CURRICULUM DESIGN
Gaining vital real-life experience Following research on professional network-building, personalised and productive supervisory relationships and career mentoring, we have designed the Essec global MBA career-learning labs. Here, MBA participants immerse and integrate themselves into a chosen industry and/or role, while being provided with professional guidance. These labs focus on learning the social side of the industry, the roles found therein and the latest practices. In our case, we have career-learning labs focusing on the luxury and finance industries, as well as programmes related to the roles of consulting and product managers. The labs are led by a well-connected executive who is able to provide the social integration needed for either the industry or the role. So, as the MBA participant is building their core and specialised knowledge within business, at the same time they are learning from practising professionals on what it is like to work in a senior capacity in a particular industry sector or job role. These labs consist of savoir faire (in the sense of ‘know-how’) company visits, executive boot camps and field consulting projects. This is one of three career-enhancing experiences: MBA students can either participate in the field consulting scheme, complete a full-time internship or engage in an entrepreneurial venturing project. The MBA participants engage in multiple visits to companies in their targeted industry or role. During these trips, the participant is able to receive realistic job previews; experience multiple examples of senior executive proactivity; build their professional network; and even potentially sow the seeds of a relationship with a personal advisory board member. In addition to the savoir faire visits, the MBA cohort can participate in hands-on signature experiences, or boot camps, where they work and interact with senior executives in their targeted industry or role. For example, in autumn last year, we piloted a Deloitte-supervised consulting experience. Via executive education workshops and a customised consulting case, the MBA participants ‘learned by doing’ alongside partners from the multinational accountancy firm. These types of experiences, although not designed to replace the career services function within the MBA programme, are powerful ways to combine the task mastery from the participants’ core courses with the social integration of a practising profession. MBA students can also opt to take part in a field consulting project. These focus on a real-life opportunity or challenge that an organisation within their targeted industry is experiencing. They work in a team environment, supervised by client executives. Participants not only build their competency by working on a cross-functional and strategic project, they also strengthen their cadre of realistic job previews, examples of proactivity, professional networking and that personal advisory board. It’s high time we rethink how we educate future senior executives in our MBA programmes. We must continue to find novel ways not only to provide task mastery but, more innovatively, o er social integration – something that might just be the key to long-term career growth, progression and impact.
BIOGRAPHY Dr David Sluss is a professor of leadership & organisational behaviour and the academic director of the global MBA programme at France’s Essec Business School; he also holds the position of professor of the school’s Leading a Scale-Up chair. Sluss’ work focuses on how high-potential professionals become agile, adaptive and analytical leaders through creating personalised and productive work relationships. He focuses on new leader development and transitions, as well as how leaders build resilience in the face of adversity. Sluss takes a diagnostic and behavioural approach to facilitating leadership development
While there is much to do to encourage senior executive task mastery, MBA programmes should not stop there. Possibly more importantly, such programmes can encourage and inculcate senior executive social integration. In this respect, new employee onboarding research continues to provide advice and insight into how MBA participants can increasingly become socialised and include being a senior leader in their own identity. Building professional social networks is key to becoming integrated as a future senior executive. In the words of the American Psychological Association: “Such networks provide relationship constellations comprised of multiple individuals whom a newcomer can lean on for developmental support”. Newcomers become more socially integrated when they build personalised and productive relationships with their supervisors and peers. We also know from mentoring research that career growth occurs not only from one strong mentoring relationship, but also through having what some call a “personal advisory board”, as reported by Forbes . In a Harvard Business Review article penned by Susan Stelter, chief people o cer at digital consulting firm West Monroe Partners, she describes the phenomenon thus: “The goal is to put together a group of people with experiences completely distinct from your own who can o er you a fresh perspective when needed.”
Ambition MAY 2024 | 35
Made with FlippingBook - Share PDF online