S8E4: Building Future Leaders: Bridging Experience and Education
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Season 8 continues with a conversation about the new strategic direction at the David Eccles School of Business with a particular focus on student success.
Greg Goff is founder of the University of Utah’s Goff Strategic Leadership Institute. Greg is also the founder and president of GJG Energy, the CEO of Clear Technologies, and founder and CEO of Manifest Energy Transition Company.
In this episode Greg highlights the importance of early leadership skills, experiential learning, and the overarching goal of preparing students to be successful faster. He also shares insights from his rich career and early beginnings in a family business, emphasizing his own early lessons in responsibility, ownership, and teamwork. Greg and host Frances Johnson also also discuss the expanded reach and impact of the Goff Institute, thanks to a recent generous $10 million gift, and the broader implications that has for the University of Utah and its students.
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Eccles Business Buzz is a production of the David Eccles School of Business and is produced by University FM.
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Episode Quotes
Helping Students Succeed Sooner: Greg’s Vision for the Goff Strategic Leadership Institute
[7:52] What I observed at work was this desire that I had to fundamentally help young people, and it was very targeted to young people. Develop [them] and be better prepared for work, but we call it leadership, and leadership is a lot because it can be how you influence people in that. But we’ve, myself and the people that I worked with when we started developing this here at the university, [it] was to help them be better prepared. It was just this strong need with my personal beliefs that we could help people be prepared for work and today we call that “Be more successful faster” because it’s not that they’re not going to succeed, but we can help them be more successful and do it faster because of the experiences that we provide.
On why Greg brings these transformative experiences to the university
[10:58] One of the most important things that they need to do is to learn how to think. So you can be studying finance, you could be studying mechanical engineering, whatever, but you actually need to learn how to think and that’s what the university can help prepare people for, no matter what area of interest that they have in their studies. [Next] the importance of being able to think you can do incredible things by being able to solve problems, capture opportunities,and you can do things differently and better than other people if you’ve learned how to do that.
How the Goff Strategic Leadership Institute offers invaluable learning experience beyond the classroom
[13:20] But we would hope that, by being able to… it’s not to simulate, but it’s to get experiences that you normally wouldn’t get in any university for a degree, that, by being able to have experiences and that hands-on experience that reflect the real world, you are in the real world and in an environment where you need to work with other people, you need to work with customers or business owners or whoever the sponsors are for the different types of projects, and that allows you to be able to get a good feel for what it’s like. And you, kind of, think, “Well, that’s, kind of, easy.” But if you don’t get that, then you’re going to go learn it on the job. And if you’re competing with other people who’ve had that experience, you’re actually disadvantaged, in a way, from that standpoint, because we’re not talking about graduate students or people that have a number of years of work experience. We’re really focused on younger people as they come out with their undergraduate degree. And being able to hit the ground running, I guess that’s really the best way to describe it, is you’re better prepared to hit the ground running.
On overcoming imposter syndrome
[15:48] Frances Johnson: Talk a little bit about how students can overcome maybe a sense of imposter syndrome or a lack of confidence that they actually are prepared to make that impact. When you’re hitting the ground running, right, it’s not just with the skills and the experience, but that confidence. How do you think students can develop that?
[16:08] Greg Goff: Well, one of the ways that we all develop confidence is through experiences, and one of the valuable benefits of being able to participate in experiential learning is you actually are gaining those experiences that then you can apply to it. And so the more experiences that we can help people with, I believe the better prepared they will be for hitting the ground running. And as you said, Frances, have more confidence and people can see that young people are very prepared for what they’re going to be able to do. That’s why I think the experiential part of the time at the university, at the Eccles School complimented with abilities to be a good thinker is invaluable.
