CEO-MAG.COM
THE COST OF NOT GETTING AN MBA
/ SPRING 2022
THE USE – AND MISUSE – OF PURPOSE
RUTGERS: MORE THAN JUST AN EMBA POWERHOUSE
HOW PRODUCTIVE ARE YOU, HONESTLY?
THE TRULY GLOBAL MBA
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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THE COST OF NOT GETTING AN MBA - THE DEGREE THAT PAYS FOR ITSELF, AND THEN SOME Australian Institute of Business
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GLOBAL MBA RANKINGS CEO Magazine
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THE THREE KINDS OF INTUITION YOU NEED TO MAKE TOUGH DECISIONS Mark C. Crowley
WE MEAN BUSINESS: HANDS-ON LEARNING FOR HIGHER EDUCATION EU Business School
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THE USE – AND MISUSE – OF PURPOSE Ranjay Gulati
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RUTGERS: MORE THAN JUST AN EMBA POWERHOUSE Farrokh Langdana
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HOW PRODUCTIVE ARE YOU, HONESTLY? Howard Yu
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ceo-mag.com / Autumn 2021
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LEADING FROM THE FRONT: THE TELFER EXECUTIVE MBA Telfer Executive MBA Team
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THE TRULY GLOBAL MBA Andres Gallo
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RUTGERS EXECUTIVE MBA Welcome to the Powerhouse! • Elite faculty • Globally ranked • Dynamic curriculum I feel like this is my program, this is my school, I feel really proud to be here and make the whole class just elevate it’s game. - Chris Tsakalos, EMBA 2020
business.rutgers.edu/emba
ceo-mag.com / Winter 2022
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YOUR POSTGRADUATE PROGRAM, YOUR WAY AT JACKSONVILLE UNIVERSITY’S DAVIS COLLEGE OF BUSINESS Jacksonville University
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6 ceo-mag.com / Autumn 2016
DON’T DESPAIR IN THE HYBRID WORKPLACE knowledge@wharton
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participants to interact with well as with teachers and spe As restrictions are being l again increasing face-to-face is a priority to make sure we of technology and all its bene incorporating what we've dis best during periods of lockdo
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Q. To what extent has the pa impacted the immersive lea ISEG’S VALUE-ADDED MBA you offer, and how do you co Paulo Soeiro de Carvalho students engaged? Due to Covid-19 restriction immersive learning experien deferred, or in some instance virtual format. In these cases the experience as interesting possible by adapting it to the n making sure we kept students constant interaction and activ
EG’S
MBA
SKINNER SPEAKS TO IRO DE C ARVALHO
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e last year, you had BA programme at new strategic learning Futures, Digital Disruption, p & Innovation, Design & ainability & Governance. ges business leaders have st few years, are there programme that have
ep up with market trends novate and improve by ewing and updating the
hem to the realities of For instance, we recently ndfulness for Business' tudents to better understand otential for adaptation and
students and faculty ew normal’, and what does look like for 8 ISEG? al created numerous explore new formats and
ARE WE REALLY MORE PRODUCTIVE WORKING FROM HOME? Rebecca Stropoli
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Q. With many schools now o on-campus and online teach future of executive educatio model ISEG will be following In the event that a student sick or cannot make it to clas professional or personal com are able to watch classes onli restrictions are being lifted a our students to be on campus encourage participants to att as there are experiences and cannot be thoroughly replica they would be missing out on experience if they watched o
Q (a). The pandemic has forced to rethink their career paths, s readiness. With this in mind, d increased demand for the ISEG In times of hardship, profe feel the need to elevate their
to gain access to new opportu an MBA is an excellent way t students get to expand their k not only in management but a technology, innovation, desig ceo-mag.com / Spring 2022 and sustainability. At ISEG M added to this by including the
CEO Victor J. Callender Group Editor-in-Chief Alexandra Skinner Design & Illustration pentacreate.com Financial Controller Anthony Gordon
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Master of Business Administration program: • communication
MAKE THE EXECUTIVE DECISION TO EARN A
BUSINESS DEGREE AT JACKSONVILLE UNIVERSITY
Scan to Learn More About Our Business Programs
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• Promotes shared learning and networking using a cohort-based format with a shared
Doctor of Business Administration program: • Provides you networking opportunities with successful past DBA graduates and business industry leaders, as well as connecting you with potential postgraduate job opportunities • Competitive scholarship opportunities are available to graduate students in the Davis College of Business & Technology, 9 including assistantships
THE COST OF NOT GETTING AN MBA THE DEGREE THAT PAYS FOR ITSELF, AND THEN SOME A L E X A N D R A S K I N N E R TA L K S TO THE AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS
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ypically, when potential students consider an MBA, cost is one of the key factors when it comes to choosing what to study and with whom. Jo Thomas, CEO of Australian Institute of Business (AIB), told CEO Magazine that the right way to think about the cost is as an investment; therefore, the return on investment (ROI) should influence the decision. “The average MBA in Australia costs $57,353, but that is just one part of the investment. Even though our MBA is significantly less than this, we still encourage students to think about the investment of time as a key factor in making decisions about studying an MBA.”
“Credible and high-profile organisations are known to seek out candidates with an MBA in their recruitment efforts due to the value seen in the specific, strategic knowledge and personal qualities synonymous with an MBA.”
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She gives future students the following advice “You need to determine what you value. For example, do you value new opportunities and overall satisfaction in the quality of your work? Or do you value a bigger salary and growth in future earnings? Fully understanding the costs and the returns from doing an MBA before commencing will ensure you have clarity on your why – and that’s essential for success.” Increasing Your Value, and Your Pay With increased knowledge comes greater capabilities and the ability to perform at a higher level. In short, MBA graduates bring more value to employers and tend to enjoy higher salaries as a result.
AIB MBA SALARY IMPACT
$33,712 Alumni income increased by an average of $33,712.57 since undertaking the MBA
$14,356
Alumni income increased by an average of $14,356.29 during MBA studies
74%
Received an increase in salary since beginning the AIB MBA
$120-$150k
Is the current most reported income range from Australian, Canadian and New Zealand respondents *The insights above were garnered from a 2021 MBA Alumni Insights Survey sent out on 7 October 2021 to 6,853 of AIB’s global MBA alumni who graduated between 2010 and 2021. Respondents were asked to answer 49 questions about their careers and professional experiences. N.B. All figures listed above are in AUD.
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Based on AIB’s graduate data from numerous cohorts, they have developed a tool to calculate the purely financial return on investment from undertaking their Fast-Track MBA.
CALCULATE YOUR MBA ROI WITH AIB’S ROI CALCULATOR
For instance, using the calculator, a graduate between the ages of 45 – 50, who expects to work for 20 years and has a current salary of $100,000 (AUD), could have a return on investment of over $412,000 (AUD) during their working years. For AIB graduate Emily Jimenez, something was missing. Having only worked for a limited number of organisations, she started her MBA to gain more experience and learn, but to her pleasant surprise, she gained a lot more.
“Before I applied for the MBA, I earned roughly $20,000 – $30,000 (AUD) less than when I started studying. So even before I finished the degree, I was getting a huge pay rise. After the first few courses, there was a change in perspective and thinking in my Project Officer role, and my managers could see that, and they appreciated it.” EMILY JIMENEZ, OPERATIONS MANAGER, JOADJA DISTILLERY
Breaking Down Barriers & Accelerating New Business Ventures Starting a business is no easy feat, and with 20% of all new businesses failing in the first year and 60% failing within the first three years, the numbers speak for themselves. A new venture, whether it be setting up a business or consultancy, presents a unique set of challenges as it requires the knowledge 12
of various disciplines to come together cohesively in order to succeed. A Master of Business Administration deepens expertise in fields such as marketing, finance, leadership, human resources, and many more that are the fundamental building blocks to any successful enterprise. AIB graduate David Whiting explains how the practical knowledge he gained through his MBA studies gave him the confidence and skills he needed to take the plunge and start his own consultancy.
“I think the MBA gives you that injection of confidence and skills you need, as well as the credibility. For me, one of the successes of completing my MBA has been the guts to start my own consultancy. For one of my final subjects, I wrote a paper on taking a company into a different industry, and that has come to life, and I’m now taking them through that journey. And it goes to the point of the practicality of AIB’s MBA.” DAVID WHITING, DIRECTOR OF DGW CONSULTING
AIB MBA IMMEDIATE IMPACT
67%
Launched or acquired businesses since starting the MBA
93%
Have been able to apply their MBA to their job or business
* The insights above were garnered from a 2021 MBA Alumni Insights Survey sent out on 7 October 2021 to 6,853 of AIB’s global MBA alumni who graduated between 2010 and 2021. Respondents were asked to answer 49 questions about their careers and professional experiences. ceo-mag.com / Spring 2022
Opportunity, Growth and Path to Promotions Credible and high-profile organisations are known to seek out candidates with an MBA in their recruitment efforts due to the value seen in the specific, strategic knowledge and personal qualities synonymous with an MBA. This gives MBA students and graduates a competitive advantage when seeking their next opportunity. In a 2021 Corporate Recruiter Survey, 91% of employers who were interviewed reported they were planning to hire MBA graduates across all industries, and 80% of the employers had done so in the previous year. AIB graduate Selma Barlow found that post-MBA, her efforts were quickly being realised, and it helped make her an attractive candidate when putting herself forward for new challenging roles and promotions.
“Within the first year of starting the MBA, I got my first promotion; within a couple of years, I switched jobs again, another promotion. It’s given me the confidence to pursue other opportunities and really stretch myself. When you mention you have an MBA, or it’s seen on your resume, it opens doors for you.”
AIB MBA CAREER IMPACT
76%
Have changed job function
74%
Have already achieved their goal of career progression
“As long you put in the hard yards and make the most of it, the value you can get from your MBA is endless.”
* The insights above were garnered from a 2021 MBA Alumni Insights Survey sent out on 1 October 2021 to 11,093 of AIB’s global MBA alumni who graduated between 2010 and 2021. Respondents were asked to answer 40 questions about their careers, MBA outcomes and professional experiences.
Key Takeaway So, in thinking about how to evaluate the ROI from an MBA program, as AIB’s CEO, Jo Thomas, suggests, “it will ultimately come down to your own values and what matters the most to you.” The good news, according to Jo, is that “regardless of your motivation, as long you put in the hard yards and make the most of it, the value you can get from your MBA is endless.”
SELMA BARLOW, COORDINATOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, CITY OF CHARLES STURT
SCHOOL PROFILE
AIB is the largest online MBA provider in Australia, with over 35 years of excellence in tertiary education and a global network of more than 23,000 students, alumni, academics, and industry experts from 95 countries. AIB’s programs are internationally recognised and fully accredited in Australia. AIB’s Fast-Track MBA is designed to support working professionals achieve career outcomes faster and has most recently achieved a Tier One Global status, ranking 8th in Australia and 28th globally by CEO Magazine 2022. ceo-mag.com / Spring 2022
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At Maine’s premier business school, our graduate programs include unique courses and in-demand concentrations to prepare you for whatever comes next in your career.
Learn more at umaine.edu/mba The University of Maine is an EEO/AA employer and does not discriminate on the grounds of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, transgender status, gender expression, national origin, citizenship status, age, disability, genetic information or veteran’s status in employment, education, and all other programs and activities. The following person has been designated to handle inquiries regarding non-discrimination policies: Director of Equal Opportunity, 101 North Stevens Hall, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469-5754, 207.581.1226, TTY 711 ceo-mag.com / Spring 2022 (Maine14Relay System).
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2022 GLOBAL MBA RANKINGS
he benefits attached to an MBA are well documented: career progression, networking opportunities, personal development, salary... and the list goes on. However, in an increasingly congested market, selecting the right business school can be difficult, which is far from ideal given the time and investment involved. Using a ranking system entirely geared and weighted to fact-based criteria, CEO Magazine aims to cut through the noise and provide potential students with a performance benchmark for those schools under review.
Weighting of Data Points (full-time and part-time MBA)
Quality of Faculty:
34.95 %
International Diversity:
9.71%
Class Size:
9.71%
Accreditation:
8.74%
Faculty to Student Ratio: Price:
7.76% 5.83%
International Exposure:
4.85%
Work Experience:
4.85%
Professional Development:
4.85%
Gender Parity:
4.85%
Delivery methods:
3.8% 0%
5%
10 %
15 %
20 %
25 %
30 %
35 %
*EMBA Weighting: Work experience and international diversity are adjusted accordingly. **Online MBA Weighting: Delivery mode and class size are removed.
