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Learning to Succeed
Executive Education helps Individuals, Organization makes the Grade
by Tom Gerrow
As the pace of business has increased, it has become more and more difficult for individuals to carve out the time required for traditional MBA programs. But the need for the strategic skills MBA programs offer has not diminished—quite the opposite, in fact.
No longer just a perk, executive education has been integrated into the business strategy of many organizations. Developing the talents of rising stars is still important, but today executive education is also used to implement organizational change, develop company-specific solutions and yield bottom-line results.
“We see leadership development as a competitive
advantage,” said Ashley Keith, the global program manager for
executive development at Dell. “It is extremely important that
Dell provides quality educational offerings and other development
options that support our
business and strategies.”
And Dell is not alone. As businesses seek a competitive edge, non-degree executive education programs are flourishing. According to BusinessWeek, executive programs at leading business schools have seen a surge in enrollment of 20-30 percent. At the same time, demand for custom programs that meet specific organizational needs has also increased.
Finding Educational Alternatives
Barbara Gyde, senior director of executive programs at Wharton, says that executive education delivers focused, in-depth training for experienced managers who are unable to pursue a traditional MBA, as well as those looking for a refresher or update to their MBA.
“Executive education doesn’t match the curriculum students would receive in the MBA program,” Gyde said. “But for managers who want to round out their business education, an executive certification program can help propel their careers by filling in gaps in their training.”
Chantal Delys, assistant dean and director of executive education at the McCombs School, also sees executive education playing a larger role in business education.
“In the U.S. the MBA is still a strong product, but not everyone can commit the time and money to do it,” Delys said. “Non-degree programs enter the market at that point. We convey a lot of learning in a limited amount of time because we don’t spend time building the foundation. We focus on concepts, tools and solutions.”
Delys continued, “Many of our participants are
managers with a technical education who work for some of the
world-class high tech companies around us in Texas. They need to
understand how to measure business performance
and how to reduce financial risk. Financial management is a major
topic for us and we have designed several effective programs in that
area.”
At Wharton, Gyde also finds that faculty and students tend to take a more pragmatic approach to the learning experience.
“The dynamic is very different because of the makeup of the classroom,” Gyde said. “The faculty tries to draw out the work experiences of those in the classroom and weave them into the material. At the same time you have an audience that is really looking for applications to take away from the program. They are much more focused on how they can use what they learn right away.”
Facilitating Change Management
Mark Petoskey, senior branch manager for MCI in Austin, began his career in sales and marketing before moving into branch management. After assuming his current position at MCI, Petoskey decided it was time to sharpen his management skills.
“I was looking for new ways
to approach the market and to improve the value we delivered to our
clients,” Petoskey said. “I did some research and when I learned about
the McCombs program, it really helped define the problem for me. The
first class was ‘Leveraging Culture and Organizational Change.’ At the
time we were trying to change a culture, from what WorldCom was to
what
we wanted the new MCI to become. I wanted to learn how to facilitate
change at the manager or director level.”
Petoskey continued, “If you understand the basis for people’s opinions you can use that perspective to motivate them, to help them take advantage of a shifting environment. It really helped me get a handle on how we were going to steer our teams through a pretty dynamic, and sometimes tumultuous, time.”
Petoskey said he learned to view a corporation as a portfolio of accepted projects that all required funding approval. “Now when we present ideas, we provide the financial information that can help get them approved. It allows you to think of go-to-market strategies from both the technical and the financial perspective,” he explained.
Gaining Strategic Perspective
The desire to develop a more strategic perspective led Mary Beth Kelly, a program director at IBM Corporation, to attend the McCombs Institute for Managerial Leadership (IML) in 1992.
“Previous to my participation in the program, my jobs at IBM had all been technical in nature,” Kelly said. “I had various roles associated with software development, most of which were team leader or manager roles.”
Kelly had participated in a number of executive education programs during her career, but her enrollment in the IML program coincided with her first assignment to a business strategy position at IBM.
“That turned out to be fortuitous because so much of what I was learning was directly applicable to my new role,” she said. “This really marked a turning point in my roles at IBM. Since that time, most of my jobs at IBM have been much broader and strategic in nature.
Kelly said that for her, the primary advantage of the IML was the exposure to a much broader view of what it takes to run a business. She described it as a mini-MBA for someone who has a technical background and no formal business education.
“And most importantly, something IBM could not have offered through internal programs, I had the opportunity to open a dialog with and learn from people from other companies in the program,” said Kelly. “And the fact that this was not a week-long crash course, but rather seminars spread out monthly over the course of a year, allowed all of us to evolve and learn together and try out some of what we learned in our real jobs.”
Affecting The Bottom Line
While self-starters still seek out MBAs and other executive education opportunities on their own, many organizations are finding that partnering with established business schools to create custom educational programs is a better means to achieve their goals.
When Dell set up a custom program focusing on finance, they had specific learning objectives but a limited time frame.
“We wanted to help our executives understand the different levers they control and how they impact Dell’s financial performance,” Keith said. “Our program teaches them how to operationalize the ‘shareholder triangle’—liquidity, profitability and growth.”
Keith continued, “The McCombs School interviewed and worked with executives at Dell to determine the needs and understand where the program should focus. We developed a comprehensive program that compresses three days of content into two days and added a little competition into the mix to liven things up.”
For many organizations, including Dell, the ability to tailor material to their specific needs is critical to achieving a return on their education investment.
“It is a highly customized program,” Keith said. “The instructors worked very collaboratively with Dell’s senior finance executives to drive home points that are very specific to Dell. We want to invest in employee development in a way that helps them see how the decisions they make will ultimately impact results at Dell.”
Keith added, “Customizing a program means doubling your time and effort, but it pays off in what the participants get out of it and the feedback you get. As a learning professional, I understand the value of making sure it relates to their experiences.”
Communicating Goals
Tenneil Dutton, a professional development consultant at Texas Instruments who has also created a variety of custom programs, stresses the importance of clear communication to ensure success.
“The main thing we look for in a development program is a clear understanding of the organization’s needs,” she said. “If it’s a good program, we can look at the end of the program and then work back: Will the managers have the tools they need? Will they be able to make a difference? What is the return on investment? We want to see behavioral change in both learning team members and their direct reports.”
Since internal programs are designed to meet organizational goals, this not only influences the content of the programs but also who participates.
“We have to determine where we can have the most impact,” Dutton said. “We could work with everyone from frontline managers to executives, but we have to determine where we can leverage the most significant change. You have to ask the right questions to make sure you get detailed priorities. Then we do extensive formal assessments to provide quantitative data so that we can measure our results.”
Though businesses are increasingly cost-conscious, Delys expects the executive education market to continue growing as organizations recognize the need to improve their competitive position. And that begins with developing the talent of their people.
For information on specific programs at the McCombs School, consult our contacts page. For media information, contact the Communications Director by phone at 512-471-3314 or by email at CommunicationsDirector@mccombs.utexas.edu.
