You must login/create an account to view this content
Shaping the resilient leaders of the future
Treating the executive team as ‘customers’ in improvement initiatives
Fully engaging the executive sponsors is vital in sustaining the success of any improvement programme, writes David Mann
Proactive engagement by executives is essential for the sustained success of large-scale improvement initiatives. Engagement means going beyond reporting on occasional endorsements, messages,
or visits to encourage frontline workers. In this article, I’ll explain why engagement is important and describe an approach that makes it meaningful and valuable to executives as well.
I will start with an example from personal experience, following this with an important characteristic of improvement initiatives.
Case study of a lean initiative
About 10 years ago, I was leading an internal consulting team supporting an ‘office’ lean initiative. At 18 months, we had coached people from 50 cross-functional business process improvement projects, involving individuals from sales, marketing, distribution, customer service, order entry, database, engineering, procurement, legal, tariff compliance, and finance groups. We focused only on business process that crossed at least one internal boundary. Many of the projects we worked on tackled longstanding problems – 20 years-plus in some cases – that remained unresolved despite repeated efforts.
On average, the improvements across these 50 business processes involved a halving of end-to-end timescales and of delays, errors and reworking, and handoffs. There were direct cost savings of approximately $5m, and substantial capacity freed by reducing non-value-adding activity. By any objective criteria, our team was successful.
I met monthly with my boss, a Corporate Officer, Vice President, and one of four of the CEO’s direct reports who sponsored our team’s work. Meeting at 18 months, she told me directly: ‘David, you have a problem!’ She explained that she and her executive peers had roughly an 18-month attention span for programmes such as the office lean initiative, and that despite our success so far, our executive sponsors were losing interest. ‘After that,’ she continued, ‘we start looking around for the next thing to drive improvement. You have to find a way to involve us!’
With initiatives such as lean, six sigma, quality, and safety improvement programmes, it takes two or three years before results show on corporate financial statements. I’ve worked in lean transformation for more than 25 years. Lean ‘tools’ produce improved process performance right away, whether in healthcare, administrative, service, technical professional, or manufacturing processes. Just ask the people who’ve been involved in the projects! But for those improvements to accumulate to corporate-level impact takes time.
Performance pressure on senior executives is intense; and the aforementioned savings over 18 months, in a Fortune 500 company, amounted to a ‘blip’, not an amount that made a discernible impact on corporate financial statements.
So, after 18 months of support with nothing showing on the financials, they begin looking for the next big thing.
I thanked my boss for her candour, and took her news back to my team. We stepped back and followed our own advice: ‘Value is defined from the point of view of the customer,’ is the first principle in lean. We hadn’t thought of our executives as customers, though in fact they were. What we’d been delivering to them – visits to project teams and activity reports – had not met our executive sponsors’ criteria for value, or for involvement.
Like many other improvement disciplines, lean, a term coined to describe Toyota’s business during the late 1980s, has its own language, approach, and terminology. Much of its terminology is in Japanese, reflecting the influence of Toyota’s lean production system. None of our executives spoke Japanese.
Lean business process improvement teams used value stream maps which make visible the movement of information and material through process steps and between departments, especially useful in business processes that cross internal (and occasionally external) boundaries. No aspect of these maps is intuitively obvious; business processes do not appear on organisation charts, and none of our executives was a fluent interpreter of value stream maps and their related measures (for example, process time as a percentage of total cycle time).
We wanted to teach our executives about lean as we had learned it, through exposure to lean applications by project teams. So, we arranged executive visits to meet lean teams in their work areas. The team would make a presentation, sometimes prepared, sometimes off the cuff, but always using terms and tools unfamiliar to the visiting executive. On our part, we did nothing to prepare the executives for the visits other than naming the project, walking them to the area, and introducing the team.
Our executives were socially skilled and used to making conversation. After listening to these nearly opaque presentations, the executives thanked the teams for their efforts, and then turned to more familiar topics, such as the state of the business, sales wins, or enquiries about people’s families.
