Every student needs a business sense: an interview with business professor Sue McNamara

by Ryan Maloney, assistant women's volleyball coach

Sue McNamara (center) advises Fredonia's student
business group, Enactus.

Sue McNamara, Fredonia’s top business professor, only had a short window of time to meet with me because she needed to order pizza. Her Strategic Management class was learning how to conduct focus groups that day and they’d be sharing their perceptions of different pizzerias in the area.

She’s used dancers in her classroom to demonstrate metaphors for leadership, and LEGO’s to instill a sense of play when learning business strategy. She’s someone that will go to great lengths to see her students grow.

As soon as I sat down, “Dr. Mac” asked what the mission is of our volleyball team. I was ready for this one: Family, Passion, Service, Purpose. She explained to me that from a business perspective, this is the impact we desire to have on our athletes.

She then asked how we measure our impact. This took me longer to answer: It’s easy to measure how many games we win, but harder to define how we measure our athletes’ sense of purpose.

Coaching volleyball and teaching business began to sound more similar than I’d ever expected.

Maloney: As soon as we sat down here you’re already teaching me. It seems instinctive.

McNamara: I believe one of my great talents is teaching. I’m very focused on purpose, and I’m focused on the fact that we all have different and great talents. My purpose is that I love when people grow, either professionally, or with knowledge, or skill, and they grow and discover a greater sense of their own purpose and talents.

RM: And we were talking about measuring this. Can you measure this?

McNamara: When I work with students either in the classroom or in groups like Enactus that I advise, they set their goals on where they want to go. Some set goals to get good jobs after they graduate, some set goals to be engaged in the community. Those metrics are set by the students who are achieving them. My satisfaction is when they’re realizing their goals.

RM: We do a lot of goal-setting in volleyball and sometimes they need help setting their goals. Do you find that?

McNamara: We do. In the capstone for our seniors in business we do strategic planning with organizations. It’s a vehicle so that students can help organizations plan their own careers, and they do visioning and goal-setting. Once again, I facilitate the process but it’s the students’ goals and their ownership of them.

RM: In my mind there’s still a perception that business equals greed, but listening to you talk it sounds so much like the opposite.

McNamara: So much the opposite.

RM: It sounds so fundamental to everything. Can you speak to that?

McNamara: I believe the basic concept of business is that you have a mission and you have a goal, then there’re strategies to reach it. I believe successful businesses acknowledge and encourage diversity. Diversity and differences is what we are. It’s how we define and discover ourselves and then figure out what that fit is.

RM: I ask because it seems like there’s a lot of students who are focused on making money.

McNamara: And that’s okay.

RM: Really? Don’t you try to change that?

McNamara: No, because making money is a good thing. When you make money you can pay your mortgage, you can put food on the table. So making money is not a bad thing. It’s how we choose to make that money. 

RM: But isn’t there still a lot of discomfort with the idea of raising money?

McNamara: Are you uncomfortable with the idea of making money?

RM: Well, I’d say five years ago I was more-so.

McNamara: So five years ago what was your life?

RM: I went out west to do a couple years of volunteer service.

McNamara: Who paid for your housing then?

RM: The government.

McNamara: The government did.

RM: So what are you getting at?

McNamara: What I’m asking you shows that everyone is touched by money. Your comment was that you didn’t like money. But money gave you opportunity, because the government was money. So someone working for money is just as important as someone volunteering. And that’s where I think we need to honor all the contributions of our world. 

RM: You must impart some of this onto your students, because I doubt they come in with this perspective.

McNamara: I really believe all our students have unique talents and that they’re all valuable. I take all the topics they’ve learned, marketing, organization, operations, and ask how we can put these together to become an ethical business person out in the world. How can we create businesses that solve problems in the world? How will we create social entrepreneurship that will make a difference?

RM: One of Fredonia’s missions is entrepreneurship, but I don’t think it’s just for business majors.

McNamara: Not at all.

RM: So how are we encouraging entrepreneurship in all our students?

McNamara: Take your volleyball team for instance. Say you’re missing your setters for some reason. How are we going to take your team with the players you have find a solution to our missing setter? We’re going to have to use everyone’s talents to come up with an innovative solution. That’s entrepreneurship. Maybe we need to train someone else, or maybe we need to change our whole strategy.

RM: It sounds like entrepreneurship encompasses everything.

McNamara: I think it’s popular in the world right now because there aren’t enough jobs, and we need to help people use their talents or passions to find purpose and do meaningful work. Since there aren’t that many jobs we need to create them. That’s the value of entrepreneurship.

But we don’t just do it because it feels good; there’s some outcome we’re looking for. In your world you want to win matches. And you define the other goal of creating a sense of community and purpose. So how do you constantly measure that, what have we done to create that?

RM: I’ve honestly never thought about it in that way, that idea of measuring outcomes.

McNamara: Yes. Right now you and I share the joint mission of the college, which is: How do we attract, retain, educate, and graduate students? How do we attract your volleyball players? How do we engage them, educate, and retain them?

The culture and happiness on your team is probably just as important as winning, because that’s how you build your community and purpose. So how do we do that in a considerate way? So it’s the same as a corporation, you’re working to raise everybody to do something positive. 

RM: Everything we’ve talked about sounds so fundamental, and that everybody should know about it.

McNamara: Wouldn’t that be great (laughs)?

RM: Do you make any effort to spread this message?

McNamara: My job is to be the best educator I can be. I’m student-centered. I really believe in working with one student at a time, and the students I teach I really believe can change the world. I believe that to my core. The experience you’re students are having with volleyball changes them because I believe in mind, body, and soul. With the athletes we talk about what they’ve learned in the sport because they can bring that into the business place.

RM:  We have six business majors right now. I like knowing what they’re doing in the classroom too.

McNamara: I know some of them, and how lucky we are to have them. They’re all different, isn’t that grand? That’s why I’m hoping that you guys do well so you can grow that sense of purpose.