Executive education is many things.
It ranges from senior executives going back to school for their MBAs to fast-rising leaders within your company learning new skill sets to the CFO attending an in-depth seminar on new accounting guidelines.
“Executive education is really built on the premise that the half-life of knowledge is changing dramatically,” says Ken Bardach, associate dean of executive education at Case Western Reserve University. “If you go back half a century, the model was, ‘You go to school and learn everything you would need to know.’ There might be an occasional seminar if you were moving up the executive ranks, but by and large, it was an apprenticeship model built on a static view of the world. You would learn everything you need to know from your boss, because the boss knows everything, then one day the boss would die and you would get to do it.
“What’s really happened, and what universities understand is that knowledge is changing rapidly. Companies hire young MBAs because that’s the source of new information. They want to shake things out. It’s recognition that knowledge is changing rapidly.”
So if you’re in the midst of your career, what do you do? You have to update your knowledge.
“You have to provide the managers and executives with a way to relook at the world and pick up new knowledge and perspectives,” says Bardach. “In today’s world, a lot of the asset base of many companies is knowledge. So how do you keep upgrading assets?
“You either hire new people or you take the people with a proven track record and help them so they can become more accomplished.”
The programs vary widely to match the needs of the business community.
“We deliver our executive education through a multitude of different distribution channels,” says Cindy Welch, program officer for the Center for Executive Education and Development at Kent State University. “We do customized training programs where a company comes to us with a specific problem and we develop a program within those parameters.
“We have managers who have been identified as high flyers by the company that need more skills to move forward. We work with companies to provide improved production or train them on lean manufacturing. Programs range from one person to dealing with a large organization where you have to change the entire culture.”
Who pays for these executive programs depends on whether the company sees a direct benefit.
“An important distinction is whether it’s a perk or a benefit or a special development experience,” says Bardach. “Someone who says that they want to grow talent within the company and anyone that wants to get an MBA and make a commitment to study and stay with the company will get reimbursed, then I call that a benefit. A perk might be an individual at a high level that’s being groomed for a new job and given an MBA through an executive MBA program. If it’s developmental like that, then 99 percent of the time the company will pay for it.
“If it’s individual growth, then sometimes the company pays for all or part of it, and sometimes the executive has to pay.”
Executives interested in expanding their knowledge base should understand that this isn’t like college all over again.
“I think sometimes people misunderstand executive education and think that this is the stuff they did when they were in school before,” says Welch. “They think they’ll just sit in a class and listen to a lecture. These courses are designed for the adult learner. They are supposed to be entertaining, enlightening and building on your expertise through panels, debates and feedback. They are very interactive.”
Bardach agrees.
“CEOs are learning from each other,” says Bardach. “There is no bilateral exchange, it’s all multilateral. One of the exciting aspects of learning in an executive program is they are not there passively learning from a faculty member. They are interchanging ideas with one another.
“All the people involved are coming from different contexts but with similar problems, and they are sharing their experiences. It’s not just theory, but best practices.” How to reach: Case Western, www.weatherhead.cwru.edu; Kent State, www.business.kent.edu/CEED
