For Tippie Professor Rob Rouwenhorst, imparting knowledge to students comes down to two basic skills: telling a great story and helping people learn how to do things.
Teaching is inspiration
Tippie Professor Rob Rouwenhorst’s classrom is a place not only to impart knowledge, but to continuously learn, even when you’re the instructor.
“If you’re a good mentor or teacher, you hope your students will become greater than you,” said Rouwenhorst, who teaches marketing at Tippie. “The MBA students I teach are constantly teaching me and I’m regularly inspired by what they’re doing and how they see the world.”
He also has a unique vision for what underpins any type of instruction—whether it be business, quantum mechanics or chemistry: building positive habits, in all aspects of life.
“All my teaching comes down to one fundamental principle—helping people find a way to be the best possible versions of themselves,” he said.
Changing lives by developing habits
He developed the philosophy during a trying time in his life, when he was working as an instructor at St. Ambrose University in Davenport several years ago. He described himself then as “overweight and going bald,” and decided he needed to change. A book he read called “Atomic Habits” was life-altering, teaching him how making small changes on a daily basis can fundamentally change your life.
Once he adjusted his exercise habits, diet, and sleep schedule, he found the transformation so positive, he now incorporates the habit-forming lesson into every class he teaches.
“I started giving my students a quiz with no score—they just have to pick up a new habit or drop a negative one and track the change,” he said. “I’ve been doing it in every class for the past seven years and it’s the best damn assignment I’ve ever created. I’ve had students quit smoking, lose 10 pounds, develop better relationships with their kids. All due to some dopey question I asked.”
One might justifiably ask what that has to do with learning marketing. Pretty much everything, Rouwenhorst says.
“We tend to focus on teaching marketing, or chemistry or XYZ, but not the daily stuff that is your life,” he said. “But most of your life is habits. If you can get the habits right, you can do almost anything.”
“Everything is marketing and marketing is everything”
He subscribes to the belief articulated in a quote from Regis McKenna, a Silicon Valley business pioneer who helped market Apple’s first desktop home computer: “Marketing is everything and everything is marketing.”
The idea is that every single touchpoint a customer has— from advertising photo choices, uniforms employees wear, how people answer the phone—communicates an organization’s brand. Much like a great brand, if you can harness your daily habits into a force for positivity, you will help make all those potential touchpoints a positive experience.
“It comes back to habits,” he said. “When you lead by example, it has an incredible rub-off effect and inspires others to be the best they can.”
Rouwenhorst said he is continually inspired by his current and ex-students.
“On a weekly basis, it seems like someone emails me and thanks me for what I did,” he said. “Sometimes it’s a student and sometimes an alum and often I can’t even remember what it was I said because it was just a Tuesday in my world, but it mattered to them. It makes me emotional knowing I had that kind of impact.”