International Executive Education: Business-Driven Action Learning
A matter of “Going to the Mountain”
The Barloworld “Oportunidades en Sudamérica” program is an example of what business schools should be doing to keep up with their clients’ needs.
Resumen
If you were a South African industrial brand management company looking to evaluate South America’s potential for investment, how would you go about it? Well, there are a few sources of information you can tap into, including statistics or country reports undertaken by various entities, some more credible than others. You can also ask your contacts or distributors there. But here you may run the risk of a lack of objectivity or even vested interests. Another option is, of course, finding out for yourself.
This is what Barloworld, one of South Africa’s largest companies and only one of four South African companies selected for the prestigious “Dow Jones Global Sustainability Index” in 2002 has decided to do. Twenty-seven of Barloworld’s most senior executives, including Tony Phillips, the CEO, packed their bags and set off in three groups each one visiting Argentina, Brazil or Chile with a view to finding out their potential for investment.
Nevertheless, venturing onto foreign soil is not without its difficulties. Knowing neither the language nor the culture, the possibility of really getting behind the figures is somewhat limited. You evidently need a little guidance and someone to bridge the gap.
This is where IESE’s department of International Executive Education came in. Together with Barloworld, IEE designed “Oportunidades en Sudamérica”, a program with a high degree of experiential learning but which also monitored that experience to ensure the learning points came through.
The learning method utilized in the program was “Business-Driven Action Learning”, previously used by IESE for the “Boeing Leadership Program” held in Spain in 2000. Business-Driven Action Learning entails the CEO of the company setting participants a project of strategic relevance which they must then research through meetings with top executives of companies with activities in similar sectors, best practice companies and regulatory or governmental bodies. At the end of the program, participants must present their conclusions directly to the CEO.
Business-Driven Action Learning was ideally suited to Barloworld’s needs. Paddy Miller, academic director of the program explains. "Barloworld did not want a program where their executives sat in a class being given information. They could obtain similar information through research. What they wanted was to get out there, meet people and reach their own conclusions."
The program followed this objective fully. As Idunn Jonsdottir, director of the program recounts: "The program started with a two-day workshop forum in Johannesburg. The twenty-seven participants were then divided into three teams of nine people, going to Argentina, Brazil or Chile. In three or four sub-teams, each dealing with a specific sector, they carried out over thirty interviews with top executives of high profile companies in each country."
"Throughout the whole interview process, each sub-team was accompanied by local consultants, chosen by IESE, whose role it was to debrief them and, if necessary, help them see important factors they might have missed. At the end of the interview stage, the participants all met in Sao Paulo where they evaluated their findings and presented their conclusions to Tony Phillips, the CEO."
Given IESE’s connections in Latin America, it is ideally suited to help a company like Barloworld. "Few business schools today would attempt this kind of a program or have the resources to undertake it. Not only are our faculty frequent visitors to Latin America and experts on the area, but we are uniquely positioned in having a rich pool of alumni, business contacts, and fellow institutions", says Paddy Miller.
The Barloworld “Oportunidades en Sudamérica” program is an example of what business schools should be doing to keep up with their clients’ needs. As Rory Simpson, Director of the Department of International Education states, "Client needs are becoming far more sophisticated and business schools must be ready to adapt their practices and teaching methods to satisfy those needs". It is a simple matter of "if the mountain doesn’t come to you, you must go to the mountain". |
  
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