CEO Magazine - Volume 14

Meet Microsoft’s New Man at the Helm...

Satya Nadella

10 essential books that all MBA students should read CEO14_OFC_Cover.indd 1

Professional advice on how to Overcome the Midday Slump

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CONTENTS

Table of Contents 8 11 14 16 18

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21 25

Deans’ Predictions Alexandra Skinner

MBA Review CEO Magazine

Executive MBA Education: Proven ROI That Helps Students Make Their Mark Michael Desiderio

Tips for Executive MBA Success Francis Petit

COVER STORY Satya Nadella: A Man for Many Reasons Alexandra Skinner

The Paradox of Indispensability Richard Jolly

Why I Brought Meditation into the Classroom Randel S. Carlock

The Carlos III MBA  Academic Excellence and Practical Relevance  Expect More MBA Program, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Campus Puerta de Toledo, Ronda de Toledo, 1 (Despacho 3.b.03), 28005 Madrid, Spain Telephone: Email: Web:

+34 91 624 5779 masterma@emp.uc3m.es www.uc3m.edu/mba CEO MAGAZINE

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27 31 36

32 36 38

The University of Opportunity Romana Garma

Overcoming the Midday Slump Amber Callender

A Global Business Education Network Australian Institute of Business

How to Make Yourself Work When You Just Don’t Want To Heidi Grant Halvorson

Building Professional Excellence John Glynn

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42 46 48 50 53

The MBA that’s Tailored to You Christine Clarke

Why Work is Lonely Gianpiero Petriglieri

The 60 Word Interview Ron Shiffler

Affecting Careers. Now. Jack Welch Management Institute

Tell Your Boss About the Problem, If You Have One Henrich Greve

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Inspiring a Global Knowledge Culture

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Brunel Business School

Ten Books that Every MBA Student Should Read Goodreads.com

An Enduring Educational Experience Jaime Ortega

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62 64 67 70

From Application to Graduation Kent State University - College of Business Administration

Meet the Dean Joe Turek

ISEG ISEG – Lisboa School of Economics & Management

Transform Yourself, Impact Your World Alon Rozen

64 73 77 80

How to Achieve Operational Synergy Through Better Human Capital Managemen Emad Rahim

When to Speak Up, When to Shut Up Erin Meyer

List of Contributors

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CONTENTS

Published by the International Graduate Forum: Head Office: Communications House, 26 York Street, London W1U 6PZ (UK) Telephone: Fax: Email: Web:

+44 (0) 870 067 2077 (UK) +44 (0) 870 067 2078 (UK) a.skinner@graduate-forum.com www.graduate-forum.com

Follow us on Twitter: @CEO_GradForum

© 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the expressed approval of the copyright owner. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information in this publication, the Publisher accepts no responsibility for errors or omissions.

The Publisher disclaims responsibility for the views and opinions expressed herein by the contributors. Furthermore, the Publisher does not give any warranty regarding the accuracy thereof.

CEO

Victor J. Callender

Group Editor-in-Chief

Alexandra Skinner

Designer

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Financial Controller

Anthony Gordon

Head of Production

Steven Whitaker

Features Writer

Amber Callender

For further information on annual subscription rates, please visit:

Price per issue, including web access: £10.00 | €12.00 | $15.00 Cover image used with permission from Microsoft.

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DEANS’ PREDICTIONS

The MBA in 2014

Deans’ Predictions

With the market’s thirst for the MBA continuing, the global pool widening and the number of MBA programmes available on the increase, there is tough competition amongst business schools for top applicants. To this end, the on-going evolvement of a business school’s MBA programme is crucial. In this feature, CEO Magazine’s Alexandra Skinner speaks to those charged with overseeing this, and asks them what developments and key trends they see emerging in the 2014 MBA landscape.

Dr Alon Rozen

École des Ponts Business School

Partner up (or out) MBA and EMBA prospects and participants are now looking for ever greater value-for-money before they choose a program. “Value” used to be defined quite narrowly in terms of post-MBA starting salary and ROI, but as the MBA has gone from a professional differentiator to a managerial pre-requisite, many are now looking for value in non-monetary terms such as crosscultural immersion, study-travel opportunities, and an easier path to international jobs/mobility.

To offer this variety, and thus greater value, schools are increasingly partnering across borders with other schools to provide multi-campus international experiences, a diversity of faculty and schools of thought, joint/dual diplomas and access to multiple alumni networks.

For even the biggest schools, going it alone no longer seems like a viable option.

Open enrolment “corporate” EMBAs

To MOOC or not to MOOC?

This trend of multiple academic partners providing one programme has developed in parallel with another trend – that of multiple corporate partners being involved in the creation of one MBA or Executive MBA programme.

The global financial crisis led many multinationals to rethink training programmes for high-potentials and top management. The objective remained to ensure industry-specific training, however multinationals no longer wish to bear the full financial weight of typical corporate training programs.

At the frontier between customised corporate programmes and open enrollment MBAs is a new breed of EMBA – a programme designed with several corporate partners, by multiple academic partners, offering industry-specific content. The EMBA in Aviation Management, launched in March 2014, was developed, for example, by three academic partners (Tsinghua University, the ENAC (French civil aviation school) and the ENPC) together with three corporate partners (Airbus France, Airbus China and the International Lease Finance Corporation), with content, experiential learning and case studies specific to the aviation industry.

As this new breed of MBAs gains traction, we can expect to see similar initiatives with companies across the value chain of an industry working together to create their own “custom” programmes.

As the buzz about MOOCs morphs from complete frenzy to informed discussion, many schools (and start-ups) have realised that MOOCs are a great idea in terms of a business model. As published completion rates for most MOOCs are well below 5 per cent, and the cost and time investment required are more clearly understood, the question has moved to how can schools use a MOOC “approach” to better integrate video and e-learning into curricula.

A key problem for those offering MOOCs and e-learing is how to verify the identity of the person doing the actual work, or ensure that the person doing the work is not being aided. Biometric and face-recognition solutions are in the works, but this remains a sticking point in regards to certification.

Tellingly, even Prof. Sebastian Thrun, who left Stanford to found Udacity, has decided to veer away from MOOCs to focus on corporate training.

While MOOCs continue to fascinate, and attract the attention of business schools around the world, their future place in the learning landscape is still not clear.

Alon Rozen is Acting Dean, ENPC MBA Paris – École des Ponts Business School.

The global financial crisis led many multinationals to rethink training programmes for high-potentials and top management.

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DEANS’ PREDICTIONS

Dr Francis Petit

Dr Georges Nurdin

Fordham University Graduate School

Paris School of Business

of Business Administration

Corporate financial sponsorship will continue to decrease In 2013, the percentage of EMBA students receiving full corporate financial sponsorship, according to the Executive MBA Council, was at 24 per cent. This percentage was 44 per cent in 2001. Following the continued trends, this figure will decrease to between 22 and 23 per cent in 2014. Corporations unfortunately view the EMBA as a “luxury” product, because EMBA students pay a premium and receive additional amenities as compared to traditional part-time and/or evening MBA students. However, even though current EMBA students are encumbering more of the tuition themselves, the demand to attend such programs still remains strong. While companies are reimbursing less and less for these programs, prospective EMBA students still want to attend.

Prospective EMBA students in pipeline longer Since prospective EMBA students are now paying more out of pocket it will take longer for them to commit to a program. This is just a natural occurrence. The potential “debt factor” is scary. It takes a while for prospective students to come to terms with it. That being said, prospective EMBA students will be in the admissions pipeline longer before applying and enrolling in a program.

Admissions representatives from all EMBA programs must plan accordingly.

Increasing disparity in EMBA tuition The dwindling level of full corporate financial sponsorship will continue to have an impact on EMBA tuition rates. The top tier schools and top brands will continue to raise their tuition rates more aggressively than the others. The top tier schools believe they have the leverage to sustain such tuition increases. As such, the disparity in EMBA tuition rates across the industry will increase. This disparity is not a positive industry sign; however it is one that will continue.

Dr Francis Petit, Ed.D. is Associate Dean for Executive MBA Programs, Fordham University – Graduate School of Business Administration.

Dr Sionade Robinson Cass Business School

More collaboration, bonding and networking among the cohort groups – EMBAs are more than ever seeking highly productive peer relationships. A recent Cass EMBA recruit commented: “I don’t want to be part of a cohort where we have to climb over each other.”

More flexibility in learning modes – Millennials (born after 1981) are now starting to enter the EMBA population. They have grown up in the digital world and have different expectations when it comes to flexibility in work modes. They are seeking high quality face-to-face teaching which provides a distinctive experiential component, along with online multimedia access to stimulus materials and interactions with peers and faculty.

More personalisation in experience – EMBAs see that their futures careers will require more flexibility – they see opportunities across more sectors than those traditionally targeted by MBA graduates. Hence they expect more choice and personalisation. This will favour schools with smaller intakes who can create and curate more intimate professional and academic development, helping EMBAs to build lifelong skill sets that generate value which will last beyond their first role out of business school.

Dr Sionade Robinson is Associate Dean, MBA Programmes and Director, Full Time MBA programme, Cass Business School.

The most apparent impact on the MBA arena in 2014 will of course be the digitisation of education. Technology will, and has already begun to, change the face of education as we traditionally know it. The change has now been set in motion with the emergence of popular learning alternatives such as MOORs, MOOCs, SPOKS and all other Star Trek technology!

The digitisation of education will cause a paradigm shift. Over the last 50 years, the implicit promise of investing time, money and effort to obtain an MBA has been the guarantee of a successful career, enabling one to climb up the social ladder. This promise and this era are over.

In the business world of today, entrepreneurship is the key to success. Despite the uncertain global economy, it’s innovative entrepreneurs that are creating both economic and social value. We only have to look at the top listed companies on the stock exchange to see this; two thirds of them did not exist 15 years ago!

What does all of this mean for business schools? The challenge is clear: business schools must establish an effective teaching model to train students to become real entrepreneurs.

So, while the digitisation of education may be the most apparent change in 2014, I predict that the fundamental change will lie in the teaching model. I believe that regardless of whether students learn on campus or in a virtual classroom, the following three changes will determine the success of both business schools and their graduates:  Change in the recruitment criteria: Rather than using GMAT scores as the best predictor, instead use creativity tests during the admission process to identify passionate candidates who think outside of the box.  Change in course content: The content must correspond to current and future market needs. A combination of management, technology and innovation is essential for the successful entrepreneurs of tomorrow.  Change in delivery mode: Question classic teaching methods and instead focus on applied learning. Hands-on experience is the key to nourishing the entrepreneurial spirit and drive of students. With real business projects at the core of the curriculum, students will learn to challenge traditional approaches, to take risks, to find solutions... and become real entrepreneurs.

Dr Georges Nurdin is Dean of the Paris School of Business.

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DEANS’ PREDICTIONS

Cathy E. Minehan Simmons College

Reality – It has become much more difficult to market the MBA degree, at least within the US. It is expensive, time-consuming for both the full-time or part-time student and, ultimately, less rewarding as more and more businesses fall back on their own customized training, particularly in financial firms. Attracting students to the MBA program has thus become for all but the gold-plated programs a matter of tuition discount. Beyond that, prospective students taking the GMAT are now more than ever female, making the market nationally for female MBA students the most highly competitive ever seen. Again more tuition discounts. How is an MBA program specially designed to educate women leaders to survive?

And what can all business programs learn from this existential challenge?

1. Focus on the areas of business endeavor that are ever more dependent on business training, but not likely to deliver it on their own.

In the US this is the business of healthcare.

Whether one likes the Affordable Care Act or not, healthcare in the US has to evolve in ways that both reward efficiency and quality and support wider healthcare coverage. To facilitate this evolution, healthcare providers must not only effectively use every worker that they have; they must also acquire better business expertise. In short, six sigma needs to move to the operating room and the radiology lab. MBA programs with a focus on healthcare are old hat; now the MBA has to be a 50/50 split with healthcare so as to create practitioners who really understand both business basics and health policy.

Focus on markets that have under-served women seeking to become proficient in business and develop leadership skills.

Wendy Alexander London Business School

Will there still be MBAs in 2050? The answer is likely to be yes, just as there will be medical degrees for doctors and legal degrees for lawyers. But this cosy complacency that cossets some business schools belies a more fundamental shift.

It is unquestioned that doctors and lawyers need core professional knowledge externally accredited. But for business people the MBA is not as self-evident. Does the age of free content online and a multiplicity of employers with deep analytical capabilities mean business schools are increasingly redundant? Can the experiences gleaned working for a succession of start-ups or by signing up for your corporate university’s courses supplement the traditional MBA? Admissions officers hear these questions every day, and the need for a credible response is leading many schools to re-examine their purpose, reconnect with their markets and review their offering. This energising experience for business schools is driven by key market developments:    

Content is now ubiquitous and free.

Growth is increasingly driven from distant and different markets.

Students want educational experiences more finely tuned into their own learning journey.

Students now come to business schools as much to switch careers as to accelerate them.

Recruiters know they can source candidates who have mastered core skills online. Hence they wonder aloud what additional value business schools are adding. Are business schools adept at developing leaders who can fit in fast and manage diverse global teams?

All of this requires a mind-set shift from business schools. Business schools need to consider how the time and space afforded by an MBA can allow each student to focus effectively on their own distinctive development needs, and how to help them diagnose that menu of both functional and soft skills.

This means getting much smarter at helping students navigate their business school careers by exploring: what curriculum is right for them, what experiential learning will be most useful, and what extracurricular activities make most sense?

The traditional classroom experience is not simply flipped by digital content, but also complemented by learning opportunities that leverage the school’s location, grows their networks and provides a familiar community to return to again and again in coming years.

Great MBAs remain rooted in achieving academic excellence and experiencing great thought leadership. But they also increasingly inspire individual initiative. In today’s workplace, where the capacity to innovate and work effectively across boundaries is a key differentiator, the best business schools are becoming places where students learn to uniquely develop their own assets to create a portfolio of knowledge, capabilities and experiences that they carry with them forever.

Wendy Alexander is Associate Dean, Degree Programmes and Career Services, London Business School.

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Generally, these markets are outside of the US. An MBA program designed for women might seem to miss the mark as the business world is dominated by men – why not be educated in co-ed classrooms? However, the true value of such an education, on top of learning first rate business skills, is the acquisition of the organizational skills necessary to navigate in highly male cultures. Our sense is that however difficult for women US workplaces are, those in other countries, especially major developing countries, might be worse. As using every bit of the talent available is a requirement for growth in this competitive world, one could make the argument that the time has finally come for business education aimed specifically at creating women leaders.

2. Focus on businesses that express frustration that the expensive women that they recruit from the best business programs ultimately do not rise to the senior executive levels that would be expected. Is it the failure to “lean in”? Is it the call of personal over professional priorities? Or is it the way that unintentional bias plays out in the work environment? How can businesses come to be known as the best place for working women, not just by the time off they might allow, but by the actual progress that women make into the highest rungs of management? Executive education in women’s leadership tailored to the particular needs of the company in question clearly helps, as will partnerships with business schools like Simmons who specialize in this area. Recognizing the need for incoming employees with organizational savvy as well as finance and strategy skills should be on the “to-do” list of every company looking to be competitive in today’s markets.

Cathy E. Minehan is Dean of Simmons College School of Management.

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MBA REVIEW

International Graduate Forum MBA Rankings Spring 2014 The International Graduate Forum’s (IGF) Spring 2014 MBA Rankings have been compiled based upon key performance indicators considered to be of interest and value to potential students. Thus, international diversity, class sizes, student work experience, facultyto-student ratios, and faculty qualifications – both academic and professional – have been given considerable weight. With competition between business schools continuing to increase, it is important for schools to understand what students really want. Schools ranked highly by the IGF in CEO Magazine have been successful in this goal.

NORTH AMERICAN MBA RANKINGS

EUROPEAN MBA RANKINGS

Tier One

Tier One

Appalachian State University

Ashridge Business School

California State University, San Bernardino

Audencia Nantes

Colorado Technical University

Birmingham Business School

Fairfield University

Brunel Business School

Fordham University Graduate School of Business Administration

CEU Business School

Georgetown University, McDonough

Copenhagen Business School

Jacksonville University

Cranfield School of Management

Kennesaw State University

Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences

Kent State University

EADA

La Salle University

EIPM

Le Moyne College, Madden

École des Ponts Business School

Lynchburg College

ESADE Business School

Millsaps College

ESMT

Niagara University

European University

Northwest Missouri State University

HHL Leipzig

Queens University of Charlotte

ICN Business School

Simmons College

IE Business School

The University of Memphis

IESE Business School

University of Alabama in Huntsville

IfM - Institut für Management

University of Rochester, Simon

International University of Monaco

University of the Sciences

ISEG - Lisboa School of Economics & Management

Wake Forest University School of Business

Lancaster Management School

Tier Two

Lorange Institute of Business Zurich

Berry College, Campbell * Boston College, Carroll Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper Columbia Business School * Georgia Southern University Grand Valley State University McNeese State University College of Business Roosevelt University UCI Merage School of Business University of Alaska Anchorage University of Denver, Daniels College of Business

Mannheim Business School MIP Politecnico di Milano Paris School of Business Porto Business School Reykjavik University Rochester-Bern SBS Swiss Business School The Lisbon MBA (Nova and Católica-Lisbon) * University Carlos III of Madrid University of Strathclyde Warsaw School of Economics

University of Texas at Austin McCombs *

Tier Two

University of Washington, Foster

INDEG-IUL ISCTE

Washington University in St. Louis * Willamette University, Atkinson

*Incomplete data CEO MAGAZINE

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MBA REVIEW

AUSTRALIAN MBA RANKINGS

ONLINE MBA RANKINGS

Tier One

Tier One

1

Victoria University Graduate School of Business

Colorado Technical University

=2

Australian Institute of Business

Deakin University

=2

Monash University

George Washington University

4

University of Wollongong, Sydney

IE Business School

5

The University of Queensland Business School

Imperial College Business School

=6

University of Sydney Business School

Indiana University, Kelley

=6

Melbourne Business School

International University of Monaco

=8

Macquarie University Graduate School of Management

Jack Welch Management Institute

=8

Australian Catholic University

Northwest Missouri State University

10

Deakin University

SBS Swiss Business School

11

University of Western Australia Graduate School of Management

Temple University, Fox

12

University of Ballarat

Thunderbird School of Global Management

13

Swinburn University of Technology, Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship

University of Liverpool

14

The University of Adelaide

University of Westminster

15

RMIT University Graduate School of Business and law

16

University of Technology Sydney

17

University of Western Sydney

18

Murdoch University Business School

19

Southern Cross University *

University of North Carolina, Kenan-Flagler

Tier Two

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MBA REVIEW

Global TOP 20 MBA Rankings

Global EMBA Rankings Tier One

1

Copenhagen Business School

Europe

Ashridge Business School

Europe

=2

ESADE Business School

Europe

Audencia Nantes School of Management

Europe

=2

Audencia Nantes

Europe

California State, San Bernardo

North America

=3

École des Ponts Business School

Europe

CENTRUM Catolica

Peru

=3

EADA

Europe

Copenhagen Business School

Europe Europe

4

La Salle University

North America

Cranfield School of Management

=5

ESMT

Europe

EADA

Europe

=5

University of Strathclyde

Europe

ENPC Fox Executive MBA

6

Victoria University Graduate School of Business

Australia

Europe/ North America

ESADE

Europe

7

Queens University of Charlotte, McColl School of Business

North America

Euromed

Europe North America

8

Ashridge Business School

Europe

Fordham University Graduate School of Business Administration

9

IE Business School

Europe

HHL Leipzig

Europe

10

Cranfield School of Management

Europe

ICN Business School

Europe

11

Rochester-Bern

Europe

Jacksonville University

North America

=12 Kent State University

North America

Kent State University

North America

=12 Lancaster Management School

Europe

Lancaster University

Europe

=13 Australian Institute of Business

Australia

Millsaps College

North America

=13 Monash University

Australia

Porto Business School

Europe

=13 International University of Monaco

Europe

Queens University of Charlotte McColl School of Business North America

=14 University of Wollongong, Sydney Business School

Australia

Reykjavick University

Europe

The University of Memphis

North America

=14 Jacksonville University

North America

University of Rochester, Simon

North America

=14 Lynchburg College

North America

University of Strathclyde

Europe

=14 University of Rochester, Simon School of Business

North America

University of Sydney Business School

Australia

=14 IESE

Europe

Warsaw School of Economics

Europe

=15 The University of Queensland Business School

Australia

Australian Catholic University

Australia

=15 HHL Leipzig

Europe

Carnegie Mellon, Tepper

North America

=16 Fordham University, Graduate School of Business Administration

North America

CEU Business School

Europe

=16 Paris School of Business

Europe

Columbia Business School *

North America

=16 University of Sydney Business School

Australia

Concordia University, John Molson

Canada

=16 Melbourne Business School

Australia

EIPM

Europe

=16 The University of Memphis

North America

ESMT

Europe

=16 Porto Business School

Europe

European University

Europe

=16 Mannheim Business School

Europe

Georgetown University, McDonough

North America

=17 Macquarie University, Graduate School of Management

Australia

IfM-Institut fĂźr Management

Europe

INDEG-IUL ISCTE

Europe

=17 Australian Catholic University

Australia

Kennesaw State University

North America

=17 CEU Business School

Europe

Lorange Institute of Business Zurich

Europe

=17 Birmingham Business School

Europe

Mannheim Business School

Europe

=17 ICN Business School

Europe

MIP Politecnico di Milano

Europe

18

North America

RMIT University Graduate School of Business and Law

Australia

=19 Appalachian State University

North America

Saint Mary's University, Sobey

Canada

=19 Reykjavik University

Europe

University of California, Irvine

North America

=20 Deakin University

Australia

University of Regina

Canada

=20 California State University, San Bernardino

North America

University of Technology Sydney

Australia

=20 Brunel Business School

Europe

University of Texas at Austin, McCombs *

North America

University of Washington, Foster

North America

University of Wollongong, Sydney

Australia

Washington University in St Louis, Olin *

North America

Kennesaw State University

Global EMBA Rankings Tier Two

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EXECUTIVE MBA EDUCATION

Executive MBA

EDUCATION Proven ROI That Helps Students Make Their Mark

Michael Desiderio

A

t a renowned business school in France, Executive MBA (EMBA) students are working elbow-toelbow with each other on ideas to launch new businesses. Another alumnus of an EMBA program started what is now a thriving property management business in Utah as a result of a business plan that he and his EMBA team developed during the program.

One of the top manufacturers of pumps to global markets reaped significant benefits as a result of its involvement with the Executive MBA. The company wanted to turn a lean enterprise philosophy into reality: As part of a project that its manager and EMBA student completed, the company realized a return of approximately $3 million in the first year of implementation.

When another company opened a plant in Spain, they relied on one of their managers, also an EMBA student, for leadership of the commercial side of business development. In turn, that student took what he learned from the program and developed a strategic plan. The work proved successful: the plant experienced rapid growth in sales, all during the time of economic downtown.

And, throughout the world, EMBA students and alumni report similar stories.

What is it about Executive MBA programs that help students make their mark?

Practical, relevant EMBA programs were born from a practical need for leadership. The University of Chicago launched the first program in 1943 to address the gap in experienced leadership to run organizations. Companies soon realized the benefits of retaining leadership talent while at the same time nurturing that talent.

Throughout the years, the number of EMBA programs has grown – from a handful of programs in the early years to more than 300 14

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programs currently – and expanded from their roots in the United States to renowned schools throughout the world.

Today, they remain focused on the application of knowledge, the support of leadership development, and responsiveness to the changing business environment.

EMBA programs today vary in some ways, but share some common characteristics. Those characteristics include flexible formats that allow program completion in two years or less while working full time; fellow students from all types and sizes of industry; same peer group throughout the whole program; stimulating classroom discussions and team-based projects; curriculum that covers and integrates all business functions; global in scope; emphasis on leadership; personal skill development, and application; senior faculty as instructors; and professional services.

