Paul Hunter is the Director of the Corporate Learning Network at IMD. Originating from Belfast, Northern Ireland he successfully completed his Masters degree at Cambridge University and postgraduate studies at Oxford University. Paul then moved to Switzerland where he joined the Wall Street Institute, later to become General Manager. After Wall Street, Paul went on to become Managing Partner of a consultancy firm focusing on talent assessment, leadership development and executive coaching. In 2005 he completed his Executive MBA at IMD with Honours and two years later he began working for IMD as a coach. Currently Paul is the Director of the Corporate Learning Network (CLN) at IMD. IMD (www.imd.org) is one of the leading business schools in the world specializing in executive education and developing global leaders.
In addition, amongst his various activities, Paul produces and moderates the IMD Wednesday Webcast series – a weekly web TV broadcast available to all executives from Corporate Learning Network companies across the globe. Paul has also been behind the development of a new IMD portfolio of virtual learning programs to address the changing needs of the digital generation.
Paul is a modest but exceptional man and I really hope you enjoy his interview as much as I did.
Sunita
What brought you to Switzerland?
As part of my undergraduate degree in Cambridge University, I had the opportunity to spend a year abroad and came to Lausanne. I had a fabulous year teaching in the Gymnase de la Cité, Lausanne and in the Collège de Chateau d’Oex. When I finished my degree I completed a Post Graduate in Education at Oxford University and then looked for work in Switzerland. I never went back!
I started working at Wall Street Institute as a part time teacher and became the General Manager for Switzerland, France and Germany. This was my first opportunity to work in the business of education - something that has remained with me ever since. After 7 years with Wall Street, I moved to a boutique consultancy group specializing in individual assessment, development centres, leadership development and executive coaching. I worked with organizations around the world creating and delivering leadership development solutions and executive education programs. In the field of individual assessment and executive coaching, I very much enjoyed the privilege of spending one on one time with gifted leaders helping them to understand and to use their full potential. In 2005 I decided to undertake an Executive MBA at IMD and I started working at IMD in 2007 as Director of the Corporate Learning Network.
What is your role at IMD?
I am responsible for IMD’s Corporate Learning Network - a membership based service which enables leading organizations from around the world to build the bench strength of their executives via a portfolio of learning and networking opportunities. Each company can choose from a portfolio of offerings including IMD’s online multimedia platforms featuring webcasts, podcasts, article and book summaries, face to face Discovery Events showcasing the latest research from IMD’s faculty, CXO Roundtables where C suite members exchange openly in a confidential setting and access to IMD’s virtual programs - our ‘Global Leadership in the Cloud’ programs. Swiss based members include household names such as ABB, Credit Suisse, Nestlé, and Novartis.
IMD is well known for world class face to face learning experiences - why did you decide to create online programs?
First and foremost, IMD’s decision to create a portfolio of 100% online programs came from our members. Many of the companies we work with have a new digital generation of managers up and coming in their organizations. The way these managers access and consume knowledge is fundamentally different to the managers that preceded them. Today’s global organizations leverage technology extensively to conduct their business and it was only a matter of time before the demand for virtual learning solutions became more insistent. Although IMD has been conducting blended learning for many years - in fact our Executive MBA program launched over 15 years ago was one of the pioneers in blended learning - 100% virtual learning was a new departure for us. The challenge we set ourselves was how to create a genuine 5 star IMD experience for our participants, without them having to physically come to our campus.
What makes IMD’s ‘Global Leadership in The Cloud’ (GLC) programs different from traditional online learning.
There are many factors underpinning IMD’s GLC programs which make them a unique digital learning experience for our participants. All our GLC programs have been designed with busy executives in mind. With increasingly multiple demands on their time, executives will only invest their most precious resource, time, if the online programs are engaging, and if participants see an immediate benefit - something they can apply instantly in their professional environment. Every activity that GLC participants have to undertake is rooted in their own business context - action learning at its best. Whilst the virtual group assignments enable participants to grapple with a concept and learn from the power of the IMD network, every individual assignment requires our participants to demonstrate in a very tangible and explicit manner how they have been able to apply this week’s learning in their business context. Every GLC participant has a personal coach who provides feedback, challenging them, guiding them and ensuring that the learning is applied learning that delivers a meaningful and measureable impact. During an eight week period participants have plenty of time to reflect, test out hypotheses in their real world laboratory and see for themselves the impact their learning is having. This is a great driver for them and is one of the reasons why more than 90% of our participants successfully complete their programs and become IMD alumni.
How do you design these GLC programs?
