What they don’t teach in business school, but should…

As Founding Partner of the executive search and leadership consulting firm Borderless, I was recently invited to the international meeting of the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs to offer a “real-world perspective” of how business school education is perceived and provide guidance to more than 100 educators from around the world – from the US and Switzerland to Qatar and China.

I had the opportunity to share insights based on our experience at Borderless working with a range of senior executives, as well as my ‘earlier life’ experience as a Dow executive. Moreover, I shared views on executive education from the survey conducted recently by my firm, which highlighted clear areas of strength and improvement for business schools and provided the core of our discussion.

These were my top 3 recommendations:

[wcm_restrict]1. Favor developing general managers.

There is a decline in opportunities for executives to develop general management skills to equip them for the most senior general management roles. This is due to two phenomena. 1) The centralization of functional leadership in a matrix has meant that local managers no longer benefit from broad multi-functional responsibilities or true bottom-line accountability in early careers. 2) The reduction of high-cost expat roles has meant that executives receive less exposure to multicultural experiences needed to lead complex international businesses. There is an opportunity for business schools to create programs that support the development of these skills.

2. Seek in-house partnerships to draw attention and close the gap.

Business schools need to view their students as customers. These are the people who will go into industry and become future sponsors of students. Furthermore, schools should not just view corporations as financial sponsors, but should extend collaboration to include providing opportunities for professors to work within companies to understand how the business school curriculum could evolve to address real-world challenges.

3. Balance development of hard skills and soft skills – intellect and emotion.

Above all, as reported in the study, companies are demanding that business schools focus on not just hard skills but soft skills too, in equal proportion. Behavioral development needs to be integrated and practiced as part of the program and not relegated to a one-semester course on ‘interpersonal skills’.

Developing great strategies doesn’t necessarily lead to great corporate results. Strategies are implemented by motivated people, and to get that, right leaders must learn how to capture the hearts and minds of those they lead.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember]

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About the Author

Andrew Kris is a Founding Partner of Borderless. He pioneered the Borderless approach to executive search in 1997; a global business focus and a service-oriented approach that appeals to clients and candidates. Since then, he has found leaders for corporations in chemicals and life sciences, served as an advisor to clients in industry and continues to maintain an extensive personal network globally. As a commentator and author on shared services and business process outsourcing, he co-authored Shared Services – Shared Insights, Shared Services: mining for corporate gold and Shared Services and BPO: an executive briefing and several other volumes.