Endless value This focus is reaping results for EMBA participants and their organizations. The Executive MBA Council, an association of EMBA programs worldwide, conducts research to track the perceptions and opinions of EMBA program graduates and to measure the return on investment of the degree, as well as to track industry trends.

According to the 2013 EMBA Council Student Exit Survey, the salary and bonus packages of recent EMBA program graduates increased by 14 per cent from program start to program end. The average salary and bonus package at program start for students was $140,310; by the end of the program, the average salary and bonus package rose to $159,963.

In addition to salary increases, more than half – 51 per cent – of the graduates received new responsibilities and 38 per cent a promotion during their time in the EMBA programs.

EMBA graduates also report high levels of satisfaction with their EMBA experience, ranking program quality 8.3 on a 10-point scale, their willingness to recommend their program to a colleague or friend 8.4 on a 10-point scale, and the likelihood of supporting the program as alumni 8.2 on a 10-point scale.

Leadership in action EMBA programs are able to uniquely impact students and their organizations for a number of reasons.

Unlike other MBA and specialized master’s programs, EMBA programs attract experienced professionals with diverse backgrounds and from diverse industries, such as health care, technology, manufacturing, financial services, consumer products, consulting, energy, media, non-profit organizations, government and real estate. According to EMBA Council research, the median age of students

EXECUTIVE MBA EDUCATION

is 37 years. The average years of management experience is 8.5 and the average years of work experience is 13.7.

These statistics translate into a rich learning environment for EMBA students, who can learn from each other as well as from faculty members.

And because students continue through the program with the same group of students, they gain an invaluable new network of colleagues and friends, who often continue lending advice and support throughout the rest of their careers.

Significantly, the experienced professionals in the program bring their key issues to the classroom and work on them as part of the EMBA experience.

EMBA programs augment the unique student mix by emphasizing assignments and projects on

EMBA programs have invested in many avenues to ensure that EMBA students not only understand, but experience the global nature of business.

real-life business, often situations that are taking place within their organizations. This emphasis helps students translate their newly found knowledge and newly honed skills into actions that benefit their careers and their organizations.

Global impact Recognizing the importance of a global business mindset, EMBA programs have invested in many avenues to ensure that EMBA students not only understand, but experience the global nature of business.

In fact, a growing number of EMBA programs are global in structure, formed by collaborations among schools in different countries. Other schools may offer EMBA programs in more than one country and build from that foundation to expand the global business acumen of students.

Almost two-thirds of all EMBA programs require a global trip, an opportunity for students to experience business in another part of the world firsthand. Such trips often integrate a global business project in collaboration with a local or international organization, and involve meetings with government and company visits.

EMBA programs also weave global issues into courses throughout the curriculum, host international residences throughout the world, and offer courses that combine international business and travel and projects with international components.

Evolving While EMBA programs understood from their start the value to business of a focus on applying business fundamentals, they also understand the importance of evolving as business evolves.

For example, according to EMBA Council research, the number of EMBA programs that reported changing program delivery, such as offering new electives, program formats, or services, has tripled over the past five years.

In recent years, more and more programs have invested in diverse leadership development activities, which include the use of assessment tools to enhance self-awareness and a greater understanding of strengths and weaknesses; emphasis on improving soft skills, such as communication, negotiation, and relationship building; executive coaching, leadership residencies and courses, and leadership programs.

With a more mobile job market, many EMBA students come to programs with change in mind – either a change of position in their current organization; a transition to management from another discipline, such as engineering or medicine; preparation for a new opportunity; or the business knowledge that will help them as entrepreneurs.

Nearly two-thirds of EMBA programs now offer career services that help students with their desired career transition. Career development activities range from seminars for students on career-related topics to one-on-one coaching on career issues to assistance with job search activities to on-campus recruiting to online resources.

Future trends EMBA programs continue to adapt, with technology opening opportunities for programs and students.

As more students travel, programs are taking advantage of technology, both in program delivery and use of electronic materials. Technology is helping students from other countries meet and work virtually on global teams. Technology is making it more convenient for students as programs incorporate technological innovations into course work. More programs will continue to explore the use of electronic materials: the percentage of course materials that programs deliver electronically has tripled since 2010, according to EMBA Council research.

In addition, programs are adjusting formats to better suit the busy schedules of business leaders. While the more traditional all-day classes on Saturday-only, or all-day classes on alternating Fridays and Saturdays remain popular, programs are also offering modular formats, where students meet less regularly, but for longer periods.

Increasingly, EMBA students will find programs that take a personal approach with assessments, tailored leadership development and career plans, executive coaching, electives, and other opportunities that support student growth.

While much may – and has – changed, one constant remains: the commitment of EMBA programs to nurture the talent of students in ways that help them propel their careers and benefit their organizations.

Biography Ø Michael Desiderio joined the Executive MBA Council as executive director in 2007. He has worked in industry and higher education and received his Executive MBA from the W. P. Cary School at Arizona State University. Ø The Executive MBA Council is the professional association for business schools throughout the world that offer EMBA programs and the global voice of the EMBA industry. To learn more about the council, visit www.emba.org.

To learn more about the EMBA experience, visit www.executivemba.org.

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TIPS FOR EXECUTIVE MBA SUCCESS

Executive MBA Success

Tips for

Francis Petit, Ed.D

S

electing the "right" Executive MBA program can be a daunting task.

Given the price of these programs and the dwindling level of corporate financial sponsorship, you want to make sure that you select a program that is not only the best fit, but will also allow you to achieve your professional and personal goals.

With this as a background, it is critical, as a potential student and consumer, to understand the importance of this decision along with the historical evolution of such programs.

With a rich history dating back to the first Executive MBA program established by the University of Chicago in 1943, these programs were originally targeted to the thirty-eightyear-old male executive who never received an MBA, and needed the credential and content immediately for his current role. Business schools would charge a premium and sponsoring companies would pay full freight. In fact, full corporate financial sponsorship was originally a requirement for admissions. In addition, career services were not offered to Executive MBA students so as to not hinder the coveted relationship with the sponsoring company. With this as the original model, all seemed well for business schools.

Yet fast-forward to 2014 and much has changed. Companies really do not fully support and invest in such programs any longer. According to the Executive MBA Council, the official governing body of Executive MBA programs worldwide, only 24 per cent of Executive MBA students enrolled received full financial sponsorship from their employer. This figure was 44 per cent in 2001.

In addition, the Executive MBA Council has reported that students are increasingly paying out-of-pocket. For example, in 2013, 41.2 per cent of Executive MBA students enrolled were selfsponsored. This figure was 19 per cent in 2001.

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TIPS FOR EXECUTIVE MBA SUCCESS

top and your cohorts will notice it. Students who put in a tremendous academic effort oftentimes become the class leaders, which is a very good thing. On the flipside, the cohorts can, in time, pick out a slacker and once that occurs no one will want to work with you on any group project whatsoever.

The impact and learning of an Executive MBA experience can last well beyond graduation, if you are willing to be active.

As a Graduate Stay involved. Utilize the business school for resources. Also be a resource for your alma mater. Business schools offer so many interesting initiatives for their graduates including events, presentations and receptions.

These initiatives can all add to your networking opportunities. You do not have to necessarily

Therefore, given the price of these programs and the precipitous decline of corporate support, the pressure to select the right program can be intense. Below are some tips to make sure you get the most from not only this decision, but also the MBA EXPERIENCE.

As a Student in the Program

contribute money to stay involved. Offering an internship or job opportunity within your

Dive right in. Do all the required readings and

organization is a great way to stay connected

even the optional readings. Try to learn as much

to your business school. Once a collaborative

as possible. Do not do assignments just for the

relationship has been established as a

grade. In fact do not even check your grade

graduate of a program, then one hand washes

point average at any time during the program.

the other. Overall the impact and learning of

Just focus on learning and putting in your best

an Executive MBA experience can last well

effort. If you do that the grades will take care

beyond graduation, if you are willing to be

Research on the front-end. It is imperative to

of themselves. Oftentimes, students get overly

active and allow your relationship with your

fully research all of your options. Attend all

consumed with grades. That unfortunately

business school to evolve. Once this occurs

open houses and information sessions. Sit

impacts learning.

it makes the premium price you paid for

in on a class for all of your desired schools.

In addition, try to participate in as many different group assignments and study groups as possible. Executive MBA admissions representatives strive to recruit a class that is not only dynamic and professionally diverse, but one that has a great spirit. You will learn more from your classmates than you will from the faculty.

That is just the way it goes. Take advantage of it.

Do not stick with one group of students. Move beyond your social and academic comfort zone.

You will be glad you did.

Executive MBA students should also take advantage of all the career management and networking opportunities available. Business schools now do not have a choice but to offer career service options to their Executive MBA population. Career management is always a major topic at the Executive MBA Council Annual Conference. Business schools are trying to determine the right career management offerings for MBA students. Be enthusiastic and focused. All activities and initiatives can add value in some way. Dive in fully on the career management end. Opportunities can appear when you least expect them.

Lastly, do not get the reputation among your classmates of being a “slacker.” Your reputation within your Executive MBA program is everything. Once you establish a particular reputation it is very difficult to change it. Hard work and effort rises to the

your degree inconsequential, given all of the

As a Prospective Student

There is no better way to “taste” the Executive MBA product than sitting in and witnessing it first-hand. When you sit in you must realize that the faculty and teaching, at any institution, will be excellent. That will not necessarily be the differentiator. Instead, focus on each institution’s culture and whether you will fit in. Each business school has a unique culture.

Make sure that the culture is aligned with you.

In addition, ask each business school representative if you can speak with a graduate of the program. This can be especially powerful if the graduate shares your background and goals. This discussion can shed light on – and important insights about – a specific program as well as the overall experience.

Lastly, in terms of financing, ask each business school whether there are scholarships or graduate assistantships available. Increasingly, business schools are now offering such programs for Executive MBA students. This was taboo in the past given that MBA programs were premium priced and companies would sponsor them. Also speak to your line manager to see whether he or she is willing to contribute an amount above your organization’s written tuition reimbursement policy for such programs. If your line manager is willing to contribute, that is a positive. The bottom line is that you will never know if you do not ask.

“immeasurable” benefits of such an experience and association.

Conclusion Executive MBA programs can be a life-changing experience. Whether you studied finance or theater as an undergraduate, you can do it as long as you are willing to work hard. Executive MBA programs can allow you to think totally differently about how to create, deliver and sustain value not only in business but with your personal life as well. Don’t be afraid to dive right in. With the right amount of effort and enthusiasm the MBA goal can be achieved, and when looking back it can be the best decision you ever made.

Biography Ø Dr Francis Petit is the Associate Dean for Executive Programs at Fordham University. In his work with executive education, Dr Petit has established executive programs and modules in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Dr Petit holds a Doctorate in Economics and Education from Columbia University.

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Tech and business combination Thus, armed with a sub-continental tech background and a US commercial overlay, Nadella worked briefly for Sun Microsystems before joining Microsoft in 1992, at a pivotal time in the company’s history, with its operating systems swiftly becoming the world’s default computing option.

That same year, Nadella married his childhood sweetheart, Anupama, going on to have a son and two daughters. The family took root in Bellevue, Washington state, not far from Microsoft’s Redmond campus.

Microsoft itself is almost as old as Nadella: the company will celebrate its 40th anniversary in April 2015 and faces persistent questions over its future direction. Can it be a nimble, adaptive tech pioneer, devising new solutions for the world’s tech consumers as it did in the 1980s and 1990s, or will it become a commoditised, ‘safe pick’ option? Middle-aged, in other words.

Nadella’s ascension to CEO is both a confirmation of commitment to innovation and a nod to stability and continuity. He is clearly favoured by Microsoft founder and chief shareholder Bill Gates, who remains on the company board of directors, with the title ‘Technology Adviser’ to Nadella. He is widely liked and respected across the industry, with former colleague Bill Hilf praising his approach 18

Alexandra Skinner

I

t was like choosing a new Pope. When the metaphorical white smoke emerged from Microsoft's Washington state headquarters on 4 February this year, announcing that the company had anointed a new chief executive, the tech world went into analytic overdrive.

The new man, Satya Nadella, was a ‘veteran insider’ (he’d worked at Microsoft for 22 years); he was a ‘safe pick’ (not necessarily a compliment in an industry that thrives on innovation and new ideas); he was the ‘anti-Steve Ballmer’ candidate – a thoughtful, collaborative, inclusive leader, in contrast to the previous CEO, the screaming, impulsive Ballmer. He has a ‘strong emotional IQ’ according to former colleague John Connors.

Whatever his characteristics, his appointment is certainly notable for two things: he is now the most powerful Indian tech executive in the world, and his big idea is to push cloud computing – seen by many as the best hope for Microsoft to regain the high ground from rivals such as Apple, Google and Facebook.

Born in the central Indian city of Hyderabad in 1967, he studied electronics and telecoms engineering at the Manipal Institute of Technology before gaining an MS in Computer Science from the University of WisconsinMilwaukee in 1990 followed by an MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

Satya Nadella: A Man for Many Reasons

SATYA NADELLA

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SATYA NADELLA

I fundamentally believe that if you are not learning new things, you stop doing great and useful things. So family, curiosity and hunger for knowledge all define me.

to teamwork: “He is very inclusive,” he told Wired magazine. “He brings people in and gets them excited to work on stuff, and that’s what I think his magic is – his authenticity and the way he is able to inspire people and not just push them.”

The new CEO describes himself as a ‘learner’: “I fundamentally believe that if you are not learning new things, you stop doing great and useful things. So family, curiosity and hunger for knowledge all define me.”

Microsoft’s millions of customers are more interested in whether it can save them money, improve their computing speed, power and memory and bring them business benefits, than whether the company’s CEO is on a journey of selfdiscovery. The markets have been underwhelmed

by Microsoft’s foray into mobile computing, with its acquisition of Nokia yet to deliver the promised pot of gold (although some argue that we will be shocked by upcoming developments); the traditional mainstays of Windows, Microsoft Office and its workplace software are being superseded by online alternatives. Can a nice Indian guy who enjoys poetry and cricket – both in short supply in American tech circles, you might think – shake up this ageing giant?

Photos courtesy of Microsoft

Up in the cloud In his favour, Nadella has most recently headed up Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise Group, boosting its revenues to $20.3 billion ($8.2 billion operating income) in the year to June 2013, a rise of 107 per cent on the previous year. His appointment as CEO demonstrates Microsoft’s belief in cloud computing as the foundation of future technology, the ground upon which the majority of the world’s tech constructs will be built.

The logic is impeccable. Why would any company or individual pay thousands of dollars for hardware, when they can rent virtual computing capacity – almost infinitely flexible and scalable – for a fraction of the cost? The stock market has already spotted Microsoft’s longer-term cloud strategy and rewarded it with positive valuations. The company’s ‘Azure’ cloud platform is making good headway against Amazon’s Web Services offering, while Office 365 is also gaining plenty of traction.

In his new role, Nadella has plenty more to think about than merely the world’s cloud computing needs. He must keep 100,000 employees motivated and busy (including 35,000 at Nokia, who remain in a kind of limbo). He has to maintain the cash cow computer gaming division, with its Xbox range in a long-running competition with Sony’s PlayStation.

Other battlefronts include internet search (a part of Microsoft which Nadella once headed), where Google’s Chrome has dented the company’s model, and messaging, where Gmail and other services have eaten away at Microsoft’s Outlook.

Nadella has already shown signs of a new openness to wider industry collaboration, compared to the tight proprietary ship that Gates and Ballmer ran. He’s happy to run opensource software such as Linux on the Azure platform, for example, something Steve Ballmer would never have permitted. He introduced a new licensing model for cloud computing, encouraging staff to sell online services alongside traditional software.

Seizing opportunities He certainly talks the talk: “Our industry does not respect tradition,” he is quoted saying in the company’s introductory announcement of his appointment. “It only respects innovation.

The opportunity ahead for Microsoft is vast, but to seize it, we must move faster, focus and continue to transform. I see a big part of my job as accelerating our ability to bring innovative products to our customers more quickly.”

You would expect no less. Bill Gates praises him as “a proven leader with hardcore engineering skills, business vision and the ability to bring people together. His vision for how technology will be used and experienced around the world is exactly what Microsoft needs as the company enters its next chapter of expanded product innovation and growth.”

Some nevertheless question his business credentials; having never run a commercial enterprise, only divisions within Microsoft.

Sydney Finkelstein, professor at Dartmouth Tuck School of Business in the US, casts doubt over Nadella’s ability to transform the business from within. “That’s much harder to do if the people who used to run it are still breathing over your shoulder,” he told the UK’s Guardian newspaper.

Nadella’s insatiable curiosity and determination to learn are clearly positives in an industry where 12-year-olds can astonish everyone with their discoveries and aptitudes. In a way, appointing an Indian CEO feels a bit like the way UK movies cast American stars in leading roles, in order to appeal to US audiences. Perhaps Microsoft figured that its long-term prosperity lies in the vast, and as yet untapped, Asian markets.

That apart, the once-derided, monopolistic, uncaring face of Microsoft is likely to be softened and humanised by this much-liked and respected appointee. Whether he has a Pope-like infallibility remains to be seen.

Biography Ø Alexandra Skinner is CEO Magazine’s Group Editor-in-Chief.

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THE PARADOX OF INDISPENSABILITY

The Paradox of Indispensability Richard Jolly

T

he logic that shapes the first half of your career can leave you trapped in the second half.

Managers make predictable mistakes that, despite their technical expertise and stellar performance, can lead high-fliers to fail to rise to the top.

Along with colleagues, I have been teaching about ‘executive derailment’ for many years. It consistently resonates with MBA students and managers alike. This is echoed in my work with senior managers both individually and in teams. There are some important themes that consistently emerge about the journey to the executive suite. Many, perhaps all, managers have to wrestle with a paradox that, unless effectively addressed, can mean that their brilliance fails to lead to the desired promotion.

I have had many conversations with bitter managers berating the fact that poorer performing colleagues have advanced ahead of them. Is it because top management don’t realise what they have achieved? Is it that they aren’t grateful? Is it that other managers have been engaging in manipulative politicking?

Sadly, it is often none of these. Top management usually has a pretty good idea of what it takes to make it to the top. If you are not getting the promotions that your performance ‘deserves’, it is probably that you haven’t effectively realised how much you need to adapt as you become more senior.

In the first half of your career, the game is straightforward. You demonstrate your technical expertise, you work hard (often making sacrifices in other parts of your life) and you develop skills and competence that allow you to become a star performer.

In some roles, such as trading, sales, consulting or professional roles such as law, indispensability can be cemented by having such strong external relationships that, if the company fired you, the clients or customers would follow.

In such cases, job security is high – you have become ‘indispensable’. When times are tough, in particular, this is simple, Darwinian self-preservation.

The curse of knowledge Such individuals rapidly move into managerial positions, where they have to overcome a universal challenge – the curse of knowledge. When you have developed a skill to a high level of expertise, it becomes automatic and, as neurology is increasingly clarifying, uses a different part of your brain. Moving into management means that you have to supervise people who don’t know how to do things that for you are obvious. At this point, you realise something important – people are a problem. They just don’t get it. Are they stupid? Are they intentionally trying to screw things up? What’s wrong with them?

Anyone who has ever been driving behind a learner driver and has found themselves becoming frustrated and critical has experienced the curse of knowledge.

The whole point about learner drivers is that they aren’t good drivers, so getting irritated by their incompetence is not a rational approach – you too were once a bad driver.

Some managers have selective memory about their own learning curve. Helping other people develop skills that have become automatic for us requires learning some basic management skills. These are relatively easy to learn and most managers are reasonably competent after a few years.

So, you have demonstrated your expertise and your ability to supervise others. The team is performing to a very high level. You and the team are regularly heaped with praise from above. Things could not be going better. Given your sparkling track record, the future must surely be equally bright?

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A paradox You subtly ask your boss about what the future holds for you. The boss doesn’t pick up on your hints. Eventually, you confront him or her about your career ambitions.

Your boss couldn’t be more flattering: “You are fantastic: indispensable. Which is why you are the last person I would promote. You are far too important where you are.”

So, what has gone wrong? And what can you do about it?

To be an effective executive, you need a strong desire and ability to control.

Consistently delivering high-quality output; exceeding expectations regularly; being an ‘over-achiever’.

Organisations rely on these types of managers to do the hard work required for value creation.

But this focus on control leads to perhaps the most dangerous phrase I ever hear in organisations: “I don’t have time to delegate.”

Delegation initially feels like losing control. It is probably going to be faster and lead to a better result to do things yourself. Delegating to someone who is less experienced takes up valuable time. They will probably have to come back to you for clarification or help. You may end up having to do it yourself anyway, picking up the pieces.

This instinct to control, however, can increasingly become a liability, rather than an asset. As you become more senior, the quantity of work that you are responsible for clearly increases and there is a limit to how much you can personally accomplish. The problem is that, if you are focusing on the tactical issues where you have expertise, you are implicitly avoiding the broader strategic issues that will allow you to develop yourself, your direct reports and the organisation. A phrase that is sometimes used to describe this is: “When you are fighting off the alligators, it’s hard to remember you were trying to drain the swamp.”

Fighting alligators feels good – we are busy and can see the achievements we are heroically and often single-handedly creating. We feel in demand, productive. But the more senior we become, our success becomes less dependent on our personal ability to ‘do’ and more about our ability to ‘think’.

Having the discipline to take time away from fighting the alligators to focus on the critical priorities necessary for strategic success is difficult, and increasingly so, for managers.

An exercise I have often conducted with coaching clients is to ask them to define their top three priorities – the things that are absolutely critical to their success. We then go through their diary for the past three months to see how much of their time they are spending on their top priorities. With one CEO, we realised that he was spending around one per cent of his time on his top priority. Why? Too many alligators...

Two modern plagues And things are getting worse. Two plagues have swept through organisations — email and meetings.

The rise of email has brought some very real benefits, but, in my research with managers, only around three per cent feel that they are effective at managing emails. This is despite the fact that every manager knows there are some simple principles that can be used to improve our usage of 22

email, such as setting aside specific times of the day when we deal with emails, rather than responding as soon as an email arrives in our inbox; and avoiding the dreaded ‘reply to all’ button.

The other problem is inefficient and ineffective meetings. I have challenged managers over the years to invite me into their organisation to see if I could, using some standard facilitation skills, double the effectiveness and halve the duration of their meetings. Many managers respond that their meetings are terrible – they start late; the wrong people are present; the purpose of the meeting is unclear; people ramble and repeat points already made; noone is clear what is being agreed; the minutes are not always captured and, certainly, people leave the meeting with a different sense of what is going to happen; and, as a result, little productive benefit is created.

There is a piece of software that highlights this meeting inefficiency. It is a simple digital clock that you can display on a computer or smartphone, but this clock doesn’t tell you the time. Instead, you input the number of people attending the meeting and their average hourly cost to the organisation. Then, as the meeting begins, you press the ‘start’ button. All the software does it tell you how much money the meeting is costing the organisation.

Such information inevitably leads to the often sobering question: “What return is the organisation getting based on its investment in this meeting?”

Doing vs. thinking But managers don’t need lessons on what they can do to improve their email and meeting protocols. They already know. The challenge is that it is increasingly hard to do the things we know we should be doing. We are now always on.

Some managers have yet to find the ‘off’ switch on their BlackBerrys (it does exist) and all managers struggle to take time away from doing things (fighting the alligators) to think.

The 19th-century Austrian statesman, Prince von Metternich, apocryphally categorised military officers against two dimensions: how smart they were and how hard working. The stupid, lazy ones are easy to deal with – get them out. The stupid, hardworking officers are very useful, as long as you supervise them effectively. The smart, hardworking ones were also useful for relatively junior positions. But the ones he focused on were the smart, lazy officers – they know what needs to be done, but don’t want to do lots of work. So they find the short-cuts; they are creative.

While this is not a formula that any modern organisation should use for selecting and promoting managers, it does raise an important challenge about the amount of unnecessary work carried out in organisations.

