For 12 years and thousands of students, George Grody has gained a reputation as being one of the most beloved faculty members at Duke, earning him the title of “Best Professor” by the Duke Chronicle’s most recent survey. We decided to sit down with him to learn what it is that makes this professor so special to so many Duke and MMS students through the years.
One of the aspects of MMS that so many students appreciate is that many MMS coded courses are taught by real world practitioners who bring their business expertise to Duke. Grody is no exception to this. Grody brings decades of experience, knowledge, and training in marketing and product and brand management to the classroom and has taught countless students how to better themselves at this.
Grody began his professional career at Procter and Gamble right after graduating from Duke in 1981. After 26 years and an exhaustive career at P&G, he retired and began teaching courses at his alma mater. He explains that P&G prides itself on being a “promote from within business” that strives to build leaders and encourages its employees to train and build up those under them. Grody appreciated this aspect and realized that he could keep doing this outside of P&G, which is what led him to the classroom. He began to ask himself “how many people can I touch or train or develop into leaders” and that became one of his guiding principles as an instructor.
“I’m not a check all the boxes guy . . . Checking boxes gets you to keep your job, but it doesn’t really help you move up.” Grody explains that he doesn’t want a bunch of students who simply aim to build their resumes. He believes, “my job is to have you learn and retain skills so you can use both here at Duke and in your career post-Duke.”
Grody’s advice to MMS students in the future is to be more selective in the courses they take. MMS offers an extensive course listing, so be choosy; find the handful of courses specifically tailored to your interests, skills, or potential career path. He believes that students should find the topics, courses, and extracurriculars dedicated to the things they care about and pursue those things. Being busy is not a badge of honor and it is not the same as being productive.
He also advices students to follow the path that is best for them, not the path that others think they should take. “People told me I was making a mistake by coming to Duke, by working at P&G, by retiring…I did it anyway. I had choices but I made decisions based on what was best for me not what was most conventional or looked good to other people.” Being a faculty member who stays in close contact with many of his former students, he tells of students who are now fulfilled and happy working in jobs that they would not have taken right out of Duke because they were focused on taking jobs that would satisfy others’ opinions. This, he warns, is not the personal branding that he strives to teach his students.
“You learn about yourself in Grody’s class, what you believe in, what you stand for” says MMS senior Max Moser. Being a leader means first understanding yourself, and Grody aims to teach this to students. Grody isn’t just teaching his students enough to get them through Duke; he cares about teaching them how to succeed, how to be better. For a professor who focuses on teaching business and leadership, Grody finds the intersection of the two ideas, leaving students to ask, are you—like Grody—living your brand?
Markets Management Studies