EUROPEAN MBA RANKINGS Business School Country AIX Marseille Graduate School of Management France Aston Business School UK Audencia Business school France Brunel Business School UK Business School Lausanne Switzerland Business School Netherlands The Netherlands City, University of London: Bayes UK Darmstadt Business School Germany Durham University Business School UK Germany EBS Business School École des Ponts Business School France France Emlyon Business School Spain ESADE Business School EU Business School Germany, Spain and Switzerland GBSB Global Business School Spain Geneva Business School Switzerland France Grenoble Graduate School of Business HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management Germany IFM Business School Switzerland ceo-mag.com / Spring 2022
TIER ONE
Business School Country ISEG Portugal Lancaster Management School UK Leeds University Business School UK Maastricht School of Management The Netherlands Nebrija Business School Spain Newcastle University Business School UK Nyenrode Business University The Netherlands Politecnico di Milano School of Management Italy SBS Swiss Business School Switzerland Portugal The Lisbon MBA Catolica|Nova* Toulouse Business School France India Toulouse Business School (with IMM Bangalore) Trinity College Dublin School of Business Republic of Ireland UBIS University Switzerland United International Belgium, Italy Japan, Business Schools the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland University of Exeter University of Liverpool Management School University of Sheffield Management School
*Some data unavailable
UK UK UK 15
NORTH AMERICAN MBA RANKINGS Business School American University: Kogod Appalachian State University* Ashland University Auburn University: Harbert Baylor University: Hankamer Bentley University: McCallum Boston University: Questrom Bryant University* Butler University California State University-Chico California State University-Long Beach California State University-East Bay California State University-San Bernardino College of William and Mary: Mason Colorado Technical University Concordia University Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins Drake University Florida International University* Florida Southern College School of Business Fordham University George Washington University Georgia State University: Robinson Gonzaga University* HEC Montréal Hofstra University: Zarb* Hult Internatonal Business School Indiana University: Kelley Jacksonville University Kennesaw State University Kent State University Loyola Marymount University Marquette University McMaster University: DeGroote Oakland University Pepperdine University: Graziadio Queens University of Charlotte Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: Lally Rochester Institute of Technology: Saunders Saint Joseph's University: Haub Seattle University: Albers Simon Fraser University: Beedie Suffolk University: Sawyer Texas A&M University-College Station: Mays Texas Christian University: Neeley The GlobalMBA Technische Hochschule, University of Warsaw, Kyungpook National University and University of North Florida
University of Akron University of Alabama: Manderson
Country North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America Canada North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America Canada North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America Canada North America North America North America North America North America North America North America Canada North America North America North America Germany, Poland, South Korea and North America North America North America
TIER ONE
Business School University of Alberta University of Baltimore University of California at Davis University of California-San Diego: Rady University of Cincinnati: Lindner* University of Delaware: Lerner University of Denver: Daniels University of Hawaii-Manoa: Shidler University of Kentucky: Gatton University of Louisiana at Lafayette University of Louisville* University of Maine University of Massachusetts-Boston University of Massachusetts-Lowell University of Massachusetts-Amherst: Isenberg University of Memphis University of Michigan-Flint* University of Nebraska-Omaha University of New Mexico: Anderson* University of North Alabama University of North Carolina-Charlotte: Belk University of North Carolina-Wilmington: Cameron University of Oklahoma: Price University of Oregon: Lundquist University of Pittsburgh: Katz University of Portland: Pamplin University of Richmond: Robins University of South Florida: Muma University of Tampa: Sykes University of Texas at Arlington University of Texas-Dallas : Jindal University of Texas-San Antonio University of the Sciences University of West Georgia University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee: Lubar Virginia Tech: Pamplin Walsh College Willamette University: Atkinson Xavier University
Country Canada North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America
TIER TWO Business School Fairfield University* Northwest Missouri State University Texas State University: McCoy* University of North Texas University of San Diego* Virginia Commonwealth University
Country North America North America North America North America North America North America *Some data unavailable
REST OF THE WORLD MBA RANKINGS Business School Australian Institute of Business Auckland Institute of Studies Central Queensland University Griffith University IAE Business School INCAE Business School* La Trobe University Lagos Business School Macquarie Graduate School of Management Massey University National Chiao Tung University RMIT University Swinburne University of Technology
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Country Australia New Zealand Australia Australia Argentina Costa Rica Australia Nigeria Australia New Zealand Taiwan Australia Australia
TIER ONE
Business School The American University in Cairo The Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) The Univerisity of Newcastle Australia The University of Adelaide Torrens University Australia University of Canterbury University of Chile FEN-CHILE University of Otago Business School University of Pretoria - Gordon Institute of Business Science University of South Australia University of Western Australia Business School University of Wollongong Sydney Business School Victoria Graduate School of Business
*Some data unavailable
Country Egypt Mexico Australia Australia Australia New Zealand Chile New Zealand South Africa Australia Australia Australia Australia
ceo-mag.com / Spring 2022
GLOBAL EXECUTIVE MBA RANKINGS Rank
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 =8 =8 9 10 11 12
Country
University of Ottawa: Telfer Canada The Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) Mexico SBS Swiss Business School Switzerland IFM Business School Switzerland Maastricht School of Management The Netherlands École des Ponts Business School France City, University of London: Bayes UK Rutgers Business School North America University of Texas-San Antonio North America Kennesaw State University North America Emlyon Business School France University of Pretoria - Gordon Institute of Business Science South Africa Global OneMBA (Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV-EAESP); Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM); Tecnológico de Monterrey (EGADE); University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC); and Xiamen University, School of Management (SMXMU))
13 = 14 = 14 15 16 17 18 = 19 = 19 = 20 = 20 21 = 22
Brazil, China, Mexico, the Netherlands and North America Hult Internatonal Business School North America Business School Netherlands The Netherlands Grenoble Graduate School of Business France University of Denver: Daniels North America Swinburne University of Technology Australia Maastricht University The Netherlands Nyenrode Business University The Netherlands Audencia Business school France Purdue University-West Lafayette: Krannert North America Business School Lausanne Switzerland INCAE Business School Costa Rica Trinity College Dublin School of Business Republic of Ireland IMM Global Executive EMBA
(Purdue University-West Lafayette: Krannert, TIAS School for Business and Society Tilburg, Tianjin University, Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV- EBAPE), MIP Politecnico di Milano and ISM University of Management and Economics)
= 22 23 24 = 25 = 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36
North America, the Netherlands, China, Brazil, Italy and Lithuania The American University in Cairo Egypt Georgia State University: Robinson North America University of Texas-Dallas : Jindal North America Massey University New Zealand Villanova University North America University of Wollongong Sydney Business School Australia Concordia University Canada Kent State University North America RMIT University Australia Pepperdine University: Graziadio North America Oakland University North America IfM Institut für Management Austria Simon Fraser University: Beedie EMBA & EMBA-IBL Canada United International Business Schools Switzerland Rochester Institute of Technology: Saunders North America University of Nebraska-Omaha North America
ceo-mag.com / Spring 2022
Rank
Country
37 Baylor University: Hankamer
North America
38 Durham-EBS Executive MBA
Germany and UK
39 Virginia Commonwealth University
North America
40 Texas Christian University: Neeley
North America
41
North America
University of California-San Diego: Rady
42 University of Chile FEN-CHILE
Chile
43 Jacksonville University
North America
44 Boston University: Questrom
North America
45 California State University-East Bay
North America
46 Washington State University: Carson
North America
47 Pontifical Catholic University of Chile 48 University of Texas at Arlington
Chile North America
49 University of North Carolina-Wilmington: Cameron 50 The University of Alabama: Manderson 51
IAE Business School
North America North America Argentina
52 Florida International University*
North America
53 Virginia Tech: Pamplin
North America
54 McMaster University: DeGroote
Canada
55 University of Oklahoma: Price EMBA Energy
North America
56 University of Tampa: Sykes
North America
57 Fordham University
North America
58 University of Oregon
North America
= 59 Texas A&M University-College Station: Mays = 59 University of Bradford School of Management 60 Lagos Business School 61 University of Pittsburgh: Katz 62 University of Alberta 63 Politecnico di Milano School of Management 64 University of South Florida: Muma
North America UK and Dubai Nigeria North America Canada Italy North America
65 University of Oklahoma: Price EMBA Aerospace 66 Loyola Marymount University
North America North America
67 Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins 68 Auburn University: Harbert 69 ESADE Business School
North America North America Spain
70 Suffolk University: Sawyer
North America
71
Saint Joseph's University: Haub
North America
72 College of William and Mary: Mason
North America
73 University of Exeter 74 Seattle University: Albers
UK North America
75 Aston Business School*
UK
76 University of New Mexico: Anderson*
North America
77 Marquette University
North America
78 Xavier University
North America
79 University of Memphis
North America
80 California State University-Long Beach
North America
81 Hofstra University: Zarb*
North America
82 The Lisbon MBA Catolica|Nova*
Portugal
83 University of North Alabama
North America
84 University of Lousiville*
North America
*Some data unavailable
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GLOBAL ONLINE MBA RANKINGS Rank Country 1 EU Business School Germany, Spain and Switzerland 2 Business School Netherlands The Netherlands 3 SBS Swiss Business School Switzerland 4 The University of Liverpool Management School UK = 5 Nebrija Business School Spain Spain = 5 OBS Business School with Universitat de Barcelona 6 United International Business Schools Switzerland 7 Maastricht University The Netherlands 8 University of Otago Business School New Zealand 9 Macquarie Business School Australia 10 Politecnico di Milano School of Management: International Flex EMBA Italy 11 Maastricht School of Management The Netherlands Switzerland = 12 Geneva Business School = 12 University of Business and International Studies Switzerland 13 University of South Australia Australia 14 IAE Business School Argentina Spain 15 GBSB Global Business School 16 Virginia Tech: Pamplin North America New Zealand = 17 Massey University = 17 University of Denver: Daniels North America North America = 18 Jack Welch Management Institute = 18 La Trobe University Australia France, Spain, 19 The EuroMBA (Aix-Marseille, Audencia Nantes, EADA, Poland and the Kozminski University and Maastrict University) Netherlands 20 Politecnico di Milano School of Management: Flex EMBA Italy 21 Griffith University Australia North America 22 Pepperdine University: Graziadio 23 University of Bradford School of Management UK 24 The Open University* UK = 25 Rochester Institute of Technology: Saunders North America = 25 RMIT University EMBA Australia 26 Durham University Business School* UK = 27 RMIT University* Australia = 27 Torrens University Australia Australia = 28 Australian Institute of Business Australia = 28 American University: Kogod North America 29 University of Massachusetts-Lowell North America 30 Queens University of Charlotte North America 31 Ashland University North America 32 Georgia WebMBA (Columbus State University, Georgia College, Georgia Southern University, Kennesaw State University, University of West Georgia, Valdosta State University)
33 34 = 35 = 35 36 = 37 = 37
University of the Sciences Aston Business School* Florida Southern College School of Business University of Massachusetts-Amherst: Isenberg University of North Carolina-Wilmington: Cameron Marquette University Washington State University: Carson
North America North America UK North America North America North America North America North America
GLOBAL DBA LISTING
Country Australia Australia North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America UK North America North America Australia North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America North America Australia North America North America North America
Based upon accreditation, quality of faculty, geography, and international standing, this year’s Global DBA Listing is designed to showcase the market’s premier DBA providers.
Business School Country Aberdeen Business School UK Abu Dhabi University United Arab Emirates Antwerp Management School Belgium Aston Business School UK Athabasca University Canada France Audencia Business School Baruch College, City University of New York: Zicklin North America Beirut Arab University Lebanon Birmingham City University UK Bournemouth University UK Business School Lausanne Switzerland Case Western Reserve University: Weatherhead North America Centrum Graduate Business School Peru City University of Hong Kong China Concordia University Canada Copenhagen Business School Denmark Cranfield School of Management England Creighton University: Heider North America Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins North America DePaul University: Kellstadt North America
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Rank 38 Victoria Graduate School of Business 39 Central Queensland University 40 University of Kentucky: Gatton 41 Walsh College* 42 Baylor University: Hankamer 43 University of Maine = 44 California State University-San Bernardino = 44 Colorado Technical University 45 University of Delaware: Lerner 46 George Washington University 47 University of Cincinnati: Lindner* 48 Saint Joseph's University: Haub EMBA 49 University of Texas at Arlington 50 Saint Joseph's University: Haub 51 University of Texas-Dallas : Jindal 52 University of Baltimore 53 University of Pittsburgh: Katz 54 University of Exeter 55 Bentley University: McCallum 56 College of William and Mary: Mason 57 Swinburne University of Technology = 58 Niagara University = 58 University of Memphis 59 Kent State University 60 University of Oklahoma 61 Xavier University 62 University of Akron 63 Appalachian State University* 64 Seattle University: Albers 65 California State University-Chico 66 University of Michigan - Flint 67 Jacksonville University 68 Drake University 69 Virginia Commonwealth University 70 Oakland University 71 California State University-Long Beach 72 Suffolk University: Sawyer 73 Bryant University* 74 Kennesaw State University 75 DePaul University: Kellstadt 76 University of South Florida: Muma 77 University of Louisville* 78 University of Louisiana at Lafayette 79 Auburn University: Harbert 80 Hofstra University: Zarb* 81 Indiana University: Kelley* 82 University of North Alabama 83 Florida International University* 84 The Univerisity of Newcastle Australia 85 University of North Texas 86 The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater 87 Northwest Missouri State University
Business School Country Drexel University: Lebow North America Durham University Business School UK Ecole Des Ponts Business School France Emlyon Business School France EU Business School Germany, Spain and Switzerland Florida Institute of Technology: Bisk North America Florida International University North America Franklin University North America GBSB Global Business School Spain Georgia State University: Robinson North America Grenoble Graduate School of Business France Heriot Watt University Edinburgh Business School UK Hong Kong Baptist University China Hult International Business school North America IE Business School Spain France, North America, International School of Management China, India, Brazil and South Africa International University of Monaco Monaco IPAG Business School France
*Some data unavailable
ceo-mag.com / Spring 2022
THE THREE KINDS OF INTUITION YOU NEED TO MAKE TOUGH DECISIONS MARK C. CROWLEY
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hanks to Malcolm Gladwell and Nobel Prizewinning economist Daniel Kahneman, we’ve all been sternly warned about the risks of employing intuition when making important decisions. In his book Blink, Gladwell asserts that while our unconscious thinking is “a powerful force, it also can be thrown off, distracted or disabled.” And in his classic, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman stresses that gut instincts can fail us when we unwittingly apply familiar patterns of experience to unrelated circumstances or situations.
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“80% of entrepreneurs intentionally relied on intuition and knowingly integrated it with their cognitive capacities when weighing options.”
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arrest. And within the next hour, it frequently The truth is, most of us have spent a happens. While the nurse may later be unable lifetime developing our rational minds and to explain how she “knew,” through her rely solely upon their counsel when making experience, she learned to identify subtle cues consequential life choices. And we know that such as how a patient is breathing, their color, in business today, innumerable companies or some other signs she locked away in her such as Amazon have placed data at the center unconscious. And when she recognizes these of their corporate cultures - and routinely rely patterns again, she takes quick action. on metrics to find the best ways of growing their businesses. 2. “Implicit Knowledge” Intuition In light of this, it may come as a surprise to When any of us is faced with a new learn that some of the world’s most successful problem, with no experience in solving it, our leaders and innovators intentionally tap into common approach is to think about it, scratch their intuition before making critical decisions. our head a little, and inevitably stop working In his new best seller, How to Lead: on it. But then, while in the shower or out on a Wisdom From the World’s Greatest CEOs, run, we experience a sudden epiphany where, Founders, and Game Changers, Carlyle voilà, we’re guided to the solution. Allowing Group co-chairman David Rubenstein says our minds to process the problem Amazon’s founder and CEO is behind the scenes often provides the actually a perfect example. answers we need. “Jeff Bezos is a brilliant guy who College student Nikola Tesla was has built a great company - a datamocked by one of his professors driven company,” Rubenstein told after he proposed creating the first me recently. “But most people who’ve “Most people become very successful, certainly who’ve become alternating-current-driven motor. Stumped by how to make it, Tesla in the business world, had an idea very successful, and a friend went out for a walk - to - an intuition - that pushed them poetry - and the insight came forward. It wasn’t analysis. Like certainly in the discuss to him. “The idea came like a flash the best decision-makers, Warren Buffett makes investment decisions business world, of lightning,” he wrote, “and in an instant, the truth was revealed.” in minutes. And, in my opinion, if had an idea - an Albert Einstein often stressed the Steve Jobs had relied on analytical value of intuition and described his thinking, he never would have built intuition - that own theories as “free invention of Apple.” pushed them imagination” rather than the result If you’re wondering how great of rigorous analysis. “There are no leaders managed to square their forward. logical paths to these [natural] laws,” data-driven business mindsets with he wrote. a routine reliance upon intuition, it’s Even modern-day real estate because they most often tapped into brokerage tycoon and Shark Tank a kind of intuition that transcends investor, Barbara Corcoran, believes the instinctive, gut-based one she owes much of her success to trusting her about which Gladwell and Kahneman both inner knowing. Here’s how she described it: had concerns. There really are three kinds “You really have to listen to that inside of intuition. An understanding of each will intuition. And it’s kind of weird, I think, for profoundly enhance the success of all your me, because everything in our education future decision-making, not to mention system says listen to your left brain. prevent you from making choices you end up Everything we’re taught is listen, analyze. A regretting. leads to B, leads to C. But in real life, it doesn’t work that way. A leads often to F, and then 1. “Expert Knowledge” Intuition comes back to B. And so, the only piece of “Thinking fast” is where our most your mind that’s able to grasp that, and see the common understanding of intuition comes truth, is your intuition.” in. As Kahneman describes, it operates automatically, quickly, and sometimes 3. “Non-Local” Intuition impulsively. But while Kahneman asserts that According to researchers at the HeartMath gut instincts can be wrong, they can also be Institute, numerous studies have validated the right when applied to familiar patterns and existence of a form of intuition that author and challenges. medical doctor Deepak Chopra says “allows For example, an experienced nurse walks us to eavesdrop on the mind of the universe.” into a hospital room and tells a new nurse While our rational minds operate on the basis that the patient is about to go into cardiac ceo-mag.com / Spring 2022
of our five senses, non-local intuition seems to access not just information stored in our subconscious but also a deep storehouse of knowledge and wisdom, perhaps best described as universal intelligence. Starbucks founder Howard Schultz, for example, always had access to financial analysis and predictive data, but he also proved to have an instinctive feel for what products, store design, and culture he wanted his customers to experience. By his own admission, he routinely acted on his intuition and, in effect, followed his heart. The truth is all of us have intuitive feelings like these all the time, but we’ve been conditioned to ignore or discount them. That’s because they’re an aspect of human intelligence we often don’t believe is appropriate or reliable. Nevertheless, we can all recall times when we overrode an inner voice or feeling that urged us not to take a job, trust another person, or send an email. And we can relate to Oprah Winfrey when she said, “The only times I’ve made mistakes is when I didn’t listen.” Researchers at the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship studied serial entrepreneurs - people who had built
Finally.
