Syllabus

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session

Course Objectives

1. To provide an understanding of the human and organizational contexts in which you will be working and the skills you will need to be productive and successful as you enter the world of work and throughout your career.
2. To explore how to put the scientific, technical and organizational knowledge learned at MIT to work in addressing the major challenges facing management and organizations today.

We use interactive exercises, simulations, cases, and student projects to examine these issues and to develop critical skills in teamwork, negotiations, communications, and leadership.

This course is part of both the Sloan School's Minor in Management and the Gordon Engineering Leadership Program. The concepts and tools introduced here will be further applied in the Gordon Engineering Leadership Laboratory and provide the foundation for learning for the optional fieldwork component of the Management Minor.

"Crisis is the mother of invention" or so the saying goes….The global economic crisis, the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the earthquake in Haiti, and other perhaps less visible crises are testing the abilities of organizations and leaders to mobilize their organizations to respond. Events like these provide an open window to look at how organizations and leaders adapt under pressure. We will use these crises and the organizational changes they are inducing as "teachable moments" both in class discussions and in your individual and team papers. Specifically, we will draw heavily on the changes already implemented and plans for the future that organizations (including MIT) are considering in response to these different crises.

Deliverables and Grading