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Back to POSDCORB?
For me an examination, in addition to testing the knowledge of individual students, is an experiment intended to determine whether my curriculum got through to most of my students. I’ve just completed grading the final exams for my undergraduate public management course, and have some important results about what has and hasn’t. My exams always…
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A Gillies Who Was a Laird: Reflecting on My Relationship with Jim Gillies
When you attend the celebration of someone’s life, you reflect on the person described in the reminiscences of the speakers and you call up your own reminiscences of your relationship. So it was with James Gillies, founding dean of the Schulich School of Business, a colleague of mine from 1979 to 1990, and a friend…
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Reflecting on the Undergraduate Experience
I teach a fourth-year undergraduate seminar in strategic management that requires a term paper instead of an exam. The term papers were due at the start of the last session, so I asked the students to spend the time reflecting on their soon-to-be-completed undergraduate experience. Specifically, I asked each of them to give a short…
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Eye in the Sky: Utilitarianism in a High-Tech War
I saw Eye in the Sky recently and have nothing but praise for it. I will be using it in my Narratives course next year. Here’s why The movie’s plot is set in motion when British and Kenyan intelligence learn that two British and one American citizen, all radicalized Islamic militants, are meeting with leaders…
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Does Robert McKee’s Storynomics Persuade?
Robert McKee’s 1997 book Story presents the following template for the plot of a standard Hollywood movie. As a result of an inciting event, a protagonist finds that his/her life is out of balance. To restore balance, the protagonist undertakes a quest for an object of desire. The movie depicts the quest, in the face…
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The Zika Virus Comes to Canada
Just as I conduct an annually updated budget simulation in my public management class – the topic of my previous post – I use an annually updated crisis management simulation. This year’s was about Zika. The assignment (see link) assumes that federal government and university-based researchers discover, approximately a year from now, that the virus has…
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I Do and I Understand
The centrepiece of my undergraduate public management course is a budgeting simulation in which a group of ministers and public servants either divide up a fiscal windfall or allocate a collective budget cut. A manual for this simulation is to be published by the IPAC Case Program, but has been forthcoming for quite some time.…
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Just Another “Story” Book
The latest “story” book that I’ve read is Carmine Gallo’s newly-released The Storyteller’s Secret: From TED Speakers to Business Legends, Why Some Ideas Catch on and Others Don’t. Gallo, like Richard McKee and Richard Krevolin, both of whom I’ve written about lately, uses the generic noun “story” – not preceded by an article – as…
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The Koch Brothers(’) Take on Business Fiction
This is the season for anger at billionaires, and Jane Mayer’s new book Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right certainly stoked mine towards Charles and David Koch. Mayer showed how they were brought up by their magnate parents to believe that they could do whatever they…
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Not Hooked by “The Hook”
In my last post, I alluded to a book I was reading about narrative and marketing. That book, by Richard Krevolin, has the short title The Hook and the long subtitle How to Share your Brand’s Unique Story to Engage Customers, Boost Sales, and Achieve Heartfelt Success. The author appears to be a story-based jack…
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Trudeau and Poloz: On the Same Page?
Listening to the recent debate about whether the Bank of Canada should or would cut its lending rate, it seemed to me that the only argument in favor of cutting was that the economy was slowing and needed immediate stimulus. The arguments against cutting struck me as much stronger: concern about inflating the housing bubble;…
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I Disagree with Robert McKee
Robert McKee is well known for his seminars to screenwriter wannabes. He presents a model of an exciting or suspenseful screenplay and encourages his audience to apply it to their own story ideas. Though I have no aspirations of becoming a screenwriter, I recently took his introductory seminar. McKee sends out blast emails to the…
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Narrative in the 2015 Federal Election: Some Initial Results
During the recent federal election campaign, a research assistant and I recorded and analyzed all the English-language ads posted online by the three major parties. I am studying how the parties constructed their narratives for the campaign, what they had in common, and how they differed. We went to the parties’ websites and YouTube channels…
- I am Professor of Public Management Emeritus at the University of Toronto, having retired in July 2020 after a 45-year academic career.
- My latest book, Public Representations: Screen Stories, Narrative, and the Public Sphere, co-authored with Beth Herst, was published in April 2026 by University of Toronto Press (open access).
- On this website I post blogs about politics, narrative, and my life experiences.
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