A Flexible, Top-Ranked MBA tailored to you! Learn online or in-person and customize your coursework with specialisations in: • Accounting • Business Analytics • Industrial/Organizational Psychology • Supply Chain Management
multiple businesses with great success - and discovered that 80% of them intentionally relied on intuition and knowingly integrated it with their cognitive capacities when weighing options. In other words, they purposely acted on hunches tied to a feeling that it was the right choice and embraced the idea that what they sensed was no less valuable than empirical data and analytics. More than 2,000 years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle said, “Wisdom is intuitive reason combined with scientific knowledge,” a conclusion that reminds us that our minds and hearts are intended to work together. And that’s the important insight successful leaders such as these clearly understand. When faced with an important decision, they run the numbers and perform all the critical analysis. But right before they make the final call, they ask their inner wisdom to weigh in. Most importantly, they routinely trust that whatever feeling it yields will guide them to making the best possible choice there is to make. In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Trust instinct to the end even though you can give no reason.”
BIOGRAPHY
Mark C. Crowley is a best-selling author and a global speaker on employee engagement.
No 1. in Quality of Teaching Poets & Quants
Top 100 Best Online MBA Program U.S. News & World Report
Best Business School to Earn an MBA The Princeton Review
Top 20 Most Innovative Small College Business Departments Business Research Guide
AACSB Accredited
Accreditation earned by less than five percent of business schools
Get started at flsouthern.edu/mba Finish in as little as 12 months
ceo-mag.com / Spring 2022
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WE MEAN BUSINESS: HANDS-ON LEARNING FOR HIGHER EDUCATION EU BUSINESS SCHOOL
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any traditional methods of teaching focus on imparting new skills via theoretical routes, principally through textbooks, classroom lectures and exams. Such systems have long been held as the gold standard of educational strategies, having been developed and refined over centuries of didactic trial and error. As a result, the model of a teacher providing spoken instruction to a group of students has become ubiquitous in modern education. But is there a more effective alternative? Enter the hands-on learning approach.
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The benefits of getting involved Previously dismissed as a compensatory option for students unwilling to focus on written exercises, experiential learning has gained considerable traction recently as an effective way of optimising the learning process across multiple areas of study. By directly engaging with a working environment, students are able to observe actions and their accompanying consequences, shifting the learning experience from the realm of the abstract into accessible skills. In a similar way that we learn to ride a bicycle by physically peddling, many students find that the kinetic, more tangible, elements of learning by doing means that they are able to internalise memories more easily. Active experimentation comprises the final stage of renowned US educational theorist, David A. Kolb’s experiential learning model, in which students undertake concrete tasks that subsequently form "the basis for observation and reflection.” Experiences are converted into easily recalled reference points, which can serve as a compass for students following the completion of their studies, providing them with a model for learning throughout the length of their careers. While Kolb’s model can be applied at any level of study, it is a particularly useful antidote to the heavy academic approach favoured by many higher education institutions. This is not to say that theoretical lessons have been rendered obsolete by new research. The integrative approach allows practice and theory to reinforce one another, strengthening a student’s skills in a holistic manner and promoting greater understanding of a topic overall. EU Business School imparts classes using the case study method, allowing students to access real-world data as a core facet of their academic life. There are also practical advantages of experiential learning for both student and teacher. Due to the fascination generated by a new space – or simply the need to remain aware of workplace hazards – the level of student attention is often increased during an onsite visit. As a result, instructors are able to dedicate less time and energy towards corralling the attention of the group, increasing participation and interest simply by changing the scene. In addition, feedback on student performance can be provided immediately, assisting in the formation of neural connections responsible for creating new memories.
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Good for business? Due to the inherent flexibility of the approach, hands-on learning methods can be successfully applied across a wide range of subjects. But what about specific benefits for those studying for business qualifications? Studies have demonstrated that people retain information with greater ease and clarity if it pertains to their own experience. By having the opportunity to ‘put themselves in the picture’, such as during an onsite company visit, a student’s learning becomes personalised, increasing their ability to understand unfamiliar processes. This is particularly useful when it comes to grasping complex concepts. For example, asset volatility data – which may appear impenetrable when viewed in graph form within the pages of a textbook – is made accessible by seeing it unfold in real-time during a visit to the stock exchange. Field trips thus form an integral part of academic curricula at the most forward-thinking higher education institutions, such as EU Business School (EU). It incorporates company visits to well-known businesses and organisations, including HP, SAP, Nestlé, Barcelona’s 3D Incubator, and the United Nations Office in Geneva, among many others, into its programmes. These visits bring theory to life, giving students the opportunity to see real-world business operations and gain insights into the inner workings of a wide range of companies and organisations. In addition to acquiring new information, students undertaking hands-on learning are encouraged to bring their prior skills and experiences to the situation at hand. The discipline involved in practising a musical instrument, the teamwork necessary for playing basketball, or the patience and attention to detail required for mastering culinary skills, for example, can all be reapplied to a business case study exercise in order to obtain the optimal analysis and solution. In doing so, each student is provided with the chance to incorporate skills that they have developed outside of the classroom within their studies, enriching the learning process of their peers. This cross-referencing of skills and experiences in order to apply them to novel business problems allows students to expand their capacity for flexible thought. With its abundance of multicultural perspectives, EU Business School’s international environment helps forge the habit of devising multiple, unique responses to corporate issues. This
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“Experiential learning within higher education offers an important stepping stone between the classroom and the office floor. Serving as a sort of controlled middle ground, students can commit errors whilst learning to navigate a work environment without the fear of losing an auspicious internship or hard-won entry position.”
approach not only allows students to garner success during the exam period, or later within their chosen field, but also fosters the revolutionary thinking required to disrupt and transform industries. The importance of soft skills and failing to succeed Beyond enhancing their working knowledge of their chosen field, observing company employees in action also allows students to obtain a deeper appreciation of the skills and qualities that their course of study aims to develop. Seeing flexibility, clear communication, patience and critical thinking translate into favourable business results can serve as a much-needed form of encouragement and inspiration during difficult periods of study. With many industries currently experiencing growing trends towards ethical transparency and organisational empathy, hands-on learning helps to ensure that essential soft skills are not neglected in favour of a harder, proficiency-oriented mindset. Experiential learning within higher education offers an important stepping stone between the classroom and the office floor. Serving as a sort of controlled middle ground, students can commit errors whilst learning
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to navigate a work environment without the fear of losing an auspicious internship or hard-won entry position. Indeed, such mistakes constitute a valuable part of the learning process. As author and former editorin-chief of USA Today, Joanne Lipman, noted during an exclusive Learning From Leaders conference for EU Business School students, “the person you become, you become that way at least as much because of the failures as because of the successes.” Theory vs practice With regard to job preparation, hands-on learning approaches also serve to highlight inevitable workplace realities. A common finding for many students is that, while an operational process may function perfectly well on paper, it may not transition seamlessly to a real-world work environment due to a variety of reasons. This is critically important knowledge for those looking to move into managerial and directorial positions as part of their career. Among the variables that can influence the success of a project, the human factor is perhaps one of the most unpredictable to take into account. Experiential learning places emphasis on clear, respectful communication, with instructors encouraging teams to work
ceo-mag.com / Spring 2022
“Seeing flexibility, clear communication, patience and critical thinking translate into favourable business results can serve as a much-needed form of encouragement and inspiration during difficult periods of study.”
towards goals and solutions that are beneficial to all members of the group involved. EU Business School regularly hosts conferences by top business executives, giving students the opportunity to embrace advice and guidance from those who have carved paths to the roles that they themselves are preparing to enter. Speaking to EU students, Bentley CEO, Adrian Hallmark, emphasised the importance of remaining in touch with employee experience whilst holding a privileged position: “Make sure you’re the person you’d like to be working for.”
experience a variety of different working environments may find it easier to narrow down their preferred specialisation with greater accuracy. This allows them to focus more time on the areas of study that truly interest and engage them. The contact with industry professionals that occurs as part of an experience-based learning process also has the practical advantage of forging early networks, giving students a head start on the essential connections and relationships that form the foundations of a successful career in business, regardless of the sector in question.
In the know and ready to grow While the abilities to remain flexible and work well with others are a premium across all areas of business, certain skills are given more weight depending on the business sector in question. For a student undertaking a master’s degree in PR and Communications, it can be highly advantageous to observe conflict resolution taking place in the HR office. Finance students may obtain a taste of the fast-paced, high-pressure environments that they will likely be employed in following the completion of their studies, helping to prevent a shock to the system post-graduation. A business student with the opportunity to
Learning for the real world EU Business School students can expect to live their education. Intercampus exchanges, company visits and experiential weeks provide an abundance of stimulating opportunities for personal and professional growth. Our faculty comprises entrepreneurial experts with demonstrated business experience in their fields, with all curricula continually monitored and updated in accordance with industry advancements. Classroom lectures are interwoven with talks and workshops from top corporate executives and successful EU alumni – the people who know that there truly is no substitute for experience.
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BUSINESS SCHOOL PROFILE
EU Business School (EU) has been educating future entrepreneurs and business leaders since 1973. We offer innovative foundation, bachelor’s, master’s and MBA programmes on our campuses in Barcelona, Geneva, Montreux and Munich, as well as online. We believe in hands-on, pragmatic learning that will give you the real-world skills to excel in the workplace of the future.
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THE USE – AND MISUSE – OF PURPOSE R A N J AY G U L AT I
The purpose of a business is to increase shareholder value.
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ack in the 80s and 90s, it was hardly controversial for CEOs to make this assertion. In fact, in some circles, it was considered irresponsible for them to argue otherwise. Fortunately, times have changed. Now, there is growing consensus that a corporation’s purpose should encompass not only its shareholder value, but also its impact on employees, customers, suppliers and society itself. This forces leaders to think about the long-term value proposition of their business, which in turn impels them to consider the role of multiple stakeholders. Rising in prominence along with this enlightened view has been the corporate purpose statement. It seems that no company website is now complete without one. By adopting a purpose statement (or its close cousin, the mission statement) a company signals that it cares about much more than its own financial gain; it is also concerned about such issues as climate change, sustainability, diversity and inclusion, and poverty. ceo-mag.com / Spring 2022
These days, it is common for executives to invoke purpose when announcing a new strategy, introducing a new product, or releasing their financial results. Companies are stepping all over themselves, it seems, to prove that they are making the world a better place. The idea of corporate purpose may seem recent and trendy, but in fact, it is many centuries old. In England in the 1600s, businesses received charters from the government that required them to state their purpose. The purpose was expected to be both commercial and social, and it was legally binding. As charters began to be replaced by articles of incorporation, the explicit legal connection between public and private realms dissipated, and along with it, so did the idea of purpose. The psychologist William Damon has written that “purpose is a stable and generalized intention to accomplish something that is at the same time meaningful to the self and consequential for the world beyond the self.” This concept has an inward and outward-looking component that can apply to both individuals and organizations. For organizations, then, the question to ask is: Why is my company here? And then, they must engage deeply with the answer. As someone who has championed the need for corporate purpose, you’d think I would be thrilled that so many companies are jumping on the purpose bandwagon. But I’m not. That’s because most executives fail to embed purpose into their day-to-day operations. They craft noble-sounding purpose statements and then proceed to pursue – and trumpet – their purpose only when it’s convenient for them. A profound cynicism underlies this superficial behavior. It is based on a faulty assumption: if a company wholeheartedly pursues purpose, its performance is bound to suffer. Purpose is thus viewed as a tax on a business. In fact, though, my research has revealed that just the opposite is true. When a company makes purpose part and parcel of its operating system, its executives are forced to make difficult decisions that consider a range of stakeholders. Yes, from time to time some of these stakeholders might have to take a short-term hit. But purpose serves as a forcing mechanism that ultimately promotes long-term health. Efforts are afoot to find empirical connections between corporate purpose and corporate performance. Already, there are strong indicators that purpose can indeed enhance performance – but only if it is pursued in a sincere and meaningful way, through what I call “deep purpose.” If purpose
“Purpose has now become a dangerous game for leaders to play. Business observers, customers, and even employees are now quick to call a company out when it deviates from its earnestly stated purpose.”
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“Too many CEOs still cynically view purpose as a tax on doing business. I’m hoping our newest crop of MBAs and future leaders will be able to pierce through the hypocrisy that surrounds corporate purpose and harness it as a way to confer both financial and societal good.”
