Michael Roberto, a professor at Bryant University’s College of Business, recently teamed up with The Great Courses to release “Transformational Leadership: How Leaders Change Teams, Companies and Organizations,” a series of 24 lectures presented in video and audio format.
The lectures draw from his expertise in leadership, managerial decision-making and business strategy to offer an overview of the techniques and tools leaders can use to a lasting impact. Roberto’s research is based on his interviews with leaders in business, politics, sports and the military. He often relies on psychology and sociology, as well as business principles.
A frequent consultant to Fortune 500 companies, Roberto has earned a number of awards from students and peers who appreciate his high-energy, interactive teaching style. While recording his lectures, he was forced to adapt his style to a whole different audience – the camera.
This is the second series Roberto has recorded for The Great Courses. His first, “The Art of Critical Decision-Making,” was released in 2009.
Designed to meet the powerful demand for lifelong learning, The Great Courses is a series of video and audio courses led by top experts and professors from leading colleges and universities.
PBN: Tell us about your involvement with The Great Courses. PBN: Who will be listening to your Great Courses lectures? PBN: Did you find it challenging to teach by speaking to a camera? PBN: From reading some of your online articles and blogs, it looks like you’ve staked out an area where psychology and business intersect. PBN: Is it difficult to get executives to open up during interviews? PBN: Were you able to review any previous research in this area when you were earning your doctorate? PBN: Do managers show any interest in psychology? PBN: Ethics are now a big part of the curriculum at many business schools, including Bryant. Do you discuss ethical issues in your lectures or workshops? PBN: So why did they make risky decisions? INTERVIEW
ROBERTO: They approached me a few years ago. They scour the country, scouting hundreds of professors. … Then they invite you to their studio in Virginia. You do an audition video, and they send that out to a set of loyal customers. If the feedback is positive, they invite you to start producing a course with them. You spend as long as a year developing outlines of these 24 half-hour lectures.
In my own classes, I don’t teach by lecturing. I use the case-study method, where you interact with your students. But you can’t do that in a studio, it’s a completely different format.
ROBERTO: They have an incredibly loyal following. They tend to be highly educated people – Bill Gates, for example, is a huge fan – who just want to learn. They send out a catalog to all their loyal customers, and they advertise in publications like the Wall Street Journal and The Economist.
ROBERTO: When I’m in a classroom, I move – I’m almost running around – and you can’t do that on camera. They want you to move in a limited way.
The studio has three cameras, two that are stable and one moving. You have to be able to recognize which camera is live, and you want to do it naturally, and they want you to do that naturally, and to move. … All I can say is, practice makes perfect.
ROBERTO: A lot of my business theories started with studying how management teams make decisions. To really understand the group dynamics of decision-making, you need psychology. And you really need a little sociology as well. I use anything that will help me understand what I see when I go out to interview managers.
ROBERTO: Sometimes it’s challenging, but I’ve been fortunate. When I ask, most people say yes. People like telling their story. They find value in stepping back and reflecting on what they’ve done.
ROBERTO: The thing my advisers suggested I do was to go out and interview managers, to do case studies.
ROBERTO: I never present it as psychology. I let them know it will help them make better decisions. … If companies want to invest in their people, they ask me to help with leadership-development programs. Usually that means companies will bring their managers together for two, three or four days. The workshop is often a combination of the senior executives talking to them about the business, and then people like me talking to them about how to be better managers.
With the old model, you just sent someone out to get a master’s. That’s changed. Now companies realize you have to work with people throughout their lives.
ROBERTO: I do. I’m not an ethics expert, but it does come up in many of the decisions I’ve studied. I recently wrote an article about the BP oil spill. I used the case study to teach why they made risky decisions, and students raised ethical questions about that.
ROBERTO: It’s a long story, but one lesson I teach through that particular course is that many of the things that are intended to make everything safer actually encourage more risk. For example, every oil rig has something called the blowout preventer. If everything goes wrong, it’s supposed to stop a blow out. The problem is, if everyone knows about this, then they take more risk. The thinking is, if things go wrong, we can take care of everything with this blowout preventer. This is something that happens to all of us: The more comfortable we are, the bigger the risk. •
Michael Roberto
POSITION: Trustee professor of management at Bryant University in Smithfield, and director of the school’s Center for Program Innovation
BACKGROUND: Before joining the faculty at Bryant, Roberto held finance positions with General Dynamics and Staples. He has also taught at Harvard School of Business and is a frequent consultant to Fortune 500 companies.
EDUCATION: Graduated from Harvard with a degree in economics in 1991. He then earned a master’s and a doctorate in business administration from Harvard School of Business, in 1995 and 2000 respectively.
FIRST JOB: Stocking shelves at Benny’s Market in Essex, Conn.
RESIDENCE: Holliston, Mass.
AGE: 41
