In the past 10 months, four groups of senior managers from Axa Asia Pacific Holdings have undergone an intensive executive education course designed to deepen their knowledge of who they are and where their employer is going.
Each four-day residential course on emotional intelligence and futures thinking, run by Melbourne Business School (MBS) at a beachfront Hong Kong hotel, has cost the insurer and asset manager around HK$700,000, says Shubhro Mitra, regional organisational development director for Axa in Hong Kong.
A local programme may have cost less, he says, but "I don't think we could have got the competence and quality we are getting from the MBS." Demand for non-degree executive education programmes is on the rise in Asia's emerging markets as companies operating in the region seek to extend the focus of local leaders from operational imperatives to managing diversity, risk and innovation. Demand for such courses is also strengthening in Australia as the retirement of baby boomers and global competition for management talent have made building a strong executive pipeline a priority for many companies.
"As the war for talent gains traction, organisations have been demanding programmes that deliver management skills and leadership development in a relatively short time period," says Craig Hawke, director for corporate and executive education at the Macquarie Graduate School of Management in Sydney. While institutions in Asia now offer a raft of executive education courses, a growing number of Australia-based companies are engaging tried and tested business education providers to deliver programmes for their managers based in Asia or further afield.
"We have been doing good work with Axa [in Melbourne] which led them to ask us to help them out in Asia," says John Seybolt, dean of MBS, which is running 40 international executive programmes this year for 11 of its corporate clients. Customised programmes (designed for one company) are the fastest growing segment of the executive education field in Australia.
"The most important thing for us was to find a partner who was really prepared to put their content together in a way that was most useful for us," says Kate Lonergan, who oversees management development at Qantas.
The Australian airline has partnerships with two business schools: MGSM runs its in-house senior executive programme while the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) in Sydney runs a customised programme for its emerging leaders. "Our business is growing really fast and our main focus is ensuring we have an adequate pipeline of leaders coming through to enable that growth," says Lonergan. When choosing programmes, more employers are opting for those led by facilitators with significant real-world business experience. "The real test for us in selecting a programme is who is conducting [it]," says Mitra at Axa.
"The MBS facilitator for our future thinking course was great because he wasn't a professor; he was a former chief executive." While it is "still too early to say what changes in culture" have resulted from Axa's Asia Enterprise leadership programme, Mitra says some participants are already applying futures thinking in their strategy plans for 2008. Qantas has not yet formally assessed the extent of increased capability resulting from its senior executive programme. But Lonergan stresses that the residential-based courses run by MGSM are only one part of a nine-month programme that also includes executive coaching and on-the-job project work.
As employers increasingly view executive education as a key tool to retain and develop local talent, some companies are turning to business education to help prepare younger, or less experienced, employees for future leadership roles. BHP Billiton recently launched a three-year leadership development programme for 900 new graduates working at the miner's operations across the globe.
"BHP want to make sure that [participants] are prepared for leadership challenges in the early phase of their career and get wedded to the culture of BHP," says Seybolt of the MBS, which is running the programme in partnership with universities in Santiago, Chile, and in Cape Town.
"So they will want to stay with the corporation for a much longer part of their career." The desire to prepare future leaders for their roles more quickly and comprehensively also led to the launch last year of the Accelerated Learning Laboratory, a collaborative venture between the AGSM, the University of Sydney school of psychology and seven commercial partners.
About 40 Qantas employees are soon to start the programme, which includes simulations, role play, team-building and strategy exercises, as well as coaching and on-the-job assessments.
"The programme is very practical as the issues [participants] face in their work are replicated in the lab," says Lonergan.
"They are able to practise a new skill in a very safe environment until they get it right and then come back to the workplace and apply it. So they are making the mistakes in the lab, not on the job."
Each four-day residential course on emotional intelligence and futures thinking, run by Melbourne Business School (MBS) at a beachfront Hong Kong hotel, has cost the insurer and asset manager around HK$700,000, says Shubhro Mitra, regional organisational development director for Axa in Hong Kong.
A local programme may have cost less, he says, but "I don't think we could have got the competence and quality we are getting from the MBS." Demand for non-degree executive education programmes is on the rise in Asia's emerging markets as companies operating in the region seek to extend the focus of local leaders from operational imperatives to managing diversity, risk and innovation. Demand for such courses is also strengthening in Australia as the retirement of baby boomers and global competition for management talent have made building a strong executive pipeline a priority for many companies.
"As the war for talent gains traction, organisations have been demanding programmes that deliver management skills and leadership development in a relatively short time period," says Craig Hawke, director for corporate and executive education at the Macquarie Graduate School of Management in Sydney. While institutions in Asia now offer a raft of executive education courses, a growing number of Australia-based companies are engaging tried and tested business education providers to deliver programmes for their managers based in Asia or further afield.
"We have been doing good work with Axa [in Melbourne] which led them to ask us to help them out in Asia," says John Seybolt, dean of MBS, which is running 40 international executive programmes this year for 11 of its corporate clients. Customised programmes (designed for one company) are the fastest growing segment of the executive education field in Australia.
"The most important thing for us was to find a partner who was really prepared to put their content together in a way that was most useful for us," says Kate Lonergan, who oversees management development at Qantas.
The Australian airline has partnerships with two business schools: MGSM runs its in-house senior executive programme while the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) in Sydney runs a customised programme for its emerging leaders. "Our business is growing really fast and our main focus is ensuring we have an adequate pipeline of leaders coming through to enable that growth," says Lonergan. When choosing programmes, more employers are opting for those led by facilitators with significant real-world business experience. "The real test for us in selecting a programme is who is conducting [it]," says Mitra at Axa.
"The MBS facilitator for our future thinking course was great because he wasn't a professor; he was a former chief executive." While it is "still too early to say what changes in culture" have resulted from Axa's Asia Enterprise leadership programme, Mitra says some participants are already applying futures thinking in their strategy plans for 2008. Qantas has not yet formally assessed the extent of increased capability resulting from its senior executive programme. But Lonergan stresses that the residential-based courses run by MGSM are only one part of a nine-month programme that also includes executive coaching and on-the-job project work.
As employers increasingly view executive education as a key tool to retain and develop local talent, some companies are turning to business education to help prepare younger, or less experienced, employees for future leadership roles. BHP Billiton recently launched a three-year leadership development programme for 900 new graduates working at the miner's operations across the globe.
"BHP want to make sure that [participants] are prepared for leadership challenges in the early phase of their career and get wedded to the culture of BHP," says Seybolt of the MBS, which is running the programme in partnership with universities in Santiago, Chile, and in Cape Town.
"So they will want to stay with the corporation for a much longer part of their career." The desire to prepare future leaders for their roles more quickly and comprehensively also led to the launch last year of the Accelerated Learning Laboratory, a collaborative venture between the AGSM, the University of Sydney school of psychology and seven commercial partners.
About 40 Qantas employees are soon to start the programme, which includes simulations, role play, team-building and strategy exercises, as well as coaching and on-the-job assessments.
"The programme is very practical as the issues [participants] face in their work are replicated in the lab," says Lonergan.
"They are able to practise a new skill in a very safe environment until they get it right and then come back to the workplace and apply it. So they are making the mistakes in the lab, not on the job."
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