The Answers are the Good Parts
Posted by bethrobinson on April 18, 2008
I read the case. I came up with a possible solution, essentially the obvious one that the writing and discussion within the case had been leading to. And then I read the experts’ opinions - and found a much better version of the obvious solution, a couple very interesting twists, and an equally important opposing viewpoint.
The temptation to spend $149/year for a magazine subscription and access to online archives of past issues just increased dramatically.
In March and April the Harvard Business Review made the entire content of their current issue available for free online. Previously, only a select few articles were available each month, and not the cases, so I didn’t know how useful they were in this format
We’ve only done a little bit of case work in my MBA program, at least through the first five classes. The action of working through the case in groups is supposed to be at the heart of the experience, and it definitely was an effective learning tool.
But as a team, we didn’t come up with the wide variety of answers that are shown in the Harvard Business Review. And the “best responses” that the teacher shared with the entire class tended to all take very similar approaches to the problem, ones which matched what we had already come up with. That may change as we move forward into the second year.
I hope so.
Examining the potential solutions offered by executives and leaders in the areas discussed in the case was very illuminating, showing me points that I missed, and how reasonable the different options could all sound. Some solutions required industry knowledge I didn’t have, but I could have asked questions that pointed in those directions, if I had thought of them. Having the answers helped me understand new ways to approach the question.
