1. The Light Doctrine, or, ‘It’s the Case Method, Stupid!’
‘At the end of the day, it’s all about committed faculty and engaged students
who learn from each other – and a learning process, not a teaching process, that
transforms students.’
- Dean Jay O. Light, Harvard Business School
INTRODUCTION
James Carville, who was in charge of the Clinton campaign, understood as early
as 1992 that Bill Clinton was not only an articulate speaker, but could hold forth
on any number of policy issues that are invoked during a presidential campaign.
Clinton and his associates were after all to make the idea of a ‘policy wonk’
crucial in American politics.
But Clinton’s key strengths had to be marshaled effectively in 1992 (given the
imminent danger that the campaign could develop huge ‘centrifugal’ forces by
trying to address too many contentious issues).
James Carville, according to not only political commentators but also leadership
experts like Warren Bennis, decided that enough was enough. It was important
to get candidate Clinton to focus on what really mattered and not lose himself in
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2. a myriad set of policy issues. James Carville’s strategy to get Bill Clinton to focus
was simple to the point of being simplistic, but elegant enough to win the
campaign.
Every time Bill decided to hold forth on some intellectually ‘riveting’ issue or the
other, Carville would put a stop to it by simply reminding the candidate: ‘It’s the
economy, stupid!’ Bill took the ‘cue,’ more often than not, without allowing
himself to get upset.
Whether this alone was enough to win the election or not is hard to say. But there
is no case study of the Clinton campaign that fails to recognize the importance of
this approach to winning the election.
There is even a celebrated chapter by Bennis in his book that recognizes the role
played by the ‘indefatigable’ James Carville for his timely contribution to Bill
Clinton’s successful campaign in 1992 which got Bill to focus on the economy to
the exclusion of needless concerns that might have distracted him (Bennis and
Biederman, 1998).
James Carville
The notion of ‘focus’ has also become fairly well-known in contemporary
management theory, but not commonplace enough in the practice of
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3. management; hence the need for interventions like this essay. What then is the
equivalent of Carville’s advice in the context of a business school for those who
aspire to be effective decision makers? The answer could well be the pedagogical
refrain from Jay Light: ‘It is the case method, stupid!’
APPLYING KNOWLEDGE TO KNOWLEDGE
What is it about the case method that we must focus on? Or, to put it simply, case
method as ‘opposed’ to what? I have already addressed this question elsewhere
through a compare-and-contrast strategy where the other method is the lecture
method (Srinivasan, 2005; Srinivasan, 2015a; Srinivasan, 2015b). I will therefore
try something more challenging this time.
The Light Doctrine, if we can all it that, demands a lot more from the case
method than a simplistic sense of superiority over the lecture method. What it
demands is that the case method be reflexively applied to itself in a manner that is
analogous to a demand that Peter Drucker makes elsewhere in the context of the
knowledge economy (Srinivasan, 2010).
Peter Drucker
Drucker’s contention there is that it will not suffice to merely ‘produce’ or
‘imbibe’ knowledge, since everyone has understood the need to do that much.
From now on, if knowledge is to be a source of ‘competitive advantage’ for firms,
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4. it will have to be accompanied by two important modalities: a theory of ‘learning
to learn’ and the willingness to apply knowledge not so much to situations, but to
knowledge itself (Drucker, 2010). This is easier said than done but it explains the
difference between case-based teaching where students are asked to apply
knowledge to situations and case-based research where knowledge is applied to
knowledge to generate new forms of knowledge.
In other words, applying knowledge to situations like we encourage students to
do in a business school is but a mere threshold requirement for entry into the
knowledge economy. What is needed going forward is the set of modalities that
will make it possible to apply ‘knowledge to knowledge.’
The Light Doctrine then is to management education what the Drucker Doctrine
is to the knowledge economy. But what does it mean to apply the case method to itself
as a form of critical reflection? This incidentally is the question that was posed by a
number of speakers interested in the theory and practice of management
education during the centennial summit of the Harvard Business School in
October 2008.
David Garvin
The results of the studies that had been undertaken to track emerging trends in
management education then seems to be that the case method is here to stay for
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5. the foreseeable future (Garvin and Datar, 2008; Datar et al, 2010), but that does
not mean that it should be used only in a mechanical way to merely makes
classes more interesting; there is a lot more at stake in the case method.
DIFFERENCE FOR THE WORLD
The success of the case method depends on being able to successfully negotiate
its intellectual debts and dependencies in the context of its deployment in other
professional schools at Harvard and elsewhere as a whole rather than in the
specific realm of management education.
That is because the ultimate goal of the Harvard Business School as President
Drew Faust put it in the Centennial Summit ‘must not just be to educate leaders
who make a difference in the world, but to shape leaders who make a difference
for the world’ (Faust, 2008).
President Drew Faust
The case method then must be willing to come to terms with the fact that it is not
the exclusive preserve of management education, but an approach to the process
of learning and learning-to-learn in the context of professional education as such
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6. even though what is meant by the case method may have important differences
with other schools.
Ratan Tata at Harvard
The vibrancy of the case method and the attractiveness of the HBS model then
can be demonstrated by the fact that ‘from 1920 to 1947, almost 19,000 cases were
written. From 1945 to 1960, HBS helped to establish 20 business schools around
the world, promulgating the case method’ (McFarlan, 2008).
