You're presenting a new idea to an audience of skeptical, or even hostile, peers—as an executive pitching a new strategic initiative, or as scientist presenting new findings. What are core principles and practices for handling aggressive questioning when you're "in the pit"? This brief session will help you to prepare to be more persuasive under pressure.
This is an optional lecture offered to the EMBA class but due to excellent feedback from students and staff, the lecture is open to our Booth alumni community this year. Join us!
Speaker Profiles
Matthew Bothner (Speaker)
Visiting Professor of Organizations and Strategy, Chicago Booth
Matthew S. Bothner is a Professor and the Deutsche Telekom Chair in Leadership and HR Development at the European School of Management and Technology. He studies social status and its effects on performance-related outcomes in several settings, including the survival chances and strategies of venture capital firms, the effort levels of professional athletes, and the tuition-setting behavior of U.S. colleges and universities. He has also examined competitive crowding and risk taking in tournaments as well as innovation diffusion in the global computer industry. "My interest in status as an intangible asset was fueled by Merton's 1968 work on the Matthew Effect, which refers to positive feedback between scientists' prestige and research output over the course of their careers," explains Bothner.The Academy of Management awarded Bothner the 2006 Glueck Best Paper Award for the most outstanding new research in Business Policy and Strategy. He was honored for his paper, "Status Volatility and Organizational Growth in the U.S. Venture Capital Industry," coauthored with Jeong-han Kang and Wonjae Lee.
Bothner, a recipient of the Chicago Booth's Faculty Excellence Award for Teaching in 2004 and 2008 and of Chicago Booth's Hillel J. Einhorn Excellence in Teaching Award in 2011, hopes his students leave his class with an ability to understand how to organize the firms they lead to achieve superior performance in the market.
Bothner earned a bachelor's degree in sociology and American history in 1994 from the Boston University. He then enrolled at Columbia University, where he earned two master's degrees and a PhD in 2000. His dissertation was unanimously awarded distinction by the Department of Sociology.
Questions
Berlinda Gooi
Chicago Booth Alumni Office Asia