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www.efmd.org Special supplement | Volume 04 | Issue 03 2010

EFMD

A GLOBAL FOCUS SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT

Excellence in PracticeOutstanding and impactful partnerships between businesses and educational organisations

Special supplement | Global Focus Vol 04 | Issue 03 2010

The Excellence in Practice AwardIntroduction

1 www.efmd.org/globalfocus

At a time when budgets are extremely tight and companies have to cope with a complex and increasingly unpredictable environment the effectiveness of investment in management and organisational development – as with all other budgets – is under the highest scrutiny. The effectiveness of programmes and initiatives from corporate universities, academies and other corporate learning organisations have been under the microscope.

Today the challenge is to achieve more with less. Questions such as the effective transfer of learning into the workplace and the alignment of programmes with corporate strategy have received high attention.

These observations by EFMD within its membership have been corroborated by a recent comprehensive survey carried out by the Swiss Centre for Innovation in learning (SCIL) in co-operation with EFMD.

Hence the Excellence in Practice Award 2010 hit a strong chord when putting the main emphasis on impactful programmes developed and deployed in co-operation between corporate learning organisations and external partners.

With membership in both the management education community and the corporate world, the focus on excellence in collaborative programmes comes naturally to EFMD. Over the last two decades learning and development (L&D) partnerships have grown not only in number but also in effectiveness and quality in areas such as executive, professional, organisational or talent development.

As a consequence EFMD decided some four years ago to launch the Excellence in Practice (EiP) Award as the European flagship award in this field. Since 2007 the EiP Award has grown in prestige and recognition.

Despite the significant workload associated with the submission, close to 40 case studies were entered for the 2010 competition – a record number. The quality of the cases was very high in general, which made the task for the international jury satisfying and challenging at the same time. The cases clearly showed state-of-the-art operational and management excellence.

The L&D initiatives also demonstrated how they were aligned with corporate strategy and evaluated the various facets of impact on the business. In addition the diversity of this year’s winners clearly

40Close to 40 case studies were entered for the 2010 competition – a record number

2 EFMD Global Focus | Volume 04 | Issue 03 2010

Free access to Strategic Direction for 3 monthsFeaturing reviews of the 2010 EFMD Excellence in Practice Award Winning Papers, Volume 26, Issue 11 of Strategic Direction will be available for three months from the 22nd October 2010.

Strategic Direction is an essential management information resource for today’s strategic thinkers. As a unique service, we scan through the best 400 management journals in the world and distil the most topical management issues and relevant implications for senior managers out of the cutting-edge research. We regularly present case study reviews of the Fortune 500 companies.

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For more information about the journal, please contact the Publisher, Juliet Norton at [email protected]

demonstrated how the continuous mutual learning of both partners is important for enhancing skills, developing and motivating people, and for providing a creative learning environment.

I would like to thank all those who submitted a case as well as the jury panel for their excellent work. I would also like to encourage those who were not selected this year to participate in the future. It is the nature of such competitions that winning slots may be missed by a short margin.

Congratulations again to the winning teams – and enjoyable reading to those who are interested in learning more.

Richard Straub Director EFMD

JURY MEMBERS IN 2010 Jessica Davis (Emerald Group Publishing Ltd)Patrick De Greve (Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School)Axel Dornis (MLP Finanzdienstleistungen AG)Sarah Gilbert (Emerald Group Publishing Ltd)Jan Ginneberge (EFMD )Bart Groenewoud (CapGemini University)Jérôme Gueugnier (EDF Group) Nadim Habib (Faculdade de Economia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa)Per Erik Johannessen (BI Norwegian School of Management)Lene Augusta Jørgensen (Aarhus School of Business)Stefan Kayser (ThyssenKrupp Academy GmbH)Antoine Kissenpfennig (Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd.)Françoise Lassalle-Cottin (Euromed Management)Rebecca Marsh (Emerald Group Publishing Ltd)Werner Müller (ERGO Versicherungsgruppe AG)Rudi Plettinx (CCL - Center for Creative Leadership)Martine Plompen (EFMD )Almudena Rodriguez Tarodo (Grupo Santander)Bob Stilliard (Ashridge)Joachim von Berg (EFMD )Hans-Jörg Wagener (Volkswagen Coaching GmbH)John Wills (London Business School)Ulrich Winkler (European Business School)Achim Wolter (Siemens AG)

Billy Desmond and Paul Boniface outline some of the factors that they believe increase the likelihood of a generative partnership that fulfils both individual and organisational expectations such as the partnership between Ashridge Consulting and Britain’s National Trust

Ashridge Consulting and the National Trust have been working together for the past two years.

Ashridge Consulting is an organisational development consultancy grounded in theoretical knowledge and ongoing research. Our work is highly practical, relational and collaborative. We believe that sustainable business can only be achieved through people’s genuine understanding of and preparedness to address the complex issues in today’s social, economic and environmental context.

The National Trust looks after special places – comprising heritage buildings and collections, and the countryside and coastline of England, Wales and Northern Ireland – through practical conservation, learning and discovery. It encourages its 65 million visitors to enjoy their national heritage as places of physical and spiritual renewal. It educates people about the importance of the environment and of preserving heritage for future generations while contributing to important debates over the future of the economy and the quality of the local environment in both town and country.

