Discovery Driven Planning: Teaching in Non-Degree Executive Education Programs
I’m just here at the Strategic Management Society’s annual conference in Cologne. It’s a meeting which aspires to bring together academics, consultants and business-people for fruitful dialogue and exchanges, although in fairness the tilt does seem to be more toward academics recently. I did participate in an interesting session on how to teach in executive education programs. I focused on issues of style (not too much lecturing, please!) and actually included some substance on real options reasoning and discovery driven planning. Anyone with an interest can download the attached .pdf. (the blog software wouldn’t allow me to upload it in .ppt.)
For now, the key takeaways from my session:
1. Too much one-way communication is ineffective
2. In design, remember the basic principle of what makes something interesting—challenge to weakly held assumptions
3. Build on executive participants’ own experiences and connect to your teaching points
4. Creative repetition (700 times)
5. Tell stories
6. Combine facts, emotions and symbols—often, one or another are left out
Feel free to write with any questions or further ideas. On to the next session!
ExecEdTeaching.SMS.10-08.08.pdf
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Columbia Business School offers one of the best “spare time” B Schools in Business Week
Business Week has just published its highly influential rankings of executive MBA and Executive Education programs, and I’m pleased and proud to note that Columbia has not only done well, but improved its position considerably in both.
In his first year as Associate Dean of our executive education offerings, Troy Eggers has led a strong upswing in our position. For non-degree executive education offerings, Columbia ranked #5 for Open Enrollment (programs that people from any company can take) and #7 for custom programs (designed specifically to meet the needs of individual clients). We were ranked #7 and #20 respectively in the survey done two years ago. Of particular note is that our strategy and leadership offerings were both rated with an A+.
Our Executive MBA program, under the leadership of Associate Dean Ethan Hanabury, has captured the #6 spot on the ratings. That’s huge, because two years ago flaws in the program had led to its not even making the top 20 (which was a major psychological blow). To learn more about the Columbia Executive MBA program click here.
Rankings of course do not capture the heart and soul of a program, but it’s still nice to have the external validation.
To have a look at the article, Click here
To browse around Columbia Executive Education’s web site Click here
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How much does the prestige of a university matter to business?
I was recently asked to consider whether the prestige of a university matters at all in the business world. I’d say it does.
One place you see it make a huge difference is when companies are looking for universities to partner with in the world of executive education. They feel a great comfort with a name brand as their university collaborators.
For individuals, in my experience, a prestigious degree (and the social network that goes with it) helps perhaps in landing that first job, but it isn’t a guarantee of career success. As I’m sure some grandmother somewhere would say, it can open the door, but you have to walk through it.
That much being said, some highly selective companies wouldn’t even look at an inexperienced candidate without a certain pedigree.
It’s been shown that the more selective MBA programs tend to convey a salary and job advantage on their graduates. There are several studies cited in this article:
Bennis, W. G. & O’Toole, J. 2005. How Business Schools Lost Their Way. Harvard Business Review, 83(5): 96-104.
I think university prestige always creates a nice opening, whether for business or for more social purposes. It provides people with a way to categorize your quality without actually having to make an individual judgment.
It’s also worth remembering the downside of a highly prestigious degree—possible employers, dates and others may assume that you’re stuck up, too expensive or too demanding and you could also lose out on opportunities.
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- Posted Admin on September 21, 2007
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