UCLA Anderson School of Management Blog

UCLA Anderson Students Express Leadership Aspirations through John Wooden’s “Pyramid”

On the first day of orientation in 2009, UCLA Anderson’s Director of Coaching and Team Skills Sara Tucker (’88) set the Class of 2011 a special task. Inspired by UCLA Coach John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success, Tucker designed an exercise to get students thinking about their personal definitions of leadership and success.

The interactive exercise brought second-year students and staff together with the new arrivals to arrange the blocks in Wooden’s pyramid according to how many in the group aspired to a given concept, like loyalty or enthusiasm or competitive greatness. Tucker told the first-years, “There might be holes in the pyramid. That’s okay. We have two years in which to fill in the blocks — and then a lifetime to refine.” 

The students’ version of the pyramid was “built” at the foot of the Janss Steps. Tucker hoped the display would communicate that students are part of a larger community — not just their own b-school section, but part of the university and city beyond it. She consulted Coach Wooden about the idea and he approved. “He was a lovely, lovely man,” she remembers. “So gracious.”

 

 

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The 2015 John Wooden Global Leadership Award honors Ursula Burns, chairman and CEO of Xerox. The event will be held on Tuesday, October 6, at Beverly Wilshire, starting at 6:00 p.m. Business attire is required. For event and ticket information, contact [email protected]. Proceeds from the event fund fellowships for four UCLA Anderson students, who are being awarded John Wooden Global Leadership Fellowships.

Tackling Severe Autism, Human Trafficking Issues, Waterborne Illness and More: Dr. Rob Douk (GEMBA ’16)

By Britt Benston

Real ambition starts early.

Rob Douk was born in a labor camp during the final years of the Khmer Rouge, the brutal regime in Cambodia that left roughly two million dead in less than four years. His family fled to Thailand, then to New York, where they arrived with literally nothing.

Douk’s parents worked their way up doing swap meets and managed to start a successful sport shoe store in lower Manhattan, effectively showing him what determination can make possible. They decided a better life was in store in Long Beach, California, home to a large Cambodian contingent, and moved there in time for Douk to go to high school.

Douk is one of four 2015 John Wooden Global Leadership Fellows and is pursuing a dual Global Executive MBA at Anderson and National University of Singapore. After earning a doctorate in psychology with a certification in behavior analysis, Douk worked with the Los Angeles Unified School District. He noticed an extreme deficit between the number of autism cases coming in and the qualified psychologists available to treat them. Worse, the more severe cases had even fewer treatment options. Douk was inspired to start his own company to deal with this deficit and take on the surplus of cases, all from the friendly confines of his kitchen.

John Wooden Global Leadership Fellow Virginia Tancioco Puts Health Literacy in the Hands of Mothers

By Britt Benston

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A fourth grade reading level.

What do those words make you think of? A lack of education? Fourth graders?

What about inclusivity?

Virginia Tancioco (M.D./MBA ’16) is driven to change health care where it is needed most. Along with her classmate, Margaret Threadgill (M.D./MBA ’16), Tancioco is working on an app to educate expectant mothers about pregnancy — and it’s all written at a fourth grade reading level. They believe that since pregnancy isn’t limited to those who are highly educated, information shouldn’t be either.

But launching this app is not her only mission.

“Margaret and I are co-founding a nonprofit called Project Pregnancy and the app is only our first product. The project is looking to do many things for the underserved community, helping those who typically have poor outcomes, so that they will have healthier kids and will be healthier moms at the same time.”

What compels Tancioco to get involved on a deeper level with helping underserved mothers has a lot to do with what she’s seen during her experience as a fourth-year OB/GYN medical student at UCLA Medical Center, and from seeing what her mother went through while working and raising five children on her own. Combine this with her many travels on which she has found herself in need of medical help in countries where the health infrastructure was lacking and it’s easy to connect the dots that led her to co-found Project Pregnancy.

“After my stint with AmeriCorps in Maryland, I taught English in Ecuador and got an ear infection from the water [which isn’t potable from the tap]. It was pretty painful. Simple access to a quick examination and medicine just wasn’t there. At that point, I was inspired to do something more health-related because I realized that by improving the health of the community, we could make an even larger impact.”

These experiences have left Tancioco with a desire to do more — as if getting an MBA and an M.D. simultaneously weren’t enough. When she has time off, she goes to countries such as South Sudan and Haiti to perform operations on expecting mothers with complications and disease. She says she gets energized from the group dynamic on these trips, not to mention from her work in general.

“It’s all about the value of team spirit with me. It applies to life,” she says, acknowledging John Wooden as an inspiration. “The success of any group depends on the success of the individual. After a team has achieved success, you have to strive to do better. You’re never done. Success is an ongoing process, you know?”

