutions.
Over the years, the school had changed some of its curriculum, emphasized the writing of
academic articles, and ramped up its successful short-course executive education programs to
include open enrollment as well as single-company custom programs. All of this while trying to
continue to do well what had made it different and distinct in the first place. With the advent
of the business press rankings that surfaced in the 1980s, the Ashton community was quite
pleased to find itself ranked in the top-20 MBA schools in the United States. Such a taste of
success, along with the public buzz created by the rankings, naturally caught the eye of
some very important constituenciesalumni, corporate recruiters, and prospective students.
It didn't take too many years for the school's most recent ranking to become the shorthand
descriptor of its overall performance, and its targeted ranking to become shorthand for its
strategic goal. And, as Watkins had often asserted during his corporate days,to his departmental
managers, "What gets measured and reported, is what gets done." Thus, it wasn't surprising
that prior administrations had quite naturally channeled resources to the rankings' factors. In
some faculty minds, however, the rankings were important, but not to the detriment of what
were unique and special about the school. Some felt the pendulum had swung too far toward
paying homage to the rankings to the exclusion of what Ashton had stood for and what the
founding faculty had believed in.
Ashton's four strategic goals
When Watkins was named one of three finalists for the vacant position of dean, he was
thrilled. After a successful entrepreneurial career, he wanted to return to his alma mater and in a
fashion, give back to the school that had meant so much to his success. He prepared
thoroughly for his final round of interviewsinterviews that spanned the constituency gamut
from the university president to students in their first year at the school. He had found those
conversations energizing, and he had been pleased to hear people speak of Ashton in many of
the same terms he remembered when he was a student there.
Upon being named the dean, he set out to accomplish his overarching objective. He
wanted to improve the school in meaningful ways, while preserving the best of what made
it a truly distinctive place for faculty and students. Within a month of taking office, he had
fine-tuned that overall objective into four strategic goals:
To have the world's best teaching faculty known for case method and experiential
learning;
To have the world's best graduate business education programs (MBA and short-
course executive education programs) for developing results-oriented leaders with a
general management perspective;
To have an alumni network unmatched for its effectiveness and integration in the
life of the school; and
To garner international recognition for shaping management practice and business
education through managerially relevant research and curriculum materials.'

The balanced scorecard initiative
Watkins knew it was important to develop a set of performance metrics to
accompany these goals. He needed focused data in order to know how the school was
really doing along those dimensions, and to figure out how he could steer the school's
endeavors toward ever-better levels of performance in those arenas. The school did have its
own legacy system of benchmarks along with some selectively shared data through a
consortium of schools to which Ashton belonged. Watkins decided that he wanted fresh,
unfettered thinking applied to the creation of a set of performance metrics. Such a fresh
undertaking would provide him with the best possible perspective, one not anchored to what
had been in place. He decided to create an ad hoc task force to undertake the project. He
aired the idea with a few internal Ashton confidants and found unanimous support for the
undertaking.
Watkins decided to ask a senior member of the marketing faculty, Joel Riley, to head
up the project. Riley said yes under one conditionhe could select the other members of the
task force. Watkins did not object, and Riley was given the green light and six months to
submit a report.
Riley wasted no time. He wanted all senior faculty colleagues on the task force,
because of their seasoned perspectives. He did not want any professional administrators, as he
felt their expertise, although important to the running of the school, was not rooted in the
educational mission of the school. He scribbled the other task force criteria he wanted on a
piece of paper. They were:
Keep the task force size small;
Members should possess both a strong research and a strong teaching
perspective;
Task force should have some career Ashton faculty members and others
who had spent some of their career elsewhere;
One or two of the members should have had some significant school
program responsibilities;
At least one member should have significant international experience;
Members should be drawn from the qualitative and the quantitative
curriculum fields; and
Task force should have a strategy expert.

As Riley reflected on those criteria, he felt certain he had chosen well. And, although the
number of criteria portended a violation of the "small-size" criteria, he was certain he
could meet all of them. Indeed, within a week of being appointed to lead the task force,
Riley had his team. The team, which included three other faculty members, consisted of:
Sara Benson
Professor of Strategy
Previous MBA Program Committee chair
Stellar teacher in both MBA and executive education programs Active business
consultant in United States and overseas Author of numerous business practitioner
articles
All 20 years of her academic career at Ashton
John Heinsohn
Professor of Organizational Behavior
All 30 years of his academic career at Ashton
Well respected amongst his colleagues
Prolific case writer and author of two business trade books excellent teacher and known
for his genuine concern for students
Prior faculty chair of the Academic Standards Committee Prior faculty chair of the
Admissions Committee
Wei-Ling Mong
Associate Professor of International Economics
Author of numerous academic research studies
Came to Ashton five years ago after being at another business school for five years
Well regarded in the classroom
Not very involved in executive education programs
Joel Riley (himself)
Professor of Marketing
All 22 years of his academic career at Ashton
Prior faculty chair of the MBA Program Committee
Very active in Ashton's executive education programs
Consistently productive author of practitioner articles as well as books and cases
This was the team. Riley thought the goals looked promising. He managed to schedule
four two-hour meetings of the team over the next five months. Riley had described the
task force's mission for the group as well as highlighting the importance the dean
attached to the undertaking. He also assembled a small binder of articles for the team to
read prior to their first meeting. The articles related to such topics as the balanced
scorecard, implementing strategy, service excellence, and product differentiation. Riley
thought the articles would provide a provocative backdrop for the ensuing discussions.
Prior to the first task force meeting, Riley wanted to ascertain the best way for the task
force to proceed. In the end, he wanted to deliver a report to the dean composed of
implementable metrics pertaining to each of the four strategic goals. The portfolio of
recommended metrics had to collectively capture performance against competitor
schools and against Ashton's own constituent expectations. Riley had to admit to some
momentary thoughts that this undertaking would probably end up being nothing more
than a time sink, generating a report that would merely collect dust in the archives of the
Ashton School. He hoped not, but then again, he had seen that outcome many times
before.