CIBU – WE’RE WORLD SERIOUS!

Howe, Dean of Academic Affairs, October 29, 2015

It’s World Series time again, the end of the annual baseball season, and baseball, as many know, is often considered America’s greatest sport. Here at CIBU - We,re world serious.

CIBU is an academic institution, of course, and not a baseball team; nor does it have an event, like the World Series, watched by millions around the world. But CIBU does have much in common with baseball: it demands both intellectual and practical skills; it believes strongly that fair play and the development of good “sportsmanship,” team interaction, and innovative approaches to success are important.

At the same time, CIBU, like baseball, encourages its students to “win” at the “game,” though it does so by asking its students to “play” together, to interact successfully in groups and teams, and to put learned concepts and skills to use in order to succeed and go all the way to the “World Series.” In addition, it asks students to understand what leadership guru Warren Bennis has called “Chinese baseball” – a fictitious game in which the object is to tie and to avoid winning. Put another way, it encourages collaboration, understanding and appreciation of the competition, and a commitment to working with “opponents” for win-win interactions, particularly as students deal with international and multicultural contexts.

CIBU, then, certainly promotes “winning” the “World Series” in the business world. But it always keeps “good sportsmanship” and the possibilities of “Chinese baseball” scenarios in mind as it nurtures students to become successful “players” on the world “field” and in the “World Series” as it is played out in corporate contexts.

To be sure, CIBU faculty and students are “world serious”; they “play” to win but know that “winning” must include mutual understanding, respect, and a commitment to different perspectives and different styles of play.