Both organisations have charitable status and are committed to facilitating sustainable changes that enhance and improve the lives of individuals and their communities. These inherent commonalities and the fostering of other authentic connections from the earliest stages of the relationship helped the National Trust have confidence that Ashridge Consulting was the right partner.

It was important that Ashridge Consulting quickly understood cognitively, emotionally and experientially the context of the National Trust’s “Going Local” strategy.

This strategy culminated in power shifting to General Managers, who are responsible for a portfolio of properties and land. It was recognised that archaeologists, conservators, curators, rural surveyors, marketers, retailers and others (collectively known as Functional Advisors) would have to develop skills of consulting and influence in order to support and challenge the General Managers in their policy and decision making. They needed to deliver a collaborative, client-centred service and develop relationships of real mutual trust.



Sustaining Partnership Ashridge and the National Trust


Both organisations have charitable status and are committed to facilitating sustainable changes that enhance and improve the lives of individuals and their communities

Special supplement | Global Focus Vol 04 | Issue 03 2010 Sustaining partnership


The National Trust recognised that an organisational development programme was needed for its Functional Advisors. From the very first tender meeting, the Ashridge Consulting team entered into dialogue in a spirit of exploration and inquiry, to co-create and co-design a programme that would deliver the required impact.

So even at this stage, the approach adopted was entirely congruent not only with the way in which the Developing Internal Consulting Capability programme would be designed and delivered but with Ashridge’s ethos of what constitutes best-practice consulting skills.

Ashridge Consulting adopted an appreciative co-inquiry process with potential participants, clients, sponsors and members of the National Trust senior management team. The purpose was to ascertain current consulting capability and what was required to deliver integrated advice to clients whose budget and authority to make decisions gave them power.

This was not dissimilar to the Ashridge-National Trust relationship, so learning was also available by reflecting on our dynamic partnering relationship. Our appreciative approach identified what occurred in these relationships when they were working well. This approach is different from more traditionally employed ways of diagnosis.

We then co-designed the Developing Internal Consulting Capability programme to support Functional Advisors in playing their part in the delivery of the Going Local strategy.

Functional Advisors experienced a mixture of anxiety, fear and hope as their roles were changing, so it was important that an appropriate and safe learning environment was created.

Together we chose the learning environment at Ashridge, where the tranquillity and beauty of the building and grounds, amid acres of National

Trust woodland, made the participants feel that this was “home from home” and assured them that we had an understanding of their values.

Participants came together for three days with Ashridge consultants. It was grounded in Functional Advisors’ experience and the reality of their current context. Working with “what is” rather than “what might be” is a way of facilitating change from within. From the outset, the development programme design placed particular attention on fostering trusting relationships to support different ways of relating and working,

The process that ensued developed the Functional Advisors’ consulting capability and was consolidated around key areas of structure, styles and skills.

The depth of change required a cultural shift away from traditionally transactional services to new ways of working in collaborative partnerships so Action Learning was integrated into the design over a period of ten months to encourage participants to practise, reflect and embed the learning with appropriate support and space.

This process started to facilitate the transfer of consulting capability with the Functional Advisors becoming more connected with each other, taking responsibility for supporting their development and becoming less dependent on Ashridge, who then withdrew.

Determining the impact of this type of intervention involves sharing risk and responsibility. We engaged in a rigorous co-designed Evaluative Inquiry process whose purpose was to understand, through quantitative and qualitative evidence, the impact of the Developing Internal Consulting Capability intervention on participant advisors and their clients (for example, General Managers) and on the wider organisation.


Congruent with the Ashridge relational consulting approach, the evaluation process sought to collate “stories” on what was working, how it was working and what was the impact so that the ways of working and organisational aspects that supported this change could be amplified. The outcomes have given both of us in the partnership the confidence to continue and develop other supporting creative interventions that are now underway in regions across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

A healthy partnership is one where independency and interdependency – not dependency – are co-created. We have developed our partnership by working as one collaborative design/delivery team with each of us bringing different roles, expertise and responsibilities.

In our experience a worthwhile partnership emerges from attending to the ongoing co-created relational experiences when working on tasks together. This manifested in the co-design team taking time to check in with each other every time they met, where individuals shared what was going on for them, how they were feeling and what a successful outcome from our time together would look like.

Such a process was not without its joy and pain. It was often by working through the pain, disagreements and ruptures that occurred in the relationship that greater trust, connectedness and commitment emerged. The quality of our core team relationship supported and legitimised such relational consulting behaviour between Functional Advisors and between them and their clients in the National Trust.

Sustaining partnerships requires a freedom and responsibility of intent to support the development of the other with independence, not dependency, as the goal. This ensures greater choice and ethical practice in any future interventions.

