Features Leading Like a Samurai Smith School instructor Kamran Loghman, developer of the Create, Achieve, Lead program at Apple, shares ancient lessons for 21st century warrior sages. Fearless Leadership in Your Words World-class hurdler Landria Buckley, MBA ’15, trained fearlessly for the Rio Olympics. She and other Smith School alumni share keys to fearless leadership. The Negotiation Doctor 6 Tactics for Building Win-Win Partnerships Smith Brain Trust Brief Case: Design Fellow Takes on DC Fashion Week

Victor Mullins, associate dean of the undergraduate program at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, recently interviewed Smith Sophomore  Kristin Woo ’19 to discuss how she is “pioneering her path” during her Smith journey. This past summer, Kristin was an Accounting Intern for I.L. Creations in Rockville, Maryland. She is currently a student in the Global Mindset Colloquium and a Member of Primannum Honor Society.

Victor Mullins, associate dean of the undergraduate program at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, recently interviewed Smith Junior Daniella Mazel ’18 to discuss how she is “commanding her career” during her Smith journey.  So what does the Smith journey entail? During their freshman year, Smith students begin to build their personal brand through the SmithStart program. Sophomores dedicate their second year to pioneering their path to success by focusing on an overall academic and career strategy.

Smith student Philip Peker ’18 writes about the welcome reception on Oct. 14, 2016, during Family Weekend 2016 at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. To kick off Family Weekend 2016 at Smith, Associate Dean Victor Mullins and the Undergraduate Studies Program staff hosted a welcoming reception, providing music, food, and a warm atmosphere for Smith students, alumni, and families.

When it comes to display advertising—especially online—simpler can be better. That’s the finding of new research at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. One theory of advertising holds that display ads need a degree of nuance or visual complexity to capture the viewer’s attention. But that fails to take into account the increasingly cluttered and hectic context in which ads are viewed today.

Amazon does it. So do Jimmy John’s and many other companies. They require new employees to sign noncompete clauses, a practice now being pushed on low-income workers, limiting their freedom in the labor market. In a recent set of projects, Evan Starr, assistant professor of management and organization at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, surveyed some 11,500 workers about their experiences with noncompetes, which companies often hide among routine forms new employees sign during the hiring process.

About one-quarter of jobs today require some kind of licensing by state governments, up from 5 percent in the ’50s. Some of the oversight is crucial for public safety and well-being. You want your doctor to be licensed, and probably your accountant. But a hairdresser? Florists?

How would trained saboteurs, successfully planted on your team by ruthless competitors, proceed to undermine your productivity? If they followed a previously classified World War II field guide used by the predecessor of today’s CIA, they would follow eight rules to sap your momentum. Robert Galford; an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, co-author of Simple Sabotage, facilitator of an open-enrollment course from the Office of Executive Programs; says many people with good intentions do the same things.

Online services such as OpenTable make it easy for consumers to make restaurant reservations and not show up. But higher-end restaurants are countering this. Sotto Sopra, for example, an Italian restaurant in Baltimore that loses up to $150,000 a year from no-shows and canceled reservations, announced in 2016 it would require credit card information for large reservations and charge a fee to diners who don't show.

Ancient Lessons for 21st Century Warrior Sages Samurai warriors in feudal Japan knew how to fight. But the best of these leaders, such as Yamamoto Kansuke, also knew the value of bringing people together and winning without resorting to combat. According to legend, Kansuke offered his military services to feudal lord Takeda Shingen, who required a duel with a notable samurai as part of the job interview. Kansuke was an excellent swordsman, but he had a bad leg and was missing an eye and several fingers.