A finance director client was frustrated about the amount of work required to produce the monthly management accounts summary for the board – a giant, 77-page report. At one particular board meeting, she asked whether all this information was really necessary, as this report was taking up a lot of her department’s resources for days every month. The universal response was that everything was critical. She was far from convinced, so the next month she put a couple of pages in nonsense Latin

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THE PARADOX OF INDISPENSABILITY

text and waited to hear how many people contacted her to complain that they were unable to do their job without this data. No-one called. She did the same thing the next month in a different part of the report. Again, no calls. When she confronted the board at the subsequent board meeting about what she had done, there was silence. The company now has a very efficient seven-page monthly report.

firms have attempted to codify the competencies necessary to be made up to partner. But it is only when someone is made up to partner that it is possible to tell whether they are able to make this transition effectively – the role of a partner is different to that of an associate and not all partners take up their broader responsibilities successfully.

The underlying disease

If indispensability is so constraining, that is the answer – dispensability? Clearly this has risks, particularly in a challenging economic climate. Yet this is exactly what is required. It takes a lot of confidence for a manager to go to his or her boss and say: “The team is working so well that they don’t need me any more – I am ready for my next challenge.”

This confidence only comes from having identified, supported and developed a number of people who could easily step into your role when you move up. Many managers see themselves as solitary heroic figures. These individualists are easily identified – they don’t have any succession plans in place. At its worst, this phenomenon leads to a narcissistic belief that they are the only competent person around. It takes a confident, self-aware manager to surround themselves with people who are frighteningly impressive.

The disease is not email or meetings. It’s something that has been called ‘hurry sickness’. Typical symptoms of this disease include: ✔ ✔ If you are microwaving something for 30 seconds, you have to do something else while waiting for the microwave to go ‘ping’ ✔ ✔ You eat at your desk while also checking your emails, often on the phone at the same time ✔ ✔ You get a buzz from just catching a plane or a train ✔ ✔ You do something else while you drive (on the phone, listening to the radio, eating your breakfast) ✔ ✔ You hate the time it takes to boot up your computer so much that you never turn it off ✔ ✔ You do something else while brushing your teeth ✔ ✔ You turn your smartphone on as soon as the plane lands, before you are meant to, and get frustrated by how long it takes to get a signal ✔ ✔ You find yourself consistently getting frustrated while waiting in line or in traffic ✔ ✔ You regularly interrupt the person with whom you are talking ✔ ✔ You do something else on telephone conferences ✔ ✔ You press the ‘door close’ button in elevators repeatedly If you look at this list and see some familiar friends, you are probably sick.

Some managers are so sick that they don’t see what is wrong with these behaviours. But ‘hurry sick’ managers find it almost impossible to stand back and think. In my research over the last 10 years with thousands of managers, this disease has affected around 95 per cent. The ‘anxious over-achiever’ is, however, useful in organisations. Indeed, this type is indispensable. But they become increasingly bitter when more thoughtful (and maybe even less hardworking) managers get the top jobs.

A leap of faith You are never promoted because you were good at your last job. Yet we instinctively assume, when we have been promoted, that our previous behaviours have been rewarded – a mechanism called positive reinforcement.

There is always a leap of faith; a hope that the individual will be able to adapt to the different demands of the more senior role. This issue is getting more challenging as roles become more specialised and, therefore, promotions can often mean a radical change in the nature of the role.

Nowhere is this more challenging than in law firms, where the efforts that associates make to get promoted to partner are intensely demanding over many years. Law

The way forward

Comatose Consider the following rather drastic hypothetical situation.

You get food poisoning and slip into a coma – you have no communication with the organisation for three months.

Would the organisation survive? Many managers like to believe that things would be much worse without them.

But when managers, for whatever reason, disappear for prolonged periods of time, those around them typically step up and fill the void. So when you wake up from the coma and rush back to work, the attitude can be, “OK, crisis over – I’m back. Give me all your alligators.”

When the response is that things are going well, in fact probably better than when the ‘heroic’ manager was in place, a wakeup call has been delivered.

I have worked with organisations who believed that certain key individuals were indispensable. But when they left or were finally fired, within weeks they were forgotten and things were going well. Very few managers are truly indispensable. Charles de Gaulle once said: “The graveyards are full of indispensable men.”

The desire to feel indispensable is compelling and dangerous.

It paralyses organisations with unnecessary, thoughtless work and micromanaging, bottle-necking managers.

What do you think?

The cure is delegation – breaking the cycle of dependency that limits both performance and motivation and helping employees become more selfreliant and responsible. Authority and responsibility need to flow down the hierarchy, particularly as organisational structures become more complex in the age of the matrix organisation. Accountability needs to flow up the hierarchy. Some managers have the mind-set that this approach is abdicating control and responsibility.

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It is not. The responsibility for the tasks that you have delegated is still yours after you have delegated.

One of the key challenges of effective delegation is the perceived loss of control. Managers need to learn that there is a spectrum of different degrees of authority that can be delegated. On one end of the spectrum, the manager says, ‘Look into this issue for me; gather the facts; I will decide what to do.’ At the other end, the manager says, ‘Do what you think is right; I don’t need any further communication about this.’

Having the ‘antennae’ to know where along this spectrum is appropriate in any given situation is a skill managers have to learn. But the more you are able to involve people in defining what the solution should be and in implementing this solution, the more engaged they will be in carrying it out.

Jeff Immelt, the Chairman and CEO of General Electric, said: “The four most important words in business are ‘what do you think?’” Every employee wants the same thing from their boss. Someone who:  Believes in them and their potential  Defines a clear and challenging task  Locates this task within a broader organisational context or purpose  Is available when needed for advice and coaching  Is supportive and ensures they have the ‘air cover’ and resources necessary to succeed  Provides feedback and appropriate rewards  Gives them space so that they can learn and develop

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If managers are going to avoid the paradox of indispensability, we have to stand back from our day-today tasks and think. We have to create an environment where others can grow and be held responsible. We have to fight our instincts to control. Alfred P Sloan, the man who ran General Motors from the Twenties to the Fifties and created the largest and first truly modern corporation, dominating the auto industry for over 70 years, put it this way: “The most important thing I ever learned about management is that the work must be done by other men.”

This is not just another management skill – it is the principal way you build a business.

We have to create an environment where others can grow and be held responsible.

Biography Ø Richard Jolly is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School, and director at Stokes and Jolly, an independent, professional advisory and organisational consulting firm that supports those in positions of leadership.

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MEDITATION AND MINDFULNESS FOR EXECUTIVES

n o i t a t i d e M into the Classroom

Why I Brought

Business schools have a role to play in creating self-aware leaders, not just technically competent managers.

Randel S. Carlock

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hen I was a CEO, I learned what it was to be a decision-maker, never able to switch off, always on the move and always on the phone. I've founded and run four companies during my career, one of which ended up being listed on the NASDAQ. That event changed my life. Going from an entrepreneurial leader to a leader of a listed company threw me into a swirl of stakeholders, shareholders and federal regulators. The stress in my life increased exponentially.

That’s when I first turned to meditation.

After attending a three-day executive workshop where meditation and mindfulness were on the curriculum, I saw first-hand how powerful this tool was.

At first, I was looking for ways to better manage my business. What meditation taught me was ways to better manage myself.

Meditation creates space – space in one’s mind to think. A few minutes in the morning and again in the evening is all that is necessary to help centre yourself and to help you focus.

It helped me to put stress and demands in a container, dealing with them slowly and focusing on the important decisions, both at work and at home.

Meditating EMBAs When I became a professor, I saw my younger self in many of my participants. The demands of fast-paced careers, families and study radiated from MBA and EMBA students in my classroom.

Gruelling schedules mixed with intense study and obligations makes for lots of stress.

I decided we all needed to take the time to unplug and refocus. Investing just a short CEO MAGAZINE

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amount of time at the beginning of class has been invaluable to my students. The participants feel centred, focused and more open minded. At first, many are sceptical. I hear “teach me about management” an awful lot, especially among the younger students, but afterwards, they tout the benefits.

The mindfulness phenomenon I’ve also used meditation because of the pace of traction this phenomenon is making in business.

General Mills, the U.S. cereal company finds that it improves creativity, because people are thinking more about their work and not about other things in their life. It improves team work because people are more sensitive to each other.

Google has an internal course called ‘Search Inside Yourself’ to teach employees to breathe mindfully, listen more to their co-workers and enhance their emotional intelligence. Even McKinsey is embracing meditation to keep employees healthy and happy.

Closer to home, Muhammad Awan, one of my GEMBA ‘13D participants, said he’s already been using meditation within his team at work.

“When there is a particularly stressful meeting we’re about to go into, we gather for a couple of minutes and everybody takes a minute to think, reflect, step away from the pressures of the situation which is not like the environment of going in there to attack the task. It differentiates the process of the meeting. I’ve really found it to be useful,” he says.

At business schools, we’re also researching the importance of making mindfulness part of the leadership curve. My colleague Zoe Kinia, Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour, Sigal Barsade, the Frank Bernstein Professor 26

of Management at The Wharton School and INSEAD PhD student Andrew Hafenbrack have demonstrated how mindfulness meditation can improve resistance to the “sunk cost” fallacy in business decision-making.

Self-management Most importantly of all, I have brought meditation to my students to help them better manage themselves, not just to improve their performance, but to lead them to healthier lives.

Dauren Yerdebay, another of my GEMBA ‘13D participants told me that he found meditation after his doctor was concerned about how stress was impacting his health. “The only way you can control the stress you have is through meditation, because if you combine it with some minor exercise, you don’t have to worry about keeping control over your health because controlling your mind is much more important and now I realise that it was a crucial step in changing my behaviour. Through meditation, I managed to make more significant decisions in my life that helped me,” he said.

To borrow a phrase from Peter Drucker, the leadership author, consultant and educator, the 21st century is shaping up to be the era of ‘Self-Management’. It is part of the evolution of management thinking now that we’ve moved from the 20th century’s focus on efficiencies in business and how humans interact.

To me, there are two main outcomes of meditation. One is that it improves selfawareness, understanding of who you are, and the other is social awareness and how you relate to other people. Both of these are powerful tools for building teams, being creative and making clearer decisions.

Going from an entrepreneurial leader to a leader of a listed company threw me into a swirl of stakeholders, shareholders and federal regulators. The stress in my life increased exponentially.

Courtesy of INSEAD Knowledge

Biography Ø Randel S. Carlock is Senior Affiliate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise and Berghmans Lhoist Chaired Professor in Entrepreneurial Leadership at INSEAD. He is also the director of The Family Enterprise Challenge, an Executive Education programme for family business leaders.

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VICTORIA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

The University of

Opportunity Alexandra Skinner speaks to Romana Garma at Victoria University’s Graduate School of Business

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ictoria University aims to be the 'University of Opportunity' by empowering a diverse community of students, facilitating the growth of their capabilities and the transformation of their lives through education.

We believe an MBA should be accessible, affordable and meaningful to those seeking the insight and confidence to thrive in today’s rapidly changing world of business.

Engaging with students, industry and community are integral to our success. Victoria University’s commitment to engagement enables students to access business leaders.

The Vice-Chancellor’s Business Leaders Forums, for example, brings community lectures to the university community. Guest speakers have included the CEO of one of Australia’s largest banks, leaders and experts in sustainability, sports, and social trends. This extends to bringing industry and community leaders into MBA classes and incorporating business problems into assessment.

An Accessible MBA Decisions to do an MBA are typically for career advancement or career change. As such, the features that are appealing to one person might be different to those of another person. We recognise this and have a number of key attributes important to all students.  Educational pathways: While the majority of Victoria University Graduate School of Business (VGSB) students are admitted into the MBA course based on their prior education and work experience, we also provide students who may not hold a degree qualification but have significant work experience in business with the opportunity to enrol in our Graduate Certificate of Business. The Graduate Certificate of Business acts as a stepping stone into the MBA programme, and we find students develop a thirst to learn more about business and continue studying with us.

 Study modes: Our location is in the heart of Melbourne’s business district. For many students it’s within walking distance from their place of work, easily accessible via public transport and parking is available next door to the campus. Our course is designed to minimise disruption to normal work demands and home life. All our core units are offered in the evening at least once a year, during the two main 12-week semesters. The summer and winter semesters are taught in intense sessions usually on Saturdays and a few weekdays – so students only need to take a few days off work. This has become a popular option for students to fast-track their course.  Delivery modes: Our face-to-face teaching is supplemented with materials and online discussions.

While online learning is on the rise globally, there are many students who prefer coming to class, interacting with other students with similar aspirations. They know they can build valuable networks. Our students are inspired by our lecturers who highlight the theory behind business practices to assist them in becoming more strategic in their workplaces.  Electives: Our electives include units from other masters courses in Accounting, Finance, Marketing, Management, Human Resource Management, and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Victoria University is one of the world’s leading institutions in ERP systems, with a focus on using SAP. The University has strong links with industry that support the ERP systems program.  Affordable MBA: Our MBA fees offer students value for money. This is important since many MBA students self-fund their studies and consider price an important factor in their course selection.

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ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT Workplace Warrior Halinka Panzera is a graduate of Victoria University’s Master of Business Administration (MBA) who hopes to change the world of business – one workplace at a time.

With the launch of her first book ‘What’s that Super Model doing in my Workplace?’ the corporate researcher and consultant has addressed an issue that continues to exist in many modern workplaces: discrimination against women.

Panzera, herself a former corporate climber, said even she wasn’t aware of just how systematic and ingrained the blocks are that continue to limit many working women’s careers.

“As a corporate woman, I had an important title, company cars, a lovely office and helpful staff, but I wasn’t happy,” she said. “The problem was, as a woman, I wasn’t allowed to be as powerful as I could have been without taking on the persona of a man.”

Panzera eventually quit her job to start her own business.

The idea came in 1999 while she was studying for her MBA at Victoria University and identified a need for a business to provide market research services to blue-chip companies.

“During my course I was able to prepare and receive feedback for my proposed business plan which gave me the courage to step away from my corporate career.”

Nearly 15 years later, Panzera is managing director and owner of a highly successful company – BDC Market Research – as well as a well-respected writer and speaker on social equity and a number of other topics.

Panzera said the motivation for her book came from research that indicated up to 97 per cent of Australia’s businesses were under-performing largely due to the unrealised potential of not just women, but also men stuck in “dinosaur-style” leadership styles.

“Corporate responsibility will not translate into anything real under the current corporate framework, and it’s finding ways to change this that still inspires me in my daily life,” she said.

Panzera wrote the book to detail her insights on a new “super model” that could be used for a more enlightened corporate culture, starting with diversity in the workplace and the valuing of diverse ideas and perspectives.

On the heels of her first book, Panzera recently launched a second business, THEKEY2, to help businesses realise their full potential, with plans for a third venture focusing on health next year. She is also conducting research for another book. None of this would be possible without VU, she said.

“My lecturers and colleagues still provide me with feedback and advice on the direction of my work to this day, and their input helps me stay objective,” she said. “The support network I still have is all because of my connections at VU.” Halinka Panzera – Business Strategist, CEO, BDC Market Research.

Victoria University Graduate School of Business MBA graduate, 2001.

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Effectiveness, Relevancy and ROI Our Course Advisory Board, with its panel of industry experts, ensures our curriculum is relevant and challenging business practice to find new and effective ways of working.

Major course reviews occur every three years and annual reviews highlight areas we can improve upon quickly. Student surveys are used to assess satisfaction with subject content and teaching practices. For benchmarking purposes, we use national statistics. Focus groups are conducted with students at least once a year to obtain more in-depth feedback. Informal discussions with students, in the classroom and with the program director, are equally beneficial.

We receive many referrals from alumni who recommend the Victoria University MBA to their colleagues. All universities market their courses, but when recommendations come along you know the alumni had an enriching experience that they wish to share.

Relationships with Industry Close relationships with industry are paramount to the MBA’s relevancy. They are sources of information for understanding business trends, employees and the contemporary workplace. Our curriculum is therefore relevant to business and we use best-practice methodologies in our teaching. Our Advisory Board helps us to keep our programmes connected to the real world. Faculty in the College of Business are expert researchers in their fields, and we have a number of highly respected industry leaders as adjunct professors. They are well known in areas such as financial services; supply chain and logistics; sport, leisure and recreation; and health services. For example, Alan Kohler, one of Australia’s most experienced financial journalists, is one of our adjunct professors. He is founder of Eureka Report, Australia’s most successful investment newsletter, and Business Spectator, a 24-hour free business news and commentary website.

VGSB recently commenced a mentor network for students with industry executives. We are also in the process of setting up a women’s mentor network to meet the needs of the women in managerial and executive positions. The aim of these initiatives is to facilitate career opportunities for students with all levels of experience.

As with most mentoring relationships, both parties benefit, so mature-age students and young ones alike can devise career-specific study outcomes. Having direct opportunities to build relationships with industry mentors helps students grow their networks, improve their career advancement prospects and, ultimately, increases their suitability for future roles.

Exceptional Faculty The majority of our faculty teaching in the MBA programme hold a PhD, and that’s been a strategic decision we have made. A recent study conducted at VGSB, led by Professor Elisabeth Wilson-Evered, found that having knowledgeable faculty who are able to link the theory to business practice is the most important indicator of course satisfaction, followed by course content that is academically rigorous and practical. Some faculty members

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continue with their industry links through research grants and business consultancies. Many have held high-level managerial roles in a wide range of industries in the health sector, defence force, accounting, and marketing. They are passionate about sharing their knowledge with students by providing real-world examples through their own work experiences, or through personal knowledge of successful strategies utilised by local and international organisations.

At VGSB we recognise that managing our relationships with our students is important. It’s about mutual respect and acknowledging students as professionals wanting to extend their business knowledge, skills and desire to be challenged. Relationships between VGSB staff and students are nurtured through regular social functions and easy access to faculty for consultation. This creates a community of learners built on trust.

Romana Garma MBA Director

Real-World Experience Real-world examples help students to better understand business theory. Assessment that involves students investigating a business situation/problem for a genuine business highlights the complexities involved in business decision-making. As an example, last year students in the marketing class were required to identify market segments of travellers and develop a marketing and communications plan for Brunei Tourism. A presentation by the marketing manager to the class highlighted the need to recognise cultural and religious practices and traditions in emerging markets and how they impact market offerings. This added complexity to the assessment and challenged students to re-examine their view of marketing management in an increasingly cosmopolitan world. Other projects have also been undertaken for non-profit organisations such as Travelers Aid and FirstBite.

Study tours, organised by faculty through their contacts, can be an enriching experience for students. “Doing Business in China”, the 2013 Study Tour, emphasised the importance of cultural competencies in doing business in Asia. Students met with faculty from universities in Hong Kong and Macau, managers in the finance and banking industry, toured the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, local manufacturers in China and attended the Access China Forum. This globally-oriented experience created new knowledge with access to business leaders. Priceless!

A Diverse Classroom MBA students come from a range of professional backgrounds, but we do not assume any previous studies in business or management. Students vary between an older group of career-changers and a younger, often international, group of career-advancers. Diversity also comes from the industries students work in. Some have managerial experience and others are aspiring to such positions. Such diversity generates opportunities for direct knowledge-sharing and peer mentoring.

Gaining international experience is an important consideration for our MBA students. Since our international students come from around the world, they can help our domestic students develop cultural

competencies and networks. Australia is a multicultural society and while the majority of MBA students are local, 76 per cent of them come from a non-English-speaking background. Our onshore international students come from India, Columbia, France, Germany, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and the Middle East.

Dr Keith Thomas, who teaches organisational behaviour in our MBA programme, explains it well: “Diversity is an asset, but only if the institution makes an effort to get students to participate. The skill of faculty is important to bring this to fruition. Participation is what enriches the student’s experience, active learning opportunities and conversations across the groups. This is how diversity can be made into an asset for both the international and local students alike.”

In the ethics and sustainability course, interesting debates occur, particularly around discussions about the actions of large corporations in developing countries. Understanding diversity and working successfully in diverse groups becomes a logical extension of a student’s interests – in terms of the student’s future workplace, as well as in building relationships around the world. As a result, our students have greater opportunities for a global career.

Relationships between VGSB staff and students are nurtured through regular social functions and easy access to faculty for consultation. This creates a community of learners built on trust.

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Hear from Other Students and Alums The VGSB MBA program was practical and easily related to real professional situations rather than only based on theories and book learning. I was able to learn new skills and transfer them straight into the workplace.

The program is hectic, stressful at times, challenging, amazing, rewarding and extremely enjoyable! If I can do it – and do it well – anyone can, seriously. You just need to commit the time, relax and enjoy the journey!

Wende Marsh – HR Advisor, WISE Employment. Victoria University Graduate School of Business MBA graduate, 2012.

My interactions with faculty have been really positive and well-framed to encourage thinking. There is an emphasis on participative teaching where those with experience in a particular field or industry are encouraged to share their knowledge, making it more a “pracademic” than academic environment, but also bringing leading-edge theories into discussion.

The day you start is a day closer to achieving your goal of completing your MBA. The professors I’ve experienced are supportive, genuine and keen to see their students do well.

The course isn’t as daunting as it may seem. Sure it’s hard work, and I put pressure on myself to do well, but it’s manageable and ultimately rewarding when you achieve good results.

I think you only get out of anything in life what you are prepared to put in – so if you’re prepared to put in then the programmes Victoria University can offer will stand you in good stead for whatever you choose to do next.

Carolyn White – Former senior manager, National Australia Bank.

Current Victoria University Graduate School of Business MBA student.

I have progressed substantially in my career since completing the VGSB MBA. I have been able to move from a technical role into an executive management role. The MBA provided me with well-rounded business management knowledge (beyond what I had already learnt on the job) and provided me with the confidence to progress into executive management.

The programme exceeded my expectations in terms of how quickly I was able to translate what I learnt in an academic setting into the work environment.

I would highly recommend completing the MBA if you are driven and looking to progress your management career.

Be prepared to commit yourself to the course in order to get maximum benefit.

Chris Adam – General Manager, Victoria Project Management Division, Savills Australia. Victoria University Graduate School of Business MBA graduate, 2010.

The VGSB MBA resulted in me progressing from fieldwork (at a field level) to project management (at a managerial level). It has enabled me to effectively market myself in the world of work, and has instilled confidence in taking challenging projects and turning them around using my expertise. I am now able to better understand the business and development sectors, and bring them in sync to create a sustainable livelihood of the vulnerable communities.

I have also experienced an excellent return on my investment, and was able to repay my huge bank loan within two years of my return to India.

My experience as an MBA student at VGSB has been one of the best of my life. Learning, exploring and sharing was the mantra I learned from VGSB. People say that an MBA is all about making money. At Victoria University, not only do they show you how to boost your career, but also how to become a better “unizen” (universal citizen), realising your inner potential for the benefit of mankind.

Karthikeyan Vaitheeswaran – Project Officer, International Labour Organisation, United Nations. Victoria University Graduate School of Business MBA graduate, 2005.

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The VGSB Network We offer a complete VGSB-branded MBA with our longstanding partners at Sunway College in Malaysia. VGSB faculty teach 40 per cent of the curriculum, while the local faculty teach the remaining content. There is mutual benefit for both partners. When our faculty teach offshore, it encourages them to adapt to the local culture and observe subtle differences in business practice, which they can then bring into the classroom in Melbourne.

We have exchange partners in a number of countries.

The most popular exchange for MBA students is the opportunity for an intensive residential summer session (northern hemisphere) option at NEOMA, in the heart of the Champagne region in Reims, France. This has great appeal to students who work full-time since the intensive mode does not disrupt their professional life, and at the same time, they can enjoy a once-in-a-lifetime experience by immersing themselves in another culture.

The Value of the MBA The MBA is still in vogue, but it has changed hugely in character. It is not just about focusing on the bottom-line for businesses. The need is to shift from content to action and innovation in a world full of opportunity. An MBA is also about the professional and personal growth of individuals.

