The importance of executive education has been increasing for several reasons, the most important one being the need to be in sync with the changing business environment and new challenges that the economies and organisation are facing. One of the driving forces of this is the increasing VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) in the world around us. Future of enterprises and business leaders can change quickly due to the rapid pace of technological and business model innovation and disruption of industries caused by technologies such as automation, artificial intelligence, and virtual and augmented reality. At other times, this is driven by sweeping regulatory changes.
These changes are necessitating a change in the leadership perspective as well, and new leaders should be well-versed in driving innovation to make sure that they can lead their organisations through turbulent times. They need to lead the old guard and the millennials, and make a place for themselves against all odds, including potential obsolescence of their business. These require a constant upgrade of knowledge and skills. Executive education has stepped in to fill these strategic gaps. Hence, the quality of curriculum, faculty and peer group is of paramount importance in pursuing a programme.
Unfortunately, like everything else, the business of education takes over when it comes to providing executive education that is transformative and makes a difference to the career growth and personal development of candidates. Business schools around the country have jumped on the bandwagon and everyone is providing courses on hot topics such as leadership, innovation, AI and VR. However, only a few, that have the requisite depth of knowledge within faculty, real world experience and an ongoing connection to industry can make a difference. What most b-schools are doing is repackaging of old ideas and borrowed PPTs that are being delivered by faculty who struggle to keep pace.
The top research schools around the world, who are leading a change through their cutting-edge research, and are able to bring it to the participants in classrooms, are the real go-to places. They are relatively expensive, but they deliver. The Chicago Booth ADP (University of Chicago Booth School of Business) participants recently spent a day with Randall S. Kroszner, a former board member of governors of the US Federal Reserve, and had an evening discussion with Raghuram Rajan, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India and former chief economist of IMF. Similarly, the Yale GELP (Yale School of Management) Program hosts a real CEO summit with about 50 CEOs (mostly from Fortune 500 companies) and 200 senior executives in attendance in New York, led by faculty director Jeffrey Sonnenfeld. The Berkeley EPM (University of California Berkeley, Haas School of Business) programme hosts a Silicon Valley immersion where participants see innovation in practice within a corporate innovation centre.
Prospective participants of executive programmes need to ask tough questions on who is teaching them, what do they bring to the table, what is the reputation of the university, who are in the peer group, along with benefits such as the strength of the alumni network to which they will belong. Once they start going into details, they will realise that only the programmes from top global universities make the cut and can help them enhance their careers. Sure, some of the yearlong IIM programmes as well as select ISB programmes make the cut into this elite league of transformative programmes, except for providing a deep global perspective.
To conclude, participants should choose an immersive long-term programme that provides great curriculum and experiences, and delivered by world class faculty who are connected with industry and research, and a university brand that is among the best in the world. Alternatively, to get initiated to a narrow area of learning, they could choose a programme from practitioners or faculty who are well known and at the cutting edge of their chosen area.
Mohit Jain is managing director of Northwest Executive Education.
