When Tom Armstrong stepped up to become chief merchandising officer for L.L. Bean, new responsibilities demanded new skills in business and leadership. The answer? Time out to attend Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Program (AMP). Learning alongside peers from many industries and countries, Armstrong broadened horizons, built friendships, and prepared to contribute more fully to his company's success.
Why did you decide to attend AMP?
Attending AMP had been a goal for a number of years. Five or six of our executives had gone through the program and couldn't recommend it highly enough. There's no perfect time to do a program like this, of course. I had to just commit and make it happen. It helped that I have a fabulous team. My time at AMP gave them the opportunity to step up and spread their wings a bit.
My colleagues who had attended AMP said it was a wonderful experience and that I'd have to work hard. They were right! I spent 12 or 14 or 16 hours per day on the cases and in the classroom. But it was fine because everyone else was doing the same thing and that was why we had come to HBS.
How did the case study approach help you learn?
The case study method was new to me. Each case laid out a story about a business situation or challenge. Our task was to tease out the essence of the story—the dilemmas the protagonist and other people were facing at the time—and to figure out which opportunities they had grasped or missed. Over time, we started to see the integration between the different cases.
The case method was a great way to pull ideas out of people from 40 different countries and dozens of different sectors in a way that everyone found valuable. Discussions exposed many different perspectives; I learned as much from the discussions as from the written material.
The case method helped me see the need to read critically and ask far more probing questions. Often it's not about finding a right or wrong answer, but rather making a judgment. The way you get to a best judgment is through probing and dialogue. That's what we were doing all day long with the cases.
What surprised you most about the program?
The biggest surprise for me was the diversity. Our group had people from 40 countries and from every type of company and industry—from banks to retail to military officers to professional athletes. The big mix made it interesting. It's a bigger world than I had imagined.
Beyond the living group, I also got to know people that I was sitting next to in class or on the spinning bikes in gym. Hearing people's comments in the classroom or chatting at evening events, I began to learn about their work environments, their challenges, and what brought them to AMP.
What are the advantages of the living group experience?
When I arrived, I knew I would be working closely with people for several weeks, but I didn't know a soul. I was a bit apprehensive at first, but we were all in the same boat. Everyone was incredibly friendly and open—willing to start building friendships. The people in my living group—whom I worked with during the day, late at night, and on weekends—became my close buddies. I feel blessed to have had such a great group.
My living group members were highly competent professionals and leaders in their field. They had a great sense of wisdom, judgment, and perspective that was valuable on many levels—plus they were a lot of fun. I took them to Maine to visit L.L. Bean. We had lobsters down on the dock by the harbor, visited the company's outdoor discovery school, and shot archery.
I plan to stay in touch with this group of people. I think the value we'll take from each other over the years to come will not be help with tactical business issues, but rather advice about leadership challenges and personal development. Rolling up our sleeves and working so closely together, we have built bonds of trust. If I need counsel or advice, or to run something by a peer, I will not hesitate to reach out.
How did the many different perspectives enhance your learning?
It's easy to become very myopic, focused on one type of business, or a certain segment and category. In AMP, I realized that people from all over the world, in all different industries, share common problems. We all struggle with how to engage customers, evolve our strategies, and grow our businesses. I found it fascinating to see the same problems presented in different industry contexts with many different possible solutions for addressing them. The discussions sparked many new ideas about what we could do back at L.L. Bean.
Through this mind-opening experience, I believe I am now a broader thinker, more open to new ideas and less focused on just our segment. I am more tuned into what's happening in the world and how it influences our business day-to-day. From a product design standpoint, I realized that people's interests, tastes, aspirations, and expectations are very diverse. While we need to have a focused target consumer in our product decisions, we can't focus too narrowly.
How did the faculty contribute to your learning experience?
These are the best professors I have had in my life—they presented relevant content, worked us hard, and made it fun. They drew deeper thinking out of each one of us and made learning a joy. Beyond the content, I learned a lot just from the way the professors taught, from their style of leadership and of coaching and teaching—things we all have to do as leaders. I enjoyed seeing how the different instructors brought the group through a learning process—how they engaged people, held them accountable for their comments, drilled in deeper, and asked probing questions. That was a learning experience in itself!
Which parts of the curriculum were most valuable for you?
One of my objectives in coming to AMP was to develop a more structured thought process around formulating business strategy and corporate-wide strategy. Cynthia Montgomery's class was fabulous and really expanded my thinking. She brought us through a number of examples of what a framework might look like and what works and does not work. Much of what we talked about can be easily adapted to my business.
My classmates were all experienced executives, so in addition to filling gaps and broadening our horizons, we also took away some validation and reinforcement for the things we thought we knew and were doing right. In this regard, two themes were very important for me. One was not focusing too narrowly on my business segment—making sure that I look across horizontally at different customers and different industries for opportunities or risks that are coming over the horizon. Another was the importance of people. It's critical to recognize the importance of talent as a key asset, work hard to select great talent for the organization, and then engage and motivate that talent.
How is your AMP learning helping you in your current role?
I grew up with functional expertise in merchandising and product design and development. Now, in addition to that, I need to oversee the broader enterprise. AMP gave me more confidence in my ability to think about the broader strategy. And I understand the financial side of the business in a more concrete way than ever before.
L.L. Bean has existed for more than 100 years, and we have a broad stakeholder community. All of those stakeholders rely on us to make wise judgments and be good stewards of the business for the next 100 years. I feel that AMP has given me greater ability to contribute to the success of that stewardship. It has broadened my perspective, opened my eyes, and I hope, increased my capacity to contribute to the organization in any way that's required to sustain the company's success.
What advice do you have for executives considering AMP?
Embrace the whole program. Just dive in with everything you've got—engage with the curriculum, the professors, the other participants, find a way to get involved in some outdoor activities and exercise, whether it be rowing on the river, soccer, or spinning in the morning. Don't try to do your day job—just immerse yourself and you won't be disappointed.
What is the key value that AMP offers?
It's a challenge to summarize such a fabulous experience. In a word, it was broadening. AMP has broadened my horizons—not just on business issues but also on the world in general. AMP provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to step outside the normal day-to-day business and to immerse yourself in a learning experience for eight solid weeks with top-notch faculty, fabulous peers, and fascinating guest speakers. And I have taken away some friendships that I hope to sustain for many years.
The advantage of coming to HBS at any stage in your career is an intensive immersion in learning—it quickly brings you to a different level, expands your horizons, gives you specific tactical skills, and creates an awareness of dimensions in your business that you may not have considered. AMP was a fabulous experience and I'll never forget it.