Sustaining partnerships requires a mutuality of care, respect of the other and of the ecological context. Partnerships, after all, are relationships made between persons with aspirations, hopes and objectives to fulfil.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Billy Desmond is Client Director Ashridge Consulting

Paul Boniface Director of People and Governance, National Trust


To be able to add greater value to the businesses that they support, create greater consistency throughout IT and improve communications with business stakeholders


Transforming IT managersHSBC and LFGSM

Scott Farley and Howard Prager decribe how global banking group HSBC and Lake Forest Graduate School of Management have created a programme, Advanced Consulting Skills, that has led to improved client satisfaction with IT and enhanced IT capabilities

HSBC Group, headquartered in London, is one of the world’s largest banking and financial services organisations with assets of $2.4 billion (as of 31 December 2009) and serving customers worldwide from around 8,000 offices in 88 countries and territories.

HSBC – North America consists of the company’s US and Canadian operations and is one of the ten largest bank holding companies in America. The bank’s strategy is based on its differentiating combination of global scale and local presence.

Effective management of its information technology (IT) infrastructure is critical to its ability to successfully deliver on its brand promise, achieve global scale and adapt the network and systems to meet constantly changing customer, market and regulatory demands.

The IT and shared services function, titled HSBC Technology Services (HTS), comprises approximately one-third of HSBC’s global workforce and is tasked with meeting the needs of business stakeholders as they seek to respond nimbly and progressively to the marketplace.

In 2001 the HTS organisation adopted its current shared services model whereby IT services are sold to the business and the HTS organisation is fiscally accountable for cost coverage and budget adherence.

This approach to the management of the IT function placed a premium on client satisfaction and on the ability of IT leaders and project managers to successfully discover and address the needs of the business. By 2007 client satisfaction scores were closely monitored across the organisation as a measure of successful partnership with business stakeholders. From this, a need was identified to further strengthen the organisation’s consulting competency.

PartnershipIn March 2007 Lake Forest Graduate School of Management (LFGSM) was approached by HTS leadership and members of HSBC’s North America Learning organisation to collaborate on an approach aimed at taking their IT professionals to the next level.

LFGSM specialises in understanding the needs of shared service


professionals through white paper research, including interviews with many senior leaders. IT was the first shared service LFGSM focused on and it continues to be a key function for the school to keep up-to-date.

It was HSBC’s intention at that time to send 80% of their senior manager-director IT level employees through an Advanced Consulting Skills programme. Why? To be able to add greater value to the businesses that they support, create greater consistency throughout IT and improve communications with business stakeholders.

At the onset of the collaboration between HSBC and LFGSM it was recognised that this learning effort must yield a positive business impact that could be measured against existing goals and success metrics.

Additionally, there was a strategic eye toward a major global initiative titled “One HSBC”, which was to consolidate and standardise business operating models and support system infrastructures across the organisation worldwide. Implementation of One HSBC systems was to be a key driver of transformational change and would require that the HTS organisation be able to consult effectively in order to balance local business needs with globally aligned strategic imperatives.

Determining Content and ObjectivesAn advisory group was formed with six senior IT professionals to better understand the current level of consulting capability, the perception of HTS by its internal business partners and essential programme goals. This group identified the desired business impacts of the Advanced Consulting Skills course, which were to take HTS to the next level by:

adding value to the business

building stronger, more consistent relationships with clients/business units

improving communication and responsiveness to the business

viewing IT partners as consultants to the business who can make work less complex and transactions cheaper

understanding business requirements and project change requests better in order to explain impact in terms of time, resources and costs

The initial needs assessment completed by the HSBC advisory group and LFGSM resulted in a clear view as to the programme’s deliverables and measures of success. To ensure that HSBC’s selected IT professionals advance their business interface skills, LFGSM recommended a programme that included the following key competencies: Understanding Business Strategy, Negotiation Skills and Internal Consulting. Each one-day module was designed to meet specific purposes as follows:

—The Strategy module seeks to bring a more practical understanding of how the work participants do integrates into HSBC strategy. The module also includes strategic tools and frameworks and aims to foster an appreciation for the challenges of communicating a strategic vision across the organisation. Throughout, practice opportunities are offered to solidify understanding and communication of strategic imperatives.

—The Negotiations module explores the fundamentals of negotiations, including key variables of negotiation, overcoming obstacles and understanding (and avoiding) positional bargaining. Notably, the module also emphasises ways to retain the relationship while negotiating. The ultimate aim is to integrate successful negotiations into an over-arching consultative approach that results in win-win results.

—The Business Consulting module integrates the concepts of strategy and negotiation into a cohesive, five-step model for internal consultation, focusing on essential communication and relationship management skills. The emphasis is on a clear, collaborative definition of needs, discussion and practice using the critical business consulting skills that are interdependent with technical consulting skills.


Special supplement | Global Focus Vol 04 | Issue 03 2010 Transforming IT Managers

ResultsFrom a learning perspective, there was a need to measure participant satisfaction and ensure that the class delivery was effective. Taken together, these indicators illustrate the great extent to which the collaboration between HSBC and LFGSM met HSBC’s business and learning goals.

