Now It’s Time To Get Your Hands Dirty – Wildcatter Jeff Sandefer has created a radically different M.B.A. program. To pass, you have to complete real-life assignments.

Wildcatter Jeff Sandefer has created a radically different M.B.A. program. To pass, you have to complete real-life assignments.

Jeff Davis Sandefer loves students like Alicia Goldberg, 31. A former copywriter at Commemorative Brands–vendor of college and high school rings–she quit to enroll in the Acton M.B.A. in Entrepreneurship program, at an accredited B-school founded by Sandefer that has an unusual curriculum. One afternoon last year Goldberg was leading a group in a contest to see who could sell more rug-cleaning contracts for an Austin, Tex. Service Master franchisee. She fretted about not being able to motivate teammates who "thought they were too good for door-to-door sales." She didn’t hesitate, stepping into every funeral parlor in town and walking away with a couple of contracts the franchisee still has.

That was easy compared with the exercise to see who could produce the most defect-free PC circuit boards. Groups were given transistors, wires, breadboards, a one-page instruction sheet and two days to figure out how to make standard, regular and deluxe circuitry to customer orders while maximizing profits. This assignment was a little more artificial since there were no real orders, but the competition did force the students to use their hands, all the while figuring out how much inventory to keep, which order to fill first, how to design an assembly line and how to deal with bottlenecks. Talmadge Boyd, a former tech specialist at WorldCom, and Manny Menard, a onetime account manager at Frito-Lay, went for volume, telling one colleague to "Sit down, shut up and watch us." They cranked out 12 boards but 5 rejects–and lost. "It taught us something about leadership," says Boyd. "The head of the winning team," which made 8 error-free boards, had "cheered on his mates."

Phyllis Berman

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