Career SEAL and John Wooden Global Leadership Fellow Christian Dunbar Thinks Fearlessly about His Next Layer of Service

By Carolyn Gray Anderson

Christian Dunbar (EMBA ’16) has been active on Navy SEAL teams for 22 years. He is a U.S. Navy Captain and Deputy Commander in the Naval Special Warfare Center, responsible for all West Coast SEAL teams. He’s embarked on nearly a dozen deployments, many in combat, most under his leadership and lasting six months. One of those deployments interrupted his MBA studies, requiring him to take a year’s leave of absence to run Special Operations in Afghanistan.

In 2015 — the year he would have graduated were he not called into service overseas — Dunbar is one of four recipients of a John Wooden Global Leadership Fellowship. He’s a third-generation Eagle Scout whose Midwestern parents set strong examples of citizenship and personal responsibility. With two grandfathers who served in World War II, grandmothers who inspired his wise choice of spouse, and four children (ages 2 to 12) at home in San Diego, he regards his family as his most influential collaborators. “It takes their resilience, the shared love in the family,” he says, “to be able to succeed.”

At Dunbar’s level of Special Operations, leaders toggle back and forth between tactical assignments or deployments and corporate executive roles running a piece of the organization in, say, HR or finance. “You traverse from being in charge of 16 people in the middle of the night on the ocean, trying to get them to do dangerous things, to growing up to be in charge of 70 people, to then being in charge of 350 people. Your leadership style changes. When it’s a smaller unit, it’s definitely more visceral: it’s about ‘you and me’ and survival. You find a good way to create a bond with your people. Whereas when you continue to grow up it’s a little bit more about ‘Do I know how to be a technical expert?’ ‘Can I run larger management pieces and run divisions instead of small teams?’” Special Operations, he says, teaches you always to ask whether you’re doing the right thing for the people on the ground (or in the water, as the case may be), as you would in combat. “As you get withdrawn from personal risk, you still have that bond with other guys on the ground.”

"I’d Like to Maximize Good": John Wooden Global Leadership Fellow Tiffany Cantrell Drives Change in Community Health Care

By Britt Benston and Carolyn Gray Anderson

“To be a good leader, it should extend beyond your lifetime,” says Tiffany Cantrell (FEMBA ’16), one of four recipients of the 2015 John Wooden Global Leadership Fellowship. “You can rally people for one game, but are you helping them reach their full potential for the rest of their lives? You can be a leader today, and you can get hit by a bus tomorrow.”

Cantrell is director of program development at Dignity Health St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach, where she designs clinical and community health programs to augment services in seven existing clinics, and seeks opportunities for the medical center to partner with internal and external constituents like local government and nonprofits. She admires Coach John Wooden because he “wanted to grow his people,” and he enabled others to “see their success in terms of how you carry yourself, how you live your life.” She adds, “There’s so much I learn from my own staff: how to speak to grant makers, how to speak to leaders, how to speak to different audiences to find out what’s happening on the ground.”

She started life in Corpus Christi, Texas, and grew up in Monterey and Santa Cruz, California. When she graduates in 2016, she’ll be a double Bruin, having earned her UCLA bachelor’s degree in international development studies. Committed to working for populations most in need of health care access, Cantrell looks at community health and hospital internal data and engages interdisciplinary teams to design preventive care programs that help people on the outside, rather than only once they come inside. She has written grants to fund a trauma recovery center for victims of violent crimes, and to establish WHO Baby Friendly Hospital status for St. Mary.

UCLA Anderson Honors Xerox Chairman and CEO Ursula Burns with 2015 John Wooden Global Leadership Award

By Carolyn Gray Anderson

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“One of the things that Xerox found out early is,
if it’s good for society, it’s generally good for business.”
— Ursula Burns

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The UCLA Anderson School of Management is proud to announce that Ursula Burns, chairman and CEO of Xerox Corporation, is the recipient of the 2015 John Wooden Global Leadership Award. The annual award pays tribute to the legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, and recognizes business leaders who manifest Wooden’s humility and his capacity to inspire; who focus on process while achieving remarkable results; and who show steadfast commitment to improving the community. Past recipients include: Paul E. Jacobs (executive chairman, Qualcomm) Robert Iger (chairman and CEO, Disney), Indra Nooyi (chairman and CEO, Pepsico), Peter Ueberroth (managing director, Contrarian Group), Peter Smith (president and CEO, FedEx), Kenneth Chenault (chairman and CEO, American Express Company) and Howard Schultz (chairman, president and CEO, Starbucks).

Over the last 35 years, Burns has proved in multiple capacities her embodiment of these qualities. She guided Xerox’s transformation from a global leader in document technology to the world’s most diversified business services company, serving enterprises and governments of all sizes. Shortly after becoming chairman in 2010, she spearheaded the largest acquisition in Xerox history, the $6.4 billion purchase of the Dallas-based IT and business process outsourcing company Affiliated Computer Services.

Road-Tripping MBA Student Finds the Pyramid of Success in South Bend

As he moves westward to start his MBA at Anderson, Class of 2017 student blogger Yu Chen looks for connections to UCLA wherever he can find them.

