To gain insight into the “future of management,” The Economist recently published a profile of Stanford GSB’s most oversubscribed courses. The findings are fascinating. In a world where ChatGPT and AI are gaining traction, the most popular courses for Stanford GSB students are also the most humane. Students are seeking instruction on how to thrive within the murky and complex world of interpersonal dynamics and organizational politics.
Interpersonal Dynamics, often referenced as “Touchy Feely,” has received the “most popular” accolade annually at GSB for the last 45 years. The class recognizes the role that self-awareness and introspection play in creating strong relationships, which in turn are necessary for success in global and interconnected organizations. The course is typically facilitated in a conversational style within small group sections, and culminates with students sorting themselves into a line based on their influence. The Economist noted their struggle as they seek to balance their perception of their own personal influence with the, occasionally conflicting, views of their classmates.
Another exceedingly popular course asks students to look outward to understand the power dynamics at play around them. The course, The Paths to Power, provides students with a view of inter-organizational power struggles and strategies to thrive within that dynamic. Topics such as likeability, aggression, pushiness, and audaciousness dominate the conversation. According to the instructor, the course is designed to ensure that students have the tools to “never have to leave a position involuntarily.” According to The Economist, students joke that the course is, “designed for the budding Machiavellian.”
Finally, Managing Growing Enterprises is geared towards students who plan to own a business. But, rather than the logistics of scaling a business, the course gears predominantly towards navigating sensitive interpersonal or public relations situations, such as poor employee performance or lay-offs, challenging board interactions, crisis management, journalist interactions, missed revenue forecasts, etc. Students engage with these situations through role-playing exercises followed by feedback, offered by professors and fellow students, which can be highly critical.