Monday, April 3, 2006

Filling Your Knowledge Gaps Will Help You Get Ahead

Continued from Page 4

By Carol Hilderbrand

Choosing a Program

"First, pick a school that's good at executive education," says Yip. The United States has hundreds of programs, and Europe has about 20 top schools, he says. There are a number of further steps that can help narrow the field to the best fitting programs:

Analyze your skill set. What skills are you trying to add? Is it something focused, such as financial or negotiation skills, or more broad-based managerial expertise? The course you choose should reflect your need.

For example, Lai Wong, an information technology program manager at Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto, CA, took a two-week executive education course because he needed to beef up his expertise in general management topics. "It was an incredible learning experience for me. I was exposed to many nontechnical areas, including decision making, strategic management, financial analysis, negotiations, and intergroup relationships. It was like a mini-MBA for me."

Ask opinions of people you respect. Look at yourself critically and also ask questions of people you know and trust. Where are your natural talents strongest? Are there areas where you are more deficient? The idea is to know what you don't know.

Be realistic about time. Do you have time to take an entire year from work to devote to education, or can you only squeeze in classes at night? Time constraints will not only drive the choice of program, but what school you choose, points out Yip. Prospective students need to choose schools that fit into their current lives. Motorola's Brennan, for example, chose the short program because he just didn't have time for an EMBA program.

Examine your company's needs. Is your company small or global? Does it make a practice of posting executives overseas (as Proctor & Gamble does)? If so, you might consider a program with international flavor, such as ones offered at top European business schools, including London Business School and INSEAD, based in France and Singapore. Indeed, the popularity of global executive education is growing in leaps and bounds; INSEAD landed as the number two school on BusinessWeek's ranking of executive education programs. Additionally, the London Business School, IMD in Switzerland, and Spain's IESE Business School in Barcelona also landed on the magazine's list of top 10 schools.

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