Soft skills such as confidence, collaborative skills, cultural awareness, teamwork and communication skills are considered increasingly necessary to 21st century workplaces and communities. Industry experts have identified soft skills as especially important for MBA graduates. Enhancing these skills in students is a focus across our entire MBA programme. Attending MBA classes provides students – many of whom are leaders or managers – the opportunity to remove themselves from the daily grind of work to reflect on what they are currently doing and identify ways to make changes to current practices in a conducive environment.

VGSB in 2014 and Beyond We look forward to implementing our recently reviewed course that includes greater emphasis on leadership development, with leadership and organisational change management strongly embedded into the curriculum.

Additionally, we will formalise our engagement with industry and community with the capstone research project.

Similarly, international experience is another important consideration for our MBA students. We aim to expand our international study tours to enable more students to build this option into their study plans.

We look forward to engaging our adjunct professors – renowned for their business or academic expertise – in the classroom and through mentoring opportunities.

Biography Ø Dr Romana Garma is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing and manages the Master of Business Administration program at Victoria University.

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MANAGING THE MIDDAY SLUMP

Managing the Midday Amber Callender

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e've all experienced the seemingly unyielding wave of tiredness that tends to hit around midday, resulting in various extreme attempts to stay awake. Maybe the "I'm only resting my eyes" excuse just won't cut it anymore, or those cheeky naps behind the coffee machine are becoming all too frequent. Well never fear! There are several easy ways to manage the midday slump.

Address your Diet According to Lona Sandon, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, it is our natural body clock which causes us to feel sleepy around midday. As our body temperature begins to fall in the afternoon, our brain receives this as a signal to release melatonin, which helps control our sleep cycles. However, this can be worsened by our eating habits, particularly by eating sugary food and simple carbohydrates, in other words: to avoid fatigue, we have to cut out all the good stuff. Simple sugars will cause blood sugar levels to rise, giving us that burst of energy we need. However, as blood sugar levels rise, the body produces insulin to bring it back down, which will ultimately cause an energy drop. Not only is it important to watch what we eat, but what we’re drinking too. Dehydration causes tiredness, making a quick siesta all the more tempting. However, drinking a couple of litres of water a day should prevent this, whilst also doing wonders for your skin.

the office, or even better, outside, gets your blood circulating, and the increase in blood flow will stimulate your brain. Alternatively, you could try stealing a colleague away for a chat (preferably someone whose conversation won’t send you to sleep!). This will keep you engaged, and hopefully dispel the sleepy haze.

Quick Wins There are certainly a few quick fixes for staying alert, one of which would be to chew gum.

Researchers in the Psychology Department at Coventry University carried out several tests which showed that chewing gum limits levels of fatigue, as opposed to not chewing gum. So when you’re rushing off to work tomorrow morning, be sure to grab a pack of gum. Another solution, although not quite so quick, is meditation.

Meditating for fifteen minutes twice a day will give you that feeling of rejuvenation, as when you meditate you enter a psychological state not dissimilar from sleep. Your heart rate will be lower than it would usually be when sleeping, and in that sense you are giving your body an extremely large amount of rest in a short

period of time. However, if meditation isn’t an option, then stretching can be just as effective.

When sitting for long periods of time you build up a number of waste products. These are removed by the lymphatic system, which can be stimulated by stretching. Whilst removing these waste products from your body, you will also be increasing the blood flow in your body, so essentially you’re getting a double whammy.

So, when you’re off to work be sure to start the morning with a good breakfast, avoiding sugary foods. While it may be tempting to skip the first meal of the day, eating first thing will get you off to a good start, and after squeezing in a quick meditation session, grabbing that bottle of water and pack of gum, you should be able to make it through the day nap free.

Biography Ø Amber Callender is is a Features Writer for CEO Magazine.

Consider your Surroundings Fatigue isn’t only induced by our diet, but by our surroundings.

Sitting at a desk all day can often cause that fateful boredom to set in. It takes longer for those who are bored to react to stimuli than those in an interesting environment, which is why it’s so important to take a break every now and then. Going for a short walk round

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AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS

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he decision to undertake further education can be influenced by a number of factors. An important aspect to consider is the relationships you will develop and the communities you will join as a result of your choice of education provider. As one of Australia's premier private education institutions, the Australian Institute of Business (AIB) understands the importance of a strong global education network. It is also committed to sharing its practical, work-based education with the world through distance learning

A GLOBAL

and international teaching centres. To facilitate this process, AIB has developed comprehensive distance-learning materials and strategic partnerships with key academic institutions around the globe. These partnerships allow the AIB programme to be delivered to students locally on-campus at one of the 14 Teaching Centres located across five continents. In addition, AIB aims to grow the network by adding ten new partners, reaching ten new cities, each year.

AIB represents a truly global network that is growing each and every day.

Such a strong global presence highlights the importance of having an adequate infrastructure which supports students and graduates worldwide. Over 500 highly respected academic staff form the faculty

BUSINESS EDUCATION

NETWORK Alexandra Skinner speaks to the Australian Institute of Business who deliver AIB’s programmes worldwide.

Each faculty member possesses a minimum of Master/Doctoral qualifications and significant local industry experience, ensuring students receive a relevant and extremely high standard of teaching. The programmes are fully accredited under the Australian Qualifications Framework, the national body for accreditations in Australia, as well as being recognised globally by government and industry. Graduates of the programme receive their conferred qualifications at their locally held graduation ceremony, and proceed to join the coveted AIB Alumni.

Comprised of an extensive global network in over 70 countries, the AIB alumni brings together industry professionals from a wide range of backgrounds. Local alumni events allow relationship-building and an opportunity for fellow graduates to connect.

AIB is committed to investing in global alumni initiatives in order to bring its online global community together to encourage business and networking opportunities. This article showcases a number of AIB’s alumni and faculty members worldwide to demonstrate the true global network that exists.

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Alumni Perspectives Practical Qualifications with a Global Perspective Shanelle Mc. Vane-Fulgence – Brand Manager, Johnson & Johnson, Renwick & Company Limited Undertaking the AIB 12-month MBA in Saint Lucia, Johnson & Johnson Brand Manager, Shanelle Mc. Vane-Fulgence, is confident she has graduated with a practical qualification providing her with a global business perspective.

Shanelle highlights the significant practical benefits of obtaining the AIB MBA, stating: “The programme content can be applied directly to my field. It brings together the various departments and their functions in a way that I can understand and appreciate.”

Her studies have also been applicable in both a local and international context. In her role as Brand Manager, she has effectively implemented changes to both the management of the brand and the expansion of Johnson & Johnson as an organisation.

“Thanks to my new understanding of the various areas of business, I am able to better manage my brand. I am also in a better position to contribute to the overall development of the business, both locally and internationally,” she adds.

Shanelle also credits the high quality of teaching staff explaining that: “not only do they have impressive academic qualifications; they also have significant practical experience in their subject area.”

An Internationally Recognised Programme Hiran Perera – Senior Manager Leasing, Hatton National Bank (PLC) As Senior Manager Leasing of Hatton National Bank in Sri Lanka, Hiran Perera decided he needed a prestigious MBA qualification from a top international business school in order to continue to progress in his career.

“I applied to study the MBA with AIB because of its high-quality alumni, well-recognised global brand, cutting-edge MBA modules, incredible student profile and all-inclusive business community spirit,” he says.

Upon graduation, Hiran found that his MBA gave him the confidence to challenge himself professionally.

“I am now armed with the right tools and background to tackle obstacles, as well as the right attitude and discipline to push myself far beyond my comfort zone.”

Hiran adds that he was inspired by a number of faculty members as well as other students within the AIB network.

“I took the opportunity to leverage their knowledge and experiences in order to enhance my personal skills and improve my out-of-thebox approach. Undertaking the AIB MBA programme was a fantastic opportunity which allowed me to develop both academically and personally,” he says.

Rewarding Experience that Changes Your Mindset Cindy Hinds – Manageress, H.E.C Rentals Company Ltd When Trinidad and Tobago’s Cindy Hinds enrolled in the AIB MBA, she had no idea how much she would challenge and expand her perspective.

“For me, the key benefit to this programme was its ability to change my thought process towards business,” she says.

One major highlight included the new knowledge that allowed her to make important changes within her organisation.

“I was prompted to review and revise my company’s operations, which led to an increase in revenue,” she adds.

Cindy was also very impressed with the structure of the course and her ability to complete it despite her busy lifestyle.

“The AIB MBA was one of my most rewarding and enjoyable experiences, and was a perfect fit for my busy lifestyle, professional development and career advancement. The fact that I could earn a qualification at each stage made the programme more achievable and opened up a wealth of career opportunities for me to explore.”

Finally, the support of academic, administration and student support staff throughout Cindy’s journey was something she “really appreciated”. It truly is a global business network when you enrol with AIB.

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AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS

Faculty Perspectives A Highly Regarded Qualification with a Global Perspective Samitha Perera – CEO of CBL Biscuits (Munchee)

Biography Ø Australian Institute of Business is a 25 year old business school based in Australia, offering degrees, undertaking research, and providing consultancy services globally. AIB was the first, and remains the only, private institution in Australia to be government approved to confer the full suite of business degrees, including the prestigious PhD.

Samitha Perera, CEO of CBL Biscuits (Munchee), has gained extensive experience in a wide range of international business environments. As a senior academic at Sri Lanka’s Oxford Business College, he is able to share this vital knowledge with students.

Already holding an MBA and qualifications in areas such as marketing management, industrial engineering and human resource management, he is currently in the process of furthering his studies and completing his PhD. As a past student from a range of higher education providers, Samitha acknowledges the high standard of the AIB MBA programme.

“There is a reason why the AIB 12-month MBA is rated so highly in the world – it integrates global management broadly across the business disciplines,” he says.

Samitha also highlights the global perspective that students will gain with the AIB MBA course materials.

“The MBA programme has developed a global business understanding in its graduates by embedding global business cases and issues in the core curriculum,” he adds.

Previously awarded the ‘Indira Global Superstar Achiever Award’ in India, Samitha reflects the high quality of teaching staff that are found in all AIB Teaching Centres around the world.

Developing an International Business Sense with an Innovative Learning Model Vishvanath Doerga – Director of Doerga Business Enterprise As Director of Doerga Business Enterprise, Vishvanath Doerga brings detailed knowledge of business management to his teaching role at Nations University in Guyana.

The 2011 Georgetown Young Business Executive Award recipient holds an AIB MBA, as well as qualifications in mechanical engineering and a number of other business strategy and leadership courses.

Vishvanath is a strong advocate for the structure and content of the AIB 12month MBA programme, explaining that it: “fits perfectly into busy schedules, giving students the opportunity to work and study at the same time.”

“The practical layout of the course allows for new knowledge to be applied into working environments, so it is a win-win situation for students and employers,” he adds.

He also sees the AIB MBA as an asset that will help global nations develop in the future.

“I strongly believe that for our nation to develop at an even faster pace, we need professionals who speak the same language, clearly understand development processes and are not afraid to take the necessary steps. The AIB MBA equips students with this knowledge and global business sense,” he says.

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HOW TO MAKE YOURSELF WORK WHEN YOU JUST DON’T WANT TO

How to Make Yourself Work When You Just Don’t Want To...

Heidi Grant Halvorson

T

here's that project you've left on the backburner – the one with the deadline that's growing uncomfortably near. And there's the client whose phone call you really should return – the one that does nothing but complain and eat up your valuable time. Wait, weren't you going to try to go to the gym more often this year?

Can you imagine how much less guilt, stress, and frustration you would feel if you could somehow just make yourself do the things you don’t want to do when you are actually supposed to do them? Not to mention how much happier and more effective you would be?

The good news (and its very good news) is that you can get better about not putting things off, if you use the right strategy. Figuring out which strategy to use depends on why you are procrastinating in the first place:

Reason #1 You are putting something off because you are afraid you will screw it up.

Solution: Adopt a “prevention focus.”

There are two ways to look at any task. You can do something because you see it as a way to end up better off than you are now – as an achievement or accomplishment. As in, if I complete this project successfully I will impress my boss, or if I work out regularly I will look amazing. Psychologists call this a promotion focus – and research shows that when you have one, you are motivated by the thought of making gains, and work best when you feel eager and optimistic. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Well, if you are afraid you will screw up on the task in question, this is not the focus for you. Anxiety and doubt undermine promotion motivation, leaving you less likely to take any action at all.

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What you need is a way of looking at what you need to do that isn’t undermined by doubt – ideally, one that thrives on it. When you have a prevention focus, instead of thinking about how you can end up better off, you see the task as a way to hang on to what you’ve already got – to avoid loss. For the prevention-focused, successfully completing a project is a way to keep your boss from being angry or thinking less of you. Working out regularly is a way to not “let yourself go.” Decades of research, which I describe in my book Focus, shows that prevention motivation is actually enhanced by anxiety about what might go wrong. When you are focused on avoiding loss, it becomes clear that the only way to get out of danger is to take immediate action. The more worried you are, the faster you are out of the gate.

I know this doesn’t sound like a barrel of laughs, particularly if you are usually more the promotion-minded type, but there is probably no better way to get over your anxiety about screwing up than to give some serious thought to all the dire consequences of doing nothing at all.

Go on, scare the pants off yourself. It feels awful, but it works.

Reason #2 You are putting something off because you don’t “feel” like doing it.

Solution: Make like Spock and ignore your feelings. They’re getting in your way.

In his excellent book The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, Oliver Burkeman points out that much of the time, when we say things like “I just can’t get out of bed early in the morning,” or “I just can’t get myself to exercise,” what we really mean is that

we can’t get ourselves to feel like doing these things. After all, no one is tying you to your bed every morning. Intimidating bouncers aren’t blocking the entrance to your gym.

Physically, nothing is stopping you – you just don’t feel like it. But as Burkeman asks, “Who says you need to wait until you ‘feel like’ doing something in order to start doing it?”

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committed to what you are doing – you need to want to see the project finished, or get healthier, or get an earlier start to your day. But you don’t need to feel like doing it.

In fact, as Burkeman points out, many of the most prolific artists, writers, and innovators have become so in part because of their reliance on work routines that forced them to put in a certain number of hours a day, no matter how uninspired (or, in many instances, hungover) they might have felt. Burkeman reminds us of renowned artist Chuck Close’s observation that “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.”

So if you are sitting there, putting something off because you don’t feel like it, remember that you don’t actually need to feel like it. There is nothing stopping you.

You can get better about not putting things off, if you use the right strategy.

Reason #3 You are putting something off because it’s hard, boring, or otherwise unpleasant.

Solution: Use if-then planning.

Too often, we try to solve this particular problem with sheer will: Next time, I will make myself start working on this sooner. Of course, if we actually had the willpower to do that, we would never put it off in the first place. Studies show that people routinely overestimate their capacity for self-control, and rely on it too often to keep them out of hot water.

Do yourself a favor, and embrace the fact that your willpower is limited, and that it may not always be up to the challenge of getting you to do things you find difficult, tedious, or otherwise awful. Instead, use if-then planning to get the job done.

Making an if-then plan is more than just deciding what specific steps you need to take to complete a project – it’s also deciding where and when you will take them.

If it is 2pm, then I will stop what I’m doing and start work on the report Bob asked for.

If my boss doesn’t mention my request for a raise at our meeting, then I will bring it up again before the meeting ends.

By deciding in advance exactly what you’re going to do, and when and where you’re going to do it, there’s no deliberating when the time comes. No do I really have to do this now?, or can this wait till later?, or maybe I should do something else instead.

It’s when we deliberate that willpower becomes necessary to make the tough choice. But if-then plans dramatically reduce the demands placed on your willpower, by ensuring that you’ve made the right decision way ahead of the critical moment. In fact, if-then planning has been shown in over 200 studies to increase rates of goal attainment and productivity by 200 – 300 per cent on average.

I realize that the three strategies I’m offering you – thinking about the consequences of failure, ignoring your feelings, and engaging in detailed planning – don’t sound as fun as advice like “Follow your passion!” or “Stay positive!” But they have the decided advantage of actually being effective – which, as it happens, is exactly what you’ll be if you use them.

Biography Think about that for a minute, because it’s really important. Somewhere along the way, we’ve all bought into the idea – without consciously realizing it – that to be motivated and effective we need to feel like we want to take action. We need to be eager to do so. I really don’t know why we believe this, because it is 100 per cent nonsense. Yes, on some level you need to be

Ø Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D. is associate director for the Motivation Science Center at the Columbia University Business School and author of Nine Things Successful People Do Differently and Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World to Power Influence and Success.

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UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG

PROFESSIONAL EXCELLENCE

Alexandra Skinner talks to Professor John Glynn at the University of Wollongong’s Sydney Business School

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t Sydney Business School we offer postgraduate business programmes for individuals seeking to deepen or expand expertise, build professional excellence or enhance leadership capabilities.

Our programmes are informed by research, structured on applied outcomes, recognised by industry, delivered by highly qualified and industry experienced academics and supported through additional specialised student learning development resources.

Student benefits  Six complementary one day master-classes, exclusive to MBA students, which are designed to address contemporary business issues that arise across the course of the programme.  Opportunity to study abroad to enhance cultural and diverse economic understanding of highly developed cities such as Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Beijing, Shanghai and Penang.  Our student learning and careers support services built around individual students’

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MBA and MBA Advanced Target Profile Our MBA student profile consists of students from across the globe whom have professional experience (age ranges from 26 to 50) from varied industries including Business, Engineering, IT, Law, Sales and Marketing, Human Resources and Business Development. Students are choosing to study the MBA as they want a quality well-rounded postgraduate business degree to take their career to the next level.

Similar to our MBA, the MBA Advanced consists of students from across the globe with varied professional experience. Our MBA Advanced is attractive to students who want a quality wellrounded business programme, but want the option of specialising in an area of business for enhanced professional development. This is an attractive programme for our international students who can take up the option of a working visa once completed.

Delivery Modes/Scheduling Our classes are offered from our Sydney and Wollongong campuses, face-toface, in a format and schedule that fits in with professional commitments.

Some classes are offered on a weekly basis throughout the day and evening, others run in intensive mode over a two or three day weekend.

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needs. Our advisors and academic staff are available each week for consultation, as is our student counsellor. Study skills workshops are run weekly to ensure your success.

A flexible and modular mode of delivery at our Sydney and Wollongong campuses. We offer three trimesters per year commencing in February, May and August.

Quality academic staff that have extensive industry and academic experience gained within Australia and abroad.

Opportunity to study alongside students from more than 50 countries, giving you a truly international culture and focus that will benefit you as you progress through your business career.

Highly skilled research librarian to help students with assessments and research.

Continuous Improvement At Sydney Business School we understand the competitive environment we are operating in, not only within Australia but in a global context.

We undertake a number of activities to ensure we are continuously improving in order to not only stay ahead of the curve, but to ensure we are giving students up-to-date and relevant programmes. These activities include:  Competitor benchmarking and analysis.  Maintaining professional memberships to domestic and international bodies to collaborate and seek feedback. Our memberships include the European Foundation for Management and Development (EFMD), Association of Business Schools (ABS) and the Global Business Schools Network.

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 Regular feedback and consultation with students.  Feedback and input into programmes from an advisory board consisting of corporate partners and academics.  Bi-annual formal reviews of our programmes.

Global Leaders We ensure that we are creating leaders who will succeed in a globally competitive environment via our MBA programmes through strong engagement of key industry partners who contribute to lectures, case studies, projects and mentoring. This engagement not only embeds leadership into the curriculum, but also allows our students to learn from the leaders within the business marketplace.

In addition, within each of our programmes there is a strong emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship threaded through the subjects and themes within the programmes.

Our student body is made up of citizens from around the world and from varied industries.

Additionally, our alumni and partners are spread across the globe. We nurture this diversity to provide students with the opportunity to enhance their cultural and diverse economic understanding within a business context. This also provides students with the opportunities to expand their network of contacts and to enhance their career prospects within this globally competitive environment.

People, Planet and Profit Sydney Business School believes the triple bottom line is important to today’s managers at all levels of an organisation. It is because of this that we have corporate social responsibility embedded throughout all our programmes, from core subjects to master-classes. We ensure the education of corporate social responsibility includes the importance of the triple bottom line in all aspects of business themes taught within the programme.

Industry Collaboration Creating and maintaining relationships with local and national businesses is an integral part of what we do at Sydney Business School.

As the world of business is always changing, we ensure our programmes are up-to-date.

We achieve this through our strong links with industry, business and government, to ensure our programmes reflect industry and student needs. Students benefit from this by studying up-to-date information that will develop them as professionals or business leaders with critical skills sought after by employers within the industry. Additionally, having these relationships allows us to bring industry specialists into the

STUDENT PERSPECTIVE When I began researching which school to study at I found that I had a lot of unanswered questions. That left me confused, and with the feeling that I needed some guidance. This is where Sydney Business School stood out from all others – the school’s relationships manager took the time to discuss all my queries with me, and provided me with the guidance that I needed. It really gave me a sense of belonging and I felt that I wasn’t just another student. This gave me good insights into the culture at Sydney Business School – I saw that the school cared and valued me, and that it was about more than securing another student. It is because of this relationship management that I chose Sydney Business School.

The best thing about the programme is studying with students from a very diverse range of backgrounds and being taught by lecturers with a wealth of knowledge and experience in their subject fields. Another fantastic aspect is being able to connect the subjects and relate them to my current role, and what I see in our organisation.

My experience at Sydney Business School has been extremely positive.

I have found the programme to be very captivating, teaching the key ingredients to becoming a successful leader and manager. The programme is enhancing my confidence, which is translating into my current job role. It also gives me the confidence that I can progress in my career and continue to be successful by applying the skills that I am being taught.

Prospective students should consider Sydney Business School if they want to study at a school which values its students and does its absolute best in supporting them throughout their time with the school.

Adam Mourad – National Organic Produce Buyer, Woolworths Limited.

Current Sydney Business School MBA Student.

classroom to impart first-hand knowledge of their chosen field, which is also linked to the programme curriculum. This is also a great networking opportunity for our students.

The Sydney Business School Study Tour Our study abroad tour gives participants the opportunity to enhance their cultural and diverse economic understanding of highly developed cities such as Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Beijing, Shanghai and Penang. In addition to developing skills in doing business in these cities, participants will come to appreciate the region’s ties with the rest of the world.

The study tour is an integral component of the EMBA programme as it covers two units of the course, and is included in the cost of tuition.

In addition, we provide our MBA students with the optional added benefit of completing a two-week intensive programme. These study tours will continue to be part of the programmes, with learning outcomes based on themes/ units integral to the programme. For example, a past tour had a strong focus on supply chain management and innovation, both of which are important features of the programmes.

I saw that the school cared and valued me, and that it was about more than securing another student. It is because of this relationship management that I chose Sydney Business School.

Sydney: A Cosmopolitan Location Sydney is the largest, oldest and most cosmopolitan city in Australia. It is ranked in the top ten most liveable cities in the world and considered the sixth best ‘student city’ in the world. Our campus in Circular Quay is at the upmarket end of Sydney’s central business district. It overlooks both the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge and is well serviced by buses, trains and ferries.

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EMBA Target Profile The EMBA is designed for senior managers, executives and entrepreneurs looking to enhance their leadership skills with a high quality, flexible programme tailored to their level of corporate experience. The student profile consists of professionals with extensive managerial experience who are typically 32 years old or above. The diversity of the cohort provides an outstanding learning experience as students can draw on the knowledge of their peers in the classroom. It is also a terrific opportunity for students to broaden their network of contacts. The Sydney Business School EMBA is offered in an intensive modular delivery for Australian permanent residents and those who can commute, for example from New Zealand or Singapore.

Delivery Modes/Scheduling The programme is cohort managed with a strict quota on enrolments, allowing students to study with the same group of professionals for the entire programme. Classes are delivered over intensive long weekends to suit busy professionals. The programme includes a two-week international study tour abroad as part of the tuition. This intensive tour is comprised of guest and industry site visits as well as in-class lectures. The site visits give students the opportunity to appreciate the international complexities of the subject firsthand in regions with growing economic global significance.

