• Nature Of Course: Skill and leadership development
• Institute: Wharton University of Pennsylvania
• Participant Profile: Functional, country or unit managers
• Duration: 2 weeks
• Fees: $24,750 (excludes cost of travel)

25. Leading For Results

• Nature Of Course: Leadership and management
• Institute: INSEAD Singapore
• Participant Profile: Middle or senior managers
• Duration: 5 days
• Fees: €9,800 (excludes cost of travel)

26. Interpersonal Dynamics For High-Performance Executives

• Nature Of Course: Soft skills of leadership, emotional intelligence
• Institute: Stanford Graduate School of Management
• Participant Profile: Senior executives
• Duration: 5 days
• Fees: $13,000 (excludes cost of travel)

27. Management Of Managers

• Nature Of Course: Leadership and individual effectiveness
• Institute: Michigan Ross School of Business
• Participant Profile: Functional managers
• Duration: 5 days
• Fees: $8,425 (excludes cost of travel)

28. Negotiation Strategies For Managers

• Nature Of Course: Strategic alliances, dispute resolution
• Institute: Kellogg School of Management, Evanston, Illinois
• Participant Profile: Senior managers across functions, entrepreneurs
• Duration: 4 days
• Fees: $5,600 (excludes cost of travel)

29. Building, Leading, And Sustaining The Innovative Organisation

• Nature Of Course: Understanding and channelling user-developed innovation
• Institute: MIT Sloan School of Management
• Participant Profile: Senior corporate, technical executives, managers in product development
• Duration: 2 days
• Fees: $2,600 (excludes cost of travel)

30. Mergers & Acquisitions

• Nature Of Course: Evaluating and managing M&As from start to finish
• Institute: Wharton University of Pennsylvania
• Participant Profile: CFOs, vice-presidents of business development, executive directors-finance, and senior business analysts
• Duration: 5 days
• Fees: $9,475 (excludes cost of travel)

***

What do successful senior executives do after an extended phase of demonstrated leadership? Unlearn, believes John Hershey, Professor of Operations and Information Management, The Wharton School. Hershey has seen his share of high-rising leaders. “They are at a point where they need to unlearn a lot of what has made them successful, so that they can now release the creative energies of others who work for them.”

The Wharton Executive Development Programme is aimed at managers who have risen young, have 10-15 years of experience, and are making a transition to the next level: general management. Spread over 10 days in Philadelphia, the participant sessions are interspersed with workshops on themes such as executive negotiations, decision-making, leadership, and politics of inter-group relations. Apart from this social systems workshop, it has three inter-related components: core business knowledge, business acumen and simulation.

Large Indian organisations like Mahindra & Mahindra are no strangers to the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. But many other Indian companies may prefer having the Wharton faculty fly down and take select modules for their top managers (the fee is high for a single participant if he/she goes to Wharton). With such a domestic arrangement, more senior managers have access to the Wharton faculty, and learning happens as an organisational group. But there are trade-offs with this approach: facilities like computer-based simulation, which are exclusive to this programme, are available only on campus.

“It is one of our most popular programmes in the senior-management portfolio,” says Robin Salaman, a programme consultant. The course, which has completed 18 years, is held thrice a year. It also has a globally diverse participation: about 60-70% of the participants are from countries other than the US. “It brings leaders from around the world, from a variety of different disciplines and backgrounds,” says Professor Hershey. “There is an environment to think at a higher level, more creatively, and to understand how innovation can take place across different functional areas.”

The sectoral representation has primarily been from telecom, pharmaceuticals, government, technology, R&D and software companies. Previous participants have been happy about the individual attention during the 10-day period. Accommodation and meals are included in the course fee.

For middle- and middle-upper managers in India, overseas-study excursions can often be unrealistic. The cost of a course (fees plus travel) in Europe and the US can prove steep for short bursts of self-sponsored learning; plus, most of the time away from work is expended in travel. INSEAD Singapore, with its relative proximity to India and renowned quality, might be a more realistic and comparable option. It offers a wide choice of courses for middle-level managers.

