Custom Fit

Executive education graduates from one-size-fits-all programming

When it comes to executive education, it’s a buyer’s market. For execs in need of new ideas on everything from finance to leadership to innovation, there’s a course just waiting out there.

In the past, nondegree executive education programs were generally run in one of two ways: open enrollment, in which any executive (usually company-sponsored) could show up; and custom programs, where the corporation would hire the university to create an educational experience for a target audience. Though those categories still exist, there’s more crossover between them than in the past.

“There is a lot of competition out there,” says William Lee, professor of management practice and associate dean for executive education at Rice University’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management in Houston. “A lot of schools do it, a lot of companies do it, and a lot of organizations like the American Management Association do it.” Lee, like many in his field, says he’s seeing the most growth in fully customized programs.

But that doesn’t mean schools are giving up on open enrollment — far from it. Many, however, are customizing formerly one-size-fits-all, off-the-shelf programs, says Carrie Boyd, senior director of open programs with Babson Executive Education in Wellesley, Mass., to better meet the needs of today’s companies.

Other reasons for the increasing focus on customization involve the time crunch at companies — and schools’ need to find new customers to target. “The executive education business was really built on the baby boom generation,” says Stephen Burnett, associate dean of executive education and professor of strategic management at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Chicago. “You had a huge cohort. The baby boomers have moved out of [the age range when they needed this education], and there was a much smaller group behind them. What you’re seeing is an industry that’s maturing. And at the same time, the real sweet spot is a lot smaller. So the name of the game today is to think about other segments of the market.

“It’s a much tougher business. In the old days, you didn’t have to be real smart [to find customers]. We would print up a whole bunch of brochures and mail them to 30,000 people. Now you have to say, ‘Who’s the target for that [course], and how do we find them?’”

Fast Forward

Forget money for a moment. One of the biggest deciding factors for professionals looking into executive education is how long the program will pull them away from the office. “People’s time out of the office is becoming more of a barrier to enrollment in programs than in the past,” says Boyd. “We’re starting to realize that we need to be creative about how are we going to get people the same content in a way that doesn’t require them to be out of the office for five days.”

That’s also been a consideration as New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business has developed its executive programs. “Time is one of the most valuable currencies,” says Jaki Sitterle, the school’s managing director of executive programs. To serve time-crunched customers, Stern recently launched what it calls “bite-sized ... open-enrollment programs.” Instead of the longer courses the school offered in the past, the new schedule is peppered with two-day, just-in-time classes. They’re all about getting in, getting out, and going home to put the new learning to work immediately. “We wanted to respond to trends in the marketplace and the needs of executives and high potentials,” says Sitterle.

Though the classes, which cover topics ranging from negotiation to innovation, are short, they’re far from lightweight — they’re taught by the research faculty that draws students to Stern’s degree programs. “One of our star faculty members, Aswath Damodaran, is doing a two-day program in the fall on valuation,” says Sitterle. “He’s known around the world. It’s an interactive course on company valuation without having to sign up for a degree. It’s a great opportunity to benefit from research faculty and apply the lessons that next day.”

The need for speed (without sacrificing necessary knowledge) is also being factored into the creation of the accelerated-development program that the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management is launching in spring 2009. Aimed at people moving from the technical side of business to a management career path — without an MBA lighting the way — the certificate program will offer MBA-level material and teaching at a faster clip of 14 daylong sessions (which can be spread out over a period of time), says Associate Dean Lee.

For those who crave the full-on academic experience — but still can’t spend too much time in the classroom — it’s technology to the rescue, of course. Tulane University’s Freeman School of Business offers several online master certificate programs, including Business/Management, Business/Marketing, and Business/HR Management.

Less Theory, More Action

As much as speed is a driver these days, money — and proof of bottom-line results — isn’t far behind. “What the market’s been telling us is they need to understand the ROI [return on investment] of these programs,” says Charles Breckling, managing director of marketing for Harvard Business School Executive Education. “[Executives] want more individual development as well as company-specific challenges.” Several of Harvard’s current open-enrollment programs offer just that, giving participants the chance to bring in company-specific challenges. In one recently added course, Building and Leading Customer-Centric Organizations, Breckling says participants analyzed several real-world cases on product and service companies and worked with team members from a variety of industries and functional areas to find solutions to apply back at headquarters.

That push for feet-on-the-ground learning and concepts that can be utilized immediately in the office is also a major driver of course development at Babson, says Boyd. “We’re encouraging companies to send participants to programs with a specific challenge. They’re learning by doing.”

Lead On

One topic that seems to be on the mind of everybody running executive education programs is leadership. It’s being highlighted as never before, in ways both new and old.