We understand the competitive environment we are operating in, not only within Australia but in a global context.

ALUMNI PERSPECTIVE Undertaking my studies at the Sydney Business School has seen me grow as a person both personally and professionally and enabled me to: 1. Significantly expand my understanding and knowledge of business, which has proven invaluable in my commercial law practice 2. Connect with many local and international students from diverse backgrounds as well as with the Sydney Business School academic and teaching staff 3. Develop confidence in my abilities beyond legal practice and only knowing the law As a direct result of my studies I gained the confidence to seek out board positions to contribute my skills to the local Illawarra community, and I since have joined the boards of two not-for-profit member-based organisations.

I have also been fortunate to be able to combine legal practice with my newly acquired management skills, having been invited to join the partnership of Kells in 2012. I am now enjoying the challenge of owning and operating a business in the Illawarra, and am certain that my studies at the Sydney Business School have provided me with invaluable skills to do so.

Amy Harper – Partner, Kells. Sydney Business School MBA Graduate, 2013.

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Our campus is a spacious and engaging environment and promises to encourage stronger bonds amongst peers and between staff and students. The premises provides additional contemporary teaching, learning and resource spaces all equipped with the latest technology, comfortable social spaces and improved access to transport and essential services operating later into the evening.

When students aren’t studying, they can enjoy the many attractions Sydney has to offer. Students can take advantage of the beautiful Mediterranean weather Sydney is blessed with by enjoying a surf at one of the world famous beaches or playing a game of beach volleyball, soccer, cricket, tennis or Aussie rules football (just to name but a few).

If shopping is more of their style, Sydney has a vast range of shopping centres and boutiques, or they can pick up a bargain at our Market City in the Chinatown area.

Nightlife and entertainment are a great way to get out and explore the city and meet new people – whether it’s at one of the many nightclubs, bars and cafes or at the outdoor cinema overlooking the harbour. There are also eateries to cover all tastes and budgets, from fine dining to takeaway and covering cuisine from pretty much all over the globe.

Relationships Beyond the Classroom Sydney Business School maintains excellent relations in working with its alumni. We value our students and want them to be part of the university family for life. As a result, our alumni are provided with the following benefits to help them continue to develop their skills:  Free membership to our library  Preserve their email account for life  Global access to valuable databases and journals In addition, we offer students, alumni and our industry partners access to an executive lecture/ workshop series for professional development, and we are developing webinars for added professional development.

Biography Ø Professor John Glynn is Executive Dean of the Faculty of Business. He is responsible for the strategic direction of the Faculty of Business, including Sydney Business School at the University of Wollongong.

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That’s

EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY

The MBA

Tailored To YOU

Alexandra Skinner speaks to Christine Clarke at European University’s Barcelona campus The European University Mission European University is a group of private business schools with headquarters in Switzerland. It operates campuses located in Switzerland (Geneva and Montreux), Spain (Barcelona) and Germany (Munich).

Over the past 40 years, European University has developed a business education process that delivers high-quality teaching, a competitive learning environment and a network of several campuses in different countries. European University also has agreements signed with a variety of universities and colleges worldwide and, in this way, achieves a global campus reach.

A principle goal of European University is to internationalise its programmes. This broad network encourages students to participate in inter-campus exchanges in the following countries, among others: Spain, Switzerland, Germany, UK, Austria, Syria, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, China, Russia, Taiwan and Singapore.

European University offers the traditional programmes of Bachelor and Master of Business Administration (BBA & MBA), with the choice of specialising in 10 different majors at undergraduate level and 12 at MBA level in a wide range of specialties; for example, Communication and Public Relations, Information Systems Management, Wealth Management and Finance-Banking & Corporate Finance, among others. All programmes share common core management programmes (70-72 per cent common core). The master’s programme is also offered online.

European University’s primary goal is to bring the American education model to Europe by relating classroom theory to professional skills. The courses are taught in English using the case study method and project work to prevent business theory from remaining abstract and incomprehensible.

The school’s secondary goal is to internationalise its programmes by providing a unique environment.

An international perspective is guaranteed by the composition of the faculty and student body.

European University’s mission is to contribute to the global community by providing comprehensive, in-depth international business education to an inspired, culturally diverse student body, who are prepared to effectively deal with current business issues.

Flexibility is Key Each major includes a set of five specialist courses addressing key management issues in the specialty area. The majors complement the 70 per cent core business courses to give a rounded, specialist management experience.

Full-time, Part-time or Online MBA? There are many considerations concerning this dilemma, not least of which are time, cost and location. Given the current economic situation, professionals in fulltime employment really should look into non-traditional options; combining work obligations with MBA requirements can be demanding, but it is manageable through part-time and e-learning options. Many institutions, such as European University, specifically offer their MBA course outside of the normal work timetable to facilitate professionals in combining their work and study obligations.

The question of online or in-classroom learning is complex, and depends greatly on the professional’s best study habits. Some individuals prefer a looser arrangement, and are internally motivated and at ease with technology; others perform better with direct group interaction and a more

Study modes

The MBA is offered as a full-time programme to be completed in one academic year. A part-time option is also available.

Delivery modes

Students may choose to follow a classroom-based programme or follow an online blended MBA.

Electives

Students have a wide range of majors that they may follow: International Business  Communication & PR  International Marketing  Global Banking & Finance  Leisure & Tourism Entrepreneurship  Leadership  E-Business  Sports Management Human Resources  Design Management  Reputation Management

Price

The cost of the MBA programme is €19,100, including registration fee.

European University MBA Overview

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ALUMNI PERSPECTIVE

Combining work obligations with MBA requirements can be demanding, but it is manageable through part-time and e-learning options. disciplined timetable. This dilemma also needs to address the question of location; some professionals would need to relocate (with the extra incurred expense) to follow their preferred on-site course.

The real driver, taking into account the practical issues mentioned above, should be programme quality, derived from course content, faculty and services.

Blended learning is a reality at European University; all programmes have an element of independent learning though computer-based tasks. If we take blended learning to mean a combination of delivery modes, then this is also an option; a student could follow certain courses in the classroom and others online.

The jet descended toward Zurich through a heavy cloud cover. My thoughts were elsewhere, floating on the different wings of fatigue and pride and no doubt fueled by the quality Bordeaux swishing around the glass in my hand. A new fifty-million-dollar private Airbus was on the last leg of a delivery and I was the sole passenger aboard, tended to by the immaculately presented crew; soft jazz music building to a crescendo as we flared to land.

Finding myself as project leader, with full power of attorney and responsibility, to bring together to deadline this complex commercial, legal and financial transaction is a fitting testament to the power of a quality MBA to change the direction of a life and open new opportunities.

Perhaps this was a crowning moment for a career that has given me the opportunity to lead the EMEAA team and create a multibillion-dollar business for a major airframe manufacturer in the executive jet sector.

In 1995, I chose to undertake the European University Executive MBA, partially because the executive option enabled me to continue my full-time job as an engineering project manager and partially because the other students would also be mature and from different cultural and business backgrounds. The interaction and flow of ideas from the teaching staff and my fellow students opened my eyes to the vast array of business opportunities and functions beyond my own technical discipline. The opportunity to learn about the entire business process was enriching, and to get under the skin of the commercial and financial transactions was fascinating. The rigorous academic structure backed by real-world expertise and the advice of the teaching staff was an unexpected bonus.

Was the MBA useful? Absolutely! I gained confidence across a variety of disciplines I would not otherwise have encountered. This in turn enabled me to obtain commercial management positions from which I was able to direct my career into the competitive but highly rewarding executive aviation arena, and how I found myself one stormy night the sole passenger aboard a luxury airliner experiencing life as few ever get the chance. Thanks, European University!

Neil Patton, BSc (Hons.), CEng, MBA – Independent Consultant for Corporate & Private Aviation, Paris. European University EMBA, Geneva and Montreux graduate, 1997.

The Online MBA The European University Online MBA is an alternative option for prospective professionals, transfer students and other individuals who have neither the time nor the ability to be geographically present in our campus locations.

However, the programme does not cannibalise on the alternative choice for students who wish to engage in the full campus life and experience.

To ensure equivalence, the European University Online MBA programme standardises its academic content with that of the Montreux, Geneva, Munich and Barcelona campuses, so that the programmes and majors offered, course syllabi, and exam timetable run concurrently. A primary objective is to

ensure campus-based faculty are also delivering the online programme, and that students are also procuring the same prescribed textbooks and materials. These policies bring closer conformity to a programme already operating in tandem, and also allow for a blended programme experience.

While the relationships that are established on campus are not realised in a virtual environment, the European University Online MBA creates a sense of community through continual forum dialogues, enhanced with webinars and visual features, and complemented with an on-campus week for final exams, where networking and industrial visits serve to cement relations in this blended learning programme.

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ALUMNI PERSPECTIVE Like so many other graduates that have just completed a university education, I was absolutely sure I would never go back to school again when I received my Ph.D. from St Andrews University in 2005.

The programme I undertook at the time was highly technical and involved the synthesis of novel fluoro-organic substances; a challenging project that kept me chained to the laboratory bench for the best part of three years. Certainly studying an MBA at European University was far from my mind at that time.

Exceptional for an accomplished organic chemist, I started my professional career in the area of technical marketing. Being responsible for the commercial development of a class of novel fluorinating agents targeting the pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals industry, I widely enjoyed my new role. I loved the flexibility and independence of the work schedule; the constant travel and connecting to new customers around the globe; and, last but not least, the success that came along with the project. Over the years, however, pursuing the marketing strategy and growing the business became a less-important objective, as our company established a leading position within a consolidated market environment. Step by step, and perhaps unintentionally, I grew into a much more commercial role, assuming direct responsibility in the product management and eventually sales areas. Once again, I welcomed the challenge of exploring a new world, quite remote from scientific norms and standards that had composed the basis of my work thus far. Certainly it was then when I started looking for options to feed my ever-growing thirst for business-related knowledge and education, even though I had many experienced colleagues at my side supporting me in my new position at the company.

The Online MBA programme at European University convinced me it would offer the best option for achieving both my professional and personal objectives. Not only did it provide tremendous flexibility and convenience through online meetings and conferences, held from virtually any location across the globe; but it also offered students the chance to meet international staff and peers personally through pre-scheduled modules across the university’s various European campuses.

The European University programme offers participants the unique possibility of combining the online programme with on-campus semesters; this is perhaps critical for students who have doubts about the quality of online teaching at large. Although direct contact and time with teaching personnel is certainly less abundant and self-study perhaps plays a more important role in coping with the challenges of the course, contact with peers and the dynamics of team-building seem to be stronger compared to conventional forms of teaching. Perhaps surprisingly, the teaching quality was always at an exceptionally high standard and for me personally, an important factor in staying with the online programme the full three semesters required to complete the European University MBA programme.

In retrospect, I am very happy to have chosen European University for this important step in my professional career; not only because of the convenience it provided in combining my studies with a challenging daily workload at my company, but also due to the incredible variety and quality of the course content at any time. Last but not least, I would like to express special thanks to former programme manager, Dr Guillermo De Haro, who managed the programme with exceptional determination and professionalism, and in organizing many inspiring industrial visits and enjoyable on-campus weeks in Barcelona, Geneva and Munich, made this programme a truly international MBA. Dr Martin Schüler – European University Online MBA in International Business graduate.

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Hands-on Teaching European University’s faculty is made up primarily of academically qualified, internationally experienced adjunct members, the majority of whom are working in their professional fields, thus ensuring not only a theoretical approach, but hands-on pragmatism and extensive business experience.

Real-world is a must, not an option. As faculty members are active professionally, they are abreast of trends and innovations within their specialist area and are able to enrich their courses with up-to-date practical examples and chair discussions effectively.

Faculty are also vital for input into curricula and programme issues.

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STUDENT PERSPECTIVE

We are training our students to face business challenges; it is our duty to be role models.

The European Campus Network European University is located in key cities throughout Europe: Barcelona, Spain; Geneva and Montreux, Switzerland; and Munich, Germany. Students have the opportunity to seamlessly transfer between campuses at the end of any term to enhance their international experience. They may also consider studying a term at one of EU’s partner universities.

Alumni feedback indicates that it is, indeed, the international, practical working environment and transfer opportunities which give them a competitive advantage in the workplace.

A global perspective is not an option, but an imperative. Value chains tend to be

In 2013, while working for the World Health Organization in Geneva, I joined the European University’s online MBA programme in International Business. I wanted to develop a better knowledge of business processes, improve my leadership skills and further develop my network around the globe. In my work, centered around portfolio and policy management in infectious diseases of poverty research, it is important to master both technical skills and those related to management and finance.

Ever since I joined (I am currently in my second term), I have felt the support of my organization, which is important considering I am employed full-time.

Before joining, I scanned various offers; I found that taking courses individually did not possess the same value as taking a full degree.

Fortunately, the European University offers the OMBA, which is a combination of “live” distance learning and on-site experience.

Some of the most exciting moments of the first term happened during these site visits. We were given the opportunity to visit a state-of-the art facility of a worldwide famous manufacturer and understand first-hand their business model, as well as have discussions with some of their senior managers. We also received some very interesting insights from the head of one of the most prestigious banks in Switzerland.

I must say that probably the most enriching encounter I had during the first term was discovering the vast range of expertise and backgrounds my colleagues had, and the chance I had to learn from their experience and stories. Our group brings together students from all the continents – literally, other than Antarctica – who have worked in different environments (public, private, government, U.N.), which contributes to a pretty broad perspective when we work in teams and interact during webinars. Studying an online degree, scattered around the world, we learn how to work in virtual teams with innovative communication tools, which makes teamwork and learning more effective and efficient.

If I was to give advice to someone considering an online degree, it would be to carefully assess their availability because, even though it is an online degree, it requires a great deal of focus, effort and time. The programme thus far has been both rewarding and demanding.

Dr Michael Mihut – World Health Organization. Portfolio Management Officer, The Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases. Current European University Online MBA Student.

international, competitors are international; a global perspective is a basis for understanding industry and market dynamics. The reasons for a global perspective are numerous, not least the need to understand people and to understand different perspectives, which is why European University ensures an international background in its student body, faculty and staff.

and reflect on input from all stakeholders; our board of advisors, our alumni and students, our faculty members – our communities.

Constant monitoring of our environment and understanding industry needs are essential and reviewing and updating programme content and delivery styles is vital. We are training our students to face business challenges; it is our duty to be role models.

Stakeholder ROI Ensuring that we rise to market challenges and continue to meet student demands goes across industries and organisations; to be continually aware of our environment and plan ahead. In practical terms, it means we listen

Biography Ø Professor Christine Clarke is Dean of the European University Barcelona campus.

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WHY WORK IS LONELY

Lonely WHY WORK IS

Gianpiero Petriglieri

T

here is an old cartoon I often show to the managers I work with. It portrays a smiling executive team around a long table. The chairman is asking, "All in favor?" Everyone's hand is up.

Meanwhile, the cloud hovering above each head contains a dissonant view: "You've got to be kidding;" "Heaven forbid;" "Perish the thought." It never fails to provoke awkward laughter of self-recognition.

I have a name for this cocktail of deference, conformity and passive aggression that chokes people and teams. I call it violent politeness.

I have witnessed it countless times. After some discussion, often labeled “brainstorming,” a group will go along with the most innocuous suggestion and follow it half-heartedly, keeping itself busy to avoid admitting what everyone knows: it is not going to work.

When I probe junior managers about this dynamic, they usually explain that their caution reflects their uncertain status. It feels too risky to raise misgivings, especially if one cannot offer an alternative course of action. It might make them look clueless or disruptive to their boss or colleagues.

Early in my career, I was sympathetic to that analysis. I knew it all too well, the fear of being myself at work – or more precisely, the uncertainty about which self to be.

I thought, and advised reassuringly, that things would improve with time. As young managers became established, they would have more latitude to put their mark on the roles they took – and so would I. It would be easier to find and speak with our own voice.

It took me a few years to realize that I was offering a wishful lie. Time does not summon courage. It only morphs the fear of speaking truth to power into the fear of speaking truth in power. Once I began working with senior executives, I found those hesitations all still there, only stronger in the face of increased visibility and pressure.

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Owning one’s defiance feels risky at every (st)age. Speaking up feels even more exposing and consequential, spontaneity more unfamiliar, when we’ve spent much of our careers learning to modulate our silence – and being rewarded for it.

This is why violent politeness often gets stronger the closer one gets to the C-suite. In too many organizations, in too many of our minds, it is still what gets you there.

It is different from “groupthink.” It is not always borne of convenience, cowardice and backside-covering – or evidence of a lack of commitment or malicious intent.

As a personal habit, we often justify it with the wish not to embarrass others or to appear supportive. As a group norm, we reinforce it by endorsing “constructive” cultures that denigrate dissent as a lesser form of participation than enthusiasm.

Violent politeness is such an ingrained custom that we keep making excuses.

We keep forgetting that our closest relationships are not those where tension is glossed over but those where it can be aired and worked through safely enough.

We keep telling ourselves that speaking up is costly and ignoring the price of silence.

Perhaps because the price of speaking up – being ignored, judged, labeled a poor team player or worse – is paid immediately and by those who speak first. The price of silence, on the other hand, is exacted later and paid by the group – when the bubble of false harmony bursts, relationships crumble or projects fail.

We keep ignoring that by censoring ourselves in order not to appear vulnerable, we are often complicit in being misunderstood. Silence is easy to fill with suspicions and assumptions about what others do not know about us.

We keep fooling ourselves that we need to wait and time will make us more open, as if time alone did anything more than harden tentativeness into superficiality.

And in the meantime, violent politeness corrodes collaboration, problem-solving

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WHY WORK IS LONELY

I have a name for this cocktail of deference, conformity and passive aggression that chokes people and teams. I call it violent politeness.

and decision-making. It kills enthusiasm and drags learning to a halt.

We cast it carelessly, this stone that kills two birds we claim to cherish – our voice and our relationships. And when we have done it long enough that we

have lost hope to speak or hear the truth, to truly care and be cared for, we tell ourselves...

It’s lonely at the top.

Of course it is, and not just there. It’s lonely everywhere you feel that you must give up your voice to stay in the room. It’s lonely everywhere relationships are brittle.

Violent politeness is tied to loneliness in a vicious cycle.

Once you tolerate the former you worsen the latter, and vice versa.

Neither is a property of “the top,” a necessary evil, or, worse, a badge of honor.

They are choices.

They are choices to keep commitments often made unconsciously, early on and far from any top. Commitments to look strong, caring, and in control. Commitments to keep our groups looking harmonious.

Commitments we care so much about keeping that we are prepared to sacrifice learning, effectiveness, freedom, and intimacy.

It is to honor these commitments that we betray ourselves as much as others.

When I show that cartoon, most managers readily recognize themselves in the self-censoring team members pretending to agree. Few identify first with the meeting’s chairperson. No wonder. When I ask them to do so and guess how they would feel, the laughter usually stops.

Lonely, is the most common answer.

Burdened, blinded, mistrusted, clueless, are frequent answers too.

Violent politeness keeps leaders stuck in the very place we say we least want leaders to be – carrying the glory if things go well and the blame if they don’t. Stressed out, alone, and handsomely rewarded for it.

Some argue that we unconsciously like it that way. Because applauding or rejecting leaders feels easier than sharing the burden of leading. Because isolation feels safer than admitting doubt or asking for help. Because at one time or other we have all been hurt by leaders who ignored us or took our dissent as an attack and retaliated.

All that may be true. But most of all we do it to keep bolstering airbrushed images of leadership and teamwork – at the expense of the messier work both take.

We can’t break violent politeness or end loneliness at the top, or anywhere else, until we are ready to sacrifice those idealized images and stop hiding in plain view. It is a tiny step that takes a lot of courage. The courage to take our work seriously and ourselves less so. The courage to be both vulnerable and generous – and to stop outsourcing shame to those who can’t afford to hide.

‘The top,’ in that way, is no different than anywhere else. We need good friends to thrive and be ourselves. Real friends, that is. The kind who would rather be ruthlessly honest than violently polite.

Courtesy of HBR

Biography Ø Gianpiero Petriglieri is Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD, where he directs the Management Acceleration Programme, the school’s flagship executive programme for emerging leaders.

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04/04/2014 19:07

THE 60 WORD INTERVIEW

The

Word

One journalist, one interviewee, one catch – each response must be answered in 60 words or less. In this issue, Alexandra Skinner speaks to Queens University of Charlotte’s Dr Ronald E. Shiffler.

No job descriptions – tell us about you:

Online vs. on-campus:

I have been dean for 18 years at three schools.

Currently our programme is entirely on-

A higher education trend you didn’t see coming is:

For AACSB International I have served on the

campus, but we have plans to reduce face-time

The blistering pace and significant impact of

Initial Accreditation Committee, on 25-plus

slightly and introduce some online work.

technological changes. When our IT staff admit

peer review teams, and guided my schools

that it is hard for them to keep up, then it is doubly hard for us to maintain cutting-edge

Some marketing approaches I’ve tried include

Study trips: valuable learning or educational vacations?

an online weekly newsletter, a blog, a talk radio

Definitely valuable learning experiences! We

gone already?!

show, and a television show.

pride ourselves on making the international

through four successful maintenance reviews.

Describe your EMBA vision:

study trips relevant. Students have some free

One that you did is:

time, but not much. We keep them busy!

Online. Our students of tomorrow will demand education on their terms, and that means some

An EMBA programme should stretch students’ comfort zones by teaching them to think

Biggest challenge facing EMBA deans is:

form of online learning must be available or

critically, work in groups, defend their position,

By far the biggest challenge in the US is the

else the business school will die. Online is

synthesise large amounts of information into

reduction in corporate financial support for

simply another delivery channel to complement

concise reports or presentations, and deal with

employees pursuing an EMBA degree. By their

our on-campus offerings.

ambiguity. Foundational and technical material

nature, EMBA programmes are extremely

in functional areas should be included, but only

high-touch and high-priced. Without corporate

to the extent that students gain familiarity and

support, prospective students may consider

Three business skills missing from the market are:

make connections to the bigger picture.

professional (part-time) MBA programmes

1. Active listening and questioning skills. Too

instead of the EMBA.

Specialised or traditional?

By “traditional” we mean highly interactive, case-oriented, discussion-based classroom

1. Deliver relevant, respected and rewarding

experiences with some specialised projects,

programmes.

including a business plan competition

2. Help every student develop his/her potential.

culminating in a Shark Tank-type presentation

3. Continuously strive to improve quality in

to the public, and a community project to

every aspect of the business school.

benefit a local not-for-profit.

Focus on core business skills or nurture innovation and entrepreneurship?

many business professionals talk first and listen later, if at all.

A business school’s top three responsibilities are:

Mostly traditional with some specialisation.

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tools in the classroom. Have MOOCs come and

Business schools need to stimulate learning by: We need to encourage faculty to take more

From the previous answer it is clear that we

risks and try new approaches to teaching,

emphasise the latter. In fact, we are considering

such as flipping the classroom, making greater

adding a student project to complete a real-

use of learning management systems, and

time due diligence analysis for investors

experimenting with social media, gaming or

presented with a Series A funding opportunity.

other new technologies.

2. The lack of a “do-your-best” orientation. The “good enough” attitude is creeping into the workplace. Professionalism, accuracy and pride in one’s work seem to be fading.

3. Follow-up and follow-through.

Three soft skills a business leader cannot do without are:  Integrity: not just simple “right and wrong,” but trying to come down on the right side of the grey areas of business.  Compassion: understanding the importance of caring about co-workers, customers, and community.  Generosity: tangibly making a positive contribution.

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THE 60 WORD INTERVIEW

A business school’s role in nurturing these is: At the McColl School we believe it is our primary role to nurture these skills. It says so in our mission statement, where we reference the ‘3 Cs of leadership’ – competence, character, and commitment to community. Character is all about compassion and integrity, while generosity is exemplified by our community involvement.

One application or interview ‘do’: Pause and think for 2-3 seconds before answering. This lets the interviewer know you really were listening and are carefully processing your response.