Initial feedbackIn its first year, feedback from participants was highly positive, as indicated by the following results:

4.41/5.0the session was well designed

4.57/5.0this programme was valuable and I would recommend it to others at HSBC

4.70/5.0the faculty used effective presentation and facilitation skills

Participant commentsParticipant comments were generally quite positive, and expressed an enthusiasm for the relevance of the course content to daily responsibilities:

The practical workshops gave us an opportunity to apply the teaching. I am coming away with some new tools in my ‘tool kit’ that will help me to manage and accomplish my stated objectives.

Nice step up from other consulting courses offered. Subject matter relevant—especially with our focus on relationship management.

Follow-up evaluationsSubsequent and recent follow-up evaluations have found that:

70%of participants are utilising consulting and negotiations skills and knowledge from the course

1/3+over a third of participants are applying strategy understanding and knowledge from the course

50%nearly 50% of participants are actively using consulting skills at least two months after the programme

1/3+over a third are actively using negotiations and strategy skills at least two months after the programme

It is important to note that this level of success has continued throughout subsequent programmes.


The increase in the HTS organisation’s consulting expertise was identified as an added value to business partner relationships and allowed the full institutionalisation of the shared services model to be completed. Additionally, the organisation developed needed skill-sets that have become essential to the ongoing implementation of several high-profile strategic imperatives, including One HSBC and implementation of global system platforms for HR and Project Management.

Senior leaders within the HTS organisation have expressed their satisfaction with the course and it continues to be an integral part of the leadership curriculum for IT professionals. As HSBC moves forward in partnership with LFGSM, strong positive feedback continues to lead to new opportunities that will bring this course to additional audiences across North America and around the globe.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Scott Farley is Vice President and Learning Specialist, HSBC – North American Learning

[email protected]

Howard Prager is Director, Corporate Education, Lake Forest Graduate School of Management

[email protected]

Taken together, these indicators illustrate the great extent to which the collaboration between HSBC and LFGSM met HSBC’s business and learning goals



Leveraging the University Classroom Prism, KickApps and Bentley University

Gordon Hardy and Pierre Berthon relate how a corporate immersion programme at Bentley University in America proved to be a unique partnership between business and education

In August 2009, three friends sat drinking cold beers and gazing out at Boston’s Charles River, mulling over different though seemingly related problems.

Woody Benson is a partner at Prism Venture Capital. “The problem with VC is you have to wear two very different hats,” he recalls thinking. “The first is the nurturing, enthusiast hat; the other, the cold financial hat. If you get too close, too emotionally involved in a start-up, you can lose your shirt. But keep your distance and the firm dies.”

Alex Blum is CEO of KickApps, a social-media start-up funded by Prism. His concern that day: how to get fast, actionable market research while lacking both budget and expertise. This information was critical for the strategic direction of his three-year-old company.

Perry Lowe, senior lecturer in marketing at Bentley University, near Boston, was focused on an educational challenge. “I run a corporate immersion course for MBA students. I need participating firms that can teach business and engage students with real-world problems to solve.”

As they talked, the friends hit on a mutually beneficial opportunity close at hand: an upcoming course in the Bentley MBA programme. The plan started to take shape.

Lowe and Benson (a Bentley alumnus) would co-teach a course focused on social-media marketing, using Blum’s market research dilemma. Benson would offer students insight into the workings of venture capital – especially the funding of start-ups in the newly hot social media space. KickApps would provide students with the specific business challenge, access to top management and confidential company information.

In return, MBA students would perform the market research that Blum desperately needed for his strategic plan.

Finally, Benson’s Prism VC would gain the independent, engaged perspective of young MBAs eager to wrestle with a genuine business problem.

It was a straightforward but imaginative solution to each man’s challenge that day. But the real challenge lay in the execution; they needed expert help, so they enlisted Professor Pierre Berthon, Clifford F Youse Chair of Research at Bentley. As they mapped out the course syllabus and

Benson’s Prism VC would gain the independent, engaged perspective of young MBAs eager to wrestle with a genuine business problem.


framework, Berthon, Lowe and Benson identified two key questions and answers.

Q1:How to get the best work – really valuable market intelligence – from unpaid students?

Solution: Offer them a chance to engage deeply with accomplished professionals. Benson and Blum were experienced business leaders committed to working with the students throughout the project (Benson even kept weekly office hours). Students’ contributions would not be theoretical: KickApps and Prism needed their best work.

As Lowe puts it: “The students worked their hearts out because they knew what they were doing was important to the company.”

Q2: How to keep busy professionals consistently engaged in the project over a four-month semester?

Solution: Structure, planning, discipline. Lowe poured hours into developing a syllabus and class routine that made the best use of Benson’s and Blum’s time. Expectations of students were high from the start: signed NDAs at the first class meeting and no absenteeism, free riding or excuses. A small-group structure and grading rubric demanded accountability. As a result, company representatives were assured that their ongoing participation would lead to better outcomes and more actionable marketing plans for KickApps.

The trio cemented their commitments with four steps:

Step One: Bentley and Prism conducted a needs analysis for KickApps to determine the project scope and ensure sufficient Bentley resources.

Step Two: At least one member of KickApps and Prism management planned to attend class meetings every week to ensure that work stayed on target and reflected any corporate changes during the engagement.


