After more than a dozen years teaching MBA students and more than 30 years presenting to large groups, I still at times find myself uneasy with new challenges. On Friday April 4 I began an entirely new class, Reputation Management, at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. I chose for this class to adopt a different style of teaching: reduced reliance on PowerPoint and increased expectation for student engagement. Let me share some background on the course’s development and then share how my choices played out on day one.

Three factors combined to create this course, a perfect storm if you will.

First, I was only supposed to each one MBA course and one Undergrad course this spring. My load had been reduced by one unit which is the GSB’s paternity leave policy for faculty – we get one course off sometime in the first two years of our child’s life. My husband and I have been trying to adopt an infant and were matched with a birthmother last spring when my course load was established. Unfortunately that birth mother changed her mind, but we’d hoped that we would surely have adopted by now. We have not. My dean asked me to add an additional course for this year and apply my paternity leave once an adoption has actually occurred.

Second, at this same time, a colleague, Allison Kluger, had approached me about a course on media for our students, relying on her contacts in the business. She had done a great deal of work creating a proposal for the school of journalism complete with learning goals and an impressive array of guest speakers. For me to be involved (and for it to fly at the GSB) I needed to it sure had a strong communication thrust and would be preparing leaders for the next rung on their individual career ladders (most of which would not be in media).

Third, I attended my annual professional society meeting, the Management Communication Association. At the 2013 MCA meeting I learned of a fascinating effort by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) to engage schools of management in teaching classes in reputation management. This discipline, an updated version of public relations, was new to me but very intriguing. I had taught public speaking and business writing for years at NYU and Stanford, but had not specifically ventured into this deeper application of communication studies.

So needing to add a class to my schedule, the appearance of a highly motivated colleague, and the awareness of the material and support to teach Reputation Management brought me to day one of this new course. We adjusted our course size to accommodate the many students on the wait list and I prepared to meet the students.

Yet as I worked over spring break on my lecture notes I realized that was the last thing I wanted to do: lecture! This topic so leant itself to more of a dialogue with the students in the twice-weekly sessions. While it is markedly easier to create a lecture, I chose instead to prepare a conversation. Then I made the rather difficult choice to fly without a net: no PowerPoint slides. If I really wanted to harness the power of conversation I had to demonstrate that to the class. I spent hours poring over the material in the first chapter of our text, Reputation Rules by Daniel Diermeier from Kellogg. There were many cases but I settled on just three to guide our conversation: Tylenol, Exxon Valdez, and Thomas the Tank Engine. Three firms who met reputational crises with varying degrees of success. I wanted my students to understand and embrace Diermeier’s Trust Radar (Empathy, Commitment, Expertise, and Transparency) but I wanted to create it with them not deliver it to them.

I began teaching with three full white boards in front of me, a few holding prep work, most all blank. It was a blank slate for me and for the class. We began the discussion and it quickly became clear that the students, most fighting jet lag from amazing trips to exotic places, were unprepared for the discussion I was ready to have. But, they engaged heroically with the material. In fact we spent nearly 20 minutes discussing the Mozilla CEO resignation with which I was familiar, but had not anticipated discussing. By allowing myself to be free from an agenda I could navigate the conversation where it naturally was to flow and we still covered all the material. In fact their discussion was so rich at one point I had to cut it off so the rest of my teaching team could do the personal introductions they had prepared.

I saw that this “old dog could learn new tricks” and approach this course differently. It was a powerful lesson for me. And so my weekend included lots more prep for today’s conversation: the continuum of reputation along with a few good long runs in McLaren Park to sharpen my class plan.