In the creation of any learning experience, virtual or otherwise, being crystal clear on the Participants’ Learning Objectives is the place to start. Bloom’s taxonomy has long since suggested ways of sharpening objectives to avoid undesirable fluff such as ‘By the end of this program participants will be better strategic thinkers’. If this is true in the classroom, it is of paramount importance in the online arena. In a medium where learners crucially need to know upfront why they should invest their scarce time in spending more hours online rather than less, the deal needs to be clear from the get go. If we take for example the GLC ‘Learning Leadership’, we cover areas such as motivating others, managing team dynamics, handing difficult conversations and building resilience. For each of these segments, the learning objectives and how they will be measured are clearly identified before any content pieces are created. At the start of this particular program we ask the participants to complete a 360 questionnaire seeking feedback from their colleagues, peers and boss. This enables them, in conjunction with their coach, to set personalized objectives for the learning journey ahead. I was asked before we launched this program whether I really thought leadership skills could be enhanced online. Based on feedback from our participants, the balance of faculty input - in this case Professor George Kohlreiser, former hostage negotiator and director of IMD’s High Performance Leadership program - virtual group work, buddy sessions to share personal challenges, self-reflection, individual action-learning assignments and personalized feedback from a dedicated coach provided a rich immersive learning experience that yielded demonstrable behavioural change during the course of the program.
What makes IMD different?
We only focus on Executive Education and none of our faculty members have tenure. When we undertake research at IMD we constantly reflect on how we can make this research accessible and applicable to executives who are looking for real ideas that they can use in their everyday business. We aim to provide Swiss excellence with a global perspective - our team is made up of 30+ nationalities allowing us to deploy a truly diverse set of knowledge and experience. IMD provides the opportunity for individuals, teams and organizations to pursue lifelong learning through a full portfolio of tailored programs, events and activities. IMD’s programs are consistently ranked highly – currently No 1 in Executive Education and Open programs as ranked by the Financial Times. Our vision is to be the best in the world at enabling the development of successful global leaders.
What does it mean to be a global leader?
Global leaders are able to shape and lead organizational transformational journeys in complex and uncertain environments. At IMD we aim to help leaders become comfortable with ambiguity and equipped to set strategic direction, translate strategy into actions and engage with internal and external stakeholders. Global leaders need to be able to manage across boundaries, whether those boundaries be geographic, functional, industrial or organizational.
Why should companies invest in Executive Education?
Typically, in an economic downturn the two budgets that are reduced are executive education and marketing. As IMD’s President Dominique Turpin likes to say, if you think education is expensive you should try ignorance! An organisation needs to keep investing in developing its people particularly in challenging economic times. Regardless of the product or services you provide, it is ultimately the proficiency and engagement of the people who deploy them that creates the competitive edge.
What’s next for IMD?
The business landscape is constantly changing, disruptive innovations alter the rules of the game, industry boundaries are blurring and organizations reach out to us to help them make sense of these changes. We work with many Top Teams across the globe helping them as they seek to transform their business to meet their future challenges. Asia is an increasingly growing market for IMD and we are in the process of setting up offices in Singapore to be able to deliver learning experiences on-site. As digital generations start to filter upwards through organizations, we need to ensure that the way we engage with these new learners and their new demands happens on their terms. The GLC programs are just one of the ways we are responding to this. One of our most exciting innovations in the last few months has been the introduction of IMD’s Global Leader Index. This is a unique online tool which enables leaders to benchmark their global leader skills against other leaders from around the world and determine potential areas of development - strategic, execution, stakeholder and personal leadership capabilities. I’d certainly encourage your readers to check this out at www.imd.org/gli.
What’s next for you?
I would like to keep satisfying my key drivers, helping leaders to develop their skills and fulfilling their potential - this is what gets me out of bed in the morning. Aiming to be a good husband, a good dad and a good global citizen provides me with plenty of challenges and rewards on a daily basis!
References
The Corporate Learning Network is one of IMD's strategic pillars and consists of a network of leading companies from around the globe. It serves to enable companies to enhance individual and organizational development and evolve as true learning organizations.
The weekly webcasts channel IMD’s research and development and include in depth discussion and interviews with IMD faculty, CEOs and renowned guest speakers. Paul also creates a wide range of podcasts, team casts and other multimedia learning experiences available through a range of channels. He pilots various digital and blended learning initiatives and works closely with Corporate Learning Network members to ensure member services meet the ever changing needs of learning professionals and their internal corporate clients.
Paul is also Vice-Chair of ELIG, the European Learning Industry group www.elig.org and a Steering Committee member of the EFMD European Foundation for Management Development Corporate Learning Improvement Processes (CLIP) www.efmd.org/clip
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Bio
Sunita is an Executive Coach, Trainer and Consultant. She is of Indian origin and was born in London before moving to Geneva in 1992. She has a Psychology background (specialising in Occupational Psychology) and a Post Graduate in the Development and Training of Adults. She also completed a Masters in Ressources Humaines, Coaching et Gestion des Carrières at the University of Geneva.
During her 25 years experience Sunita's drive has always been to help people to do their best and hence led her to create Walk The Talk.
In her free time Sunita is a Mentor for the Branson Center of Entrepreneurship and a proud member of the School in The Cloud Team.