Special supplement | Global Focus Vol 04 | Issue 03 2010 Leveraging the University Classroom

MBA students were charged with researching and segmenting the social media market and recommending alternative ones

The time, insight and intelligence invested by Prism and KickApps boosted the quality and value of student output

Step Three: An interpersonal analysis evaluated the interaction potential between KickApps and Prism representatives and the students. The analysis suggested ways to build trust and commitment among the parties.

Step Four: The stakeholders looked beyond the immediate project to assess potential for a mutually beneficial relationship over the long term. Points of discussion were student internship and job opportunities, future projects and the fit between the company missions and that of Bentley University.

Posing the challengeThe KickApps product is a social media environment that enables organisations to create highly engaging websites and online communities. Tools include a social network, branded and customised online video players, photo- and video-sharing capabilities, blogs, podcasts, message boards and widgets. Combined with programming, marketing and promotion the websites become destinations where companies can engage directly with customers and partners.

Now, KickApps CEO Blum faced a classic strategic challenge: how to grow the firm beyond its early-stage customers of entertainment, media and sports companies.

That challenge drove work in the corporate immersion course. MBA students were charged with researching and segmenting the social media market and recommending alternative ones. Options included entering the small-to-medium business (SMB) market, the large enterprise market or both – and in which order, given the company’s current management, working capital and profitability as well as three-year time horizon.

Thinking on their feet, eating the dog foodAfter meetings and orientation, the students got to work. The 35-member class broke into seven multidisciplinary teams, to spark diverse approaches and a lively spirit of competition. The semester’s specific assignments:

understand the KickApps business and the market

research and analyse the SMB market

research and analyse the enterprise market

(re)vision the company to launch the new initiatives

Weekly meetings engaged all participants. KickApps executives and Prism’s Benson guided understanding of their respective company needs; students researched the markets independently and reported back.

The success of the project turned on two innovations. First, individual


students or student teams presented their findings in intense ten-minute pitches. During these sessions, executives interrupted to ask questions, forcing students to think on their feet and defend ideas extemporaneously. Students gained a true appreciation for conveying ideas and information to the boss in succinct and compelling terms – a sort of “murder board” of critical thinkers who helped students sharpen their ideas and presentations.

One student wrote of the experience: “This course is different from anything I’ve done before. I was caught off-guard by the Apprentice-style firing squad, but it was invaluable to have that experience within the safety net of school. Woody [Benson] was honest and direct, without being curt.”

The second innovation in the course was experiential. Students built and operated their own KickApps sites (“eating the dog food” in the parlance of the field). This approach created a sense of community among the teams and with their instructors, gave students deep and direct experience with the product and provided dynamic feedback on the learning process to project leaders.

Effective learning, actionable intelligenceThe course takeaways were an unqualified success. The corporate immersion strategy of offering a real-world problem (KickApps marketing research), investor insight (from venture capitalist Benson), and a novel classroom experience for students (the naked light bulb of a ten-minute pitch before seasoned entrepreneurs) fostered true synergy and a win-win-win outcome.

The time, insight and intelligence invested by Prism and KickApps boosted the quality and value of student output. The weekly interplay among the parties reflected the operational ambiguity of actual business: assignments tweaked, new evidence leading to new questions

and using both deductive and inductive methods to draw conclusions about the market.

For KickApps, the course delivered the goods: a visionary strategic direction, beginning in the SMB market. The new strategy included management changes, a redesigned product portfolio, adjustments in pricing and competitive positioning and the launch of new distribution channels. That strategy was unleashed in July 2010 and is already bearing fruit.

In a review, KickApps executives praised the quality of students’ market research, recommendations and strategic vision. Awarding high marks in all three areas, managers noted having gained a deeper understanding of the broad market and its different segments, the competitive landscape and options for securing a competitive advantage.

Prism management was impressed with the quality and diversity of perspectives on KickApps and its market, strategic options and future potential. Indeed, a handful of innovative ideas were immediately forthcoming. Benson and fellow leaders also learned of different investment options and strategies available for Prism. An unexpected bonus for the venture capital firm: out-of-the-boardroom insight into the strengths and challenges of KickApps management.

The course’s most valuable results may be yet to come. Corporate immersion has gained a new and distinctive roadmap at Bentley University. The approach moves beyond providing a real-world case study opportunity for students to providing real-world benefits for businesses and investors. Plans for the future include an expanded “capstone” course in the Bentley MBA programme that will engage companies and students to tackle challenges across business fields: marketing, finance, law and management.

Not a bad result from a meeting of three old friends over beers in Boston.



Search for leaders starts at home Pon and ORMIT

The partnership of Dutch firm Pon and management development company ORMIT holds the key to developing leaders in-house. Any well-run organisation would accept that nurturing its own talent has to be a better, long-term prospect than buying in expertise

The origins of the strategic partnership involving Pon, one of the Netherlands’ largest family businesses, and ORMIT, a successful management development (MD) company, lie in that simple truth.

The collaboration between the two organisations began in 2005. Pon, an international trading and service company, was determined to raise its profile and to become an even more successful company by development of more managers from within its own pool of talent.

