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Think, Act, Create and Lead. (CI15120)

General information

Type:

OP

Curs:

1

Period:

S semester

ECTS Credits:

3 ECTS

Teaching Staff:

Group Teacher Department Language
Alfons Sauquet Rovira Dirección de Personas y Organización ENG

Prerequisites

The course has no preious prerequisites.

Previous Knowledge

No previous knowledge is needed

Workload distribution



COURSE CONTRIBUTION TO PROGRAM

The course is a leans on previously acquired knowledge but it refines it. Additionally as it is a space for addressing challenging questions of the sort that have no simple or disciplinary answer it contributes to the development of critical thinking and to get a better understanding of the challenges that the actual practice of management has to address. Last, it is an excellent field to understand on the relation between science, research and practice.

Course Learning Objectives


Management is a complex activity that involves several dimensions. It requires stocks of knowledge and its use in specific social and technological contexts. More often than not actual management is based either on folk theories or on very unbalanced vogues to which business schools are not immune either. This course takes a multidisciplinary approach to management and looks at some of the most relevant questions and themes leaning on different sources and genres. Specific research will be shared and discussed but also sources that are inspiring as they convey the questions and themes in a more complex manner. During the course different resources such as research pieces, essays and literature pieces, as well as films will provide discussion threads.
The course is structured over four basic and interconnected processes, Think Act Create and Lead, and it presents itself an open space to reflect and challenge some well-established assumptions over the most basic management activities. Further, the participant will be challenged to develop its own particular frame in regard to the themes presented.
TACL, is a course that aims to develop critical thinking as well as contributing to the refinement of the skills of participants. The course has a numerus clausus due to its interactive nature.

CONTENT

1. Introduction to the Course. Objectives and Structure of the syllabus as well as course requirements.

From Descartes to the Cognitive Revolution.

Prereads.
G.Miller. The Magical number of Seven
J.L. Borges. "Funes the Memorius".
J. Bruner. Acts of Meaning. Chapter 1.
TS. Eliot. The Waste Land.
Luke 24, 13-35

2. Some organizational consequences of our cognition model. Errors in attribution, black swans, and garbage cans in organizations.

A.Smith. Excerpts from of the Wealth of Nations
D. Kahneman. Thinking Fast and Slow. Excerpts.

3. On the many faces of Knowledge: science, engineering, and management.

Pre reads.
Excerpts. D.Defoe, R.Crusoe.
G.Flaubert, Bouvard and Pecuchet.
D.Schon, The Reflective Practitioner.

Pre seen .
W.de Koonig "Woman and bycycle".
V.Van Gogh "Landscape at sunset"
P. Picasso "Demoiselles d'Avignon"

4. Acting. The only remaining formula: Kurt Lewin's. Why we need roles and why we should get rid of them

Pre reads.
K. Weick. Mann Gulch: the collapse of Sense Making
The organization in class exercise

Pre views
The Stanford experiment

5. Learning: privilege or life sentence. The sources experience or Habit.

Pre reads.
E.A: Poe A Descent in the Maelstrom
Case: Elting Morrison. Gunfire at the Sea. MIT Press
Mid term paper


6. Acting on identity. Institutions and decision making

In class exercise. Life stories.

Pre reads.
Excerpts from M.de Cervantes. Don Quixote
G.Garcia Marquez. No one writes to the Colonel

7. The many faces of Creativity. The drive, the task and the system.

Pre reads.
H.Gruber. Darwin, on Man. Chicago U. Press (excerpts)
M.Csiksentmihaly. (excerpts)
Bruno Latour. Reassembling the Social.Oxford U. Press. (excerpts)

8. Leading: the role of rhetoric, fake and chance.

In class discourse analysis.

Pre seen.
The Bad and the Beautiful. V.Minnelli.
Pre reeads.
W.Shakespeare. Henry the Vth, (excerpt)
S. Zweig. Decissive Moments in History: Twelve Miniatures. (World Minute and The battle for the South)

9. Management as We Look ahead.

Pre reads.
Hi Robot. Work and Life in the Age of Automation. Foreign Affairs. July/August 2015.
John Gray. The Soul of a Marionette. Penguin 2016. (excerpts)
Nick Bostrom. Superintelligence. Oxford University Press. 2014. (excerpts)
Francisco, Interview . September 2013. (excerpts)

In class final exercise (exam)


Methodology


Though lectures and formal presentations will be used, those will be present to a very limited extent. The course develops over readings and discussion. Therefore participants are expected to spend a substantial period of time in careful reading as preparation for class. Guiding questions will be provided as an initial frame.

Participation is thus a requirement for course completion.

Assessment criteria

TACL (Think act, create and Lead) is a course that requires active involvement of the participants. Oriented class discussions and other in and out of class-activities constitute a substantial core of the course. Some reading material and videos are a central piece but the most central piece is active involvement of participants. Therefore 80% of the evaluation will be subordinate to that activity. It should be noted that class participation is expected within a set of specific requirements of clarity, maturity and originality.

The remaining 20% will be the result of a home written assignment to be delivered at the end of the course.

Bibliography

There is no text book but each sesión has its corresponding readings.

Timetable and sections

Group Teacher Department
Alfons Sauquet Rovira Dirección de Personas y Organización

Timetable