Executive Development Programs
Broad School’s corporate partnerships create worldwide learning communities
While the Broad School has had nondegree, executive development programs for more than half a century, the construction of the school’s new James B. Henry Center for Executive Development has dramatically expanded its ability to offer intensive open-enrollment and flexible, customized programs to the business community. Last year alone, almost 4,000 people participated in seminars conducted by the Broad School.
According to Program Director David Frayer, “executive development programs represent an opportunity for faculty dialogue with corporate leaders. Theory and practice come together in an atmosphere of mutual respect and a genuine desire to learn on both sides of the podium. That knowledge exchange doesn’t just change the way people do business, it also is translated back into our undergraduate and MBA classrooms as an important reality check on what is happening in the business world.”
Customized program partners
This knowledge exchange plays out most clearly in the Broad School’s customized programs, as faculty members and corporate leaders work side-by-side to develop the company-specific curriculum.“The value of this process,” says Nick Little, assistant director, “is to help companies identify those areas of the business that their managers need to know more about in order to be successful, and where our faculty expertise can help build that knowledge.”
That was the challenge faced by Kerr-McGee Corporation, an oil and gas exploration and production company and the world’s third-largest producer and marketer of titanium dioxide pigment. The company started in 1929 and now has assets of $10 billion. About two years ago, they recognized that they needed to make strategic, sustainable change throughout their organization – the kind of change that takes place one brain at a time.
“We knew we had to rethink the way we do business,” explained Lonny Towell, vice president of Supply Chain Management. “We had observed other companies’ success in improving their supply chain, and we decided that focus on Kerr-McGee’s supply chain would enable us to generate competitive advantages within our peer groups.”
Towell and his colleagues recognized two things about their new initiative: few of Kerr-McGee’s 4,400 employees understood the principles of good supply chain management, and all of them would need to become local experts in supply chain concepts to achieve the kind of meaningful and sustainable results Kerr-McGee was planning on. That meant going to the experts to obtain the customized training that would be necessary.
Choosing an educational partner
Towell and his colleagues visited the Henry Center while it was still under construction in fall 2001.“We were looking for the best educational resources for the Kerr-McGee supply chain initiative,” he said. “We could see the tremendous potential of what the Broad School was planning for the Henry Center. “When we came back, after it was finished, it was even better than we had thought: the latest classroom technology, a communications interface that allowed us to stay connected with our operations around the world, and a comfortable environment with no outside distractions. All around a good value.”
Then the Kerr-McGee evaluation committee met the faculty. Donald J. Bowersox, the John H. McConnell University Professor of Business Administration; David Closs, the John H. McConnell Chair in Business Administration; and Bixby Cooper and Gary L. Ragatz, both associate professors in the Broad School’s Marketing and Supply Chain Management Department, and well-known experts on supply chain management.
“What impressed us the most,” said Towell, “is that they were prepared to turn theory into practice, they completely understood how to make the content applicable to our business.”
A unique piece added to the program during early planning was a section on strategic change and leadership. Broad School Dean Robert B. Duncan commented, “Once we understood the kind of change Kerr-McGee needed to make in their organization, the solution became clear. They needed to build crossfunctional managerial knowledge about supply chain management and about how to create a culture that supports strategic change. We wanted to show them how a collaborative environment can enhance a company’s competitive advantage beyond a streamlined supply chain."
Kerr-McGee Spartans, in-house real change leaders
To date, more than 250 Kerr-McGee employees have been through the week-long customized supply chain management program. To these participants goes the job of reaching – and teaching – the remainder of the corporation’s employees about new ideas to apply supply chain management to their business.“We have implemented internal communications programs,” says Towell, “to extend this learning. All who have had the benefit of the Broad School experience become part of the ‘Supply Chain Spartans.’ This peer-to-peer learning group is already having a strong impact. Just in the first few months of our effort, the company can document millions of dollars in savings.”
The Broad School’s Executive Development Programs team continues to support the learning efforts with a continuous flow of information. “We send everyone back to their jobs with the ubiquitous binder from the seminar series,” says Little. “But they also get all of the presentations and breakout group reports duplicated on a CD, so they can easily use them for their own ‘knowledge transfer’ to their work groups and suppliers. That follow-through is key to this learning process.”
Broad Executive Seminar helps business leaders develop new strategies
Once each year, senior executives have the opportunity to participate in the Broad Executive Seminar, a week-long, intensive program designed to help business leaders become “strategic change leaders.” According to Gil Harrell, professor of Marketing and faculty lead for the seminar, “The program brings all of the pieces together: the key knowledge components for enhancing an organization’s competitive advantage and the leadership skills that make these changes happen.”
The program also reflects the changing business environment.
This year the group read Why Smart Executives Fail: And What
You Can Learn from Their Mistakes, by Sidney Finklestein, for
their session on strategic change leadership. “Our goal is to
expand participants’ cross-functional managerial knowledge,”
says Harrell. “We want to be sure we’re challenging these
executives as well as stretching ourselves as faculty members.”
See www.bus.msu.edu/execed