The open programme, titled ‘Leading for Results’, for instance, offers bang for the buck. It’s a five-day, residential programme that is only about five hours away from home. Its value: to prepare managers for leadership roles. The programme begins with a detailed self-assessment and INSEAD’s renowned 360 degree feedback. “It requires you to seek inputs from your colleagues regarding your leadership style, prior to the programme,” says a programme coordinator.

Mukund Govind Rajan
Managing Director, Tata Teleservices Maharashtra

It’s pointless to ask an IIT graduate, who also holds a Masters degree and a Doctorate in international relations from Oxford, why a professional must learn, relearn, unlearn and learn again. Mukund Govind Rajan puts it down to “a need for constant refreshment”.

The Managing Director of Tata Teleservices Maharashtra has grown under the wings of the Tata Group, which sees executive learning as an input in the growth plan for its high performers. In 2005, when Rajan was a Vice-President in Tata Sons, he was among 30 young leaders and top executives in a Harvard Business School module hosted at the Tata Management Training Centre, Pune. It featured Professors Krishna Palepu, Nitin Nohria and Das Narayandas.

“The cases were selected with an eye on the Indian context, with lots of overseas examples,” recalls Rajan. “The professors would show us cases that would end on an uncertain note. Then, they asked us to figure out what may have happened, and how we would deal with it in a particular context.”

“No matter how well-prepared we were, the faculty showed us many facets of these simulated situations that we wouldn’t have thought of,” he laughs, stressing on the need for time management and preparation before the module. “Very quickly, we got a sense of the implications of the problem we were solving.”

His distinct takeaway from the experience was the emphasis on creating value for shareholders. “The fundamental duty is to create value,” he asserts. “In any business, there has to be a clear perspective of where value is being created, and one must enhance that. So, the razor-sharp focus on value creation has stayed with me. If that is addressed, then a professional is fulfilling his duty and responsibility as a good manager.”

The deadline for completion of 360 degree assessments is two weeks before the course begins. So, if you plan to enrol, factor in the assessment effort you have to put in. The more accurate and detailed it is, the better the chances for a manager to leverage the programme. The programme is scheduled in Singapore twice in the year ahead.

Participants tend to have more than five years of experience. Previous attendees have included vice-presidents, senior managers and regional heads in specific functions. During the programme, the faculty addresses themes like developing teams, aligning resources in a cross-functional and multi-cultural setup, and execution. One module addresses the need for young leaders to provide constructive feedback and motivate the team. The focus is unmistakably on people management.

The faculty encourages participants to follow up with them on the impact of the programme. In fact, they check the action plan of participants three months later to further the implementation process.

Most INSEAD courses are designed with a global exposure in mind. This is why modules of most programmes are based in its France and Abu Dhabi campuses too. The International Executive Programme is a good example. Leading for Results is, however, held in Singapore two out of three times in a year.

Indian companies like Bharti Airtel have previously sent teams to INSEAD Singapore for short-term programmes. If you are a high-performer in an organisation that believes in higher learning, chances are, it could sponsor you or send you as part of a team.

Supportive confrontation’ may seem to be from the same lexicon as ‘benevolent tyranny’—phrases that are neither here nor there. But nothing is condemned more in modern management than raw displays of power. This is the age of soft power, with leaders needing to hold teams together through goodwill and influence—while delivering tasks in an attritional market. So, to be ‘supportively confrontational’ is to help managers improve their emotional intelligence. The Stanford course on interpersonal dynamics is a platform for developing your soft-skills quotient.

Many firms and industries must make fundamental changes to long-held business models in order to adapt.Professor Eric Von Hippel, MIT Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts

Through a series of practical exercises, participants observe how their individual behaviour affects others in real time. They then customise their behaviour based on these observations, and practice key leadership skills with peer feedback. Topics include how to address contentious work-style conflicts, giving and receiving developmental feedback through ‘supportive confrontation’, and creating open and trustful work environments. Participants have the option of follow-up coaching within two months of the programme.

The programme has been popular with managers from the entertainment, leisure and software sectors. Participants come principally from the sales, marketing and general management functions.

