Q} What is the scope of your teaching?
A} I’ve lectured to both undergraduate and graduate classes. The whole idea is to communicate the story of how you can come from very small and humble beginnings, and you can in fact work your way to a very large and meaningful enterprise. The pitfalls and the lessons. How to build teamwork within the framework of the people that are there. The value of employees in the equation. How capital follows successful ideas. And I talk at length about how developing and proving out a concept is infinitely more important than just trying to see if you can get the money to experiment with something.
Q} What is one of your lessons?
A} I speak often of the whole concept of ‘intrapreneurialism’—by which I mean that you can think outside the box and innovate from inside a preordained position at an ongoing company. In fact, you can do your company a tremendous amount of good if you add value disproportionately to the level of expectation in whatever role you occupy.
For example, if you’re a senior financial analyst at a big company, you’re given a role and a series of responsibilities. But if you’re inclined to think outside the framework of what your role covers, you can bring your company to another level of productivity, efficiency, innovation, or outcomes.
Q} Has St. Thomas embraced this idea of intrapreneurialism?
A} The job of the university is to teach the underpinnings: ‘What questions should I ask? What should I know?’ Then the first step out of school is to explore practical applications of those questions. It’s all about learning what you need to know if you were to take the steps to start your own business. You may decide along the way that you don’t want to take these risks, that you can’t develop the financial resources. So you expand your success through others’ success by virtue of making a contribution at your current employer.
Q} Can you teach this mentality?
A} That’s why I distinguish between entrepreneurialism and intrapreneurialism. If they approach their job, their role, with the attitude [that] ‘I can make this better,’ anybody and everybody who challenges themselves to think that way can do it. Now, can everybody start their own business, stand up to the risks involved? Probably not. There’s a lot of people who have the passion, but maybe not the drive or the work ethic. Perhaps they have trouble with the imbalance in life based on what it takes to succeed against large odds. But if you’re already nested in a successful company that has learned over time to do things well, and you can find ways to do it better, the company will appreciate your contribution.
Q} That sounds a little like mentoring.
A} Right now at St. Thomas, there is work underway to engage alumni in mentoring to a higher and greater level—take some of the students and partner up with them. Once every couple of months, you’re sitting down over breakfast and you’re talking about the journey. So, students have someone they can call if they have an issue.
I also feel that faculty—and St. Thomas does as well or better than most universities—needs to stay attached to their students. Let young people make their decisions. But they should be informed decisions. And that information should come from real job experience, from mentors or from faculty members.
Q} Was there a mentor in your life?
A} There was . . . The reason I feel so strongly about this subject is that a man by the name of Zeke Landress helped me. He was an appliance and television chain-store retailer in Virginia who began to spend some of his time with a national trade group. They offered training for members in how to think about and build your business. Zeke’s dynamism and his energy around the business, his passion for the customer, inspired me. Zeke appreciated my zeal for the business, my challenges, the questions I threw to him, and the two of us struck up a relationship that was very engaging. He wasn’t afraid to call a spade a spade while challenging my thinking.
Q} Like Bill Gates, you’re not a college grad. How does it feel to hold a ‘Distinguished Chair’?
A} It feels good from the standpoint that there’s an awful lot to be learned on the ground in real day-to-day applications. The lessons are extraordinarily important, particularly the failings. My impact at the university is in sharing the real experience that one has in building a business. Engaging and empowering people in the mission, making sure that the acknowledgements and rewards are aligned around the outcomes. Much of that isn’t taught in school, so if one can bring the reality of what it takes to build a business, students get a more comprehensive picture of what to expect.
Q} I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you what is your favorite piece of technology.
A} I love the Blackberry. It does more to keep me connected than anything else. It empowers me.