THE MAGIC OF THE METHOD
So while the Light Doctrine might have been articulated in the context of the
specific needs and demands of HBS, it is not necessarily reducible to that
institution. The magic, if any, in the doctrine has to do with the fact that while it
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7. might have been invented at the Harvard Law School, it is applicable in a range
of professional schools at Harvard and elsewhere (Garvin, 2003).
The success of the method depends on the willingness of the instructor and the
case discussants to not merely question the situations that a case analysis throws
up for analysis, but analyze the relationship between the questions that are being
asked and the manner in which the case method goes about asking these
questions lest the method be reducible to that of a vocational program.
We have to work out the modalities necessary then to ask questions about the
process of asking questions rather than merely ask questions about the
situational demands of decision making in a case analysis. This is the difference
between a routine invocation of the case method and a stronger notion of the
Light Doctrine, which focuses on the case method as ‘a form of participatory
learning.’
The goal then in management education should be to go beyond the confines of
vocational programs in the direction of not only training management students
‘to become the leaders of America,’ but to aspire to become global leaders as
well.
Jay Light
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8. Light argues that HBS, in this sense, has tried to be ‘distinctive’ in its offerings in
what is otherwise a crowded marketplace in management education in order to
cater to the demands of upcoming areas such as ‘science-based businesses,’
which will take centre-stage in the years to come.
But, above all, management education must aim to inculcate the following skills,
which include making judgments in ‘complex situations,’ developing
‘entrepreneurial vision,’ ‘communication skills,’ ‘integrity,’ and the courage to
‘make decisions and move forward.’
HBS Classroom
CONCLUSION
These pedagogical goals however are to be pursued within the context of the
case method where there are no easy answers since it is not the theory of
complex situations that is of interest as such in class but in being able to negotiate
such situations effectively. How, if at all, can such a thing be done in the
classroom?
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9. Light is clear on the pedagogical method that is required to address these goals:
‘These leadership skills cannot be instilled through lectures. But they can be
instilled by doing three cases per day, every day, for two years. Putting students
in situations where they are forced to make decisions…helps shape the key
leadership skills that are required for tomorrow’s business leaders’ (Light, 2008).
The case method, then, as Light points out in the epigraph to this short essay,
encapsulates the Light Doctrine; which to reiterate is ‘a learning process, and not
a teaching process.’
That is because in the case method what the students learn is not a specific area
of management, but rather the process of learning-to-learn management.
This is done in the pedagogical hope that it will not only make them decisive
leaders, but that will to learn to lead and decide without acting-out repressed
conflicts in their psyche.
REFERENCES
Bennis, Warren and Biederman, Patricia Ward (1998). ‘Selling a Place Called
Hope,’ Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration (New York: Basic
Books), pp. 87-116.
Datar et al, Srikant M. (2010). Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a
Crossroads (Boston: Harvard Business Press).
Drucker, Peter (2010). ‘Managing Oneself,’ HBR’s 10 Must Reads, On Managing
Yourself (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press), pp. 1-20.
Faust, Drew Gilpin (2008). ‘Harvard and HBS: the Next 100 Years,’ Harvard
Business School, The Centennial Global Business Summit, October 14, 2008,
available at:
http://www.hbs.edu/centennial/businesssummit/past-present-future/harvard-and-hbs-the-
next-100-years-faust.pdf
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10. Garvin, David A. (2003).’Making the Case: Professional Education for the World
of Practice, Harvard Magazine, 106:1, Sept-Oct 2003, pp. 56-65 and p. 107.
Garvin, David A. and Datar, Srikant M. (2008). ‘Business Education in the 21st
Century,’ Harvard Business School, The Centennial Global Business Summit,
October 14, available at:
http://www.hbs.edu/centennial/businesssummit/business-society/business-education-in-the-
21st-century.pdf
Light, Jay O. (2008). ‘Harvard and HBS: the Next 100 Years,’ Harvard Business
School, The Centennial Global Business Summit, October 14, 2008, available at:
http://www.hbs.edu/centennial/businesssummit/past-present-future/harvard-and-hbs-the-
next-100-years-light.pdf
McFarlan, Warren F. (2008). ‘HBS: Past and Present,’ Harvard Business School,
The Centennial Global Business Summit, October 12, 2008, available at:
http://www.hbs.edu/centennial/businesssummit/past-present-future/
Srinivasan, Shiva Kumar (2005). ‘What is the Future of the Case Method in
Management Education in India?’ Vikalpa: The Journal for Decision Makers, 30:4,
pp. 87-131.
Srinivasan, Shiva Kumar (2007). ‘Drucker: On Learning (to learn) Management,’
Vikalpa: the Journal for Decision Makers, 32: 4, pp. 1-12.
Srinivasan, Shiva Kumar (2010). ‘Reflexive Dynamics: On the Uses of the Terms
Strategy and Strategic in Case Teaching,’ IIM Kozhikode, Working Papers Series,
IIMK/WPS/74/MC/2010/MC.
Srinivasan, Shiva Kumar (2015a). ‘The Eureka Moment: Or, Who Speaks in the
Case Method?’ IOSR Journal of Business and Management, 17:1, Version II, pp. 25-
30.
Srinivasan, Shiva Kumar (2015b). ‘What is at Stake in the Case Method?’ IOSR
Journal of Research and Method in Education, 5:1, Version I, pp. 1-9.
SHIVA KUMAR SRINIVASAN
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