Transforming Your Career and Company

How would you describe the purpose of OPM?

OPM is one of the comprehensive leadership programs that we have at Harvard Business School. To understand the purpose of OPM, it's useful to go back to the HBS mission. Our explicit mission is to educate leaders who make a difference. But the first dean of HBS understood the mission a little differently. He said, "The purpose of business is to make a decent profit decently." We need to keep both missions in mind as we go through life. Business has to make a decent profit to sustain itself, but it needs to do so in a way that is ethical and adds value to society. It's not just about capturing value; it's about creating value as well.

Leaders develop at different stages of life. A person who is going to work until they're 70 or 80 shouldn't end their formal education when they're 30. From the time that you're 30 until the time that you're 70 or 80, the world and you change significantly. The purpose of OPM, like other comprehensive leadership programs at HBS Executive Education, is to continue to educate leaders—to help them rethink the world, rethink their lives, and rethink how they can be most impactful in the world.

In what ways are participants in this program unique?

Everybody in OPM owns his or her business. The challenges that business owners face are unique, and the opportunities they face are a little different than what a professional manager might experience. In addition, more than 70 percent of our participants are international. They come from all over the world.

A lot of our participants are from family businesses. They have to make decisions based on what is right financially and what's right for their family. There's a legacy involved, and they don't make decisions lightly. I have tremendous respect for them.

What typically draws participants to this program?

I ask participants all the time, "How many of you came to OPM because someone who did OPM told you to come?" And the answer is close to 100 percent. They came here because somebody else said, "Go to OPM. It was transformational for me, and I think it will be transformational for you." We even have multiple people who are going, or have gone, through OPM for the second time. They figured they needed a refresher, so they are back again.

Why is OPM transformative for so many participants?

I don't think I could have anticipated the number of ways in which OPM is transformational. Just today, somebody told me that, because of OPM, he goes to every meeting prepared—and we don't even have a session on being prepared. Multiple people have told me that OPM gave them confidence. Another OPMer, who's a second-generation entrepreneur, said, "Because of OPM, I understand my father better because I spent a lot of time with first-generation entrepreneurs over here."

In a program like OPM, the learning has three parts: The first part comes from the curriculum—the classroom, the cases, the class discussions, the guest lecturers. The second part comes from interactions with each other—small-group interactions, an argument over coffee or dinner, taking different sides, and recognizing that somebody you respect is thinking very differently about a particular problem. And the third part comes from reflecting alone. When you take high-achieving people off the treadmill of life and have them reflect on what they're doing, some deep insights can emerge. The combination of these three parts works magic. It's why those nine weeks are transformational.

What inspires you as faculty chair?

This is my 25th year teaching this program. And every time I've taught it, I've felt that I've learned more from the participants than they could’ve learned from me. I was in the MBA program for a number of years, and then in the Advanced Management Program. But my experience in the OPM program has been unique.

I've often asked myself, "Why do we need a program like OPM?" The answer is, if you just sit here at Harvard Business School, you're not going to be able to affect the life of somebody in a far-away country. But if you teach 300 OPMers and send them out into the world, maybe one of them will go to a remote village in some part of the world. Maybe they'll set up a factory or set up a school and give someone a job. Maybe they'll set up a bank that gives somebody a small loan. And maybe, out of those hundreds of cases, some ordinary person somewhere will be enabled to take a step forward in life. That's what keeps me going.

What might you say to someone considering this program?

You should come to OPM when you're ready to be transformed. If you are not ready, then the program will not have its full impact. Before you come, have conversations with people who have been through the program. OPM is often transformational, but it isn’t transformational in the same way to everybody. It is transformational in a whole bunch of different ways—and we need to celebrate each of those different ways.