Stanford in India:
Creating Emotional Engagement with Customers and Employees

December 1, 2008: Program Announcment - CANCELLATION
Due to the recent events that have taken place in Mumbai, this program has been cancelled.
Our condolences go out to those who have been affected by this tragedy.

Please send inquiries to stanfordinindia@gsb.stanford.edu.

Content Overview

Creating Emotional Engagement with Customers and Employees offers today’s business leaders progressive tactics for connecting with and inspiring their employees and clients alike. Participants will develop a framework for triggering constructive emotional responses that enable them to enrich their customers’ brand experience and mobilize their organization’s talent. In addition, the curriculum focuses on broadening executives’ perspectives to account for their customers’ point of view.  During this groundbreaking one-day course, world-renowned professors Hayagreeva Rao and Baba Shiv will integrate case studies, practical tools, pertinent media materials, and neuroscientific research.

December 17th - Daily Schedule

Professor Hayagreeva Rao’s sessions

Emotional Enhancement of the Employee Experience:

Just as marketers seek to reshape the customer experience, those concerned with the human talent of the enterprise ought to enhance the experience of employees. Firms today focus on the employee value proposition and offer a 'brand promise' to employees. The challenge is to convert the brand promise into a 'brand experience' for employees. This session provides a framework to rethink employee engagement, provides case examples, and practical tools to enrich the employee experience.

Leading Change: Hot Causes and Cool Mobilization:

Executives typically think of leading change as going on a roadshow with a powerpoint presentation. It is more than that. The challenge is to mobilize employees and this module presents a framework on how to develop 'hot' causes that ignite emotion, and cool and unconventional techniques of mobilization.

Professor Baba Shiv’s sessions

Revisiting the Customer Value Proposition I: The Power of Brand Salience

The broad goal of this session is to present the critical role that Brand Salience plays in the customer decision making process and, thereby, the customer value proposition (CVP).  The presentation will begin by delving into the customer decision making process and the critical role that brand salience (i.e., top-of-mind awareness of the brand name, logo, and other macro-level associations with the brand) plays in shaping this process.  Here, we will also examine why brand salience is crucial and how brand salience can be shaped not only in the business-to-consumer space but also the business-to-business space.  The presentation will end by revisiting the customer value proposition, specifically its history (the traditional “first wave” and “second wave” views), which will then set the stage for the next session on the power of brand emotion, a critical aspect of the “third wave” view of the value proposition.

Revisiting the Customer Value Proposition II: The Power of Brand Emotion

In this session, we will build on the previous session by highlighting the crucial and fundamental role that brand emotion plays in the Customer Value Proposition (CVP).  The presentation will begin with a brief revisit of the “second wave” view of the CVP.  It will then focus the emerging “third wave” view, where brand emotion plays a crucial and fundamental role in the value proposition. Here, we will delve into some startling and counterintuitive insights being unraveled from neuroscience on the workings of the human brain, particularly the role of emotion in the customer decision making process.  The presentation will finally segue into the “so what” detailing the strategic and tactical implications for organizations. 

Professor Shiv’s research was recently featured in a London Times podcast:  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/career_and_jobs/article4308398.ece

Featured Faculty

  Hayagreeva Rao
Atholl McBean Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources; Director of the Human Resources for Strategic Advantage Executive Program; Codirector of the Customer-Focused Innovation Executive Program; Codirector of the Leading Family Firms Executive Program; The Morgan Stanley Director of the Center for Leadership Development and Research; Younger Family Faculty Fellow for 2008-2009

Professor Rao has published widely in the fields of management and sociology and studies the social and cultural causes of organizational change. In his research, he studies three sub-processes of organizational change: a) creation of new social structures, b) the transformation of existing social structures, and c) the dissolution of existing social structures. His recent work investigates the role of social movements as motors of organizational change in professional and organizational fields.[View Profile]

  Baba Shiv
Professor of Marketing; Graduate School of Business Trust Faculty Fellow for 2008-2009

Baba Shiv’s research is in the area of consumer decision making and decision neuroscience, with specific emphasis on the role of emotion in decision making, the neurological bases of emotion, and nonconscious mental processes in decision making. His recent work examines the potential for nonconscious placebo effects related to pricing and the empirical validity of the adage, “Eating Whets the Appetite,” with findings suggesting that food samples (“appetizers”) can have broader effects than previously conceived.[View Profile]


Program dates, fees, and faculty are subject to change. If a program is cancelled, Stanford will refund the program tuition in full but is not responsible for travel, accommodations or other expenses incurred by the participant.

SU Seal Sarah Jones
Associate Director, Marketing
Office of Executive Education
Stanford Graduate School of Business
Phone: 650.725.2608
Toll Free: 866.542.2205 (US and Canada)
Fax: 650.723.3950
Email: jones_sarah@gsb.stanford.edu