People

August, 2003

PHOTOGRAPH BY VANESSA GAVALYA

Lead ACTor
Bill Scilacci, MBA '49

Finishing up the interview, Bill Scilacci asks the executive director of the family assistance organization for the phone numbers of her board members. "Oh, you don't need to talk to them," she replies. "They don't understand our problems."

"That's when the warning lights went off," says Scilacci, MBA '49, a retired banker and veteran organizer of Business School Alumni Consulting Teams—ACT for short. "If the paid director and board members of an organization aren't talking, they aren't ready for us," he says. "I know that only because I've done a few projects that didn't work out too well."

A veteran of 10 ACT projects, Scilacci usually works with partner Terry Erisman, MBA '90, to define projects that will be rewarding for the recipient organizations and the volunteer consultants. They make sure the organization has enough stability and harmony to benefit, and working with the paid director, they define the project before the rest of the team begins. "We now have MBA students on some teams, which is great because they are so talented with skills I don't have," Scilacci says. Each team produces written recommendations for the client; the client gives an oral status report a year later.

Scilacci, former president of the Bank of Santa Clara, finds the concrete nature of the projects an antidote to the frustration he experiences in other volunteer activities. He is a member of Santa Clara County's Juvenile Justice Commission and, along with his wife, a trained advocate for children in foster care. "You almost have to be a manic depressive" to do the last job, he says, because "these kids have many highs and lows."

One of Scilacci's most satisfying projects has been for RAFT—Resource Area for Teachers, an organization that supplies surplus materials from Bay Area businesses for science and art educational activities to 5,000 teachers. Scilacci and seven others on the project team devised a checklist RAFT uses to decide when it is ready to replicate its program in other communities.

Unlike the director who did not want Scilacci to meet her board, Mary Simon, RAFT's director, welcomed the contact. "Taking our board's concerns into account reassured them," she says. "Now they are all very proud we have our first baby in Phoenix."

KATHLEEN O'TOOLE

Alumni to Know

Faculty

Newsmakers

Funny Business
Al Samuels, MBA '95

Al Samuels, MBA '95, small business owner, executive educator, and resident cast member of Chicago's famed Second City comedy theater, takes funny business seriously. Samuels performed in Second City's latest revue last night and just finished rehearsing his own company this morning. He will drive to Notre Dame this afternoon to lead an executive MBA workshop in improvisation. Yes, improv.

"Basically, we're trying to help people become improvisational leaders and help their companies become improvisational companies," Samuels explains. "In improv, you can't really make a mistake. No matter what someone does or says, the next person's response always makes it make sense. So, instead of seeing change as something thrust upon you and becoming a victim, we teach you to use change to move yourself forward."

Business people love the skills used in improvisation and respond to them, Samuels says. Most executives have taken team-building courses and think they've seen it all, he says. "They've been to the ropes course, they've built the giant toy sailboat, they've made the huge statue out of toothpicks. So their defenses are up. But deep down everybody wants to be a performer, and we show them how to do it. Some of these people have never been on stage-or only with a PowerPoint presentation. And now they're up and doing the kind of things you'd see on Whose Line Is It Anyway?"

Samuels founded his company, Spark Creative, in 1996. Besides offering team-building and leadership workshops, Spark writes and performs shows customized to the specific company. Clients have included Fuji, Boston Consulting, Seagram, and McKinsey. ("We even wrote a big show for Playtex," he says. "As you can imagine, it was hilarious!")

"I love theater," he says. "I would do it for free. Before I went to business school I had always performed. I remember walking past the drama department on the way to a GSB job interview. I don't remember who the interview was with, but I remember thinking, 'Omigosh, I don't think I want to sell ketchup!'"

Samuels forsook ketchup, returned to Chicago, and auditioned for Second City. He made the touring company on the third try and then was invited to perform with the resident theater. Between local gigs he takes his own shows worldwide. This summer was typical: Charleston in June, Amsterdam in July, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August. "Sometimes I wake up in the morning," he says, "and I think, 'Whose life am I living anyway? This is ridiculous!'"

JANET ZICH