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is pursued only superficially, leaders will see it merely as a reputation management exercise. I have found that truly embracing purpose yields performance advantages that emerge in four distinct ways. When these four levers are operating in tandem, the effect is transformative. ● DIRECTIONAL: Purpose is a kind of “North Star,” serving as a reliable guide during times of strategic and moral uncertainty. It may not give you an explicit answer, but it will firmly orient you as you feel pulled in different directions by competing interests. ● RELATIONAL: Purposeful actions generate trust, building long-term relationships with all stakeholders. These partnerships are more likely to weather setbacks because the players are convinced that their participation is valued – and for more than narrow and shortterm commercial reasons. ● REPUTATIONAL: Purpose instills trust in a company’s products and services that in turn leads to long-term customer loyalty. Brand research has shown that customers – and especially younger ones – are more likely to buy products and services from companies that share their beliefs and contribute to the societal good. ● MOTIVATIONAL: Purpose inspires employees to feel an emotional connection with their employer that causes them to put extra effort into their work. Purpose is a generative force that, by its very nature, leads to greater productivity. The motivational benefits of purpose are particularly relevant now amid recent upheavals in the labor market. What some have called the “Great Reshuffle” has seen an unprecedented number of workers quit or change their jobs. The pandemic ushered in a period of soul-searching that led many people to reassess all aspects of their lives. According to a survey by McKinsey, nearly half of employees in the U.S. said the pandemic had caused them to rethink the type of work that they do. More people – and especially millennials – want to work for an employer that truly embraces purpose, the survey found. Employees are leaving companies whose commitment to purpose they find lacking. And they can because they now have the upper hand in the current labor market. This gives a major advantage to companies that have shown a commitment to purpose. But purpose talk is cheap. Acting on purpose is hard. To really bring about change, purpose must be more than a purpose statement. Purpose is about what you do, not what you say you believe. I very much wanted to call my book
“Purpose” instead of “Deep Purpose.” I thought the one-word title would pack more of a punch. But then I realized that I couldn’t go with a single word because so many companies have hijacked the word purpose for their own convenient ends. The frequent misuse of purpose has created confusion around the idea – and hindered the lasting benefits that it can offer. Many executives apparently do not believe that purpose can be truly beneficial to their firms. I have found that companies practice convenient purpose because they remain confused not only about what purpose really is, but how they can bring it to life in their organizations. This is because they think they can take a vapid corporate slogan, full of high-minded yet ultimately empty words, and somehow make it real. It’s an attitude that can lead to random social projects undertaken to placate restless stakeholders. And yet these efforts can be easily identified from the outside as virtue posturing. Purpose has now become a dangerous game for leaders to play. Business observers, customers, and even employees are now quick to call a company out when it deviates from its earnestly stated purpose. Spotify. Disney. Facebook. As one would expect, each of these companies has crafted a purpose or mission statement. Spotify seeks to “unlock the potential of human creativity.” Disney wants to “entertain, inform and inspire people around the globe.” Facebook strives to “give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.” But when Spotify experienced widespread criticism and boycotts over its popular but controversial Joe Rogan podcast, its CEO waffled and obfuscated in a way that seemed to show he did not have the orienting North Star of a purpose to guide his response. And when Disney World found itself caught between LGBTQ supporters and conservative groups over what opponents have called the “Don’t Say Gay” law in Florida, its inconsistent actions ended up angering everyone. Facebook is another company that has made frequent use of what I call convenient purpose. Looking at Facebook’s erratic actions over time, it seems clear that it is unwilling to give up the profits that pour in from higher user engagement (in the form of advertising dollars), no matter how invidious the source. Its brand reputation has suffered as a result of its shallow commitment to purpose. Employees, customers, and the general public can easily detect when professions of purpose are shallow. Cynicism takes hold when they see a disconnect between a company’s purpose statement and its realceo-mag.com / Spring 2022
world behavior. Because purpose statements are so often misused, this cynicism has become widespread. And it overshadows the real value that purpose can offer. Deep purpose allows businesses to thrive financially while also having a positive impact on customers, employees, communities, and the planet. It is time for more companies to commit to melding the commercial and social purpose of their operations – if no longer in a legally binding way, then in a morally binding one. This could mean that leaders will need to become activists in ways they never were in the past. By staking a clear moral ground, they may risk offending some people while instilling loyalty and admiration in others. When executives commit to deep rather than merely convenient purpose, they know they will sometimes need to make painful short-term tradeoffs as they work to serve the long-term needs of their multiple stakeholders. I saw difficult tradeoffs at play when I studied Gotham Greens, a grower and distributor of fresh produce. It seeks to create “new ways to farm, produce local food, revitalize communities and innovate for a sustainable future.” Committed to reducing environmental waste, the company at first wanted to use
compostable packaging for its products. But it soon found that its greens wilted much sooner than if they were packaged in single-use plastic containers. And delivering greens with no packaging at all was very unpopular with customers. The CEO, Viraj Puri, knew the company would face criticism for its decision to use single-use plastic. But after extensive study, he found that the environmental harm from food waste using compostable packaging was greater than the harm from using plastic that preserved the food for much longer. Puri is not giving up on his goal to use more planet-friendly packaging. He is continuing to explore viable alternatives, and he hopes the packaging calculus will change someday, in step with advances in science and industry buy-in. Puri’s decision on packaging was inconvenient and also principled. Leaders like Puri know that companies that prize short-term benefits over long-term purpose do so at their peril. My research has shown that when leaders look to purpose as their “North Star,” they can steer their way to long-term health, even as they face the most trying times. Too many CEOs still cynically view purpose as a tax on doing business. I’m hoping our newest crop of MBAs and future leaders will be able to pierce through the hypocrisy that surrounds corporate purpose and harness it as a way to confer both financial and societal good. BIOGRAPHY
Ranjay Gulati is the Paul R. Lawrence MBA Class of 1942 Professor and the former Unit Head of the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. Until recently, he chaired the Advanced Management Program, the flagship senior leader executive program at the school. Ranjay’s new book, Deep Purpose, is available now (Penguin Business).
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RUTGERS: MORE THAN
JUST AN EMBA POWERHOUSE
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ALEXANDRA SKINNER SPEAKS TO FARROKH L ANGDANA Q. As a top-tier EMBA, potential students expect rigour, but what does this look like in terms of pre-class preparation, time on campus, wider reading, etc.? At Rutgers Executive MBA, also known as The Powerhouse, our students come from extraordinarily diverse backgrounds. Aside from the usual corporate executives and managers, we have curators of museums and directors of ballet, just to cite some examples. Given this diversity, we at Rutgers EMBA start from scratch in every subject once the fall semester begins. To bring everyone up to speed, we offer a short ‘Math Prep’ course prior to the commencement of the programme where we review all the math that is really necessary. We also offer a basic Excel course for those who could use a refresher. Q (a). In regards to curriculum, typically, EMBAs follow a fixed pathway, which certainly makes life easier for faculty; however, you have resisted this trend opting instead to update your curriculum as market trends and the needs of your students require. Can you walk me through how this works and what this means for your students? Given the rapidly changing global business workplace, and even more so, post-Covid, we simply do not have the option of having a static curriculum. The Rutgers EMBA team is ‘embedded’ with our EMBAs on every class day and at every class meal. The feedback, suggestions, and requests from students are promptly noted, and once we ascertain that we do indeed have a ‘critical mass’ of current students who are very interested in a current topic, digital transformation or data analytics, for example, then we deploy rapidly. Our promise to our students is to deliver curricular changes while they are still with us in the four-semester programme. This is indeed a very tight window, but we at The Powerhouse have always delivered. Being nimble in terms of curricular change makes for a great and literally rewarding experience for our students; to be honest, it is exhausting work. Any EMBA programme can add a new module; this is the easy part. Finding the right professor who is a subject-matter expert and who can also leverage the inherent experiences of some of the participants to enrich the class is the hard part. At The Powerhouse, it is only this calibre of professor that we deploy, hence our consistently high global rankings.
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“The secret of our success is really quite simple. During the four semesters (20 months) the students spend at The Rutgers EMBA Powerhouse, our only goal is to constantly deliver a programme that will (i) not waste their valuable time and (ii) add value to their lives. Plain and simple.”
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“The goal is to integrate subjects like big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain and digital transformation into all aspects of Rutgers EMBA education. Constant and relentless upgrading is our mantra, and we take this very seriously.”
Q (b). Looking back over the last two years, what have your curriculum updates and upgrades encompassed? The Leadership course is now multifaceted and taught by six different professors who specialise in different aspects of global leadership. These range from leading teams virtually across different cultures and time zones, crisis leadership, and presentation skills for communicating effectively with not just employees but also the media and board members. Other examples include a whole course on digital transformation strategy, a short module on innovation strategy, and a greater emphasis on trade wars in the global macroeconomics course. In addition, we now have an elective on ETFs and portfolio strategy, electives on start-up strategy and social media marketing, and a new ‘prologue to big data’ course in the first semester, to list just a few of our constant curricular upgrades. Q. You have talked about the Rutgers EMBA being student-centric; is this the secret to your success, and what does this mean in terms of faculty-student relationships and support during and after the EMBA? The secret to our success is really quite simple. During the four semesters (20 months) the students spend at The Rutgers EMBA Powerhouse, our only goal is to constantly deliver a programme that will (i) not waste their valuable time and (ii) add value to their lives. Plain and simple. This has been our only goal, and while exhausting, it has been exceedingly rewarding. The rankings, while excellent, were never the primary objective. They were (and are) the organic and endogenous reward of Team EMBA delivering on its promises. Q. The networking opportunities attached to an EMBA are significant; however, the pandemic attenuated these opportunities as schools were forced to move delivery online. Can you expand upon your current delivery method? Aside from two courses in the spring, we are back in person. In fact, sixteen out of eighteen courses are in person. It wasn’t just the networking that suffered while we were driven online by Covid; the learning suffered too. The programme requires about 10 years of experience as part of the admission criteria, but on average, at Rutgers EMBA, our students have 12-14 years of experience. Given this large residual amount of experience embedded in the class, much of the learning is also between students learning from each other. It was this aspect that suffered while we were online, so we are very thrilled to be back in person and in class.
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Q. You are based in Newark and New Brunswick and, as a corollary, have some well-known b-school neighbours, which are priced considerably higher than Rutgers Business School. Given the success your EMBA continues to enjoy, will the cost be increasing? It all begins at the top. Starting with Dean Lei, the head of Rutgers Business school, and then down to Team EMBA, our primary goal has been, as discussed earlier, to improve the quality of life of our graduates. Period. A relentless attempt to maximise profits by charging exorbitant and ever-increasing rates of tuition is not our objective function; it is as simple as that. Now, keep in mind, with the excess demand for the Rutgers EMBA, and given our full classes (pre-Covid), we could have certainly increased tuition, but we did not, nor do we intend to for 2022-23 either. As the director of the programme, I have spoken to the spouses/partners of prospective students about the cost implications of the programme on nest eggs and kids’ college funds, and having ‘been there’ myself, I can really relate to the challenges they face. Q. In continuing to think about neighbours, you have no shortage of large corporates on your doorstep. What does this mean for the EMBA in regards to corporate partnerships, and what influence do these partnerships have on your curriculum and the learning experience as it relates to your students? We have graduates from virtually every major corporation, but not just large ones, even small, family-run organisations, notfor-profits, and certainly from the US armed forces; we graduated three US Army colonels just recently. However, our curriculum is impervious to the companies that employ our students. Our only focus is the students themselves and the skills and topics they need to ‘nail it’ in the business world right now. Our mantra has been, “we will give ceo-mag.com / Spring 2022
you in class today what you will use in the real world next week.” All our curricular tweaks and upgrades originate from student feedback, or from EMBA faculty who in turn transmit student feedback to Team EMBA. We then strive to incorporate this feedback with appropriate curricular upgrades within that short four-semester window in the programme. Q. Having made the decision to apply to the Rutgers EMBA, what do potential students need to be aware of in terms of entry requirements, and can you offer any tips? Some of the courses need Excel proficiency. We offer two optional Excel workshops: the introductory one in the first few weeks of the first semester and an advanced Excel workshop in the second year in preparation for the advanced strategy and finance courses. The interview with me (the director) is simply a meeting to get to know each other better. The whole admissions process is highly streamlined. Applicants must realise, however, that the programme does include ‘heavy lifting’, and they should expect to put in 10-15 hours of work per week in addition to class time. Q. What can students expect to take away from the Rutgers EMBA? What can students expect to ‘take away’? Three things: (i) A vast toolbox of very current and powerful tools and skills to really succeed at work, (ii) an extremely strong and thriving Powerhouse alumni network, and most important, (iii) another ‘family’. Many EMBA programmes are characterised by frenzied dog-eat-dog competitiveness in class. Not here. The Rutgers EMBA Powerhouse is characterised by an extraordinary degree of collaboration among the students. Our philosophy is that there is enough rabid competition in the world out there—who needs more on the weekends, and for two ceo-mag.com / Spring 2022
“Our promise to our students is to deliver curricular changes while they are still with us in the four-semester programme. This is indeed a very tight window, but we at The Powerhouse have always delivered.”
years in the classroom? At Rutgers EMBA, our students graduate with another ‘family’ with whom most will continue to stay close for years to come. Q. What do the next 12-18 months hold for Rutgers Business School? In the summer following the second semester, we typically travel to China; however, we are now going back to Europe. This year it will be Copenhagen and Athens, where participants of this three-credit summer seminar course will visit a host of companies representing all the different sectors. We will conduct panel discussions with key industry leaders and, of course, network. Our online alumni seminars were very well attended during Covid, and we will continue to have regular updates on key business subjects online, but will now also go back to the in-person ‘meet and greets’ that we used to conduct all over the New Jersey/ New York area. Finally, the goal is to integrate subjects like big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain and digital transformation into all aspects of Rutgers EMBA education. Constant and relentless upgrading is our mantra, and we take this very seriously.
BIOGRAPHY
Professor Langdana is a professor in the finance and economics department at Rutgers Business School and is also the director of the Executive MBA. Professor Langdana's areas of specialisation include monetary and fiscal policy implications and international trade and global macroeconomic policy. 33
HOW PRODUCTIVE ARE YOU, HONESTLY? HOWARD YU
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his exercise helps you shorten your to do-list to become more productive. The math has already been done for you.
Ask yourself the following three questions: n Are you prioritizing? (Hopefully, yes) n Are you making space for the essentials? (You should be) n Is your main concern sticking to the schedule? (It shouldn’t be)
We often feel the need to go full pelt at the start of the year, full of ideas and energy, in the name of feeling productive. But consider reshaping your concept of high productivity around the nature of your high-leverage activities: Andy Grove, the legendary former chief executive and chairman of Intel, described the productivity (“output”) of a manager as “A manager’s output = the output of her organization + the output of the neighboring organizations under her influence”. Let’s imagine you are seeking to increase the output of your own organization (part one of the equation). You could try to speed up your own work, but that’s likely to lead to burnout. Option 2 would be to increase your managerial leverage. So how would that look? 1. Many people would be affected by your presence and/or 2. A single person’s behavior would have changed over time after one brief encounter with you. The above might come about thanks to training – “one of the highest-leverage activities a manager can perform,” in Grove’s eyes. 34
Grove was an engineer. He made Intel deliver microprocessors, doubling computing power every eighteen months. Like clockwork. When you invest time in training your own people, you get to delegate more with trust. But don’t think that’s you being unproductive; it is in fact another way for you to further increase your leverage. Now for part two of the equation: “How can I increase the output of neighboring organizations?” Grove recommends you supply them with a unique key piece of knowledge or information. A good example would be a data-driven suggestion – an emerging trend of what works and what doesn’t. This stops predictions without seeing the full picture. Put another way, a summary report given can quickly change the day-to-day practice of employees. That’s leverage. ceo-mag.com /Spring 2022
“When you invest time in training your own people, you get to delegate more with trust.”
