« Why We're Having Fun | Using the IS Class for Competitive Advantage -- Vicariously ? »
November 10, 2005
Flourishing Football at USC
In case you're not a football fan, the University of Southern California is ranked number 1 in the nation and is attempting to do something no team has ever done: win a third consecutive national championship. Now, for those of you who find football a brutal exercise of gratuitous violence perpetrated on college campus budgets for the sole purpose of providing a vicarious outlet for over-testosteroned males, what does that have to do with teaching MIS?
The coach: Pete Carroll. I found him fascinating even before I learned in the Fall issue of USC's business schools Marshall Magazine (full disclosure: I'm an SC alumnus -- I get the magazine from the b-school along with the donation request envelope and a personal note that Dean Gupta sends to me and 7,499 other of his closest friends). Anyway, I learned on page 7 that Pete Carroll wrote his Master's thesis on Abraham Maslow (remember Maslow's hierarchy?) and self-actualization. It turns out Maslow's work has been carried on in the field of psychology under the rubric Positive Psychology. And, even closer to home, the principles of positive psychology are applied to organizations by a group that is based at the University of Michigan called the Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship.
All of which was news to me, but what I've read and learned so far I like -- a lot! (Recommended readings here.)
Posted by DavidK at November 10, 2005 07:08 PM | Permalink