ORMIT was brought on board to help Pon with its MD objectives and to translate them into a Learning and Development (L&D) framework. Once Pon’s executive board had identified the need to fill management vacancies from outside the company as a serious weakness, appropriate targets were set. These included filling three-quarters of management vacancies with internal candidates by 2010.

At the same time, the company recognised that it wanted to create a different culture, one in which everyone understood the needs of the business, worked together towards achieving that goal and had a better understanding of how various departments worked and relied on one another.

It was further hoped that this would create an environment in which employees could have greater flexibility, with the chance to switch between different divisions ultimately helping their careers.

ORMIT established its framework for MD, with agreed shared areas for development, such as people management and personal leadership, and specific shared competences, such as independence and the ability to think and act autonomously, which could be worked on to develop the “best managers”.

Different strokesGood managers need different skill sets at different times in their career development; a managerial skill relevant in one phase might be less important in another. A “leadership pipeline” was created to identify the way that each transition has new skill requirements. Self-management skills are still being acquired when a young executive is taking on the role of managing others. In a nutshell, the pipeline defines what the company

expects its people to do, at whatever point they are within the organisation.

ORMIT’s L&D frameworks comprised three consecutive programmes for professionals and managers in three different phases of their careers.

The first were young professionals, aged up to 30 with between one and three years’ work experience. The objective here is to increase personal leadership at work.

The second category was young managers, aged 30 to 35 with a minimum of four years’ work experience. The objectives here are to increase their own leadership skills and stimulate the same development among colleagues.

The third target group are advanced managers, typically aged 35 to 40 with a minimum of seven years’ work experience. Here the objectives involve broadening personal leadership skills and both finding and exploiting leadership opportunities within the organisation.

Looking at the finer details of the programme it becomes apparent that there is a considerable emphasis on increasing self-knowledge and personal awareness. The young professionals are encouraged, for example, to understand the effects of their own behaviour in interaction with other people; the advanced managers must gain insight into their own preferred management styles and acquire the ability to adapt behavioural style.

These programmes run for between 12 to 18 months and are usually held once or twice a year. Since 2005, there have been 18 programmes, half of them for young professionals.

All-round visionLearning interventions common to all three programmes include a 360-degree form. This starts with participants gathering information, through a form, about the way they behave at work. Colleagues, line managers and


Significantly for Pon, former participants are happy to promote the programme to their colleagues, indicating the high value they place on the process they have been through

18Since 2005, there have been 18 programmes, half of them for young professionals


subordinates will all complete this form, as well as the subjects themselves. This process is tackled again at the end of the programme to provide insights into the journey that the learner has made.

Three-way discussions, between the participant, direct line manager and ORMIT also take place at both ends of the programme, serving a similar purpose.

The programme requires close co-operation from all stakeholders. At the same time, everyone’s roles and responsibilities are clearly defined. These include the need for ORMIT to engage the right coaches, integrate business values into the programmes and alert the client company at the appropriate moment to any issues in the organisational context that might affect participants’ development, either positively or negatively, in the programme.

The upper echelons of Pon’s management need to buy entirely into the programmes by giving them priority and being prepared to transfer the lessons learned into working practices. Participants, it goes without saying, must be receptive to new ideas and be willing themselves to put new learned theory into practice.

The MD framework’s impact was outlined through a Return on Investment “methodology model” with Return on Development measured throughout the various levels of the process.

Positive reactions to the programme have been recorded from all three different group of participants when asked directly for their opinions. “We became a very close-knit group that learned a lot together as well as from each other,” was a common reaction.

At higher levels, questions such as how what has been learned can be seen visibly at work are less easy to pin down although feedback meetings along the way play their part in making results explicit.

Special supplement | Global Focus Vol 04 | Issue 03 2010 Search for leaders starts at home

Significantly for Pon, former participants are happy to promote the programme to their colleagues, indicating the high value they place on the process they have been through. One finding was that 95% of participants believed themselves to have become more self-confident, a quality that reveals itself in a greater willingness to “drive things more, and bring more to their role though their own strength and qualities”.

The sums add upA target impact table details the extent to which business needs have been fulfilled. Some lend themselves to direct answers: the desire to fill 75% of management vacancies with internal candidates within five years, for example, has been achieved. The 2005 figure had been closer to 50% and the change translates to concrete financial results through the savings on recruitment and selection costs. A corollary of offering greater career opportunities in-house is that investment in development and knowledge remains with the firm.

Elsewhere, even where things cannot be measured precisely there are clear indications of a culture change: in, for example, the greater uniformity in deployment of an overarching Performance Management.

The role of programmes in encouraging networking has been a positive factor in increasing mutual understanding and collaboration between departments.

Other positive outcomes include greater employment satisfaction: Pon was a 2009 and 2010 “Top Employer” according to the CRF Institute (www.crf.com). It is a vindication of Pon’s set of strategic objectives, which the company refers to as its COSTA business values: Commitment, Originality, Simplicity, Teamwork, Ambition. ORMIT has helped to translate these values into new criteria for effective management behaviour.

