October 2009
October 2009
Media Releases
Upcoming Events
The following is the cover story from the fall 2009 issue of UNC Business magazine
.
Brad Spickert (MBA ’02) uses the leadership experiences and skills he developed at UNC Kenan-Flagler at the helm of a team that sets the long-term strategy for Coca-Cola North America’s immediate consumption channels.
As assistant vice president of on-premise for Coca-Cola, he is in charge of developing the annual business plan for these channels, managing the performance of the plan and rolling out new programs to help the frontline sales force meet the goals of the plan.
“I use the experiences and skills developed at UNC Kenan-Flagler daily … particularly defining a shared vision and destination,” Spickert says. This is particularly important to his leading international projects.
“I’ve done work in Australia, the Czech Republic and South America after UNC Kenan-Flagler. Getting a team aligned on a common vision is critical no matter what country you’re in around the world. This, combined with continuing communication and setting expectations along the way, is a critical hallmark of any successful leader.”
Since earning his MBA, Spickert has leveraged these leadership skills as an engagement manager at McKinsey & Co., as a director of corporate strategy at BellSouth and as a group director of North American strategy at Coca-Cola before taking on his current role.
“Leadership is one of those things that is difficult to have a classroom presentation and then suddenly you get it. Working on projects with classmates who came from public service, industry, entrepreneurships and the military heavily contributed to the out-of-classroom experience that helped to develop leadership skills,” he adds.
UNC Kenan-Flagler has taken an innovative approach called the Leadership Initiative. It offers an integrated series of opportunities that develop leadership abilities during school. And students learn a model for continuing leadership growth after graduation.
Here’s a look at the Leadership Initiative’s core elements:
Jump-Starting a Career
As part of the Leadership Immersion program at UNC Kenan-Flagler (see sidebar), teams of 12 students from diverse backgrounds and experiences practice leadership through team competitions, simulations, small group meetings and team-building challenges.
For example, 12 MBAs joined by BSBA students raised more than $33,500 in less than two days as part of an exercise designed to build their leadership skills. The money will fund a trip to Walt Disney World for six children with life-threatening medical conditions through the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
“All of the academic learning in the world is wonderful, but when you’re actually doing the job is where you learn the most,” notes Lindsey Aponte (MBA ’09), human capital senior consultant, Deloitte Consulting. “Being able to actually be in these experiences and do these things while still in business school has kick-started my career already.”
The Leadership Immersion is unique among top business schools. Students spend eight weeks — an entire quarter of their second year as MBAs — working solely on their leadership skills. They receive a lot of individual feedback and coaching from a team of faculty, staff and executives.
“Having executive coaches who are in the world of business — who have done this and are doing this every day — partnered with an organizational behavior professor provides a unique and powerful mix of feedback to students that I don’t think they could get anywhere else,” says Keith Pigues (MBA ’93), a Leadership Immersion coach and senior vice president/CMO for Ply Gem.
Student Teams Achieving Results (STAR)
MBAs also get an opportunity to test their leadership skills in the real world by collaborating with executives to achieve organizational goals.The Student Teams Achieving Results (STAR) program (see sidebar) matches MBAs, BSBAs, PhDs and students from other programs with domestic or global ventures to drive a project and solve a problem or seize an opportunity.
“When we graduate, we’re going to be expected to lead within an organization on day one,” says Jon Parise (MBA ’10), who participated in the STAR program during his first year. “It’s critical that we are comfortable with our personal leadership styles and have had opportunities to lead. These opportunities have allowed me to reflect on the leadership traits in which I feel I am most effective and to identify areas where I feel I need to improve.”
The depth and breadth of the program makes it “unique in the country,” asserts Paul Friga (MBA ’96, PhD ’02), a STAR adviser and associate professor of strategy and entrepreneurship. He is co-author of “The McKinsey Mind” and previously worked as a management consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers and McKinsey & Co.
“A number of undergraduate students think that when they graduate they won’t be immediately in leadership roles. We dispel that notion by explaining to them that the idea of leadership is not just leading an entire organization, but that they will have leadership of pieces of a project.”
Action Learning
A variety of action learning activities gives students a chance to exercise growing leadership skills. Professional role players simulate situations taken directly from the business world to test students’ abilities to lead and manage through change. The Game of Leadership, invented at UNC Kenan-Flagler and not available at other schools, re-creates day-to-day challenges from the business world and puts students into these role plays to help them build and practice skills in the moment.
Designed specifically for club officers, the Elected Student Leaders class exposes MBAs to other successful leaders, hand-picked by instructor Bill Grumbles, executive-in-residence and former president of Worldwide Distribution for Turner Broadcasting Systems Inc. (TBS). Participants take a 360-degree leadership survey; create visions/missions and transition plans for their clubs; and receive direct feedback and coaching.
Immediate Feedback
The Leadership Initiative puts a premium on creating opportunities for students to receive frequent, specific, individual feedback from executives and faculty. All project activities have a coaching component and several provide more structured 360-degree input from peers.
“Leadership is difficult to teach,” admitted John Moellering, chairman of USAA and a STAR program adviser. “It is best learned by doing, and nuances are important. The leadership style must fit the personality of the individual student. It must be physically observed to be coached.”
This robust feedback model sets UNC Kenan-Flagler apart from other schools. “It’s different because you’re getting peer-to-peer as well as coach-to-‘coachee’ feedback,” explains Aponte. “You don’t get that variety of perspectives often in business school. You really get a good understanding of what you’re good at, what your strengths are and what your weaknesses are, and being able to not only know those but diagnose them in the moment, with the help of very real, very actionable feedback.”
The reliance on feedback gives the students the freedom to try, fail and learn from their mistakes.
“That sense of acceptance of failure and the growth that we can get … is unique,” says Adithya Mathai (MBA ’09), a consultant with ScottMadden Inc. “A lot of MBA programs don’t focus on this and don’t foster such an environment. UNC Kenan-Flagler does. Everyone is very committed to giving feedback that will be both helpful and real. That is a powerful thing, and it seems like a simple takeaway. But it’s so rarely done, both in the corporate world as well as in MBA programs.”
Return on Investment
The School’s comprehensive approach yields solid returns for graduates. For example, Nate Challen (MBA ’08) frequently uses the skills he honed in the Elected Leaders Class and as a club chairman in his position of associate brand manager at Johnson & Johnson Consumer Cos. Inc.
“Persuasion is critical to getting my ideas into action,” he says. “There is a wide variety of people from my manager to other marketers to cross-functional partners and advertising agencies that I need to leverage to be successful, and the best way to do that is to get them just as excited about my ideas as I am.”
The Leadership Initiative provides a continuous learning cycle to shape the ability of graduates to deliver results with character.
“The School is becoming much better known throughout the industry for its leadership emphasis,” Moellering says. “You can learn all the technical things that you want about marketing or finance or all the other aspects of business, but unless you have the leadership, the ability, and people of character to carry it out, you’re not going to succeed. This is the one MBA program that will best get you ready to face the business world. The future of business is in good hands with these students.”
“All business schools talk about producing leaders. But in my experience recruiting for my company, there’s no evidence that anyone’s doing that in a way that’s tied to curriculum except UNC Kenan-Flagler,” says Allison Phillips (MBA ’05), an associate at a top-three global consulting firm.
This is the first attempt by a top school to develop a leadership program that’s experiential in addition to academic,” Phillips continues. “I don’t know of anyone else doing that on this level right now.”
Leadership Tips From UNC Kenan-Flagler