Another five-day programme that is tuned to managing people is the ‘Management of Managers: Developing Leadership Excellence’ programme at Michigan Ross School of Business. Again, this is customised to a manager’s needs because of the ‘Leadership Competencies Survey’—essentially, an appraisal of the self as a leader—that is to be filled by participants before arrival. The demographic profile of this class is middle- and senior-level managers who are in unit-head positions that require handling a large number of people.

The open sessions on leadership then put the manager through themes like market and organisations. For the latter, it touches upon McKinsey’s ‘7-S Framework’. Accordingly, managers are acquainted with three hard elements (strategy, structure, systems) and four soft elements (shared values, skills, style, staff) to measure the effectiveness of their organisation. One of the features for participants in this programme is the one-on-one coaching available in the evenings of every programme day.

After a trailblazing global tryst until 2008, most Indian managers can be forgiven if they associate negotiation strategies foremost with deal-making. A good portion of this programme addresses negotiation skills necessary within an organisation, especially after a merger or an acquisition. The emphasis on buyouts is a distinguishing feature, and an area several Indian managers in overseas entities will appreciate.

Be it managing a Corus or a Tata Steel during a slowdown, or being sensitive to overseas employees after an acquisition, business heads need tact, maybe even a quiver full of olive branches, to negotiate on the global playground. Participants from India will relate to the ‘resolving disputes’ and ‘negotiating across cultures’ modules in this course.

As Jeanne Brett, Professor of Dispute Resolution and Organisations, suggests in a paper co-authored by her, a lot of the work is in ‘pre-mediation caucus’. Or, the ability to have a separate meeting with each disputant prior to any joint meeting. That gives a face to each disputant and establishes trust. “Managers can mediate disputes more effectively when they use a pre-mediation caucus,” believes Professor Brett, who co-directs the Kellogg open course, and is Director of its Dispute Resolution Research Centre.

In the sessions, spread across four days, participants discuss strategy in a collaborative-learning environment. This involves negotiating deals and resolving disputes, with feedback on negotiating strengths. The Kellogg resources and material are tuned to global cultures, and have a module devoted to techniques for cross-cultural negotiations.

Apart from the legal aspect (litigation) of dispute resolution, the module is focused on strategies to manage emotional people and reach agreements. “Mediators intuitively eschew such (pre-mediation) meetings because they are trained to avoid them. They do so out of concern for neutrality, or the belief that some ‘test of strength’ is needed first, or that such meetings are only appropriate in circumstances of very high conflict,” states Professor Brett. “Our studies provide evidence that such meetings facilitate the quality of settlements and why.”

The research study, co-authored by Professor Brett, involved 540 employment disputes. It has documented that such mediation not only resolves disputes in many cases by having a substantive discussion, but also increases settlement quality and reduces conflict. The caveat, though, is that mediators have to be experienced. In the open programme, Professor Brett seeks to expand the repertoire of negotiation skills.

The participation criteria are neutral, and managers are encouraged to attend across functions. Prior to the sessions, they must complete a survey that assesses their negotiation style. This is essential for the first module that evaluates negotiation skills—and for managers to make the most of their participation.

Professor Eric von Hippel always espouses the cause of user-led development and innovation. That is, clusters of users in an organisation and outside it must drive innovation of processes and products. It’s been a mantra from the MIT Sloan mind, be it in his 2005 book Democratizing Innovation or at an open programme at The Oberoi Trident on 26/11—just hours before all hell broke loose.

In the more sobering environs of MIT Sloan School of Management, in Massachusetts, Professor von Hippel and a faculty host a programme for technical management in the same domain: user development. Participants range from senior managers—CEOs and VPs—to middle managers like heads of R&D and major innovation projects. The content is based on Democratizing Innovation.

RT Wasan
Head of International Business, Tata Motors Commercial Vehicles

Most managers struggle to put a finger on the tangible benefits of executive education. Not RT Wasan, Head of International Business, Tata Motors Commercial Vehicles (TMCV). He simply contrasts the executive learning experience with trial-and-error approaches. “It hastens the learning experience of an individual, compared to the trial-and-error way,” says Wasan.

Without periodic learnings, working professionals have no choice but to fall back on experience. This can make them prone to errors when environments change. “With the trial-and-error approach, an individual cannot understand the full perspective of business,” Wasan asserts.