BIOGRAPHY Howard Yu is the LEGO® Chair Professor of Management and Innovation at IMD and the Director of IMD’s Center for Future Readiness. He is the author of the award-winning book “LEAP: How to Thrive in a World Where Everything Can Be Copied“. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Courtesy of IMD Business School.
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LEADING FROM THE FRONT: THE TELFER EXECUTIVE MBA A L E X A N D R A S K I N N E R TA L K S T O TELFER’S EXECUTIVE MBA TEAM
Q. Once again, Telfer has topped our Executive MBA (EMBA) rankings. What is the secret to your consistency? Our programme methodology focuses heavily on experiential learning, moving beyond the classroom walls and into active business environments. Candidates have the chance to practise their skills while working with a client organisation on a business challenge or opportunity that the client is facing in real-time. While most programmes offer two or three major projects with real-time experiential learning built in, the Telfer Executive MBA's core curriculum provides six diverse consulting projects with handson client experience. These projects span Digital Marketing, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Business Development, Technology Entrepreneurship, and International Expansion, which consists of two projects: strategy preparation and project ceo-mag.com / Spring 2022
implementation. As a result, candidates build confidence in their skills, not only through real-world application but also in terms of real-time feedback; there is a realisation that their knowledge is translating into positive results for these organisations. In addition, two of these projects (Innovation and Entrepreneurship and International Expansion) involve international travel and execution within a market outside of Canada, which we can once again look forward to next year following an enforced hiatus, courtesy of the pandemic. The Innovation and Entrepreneurship Consulting Project in Silicon Valley focuses on teams assessing the viability of a business or business idea within the unique Silicon Valley culture of leading innovation, the driving force of disruptive technology and entrepreneurship. In addition to the project's insights, the one-week trip includes site visits to and executive briefings with companies
“If you want a truly global, practical, relevant experience with experienced and interesting colleagues and faculty, then the Telfer Executive MBA is your best choice; just talk to our alumni.”
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“The objective of a business is to grow, and that has not changed – the theory and frameworks for this remain the same – it is the conversation within these frameworks of how we grow that has adapted.”
that have matured in the Valley, as well as start-ups that have the potential to be the next technology disrupter. Exposure to incubators, shared office spaces and mentorships also give students an opportunity to experience the culture of Silicon Valley. The International Expansion Project is the culmination of a yearlong process, supported by knowledge gleaned from the entire programme, and involves strategically evaluating the potential of foreign markets for a client company and then narrowing efforts down to a single market focus. From there, teams work with their selected client, conducting a strategic analysis of their company to determine their readiness for international expansion during the fall of their second year in the programme. In the final semester and second phase of the International Expansion Project, teams determine business and market objectives, conduct business intelligence, secondary research, and identify key stakeholders in the market in the months leading up to their one-week in-market trip. While in-market, they validate market potential and initiate business relations with potential stakeholders on behalf of the client company. Client representatives often choose to accompany the class on their trip, given the business value to the client organisation and the ability to transition business relations, a direct result of the work done by candidates on the programme. Alumni feedback consistently confirms that these projects equip our students with robust business tools that bolster selfconfidence and the ability to address business challenges and opportunities in a constantly evolving environment. Q. You talk about the Telfer Executive MBA being global, practical, and relevant, allimportant elements given today's VUCA climate. Has the pandemic reshaped any of these elements? The Telfer Executive MBA's curriculum withstood the pandemic as it had little impact on the theoretical component; however, the evolution of the VUCA climate has changed discussions in the classroom and the outcomes of our strategies within projects. The objective of a business is to grow, and that has not changed – the theory and frameworks for this remain the same – it is the conversation within these frameworks of how we grow that has adapted. The project and strategic frameworks are specifically designed to produce conversation and investigation around external forces when assessing corporate strategy or market strategy for growth; therefore, our content adapts to the everchanging times, including the pandemic.
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While the experiential learning process was impacted slightly by the pandemic, given our inability to travel, our project process remained stable with teams working virtually to connect with stakeholders in-market, thanks to the global adoption of virtual meetings. Q. You deliver the EMBA as an on-campus programme, favouring in-person, handson learning over remote learning. Has this changed in light of the pandemic, and, if so, to what extent has this impacted studentfaculty engagement and the richness of the learning experience? The pandemic has been challenging for the in-person model, and like many institutions, we were forced to adapt, moving classes online within four days of the initial pandemic lockdown in Canada in March of 2020. Ontario went through several lockdowns where public health agencies at different government levels required us to pivot from in-person to online, to a hybrid model for those who preferred face-to-face, back to online before finally settling with the hybrid model, which we will end the winter semester with this year. However, rapidly pivoting to online delivery allowed us to continue welcoming our international students, who would otherwise have moved to Canada for their studies, to the programme as they were able to join remotely from their respective countries. Therefore, what seemed initially to be a challenge became an opportunity as we were able to increase the accessibility and diversity of the classroom through remote learning, both nationally and internationally. In our current cohorts, we have students connecting from Nunavut, India, the Persian Gulf, and the UAE. In support of this evolution, the programme has invested in virtual classroom technology, refocusing resources to simultaneously provide an engaging learning environment within the hybrid model for those in the classroom and online, and professors have adapted their teaching methods in order to foster inclusivity, leveraging technology for open discussion and virtual teamwork opportunities. Q. You successfully weave subjects like data analysis and digital transformation into the curriculum alongside MBA mainstays like corporate governance. Has this been in response to employer or student demand? The programme's emphasis on experiential learning and practical, relevant skills means that we are constantly evolving our curriculum to meet the needs of today's business environment and develop the next ceo-mag.com / Spring 2022
generation of leaders, which means assessing the type of content we need to deliver to meet these needs, from corporate social responsibility and sustainability to big data analytics, and then innovating to be relevant in an ever-changing business world. Addressing market demand comes in many forms. In addition to student and employer feedback, our alumni, who hold senior-level positions in various industries from private to public sector, provide insight into what is driving their organisations and what they are looking for in their succession planning and hiring practices. Our consulting projects are another data-point for content relevancy; we are able to understand what clients need, how their industries are evolving, and what we need to do to meet industry needs in the future. Q. Can you expand upon Complex Project Leadership (CPL), i.e., what it entails and how it dovetails with the EMBA? CPL is a concentration within the EMBA that will also be offered as a graduate diploma in the fall. Students have the opportunity within the first semester to choose the CPL concentration, which involves enrolling in a specialised set of courses focusing on the International Centre for Complex Project Management (ICCPM) competency recommendations of complex project management. The concentration is designed to address the skills gap in managing largescale projects in order to avoid the all-tofamiliar over budget, behind schedule and abandoned project scenarios. The cross-section of industries within Canada, from our ports of entry for goods, infrastructure, aviation, defence equipment and our public procurement process, collectively generate a need for this concentration, which combines the general management practices of the EMBA curriculum with the specialised skills needed for long-term and large-scale projects. The graduate Diploma in Complex Project Leadership provides specialised skills to those who may already have their (E)MBA degree or may not be looking for a master's degree. One of the benefits of the diploma is that the credits can be applied to the Executive MBA programme if one decides to pursue their master's later. Q. Are there any additional insights or information that you would like to provide about the programme that would be helpful for someone considering the Telfer Executive MBA? First, set your objectives for investing in an EMBA, for it is a significant investment in your future and your family's future ceo-mag.com / Spring 2022
(or your future family's future!); this is a critical step missed by too many as it will help you to develop criteria as you compare programmes. Then, do your homework comparing programmes that best help you achieve those objectives. If you want a truly global, practical, relevant experience with experienced and interesting colleagues and faculty, then the Telfer Executive MBA is your best choice; just talk to our alumni. Q. What innovations can current and potential students expect from Telfer over the next 12-18 months? EMBA programmes must do more to reimagine the curriculum to centre the grand challenges and also equip candidates to innovate solutions and inspire them to tackle these challenges head-on. In the next 12 months, there are many exciting things on the horizon. I will name just three: (1) We aim to further strengthen the curriculum to provide foundational business knowledge and cutting-edge, sustainability-oriented business models. (2) Students can expect to see deeper integration of emerging, disruptive technologies into the curriculum. A better understanding of and engagement with such technologies is essential as they are accelerating the digitisation of traditional business models and creating opportunities to deliver more engaging stakeholder experiences, greater operational efficiencies, increased productivity, and competitive advantage. (3) We aim to further foster an inclusive EMBA learning journey with strategies to ensure that candidates and faculty bring forward diverse perspectives and represent diverse communities across class, ethnicity, and other identity factors.
“What seemed initially to be a challenge became an opportunity as we were able to increase the accessibility and diversity of the classroom through remote learning, both nationally and internationally.”
SCHOOL PROFILE: The University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management is one of only two business schools in Canada to hold the triple crown of international accreditations from the AACSB, AMBA, and EQUIS. 39
THE TRULY GLOBAL MBA A L E X A N D R A S K I N N E R TA L K S TO ANDRES GALLO
Q. How would you define the GlobalMBA’s unique value proposition? This is a fully immersive programme on the global economy. There are many programmes that call themselves global but do not provide the type of hands-on experience the GlobalMBA provides. Q. What prompted the rollout of the GlobalMBA? Businesses need to better understand partners around the globe, and so the GlobalMBA was designed to make students active participants in learning from different cultural and educational environments while also providing them with solid academic knowledge and the skills to manage intercultural communication issues across cultures. The design of the GlobalMBA also facilitates academic collaboration at the institutional level, allowing all universities to put forward their academic strengths. Q. The GlobalMBA is comprised of four schools, the University of North Florida, Technische Hochschule Köln: Technology Arts Sciences (THK), formerly Cologne University of Applied Sciences, Kyungpook National University, and the University of Warsaw. How and why were these schools selected? The idea is to bring together the main regions involved in international business. While our partners in Europe offer both highly developed and up-and-coming economies and market perspectives in Germany and Poland, respectively, students also receive an American and South Korean international business perspective, the latter boasting one of the most dynamic economies in Asia. Thus, the programme covers some of the most important regions for international business.
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Q. As each school works with a cohort for one semester, it suggests that schools are teaching aspects of the curriculum. With this in mind, how is the curriculum divided? The curriculum is divided into three main parts: first, we have core business courses, which you will find across most graduate-business programmes, and these are divided according to the relative strength of each partner. Second, there are specific courses in Intercultural Communication and Business Environment,
“Graduating with two degrees allows our students to work across different continents because they have the certifications to do so.”
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which are offered by each of the partners and cover aspects such as history, culture, and the regulations that distinguish businesses and business relationships in each of the four countries. As a result, students receive a multifaceted and diverse perspective on how business operates in different parts of the world. Third, students work on a thesis, which encompasses all campuses in the GlobalMBA. Accordingly, this assignment brings all four partners together and informs and unifies the academic experience for all students. Q. International study trips are often the high point in a student’s MBA journey;
however, this may only last a week, perhaps two, somewhat nullifying the intended benefits. To this end, how much time do your students spend at each university and why? Students are enrolled full time in each university, and they live and immerse themselves in the culture of each country. This is an aspect that distinguishes the GlobalMBA from other programmes that call themselves global. Q. If I’m not mistaken, each of the four partner universities that make up the GlobalMBA select a small cohort, which will then move through the programme together, decentralising admissions. Therefore, if I am a potential student living in Europe, should I apply through the University of Warsaw, for example? Yes, students in Europe have the option to apply in either Cologne or Warsaw, students in the Americas apply in the US, and students in Asia apply in South Korea. The schools work very well together and are able to coordinate registration matters without issue.
“Students receive a multifaceted and diverse perspective on how business operates in different parts of the world.”
Q. Given that the GlobalMBA offers experiential learning opportunities unrivalled by traditional MBAs, how is this reflected in terms of post-MBA ROI? While students graduating from the GlobalMBA have international experience that is unparalleled in other programmes, there are other aspects of the GlobalMBA that are also worthy of mention: 1. The international experiences are fully immersive and span four countries, offering students two degrees. 2. Graduating with two degrees allows our students to work across different continents because they have the certifications to do so. 3. Students develop a highly mobile disposition and deeper understanding of cultural differences. 4. The programme offers an international network of peers across Europe and Asia. 5. Students are able to show proven success living away from their home country. Q. What can potential students expect from the GlobalMBA in 2022 and beyond? We will continue working to make the GlobalMBA an ever-improving experience by enhancing our curriculum to reflect changes in the international business environment, providing additional opportunities for experiential learning in each country, and providing international networking opportunities with our network of alumni working across the globe.
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BIOGRAPHY
Andrés Gallo is UNF GlobalMBA Director.
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“It is probably one of the most unique MBA programmes out there, and it is definitely worth your time.”
GLOBALMBA STUDENT PERSPECTIVES
JULIA HENNING
ZUZANNA JASTRZEBSKA Q. Why did you select the GlobalMBA? Julia Henning (J.H.): When I first heard about the programme, I was extremely impressed by the structure; being able to study in four countries at four different universities all around the world sounded amazing. Also, being able to obtain two degrees, an MBA and a master’s in international management and intercultural communication, in 15 months contributed heavily to my decision as I was also really eager to start working sooner rather than later. Q. Can you expand upon the make-up (industries, geography, etc.) and calibre of your fellow MBA participants and what they bring to the programme and your learning experience? Zuzanna Jastrzebska (Z.J.): This is probably the most valuable feature of the programme. Everyone has a different background, and different experiences, both professionally and personally. We have a participant that served in the military, someone running their own business, and
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people with varied corporate experiences. J.H.: The make-up of my fellow MBA participants is extremely unique in terms of age, nationality, professional background, interests, etc. Although most of us have a business background, we also have historians, engineers and linguists participating in the programme. This diversity has enriched my cultural understanding, broadened my horizons, and helped me make valuable connections all over the world within a few short months. What we all have in common is ambition, ambition to learn, travel, and broaden our horizons. Q. What is the hardest thing about this programme? J.H.: The hardest thing about the programme is having to leave your comfort zone; however, this is also one of the things I love most about this programme as it is a huge learning opportunity. Potential applicants should be aware that in this programme almost all subjects require the completion of some kind of teamwork, which can be hard sometimes as there are a lot of meetings to coordinate and work to complete at the same time, but on the other hand, it definitely improves your time management. Q. What do you consider to be the highlight of the programme thus far? J.H.: It is difficult to name one highlight of the programme in particular because I would say that the whole experience is a highlight. Q. Are there unique elements of the programme that you feel will enhance your career objectives? J.H.: The most unique element of this programme is definitely the cohort’s diversity. However, having the opportunity to study in four different countries and obtain two degrees in only 15 months is also rather unique. The day-to-day contact with people from various cultural backgrounds not only helped me grow personally but also inspired me
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“It is difficult to name one highlight of the programme in particular because I would say that the whole experience is a highlight.”
to pursue a career in which intercultural communication and experiences will be a part of my daily life. Q. Has the programme met/exceeded your expectations? Z.J.: Definitely exceeded. I can see a huge difference in my self-confidence, language and communication skills. While I expected my hard skills to develop, I didn’t expect my soft skills to improve as much as they have already. Q. With regards to the admission process, what advice would you give to potential applicants? J.H.: Even though the deadline for the submission of all documents is quite late in the year (compared with other master’s programmes at German universities), applicants should start gathering documents sooner rather than later. Q. How would you summarise your MBA experience to date? Z.J.: Overall, very positive. I recommend the programme to anyone interested in developing their business skills or seeking new experiences. It is probably one of the most unique MBA programmes out there, and it is definitely worth your time.
