Academics as Triathletes

When the Ancient Greeks invented the Olympic Games, sometime during the eighth century BC, the king of sports was the Pentathlon. As its name suggests, competitors were required to show supreme skill in five areas: the long jump; javelin; discus throwing; the Stadion, or 180-meter race; and wrestling.

Nobody is sure how the winner of the Pentathlon was established; perhaps by winning three events and doing well in two others. When the Olympics came along, the new heroes were the winners of the Pentathlon, and Aristotle, in his Rhetoric, explains that the participants in this sport were the most complete athletes, and were paid homage in the form of medals and commemorative urns. In fact, the Pentathlon became the basis for training recruits to join the militia.

Centuries afterwards, when it was decided to revive the Olympic Games at the end of the 19th century, other combination events were devised, aimed at measuring the overall athletic ability of participants, and favoring in many ways the amateur spirit of the Games then: contestants were not professional athletes, nor were they usually specialists in a particular sport. Some of these multi-events have survived to this day, notably, the Triathlon, made up of swimming, cycling, and running, along with the Decathlon, an athletics-based series of 10 sports.

Translated to the world of business education, today’s academics might usefully be compared to those former athletes, insomuch as they must show excellence in a number of fields. The advantage they have over the ancient Greeks is that the academic race is essentially a Triathlon, made up of three main activities: research, teaching, and involvement in the world of business -- sometimes through consulting, or by holding a management or board post.

However, traditionally success as an academic has been tantamount to excellence in research. Period. Universities have conventionally selected, promoted, tenured and rewarded scholars who comply with certain requirements related to research activity and output. Other facets of academic life such as teaching, the spreading of knowledge, or interacting with the world outside universities have been considered as secondary activities for an academic career, sometimes even improper.

Nobody could reasonably deny the centripetal value that research should play in scholarly careers. It is probably the core activity of the Academic Triathlon, since it tests the capacity of the individual to assimilate the existing knowledge and to generate new ideas, concepts and models, respecting methodological rigor. At the same time, considering research as an end in itself, or the only pure academic activity, entails a myopic and incomplete version of the academic vocation. Revealingly, an article in the New York Times told that a Harvard team formed by nine prominent professors of the university and supported by its former President, Derek Bok, was leading an effort to foster the culture of undergraduate teaching and learning. “The group has issued a report calling for sweeping institutional change, including continuing evaluation and assessment of teaching and learning, and a proposal that teaching be weighed equally with contributions to research in annual salary adjustments,” says the article.

The need to complement research with teaching and practical work becomes particularly relevant for business school academics. Management education requires a special sort of scholar, professionals that can combine many different facets, from a solid research background, to the ability of performing effectively in class and to interface with top managers. Business schools need not only “Gurus” -- wise sages who originate new thought, but rather “Kangaroos” -- academics able to jump from their research tasks to teaching, and from there to consultancy or an interview with a journalist. Kangaroos of this type are not born, but trained, and it normally requires a wide career span to exploit the necessary synergies between those different, apparently contradictory, but actually intertwined activities.

It is commonly believed that the career of a business academic has several natural cycles or stages. The first one, the “post-doc” (after obtaining the PhD degree), a time of creativity, is intended to boost and capitalize the research skills acquired during the doctoral years. A second period of maturity comes when the scholar develops teaching skills and becomes a master in class respected by the students, particularly by the participants of MBA or Executive MBA programs. The third stage, seniority, is achieved when the solid docent and researcher becomes the academic partner and advisor of managers, or even engages in management positions related to education. I believe that there are no time specifications for the fulfillment of each of those stages and the pace depends on the interests -- personal and professional -- of the individual.

That said, there is a widely held belief, and one particularly cherished by university insiders, that an academic career, particularly one based on research, must begin at an early age, preferably by completing a doctorate following graduation. This belief is based on the argument that it is during this time that our mental and critical faculties are at their peak, when we can best build the intellectual muscle we need to apply the analytical skills required in the academic quest. Some would go further and say that it is only while we are in the bloom of youth, typically during post-doctoral studies, that we combine the necessary creativity, imagination, and innovative spirit.

It will come as no surprise to the reader to learn that I do not share these beliefs. Doctorates, which require at least four years study, tend to be undertaken in the first years after finishing a degree program, as much as anything because in many people’s lives, family and professional commitments come soon after, making it difficult to dedicate the necessary time and energy to study. But the recent appearance of DBA programs (Doctor in Business Administration), particularly those that can be studied part time, allow older professionals, who have a wealth of personal and professional experience, to undertake a doctorate and begin a career in research.

What’s more, there is absolutely no scientific or empirical proof to suggest that we are more creative in our late twenties, other than statistical evidence showing that the majority of published research is produced during this period. This is due largely to the conventions of our university systems. More to the point, the major scientific discoveries and heavyweight contributions to thought over the centuries have tended to be produced by senior men and women. I never tire of reminding people that Kant published his Critique of Pure Reason, his masterwork, at the age of 57. There is no getting away from the fact that the key contributions to any field of academic or scientific research almost always come after years of analysis and experience, and are based on the ability to compare and contrast, from a cross-disciplinary vision combined with in-depth personal and professional development. The “learning curve” that lends its name to the title of this book is an appropriate simile when looking at an academic or research career in relation to business.

Right now, Kangaroos, -the type of multifaceted academics described above- are thin on the ground. When I talk to my colleagues at other schools, and ask them what worries them most about the future, the most common answer is the lack of teaching staff with the qualities that we are all looking for: that combination of proven investigative ability, sound teaching skills, and a profound knowledge of the world of business. The doctorate programs currently available in the world today are not sufficient to meet demand, and on many occasions do not even produce the right stuff. One of business education’s major challenges in the future is to meet that demand by designing programs to train consummate academic Triathlon champions. If we are able to do so, then the result will be a win-win for all, and one that will have made it worthwhile working together toward this common goal.