Shooting hoops at a heartland YMCA to break up his 450-mile-a-day journey, Chen found himself beholding legendary UCLA Coach John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success — at the top of which is “Competitive Greatness” and the imperative to “Be at your best when the best is needed.” Chen wrote that it was “a pleasant reminder that I am not only joining a group of future business leaders, but also a larger global UCLA community that is at the forefront of not just business, but medicine, education, athletics and so much more.”

Chen’s encounter is apt because a mere three weeks after he immerses himself in the Anderson culture of sharing success, thinking fearlessly and driving change, we celebrate the annual John Wooden Global Leadership Awards.

Read Yu Chen’s full blog post about his efforts to orient himself pre-arrival, including by consulting the Parker Career Management Center’s primer on basic accounting concepts and financial statements and instructional videos from Professor Henry Friedman. “They've been extremely helpful for someone coming from a non-traditional background with very little exposure to finance/accounting,” blogged Chen.

Scouring the Horizon: Paul E. Jacobs

By Bijan White

As a part of the Dean’s Distinguished Speaker Series, Dean Judy Olian hosted Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, executive chairman of Qualcomm Inc. Formerly CEO of Qualcomm (he voluntarily transitioned to his current position to make way for the company’s current chief Steve Mollenkopf) and recipient of the 2014 John Wooden Global Leadership Award, Jacobs is a renowned leader in the field of telecommunications and high tech. Jacobs played a crucial role in articulating and executing a vision for his company, which revolutionized mobile technologies and brought Qualcomm to the fore of the industry, where it still leads today.

Upon stepping into the role of CEO at Qualcomm, Jacobs, who succeeded his father, Irwin Jacobs, sought to bring unity to the company through a balance of guidance and autonomy. “I wanted to articulate a vision within which people could do what they wanted to do. I pushed for the phone to become the center of communication, entertainment and information,” said Jacobs. The introduction of smartphones generated massive revenue and growth for Qualcomm; however, Jacobs noted that future significant growth in said market is unlikely. Jacobs referred to the “digital sixth sense,” the integration of virtual and physical worlds, as the heart of current technological developments.

Derek Herrera (EMBA ’15), Champion of Veterans, Awarded the Bronze Star

Derek Herrera (’15), one of three Anderson students to be awarded the 2014 John Wooden Global Leadership fellowship last week, was, until last Friday, an active-duty Marine captain. Over the weekend, Herrera was awarded the Bronze Star, a medal earned through acts of bravery performed while fighting an enemy of the United States. The ceremony took place at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County and marked Herrera’s retirement from the military after eight years of service.

In 2012 in Afghanistan, Herrera was shot in the spine by a sniper and it left him paralyzed from the chest down. Part of Herrera’s rehabilitation included his adoption of the ReWalk robotic exoskeleton, an invention that enables paralyzed people to walk. Herrera was the first person in the U.S. to purchase a ReWalk for personal use outside the offices of a physical therapist — a use only recently approved by the FDA.

Herrera is currently the CEO of RuckPack® Inc., a company that provides healthy caffeine-free alternatives to energy drinks. The drinks were tested on active duty Marines who were tired of swallowing handfuls of vitamin supplements to maintain proper nutrition under physically demanding circumstances. Herrera is championing veterans as he grows the brand, seeking to hire fellow servicemen and women.

NBC news covered the ceremony at Camp Pendleton, where Herrera walked down the tarmac to receive his medal. Brian Williams reported: “He wanted to leave the corps the way he joined the corps: standing up.”

 

UCLA Anderson Presents Qualcomm’s Dr. Paul E. Jacobs With 2014 John Wooden Global Leadership Award

Left: Dr. Paul Jacobs, executive chairman of Qualcomm Inc. Right: 2014 Wooden fellows Nicole áBeckett, Derek Herrera, Elizabeth Pratt.

By Carolyn Gray Anderson

On Monday night, Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, executive chairman of Qualcomm Inc., was awarded the 2014 John Wooden Global Leadership Award in recognition of his exceptional leadership at the helm of what has become one of the telecommunications industry’s great start-up success stories. The ceremony was held at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, where Jacobs was honored by a full house that included Anderson faculty, students, alumni and guests, along with members of Coach John Wooden’s family.

Jacobs is the seventh recipient of the annual John Wooden Leadership Award. Each year, when choosing a new recipient, UCLA Anderson looks for leaders who embody John Wooden’s humility and his capacity to inspire; who focus on process while achieving remarkable results; and who show steadfast commitment to improving the community.

As Dean Judy Olian said in her introduction, “When he was leading the handset division of Qualcomm Dr. Jacobs adopted the slogan, ‘Lead through vision, not division.’ He focused on what brought people together. That’s a play right out of Coach’s playbook. Coach liked to say, ‘Much can be accomplished by teamwork when no one is concerned about who gets credit.’”