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GLOBALMBA ALUMNI PERSPECTIVES
AGNIESZKA SOPOROWSKA
POSITION: STRATEGIC PLANNING MANAGER FOR FIS
LIESA SPRUNGMANN
POSITION: ASSOCIATE ACCOUNT STRATEGIST FOR GOOGLE (EMEA)
“The GlobalMBA literally changed my life and put me on a path that I never even thought about.”
Q. Why did you select the GlobalMBA? Agnieszka Soporowska (A.S.): First, you study in four countries across three continents, spending a semester in each. On top of that, the programme includes site visits to local enterprises in each country, which I consider a rare experience that adds value. I also selected the GlobalMBA because it allows you to graduate with two master’s degrees, an MBA and a master’s in international management and intercultural communication, in just 15 months. You don’t get much vacation time throughout the programme, but you do get your degrees faster than if you were following a standard programme. Q. Can you talk about the benefits you’ve enjoyed (promotion, salary increases, new business development) post-graduation? A.S.: The benefits depend on where you are in your career, what you've done before, and where you intend to go; however, the knowledge you gain from the programme can be applied to a variety of fields. My first job after the programme, at a venture capital firm in Jacksonville, was advertised by the university’s career services department, and my next move happened thanks to a GlobalMBA alumni referral, both of which were highly beneficial.
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Q (a). Getting work/life balance right can be the local community and be part of events incredibly challenging when studying for and experiences I would not have otherwise an MBA. Were you successful in striking a experienced. balance, and if so, how did you achieve this? A.S.: It’s not impossible to work while Q. Are there resources available to graduates you’re on the programme; I took on some post-MBA, and have you used any of them? part-time remote assignments, and some of A.S.: We have an alumni forum on my peers had part-time jobs, either in their LinkedIn where alums share job postings, respective countries or remotely, but it’s and through the alumni network, you can get definitely challenging. insider info and referrals, which can help you Liesa Sprungmann (L.S.): I think I was land the job you’re interested in. relatively successful in finding a healthy L.S.: We have a fantastic alumni network, balance between work and life which you can always reach out during my time on the GlobalMBA. to for advice or job opportunities. This was a conscious decision I For example, in my current role made at the very beginning as I at Google, I was referred by a knew I wanted to maximise my time GlobalMBA alum! outside the programme exploring “We have a the new cities I was calling home. Q. How does your employer view I was also able to lean on my MBA? fantastic alumni yourL.S.: classmates; we supported each other I work at a very and made sure no one fell behind in network, which international company where my any of the courses. colleagues come from all over the you can always world, so having the experience Q (b). What tips would you give to of the GlobalMBA was a huge reach out to for incoming MBA students? advantage when I was being advice or job A.S.: Think about what’s considered for my current role. important to you and how you opportunities. want to leverage the programme. Q. How would you summarise your For example, Regardless of your focus (running a MBA experience? business or climbing the corporate A.S.: The GlobalMBA literally in my current ladder), make sure you network; changed my life and put me on a build relationships with your cohort, role at Google, path I never even thought about. alumni, professors, and anyone It has also opened doors I didn’t I was referred connected to the programme, as know existed. For me, it has been an these can open doors that your by a GlobalMBA absolutely unforgettable experience resume alone cannot. Also, take and the best decision I could have alum!” advantage of the study locations; made. While there is a cost to the travelling will teach you lessons programme, the value is truly that school won’t and will give you priceless. memories for life. L.S.: The programme does a great job of empowering you Q. How much support did you to get involved in the local receive from the programme on your MBA community, which in turn helped me reflect journey? on my own background and experiences and L.S.: The programme offers a lot of support make me more proficient in intercultural throughout, and I was always able to reach out communication and collaboration. and feel heard by the programme manager.
“Take advantage of the study locations; travelling will teach you lessons that school won’t and will give you memories for life.”
Q. What were your programme highlights? L.S.: I really enjoyed living in each new country where I had classmates that had been living there their entire lives. I found this allowed me to really immerse myself in
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YOUR POSTGRADUATE PROGRAM, YOUR WAY AT JACKSONVILLE UNIVERSITY’S DAVIS COLLEGE OF BUSINESS
S
ince Harvard University established the first Master of Business Administration program in 1908, universities worldwide have gone on to offer MBA options from concentrations in Finance to Healthcare Leadership. However, for students who strive to hold titles such as ‘Chief Executive Officer’, another business education option is on the rise. While the traditional MBA prepares students with the essential knowledge and foundational skills necessary to successfully enter the field of business, the Executive Master of Business Administration, or EMBA, develops established leaders who are ready to grapple with nuance, manage complex operations, and navigate the increasingly globalized business world. Unlike a traditional MBA, the EMBA is specifically tailored to senior managers and business leaders who already have experience in the workforce. According to the EMBA Council, EMBA program applications were 31.6% higher in 2019 than in 2015 across their member organizations. Jacksonville University's (JU) Davis College of Business recognizes the need for quality executive education and meets the demand with two highly ranked, AACSB-accredited executive programs: The Davis College Executive MBA and Doctor of Business Administration. “There is an increasing demand for highquality executive education in Northeast Florida,” said Dr. Angela Mattia, Associate Dean, Director of Graduate Programs, and Professor of Decision Science and Information Systems at JU. “That is why we infuse our in-depth curricula with the kind of flexibility that allows working executives the
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opportunity to earn their executive degree while balancing courses with their work and home lives.” Your EMBA, Your Way JU’s EMBA is built for the working professional, not only through individualized student experiences like executive career coaching and personalized academic advising but through flexible class formats and customizable degree options. Classes meet one weekend per month on JU’s beautiful, riverfront campus in Jacksonville, Florida. If students are unable to make it to class in person, they can stream the class in real-time or watch the recording at a time that works best for their schedule. Flexibility isn't just about convenience, but also about providing students with the opportunity to choose the subject matter that aligns with their passions. As a result, all JU EMBA students are prepared with an education that focuses on leadership style and effective communication, shared learning, networking experiences, and corporate social responsibility. This foundational knowledge prepares students to successfully take on new leadership roles– becoming a rising star in their current organization or launching their own business venture. Students can also further individualize their degree by choosing from two program tracks — Executive Accounting and Finance or Management Development. Real-World Business Experience One of the benchmark learning experiences the Davis College aims to provide for EMBA students is shared culture and
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“Flexibility isn't just about convenience, but also about providing students with the opportunity to choose the subject matter that aligns with their passions.”
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“JU faculty members are exceptional researchers and field experts, and the DBA program leans on their expertise.”
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diverse experiences in the classroom and beyond. To meet this goal, Davis College faculty encourage students to participate in 'immersion experiences' locally, virtually, and abroad. These allow students to apply what they are learning in the classroom to the real world of international business through virtual trips and travel abroad opportunities in countries like Budapest, Prague, or Portugal. JU also partners with business and non-profit organizations, including Black Knight, Feeding Northeast Florida, and Dun & Bradstreet to help connect students with applied-learning projects and other hands-on learning opportunities. "These immersion experiences not only allow our students to form connections with each other and their mentors, but they allow them to see a snapshot of what being a leader in global business operations is actually like," said Mary Glyn Denning, Associate Director of Executive Programs. "The hands-on, realworld learning opportunities they receive here are like nothing they would experience inside the classroom."
just through immersion experiences, but also through ample networking opportunities for EMBA students. With over 30 years of experience providing an executive education at JU, the Davis College provides its Executive students with an extensive worldwide network of successful alumni in leadership positions to connect and build meaningful professional relationships with. Networking is also encouraged with the top-level executives of the Davis College Executive Advisory Board (EAB), comprising a broad group of business leaders who are committed to serving as the conduit between higher education and industry. The EAB includes business leaders in Jacksonville and beyond, working with the Davis College Dean on issues ranging from strategic planning to internship opportunities, and enhancing the Executive Student experience on JU’s campus and the quality of education they receive. Through feedback from the EAB and other partner organizations, Jacksonville University is able to continually update the program’s curriculum to assess how well the content meets the critical learning goals that companies value most.
Experience the JU EMBA Advantage Davis College strives to foster shared learning experiences and community not
A DBA Built for You For students interested in high-level analysis or breaking into the realm of
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academia, the Davis College offers a different kind of executive education through the Doctor of Business Administration (DBA). This program prepares students with skills in problem-solving, critical thinking, and research, opening up a world of career possibilities such as consulting, entrepreneurship, C-Suite level executive leadership, communication, or universitylevel academia. The DBA is a terminal degree, equivalent to a Ph.D. Upon graduation, DBA students will re-enter the workforce at the top of their field. The JU DBA is designed with the same flexibility in mind as the EMBA but takes the 'your degree, your way' philosophy a step further. Like the EMBA, students choose when to attend classes in-person or virtually, with courses only held once per month. However, in the DBA, students can also choose a traditional concentration or decide to design a path that is completely their own. JU offers several formal DBA concentrations in Accounting, Management, and Healthcare Leadership, but many students choose to create a professional concentration that aligns with their specific career goals. In addition to their concentration, students have two track options: Professional, for students who wish to advance in the world of business operations, or Academic, for students looking to transition into the sphere of academia and writing. All students in the JU DBA program, regardless of track or concentration, also have the freedom to choose their own dissertation style, including the traditional dissertation, a major research project, or a series of research papers on various topics of interest. "The JU DBA journey was thoughtprovoking and allowed me to engage with cohort members drawn from diverse professional backgrounds," said DBA student Brian Sukhai. "That, along with expert moderation from the faculty, allowed for learning that was fun and enriching, despite the demanding nature of the journey." No Master’s Degree? No Problem Since 2021, the JU Davis College of Business has opened the DBA program up to students holding only a bachelor’s degree by offering a post-baccalaureate option. This program provides a viable accelerated pathway to a doctorate for business professionals who have not yet completed a master’s degree. In this pathway, students
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complete their 12-credit concentration and any needed prerequisite business courses in the one to two semesters before beginning the doctoral portion of the degree. “By offering this pathway to postbaccalaureate students, we are expanding the reach of high-quality graduate business education in Northeast Florida,” said Mary Glyn Denning. “We have seen a lot of success with this pathway program, and the students are excited to have the opportunity to earn a terminal degree in their field quickly.” Experience the JU DBA Advantage JU’s Davis College of Business strives to foster a supportive environment for its doctoral students in every way possible. Like the EMBA, doctorate students are offered networking opportunities with past DBA graduates and local industry leaders and are connected with post-graduate job opportunities. JU faculty members are exceptional researchers and field experts, and the DBA program leans on their expertise to guide its students in an extensive mentorship program exclusively available to them. Students are also provided with personalized academic advising, graduate tutoring, and individualized dissertation publishing assistance. The JU DBA program endows you with the confidence that you can do it all by providing you with the requisite skills for success in academia, leadership, and entrepreneurship," DBA student Somtoo Dike said. "It isn't just a terminal degree — it's a discipline and an empowerment." Make the Executive Decision The JU Davis College Executive Programs are ranked among the best in CEO Magazine and U.S. News & World Report. By incorporating flexibility and a supportive foundation of faculty, community leaders, and partner organizations, including TIAA Bank, Dun & Bradstreet, Mayo Clinic, Bank of America, and more — JU executive business students thrive, holding a 100% job placement rate after graduation. “One of the great advantages of the JU business programs is the vested interest the business community takes in its success,” EMBA student Timothy Sherman says. “The professors want to get to know you in and outside of the classroom, your long-term plans, and what they can do to help you in your professional career.”
BIOGRAPHY
The JU Davis College of Business & Technology is the only AACSB-accredited private business school in North Florida and South Georgia. Students in the EMBA and DBA programs can apply for the competitive scholarship opportunities available to graduate students in the Davis College of Business, including assistantships, which allow students to work in exchange for a decrease of up to one-third tuition. Learn more about Jacksonville University's Executive Programs at ju.edu/ executive.
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DON’T DESPAIR IN THE HYBRID WORKPLACE PETER CAPPELLI
Nano Tools for Leaders® — a collaboration between Wharton Executive Education and Wharton’s Center for Leadership and Change Management — are fast, effective tools that you can learn and start using in less than 15 minutes, with the potential to significantly impact your success. The Goal Whether you are fully remote or in a hybrid work environment, avoid the “Zoom ceiling” by understanding and working around the potential pitfalls that come from lowered visibility in the office. Nano Tool When remote work was mandatory and all or most of your co-workers, your boss, and many of your external stakeholders were remote, the playing field was level. There was a real sense that we were all “in this together.” People were remarkably understanding and accepting of quirky situations, whether IT related or the result of the blurred line between home and work (think dogs barking and children crying during meetings). That kind of tolerance is now rare. And it’s just one of many pitfalls for remote workers. Elora Voyles, people scientist at human resources software company TINYpulse, coined the term “Zoom ceiling” to describe the potentially career-limiting results of remote work. Whether you are now working out of the office full- or part-time, consider the five steps below to position yourself better for greater visibility to ensure that you are getting recognition for your accomplishments and staying in line for promotions and desirable assignments. Make sure your employer knows you aren’t stepping off the ladder.
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“Research also tells us that fully remote workers make more personal sacrifices than their colleagues, including volunteering to do extra work or working late hours.”
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Action Steps
“Don’t wait to be noticed. You can no longer expect news of your accomplishments to spread by word of mouth or be overheard in the office.”