One application or interview ‘don’t’: Talk for too long. Make your answers complete, yet concise, in order to develop a back-and-forth rhythm with the interviewer. Know when to stop.

The best thing about the McColl School of Business is: It is a toss-up between two things. One is the passion and talent our faculty has for teaching and working with students. Alumni repeatedly remark that they appreciate having faculty with significant industry experience. And second is the success of our alumni. It is so rewarding to see their careers take off, which they attribute to the McColl School.

One improvement you would like to make would be: I would win the lottery so I could provide unlimited resources and funding. Hmm, I guess I should buy a lottery ticket first!

The future for the McColl School of Business will bring: Greater visibility and recognition beyond our borders, helped by CEO Magazine’s ranking, AACSB accreditation, and our new online MBA programme.

Parting words for would-be EMBAs: To truly evaluate whether an EMBA programme is right for you, ask permission to sit through an EMBA class to experience the quality of the faculty, the style of instruction, the caliber of classmates, and the overall “vibe.”

Biography Ø Dr Ronald E. Shiffler is Dean of the McColl School of Business at Queens University of Charlotte, United States

An EMBA programme should stretch students’ comfort zones.

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04/04/2014 19:11

JACK WELCH MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE

Transforming Careers.

How the Jack Welch Management Institute is blowing up business education.

A

t the Jack Welch Management Institute (JWMI), the students are truly the customers. Unlike many universities, where the faculty members are often the top stakeholders, when iconic business leader Jack Welch founded his acclaimed online MBA program, he made it his mission to create an unparalleled student experience.

Indeed, one of the key differentiators at JWMI is the school’s use of Net Promoter Scores to drive continual improvement to the program. Every term, JWMI’s MBA students complete an NPS survey where they evaluate the faculty, the curriculum, the technology and the course design, providing detailed comments and candid insights. While this survey is widely used in service industries such as hospitality, Jack’s business school is breaking new ground by bringing such a laser focus on customer satisfaction into the academic world.

According to JWMI Dean Andrea Backman, “Our student satisfaction scores are now in line with some of the best companies in the world like Amazon and Southwest Airlines — it’s unbelievable. And that’s because we listen, constantly. We ask for feedback from the students, and then the entire JWMI team,

If students are not seeing change immediately inside their workplace, then the investment isn’t worth it.

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Now.

including the faculty, comes up with action plans to make a better and better experience for the students every term.”

A Culture of Top Performance But the innovation doesn’t end there.

While traditionally in education, faculty are locked into tenure, concentrating on research and publishing, in JWMI’s high performance culture the faculty are 100 per cent dedicated to their teaching responsibilities to the student.

Regardless of how long they have been with the program, JWMI’s faculty are differentiated and held accountable to meeting rigorous performance standards of teaching every term.

Only the best, most committed get to stay. It may seem like a radical approach, but JWMI lives by the principles it teaches.

“Our faculty care so deeply about our students,” says Backman when asked about the faculty’s ability to deliver a personal approach to teaching in an online program. “On the way in, we say to faculty, ‘Look, if you just want to just be an expert there are plenty of places where you can go and work; this isn’t the place for you.’ Our faculty have to be experts but they also have to function as coaches, so they have a big role in making students feel like part of the community.”

As Jack Welch elaborates in a recent interview with CNBC, “The faculty’s job is to satisfy the students. These students are spending their money, and they’re mature adults, so if these teachers aren’t delivering, they aren’t doing their job.”

This never means giving an easy grade, but it does mean providing personalized coaching, thorough feedback and a high level of satisfaction, to make for an unmatched experience for the students in the program.

Immediate Application In a further disruption of traditional education, JWMI puts the real world application of front-line business practices ahead of the more theoretical teaching offered in most business schools.

“The most important thing that we teach our students is to learn on Monday, apply on Tuesday and bring it back on Friday,” says Backman. She goes on to explain: “If they’re not seeing change immediately inside their workplace, then the investment isn’t worth it.”

She continues: “It’s not just lip service. We actually collect ‘lessons from the field’ about how students are applying the learning and what they’re realising in their workplaces.

We’re getting tons of stories from our students; ‘this is affecting me immediately.’ That’s really different in this space.”

Perhaps this disruption is best explained by the program’s leader and namesake. According to Jack Welch, “In any school, after class you sit around and discuss the case. We have working adults who are going back to their jobs and practicing it.” And who can argue with Jack?

Real Results It’s no surprise that, as a result, JWMI is able to boast that nearly 70 per cent of the MBA students who responded to its 2013 Student Career Survey have been promoted, received a raise, or other professional recognition since starting the program.

“One of the things we expect to happen for our students is that they are changing the careers they are currently in,” Backman explains. JWMI aims to deliver more than just knowledge: “Most of our students want career advancement, so the fact that they can work, that they can build networks with other students, who are working professionals,

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JACK WELCH MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE

with an average of 15 years of work experience – they’re bringing really rich ideas and experiences into the classroom with them.”

Here’s what four executives who are enrolled in or have graduated from the JWMI program had to say:

Rock Solid ROI Joining the Jack Welch Management Institute’s MBA program is one of the best life and career decisions I have ever made. I was very fortunate to have a great, diversified working experience in Fortune 500, mid-size public and start-up healthcare and energy companies; most of my positions were marketing roles with global responsibilities.

I lived and worked in China, Canada and the U.S. and have traveled around the world.

Witnessing our business world going through a time of uncertainty, and also a time of great innovation and opportunities, I decided to kick off my second 20-year career by starting my own business and commencing the JWMI MBA. My JWMI experience has impacted me profoundly in the short six months I have been in the program. Unlike other business programs, JWMI doesn’t just study great leaders, it’s led by one. Jack Welch works diligently to increase the value of our investment in the MBA degree. He frequently posts thoughtprovoking videos and articles to students. In early March,

he and the school administration spent hours meeting with our student advisory board to discuss new ideas for better student and alumni experiences. Jack also hosts quarterly Q&A sessions, answering students’ questions live on camera through web conference with all students. Our Dean, Andrea Backman, answers students’ phone calls and emails discussing personal challenges or new ideas to make the school better. The school surveys students several times during the course and returns every phone call requested by the students.

JWMI really lives by the value of “Learn on Monday and apply to work on Tuesday.”

I learn practical and useful knowledge that I can immediately use in my next meeting or project. For example, I used my course learning and assignments to develop my new business

model and solidify the concept as part of my course project. As a result, my assignments are being used as training documents and communication tools for my business.

JWMI’s flagship course, Leadership in the 21st Century, equipped me with tried-and-true leadership principles, rules and ideas to use in practice. “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself; when you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”

Just like this humble yet insightful statement, all of Jack’s leadership ideas are simple, vivid and profound. What I didn’t expect was how much I have learned to be a better person by understanding my own styles, strengths and weaknesses, level of emotional intelligence, and how to be empathetic and motivational when leading different types of people.

I gained a tremendous amount of confidence in my day-to-day work with business owners, CEOs and CFOs while representing my own business. I have also formed deep connections with many students who will become my future friends, clients, employers or peers. JWMI actually hosts local networking dinners in metropolitan areas across the country for students and alumni, allowing me to bond with my classmates and present new ideas to the JWMI team.

For me the program’s ROI was immeasurable as it is hard to put a value on the confidence I gained, practical skills I mastered, and invaluable network I built.

Aileen Yi Fan President of Visante Communications, LLC. Jack Welch MBA student CEO MAGAZINE

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A Changed Trajectory Two days after I started the Jack Welch MBA in September 2009, I received the news that I would be part of a reduction in force.

In short order, I went from being the executive director of a new and exciting department to job-hunting.

Was this bad timing? As it turned out, the timing was perfect.

Over the next year, as I worked as a consultant and looked for more stable work, I experienced the richest learning season of my life. Every day I participated in thoughtprovoking discussions with students and instructors. I worked on assignments that informed my job search and shaped the quality of the consulting I was doing. The reading assignments and other instructional materials provided a comprehensive view of the subject matter, and provided real-life context that sharpened my professional skills.

I also looked forward to Jack Welch’s weekly commentary on what was happening in the economy. In fact, it startled me how available he was to the students, and I could tell he was getting as much energy from his interactions with us as we were getting from him. I loved how his candid commentary on the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis helped me see complexity where the media over-simplified. These Q&A sessions with students helped me understand how Jack Welch thinks about business.

Ultimately, JWMI has changed the trajectory of my career and life. Today, I am the head of marketing at a software company – a job I landed in part because I had earned the JWMI MBA, making up for the specific experience in hightech marketing I had lacked.

In addition to learning a great deal about management at JWMI, I have gained life-long friendships and professional associations that will benefit me for many years to come. But, I think the most valuable gift I received from Jack and Suzy Welch, the JWMI instructors, and the entire JWMI support team is this: inspiration and vision for what’s possible, both professionally and personally.

I am reminded of a quote that for me captures the heart of the JWMI program: “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather the wood, divide the work, and give the orders.

Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry). Yes, I received an MBA. Yes, I learned high impact management and leadership skills. But more importantly, I saw a vision for what’s possible — in terms of my own work, that of those whom I work alongside and lead, and of the companies I will work for in the years to come.

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Looking forward, the outlook for my company, as well as my professional future, is wildly bright and the real-world training from JWMI has been invaluable to me.

Nichole Stiger CEO, Triple D Ramp Services LLC. Jack Welch MBA student

Anything is Possible

Marc Fey Director of Marketing, Cherwell Jack Welch MBA graduate, 2009

A Winning Future I sought out a graduate program that would support my dreams of owning my own business and offer the tools to drive my success. Prior to my enrollment at JWMI, I was seeking a career as an entrepreneur after retiring from a 19-year career in the United States Air Force, as a Personnel Manager and an Air Transportation Operations Manager.

The guidance of JWMI’s expert professors and staff has contributed immensely to helping me further develop my skills in people management, business communication and leadership development. I am now the CEO of my own national transportation company, an organization that bids on the transportation needs of private and federal customers across the country.

I cannot stress enough the thoughtfulness, intuitiveness and care that the professors and staff at JWMI have provided, along with the networking experiences that are helping me succeed in the MBA program.

The live, hands-on teaching of Jack Welch offers concrete plans for implementing the best practices and principles to grow your business and lead your staff. On a daily basis, my job consists of analyzing operations to evaluate the performance of my company and staff in meeting objectives, determining areas of potential cost reduction, and identifying program improvement possibilities. As I direct inbound and outbound logistics operations and transportation activities, safety performances or quality management, it is evident that my MBA courses in People Management, Business Communication and Financial Management have prepared me to be able to assess the effectiveness of all management decisions made in my company, and how they affect the company’s bottom line. It has also ingrained in me the critical soft skills and emotional intelligence needed to analyze my people, staff, and customers.

Sixteen years ago I had a dream of someday being on the payroll of Southwest Airlines, the #1 company in the airline industry. Their track record of best on-time service, fewest customer complaints and baggage loss at a minimum is an unparalleled achievement.

The Jack Welch Management Institute has not just given me the confidence to go after this dream, but the business principles and relationship skills I have learned equipped me to navigate through Southwest’s rigorous interview process. The program taught me that you need to do your homework in every situation and demonstrate your expertise more by the questions you ask than the answers you give. Being a gifted listener is critical in maximizing relationships. Along with my sales and customer service track record, my knowledge of Southwest Airlines’ history, including their mission statement and their hiring strategy, gave me a competitive edge.

When I received the phone call that I was officially hired by Southwest Airlines, it gave me a feeling of humility, deep gratitude and euphoria.

This opportunity will change my future and I am extremely proud. I attribute JWMI as being the difference-maker in this hiring process as I continue to soar within Southwest Airlines.

Larry McFarlin Client Relations, Southwest Airlines Jack Welch MBA student

Mission Statement Ø The mission of the Jack Welch Management Institute is to provide students and organizations with the proven methodologies, immediately actionable practices, and respected credentials needed to win in the most demanding global business environments.

By teaching the performance and peopledriven management canon of Jack Welch and other renowned business leaders, the Jack Welch Management Institute prepares MBA and Executive Certificate program graduates to transform their companies and careers.

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ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

Tell Your Boss About The Problem, If You Have One Telling the boss about problems, rather than peers makes the most effective organisations.

Henrich Greve

S

ometimes management practice and research results are so far apart that it is worth giving a warning. Let me give an example. It has long been accepted in research that giving voice is useful for improving organisations. Employees who tell others about problems and suggest solutions can increase learning and effectiveness, even though doing so does not always earn them popularity.

We also know more because recent research by James Detert and co-authors published in Administrative Science Quarterly has shown a more concrete and detailed version of this relation. It helps to have employees give voice to managers, both in their own unit and in other units. It actually hurts performance to have workers give voice to each other, presumably because other workers can only listen (and possibly be annoyed), but lack the authority to make major changes.

The prescription is clear. Make sure that managers make it safe for their workers to speak up, and that they actually pay attention to what is said. Channel complaints up, not sideways in the organisation. But here is where management practice creates problems. One is the old problem of managers not wanting to hear how their unit can improve, because it suggests that they are not doing

It actually hurts performance to have workers give voice to each other, presumably because other workers can only listen (and possibly be annoyed), but lack the authority to make major changes.

well enough. The other is a new one seen especially in small high-tech firms. As Rachel Silverman has noted in The Wall Street Journal, some high-tech firms believe that management should be kept out of the firm as much as possible, and are reluctant to assign management roles to any employees.

How does that work? Well, they divide tasks and emphasise independence and sideways coordination.

They are happy about that change because it means that their founders can say things like “I want people here who are doing the work, not managing the work.” But the problem is clear when you compare this approach with the research. No manager means that there is no place above for the voice to go. Sideways coordination means that voice has to go sideways. They are actually organised in the worst possible way from the viewpoint of using employee voice to improve the organisation.

Have the tech firms discovered some special magic that makes a manager-less organisation work for them even though it hurts productivity elsewhere? Probably not; Rachel Silverman cites research showing that middle managers are the most important people for determining success in the gaming industry, which typically has small companies or small teams. So, it is time for the myth of effectiveness without management to face reality.

Courtesy of INSEAD Knowledge.

Biography Ø Henrich R. Greve is Professor of Entrepreneurship at INSEAD.

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BRUNEL BUSINESS SCHOOL

INSPIRING a Global

Knowledge Culture Brunel Business School

T

he Brunel MBA is a one-year, fulltime general management programme within Brunel Business School, Brunel University. The programme is a flagship within the school and is an intensive and research-led course for those wishing to develop themselves towards future leadership positions across a range of industries. Sector specific pathways are also offered alongside general management topics in terms of specialisations in Healthcare Management and Aviation Management with all pathways enrolling students in September as well as January.

Moscone, Director of MBA Programmes, notes: “Standard MBAs with a specialist route keep your options open across different markets, while at the same time making you more competitive in niche areas. Our proximity to Heathrow Airport makes the aviation industry an obvious subject for Brunel Business School’s specialist MBA, and distinguishes our MBA from other business programmes offered

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in the UK. Indeed, we are building important links with the aviation industry, including British Airways, to provide our students with knowledge, insights and skills in this area, as well as excellent networking opportunities.

Although in the UK there are well respected master’s programmes in health economics, we are one of the few in the country to offer an MBA with a specialisation in healthcare management, with the aim to equip students with the managerial and technical expertise needed to make an impact in this rapidlychanging, high-growth industry.”

The Brunel MBA typically attracts students from a diverse and global range of backgrounds, with average an average of six years or more managerial work experience. Brunel MBA students have access to modern campus facilities within a dedicated MBA suite in the business school, which includes a wide range of teaching and learning resources and administrative support. The Brunel MBA has secured accreditation over a number of years from

BRUNEL BUSINESS SCHOOL

the Association of MBAs (AMBA) as a mark of its management education international quality.

Professor Moscone explains: “In our business school we welcome the most talented applicants, regardless of their country of origin or their financial resources. We also endeavour to attract strong MBA candidates who, because of their financial constraints, might not otherwise consider a degree in business. Our commitment in the future is to expand our funds to students with financial needs, as well as to students with exceptional merits.”

At its heart, the Brunel MBA focusses on:  underpinning management and leadership development through a strong emphasis on personal development;  applying contemporary management research which informs learning;  an integrated business administration programme that is professionally and practically-oriented; and  being relevant to the needs of business through close working relationships and in-class sessions with businesses.

In-line with Brunel Business School’s employability programme, Brunel Business Life, our MBA seeks to provide a premium experience at an affordable price, with future career success in mind.

Business and company context is vitally important on any MBA programme. Brunel Business School prides itself in providing active opportunities for our MBA students to meet, network and learn from a range of multinational as well as small and medium-sized organisations (including through our developing network of Alumni). This is exemplified through a number of on – and off-campus events, visits and tours to firms such as Jaguar Land Rover, British Airways and Bloomberg, as well as the annual Business Tour to India (Mumbai) to learn about emerging markets first hand.

Location, Location, Location Brunel is well located and within reach of London. Clearly being close to one of the world’s major capital cities makes Brunel a significant draw and allows students to benefit from having access to a wide variety of national and multinational organisations, as highlighted by Professor Moscone: “The high concentration of companies close to campus allows Brunel MBA students to benefit from an intensive and unique corporate exposure. We aim to give our students the greatest and broadest insight into business on a local, national and international scale.”

This is also set against the backdrop of Brunel being recently ranked joint 15th in the Times Higher Education (THE) list of the 25 most international universities in the world.

The Times Higher Education Awards Business School of the Year, 2013 The basis for achieving this prestigious accolade was centred around several key themes which Brunel Business School was striving towards over successive years. Fundamentally the Brunel Business School was, and continues to be, committed to a principle of continuous improvement in terms of its teaching relevance, student experience, research excellence and provision of employability skill development for all of its students. The award judges agreed that the School showed “ambition, commitment and impact” as a result of its determination to become recognised as a leading business school.

This was also in the context of a dynamic and complex student recruitment market, coupled with rapidly improving student satisfaction rankings, and a significant investment in a new purpose-built £28 million business school building. Balancing both teaching alongside research income as part of a balanced economy was also an important factor, as noted by Head of School, Professor Zahir Irani: “Ensuring that we have a sustainable pipeline of students is important for the long term health of the School (and University). Therefore we have focussed on refining our recruitment and conversion activities, through events such as an invite-only ‘boot-camp’, which not only gives a taste of university life but cultivates positive learning and skills behaviours in our future students. But we have to remember that as academics within a research-intensive institution, we must nurture and develop research excellence also which is why there has been a strategy to continue to support international quality research.”

The judges also noted the impressive increase in student employment prospects, post-graduation, of over 12 per cent, higher than the national average, following an increased emphasis on employability in the curriculum.

In summary, the citation for winning the Best Business School award notes: The school has been able to demonstrate impressive progress towards achieving a set of transformational strategic targets. It has taken significant steps towards its ambition of being a ‘genuinely international quality business school’.

The high concentration of companies close to campus allows Brunel MBA students to benefit from an intensive and unique corporate exposure.

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BRUNEL BUSINESS SCHOOL

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A Practical Focus

Delivering a Global Education

“Like our research, faculty consultancy enables us to shape the Brunel MBA curriculum around problems actually faced in the business world,” says Dr David Gallear, Deputy Head for Teaching, Learning and Accreditation, “Both in-class exposure to business practice and outof-class experiential learning are woven into the Brunel MBA curriculum. In-house case studies based on consultancy and research with large manufacturers, service providers and public bodies are used extensively to examine decision making and leadership issues.”

In addition, Professor Moscone points out: “Lectures, which are typically led by academics with strong applied research or industry experience, offer students content-rich modules dealing with contemporary business concepts applied to real business cases. Our existing Leadership Masterclass Series and Career Development Programme, highly commended by AMBA, help us strengthen the balance between theory and practise for the benefit of our students.”

This combination of theory and practice within a given business context is a recurring theme and helps provide perspective and rationality to modern business challenges.

This also includes faculty consultancy and managerial experience, including specialisations in healthcare, manufacturing, SMEs, not-forprofits and aviation, as well as significant input to transnational organisations such as UNCTAD and the global water industry, in terms of CSR and related social entrepreneurship initiatives.

This practical, business-driven philosophy is key to the success of the programme. Another example would be the ‘Let’s Talk Business’ Speaker Series which continues to grow and is popular with students. “Directors and senior management speakers can be regularly seen in our business school talking to our MBA students,” observes Dr Gallear. With a varied line up that has included firms such as Xerox Europe, Lloyd Northover, Oxford Instruments, Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Coca-Cola amongst others, such opportunities provide stimulating student engagement and debate around contemporary business issues such as understanding economic indicators and growth, business development and international expansion and localisation. “Complementing these on-campus events, the ‘Let’s Talk Business’ Series has also provided a diet of regular off-site visits to companies such as Jaguar Land Rover, Mini, British Airways and Bloomberg. Whether in-class or out-of-class, underpinning the practical focus of the Brunel MBA is an emphasis on the development of analytical skills in the managerial context,” says Dr Gallear.

In line with its mission statement, the programme aims to develop adaptable, knowledgeable and employable graduates who can act responsibly as future managers and leaders with a global outlook.

This is achieved through a structured learning programme of general and practicebased management development (supported by a strong careers development and mentorship programme, for which Brunel was recognised as a key sector-leader by the Association of MBAs).

Professor Amir Sharif, Assistant Head of School notes: “There is a rich student-staff experience on our programmes that represents a global perspective, almost by default. Whilst it is now common to have a diverse mix of national and international students, we are particularly proud of the fact that we have such a global representation in the classroom.

Without this you cannot truly teach and understand global view-points.”

The School seeks to ensure a variety of teaching and other learning interventions are provided to students to maximise the benefits of taking a wider perspective. One excellent example is the annual Business Tour. “Our most recent tour to India (Mumbai) allowed our MBA students to engage in detailed discussions about the realities of conducting and running businesses in an emerging market economy,” says Dr David Gallear. “These visits involve meeting with senior executives and managers from host companies such as Merrill Lynch, McDonalds and Novartis, and also with non-profits such as the Shanti Avedna Sadan hospice.” Hence Brunel Business School believes that management education programmes, such as an MBA, should reflect the overall global business and social community within which businesses exist and function. “What we have found is that students who are from overseas themselves want to be recognised as having a global perspective,” says Professor Sharif.

“Students relish the chance to continue to develop their own personal view of the world and appreciate the challenges, benefits, risks and values inherent in other cultures. This is especially true on MBA programmes (which some alumni refer to as being the original

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(business) social network), where it is vital to be part of a global knowledge culture, during and after the programme ends.”

Career Development “Having a clear linkage to career progression, across both aspects of academic as well as nonacademic learning is vital. We are committed to ensuring all of our students within the School have access to a full range of employability skills and enhancement opportunities. This is even more important for MBA students

There is a rich student-staff experience on our programmes that represents a global perspective, almost by default.

BRUNEL BUSINESS SCHOOL

who are coming from and seeking to progress through to senior roles and responsibilities,” notes Professor Irani.

Brunel’s MBA offers a Business Project and Professional Development programme alongside the main “academic” programme.

This comprises of Leadership Masterclasses (LMS), and a Career Development Programme (CDP), thus tying career and personal development into the curriculum as part of the overall learning experience. “Self-development is a core component of any MBA,” says Helen

Slingsby, Brunel MBA Career Coach. Helen is closely tied into Brunel’s award-winning Placement and Career Centre and thus careers support is open to students for two years after graduation as well. “Write-ups and reflections on the non-academic skills learnt are part of the recognised credit for our MBA. This reflects how seriously Brunel regards career and professional development for its students.”

The LMS comprise a raft of compulsory workshops such as:      

Corporate Social Responsibility Managing Across Cultures Negotiation and Managing Conflict Project Management Using Social Media for Business An intensive on- campus team challenge (using business simulation software which is spread over several days at the end of the programme)

As part of the curriculum, students have to reflect on these masterclasses and demonstrate how they have applied, and will apply, the learning once they move on.

