Originally published in Carroll Capital, the print publication of the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. .听
Jeffrey Pontiff always looks forward to his next poker game, especially the ones he plays annually in Las Vegas as part of the Financial Research Association conference. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a real rush,鈥� the Seidner Department of Finance professor says of the poker tournament, a standout event of the conference Pontiff cofounded. He could tell you stories of the two times he鈥檚 won the competition, beating finance academics from around the world, or perhaps the time a University of British Columbia professor learned how to play the game the night before, only to take the top prize.听
Professor and James F. Cleary Chair of Finance Jeffrey Pontiff
He likens poker to playing a game of chicken. 鈥淎re they going to swerve left or right? And you have to think about the probability of them swerving [at all],鈥� says Pontiff, who is also the James F. Cleary 鈥�50, DBA H 鈥�93 Chair in Finance. 鈥淧oker is like that鈥攊f you always bluff, you will lose. If you never bluff, you will lose.鈥� He鈥檚 gotten the hang of the game over the 30 years he鈥檚 been playing, but it still finds ways to surprise him.
Plenty of Carroll School faculty members have hobbies they enjoy off the Heights鈥擯ortico Professor Christine Rojcewicz loves to surf, Accounting Professor Douglas (DJ) Stockbridge likes studying old maps, just to name a couple鈥攂ut some are also choosing to explore the ways their personal hobbies and academia weave together.
鈥淎 mentor once said to me, 鈥榬ead outside your field, that鈥檚 where the interesting stuff is,鈥欌�� says Sandra Waddock, the Thomas J. Galligan Chair and Carroll School Scholar of Corporate Responsibility. 鈥淪ongwriting [for me] is part of the interesting stuff.鈥� Waddock鈥檚 longtime love of music became a way to 鈥渞ead鈥� outside of her research field of system transformation and corporate citizenship鈥攕he has even released two albums of original folk songs鈥攂ut that doesn鈥檛 mean the two听worlds don鈥檛 overlap. She parlayed her regular jam sessions with local musicians into a paper, 鈥�,鈥� published in the Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion.
She鈥檚 not the only one taking this tack. Henrik Hagtvedt, chair of the Marketing Department and the Michael A. Gooch Family Faculty Fellow, studied art in addition to management, and worked as a painter for years鈥攁n experience that helped inspire his book Money and Marketing in the Art World, released last year. Juan Montes, an associate professor of the practice in the Management and Organization Department, drew on his experience of climbing the treacherous Kangshung Face of Mount Everest to illustrate building organizational resilience in research he published with colleagues in Organization Science and Harvard Business Review.
Assistant Professor of Finance Angela Ma
So do these skills show up in the classroom too? Absolutely, says Pontiff. 鈥淚 think a lot of the skills that a good finance professor has are skills that good poker players have,鈥� he explains. He looks to pass along these skills to his students as they consider their future careers. 鈥淚magine someone who鈥檚 an equity analyst who not only has to figure out what something鈥檚 worth using formulas and numbers, but also might get an assessment of what the future of this company looks like by a twitch that the CEO has whenever he talks about future revenue projections.鈥�
Angela Ma, an assistant professor of finance, started taking ballet lessons at the age of four, even training with the prestigious Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle for a summer in high school. 鈥淧art of my teaching philosophy that comes from dance is that you try to rehearse and thoroughly prepare beforehand so that it kind of gets into your bones,鈥� says Ma. 鈥淗aving an intuitive understanding of the material makes it such that you can have productive spontaneity in a live performance, like in the classroom.鈥�
When a particular lesson isn鈥檛 clicking with students, she is able to change up her choreography on the fly, but she also sees the value of uncertainty that students might feel, over everything from financial concepts to their future careers. To her, uncertainty is necessary for curiosity.听
Associate professor of the practice Juan Montes climbing Mt. Everest.
鈥淚t鈥檚 like being a novice or an amateur at various things,鈥� Ma says鈥攔ecently she has been trying out salsa and swing dancing. 鈥淭here is not just one thing we can do in life.鈥� She adds that in a different universe she might have been an investment banker or a ballerina, but in another鈥攖his universe鈥斺�淚鈥檓 really grateful to be teaching and doing research.鈥�
In Montes鈥檚 classes, he鈥檚 just as likely to share stories of his mountaineering adventures as he is to talk about his time as a consultant, the CEO of a salmon production company, or the governor of the Los Lagos region of his native Chile. 鈥淪tudents, especially this generation, demand things that have meaning. Having a good life, a good salary, a good position, is very important, but everybody鈥檚 searching for meaning and meaningful things to do,鈥� he says. 鈥淚鈥檓 not saying that you need to climb Mount Everest, but you need to find out what your Everest is.鈥�
