Applying to US Universities

Interview with Prof. Nitin Nohria, Dean of Harvard Business School

October 15 2010

Nitin Nohria became the tenth dean of Harvard Business School on 1 July 2010. He previously served as co-chair of the Leadership Initiative, Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Development, and Head of the Organizational Behavior unit.

His intellectual interests center on human motivation, leadership, corporate transformation and accountability, and sustainable economic and human performance. He is co-author or co-editor of 16 books. His most recent, Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice, is a compendium dedicated to advancing research on leadership based on a colloquium he organized during HBS's centennial celebrations. Dean Nohria is also the author of over 50 journal articles, book chapters, cases, working papers, and notes. He has served as an advisor and consultant to several large and small companies in different parts of the world. Dean Nohria has taught courses across Harvard Business School's MBA, Ph.D., and Executive Education programs. He also served as a visiting faculty member at the London Business School in 1996.

Prior to joining the Harvard Business School faculty in July 1988, Dean Nohria received his Ph.D. in Management from the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a B. Tech. in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (which honored him as a Distinguished Alumnus in 2007).

app2us: Dean Nohria, we at app2us.com are honored to get an opportunity to talk to you. Thank you very much for your kind gesture.
Congratulations on taking over as the Dean of Harvard Business School. What innovation can be expected at HBS under your leadership?
Dean Nohria: Harvard Business School was founded in 1908, so we are now at the beginning of our second century. I believe HBS has the opportunity to be a beacon for business education for the next 100 years, just as we have been for the last 100. Working with an extraordinary group of faculty colleagues, students, staff, and alumni, I want to forge a renewed vision of the role of business leaders in the 21st century. This will involve such things as the further use of technology, classroom simulations, and exercises; more two-week "immersion" programs that take our students abroad to a variety of countries, including India, to work intensely on projects with professors; and a variety of other things that are under faculty consideration as I begin my role as Dean. But no matter what we do, be assured that we will focus on teaching both competence and character.

app2us: The US is known worldwide as a country that welcomes talented people; yet the proverbial glass ceiling exists in many spheres. Many see your appointment as an indication that it is possible for first-generation immigrants to achieve anything here. What is your opinion on this?
Dean Nohria: I am very proud to say I was born in India and lived there until I went away to study for my PhD at MIT. Now I am an American citizen and very proud of that as well. One of the things that makes me so proud to be an American is that it is a country that embraces people of all backgrounds, that gives everybody the chance to succeed. I certainly hope that my success at Harvard Business School over more than two decades will serve as in inspiration to other immigrants from India and elsewhere who are willing to work hard to make the most of their talents and the opportunities the United States offers.

app2us: After obtaining your B Tech degree in chemical engineering at IIT Bombay, how did you decide to pursue a PhD in Management and why did you choose MIT?
Dean Nohria: IIT Bombay was an extraordinary experience for me, and I am forever grateful for the education I received there. That said, I realized fairly early that I was not going to be a great chemical engineer. But my father was a very successful businessman in India, and he had a great influence on me as I was growing up. I spent every summer, in fact, working in a variety of different companies. So my upbringing and interests led me to think about business. After I finished my undergraduate engineering degree, I applied to MIT's Sloan School of Management and was accepted. As an IIT grad, MIT was very well known to me. I was originally interested in international finance, but when my advisor left to pursue a Wall Street career, I discovered the fields of organizational behavior and leadership, and they became my intellectual passions.

app2us: How did your formative years in India influence your perspective of management?
Dean Nohria: As I mentioned earlier, my father had a tremendous influence on me as I was growing up. I went on many business trips with him as he was starting manufacturing plants all around India. After a few years had passed, we would go back and visit these sites. The factories were doing well, jobs had been created, communities were thriving. All this came out of almost nothing originally, so I saw firsthand the extraordinary positive impact that business can have on society. This made an indelible impression on me - something that influences my world view to this day. Business must be a force for good in the world. And that's why the work we do at Harvard Business School is so important. We are a school that is very close to practice. We aim to solve real problems and create real opportunities for people to better their lives in the workplace and beyond.

app2us: When is the sequel to your book "In Their Times: The Greatest Business Leaders of the Twentieth Century," expected and which leaders are most likely to be included?
Dean Nohria: I coauthored that book with my colleague Tony Mayo in 2005. It looks at the likes of Sam Walton of Walmart, Walt Disney, and Bill Gates, and introduces the notion of "contextual intelligence" - the ability, as we say in the book, to understand the spirit of the times and harness the opportunities it presents to create successful organizations. The book highlights the importance of the "broader context" in shaping the development of a business. All this is particularly relevant in the current environment, when there are so many forces at work around the world. To answer your question more directly, since I have just taken on a new and time-consuming job as Dean and still want to do some teaching from time to time, I must confess I'm not really sure when my next book will appear. Like so many other people have discovered, there aren't enough hours in the day for all that needs to be done.

app2us: In a recent message at the HBS website, you mentioned, "...as the epicenter of business has become more widely distributed around the world...Harvard Business School has inevitably become more global." In what ways is that going to happen?
Dean Nohria: Over the past two decades, HBS has sought to deepen the faculty's understanding of global management challenges by establishing regional research centers in locations such as Europe, Latin America, India, Japan, and Asia-Pacific. Since they have opened, faculty have written literally hundreds of new cases that reflect the global nature of management challenges today. I hope to help extend this work even further, because I believe that as more and more exciting business ideas are being generated around the globe, our work has to be even more global. We are committed to being the place that people come to in order to learn about the world's most innovative companies, no matter where they're located, and to be exposed to the world's best thinking on management and leadership. Last July, when I had the honor of giving the JRD Tata Memorial Oration in Mumbai, I said I believed that the 21st century would be the Global Century in business. Now more than ever at Harvard Business School, we are preparing our students for leadership roles in that global environment.

app2us: The case method of teaching has survived for almost a century now. Do you think it is time for some new methods to be developed and actively used to keep up with the evolving needs of business education?
Dean Nohria: The case method (certainly as practiced here at Harvard Business School, where it all began in terms of using case studies to teach management and leadership) is a powerful and effective way to teach. Because it is participant centered rather than instructor centered, grounded in reality and practice rather than in theory and abstractions, it provides our students with an extraordinary classroom experience, asking them to be decision makers every day (which is what executives do every day), deal with gray areas (rather than black and white issues can be easily addressed), and make analytical and informed judgments. So we will continue to use the case method as the foundation of our curriculum. That said, as I begin my tenure as Dean, I see my agenda as ushering in a new century of innovation at Harvard Business School. As I've said earlier in this interview, we already offer a number of simulation exercises in our courses, and we will do more of these. We offer a wide array of International Experience Programs that take groups of students to various countries for several weeks, including India, to work on projects that are designed to have a real impact on society. Going forward, I suspect we will add more experiential learning opportunities for our students. But no matter what we do, I want to make sure that we graduate students who throughout their lives are dedicated to the School's mission of educating leaders who make a difference in the world.

app2us: Dean Nohria, thank you for your insightful answers, we hope this helps and inspires many students. We wish you great success as the Dean of HBS.
Dean Nohria: Thank you.

We, at app2us.com, acknowledge the help of Mr. Jim Aisner, Director of Media Relations at Harvard Business School for his help with the interview process.