The CDP component is a full-blown careers programme in its own right and is split across:  compulsory workshops on communication, consulting and analytical skills;  dedicated mentoring and career coaching sessions; and  employer and practitioner insight events (linked to the Brunel Business Life employability programme).

Helen runs regular workshops for the cohort based loosely around the theme of ‘What’s your story? Your personal career narrative’, and is a professional careers coach.

As Helen comments: “Everyone needs a story – and this is even more important when considering career progression and future opportunities that may come when you finally achieve being awarded an MBA. The thread of storytelling we use on the programme is divided into three parts:  Defining – where students begin to outline their ‘story’ through identifying core skills attributes, career and academic history;  Direction – where students then focus on how their career story may change with the MBA and what a related career plan should be; and finally,  Destination – where students preparing for success in terms of being able to land a role post-study.”

It is important to recognise, however, that the CDP and LMS aspects are not merely tick-box exercises. In order to extract the maximum value from both of these, career coaching allows this experiential learning to be put into practice. “We provide on-demand one-to-one coaching for our MBA students,” notes Helen. “Although this is largely around careers of course, there does need to be an equal emphasis on behavioural and leadership development for the individual through the reflective parts of the CDP and LMS which identify pertinent values, leadership style and feed into the career plan.”

Looking to the Future In terms of contemporary and developing business themes, Professor Sharif comments that recent trends in the MBA marketplace will continue, such as an increasing focus on (social) entrepreneurship and business planning and development: “An important trend given the exponential growth in mobile technology has been, and will continue to be, understanding how to make business decisions based upon ‘big data’. As such MBAs of the future will need to be empathic, articulate and ethical decision-makers who can draw upon a repository of acquired and experiential knowledge to address environmental, health, food and energy security challenges that may impact an organisation. Any curriculum that is developed needs to reflect and take these important vectors into account.”

Ultimately, however, Professor Irani maintains: “We have proved that the strategy that allowed us to achieve winning the Best Business School 2013 award produced the right result for the school and, more importantly, for our students. For our MBA programme and for the school, we can look forward to developing and building upon the firm foundation that has now been laid. As such one immediate strategic aim is to continue with the objective to become a triple accredited, pre-eminent business school.

We remain committed to being recognised as a destination of choice for those students who wish to maximise their employability chances.”

Biography Ø Professor Amir M. Sharif is Assistant Head and Professor Zahir Irani is Head of School, Brunel Business School, Brunel University. Their twitter details are @amsharif and @ZahirIrani1 respectively.

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BUSINESS READS

Books

That Every MBA Student Should Read

Goodreads, the world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations, analyzed its data to find a list of books its members consider to be some of the most rewarding reads for today’s business leaders.

Start Something That Matters Blake Mycoskie The founder of TOMS shoes writes about creating innovative organizations that make a profit while also giving back. An especially good read for those who are wary of the idea of socially conscious entrepreneurship – even if this book doesn’t change your mind, it should give you some insight into Mycoskie and his peers’ motivations.

(Rating score: 4.07)

Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard Chip Heath, Dan Heath Switch uses simple, punchy stories to explain how we can motivate change. Skilled negotiators are able to create a situation in which all parties are happy with a decision—the Heaths help us understand the mechanics behind that happiness.

(Rating score: 4.01)

Team of Rivals Doris Kearns Goodwin Rated highly by many Goodreads members for its insights into leadership, Team of Rivals shows what it truly means to practice the mantra ‘hire people smarter than you.’

(Rating score: 4.38) 58

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

Susan Cain

Simon Sinek

The Goodreads Choice Award Winner 2012 for Non-Fiction, Quiet has been welcomed by introverts for understanding the challenges of living in an extrovert world. It also shows the ways in which successful introverts make choices that go against conventional business school wisdom. Read it to better understand how to work with, and manage, different temperaments.

Simon Sinek’s blockbuster TED talk (the third most-viewed of all time!), “How Great Leaders Inspire Action”, was based on this book, which examines the biology of decision-making.

Goodreads members rate Start with Why highly for helping readers understand how to influence people and inspire loyalty, all by finding the answer to the question: Why?

(Rating score: 4.04)

(Rating score: 4.04)

Goodreads members rate Start with Why highly for helping readers understand how to influence people and inspire loyalty.

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BUSINESS READS

Unbroken

Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence

Laura Hillenbrand It’s a rare book on Goodreads that manages to get a 4.45 average rating (out of 5) with more than 186,000 reviews, but this gripping story of WWII pilot Louis Zamperini’s unlikely survival has won many fans. His demonstration of endurance and ingenuity would serve as an excellent guide for work and life. Well worth reading before the movie comes out later this year.

Lisa Kron As humans we’re wired to crave satisfying narratives – the ability to tell a good story about your business or product is crucial. This book is intended for writers, but its coupling of the tenets of compelling storytelling with recent discoveries in neuroscience make it particularly useful for MBAs trying to understand why one narrative works and another falls flat.

(Rating score: 4.38)

How Will You Measure Your Life?

Clayton M Christensen, James Allworth, Karen Dillon Christensen, famous for his must-read business classic, The Innovator’s Dilemma, takes a different approach here. Faced with a family health issue, he found himself grappling with the question: How do you measure your life?

He uses lessons learned from business to tackle challenging life questions and understand what really matters in life.

(Rating score: 4.02)

(Rating score: 4.30)

Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long

The Hard Thing about Hard Things: Building a Business When there are No Easy Answers

David Rock

Ben Horowitz

This is not your typical productivity book.

Instead of offering systems and organization rules, David Rock explains how your brain works in a work setting and gives advice on how to deal better with distractions, help your brain find new insights, and bring out the best in your team.

Co-founder of famed Silicon Valley VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, Ben Horowitz has written a straight-from-the-trenches account of becoming a CEO. He doesn’t shy away from exposing his own mistakes, making this an essential combination of biography and advice. Learn how to survive your own challenges by reading his war stories.

(Rating score: 4.09)

(Rating score: 4.24)

Simon Sinek’s blockbuster TED talk (the third most-viewed of all time!), ‘How Great Leaders Inspire Action’, was based on this book.

Ø Goodreads launched in January 2007.

Their mission is to help people find and share books they love.

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UNIVERSITY CARLOS III OF MADRID

An ENDURING Educational Experience Alexandra Skinner speaks to Jaime Ortega at University Carlos III of Madrid University Carlos III of Madrid (UC3M) offers a one-year, full-time MBA taught in English, and is one of only six AMBA accredited schools in Spain. What value does this accreditation add to your programme?

importantly, all of our faculty are passionate

broad idea and then have to turn it into a

about knowledge: they like to ask questions,

detailed project in which everything has to

challenge existing views, discuss potential

be documented. This same approach is also

explanations, and transform all of this into

present in day-to-day classes, whose objective

useful knowledge which students can take with

is to promote the ability to observe, understand,

The accreditation provides quality recognition,

them throughout their professional careers.

and make decisions. management programme’, MBA curriculums

MBA at Carlos III has high standards of quality.

To what extent do you focus on ‘real-life’ learning?

An international student who sees that the

In addition to the cases that are extensively

MBA is accredited will recognise that the

discussed in class, the MBA programme

programme is comparable with other accredited

includes a business plan project in which

programmes, and prospective employers who

students have to face real-world decisions, such

In your opinion, what are the three most important skills the market requires from business leaders?

interview our graduates will also understand

as creating a value proposition for a particular

I think the main skills are vision, creativity, and

that the quality of the programme is in

market segment and turning it into a profitable

leadership. Vision requires leaders to identify

accordance with international standards.

business idea by analysing every aspect of it,

priorities and understand the strengths and

Accreditation also implies that we participate

from financing to production to marketing.

weaknesses of an organisation. Creativity is also

in the on-going discussion that is taking

We believe that real-world challenges offer a

very important as no leader is hired to repeat

place in the international MBA community on

variety of dimensions and part of the solution

his or her predecessors’ policies, but to find new

the value of an MBA. In the AMBA forums in

is to identify which ones are most relevant and

solutions and provide new ideas. And leadership

which we participate, such as conferences and

then understanding their logic. The business

is essential in order to engage employees and

workshops, we benefit from, and contribute to,

plan exercise places students in exactly this

different stakeholders in a strategy that can have

the development of new ideas.

position, as they start with a potentially very

long-lasting business impact.

The quality of teaching faculty is an important consideration for students.

Please can you tell our readers a little more about the profile of your faculty?

Most importantly, all of our faculty are passionate about knowledge.

Although often thought of as a ‘general

which is very useful for prospective students.

It provides them with the assurance that the

About 65 per cent of the MBA faculty are fulltime professors from UC3M’s Department of Business Administration, which is one of the

must tackle modern-day management issues.

leading business departments in Spain, highly recognised for its high academic standards. The remaining 35 per cent are external professors who bring significant real-world business experience and expertise to the classroom.

The faculty is highly international: about 30 per cent of our faculty are international, and most of the Spanish professors have earned their PhDs or Master’s degrees in foreign institutions. Full-time professors regularly participate in international conferences and workshops and are active members of the international academic community. External faculty have daily contact with businesses and significant international experience. Most 60

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UNIVERSITY CARLOS III OF MADRID

How are you equipping your MBA students to meet these demands?

from Europe, 27 per cent from Latin America,

benefits associated with different career choices.

20 per cent from Asia, 13 per cent from North

Through the Career and Personal Development

We develop vision through focusing on strategic

America, and 7 per cent from Africa. We have

module, we help them go through this process.

matters and providing a learning experience in

very few Spanish students, typically less than 5

In addition, we offer personal coaching sessions,

which functional knowledge is comprehensive

per cent. In this year’s class, we have students

a personal job hunting service, and access to

(we provide a very balanced combination of

from Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Canada,

internship and job postings.

finance, management and marketing courses)

Colombia, China, Egypt, Germany, India, Italy,

and is integrated through the business plan

Lebanon, Mexico, Peru, Romania, Russia, Spain,

project; a real-life exercise in which students

Turkey, USA and Venezuela.

have to develop their vision.

The school is located in central Madrid – a vibrant, multicultural city, and the financial centre of Southern Europe.

What can potential students expect to enjoy from living and studying in Madrid?

those can at times be very popular. Instead,

Improving one’s knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) is certainly a motivating factor for MBA candidates. Is this an area of focus at UC3M?

we ask them to think, generate knowledge,

Yes, absolutely. As far as knowledge is

the 1930s. It is being fully renovated to provide

and transfer this knowledge to the classroom.

concerned, the MBA curriculum offers a balanced

a wonderful educational experience for our

The UC3M faculty, which has a strong research

combination of functional knowledge. About

students, and it has a very nice location in

orientation, helps students understand

25 per cent of the modules are in general

downtown Madrid. Madrid is not only the political

problems in depth and compare alternative

management, another 25 per cent are in finance

capital, but also the economic capital of Spain,

solutions in an open and rigorous way.

and accounting, and the remaining 50 per cent

where most large Spanish companies have their

include essential courses in marketing, operations

corporate headquarters. It is culturally very rich:

track that includes a leadership module and a

management, and human resource management.

it has the best museums in Spain and a vibrant

career and personal development module which,

In addition, we have two skill-development

night life. At the same time, it is a very safe city

together with our organisational behaviour and

modules, Leadership and Career and Personal

and has a great public transportation system. In

human resource management modules, are very

Development, and we encourage teamwork so

the vicinity there are also wonderful historical

effective in helping students become better

that by the end of the year students have rotated

cities to visit, such as Toledo, Avila or Segovia,

leaders. In addition, our emphasis on teamwork

through different transnational teams and have

and its airport provides quick and cheap access to

and the international diversity of the programme

acquired valuable interpersonal abilities.

most European destinations. It is therefore a great

Creativity requires faculty to have a passion for knowledge. We do not ask our faculty to reproduce commonly shared ideas, even if

In relation to leadership, we offer a leadership

contribute to build these leadership skills that

We are very proud of our new location, in a unique, historical building that dates back to

place from which students can reach the rest of

are so important for MBAs.

Europe while enjoying a climate that is sunnier

How do you prepare students to re-enter the employment market in the run-up to, and post-, graduation?

and milder than in Northern countries. Last,

The Career and Personal Development module

languages in the world. While the MBA is offered

has been developed to help students design

fully in English, we also offer Spanish for foreign

their strategies in preparation for a return to the

speakers at no extra cost to ensure that students

In a typical cohort, we have almost as many

employment market. Some students want to take

make the best out of their Spanish experience.

students as nationalities, with a very balanced

the MBA in order to change industry, function,

composition. In the last three cohorts, for

or both, but this requires students to understand

instance, 33 per cent of our students have been

their strengths and weaknesses and the costs and

UC3M places emphasis on creating a multicultural learning environment for its students. Please can you give CEO Magazine readers an indication of the ‘typical’ make-up of your cohorts?

living in Madrid gives students an opportunity to learn Spanish, one of the most important

The MBA market is fast-paced, and students have increasingly high expectations in terms of programme content, innovations and ROI. How will UC3M ensure that it continues to develop in line with these demands?

The MBA programme is continuously improving.

We constantly collect feedback from students, and we have regular meetings with the faculty in which we discuss the programme’s areas of improvement and the actions necessary to increase our value to the students. In addition, through AMBA we participate in the main discussion forums, sharing ideas with our colleagues from other institutions.

Biography Ø Jaime Ortega is MBA Director at University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain.

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FROM APPLICATION TO GRADUATION

From

APPLICATION Kent State University College of Business Administration Why Kent State University College of Business Administration?

experience. Our average Executive MBA student is 42

Kent State’s College of Business Administration is

learning from your peers is paired with outstanding

accredited by AACSB, the international accrediting

professors that integrate real-world content into your

organization for business schools worldwide. We are

classroom, it creates an environment where innovative

among the elite; only 15 per cent of business schools

education and business dynamics thrive.

are accredited worldwide. In addition, our Executive

years old, with 16 years or more of work history. When

MBA programs have provided executive education for

International Exposure

over 35 years, continuing a long-standing tradition

Global business is an important component of

of providing quality programs at one of the most

Kent State University’s Executive MBA curriculum.

affordable price tags at this level. Accreditation,

International topics are integrated into most classes

quality and affordability are certainly important

and the International Experiences trip abroad is taken

factors that differentiate Kent State University.

on the heels of the dedicated International Business

The Learning Environment

course. The International Experiences trip provides you with the opportunity to learn abroad under the

The diverse corporate and industry background of each

leadership of faculty members. You learn first-hand

Executive MBA student adds dimension to your learning

about a country’s culture and the business practices of both the corporate and regulatory agencies that operate internationally.

Applying to Kent State University We offer many ways for you to get detailed information about our programs; from traditional information sessions, to live webinars, to having the opportunity to spend time in the classroom during Executive MBA Experience Days, or just by having a conversation in person or by phone with our EMBA staff.

During the trip, you meet with business leaders, tour select businesses, meet with US Embassy representatives, visit a local university and have free time to explore on your own. It is not only a great learning experience, but also a favorite part of the program. The destination selected is based on events taking place in the domestic and global marketplace. Past trips have included Ireland, Austria/Greece, Mexico, Chile, Switzerland/Belgium, Czech Republic/Dresden, and China.

Networking Opportunities During your time in the Executive MBA program, you have the opportunity to meet industry experts as well as develop strong bonds with your peers. Our faculty members are not only experts in their field, but also have excellent connections with industry professionals who participate in the classroom. You’ll build a solid foundation with other professionals that will extend far into your post-graduate years. These connections can be very valuable, often leading to career opportunities.

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FROM APPLICATION TO GRADUATION

to

GRADUATION Personal Support We provide you with personal support throughout the program via professional development and concierge services that allow you to focus on learning. We also provide proactive career management; assessing your interests, strengths and values to formulate a career development plan. In addition, you receive one-on-one career coaching and have the opportunity to attend professional workshops. Plus, as part of our personal concierge services, your textbooks are delivered to your classroom, your courses are registered for you, parking passes are provided and meals are delivered each Saturday.

ROI You will find, as our past graduates have, that Kent State University’s approach to an Executive MBA degree is a tremendous value of both your time and investment.

This is exemplified in the words of Brad Kenney, a 2009 alumnus, “My life has changed because of my EMBA. I now work as a senior consultant and would have never had this opportunity if I hadn’t decided to pursue an advanced degree. The investment I made in my education at Kent State University has paid for itself in less than a year.”

You’ll build a solid foundation with other professionals that will extend far into your post-graduate years.

Alumni Network Kent State University continues to be a valuable resource for you beyond graduation. We host numerous alumni events that provide you, and your fellow 1,200-plus peers, opportunities to reconnect and extend your network to include the entire EMBA alumni family. The events not only give you the opportunity to network, but also to continue your journey into lifelong learning that leads to both

Biography ØØ Laurie Walker is Director of Executive MBA Programs at Kent State University’s College of Business.

Photos courtesy of M. Mobley

personal growth and professional advancement.

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MEET THE DEAN

Meet the

DEAN

Alexandra Skinner speaks to Joe Turek of Lynchburg College

As far as program differentiation is concerned, we will continue to strengthen and expand opportunities for hands-on learning in our classes, increase our international partnerships and expand the scope of our study abroad opportunities. We will also build on our successful track record in the areas of leadership development, ethical decisionmaking, and risk management.

How can a student get the most from their Lynchburg College MBA experience?

The key to maximizing your return on a Lynchburg College MBA is to take full advantage of all the opportunities we make

Tell us about your background (educational and vocational):

abundant opportunities for personal interaction.

available to students. We’ve had MBA students

Significantly, the bonds that develop between

who co-authored papers with faculty, who

I received a Ph.D. in Economics (with

students and faculty are strong and enduring,

travelled to Cambridge, England to present

specializations in Urban and Regional

lasting long after the students complete the

their research findings at a global business

Economics and Public Finance) from the State

program. Our faculty have created a classroom

and economics conference, who travelled to

University of New York in Albany, and a Master’s

environment that supports free and open

the Caribbean to do a risk assessment for major

in Public Administration from the Maxwell

discussion, where students are encouraged to

economic sectors of a country’s economy, and

School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at

think critically, ask tough questions, and come up

who participated in a project management

Syracuse University. I’ve worked as an analyst

with new solutions to important problems. But

training course and then sat successfully for

in government at both the federal and state

isn’t that what a quality education is all about?

the Project Management Professional exam.

the ranks to the position of Dean of the School

What developments and key trends do you see emerging in the 2014 MBA landscape?

Every Dean has a wish list. What are your top three ‘wants’ for areas of change?

of Business and Economics, having previously

More schools are putting their MBA programs

More faculty. I’ve got a spectacular group of faculty

served as Chair of the Economics Department,

online and the stigma of an online degree appears

teaching in the MBA program and mentoring our

Director of the Walter G. Mason Center for

to be gradually diminishing, especially as more

students, but small class sizes limit the number of

Business and Economic Research, and Director

and more students are placing greater emphasis

students we can admit into the program.

of the Westover Honors Program.

on flexibility and convenience. The age profile of

I’d like to find someone who is willing to put

MBA applicants seems to be changing, with more

his or her name on the Lynchburg College School

What is your vision for the Lynchburg College School of Business and Economics?

young people choosing to attend graduate school

of Business and Economics. We’re doing great

rather than accept lower wages in what is still a

things here at Lynchburg College, but we’re

We are a relatively small school, but we’ve been

fairly tepid job market. If I’m reading the market

still a pretty well-kept secret. I know it’s only a

growing steadily in both size and prominence for

correctly, it seems to me that MBA programs are

matter of time, but I’d love to see that happen.

almost a decade. I envision continued growth,

now working harder to differentiate themselves,

with our influence expanding in the regional

whether through specialty programs, international

marketplace. I want to see our international

economy and beyond. I see our faculty as

partnerships or accelerated programs

recruiting efforts intensify, our Visiting

level, as a regional transportation planner, and as a management consultant. I rose up through

International Scholar program grow, and our

thought-leaders whose opinions and research

study abroad program expand.

business, economic, and social issues, and

How will Lynchburg College respond to these developments?

our students as out-of-the-box thinkers whose

I can tell you that an online MBA is not in

creativity and problem solving skills energize

our immediate future. As mentioned, we are

What do you feel are the biggest challenges facing the deans of business schools?

the companies for which they work. I see us

a school where personal connections still

The biggest challenge faced by deans of business

continuing to make a difference in peoples’ lives

matter. I’m not anxious to rush into technology-

schools is the same challenge faced by business

and growing in stature to stand side-by-side with

mediated education if it means sacrificing the

leaders: adapting to rapid and pervasive change in

the best business programs in the region.

personal connections that give real value to

the world around us. Those of us who appreciate

the experience we provide our students. That

the enormity of the changes taking place in our

What would you say are the school’s key strengths?

doesn’t mean we’re not going to go there. It just

environment recognize that nothing less than our

means that we’re going to think long and hard

survival is at stake. The stakes are high and we

Without a doubt, our leading strength is the

about the strategic implications, as well as the

can’t afford not to get it right. Everything else is

nature of the relationships that faculty cultivate

implications for quality, before we jump on that

just a footnote at the bottom of the page.

with students in the program. We are a school

bandwagon. Frankly, I’m concerned that one

where personal connections still matter.

of the major rankings of online MBA programs

How do you plan to tackle these?

Faculty are readily accessible to students and

doesn’t include student learning outcomes as a

We already devote substantial resources to

class sizes are easily small enough to allow

factor in its decision-making process.

preparing students to manage and lead in

set the tone of public debate on important

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A greater presence in the international

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MEET THE DEAN

How is Lynchburg College positioned to meet these demands?

catastrophic now. Unfortunately, many American

important content theme for us and one we’ll continue to develop as we move forward. I

Our faculty are doctorally-qualified,

today, there are still those who don’t really grasp

imagine that we’ll see some new courses and

active scholars with real-world experience in

the concept. In order to succeed in the global

new pedagogical approaches, with increased

their respective fields of expertise. Equally

economy, it is essential that students recognize

emphasis on technology, hands-on learning,

important, they are dedicated lifelong learners

the challenges of cross-cultural communication,

and real-world application.

who recognize that constant change demands that

appreciate the impact of history and culture on

they continually strive to remain current in their

attitudes and values, and develop the ability to

What do you feel executives and highpotentials expect from an MBA programme?

fields. Some do this by writing business cases,

cross over from one culture to another.

These individuals expect a program that is

their expertise through professional certifications.

How do you ensure you equip students with this broad perspective?

and that of their instructors. They want to

What does having a ‘global view’ mean?

In addition to our Visiting International Scholars

know that what they’re learning will help them

Most importantly, it means being able to

program (we’ve brought faculty to Lynchburg from

advance professionally and will be useful when

understand and communicate with people from

the Netherlands, Mexico, Australia, India, and

they’re dealing with problems they confront in

other countries and cultures. I remember an

Austria, thus far), we’ve incorporated business

the workplace. They want their instructors to be

undergraduate macroeconomics professor of

cases throughout the curriculum that focus on

able to relate to them as professionals and to be

mine who blithely assumed away the rest of

foreign companies and other countries. We’ve

knowledgeable about the way things are done

the world (“ROW”) and focused our attention

incorporated an optional study abroad course into

in the ‘real-world’.

exclusively on the US economy. Dangerous then,

the MBA curriculum and we’re created a Global

a rapidly changing environment. This is an

businesses were slow to realize this and, even

others by consulting, and still others by expanding

grounded in real-world experience, both theirs

Awareness and Cultural Diversity Initiative within

Our faculty have created a classroom environment that supports free and open discussion... isn’t that what a quality education is all about?

the School of Business and Economics.

How do you maintain a balance between cross-functional expertise and social responsibility in your programmes?

I should have mentioned earlier the central role that leadership and ethics play in our MBA program. Our leadership development activities, which Leadership Excellence magazine ranked #22 in the nation, include workshops and seminars on ethical decision making, managing a diverse workforce, and sustainability. Our Business Ethics Lecture Series has brought notable figures such as James Parker (former CEO of Southwest Airlines), Sherron Watkins (former VP of Business Development for Enron), and Jon Landau (producer of Avatar) to campus to discuss important social issues.