When our team reviewed the records of these executive visits during the year we had been running them, we found exactly half had been cancelled and never rescheduled. Clearly, our executives were not finding value in visiting lean projects. If you added that to no significant financial impact, no wonder we were losing their interest.
Reflecting on this, we reached several conclusions that we used to restructure and resuscitate the project visits to make them meaningful to the executives. We assessed what we knew about our executives, recognising that they were bright, fast learners, with a high need for achievement. They tended to be competitive (having probably aced every test they’d ever taken), thirsty for hands-on influence in improvement initiatives and accustomed to being prepared by their staff members for unfamiliar situations. We recognised we were putting our action-orientated executives into passive roles that were not to their liking.
We had standards for lean management behaviours, practices, and tools in well-functioning lean areas from my book, Creating a Lean Culture. We based the new executive visits (called gemba walks) on the standards, creating a predictable, executive driven, repeatable process, with a clear agenda, content focus, and structure on a one-page gemba worksheet per standard.
The revised visits had questions for the executives to answer, from their observations, and conversations around the project area. Importantly for our competitive, high- achieving executives, the new approach included a test: how accurately did executives rate the project on the criteria included in that visit’s lean management standard?
We were sure we had an improved gemba walk process. As a final step, we made explicit the rationale for executives’ participation; we were sure they would find this meaningful in their own terms.
Senior executives have two unique managerial responsibilities: responsibility for strategy, and responsibility for the integrity of their chain of command. Most executives endorse a lean strategy essentially on faith, based on the advice of trusted advisors and examples of similar organisations’ successes. They lack experience of implementing Lean, and are not interested in gaining it. They’ve been persuaded lean will help reach their organisation’s goals, so they sign up.
They receive reports (abstracted and sanitised) describing lean activities. They see no impact on the financials. And, they don’t know how to assess for themselves the true status of the initiative and how it’s actually supported within their organisations.
Here, the tools, behaviours, and practices of the lean management system come to the fore. The management system was developed to support and sustain the underlying, and more technical, lean production system. The state of the management system reflects the health of the production system. Therefore, learn to assess the health of the management system, and you’ve learned how to judge directly for yourself the adequacy with which the production system is being implemented, and the integrity of its deployment down your chain of command.
Executives learning to assess the adequacy of the lean management system readily develop a keen and accurate eye. In practice, most executives master each management system standard by the second gemba walk on it. Part of the mechanism for this is the test. As we’re leaving the area, I (or another internal lean resource) ask the executive how he or she rated, say, visual controls in a project team’s area. He or she usually assigns a rating of four or a high three (on a self-describing five-point scale).
Such a rating is rarely warranted early on in the lean initiative, and the visited area is usually chosen because it needs improvement. The competitive, high-achieving executive has not passed the test. This opens a 90-second window for teaching, during which the lean resource explains what he or she saw, what better practice looks like, and why it’s important. In my experience, most executives are single-trial learners, quickly grasping what good and poor practice look like.
With this knowledge, executives can assess the state of the management system at the frontline, getting first-hand knowledge of the health of the lean strategy they’ve endorsed on faith. And they can assess, first-hand, the integrity with which their chain of command is deploying the lean strategy.
Consider when an executive asks a frontline worker or supervisor to explain an aspect of the management system (virtually all of which is visually displayed), and the answer is ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘we were just told to do this, but I don’t see how it’s helping’. The executive learns two things: First, somewhere up the chain from the frontline, there’s a lack of integrity, a weak link not reinforcing the lean strategy. Second, the lean strategy is in trouble, at least in the area visited.
Responding to situations like this is uniquely an executive responsibility. He or she should explain to the supervisor or frontline worker why the particular element of lean management is important, and how it’s supposed to help, and then move on.
The problem, a serious one, is elsewhere. Find the subordinate manager who is the weak link, walk an area with him or her, and explain what you expect to see and why.
Go back in two weeks’ time in a different area within the remit of that subordinate with him or her. If the same problem shows itself again, a more pointed conversation should ensue.
For my team, the end result was a happy one. Not a single restructured executive gemba walk was cancelled and, over the next four years the lean team remained in place. Lean in the company’s offices is deeply engrained in a revitalised corporate culture, literally ‘the way we do business here.’ Executives have the knowledge to judge for themselves the health of lean business process operations. Cumulative results of widespread focus on improvement are visible in the corporate financials.