That includes the Leadership Deep Dive course in development at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management, in Cleveland. Planned for launch in June 2009, the two-week intensive residential course — which Associate Dean Michael Devlin calls “a finishing school in leadership” — will give aspiring go-getters a comprehensive view of leadership at all levels. The program will include group projects as well as individual coaching.

After the immersion is over, Devlin says participants will better understand leadership on four levels: (1) their personal strengths and gaps as leaders; (2) awareness that, as leaders, they’re fundamentally engaged in one-on-one relationships with thousands of people; (3) how to lead an organization; and (4) an understanding of the role organizations play in society. “You get to a certain level and you can’t just have an internal focus anymore,” says Devlin. “You have to add an external focus to your work.

Leadership is also clearly on the minds of the staff at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. Recent open-enrollment programs there included Virtual Leadership: Leading Dispersed Teams and Leading High Performance Teams. And in May, the school worked with executives from Finland’s Turku School of Economics to present a weeklong program called Competing and Leading in a Changing Business Environment. “The greatest benefit of a weeklong program like this one is the long intellectual break away from the routine of the office,” says Jaakko Heikkilä, vice president of Boliden Commercial AB. “You’re not running the show. Your job is to sit back, listen, and learn new ideas you can take home.”

Growth Spurt

While changes roll on in open enrollment, the biggest growth in the executive education business is in custom programs. According to Devlin, academia is starting to win over companies that, in the past, would have turned to consultants to craft some sort of plan. “There’s a growing awareness in the corporate community that professors who deliver the subject matter are really at the cutting edge of their field,” he says.

The Jones Graduate School of Management recently began developing courses for a large international oil company that Lee says “may be the largest executive education contract signed by anybody at any time for any reason.” There’s a growing talent shortage in the energy industry, Lee explains, as a significant portion of the field’s technicians and managers approach retirement age. By investing heavily in their people, Lee says the oil company believes it will have better luck retaining current employees and recruiting new talent.

Eventually, 17,000 staff members will complete the 10-day program. But, because it simply doesn’t have the resources to handle that many participants on its own, Jones put together a consortium of schools around the world that will help train the oil company’s global workforce through programs in Houston, London, Singapore, Dubai, and Baku, Azerbaijan. “It’s cheaper to take a couple of faculty members to Dubai than it is to bring 25 company people to Houston,” says Lee. For staffers who can’t make it to any of the five locations, Jones is getting help from a local teammate — Baylor College of Medicine, which is well known for its distance-learning tools for physicians.

The Mays School of Business at Texas A&M has also seen incredible growth in its custom division. Actually, since the school’s location — three hours from Dallas, two from Austin, and 90 minutes from Houston — makes it difficult for people to drop in for short courses, the school dropped its open enrollment program eight years ago. It’s all custom, all the time, at Mays.

Mays’ biggest client is Halliburton. What started with a one-week class several years back has become an around-the-calendar 36-week training program on the Mays campus as well as six international venues. “We bring a customized mini-EMBA to the company,” says Ben Welch, director of the Center for Executive Development at Mays Business School, in College Station, Texas. While some companies may prefer to make an investment that big toward an in-house corporate university, Welch says custom executive education programs offer the advantage of “accessibility to world-renowned faculty.”

Fresh Ideas for Smaller Companies

While companies pulling in $100 million or so are hardly small potatoes, their execs generally haven’t made up the rolls of executive education programs. But that’s changing. In the past, says Michael Devlin, associate dean for executive education at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management, in Cleveland, “the sweet spot for us as an industry has been a billion dollars–plus in sales. [Now] we do quite a bit of business with folks around the $100 million mark. In many cases it’s almost more important for those smaller companies to come to us.” At the biggest corporations, there’s greater intellectual and experiential diversity to be found. For smaller companies anxious to acquire new ideas and new strategies, it’s important to go outside, says Devlin. “When I think of the smaller companies we work with, that’s why. They want to be exposed to new ideas.” — J.S.

Down Economy? Up the Training

If the economy’s got you — or your company — down, fight hard to keep from cutting back on training. During an economic downturn, good organizations don’t do things like cut training or put the kibosh on innovation, says Carrie Boyd, senior director of open programs at Babson Executive Education in Wellesley, Mass. “What we say is that you should absolutely be doing the opposite. You should be continuing to train and develop your employees. You should be continuing to innovate. When the economic downturn is over, you don’t want to be 10 steps behind and playing catch-up.”

Ben Welch, director of the Center for Executive Development at Mays Business School at Texas A&M University, concurs, and adds that employee retention during tough times is key: “We’re seeing a renewed emphasis on people development. There’s such a fierce competitiveness out there that [companies are telling us], we’ve got to let people know how valuable they are.” — J.S.