INTERVIEW
How would you define ‘the new generation’ of business leaders? What skills, qualities, capabilities, and mindsets do they need? Becoming aware and taking control of our mental processes is critical to our ability to choose our purposes freely, rather than being reactive. Members of the new generation will need a developed awareness of this inner dimension, so they can inspire and energise others, and be committed and purposeful in everything they do. Another important skill is active listening. Being a great listener doesn’t just mean reflecting back what is said, or being patient and accepting pauses and short periods of silence. Being a great listener means being able to amplify ideas and energise the person you are listening to. In short, great listeners are a launch pad for their interlocutors’ thoughts. MIP Politecnico di Milano is creating a ‘New Generation MBA’ which will not only deliver advanced management skills but combine these with tools to enable a new generation of leaders to meet the unique challenges of the 21st century. Can you tell us more about this? The intersection between innovation and business is clearly one that greatly shapes the MBA experience at MIP. That’s why, together with The Mind at Work, a company which looks to strengthen the performance of teams and organisations, we decided to realign
the purpose, values and culture of MIP itself. This included redesigning our full-time MBA – our flagship programme. For the first time, this New Generation MBA integrates two important dimensions. On one side, it provides the hard competencies and skills needed to perform. On the other, MBAs are exposed to cutting- edge tools to elevate their performance by developing their awareness of themselves and others. In addition to teaching core topics from a traditional MBA, MIP’s new full-time programme will teach students how to generate and sustain higher levels of meaningfulness, motivation and effectiveness in themselves, their teams and their organisations. Can you share more on this? We want to help our students pursue a higher purpose. The programmes at MIP are being redesigned to be purpose-led, to train this new generation of business leaders to rethink the part they can play in society, and to go further than the idea of profit as the sole goal. The full-time MBA will prepare future leaders to succeed, give meaning to their success, and help them to contribute to building a better future for all. In the past few years, many organisations and business leaders have realised that they will need to rethink their purpose around the role they wish to play in society. Profit, equity, sustainability, and inclusion must
co-exist, and these are values we wish to instil in our students.
MBAs care about sustainability and climate change. How important do you think sustainability is, and in what ways have Business Schools adapted this into their programmes? I believe that universities and Business Schools need to play a strong role as agents of change, with sustainability at the forefront of their agenda. Business Schools have recently been criticised for their inability to contribute to training a new generation of leaders who are able to combine shareholder value with making a positive impact on society. This programme is an unprecedented response to this criticism, and has the potential to pave the way for a new approach to management education that is suited to the challenges confronting society, such as climate change. Sustainable initiatives are at the heart of the philosophy we endeavour to pass on to our students – they act as a compass guiding our choices. What do you think sustainable leadership looks like? The perception of what constitute essential qualities in leaders has changed a lot in recent years. Until a few years ago, Business Schools typically prepared students to become knowledgeable about functions – education was very much based on hard skills. However, both the world of business and wider society are going through
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Ambition | BE IN BRILLIANT COMPANY
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