David Mann is the author of Creating a Lean Culture: Tools to Sustain Lean Conversions. The book was awarded the Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence in 2006. Mann is a frequent consultant, trainer and speaker on lean leadership and management, and earned his PhD at the University of Michigan.
Focus on business education in Latin America
Heads of Business Schools from Latin America discuss Business School programmes in their region and how these are developing and interacting with business. Interviews by Jack Villanueva and Kevin Lee-Simion
Jorge Talavera
President, ESAN Graduate School of Business, Peru
What does a ‘great’ MBA programme look like?
Great MBA programmes support the best product – students. To support them, we need to provide them with the key factors for success which include knowledge, soft skills, leadership and team work.
How has international business developed in Latin America?
To develop international business, we developed our students. We established very good connections with the business sector. We provided them with the leaders, and they told us what we have to teach in order to be relevant.
How are MBA programmes similar across the world, and how do they differ?
In the past they were quite similar. People in developing countries followed the programmes in the US and Europe, but MBA programmers try to solve the problems in the region. So now we have to adapt programmes and develop our own, to give our students the ability to solve problems in our society.
Do you think the MBA mindset has changed?
I don’t think so. People have always studied for MBAs because they want to lead institutions, and Schools have provided students with knowledge to lead institutions.
What are the main challenges Business Schools face?
Coping with change in terms of technology, and dealing with competition due to globalisation. We have to compete to provide solutions for society, and good quality professionals.
Should there still be a focus on local businesses and local economies as well as the international business economy?
You have to be good in your own country first. Then you can take your success abroad and provide other societies with solutions.
How important is it for Business Schools to continue to innovate in order to compete with businesses around the globe?
Innovation is important but sometimes innovation is confused with change. Organisations change and say they are innovative because they changed – but then go bankrupt. You need to innovate and it needs to be successful, otherwise it doesn’t mean anything.
Xavier Gimbert
General Director of the Graduate Business School of Universidad del Pacifico, Professor of the GBS of Universidad del Pacifico and Professor of ESADE Business School
How do you see the decision-making process changing over the next few years?
The decision-making process has to be strategically ongoing, because the environment is changing every day. Also, decision making is becoming more collaborative.
Decision making is the most important process in managing an organisation. If you don’t have the best people and a good process, it will be a disaster.
How are strategic models beneficial to a business?
Models are guides and their objective is to help you to think, reflect, and make decisions. In a decision process, a model gives you different steps you have to think about in order to make decisions.
How important is innovation in strategic management?
Innovation is one of the key elements of strategic management. But do you have to innovate in order to be successful? Innovation is something a company should have the option of doing, but doesn’t always have to do.
Do you think MBAs are learning the skills required to succeed in the future? Or do Business Schools need to evolve?
I think the content of the MBA is evolving as there are more soft skills, which are fundamental to getting a good job, managing companies, reading changes in the environment, making fast decisions, and adapting to change. These areas can’t be taught though ‘real’ content.
Why is it arguably more important than ever to create alliances?
We are in a global world and can’t do everything alone. In Latin America, it’s a way to improve, in terms of businesses and Business Schools. Alliances provide knowledge from abroad. It’s a very powerful tool. Nowadays, alliances are key and we have to see others not just as competitors, but as potential allies.
Martin Santana
Professor of Information Systems, ESAN Graduate School of Business, Peru
Should there be a greater emphasis on technology in MBA programmes?
I think there is an emphasis but it’s not significant. We are dealing with millennials, 75% of whom interact through technology. Our MBA programmes are not prepared for that, as technology is used more as a learning platform. But this is a different dimension we are talking about with the technologicalically savvy guys from the millennial generation.
How important is the role technology for Schools?
I think technology is key and Schools are using it to gain connections around the world, to provide a leaning environment, create alliances, and persuade prospective MBAs and faculty to come to their School.
What innovations have you seen in the world of digital business?
