Introduction

I took Managerial Competencies and Effectiveness, a.k.a. Organizational Behavior, from James Hall in Fall 2007, my first quarter in the MBA program. This course is currently required for all non-executive MBA students to take during their first quarter in the program.

Instructor Profile

Professor James Hall is a professor at Santa Clara University and management consultant. He served two multi-year tenures as chair of the Management department, a fact he weaved into his lectures for this course.

Classroom experience

Class sessions were very well balanced between discussions of the current topic and a variety of structured activities. Many of those activities were smaller group discussions about the course readings. There was one role-playing exercise. Some other activities included self-assessments of leadership and conflict resolution styles.

Professor Hall was very good at answering students’ questions thoroughly while keeping the class moving. I got the impression that Professor Hall has broad knowledge of the research grounding the various topics covered in this foundational course. Why? Because many of his answers to student questions were prefaced with something such as, “the research in this area suggests….”

On a Saturday near the end of the quarter all students participated in a day long management simulation exercise, along with students from other MGMT 501 sections.

Coursework, exams, and grades

The course grade was comprised of two in-class written exams and a paper based on the simulation. Professor Hall provided study guides for the exams and was very clear on the grading criteria for the paper.

The grading criteria for the exams were mainly around being able to clearly explain the core concepts of the course or apply them briefly to example situations. In-depth writing or analysis of any particular topic was not required for the exams or the paper.

What I learned

Primarily, I learned a lot about my own work styles and preferences from the class discussions and exercises. I was also grounded in the basic concepts and lingo around organizational behavior.

The effective way that Professor Hall ran the classroom contributed to healthy norms and trust within the class cohort that started forming during this quarter.

Criticisms

I’m not sure if I learned enough from the management simulation exercise to justify the amount of time it took up. That’s about the only negative thing I have to say about this course.

Recommendation

Because this is a required first course, it seems unlikely that someone will find this article before choosing a section for MGMT 501. Based on my experience in this class, I would recommend taking Professor Hall for any course or workshop he teaches.

Trailer

This article was first written in 2008 by Dylan Salisbury for dylansalisbury.com. All rights reserved. I added this paragraph because spam blog sites pick up copies of my blog posts.

For a list of course reviews and a disclaimer, visit my Course Reviews page.