How to get 'back in business'

How many of us have often gone off track in our career and spent hours pondering how to re-enter the workforce? How often have maternal instincts thwarted the prospects of a highly placed executive? How many times have we bumped into a woman who has had to give up a lucrative job for the sake of her newborn?

Keeping in view these obstacles that dog our career prospects, The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth has developed a new executive education programme -- 'Back in Business: Invest in Your Return' -- to update and refresh the management and leadership skills of business professionals who want to re-enter the workforce.

'Back in Business,' offered in four modules over the course of 11 days in Hanover, New Hampshire, and New York City, will deliver up-to-the minute knowledge and perspectives that top-tier employers demand.

Career planning and facilitating the process of re-entry into the formal workforce will be important aspects of the program. This intensive programme -- delivered by Tuck's renowned faculty -- is intended for MBA professionals or people with MBA-equivalent experience who have previously worked in high-potential jobs.

Professors Constance Helfat and Anant Sundaram are the academic directors of the programme, while Corrie Martin of Tuck Executive Education is the programme manager.

In an e-mail interview, Sundaram shared his views and aspirations about the programme with Indrani Roy Mitra. Excerpts:

Could you tell us about this programme? How was it conceptualised?

The programme was conceptualised by Dean Robert Hansen, Tuck's senior associate, and Hans Morris, CFO of Citigroup Investment Bank, over a dinner conversation. They both recognised the need and the opportunity for a programme like this, which could draw upon Tuck School's superb strengths and capabilities in management education.

Following that, my colleague -- Prof Constance Helfat -- and I (along with a team from the Tuck Executive Education) helped to take it forward by making the idea concrete and thinking through its implementation.

Was there any particular thought that crossed your mind before launching it?

Our key concern was: if we do this, will it be successful? Will people come? Moreover, how should we measure success?

Could you please elaborate on the constraints working women face?

I am not keen on using the word 'constraints' necessarily. But there exists a different set of needs and realities for working women (and some working men too).

Our programme is open to women and men who once had high-potential careers, but had to opt-out of the workforce for various reasons, and now have the strong aspiration to the return to the corporate workforce).

It is true that women, perhaps, opt out more than men do and have greater re-entry barriers for a whole set of issues surrounding work-life balance. In reality, the data out there are not conclusive.

But we do know there is a huge amount of mid-career human capital available willing to assume leadership positions. The issue in this case is availability of the training to make this transition possible.

There are two conundrums. One, if you look at the corporate world in countries like the United States, the replenishment and enhancement of their leadership pipeline is a huge issue, in part driven by the impending baby boom retirees. Yet, there are significant high-potential managers who had left the workforce and are now seeking to re-enter.

Two, when this group seeks to re-enter, they run into a 'chicken-or-egg' kind of problem. On the one hand, surveys show that women seeking to re-entry seek ways to update their skills but cannot find programmes that would enable them

to do so; on the other hand, the advice they regularly hear is, 'keep your skills current'!

Both of these conundrums clearly suggest the need -- and the opportunity -- for a programme such as this one. We are quite excited that we can help address this challenge.

As an educationist, how do you see women benefiting from this programme?

The benefit can only be considered if at the end of the day, we can help participants re-enter the workforce in high quality organisations with jobs that are commensurate with their capabilities and experience. In this regard, we also speak of jobs that provide the flexibility to manage issues of work-life balance.

This suggests two things, both of which we have addressed. One, the programme has to have a strong career component, and we have built that into the design.

Two, there has to be significant corporate involvement in (and enthusiasm for) such a program. We have obtained tremendous support and funding from Citigroup Investment Bank, and we are in active discussions with other companies for funding, and more importantly, career opportunities.

In the meantime, we are not waiting: the programme is running, with our first offering planned for this fall.

Could you provide us with a few insights of this programme?

Someone once noted, 'leadership is about doing the right things, while management is about doing things right.' I believe that Tuck and Citigroup are showing great leadership in creating something like this. The question is, are we managing the implementation of this 'right?' I would like to believe so.

We approached the concept and the design of this programme carefully and thoroughly -- we conducted surveys, focus groups, and extensively scanned and data and literature on the opt-out phenomenon. Five crucial issues that emerged from the study:

Participants will need updating (i.e., how business practices have evolved since they left the workforce) as well as 'refreshing' (i.e., getting back up to speed on topics such as strategy, finance, marketing, supply chain management and so forth). But the emphasis has to be on the former.

We have to re-establish the participants' comfort level with analytics, as well as bring them up-to-speed on how technology has dramatically changed in both the workplace and the classroom.

The programme has to help boost confidence. That, in turn means there has to be a solid leadership training and communication component, as well as the need to deal with cutting edge global business issues such as the emergence of India and China, offshoring, convergence of media/entertainment/telecom, diversity in the workplace, and so forth.

Two common themes that emerged during focus groups were: 'Help me market myself' and 'Facilitate my re-entry into the workforce in a job that is commensurate with my experience and my capabilities.'

Modularise the programme offering (i.e. break it into byte-sized chunks, with some time in-between for family and for reflection); bring some of it off-site to a big city like New York so that it becomes easier for the participants to attend.

As you will see from our programme design, we have addressed each of these concerns in a very tangible manner into the architecture of 'back in business.'

Are there any anecdotes that you would like to share with us?

The most satisfying feedback I ever received was from one of our focus group participants. . . It goes like this: 'Finally, someone is getting beyond all the talk, and attempting to actually make this happen. This is like a dream come true.'

Tell us about such other programmes on Tuck's anvil.

We have some very interesting initiatives up our sleeve, but would rather wait until they mature a bit!