Stanford GSB Emerge

Session 1

S. Christian Wheeler is the StrataCom Professor of Management and Professor of Marketing at Stanford University where he teaches courses on Marketing Management and Research Methodology. He received his BA from the University of Northern Iowa before moving to Ohio State, where he completed his MA and Ph.D. His research has been published in top marketing, organizational behavior, and psychology journals. He is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Marketing Research, and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Rapid Bonding

We know that for teams engaged in creative tasks, the work improves when individuals feel a bond with each other. And as a social species, we have several channels through which to connect to each other. By exploiting those channels, we can hack the human bonding systems. Through dynamic exercises, this session will help you practice concepts to help you express your authentic self, courageously take risks, and work collaboratively with others. This high-energy interactive opening icebreaker session explores the many ways we connect and offers many opportunities to do so.

Brian Lowery is the Walter Kenneth Kilpatrick Professor of Organizational Behavior. He received his doctorate in social psychology from UCLA in 2001, and has been on the faculty at Stanford since 2002. At Stanford GSB, Professor Lowery is currently driving an initiative, Leadership for Society, to support the development of leaders for a diverse society. He was also recently named founding co-director of Stanford’s new Institute on Race. The mission of the institute is to “Produce cutting-edge research and solutions to realize racial justice.”

Through his research published in major scholarly journals such as the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and Law and Human Behavior, examine the consequences of the reality that others shape our selves and we shape theirs. Brian shares how issues ranging from the nature of racial, gender, and other social identities to an understanding of how others help us generate meaning in life. Learn how the social creation of “you” is rooted in relationships with other people.

Brian is the author of a bestselling book, Selfless.

Finding Your Self in Community

There’s nothing we spend more time with, but understand less, than ourselves. You’ve been with yourself every waking moment of your life. But who—or, rather, what—are you? The radical idea that the “self” as we know it—that “voice in your head”—is a social construct, created in our relationships and social interactions. We are unique because our individual pattern of relationships is unique. We change because our relationships change. Your self isn’t just you, it’s all around you.
Hear about this research-driven perspective of selfhood to explore questions of inequity, race, gender, politics, and power structures, transforming our perceptions of how the world is and how it could be. This theory offers insight into how powerful people manage their environment in sophisticated, often unconscious, ways to maintain the status quo; explains our competing drives for deep social connection and personal freedom; and answers profound, personal questions such as: Why has my sense of self-evolved over time? Why do I sometimes stop short of changes that I want to make in life?

Session 3

Lori Mackenzie is lead strategist for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Stanford Graduate School of Business and co-founder of the new Stanford VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab, offering her a unique view at the intersection of the two organizations. Under her leadership, the lab launched a corporate affiliates program in 2014 — a learning community of more than 55 corporations, government agencies, and thought leaders working together for change. It is now the second-largest affiliates program on the Stanford campus. 

Small Wins, Lasting Change

Our culture often encourages us to “go big or go home,” but this can lead to unrealistic expectations or leave us unsure of how to even get started in effecting change. Lori has pioneered, with her colleagues, the concept of “small wins,” or taking bold, yet doable actions that lead to larger changes for your team and organization. Join us to hear more about how Lori thinks about the “small wins” approach and how she’s used this effectively to foster more diverse and inclusive practices.

Session 4

Sarah Soule is the Morgridge Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business and senior associate dean for academic affairs. Her major areas of interest are organizational theory, social movements, and political sociology. She has written two books, the first with Cambridge University Press, entitled Contention and Corporate Social Responsibility, and the second with Norton, called A Primer on Social Movements. She is a member of the founding team of Sociological Science and serves on the editorial boards of Stanford University Press and Cambridge University Press. Her recent research has been published in the American Journal of Sociology, Annual Review of Sociology, American Sociological Review, and the Administrative Science Quarterly. She has served on a number of boards of nonprofit organizations and is currently a member of the board of advisors to the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (the Stanford d.school), and the international advisory board to the president of the Stockholm School of Economics.

Fostering Collaboration and Exchange

Most leaders agree that developing a “collaborative culture” is key to achieving long-term success. During this session, we will identify some of the most troubling and persistent barriers to collaboration, relying on several exemplary cases to anchor our discussion. In addition, we will complete a powerful in-class exercise, which sheds light on the dynamics of collaboration and calls attention to one primary impediment to building a collaborative culture. We conclude by highlighting multiple strategies for senior leaders to foster collaboration in their work units, drawing on examples from leading businesses in several different industries.

Panel Discussion

• Moderator - Tiffany Teng, MSx 2019 - Executive Director, Product Lead - JP Morgan Chase
• Ana Leyva, MBA 2020 - CEO of Lelu
• Maurice Brewster, Stanford’s Black Leader Program - Founder and CEO - Mosaic Global Transportation
• Ricardo Segovia, Stanford LEAD - Google Global Security Risk Operations
• Dan Miller, Stanford Executive Program, Spora Health - Founder and CEO