Bhanu Choudhrie, Founder and Executive Director of C&C Alpha Group Limited in the United Kingdom, is committed to continuous learning. And he understands that education comes in various forms and in different environments. To complement the knowledge he acquired in school and through his ongoing experience in the workplace, he enrolled in the Owner/President Management program at Harvard Business School, which consists of intensive three-week training modules spanning three years. Having recently completed the program, he shares his thoughts.
As a business leader, I need to be constantly learning. To help my business thrive and expand, I have to be responsive to the ever-changing nuances of the global economy and be familiar with case histories and insights that relate to my organization. This process began with my formal university education, and it continues with what I learn through the trials of the workplace. But that's not enough. So I was keen to find an executive business program that would match my schedule and my business needs as my operations expanded internationally. The Owner/President Management program was the perfect fit.
One of the highlights was the intellectual fervor that exists on Harvard's campus. Also, I was impressed with the diversity and eminence of my classmates who, like me, survived the highly selective admissions process. And there was HBS's famous case study method, which explored timely business quandaries and how leaders responded under pressure.
There was plenty that was unexpected. The case study discussions disrupted my staid way of thinking and altered my view of even the most basic business facts. Looking back on my first week in the program, I recall thinking, "Did the other students read the same cases I did?" because their viewpoints were very different from mine. They saw the cases from the perspective of their own industries, their own governments, and their own professional circles. No matter how arcane the issue, there was no dearth of experience—and disagreement — to go around, especially when the full class of 125 got together.
Also, I was accustomed to being the boss and being treated that way. But neither the professors nor my classmates offered me the same deference, and that cold-water drenching helped me a great deal! I realize now that there's a lot I don't know.
OPM had an immediate impact on the way I ran my business. Like so many others who enter higher education, particularly executive education programs, I anticipated building a theoretical toolkit based on business frameworks and strategies. Little did I know that the moment my first, exhausting three-week stay on campus ended, I would rush back to my offices in India and the United Kingdom with a renewed sense of purpose, eager to apply the lessons I had acquired both inside and outside the classroom.
OPM defies uniform description. There is no formula that explains the success students derive from the program. As Richard Steel, founder of Steel Media, so eloquently put it, "Trying to describe the HBS OPM program is like trying to describe a color that has never been seen before. You will get out of the program not only what you put into it, but much, much more."
Definitely. As business leaders, we should resist the temptation to believe that learning stops after a bachelor's degree, an MBA, or a few years in the workplace. Sure, there's extraordinary value in learning for the sake of learning, as we find in liberal arts colleges across the world. But executive education, which is designed to help experienced practitioners who already know a lot about their own marketplaces, is tougher to find and far more valuable. We need only be humble enough to accept the wisdom we’re offered.
