\u00a0<\/p>\n
My senior year of college I took a Management class from a wonderful professor, who was a bit odd, but made a memorable impression on me which has stuck with me to this day.\u00a0 To set the scene, the University of Colorado-Boulder is a very large public university, and the \u2018core\u2019 classes consisted of very large classroom sizes, around 400 people in each lecture hall.\u00a0 A class such as this one had 4 or 5 different times and days that the class was offered, but all classes shared the exact same final exam at the end of the semester.\u00a0 Therefore, to avoid the potential for cheating, all students who took this class were given the final exam at the exact same time, but due to the 2,000 or students or so who took this class in totality, it had to be given in a larger room than the room we met in every week.\u00a0 The only room on campus that could accommodate this size was the basketball arena.\u00a0 So, like many large schools, all of our finals were held in the arena.<\/p>\n
Cheating was something that the faculty tried very hard to avoid, for obvious reasons.\u00a0 So, as you approached the stadium seats, you were required to leave a seat on all sides of you open: the seat to the left of you, to the right of you, in front of you, and behind you.\u00a0 So in reality, the 2,000 of us took up the space of 10,000 seats, nearing full capacity.<\/p>\n
The management final exam was passed out, the 90 minute time limit \u00a0was on the clock, and the professor spoke, \u201cAfter I say go, you may flip over your exam, and then you won\u2019t hear a sound for the next hour and a half, until I say \u2018pencils down\u2019\u2026you may begin.\u201d\u00a0 After about 45 seconds, all students had read the first question, and it read as follows:<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The Single Most Important Asset of Any Company is:<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 A)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Its Business Model<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 B)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Strength of its Balance Sheet<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 C)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Its Product Line<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 D)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Its People<\/p>\n
The only sound in the room is pencils filling in bubbles, 2,000 of them.\u00a0 Suddenly, the professor belts out, \u201cEveryone, look up here for a second.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cQuestion one\u2026\u201d and he reads the question and the possible answer choices aloud, word for word.\u00a0 We are all staring at him, in total confusion, thinking what in the world is this crazy guy doing?\u00a0 We\u2019ve just begun this stressful 90 minute period, and he\u2019s reading the question aloud to us\u2026what is wrong with this guy?!\u00a0 Then, after finishing reading the question and the answer choices, he pauses for a few seconds.\u00a0 None of us knew what to do\u2026go back to the exam?\u00a0 Continue staring at this guy?<\/p>\n
Then, without hesitation, our professor loudly and clearly says, \u201c\u2019D\u2019, the answer is D, \u2018Its people\u2019.\u201d\u00a0 We all look around, amazed, wondering if this was some weird trick.\u00a0 He then says, \u201cEveryone take your pencils, and fill in \u2018D\u2019.\u201d\u00a0 I remember I had already marked the letter \u2018D\u2019, but I saw hundreds of #2 pencils flip over to start erasing their answer, and filling it in with \u2018D\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow\u2026\u201d, the professor said, \u201ccontinue the rest of your exam in silence\u201d\u2026and that was that.<\/p>\n
The point of this story is not the story itself, nor is it that I got the answer correct when others didn\u2019t, but the fact that this one question, the first of the 100 total on that exam, was so important, that not only did this professor put it first on the exam, but he made a statement with it.\u00a0 He refused to allow any one of his 2,000 students to answer this one single question incorrectly, for he would have failed at his job: allowing the number one lesson in business to perhaps be answered incorrectly by a college classroom filled with seniors, about to enter the workforce.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t remember one single other question on that exam.\u00a0 In fact, I don\u2019t remember one other question from any exam I ever took in college, from that year or any of the 3 prior years\u2026but I remember this one, as clearly as the day it happened.<\/p>\n