In his case, there was a knowledge intervention at Wharton Business School. A qualified mechanical engineer and MBA, Wasan’s growth in the marketing domain has been in the auto sector. He joined Tata Motors in 1993. After varied assignments in the early years, he rose via the fast-track selection scheme to become a Regional Manager at TMCV. And then, Wharton happened. It was a company-sponsored course in sales-force management.

The week-long stint in 2004 gave Wasan case-study experience in sales from other industries and markets. “It gave me a rounded perspective of retail sales and management,” he explains. No one in Wasan’s team was surprised when he subsequently oversaw TMCV in the Africa and Saarc regions, before taking on his current role as Head of International Business. In new geographies, he also attributes business-unit growth to co-learnings with his team. “It is about getting exposure and induction through experience, along with the team.” He may not acknowledge it, but executive education hastened the learning curve, at least in terms of know-how.

Typically, the session is full, with as many as 125 participants. And a group discussion size is six participants. The programme has been in vogue for a decade—older than Google, the epitome of user development. It’s hosted twice a year on the institute’s premises. User-led innovation comes with its challenges, which the MIT Sloan faculty address. “The ongoing shift of product-development activities from manufacturers to users is painful and difficult for many manufacturers,” notes Professor von Hippel. “Many firms and industries must make fundamental changes to long-held business models in order to adapt. Further, governmental policy and legislation sometimes preferentially supports innovation by manufacturers,” he explains.

The two-day programme would be immediately useful to organisations that make information products such as software. In recent years, Indian organisations like ICICI Bank have sought to push user-driven processes internally. Cisco is one company that has been successful in developing processes that were driven by its sales force.

The programme at MIT focuses on specific issues, notably tactics to deal with internal politics and resistance to innovation initiatives. It should be a favoured programme for Chief Technology/ Information Officers. Organisations that believe in absorbing customer innovation in product portfolio also stand to benefit. In a digital age, such a mindset is imperative.

“Empirical studies show that 10-40% of users engage in modifying products,” asserts Professor von Hippel. “About half of these studies do not determine the innovation frequency because the studies were designed for other purposes. When taken together, the findings make it clear that users are doing a lot of product modification in many fields.” Initiating those inputs, and channelling them into products and processes, can open many doors for managers and companies.

One of the things Wharton touts about this open programme to Americans is that it draws attendees from Germany, South America and Asia. This is a global classroom, and participants range from CEOs to division heads to business analysts. With a faculty that ushers in the American way of deal-making in the land of myriad organisational marriages, shake-ups and break-ups, there are enough reasons for Indian managers not to give this open course a miss. For sure, Wharton makes for a different cultural setting.

“Experienced people come here to hone their skills,” says Robert W Holthausen, Professor of Accounting, Finance & Management at Wharton. Prior to the course, Wharton also has a Sunday-afternoon refresher session on topics such as familiarity with balance sheets, income and cash-flow statements, and finance. The five-day course is designed to help senior executives develop a better understanding of deal structures.

The faculty includes Professor Harbir Singh, Vice-Dean for Global Ventures, who has also consulted for corporates like Merck, IBM and AT&T. “It’s not so much what you buy (in a deal), but what you do after you bought it and how well you do it that matters in distinguishing failure from success,” says Professor Singh. In a merger or an acquisition, executives need to maintain a realistic outlook at the time of the initial transaction and during its subsequent integration.

For this purpose, participants study the elements of such deals, before proceeding to real case studies and simulated exercises. The faculty helps participants determine a business rationale, select acquisition targets, value them, and evaluate the potential of the partnership. The objective is to see the deal through till the critical integration stage. By most participants’ admission, the peer group adds a lot of value to these exercises.

“One of the key things about this programme is to help executives know how to navigate the M&A minefield,” says Professor Holthausen, who serves as the programme’s Academic Director and specialises in valuations. He cites studies that show a 50% failure rate for mergers. This programme offers strategies to improve the odds for success, and is hosted twice a year. ‘Strategic Alliances: Creating Growth Opportunities’ is another Wharton course along the same lines. It focuses on alliances—a far more tranquil mode of consolidation.