Tuck & IMD Team Up On Leadership

The Tuck School

Remember when Shaquille O’Niel announced he would be playing with Kobe Bryant and the L.A. Lakers? Or when Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen collaborated for the Chicago Bulls? Or maybe even when Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar teamed up for the Lakers?

That is the kind of announcement Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business made in the executive education world last week when the school introduced new leadership training for managers wanting to transition to leadership positions. Tuck has joined forces with fellow top-notch business school, IMD to create the multi-model Transition to Business Leadership (TBL) certificate program.

“What counts as success for many is becoming an expert in a specialized area,” says Tuck Professor Sydney Finkelstein. “But to move forward in your career you have to be able to have a big mindset shift and look at all of the pieces of business. That is what this program is designed to do.”

The IMD School

The $33,000 program is broken into a pre-program, first session, inter-session, session two and post-program course structure. The first session will be held March 2-13 on the shores of Lake Geneva at IMD’s campus and will feature courses about organization diagnosis and strategy, managing external stakeholders and talent and team management. The second installment is from April 20-May 1 on Tuck’s Hanover, New Hampshire campus and will feature courses regarding managing mergers and acquisitions to strategic negotiations to a few days of simulations.

“The content and nature of the transition to leadership can cause a lot of people to fail,” says Finkelstein. “But if you don’t attempt the switch, you can be labeled as a specialist and your career might plateau. This training is like a how-to guide on how to be successful in the next stage of a career.”

The training is organized flawlessly to introduce current managers to content and theories surrounding leadership positions and then puts them in a place to role-play, practice, and apply those theories in a room full of top managers from around the world. Finkelstein says the global nature of the program is one of the greatest benefits of going through the training. There is just as much to learn from the professors as the participating students. Another plus is students will receive dual certificates from two of the two business schools in the world. Some of the organizations to already show interest and will be sending experienced functional managers are Lego, Mitsubishi, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, JT International, Danske Bank, and A.P. Moller.

“Like other Tuck programs, this goes beyond the education to the experience of the education,” Finkelstein says. “This is not just two or three days talking about leadership. It is doing it with leaders from other cultures. In these types of executive development programs, a community is formed. The relationships built will last for a long time.”

TBL will be led by J. Stewart Black and Michael Watkins. Both have decades of experience working and teaching in an international setting. Finkelstein will serve as faculty director for the Tuck module, and is an expert on leadership, strategy, and corporate governance. More info on TBL faculty.