The report’s authors describe the Pon/ORMIT collaboration as 1 + 1 = 3. That might bring to mind the old joke about an accountant being asked what 2 + 2 makes and replying: “What do you want it to be?”

However, it is a simple acknowledgment of the fact that, as professional partners in MD, the two sides achieve more than they can alone, especially though an ability to respect and build on each other’s way of thinking, through using ORMIT’s theoretical know-how and Pon’s practical expertise.


Good managers need different skill sets at different times in their career development; a managerial skill relevant in one phase might be less important in another

95%... of programme participants believed themselves to have become more self-confident

75%...of managerial vacancies were filled with internal candidates within five years

50%in 2005 this figure was nearer 50%



Engineering the future MAN ,WHU and Saïd Busines School

German business school WHU and the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School in Britain worked with the MAN Group – one of Europe’s leading industrial players – to open up new horizons globally and create leadership capabilities for the future

Look in the rear-view mirror on Europe’s motorways and the chances are you will see a MAN logo on the truck or bus behind you. The MAN Group is one of Europe’s leading transport-related engineering companies.

If you had to name one company enshrining the traditional virtues of German industry – a solid market position sustained over a long period on the back of a powerful reputation for technological excellence – MAN would undoubtedly be a leading candidate.

MAN, though, is increasingly reaching out to the wider world. Half of the company’s workforce now operates outside Germany. Alongside its direct sales overseas MAN has recently added heavy vehicle subsidiaries in the fast-growing markets of Brazil and China.

A prime challenge for MAN, therefore, was to achieve a culture change that would transform it from a German to a global company. MAN identified three goals:

To refocus from local limited goals to more challenging international ones

To share the necessary strategic understanding and knowledge throughout MAN

To equip executives with the vital “soft” skills and intercultural competencies to deliver the company’s new global agenda

To achieve these, MAN realised it needed to mobilise a broad range of resources and invited bids from business schools internationally to deliver its General Management Programme (GMP). The outcome was a new three-way partnership between the company, Oxford’s Saïd Business School and the WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management, resulting in a radical re-launch of the programme under the academic direction of professors Gerd Islei and Lutz Kaufmann.

Real-Time ResponsivenessThe first step involved a process of deep immersion. Members of the partnership came together in a series of workshops to beat out a fresh and challenging basis for the programme. Participants, meanwhile, were being carefully screened and selected taking into account their leadership styles, strengths and weaknesses, with the

The financial crisis put added emphasis on value-based management, excellence in execution and the effective use of working capital

¤200mOver the period in question MAN successfully made cost savings of some 1200 million as result of the collaboration


partnership team again working in close collaboration.

But as global economic woes mounted in 2008 and MAN subsequently engaged in major organisational restructuring, new challenges presented themselves. The financial crisis put greater emphasis on value-based management and the effective use of working capital. Organisational restructuring in turn brought into greater prominence the need for tighter strategic alignment and integration. All these challenges needed to be – and were – addressed as the programme evolved.

Outside-In, Inside-OutThe GMP is an established part of MAN’s development portfolio, preparing participants to become future leaders within the Group. When the MAN-Oxford–WHU partnership took responsibility for the programme, it was given a new focus, with the experience of the programme conceived as an individual journey of transformational learning, progressing from external challenges out to a personal action agenda for the future (see Figure 1).

Outside-in

The current situation and desired future

Inside-out

Impact: achieving the Vision

Business & Society

Technology Trends

Economic Crisis

Market Trends

The programme is delivered in two modules, the first at Saïd Business School in Oxford drawing on an array of thought leaders to explore the “big picture”, internationally and strategically, the second at WHU in Vallendar, focusing more specifically on issues of execution, enterprise and value creation within MAN.

Individually centred learning has been key, right from the pre-programme stage through coaching during the modules, the contextual sessions intended to broaden the individual participant mindset, and then through inter-module team workplace projects - the results of which are formally presented to MAN’s Management Board at the conclusion of the second module, with the best presentations receiving a prize.

Participants are also required to make commitments to camera, outlining their future goals and the action plans needed to fulfil these. The programme is therefore both company-tailored and participant-centred.

An Upward ContinuumFrom the outset the MAN-Oxford-WHU programmes were designed to connect different management levels, with intensive commitment and involvement of senior management and the Board seen as fundamental.

In 2009 the partnership, on the basis of its success with the GMP, was also awarded the contract to deliver the company’s Executive Management Programme (EMP), which targets executives immediately below Board level. The programme provides, therefore, an avenue to take the GMP transformational initiative to the heart of the strategic conversation inside the company.

Again a two-module programme was devised. The first, delivered in Munich in 2009 to coincide with the Group’s annual meeting, was entitled “Managing the Present from the Future” and encouraged participants to strengthen their

Figure 1:

External ContextGlobalisation

Me Leadership

Skills

MAN SE(Organisational context)

Objectives

Structure

Culture

Performance

Products & Services


Special supplement | Global Focus Vol 04 | Issue 03 2010 Engineering the future

ability to respond adaptively to emerging challenges.

Board members framed the debates, faculty supplied models and insights, and delegates then pursued key issues in team workshops – the programme concluding with workshop findings and the agreement of action plans. The second, held in Oxford in 2010, explored the leadership dimension of these issues and the contribution MAN’s top executives make.