1. Understand the playing field: Previous research about telework reveals a lot about work environments that include some remote workers. The drawbacks are clear: It’s hard to get attention and easy to get forgotten. The importance of being in the office, of “face time” for signaling value, is real. Those at home often have to work harder for the same recognition or opportunities. 2. Clarify your arrangement: Ideally, you want your employer to be explicit about performance management — here’s what we want you to be doing and how we want to measure it — and to require supervisors to do more check-ins with remote workers to head off problems. That means there’s attention being paid to the development of supervisors who are able to manage remote workers. If that’s not the case, you will need to initiate the conversation, asking about check-ins and performance metrics. If there are no formal or even informal arrangements, it’s up to you. The first step is to schedule regular check-ins. You could also suggest metrics, some that could apply longer term and others that apply to individual projects. Then make sure to explicitly refer to these metrics in conversations and correspondence (which will create a record of your progress).
3. Widen and deepen your circle: Staying in close touch with your colleagues in the office, and creating new connections, is more important than ever. You need sources for the kinds of information you used to have access to in casual, water-cooler conversations. Whether you schedule regular check-ins or make time for face-to-face lunches or coffee meetings, relationships with colleagues are a critical lifeline to help you stay on top of what’s really going on in your organization. 4. Promote yourself: Don’t wait to be noticed. You can no longer expect news of your accomplishments to spread by word of mouth or be overheard in the office. Tell your manager or team leader regularly about your accomplishments. It’s not only about sharing today’s good news but also about signaling commitment for future assignments. If your work has been recognized by someone other than your manager or team leader, share it. 5. Keep predictable work hours: Research also tells us that fully remote workers make more personal sacrifices than their colleagues, including volunteering to do extra work or working late hours. To create better work-life balance and prevent burnout, consider keeping regular hours. They don’t need to mirror exactly the norm of the office, but they must be consistent so your manager and colleagues know when you’re working and are available.
BIOGRAPHY
Wharton management professor Peter Cappelli is director of Wharton’s Center for Human Resources and author of The Future of the Office: Work from Home, Remote Work, and the Hard Choices We all Face (Wharton School Press, 2021). ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Republished with permission from Knowledge@Wharton (http://knowledge. wharton.upenn. edu), the online research and business analysis journal of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania 52
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ISEG’S ISEG’S VALUE-ADDED MBA MBA ALEXANDRA SKINNER SPEAKS TO ALEX AP N ADURLAO SSKOI E N INREOR DSEP CE A A RK VS ATLOH O PAULO SOEIRO DE C ARVALHO
MOCK UP ILLUSTRATION STYLE
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Q. When we spoke last year, you had redesigned the MBA programme at Q. When weadding spoke last you had learning ISEG five year, new strategic streams: Global Futures, Digital Disruption, redesigned the MBA programme at Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Design & ISEG adding five new strategic learning Agility, and Sustainability & Governance. streams: Global Futures, Digital Disruption, Given the challenges business leaders have Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Design & over the last few years, are there Agility,faced and Sustainability & Governance. elements of thebusiness programme that have Given the challenges leaders have changed? faced over the last few years, are there strive to keep upthat withhave market trends elementsWe of the programme and constantly innovate and improve by changed? continuously reviewing and updating We strive to keep up with market trends the subjects covered theimprove differentby streams and constantly innovateinand in order to adapt them to the realities continuously reviewing and updating the of our participants. For instance, we recently revamped the 'Mindfulness for Business' in order to adapt them to the realities of module to allow students to better understand our participants. For instance, we recently and develop the potential for adaptation and revamped the 'Mindfulness for Business' change. module to allow students to better understand and develop the potential for adaptation and Q. How have your students and faculty change. adapted to the ‘new normal’, and what does the ‘new normal’ look like for ISEG? Q. How have your students and faculty The new normal created numerous adapted to the ‘new to normal’, does opportunities exploreand newwhat formats and the ‘new normal’ look like for ISEG? technologies. At ISEG MBA, we incorporated Theseveral new normal numerous onlinecreated dynamics that allowed our opportunities to explore new and participants to interact formats with each other, as technologies. At ISEG MBA, we incorporated well as with teachers and special guests. several online dynamics that allowed our
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participants to interact with each other, as well as with teachers and special guests. As restrictions being lifted, once As restrictions areare being lifted, wewe areare once again increasing face-to-face formats, but again increasing face-to-face formats, but it it a priority to make sure take advantage is a is priority to make sure wewe take advantage of technology and all its benefits as well, of technology and all its benefits as well, incorporating what we've discovered to work incorporating what we've discovered to work best during periods of lockdown. best during periods of lockdown. Q. To what extent has the pandemic Q. To what extent has the pandemic impacted the immersive learning experience impacted the immersive learning experience you offer, and how do you continue to keep you offer, and how do you continue to keep students engaged? students engaged? Due to Covid-19 restrictions, some of our Due to Covid-19 restrictions, some of our immersive learning experiences had to be immersive learning experiences had to be deferred, or in some instances adapted to a deferred, or in some adapted to to a make virtual format. Ininstances these cases, we tried virtual format. In these cases, we tried to make the experience as interesting and unique as the possible experience as interesting and unique asand by adapting it to the new format possible by adapting it to the new format and making sure we kept students engaged through making sureinteraction we kept students engaged through constant and activities. constant interaction and activities. Q. With many schools now offering a blend of Q. With many schools nowteaching, offering aisblend of on-campus and online this the on-campus online education, teaching, is this future ofand executive and is the this a future of executive education, model ISEG will be following?and is this a modelIn ISEG bethat following? the will event a student becomes In the that a student becomes sick orevent cannot make it to class because of a or personal commitment, sickprofessional or cannot make it to class because of they a are able toor watch classes online. However, professional personal commitment, they as are being lifted and it is safeas for are restrictions able to watch classes online. However, our students to be on campus, restrictions are being lifted and itwe is strongly safe for to attend classes ourencourage students toparticipants be on campus, we strongly as thereparticipants are experiences and exercises encourage to attend classes that cannot thoroughly and replicated online arebeexperiences exercises thatand as there they would be missing out on part of cannot be thoroughly replicated onlinethe and if they watched online. theyexperience would be missing out on part of the
experience if they watched online. Q (a). The pandemic has forced many executives toThe rethink their career paths,many skillsets, and Q (a). pandemic has forced executives readiness. With this in mind, do you foresee to rethink their career paths, skillsets, and increased demand for the ISEG MBA? readiness. With this in mind, do you foresee In times of hardship, professionals often increased demand for the ISEG MBA? feel the need to elevate their skills and In times of hardship, professionals often differentiate themselves from their colleagues feel the need to elevate their skills and to gain access to new opportunities, and an MBA is an excellent way to do this as to gain access to new opportunities, and students get to expand their knowledge, an MBA is an excellent way to do this as not only in management but also in students get to expand their knowledge, technology, innovation, design, ethics, not and onlysustainability. in management but also in we have At ISEG MBA technology, innovation, design, ethics, added to this by including the five strategic andstreams sustainability. At ISEGearlier MBA we have you mentioned - Global added to this by including the five strategic Futures, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, streams you mentioned earlierand - Global Digital Disruption, Design Agility, and Futures, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, ceo-mag.com / Spring 2022
Digital Disruption, Design and Agility, and Sustainability and Governance – so that Sustainability Governance – so that students have forand a more complete picture students have for a more complete picture of the reality of companies and market. We of the reality of companies and markets. We have also designed a Leadership & Personal have also designed a Leadership & Personal Journey pathway, which allows participants which allows toJourney developpathway, a vision for both their participants personal and to develop a vision for both their personal and professional future. professional future. Q (b). Will we see increasingly younger Q (b). Will we see increasingly younger candidates applying for the MBA? candidates applying for the MBA? We are finding that the MBA is We are finding that the MBA is increasingly sought after by younger increasingly sought after by younger participants as they try to differentiate themselves and progress in their careers. themselves and progress in their careers. AtAt ISEG MBA, ISEG MBA,we weusually usuallyhave haveaacohort cohort ofof older students, but we focus older students, but we focusquite quiteheavily heavily onon the profile the profileofofthe theparticipant participantas aswe weaim aim toto create the most create the mostwell-rounded, well-rounded,diverse, diverse, and interesting and interestinggroup grouppossible. possible.Therefore, Therefore, younger candidates are younger candidates aresometimes sometimesconsidered considered and are certainly and are certainlycapable capableofofbringing bringingas asmuch much value and contribution value and contributiontotothe theclass, class,as aswell wellas as alternative perspectives. alternative perspectives. Q.Q. What can What canpotential potentialstudents studentsexpect expectfrom from ISEG inin 2022? ISEG 2022? Potential studentscan canexpect expectaacomplete complete Potential students experience from start to finish, with different dynamics andchallenges challengesthroughout throughoutthe the dynamics and programme. Notonly onlywill willthey theyhave havethe the programme. Not opportunity developtheir theirLeadership Leadership opportunity totodevelop Personal Developmentplan planwhile while && Personal Development immersing themselves in the Lisbon startup immersing themselves in the Lisbon startup ecosystem, they will also visit Silicon Valley’s ecosystem, they will also visit Silicon Valley’s technological hub in San Francisco, meeting technological hub in San Francisco, meeting the innovatorsofofsome someofofthe themost mosticonic iconic the innovators companies born in this city, and experience companies born in this city, and experience teamwork, coordinationand andimprovisation improvisation teamwork, coordination activities like never before in bootcampat at activities like never before in aabootcamp the Portuguese Airforce Academy. the Portuguese Airforce Academy. These experiences, created in conjunction These experiences, created in conjunction with a network of outstanding partners with a network of outstanding partners and remarkable people, united with the and remarkable people, united with the scientific and professional excellence of our scientific and professional excellence of our professors in the fields that form the core of professors in the fields that form the core of our MBA, such as finance and economics, our MBA, such as finance and economics, strategy and marketing, and operations strategy and marketing, and operations and people, provide students with an inand people, provide students with an indepth understanding of the key strategic depth understanding of the key strategic and business challenges that organisations business challenges thatbecoming organisations and face, and prepare them for leaders face, and prepare them for becoming leaders equipped with the skills to face the challenges equipped with the skills to face the challenges of the future. of the future.
BIOGRAPHY BIOGRAPHY Paulo Soeiro de Paulo Soeiro de Carvalho is the Carvalho is the Executive Director of Executive Director of the ISEG MBA.
the ISEG MBA.
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Economics & Management
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ARE WE REALLY MORE PRODUCTIVE WORKING FROM HOME?
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REBECCA STROPOLI
acebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg isn’t your typical office worker. He was No. 3 on the 2020 Forbes list of the richest Americans, with a net worth of $125 billion, give or take. But there’s at least one thing Zuckerberg has in common with many other workers: he seems to like working from home. In an internal memo, which made its way to the Wall Street Journal, as Facebook announced plans to offer increased flexibility to employees, Zuckerberg explained that he would work remotely for at least half the year.
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“Working remotely has given me more space for long-term thinking and helped me spend more time with my family, which has made me happier and more productive at work,” Zuckerberg wrote. He has also said that he expects about half of Facebook’s employees to be fully remote within the next decade. The coronavirus pandemic continues to rage in many countries, and variants are complicating the picture, but in some parts of the world, including the United States, people are desperate for life to return to normal— everywhere but the office. After more than a year at home, some employees are keen to return to their workplaces and colleagues. Many others are less eager to do so, even quitting their jobs to avoid going back. Somewhere between their bedrooms and kitchens, they have established new models of work-life balance they are loath to give up. This has left some companies trying to recreate their work policies, determining how best to handle a workforce that in many cases is demanding more flexibility. Some, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Spotify, are leaning into remote work. Others, such as JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, are reverting to the tried-and-true office environment, calling everyone back in. Goldman’s CEO David Solomon, in February, called working from home an “aberration that we’re going to correct as quickly as possible.” And JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said of exclusively remote work: “It doesn’t work for those who want to hustle. It doesn’t work for spontaneous idea generation. It doesn’t work for culture.” This pivotal feature of pandemic life has accelerated a long-running debate: What do employers and employees lose and gain through remote work? In which setting—the office or the home—are employees more productive? Some research indicates that working from home can boost productivity and that companies offering more flexibility will be best positioned for success. But this giant, forced experiment has only just begun. An accelerated debate A persistent sticking point in this debate has been productivity. Back in 2001, a group 58
of researchers from the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon, led by Robert E. Kraut, wrote that “collaboration at a distance remains substantially harder to accomplish than collaboration when members of a work group are collocated.” Two decades later, this statement remains part of today’s discussion. However, well before Zoom, which came on the scene in 2011, or even Skype, which launched in 2003, the researchers acknowledged some of the potential benefits of remote work, allowing that “dependence on physical proximity imposes substantial costs as well, and may undercut successful collaboration.” For one, they noted, email, answering machines, and computer bulletin boards could help eliminate the inconvenience of organizing in-person meetings with multiple people at the same time. Two decades later, remote-work technology is far more developed. Data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that, even in pre-pandemic 2019, more than 26 million Americans—approximately 16 percent of the total US workforce—worked remotely on an average day. The Pew Research Center put that pre-pandemic number at 20 percent, and in December 2020 reported that 71 percent of workers whose responsibilities allowed them to work from home were doing so all or most of the time. The sentiment toward and effectiveness of remote work depend on the industry involved. It makes sense that executives working in and promoting social media are comfortable connecting with others online, while those in industries in which deals are typically closed with handshakes in a conference room, or over drinks at dinner, don’t necessarily feel the same. But data indicate that preferences and productivity are shaped by factors beyond a person’s line of work. The productivity paradigm Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Stanford’s Nicholas Bloom was bullish on work-fromhome trends. His 2015 study, for one—with James Liang, John Roberts, and Zhichun Jenny Ying, all then at Stanford—finds a 13 percent ceo-mag.com / Spring 2022
increase in productivity among remotely working call-center employees at a Chinese travel agency. But in the early days of the pandemic, Bloom was less optimistic about remote work. “We are home working alongside our kids, in unsuitable spaces, with no choice and no in-office days,” Bloom told a Stanford publication in March 2020. “This will create a productivity disaster for firms.” To test that thesis, Jose Maria Barrero of the Mexico Autonomous Institute of Technology, Bloom, and Chicago Booth’s Steven J. Davis launched a monthly survey of US workers in May 2020, tracking more than 30,000 workers aged 20–64 who earned at least $20,000 per year in 2019. The survey measured the incidence of working from home as the pandemic continued, focusing on how a more permanent shift to remote work might affect not only productivity but also overall employee wellbeing. It also examined factors including how work from home would affect spending and revenues in major urban centers. In addition to the survey, the researchers drew on informal conversations with dozens of US business executives. They are publishing the results of the survey and related research at wfhresearch.com. In an analysis of the data collected through March 2021, they find that nearly six out of 10 workers reported being more productive working from home than they expected to be, compared with 14 percent who said they got less done. On average, respondents’ productivity at home was 7 percent higher than they expected. Forty percent of workers reported they were more productive at home during the pandemic than they had been when in the office, and only 15 percent said the opposite was true. The researchers argue that the work-from-home trend is here to stay, and they calculate that these working arrangements will increase overall worker productivity in the US by 5 percent as compared with the pre-pandemic economy. “Working from home under the pandemic has been far more productive than I or pretty much anyone else predicted,” Bloom says. ceo-mag.com /Spring 2022
No commute, and fewer hours worked Some workers arguing in favor of flexibility might say they’re more efficient at home away from chatty colleagues and the other distractions of an office, and that may be true. But above all, the increased productivity comes from saving transit time, an effect overlooked by standard productivity calculations. “Three-quarters or more of the productivity gains that we find are coming from a reduction in commuting time,” Davis says. Eliminate commuting as a factor, and the researchers project only a 1 percent productivity boost in the postpandemic workfrom-home environment, as compared with before. It makes sense that standard statistics miss the impact of commutes, Davis explains. Ordinarily, commuting time generally doesn’t shift significantly in the aggregate. But much like rare power outages in Manhattan have made it possible for New Yorkers to suddenly see the nighttime stars, the dramatic workfrom-home shift that occurred during the pandemic made it possible to recognize the impact traveling to and from an office had on productivity. Before the pandemic, US workers were commuting an average of 54 minutes daily, according to Barrero, Bloom, and Davis. In the aggregate, the researchers say, the pandemicinduced shift to remote work meant 62.5 million fewer commuting hours per workday. People who worked from home spent an average of 35 percent of saved commuting time on their jobs, the researchers find. They devoted the rest to other activities, including household chores, childcare, leisure activities such as watching movies and TV, outdoor exercise, and even second jobs. Aside from commuting less, remote workers may also be sleeping more efficiently, another phenomenon that could feed into productivity. On days they worked remotely, people rose about 30 minutes later than on-site workers did, according to pre-pandemic research by Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and SUNY Empire’s Victoria Vernon. Both groups worked the same number of hours and slept about the same amount each night,
“Four in 10 Americans who currently work from home at least one day a week would look for another job if their employers told them to come back to the office full time.”