It’s neck-on-the-line time; list three things that CEO Magazine readers can expect from the Lynchburg College School of Business and Economics over the next 12 months.

1. We will have risen above #22 in the Leadership Excellence rankings.

2. We will be preparing for an AACSB site visit. In 18 months, we’ll be the only dually-accredited business school in the state of Virginia.

3. We’ll be preparing for a study abroad visit to a country to which we haven’t previously travelled.

Biography Ø Dr Joseph Turek is Dean of the School of Business and Economics at Lynchburg College, Virginia.

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LISBOA SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT

Management

Lisboa School of Economics & Management

L

isboa School of Economics & Management (ISEG) is part of the Universidade de Lisboa, which is currently the largest university in Portugal, with approximately 60,000 students.

Lisbon is located on the north bank of the Tagus River, in the centre of Portugal. It is the western most city in continental Europe and lies more or less in the centre of the country, approximately 300km from the Algarve in the south and 400km from the northern border with Spain. It has an area of 84km² and a population of 556,797 inhabitants. The area known as Greater Lisbon has a population of 2.1 million, in an area of 2,750km².

The capital city of Portugal is built on seven hills overlooking the Tagus, known in Portuguese as the River Tejo, the very soul of the city. This is the origin of Lisbon’s nickname: The ‘cidade das sete colinas’ – the city of the seven hills.

Why the ISEG MBA? The ISEG MBA is now in its 31st edition. We have trained over 750 managers, some of whom rank amongst an elite group of leaders of some of the largest companies in Portugal. As with any higher education course, the ISEG MBA, which at present is still only taught in Portuguese, has to adapt to the new demands of the job market.

The ISEG MBA is recognised for the high scientific and technical quality of its programme content, and, above all, we know that to lead an organisation, a manager needs to understand more than just finance, accounting and marketing. The lecture room cannot be the only medium for training future senior managers. Future leaders should be exposed to real-life situations in unstable and fast moving environments, where they learn and are obliged to put into practice skills of leadership, team management and team building. It was on this basis that the ISEG MBA created its outdoor training weeks, where our students are exposed to a variety of challenges.

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The programme, which was re-modelled this year, is based on thee pillars:

The main areas of added value of the ISEG MBA programme are:

1. 360° Management provides students with a solid technical base.

2. Leadership concentrates on the development of a model of management that has been designed for the principle agents of change – namely middle managers – and focusses on training soft skills through the medium of outdoor sessions, which include sailing strategy, role playing and military tactics.

3. Change Management involves developing skills rooted in creative and innovative thinking that lead to the creation of new opportunities, and the implementation of new solutions, within an organisation (which we have called Project Inc.) or in entrepreneurial initiatives.

1. The quality of the academic staff, who enable the transfer of a solid knowledge of the various areas of management.

2. The immersion week in Silicon Valley, which gives participants an insight into the development of strategies in areas such as entrepreneurship, innovation and business development within companies.

3. The outdoor training week, which differentiates our programme from others in the market.

The format of the programme is ideal for those who aren’t from Lisbon, as it consists of part-time modules and a timetable of evening classes on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

A Focus on Career Advancement

Our immersion programme in Silicon Valley, which is carried out in conjunction with the University of San Francisco, lasts for a week and puts students in contact with one of the most vibrant ecosystems of entrepreneurship in the world. This programme gives participants an insight into the development of skills in the areas of innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as skills in ‘intrapreneurship’, or in other words, building businesses within an organisation.

It should be stressed that this programme facilitates contact with key players in Silicon Valley, and is characterised by the high quality of its academic and practical content.

Our immersion programme in Silicon Valley puts students in contact with one of the most vibrant ecosystems of entrepreneurship in the world.

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The professional career of MBA students is particularly important to us. The ISEG MBA Career Development Programme enables students to adapt better to the demands of the job market, strengthening their leadership skills and personal development, whilst at the same time providing them with contacts from other areas of business.

As part of the Career Development Programme, we organise various initiatives, such as workshops with specialists and senior managers, coaching on how to work with recruiters and head-hunters, or Test Drive an ISEG MBA, which involves arranging work experience internships with well-known companies. This initiative requires students apply the management practices acquired during the course and gives companies the opportunity to access their knowledge, skills and expertise.

Biography Ø The ISEG MBA is an 18-month modular programme delivered across three evenings a month. The next edition commences in September 2014.

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ÉCOLE DES PONTS BUSINESS SCHOOL

Transform Yourself,

Impact Your World Alexandra Skinner speaks to Alon Rozen at École des Ponts Business School Please can you provide CEO Magazine readers with an overview of the offering and some of its unique highlights?

values and a similarly rich history of academic

Firstly, it is probably useful to remind your

excellence. The histories of both schools are

readers of the format of the programme – five

fascinating and extremely modern in the sense

months in Brussels, five months in Paris and

This programme was created with a clear

that they were both way ahead of their times.

then five months of “professionalisation” (a

intention: to offer MBA participants something

Solvay Brussels School is the business school

consulting mission, internship, special research

unique. We created a programme that alternates

of ULB, founded in 1834, based (already at the

project or business plan for a start-up), which

between Brussels and Paris, two cities in

time!) on the principles of critical thinking and

can be done anywhere in the world.

the heart of Europe, with a strong focus on

freedom. ENPC MBA Paris is the business school

innovation, design thinking, new business

of the École des Ponts Business School (ENPC),

MBA programmes of the two schools, we have

development and using technology as a

which was founded in 1747 (by edict of King

opened our network of sister programmes to all

lever for superior performance.

Louis XV) based on the principles of (believe it

MBA participants, which means participants can

or not) a model of peer-to-peer learning without

take courses in Brussels (Belgium), Casablanca

study trips to the hotbeds of new businesses –

professors! As such, both schools embraced,

(Morocco), Cali (Columbia), Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh

the Silicon Valley and the Shanghai region of

early on, the principles of the MBA – peer-

City (Vietnam), Hong Kong and Shanghai (China),

China. This is complemented by a new course

to-peer learning, critical thinking, academic

Paris (France), Philadelphia (US) and Singapore.

offered together with the new Design School

excellence and freedom of expression.

Naturally, we included two experiential

of the École des Ponts.

Beyond the storytelling, and it is a good

In addition, we have decided that a key element

Thirdly, we offer participants the option of participating in various international

story, participants benefit from the combined

exchange programme opportunities in Canada,

in a modern MBA programme should be the Career

academic excellence of four schools (the two

Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Israel,

Advancement Programme, as better jobs are what

business schools and the two mother schools),

Mexico, and the UK.

our participants really care about. As a result, both

a dual diploma, world-class facilities on two

schools have decided to aggressively invest several

campuses, life experience in two high-profile

thousand euros per participant in a personalised

European cities, total immersion in two rich

career-advising service.

cultures, and the ability to take advantage of the multitude of international exchange agreements

What strengths does each school bring to the programme, and how does this add value to students’ learning experience?

The more both schools worked together to further the merger of our full-time MBA programmes, the more we discovered shared

both business schools have developed.

Students have the opportunity to take advantage of strong international partnerships through participation in classes abroad. Kindly expand upon this.

Personalised Career Programme

70

Secondly, as part of the merger between the

Fall: Brussels

Spring: Paris

Summer: Your Choice

`` 7 Core Courses `` 6 Electives + 1 Study Trip

`` 8 Core Courses `` 5 Electives + 1 Study Trip

`` Internship or Consulting Project or Business Plan

Sept to Jan

Feb to June

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July to Aug/Nov

ÉCOLE DES PONTS BUSINESS SCHOOL

Fourth, we offer participants two experiential learning trips, one in the US and one in China.

thinking, as well as companies like IDEO and Google, who are putting these ideas into action. In China, we also adapted our study trip this year to

Finally, for those who don’t wish to take

venture further outside of Shanghai, and include

advantage of these travel opportunities,

dynamic nearby cities where start-ups abound,

our visiting faculty

with visits to start-ups, incubators and venture

model brings

capitalists, as well as multinationals that are

professors from around the world (Asia, Australia,

succeeding in doing business in China thanks to an entrepreneurial and adaptive mindset.

Europe and the US) to the classroom, bringing with them their own cultural perspectives, worldviews, schools of thought and, more challenging for some participants, a wide variety of accents in English.

What can students expect from these trips?

What our participants get from these trips is first-hand experience interacting with the leading companies, top managers and thought-leaders that they have read about, analysed and discussed in class via case studies, textbooks and videos.

They get to experience the theory, to see how

Were the locations of your study trips chosen to reflect your focus on entrepreneurship and innovation?

Good question, Alexandra!

As we changed the focus of the new joint programme

companies are applying it; they get to challenge top management about their strategic decisions and vision for the future. They also get to hear from leading professors, to debate with local politicians and to network with a wide range of local alumni. At the end of the programme we are often told these trips were the highlight of their learning, and an unforgettable experience.

this year, we moved our study trip from the East Coast of the US where we had an innovation, banking and finance theme to the West Coast, namely the Silicon Valley, the global hotbed of innovation. We took our participants to universities like Berkeley and Stanford; the thought leaders in design-

Given the events of recent years, and their ongoing impact across national and global markets, do you feel entrepreneurship and innovation should be a key element of every MBA programme?

That is a trick question, in the sense that you are preaching to the converted! We strongly believe that the way forward for all nations today, and the solution to most problems – be they demographic challenges, youth unemployment, the need to boost local economies, the challenge of helping emerging markets emerge or ensuring developed countries maintain their quality of life – is through creating new, vibrant and sustainable businesses. A business school’s responsibility is to create ethical managers and leaders, who can think creatively and critically on how to create new businesses that help solve the world’s problems. Our motto has always been “In business to build a better world,” and we believe that people are conscious of this imperative and of the important role business, and thus MBAs, have in ensuring a better tomorrow for all, starting today!

We included two experiential study trips to the hotbeds of new businesses – the Silicon Valley and the Shanghai region of China.

Individuals who possess the ability to make ethical and responsible decisions are in high demand by employers, and many hold the view that CSR should start at business school. What role does CSR play in the Solvay-Ponts programme?

Our programme has been strongly influenced by the vision of the founder of the ENPC MBA, Dame Celia Russo, who in 1987 made CEO MAGAZINE

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ÉCOLE DES PONTS BUSINESS SCHOOL

corporate social responsibility a cornerstone of

of it. The true pleasure in education, and what

the programme and a core course, long before

makes our jobs so special, is that we get to see

most people knew what this term even meant,

these transformations happen, again and again,

and well before it came to be ‘abused’. Both

to people we truly care about.

business schools, and both mother schools,

Based on the aforementioned, what exciting innovations can we expect from The Solvay-Ponts MBA over the coming 12 to 18 months?

Well, first of all, we will be launching a cobranded website for the programme, with

our programme, in a course we call social

How will you ensure you are able to keep up with these demands and maintain an attractive proposition for students?

responsibility of business. As you can see, the

That is a challenge for us and for all business

“Stories of transformation”. The idea is to

name of the course already translates our view

schools. However, the merger of the MBA

allow recent graduates to say, in their own

of the world. That said, it is always interesting

programmes of both schools is just a first step.

words, how the MBA transformed their

to teach ethics in an MBA programme, as there

We plan to merge additional programmes and

thinking, their lives and, especially, their

are no absolute answers. As such, this course

we hope to offer joint and dual degrees, new

careers. We feel that prospects don’t want

is always a source of putting critical thinking

courses, streamline networking opportunities

to hear anything that sounds like marketing.

skills and cultural intelligence into practical

and ensure international exchanges are part of

Rather they are interested in the stories of

application. The debates are always fascinating

each programme. We will continue to listen to

people like them, who are looking for a better

and the cultural insights from any one course

what our recent alumni have to say (they are our

job, for an international career, to change

are incredible.

best source of information on how to further

career paths, and how the MBA helped

improve our programmes) about what they feel

them to achieve their goals. We are very

Do you feel MBA programmes have become unrecognisable from the traditional ‘management degrees’ they were once thought of as?

the job market is looking for in terms of new

excited about this new approach that we

skills, and where they think our strengths and

developed together with the Boondoggle

weaknesses lie. Today, participants in our joint

advertising agency. Beyond that, we will be

programmes can be part of and/or leverage eight

working closely with the first graduating

You know this as well as we do, the MBA market

different alumni networks worldwide. This, in

cohort in order to explore options to tweak

is fast-paced, highly competitive and, as such,

itself, is an unparalleled value proposition for

the programme to make it even better. The

business schools must constantly innovate

our participants and graduates. However, we

first year of anything is always a learning

and adapt to meet the demands of today’s

have to work harder to deepen the links between

experience, and we know we can apply the

participants. What we are trying to offer,

these networks. To that end, our present alumni

same design-thinking and critical analysis

and this is expressed in our newly re-crafted

association has been fantastic at organising

that we teach in our curriculum to optimising

marketing message, is an MBA programme

international events (the next being “Doing well

our programme. With the input of our soon-

which offers participants a truly transformative

by doing good” on May 5th in Philadelphia) that

to-graduate cohort, I am sure we will further

experience, a year they will never forget, mind-

are creating the “active ties that bind” across

improve what we feel is already a wonderful

changing and perspective-shifting encounters,

alumni and across continents.

and unique value proposition.

believe strongly in CSR and in sustainable development. This remains a core course in

a new communication axis, which won’t surprise your readers based on the above:

and a new – informed – view on business, their personal career objectives and what leadership means to them. So yes, I think not only have the programmes changed from the traditional perspective of being “management degrees” but what schools are offering and what participants are looking for have gone beyond management and now include leadership, critical thinking, innovation and, if I may stretch the metaphor, understanding the box in order to think outside

Biography Ø Alon Rozen, PhD, ADP is Acting Dean at École des Ponts Business School, Paris.

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HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT

How To Achieve

OPERATIONAL SYNERGY Through Better Human Capital Management Emad Rahim

T

hese days, the Internet has asserted its ubiquity on everything from global commerce to the way individuals and organizations seek information, share it, make decisions and create value. Machinery seems to be gradually replacing manual labor, and technology is wielding its dominance in corporate processes.

In this context, you might think human resources and everything staff-related are receding.

But the reality is far different.

Human capital remains a pillar of business and industry, and organizations that are adept at managing their staff talent are more likely to achieve operational synergy and boost revenue.

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HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT

Performance & reward management

Talent management Succession & career planning

Training & development

Personnel administration

Recruitment, selection & introduction

Labor relations

HRM

HR planning

The Eight Key Components to Successful HRM (Dr Emad Rahim HRM/HCM Diagram, 2013)

1. Set adequate HR policies Effective human capital management starts with the tone at the top, the way senior management sets the right vision that ultimately trickles down through the rank and file.

HR policies play a unifying role in today’s enterprise, and they help personnel focus on core operational values like productivity, competitiveness, performance and employee cohesion, says Professor Timothy Butler, Senior Fellow and Director of Career Development Programs at Harvard Business School.

To set the proper HR policies:  Include high-level HR personnel when formulating the procedures  Ensure the procedures mesh perfectly with the organization’s mission, vision and values  Promote the corporate culture through HR  Be aware of cultural subtleties  Seek, receive and incorporate junior HR management’s feedback into the final blueprint

2. Embed the corporate HR vision into the value chain Your company’s value chain encompasses all internal and external processes that, collectively or individually, create operational or financial benefits to the business. Simply put, it’s everything that adds value to a final product or service.

Your typical value chain includes such activities as production, marketing, delivery and customer service. And these are the areas you want to focus on.

After setting adequate HR policies, apply them - and adapt them, if needed - to your value chain, showing personnel how the policies are good for business, for their own performance and for the company’s overall reputation.

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To do this effectively, assemble a strong bench of top managers in each department along the value chain, and make each one accountable for a specific deliverable such as performance, productivity, cultural diversity or employee empowerment, to name a few.

3. Seek 360-degree feedback throughout the organization According to Edward Lazear, Professor of Human Resources Management and Economics at Stanford University, creating an effective feedback loop can help jumpstart human capital management in your company.

The goal here is not to ask employees the same old “What can we improve?” or “How can you do your job better?” questions. Rather, ask different versions of the same question, focusing on how the HR policies affect their specific functions, and how these functions fall into the overall operational process of the company.

Here’s an example: Say one of your key HR policies emphasizes a return on investment of 10 per cent on each employee in the sales department. In other words, you want each salesperson to generate 110 per cent of his or her salary in annual revenue quota. To achieve this objective:  Set the right, competitive salary for each staff member  Seek the sales team’s feedback before finalizing the HR policy  Adapt the corporate policy to internal procedures within the sales and marketing department  Define and agree on performance criteria and key success factors (KSF)  Track the KSF and, if needed, modify and realign them with industry trends and the company’s internal benchmarks

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HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT

4. Integrate technology into human capital management Technology is here to stay - you know that already. But what’s important to emphasize is that tech trends can effectively help improve your human capital management and propel your organization’s operations.

If your business hasn’t yet adapted to key fads in the technological sector, now is the time to make the switch and to reflect the change in priorities that consumers and your customers have already made.

According to Vala Afshar, CMO and Chief Customer Officer at Enterasys Networks, technology can be a potent tool in human resource management, especially for a company that runs global operations in far-flung locales.

You can use technology in the way you:  Source and hire human talent  Set performance criteria and other productivity benchmarks  Evaluate staff performance periodically  Research productivity metrics and produce educational material adapted to your personnel’s needs  Foster staff cohesion and camaraderie  Set the proper tone, both in terms of corporate culture and values

5. Benchmark industry best practices When it comes to human resources management, benchmarking remains an essential component you can rely on to evaluate your own procedures, identify what’s working, figure out what’s not, and determine why.

Benchmarking essentially means you emulate industry best practices. You can do so by seeking competitive intelligence through industry research, consultants, your own research department or academic literature.

The idea here is not to spy on your rivals and emulate what they’re doing gung-ho, but to thoroughly find the perfect medium between your corporate values and the type of human capital management procedures you need to make your company operationally effective and efficient.

Recap When well-thought-out and effectively implemented, your human capital management strategy can help your company achieve operational symbiosis.

You don’t need to reinvent the operational wheel or turn to an orthodoxy-breaking exercise to stir up your HR policies. Just stick to the basic, good-old process of defining the problem, seeking alternatives, evaluating them, making a decision and conducting a post-mortem review to see what worked and what didn’t.

Throughout the process, don’t forget to leverage technology extensively and make it a key analytical element, especially when reviewing human capital management across your value chain.

Biography Ø Emad Rahim, D.M., PMP, serves as the CLO at Global i365 LLC, a diversity consulting firm based in New York City and Chicago, IL. He is also the appointed Endowed Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Oklahoma State University and an MFP Management Fellow at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Rahim was the previous University Dean of Business at Colorado Technical University and has taught at Syracuse University, SUNY, Cornell University and Colgate University. He co-authored Leading Through Diversity: Transforming Managers into Effective Leaders and writes for CEO Magazine, PMI Network and Tweak Your Biz. Connect with him on Twitter @DrEmadRahim.

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DOING BUSINESS GLOBALLY

When to SPEAK UP, When to Shut Up

The norms of conducting international business are increasingly becoming standardised. But the behaviour of those around you is fed by cultural backgrounds.

O

ne chilly morning in Paris, I was getting ready for a meeting with an important client.

I would be spending the day with one of the top executives of Peugeot Citroën, preparing him and his wife for the cultural adjustments they'd need to make in their upcoming move to Wuhan, China.

Erin Meyer

Prior to the meeting, I had held several preparatory meetings with Bo Chen, a Paris-based journalist from Wuhan who would be acting as a Chinese cultural expert to assist me in the session. I was confident in the ability of Chen to add value to the learning experience. Articulate, extroverted and very knowledgeable, he had prepared some concrete business examples to illustrate each cultural dimension I would be covering in the programme.

There was a lot at stake. If the day was a success, Chen and I would be hired to provide similar counsel to another 50 couples.

When Monsieur and Madame Bernard arrived, I sat them on one side of the big rectangular table in the office, with Chen and I on the other. As the morning got under way, I explained each dimension of the key issues that would help them make the best out of their time in China.

I carefully kept an eye on Chen so that I could facilitate his input.

“Silent Bo” But Chen did not seem to have any input.

After finishing the first cultural dimension in my presentation, I paused briefly and looked at him for his input, but he didn’t speak up. He didn’t open his mouth or move his body forward. Apparently, he didn’t have an example to provide.

Not wanting to make things awkward, I continued with my next point, but when I had finished, Chen again remained silent and almost motionless. He had been nodding politely while I was speaking, but that was all.

Dimension after dimension, until I’d been speaking for three full hours, my initial disappointment with Chen was starting to turn into full-fledged panic. I needed his input for the programme to succeed. Finally, while I didn’t want to create an awkward moment, I decided to take a chance and asked, “Bo, did you have any examples you’d like to share?”

To my utter relief, he replied “Thank you Erin, I do.” and proceeded to explain very pertinent, fascinating examples that backed up my point.

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DOING BUSINESS GLOBALLY

A story of culture On reflection, it was natural to assume that something about Chen’s personality or my personality or the interaction or coordination between us might have led to the difficult situation. My previous meetings with him convinced me that he was neither inarticulate nor shy.

So what happened? Since we were in a cross-cultural training programme, I decided to ask Bo in front of the Bernards. As Chen spoke, the cultural underpinnings of our misunderstanding became vividly clear.

“Were you expecting me to jump in?” he asked with genuine surprise. “In this room, Erin is the chairman of the meeting. As she is the senior person in the room, I wait for her to call on me. And while I am waiting, I should show I am a good listener by keeping both my voice and my body quiet. In China, we often feel Westerners speak up so much in meetings that they do this to show off, or they are poor listeners. Also, Chinese people leave a few more seconds of silence before jumping in than in the West�I kept waiting for Erin to be quiet long enough for me to jump in, but my turn never came.”

Next time...

Having a deeper awareness of cultural nuances enables us to find easy yet powerful solutions to such misunderstandings. It is easy to let conventional notions of cultural differences lead us astray, especially those between Americans and Chinese. But the facile stereotypes about loud Americans and shy Chinese only obscure the steps we can take to overcome such misunderstandings in the future.

What I took away from this was to make sure I’m more prepared to recognise and address the differing cultural expectations in status and communication, essential pillars in American-Chinese situations. Next time I work with a Chinese cultural specialist in such a scenario, I must make sure to invite him to speak.

And if there is no immediate response, allow for a few more seconds of silence before speaking myself.

On the other side, my partner might simply choose to override his natural tendency to wait for an invitation to jump in when working with an American.

If this feels too aggressive, he might raise his hand or request the floor to speak.

By recognising the cultural factors that shape human behaviour and analysing the reasons for that behaviour, we can improve our effectiveness at solving thorny cross-cultural misunderstandings or, better yet, avoid them altogether.

Courtesy of INSEAD Knowledge.

Biography Ø Erin Meyer is an Affiliate Professor in the Organisational Behaviour Department at INSEAD and specialises in the field of Cross-Cultural Management, Intercultural Negotiations, and Multi-cultural Leadership.

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

List of Contributors A

P

AACSB Alon Rozen AMBA Australian Institute of Business

Paris School of Business Q

B

Queens University of Charlotte – McColl School of Business

Brunel University – Brunel Business School

R

C

Randel S. Carlock Richard Jolly

Cathy E. Minehan E Emad Rahim EMBA Council European University F Fordham University – Graduate School of Business Administration Francis Petit G

S Sionade Robinson T The École des Ponts ParisTech The Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management U University Carlos III of Madrid University of Wollongong – Sydney Business School

Georges Nurdin Gianpiero Petriglieri Goodreads.com

V

H

W

Harvard Business Review Heidi Grant Halvorson

Wendy Alexander

Victoria Graduate School of Business

I INSEAD Knowledge ISEG – School of Economics and Management J Jack Welch K Kent State University L Lynchburg University 80

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