Bottom-Line ImpactThe programmes have had a major transformational impact (see Table 1). Surveys of participants since the first programme in 2008 have identified striking improvements in learning and behaviour. Across the range of initially identified target attributes major improvements were recorded on average in over 85% of cases.

In addition, a range of successful corporate initiatives are being pursued, all of which were to a large degree catalysed by the

programme, especially the team workplace projects it set in motion. These developments include MAN’s CSR programme, its “Global Footprint” and several workplace projects such as its initiative to optimise the use of working capital.

By now 200 executives from 13 different countries and all business areas have participated. Overall, the Oxford-WHU programmes have helped turn MAN around at perhaps the most difficult time in the company’s 250-year history, not only binding the organisation together more effectively in a time of turbulent change and developing new agility in the face of economic challenge but also opening up new horizons globally and creating leadership capabilities for the future.

“The Oxford-WHU programmes have given my managers a wholly different set of perspectives on the globalised world in which

Table 1:

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Understanding and ability to handle issues of globalisation and international diversity

Personal leadership

Integration (cross-function and cross-company)

Communication

Interpersonaland team managemnet skills

Value creationand return on investment

Entrepreneurship and innovation

Commitment to MAN’s core corporate values

Change management

Knowledge of and alignment with overall corporate strategy


MAN operates,” says Joerg Schwittalla, Chief HR Officer and Board member.

Thomas Haneder of MAN’s corporate HQ’s strategy division, who attended the programmes, endorses this: “When I came to the company three years ago it was a completely different organisation. The programmes and the people taking part are pushing it further. We are changing the culture of MAN.”

Launching Peer-to-Peer Coaching in MANOne of the hardest transitions for executives to make is to go from being a manager in a specialist area to a leader with wider responsibilities. This challenge is further exacerbated by companies that over-value professional knowledge at the expense of behavioural leadership skills. The consequence is a developmental approach biased towards specialism which can result in a significant gap in capability once managers find themselves promoted to a leadership role.

To address this challenge the Oxford-WHU programme gives participants an experiential insight into coaching as a powerful leadership style they can add to their personal tool-kit and transfer more broadly throughout the organisation.

Central to the approach is the idea of posing a set of challenging questions in line with a straightforward framework. Their objective is to gain greater understanding about a given situation, to achieve greater clarity about goals and then identify and agree the actions needed to achieve those goals.

While this sounds easy, it is particularly challenging for specialists who have been expected simply to give straightforward answers or furnish informed opinions. Given the complex global market challenges faced by MAN, it is critical that its leaders release the full capability of their staff through harnessing their combined knowledge and creating shared objectives. By equipping participants with this kind of a coaching approach, the programme ensures that MAN’s leaders have the tools to create a highly involving and strongly motivated working environment.

Throughout, intensive commitment and involvement of senior management and the Board was seen as a fundamental success factor

EFMD

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Excellence in Practice Award 2011Partnerships in Learning & Development


The EFMD Excellence in Practice Award attracts case studies describing an effective and impactful Leadership and Development (L&D) intervention. These programmes can be deployed by an organisation either together with their in-house L&D unit or with an external L&D provider.

Case-studies must demonstrate Operational Excellence (e.g. sustainable partnership & effective learning environment etc.); Excellent Programme Management (e.g. design, delivery, evaluation, selection methodology of participants etc.); and above all Strong Business Impact (e.g. alignment with corporate strategy, impact for company, incorporation in corporate HR processes etc.).

The specific field of the Learning and Development intervention might be Leadership, Professional, Talent or Organisation Development.

The competition is run annually. The jury-panel is composed of representatives from EFMD member Companies, Business Schools and Executive Development Centers, as well as representatives from Emerald Group Publishing. The winning cases authors are invited to present their case-study at one of EFMD events and the cases are profiled extensively across the EFMD network and published by Emerald.

How to participate in this Award? Please visit www.efmd.org/eip and find out more about the Assignment Brief, Submission Guidelines, Selection Criteria and Frequently Asked Questions.

Deadline for submission1 May 2011Submission is free if at least one of the applicants is an EFMD member organisation.

Contact and further informationFlorence Gré[email protected]: +32.2.629.08.37

WebinarsThe 5 winning cases from the 2010 Excellence in Practice Award will be presenting their case-studies via webinars on the following dates:

25 October: Engineering the Future: A Transformational Learning Journey MAN SE & WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management & Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, Executive Education Centre

28 October: Partnership in the Design, Development and Delivery of the Advanced Consulting Skills ProgramHSBC North America Learning and Development & Lake Forest Graduate School of Management

29 October: An innovative Case of Synergistic Learning and Development between Venture Capital, Start-up and UniversityPrism Venture Capital & KickApps Startup & Bentley University

3 November: Developing Internal Consulting Capability within the National TrustThe National Trust & Ashridge Consulting Ltd.

8 November: Developing a sustainable supply of leadersPon Holdings B.V. & ORMIT B.V.

Feel free to join these webinars by registering online via www.efmd.org/eip

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