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“About half of millennial and Gen Z workers, and two-fifths of all workers, would consider quitting if their employers weren’t flexible about work-from-home policies.”
so it’s most likely that “working from home permits a more comfortable personal sleep schedule,” says Vernon. “Teleworkers who spend less time commuting may be happier and less tired, and therefore more productive,” write the researchers, who analyzed BLS data from 2017 to 2018. While remote employees gained back commuting time during the pandemic, they also worked fewer hours, note Barrero, Bloom, and Davis. Hours on the job averaged about 32 per week, compared with 36 prepandemic, although the work time stretched past traditional office hours. “Respondents may devote a few more minutes in the morning to chores and childcare, while still devoting about a third of their old commuting time slot to their primary job. At the end of the day, they might end somewhat early and turn on the TV. They might interrupt TV time to respond to a late afternoon or early evening work request,” the researchers explain. This interpretation, they write, is consistent with media reports that employees worked longer hours from home during the pandemic but with the added flexibility to interrupt the working day. Yet, according to the survey, this does not have a negative overall effect on productivity, contradicting one outdated stereotype of a remote worker eating bonbons, watching TV, and getting no work done. Remote-work technology goes mainstream The widespread implementation of remote-working technology, a defining feature of the pandemic, is another important factor for productivity. This technology will boost work-from-home productivity by 46 percent by the end of the pandemic, relative to the pre-pandemic situation, according to a model developed by Rutgers’s Morris A. Davis, University of North Carolina’s Andra C. Ghent, and University of Wisconsin’s Jesse M. Gregory. “While many home-office technologies have been around for a while, the technologies become much more useful after widespread adoption,” the researchers note. There are significant costs to leaving the office, Rutgers’s Davis says, pointing to
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the loss of face-to-face interaction, among other things. “Working at home is always less productive than working at the office. Always,” he said on a June episode of the Freakonomics podcast. One reason, he says, has to do with the function of cities as business centers. “Cities exist because, we think, the crowding of employment makes everyone more productive,” he explains. “This idea also applies to firms: a firm puts all workers on the same floor of a building, or all in the same suite rather than spread throughout a building, for reasons of efficiency. It is easier to communicate and share ideas with office mates, which leads to more productive outcomes.” While some employees are more productive at home, that’s not the case overall, according to the model, which after calibration “implies that the average highskill worker is less productive at home than at the office, even postpandemic,” he says. And yet Davis, Ghent, and Gregory’s model projects that after the pandemic winds down, highly skilled, college-educated workers will spend 30 percent of their time working from home, as opposed to 10 percent in prior times. While physical proximity may be superior, working from home is far more productive than it used to be. Had the pandemic hit in 1990, it would not have produced this rise in relative productivity, per the researchers’ model, because the technology available at the time was not sufficient to support remote work. A June article in the MIT Technology Review by Stanford’s Erik Brynjolfsson and MIT postdoctoral scholar Georgios Petropoulos corroborates this view. Citing the 5.4 percent increase in US labor productivity in the first quarter of 2021, as reported by the BLS, the researchers attribute at least some of this to the rise of work-from-home technologies. The pandemic, they write, has “compressed a decade’s worth of digital innovation in areas like remote work into less than a year.” The biggest productivity impact of the pandemic will be realized in the longer run, as the work-from-home trend continues, they argue.
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Lost ideas, longer hours? Not all the research supports the idea that remote work increases productivity and decreases the number of hours workers spend on the job. Chicago Booth’s Michael Gibbs and University of Essex’s Friederike Mengel and Christoph Siemroth find contradictory evidence from a study of 10,000 high-skilled workers at a large Asian IT-services company. The researchers used personnel and analytics data from before and during the coronavirus work-from-home period. The company provided a rich data set for these 10,000 employees, who moved to 100 percent work from home in March 2020 and began returning to the office in late October. Total hours worked during that time increased by approximately 30 percent, including an 18 percent rise in working beyond normal business hours, the researchers find. At the same time, however, average output—as measured by the company through setting work goals and tracking progress toward them—declined slightly. Time spent on coordination activities and meetings also increased, while uninterrupted work hours shrank. Additionally, employees spent less time networking and had fewer oneon-one meetings with their supervisors, find the researchers, adding that the increase in hours worked and the decline in productivity were more significant for employees with children at home. Weighing output against hours worked, the researchers conclude that productivity decreased by about 20 percent. They estimate that, even after accounting for the loss of commuting time, employees worked about a third of an hour per day more than they did at the office. “Of course, that time was spent in productive work instead of sitting in traffic, which is beneficial,” they acknowledge. Overall, though, do workers with more flexibility work fewer hours (as Barrero, Bloom, and Davis find) or more (as at the Asian IT-services company)? It could take more data to answer this question. “I suspect that a high fraction of employees of all types, across the globe, value the flexibility, lack of a commute, and other aspects of work from home. This
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might bias survey respondents toward giving more positive answers to questions about their productivity,” says Gibbs. The findings of his research do not entirely contradict those of Barrero, Bloom, and Davis, however. For one, Gibbs, Mengel, and Siemroth acknowledge that their study doesn’t necessarily reflect the remote-work model as it might look in postpandemic times, when employees are relieved of the weight of a massive global crisis. “While the average effect of working from home on productivity is negative in our study, this does not rule out that a ‘targeted working from home’ regime might be desirable,” they write. Additionally, the research data are derived from a single company and may not be representative of the wider economy, although Gibbs notes that the IT company is one that should be able to optimize remote work. Most employees worked on company laptops, “and IT-related industries and occupations are usually at the top of lists of those areas most likely to be able to do WFH effectively.” Thus, he says, the findings may represent a cautionary note that remote work has costs and complexities worth addressing. As he, Mengel, and Siemroth write, some predictions of work-from-home success may be overly optimistic, “perhaps because professionals engage in many tasks that require collaboration, communication, and innovation, which are more difficult to achieve with virtual, scheduled interactions.”
“As the pandemic has demonstrated, many workers can be both productive and get dinner started between meetings.”
Attracting top talent The focus on IT employees’ productivity, however, excludes issues such as worker morale and retention, Booth’s Davis notes. More generally, “the producer has to attract workers . . . and if workers really want to commute less, and they can save time on their end, and employers can figure out some way to accommodate that, they’re going to have more success with workers at a given wage cost.” Companies that offer more flexibility in work arrangements may have the best chance of attracting top talent at the best price. The data from Barrero, Bloom, and Davis reveal that some workers are willing to take a sizable
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“The pandemicinduced shift to remote work meant 62.5 million fewer commuting hours per workday.”
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pay cut in exchange for the opportunity to work remotely two or three days a week. This may give threats from CEOs such as Morgan Stanley’s James Gorman—who said at the company’s US Financials, Payments & CRE conference in June, “If you want to get paid New York rates, you work in New York”—a bit less bite. Meanwhile, Duke PhD student John W. Barry, Cornell’s Murillo Campello, Duke’s John R. Graham, and Chicago Booth’s Yueran Ma find that companies offering flexibility are the ones most poised to grow. Working policies may be shaped by employees’ preferences. Some workers still prefer working from the office; others prefer to stay working remotely; many would opt for a hybrid model, with some days in the office and some at home (as Amazon and other companies have introduced). As countries emerge from the pandemic and employers recalibrate, companies could bring back some employees and allow others to work from home. This should ultimately boost productivity, Booth’s Davis says. Or they could allow some to work from far-flung locales. Harvard’s Prithwiraj Choudhury has long focused his research on working not just from home but “from anywhere.” This goes beyond the idea of employees working from their living room in the same city in which their company is located—instead, if they want to live across the country, or even in another country, they can do so without any concern about being near headquarters. Research Choudhury conducted with Harvard PhD student Cirrus Foroughi and Northeastern University’s Barbara Larson analyzes a 2012 transition from a work-fromhome to a work-from-anywhere model among patent examiners with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The researchers exploited a natural experiment and estimate that there was a 4.4 percent increase in work output when the examiners transitioned from a work-from-home regime to the work-fromanywhere regime. “Work from anywhere offers workers geographic flexibility and can help workers relocate to their preferred locations,” Choudhury says. “Workers could gain additional utility by relocating to a cheaper location, moving closer to family, or
mitigating frictions around immigration or dual careers.” He notes as well the potential advantages for companies that allow workers to be located anywhere across the globe. “In addition to benefits to workers and organizations, WFA might also help reverse talent flows from smaller towns to larger cities and from emerging markets,” he says. “This might lead to a more equitable distribution of talent across geographies.” More data to come It is still early to draw strong conclusions about the impact of remote work on productivity. People who were sent home to work because of the COVID-19 pandemic may have been more motivated than before to prove they were essential, says Booth’s Ayelet Fishbach, a social psychologist. Additionally, there were fewer distractions from the outside because of the broad shutdowns. “The world helped them stay motivated,” she says, adding that looking at such an atypical year may not tell us as much about the future as performing the same experiment in a typical year would. Before the pandemic, workers who already knew they performed better in a remoteworking lifestyle self-selected into it, if allowed. During the pandemic, shutdowns forced remote work on millions. An experiment that allowed for random selection would likely be more telling. “The work-fromhome experience seems to be more positive than what people believed, but we still don’t have great data,” Fishbach says. Adding to the less optimistic view of a work-from-home future, Booth’s Austan D. Goolsbee says that some long-term trends may challenge remote work. Since the 1980s, as the largest companies have gained market power, corporate profits have risen dramatically while the share of profits going
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to workers has dropped to record lows. “This divergence between productivity and pay may very well come to pass regarding time,” he told graduating Booth students at their convocation ceremony. Companies may try to claw back time from those who are remote, he says, by expecting employees to work for longer hours or during their off hours. And author and behavioral scientist Jon Levy argues in the Boston Globe that having some people in the office and others at home runs counter to smooth organizational processes. To this, Bloom offers a potential solution: instead of letting employees pick their own remote workdays, employers should ensure all workers take remote days together and come into the office on the same days. This, he says, could help alleviate the challenges of managing a hybrid team and level the playing field, whereas a looser model could potentially hurt employees who might be more likely to choose working from home (such as mothers with young children) while elevating those who might find it easier to come into the office every day (such as single men). Gibbs concurs, noting that companies using a hybrid model will have to find ways to make sure employees who should interact will be on campus simultaneously. “Managers may specify that the entire team meets in person every Monday morning, for example,” he says. “R&D groups may need to make sure that researchers are on campus at the same time, to spur unplanned interactions that sometimes lead to new ideas and innovations.” Sentiments vary by location, industry, and culture. Japanese workers are reportedly still mostly opting to go to the office, even as the government promotes remote work. Among European executives, a whopping 88 percent reportedly disagree with the idea that remote work is as or more productive than working at the office.
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Regardless of what research establishes in the long run about productivity, many workers are already demanding flexibility in their schedules. While only about 28 percent of US office workers were back onsite by June 2021, employees who had become used to more flexibility were demanding it remain. A May survey of 1,000 workers by Morning Consult on behalf of Bloomberg News finds that about half of millennial and Gen Z workers, and twofifths of all workers, would consider quitting if their employers weren’t flexible about workfrom-home policies. And additional research from Barrero, Bloom, and Davis finds that four in 10 Americans who currently work from home at least one day a week would look for another job if their employers told them to come back to the office full time. Additionally, most employees would look favorably upon a new job that offered the same pay as their current job along with the option to work from home two to three days a week. The shift to remote work affects a significant slice of the US workforce. A study by Chicago Booth’s Jonathan Dingel and Brent Neiman finds that while the majority of all jobs in the US require appearing in person, more than a third can potentially be performed entirely remotely. Of these jobs, the majority—including many in engineering, computing, law, and finance—pay more than those that cannot be done at home, such as food service, construction, and buildingmaintenance jobs. Barrero, Bloom, and Davis project that, postpandemic, Americans overall will work approximately 20 percent of full workdays from home, four times the pre-pandemic level. This would make remote work less an aberration than a new norm. As the pandemic has demonstrated, many workers can be both productive and get dinner started between meetings.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Courtesy of the Chicago Booth Review.
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n Peter Cappelli n Paulo Soeiro de Carvalho n University of Chicago (Booth) n Mark Crowley n Australian Institute of Business
n Selma Barlow
n Florida Southern College n University of North Florida
n Andres Gallo n Ranjay Gulati
n EU Business School
n Julia Hennig n Dana Hyde
n IMD Business School n INSEAD Knowledge n ISEG
IST OF CONTRIBUTORS
n Farrokh Langdana n Cathy Lewis
n University of Maine
n Rutgers Business School
n David Whiting ceo-mag.com / Spring 2022
n Charlotte Karam
n Jacksonville University n Zuzanna Jastrzebska n Emily Jimenez
n University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) n Phanish Puranam
n Agnieszka Soporowska n Liesa Sprungmann n Rebecca Stropoli
n Jo Thomas
n Howard Yu 64
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