Lessons from the Case Method and a Lost Debate

One of the playbooks of business school case teaching

While reviewing Harvard cases, I suddenly noticed a certain playbook the professors use.

One of them goes in three steps:

Step one: before class, have each group discuss a few questions thoroughly. In the Dr. John case, for example: how should the company be valued — using P/E? Using EBITA?

Step two: in class, spend some time letting everyone voice their views fully, weighing the pros and cons of the two valuation approaches through discussion, so classmates learn from each other.

Step three: change tack and reveal an outcome that stuns everyone. In the Dr. John case, the price at which the company was acquired was 10 times what everyone expected.

The professors use that moment to deliver an especially important model or idea — in the Dr. John case, if the acquirer didn't buy Dr. John, the cost would be ceding market share to fiercely competitive rivals... The main conclusion: when thinking through a problem, you can't consider only internal factors; you have to consider external ones too.

This ties in with a class I took at Gaoshan a while ago, where we lost a debate 7:1. It was just a friendly debate, but while many past wins left no deep impression, this loss taught me a great deal in the post-mortem. For example:

Don't focus only on the local battle; focus on the whole war.

When you have victory locked up on logic, you often lose some of your emotional expression.

A good debate isn't one where every sentence is airtight, but one that leaves the audience feeling they've gained something.