Change in the learning environment. It’s now an open environment with different technologies, but they are converging into one purpose for Business Schools – enhancing learning opportunities
for students. We are under pressure to create a learning environment for the millennial generation.
What are your thoughts on e-learning? How beneficial do you think it is to an MBA?
It’s very important, but I believe in a more blended methodology. A 100% online programme is not yet well accepted in Latin America as employers believe these are low-quality programmes. I believe blended programmes will be the solution but I’m not against having a 100% virtual programme.
In what ways could Business Schools use technology to
their advantage?
I think technology should be used to attract, retain, and train our students, and change the mindset of professors who are using technology for basic things. Technology is a key component of being successful.
Do you think technology and millennials are essential for Peruvian Business?
I believe so because more than 40% of the population is made up of millennials. In the near future, the majority of the workforce will be millennials, they will be future entrepreneurs and will be running most companies.
How will millennial leadership compare to traditional leadership?
Millennials care about a lot more than just being managers. For one, they expect to have good mentors, and this will be the model they use in the companies of the future. They will become mentors and transformational leaders – focused on the person rather than the activity.
Do you think millennials lack soft skills when you compare them to previous students?
Yes, remember we are still talking about young people and they are in the process of developing. They lack social skills but it’s our job to teach them these. We can change their mindsets and help shape them so they can be successful.
What do you think the future holds for the MBA?
There will be many different varieties of MBA programme, and they will come together with a blended methodology. This means you will be able to connect with anybody around the world, but we will have to change our methods of teaching, and our professors.
Matthew Bird
Professor, Universidad del PacÃfico Graduate School, Peru
Is there a big difference between how businesses are run and how the government is run?
There is in Latin America. There is a distrust between the government and the private sector. I believe many countries’ societies understand that they need one another, but the hard thing to do is to build the foundation for trust and identify those shared spaces for collaboration.
How important is innovation in solving social challenges?
Very important: innovation can be anything that is different and creates value. Understanding social systems creates opportunities to identify those small interventions where the government and private sector can work together.
To solve social challenges, do you think it is a one-size-fits-all solution all or is it case-by-case?
There are elements that are cross-cutting, and once you know how to tackle social issues, it’s down to harvesting local solutions to shared problems. This is one of the reasons I believe in design thinking because it really focuses people to listen, empathising first. Through that empathy, you can understand where the gaps are, and what people want, so you can collaborate better to deliver that.
In what ways will harvesting local innovative interventions solve common social challenges?
People look at social issues as problems, but people should see them as solutions. Take the informal economy. People originally viewed the informal economy as a problem. However, people were working in the informal economy. This means they were creating value through jobs, and therefore creating income. It was a solution.
How do you think the rise in digital technologies is affecting Business Schools?
Digital technologies are already transforming the way we teach and interact with students. Technologies are creating challenges, but also opportunities. For example, with virtual education, you are creating competition between Schools, but there are also opportunities for people to overcome historical geographic barriers and push education into areas that have been traditionally harder to reach.
What are some of the biggest challenges facing Business Schools in Latin America?
The biggest challenge for Business Schools in the region is to move away from a strong focus on teaching, as there are opportunities for research. Research can still contribute to value creation, but its potential has still not been tapped.
How much of an impact does cultural influence play in economic decisions?
You define decisions and use certain frames – influenced by social cultural backgrounds – to justify them. Then you identify decision criteria, and then the choices. These choices are permeated by your culture.
Oscar Muartua de Romaña
Director de la Escuela de RR.II. y Gobierno de la UTP en Universidad Tecnologica del Peru (UTP)
How important is it for countries to work together?
It is an obligation and we have always demanded that the international community resolve these problems. The UN means there is an international community of 200 nations, and stability has a path through hard times.
Do you think volatility makes collaboration more difficult?
It is more challenging, but we can provide more effective reactions. One of the biggest challenges, but also the most fundamental aspect, is to have dialogue, because only through this will countries understand each other. Also, science and technology are providing us with enough arguments to build our future to benefit all humanity.
Do you think international relations impact business education?
Business Schools need international relations to prepare future professionals. MBAs have a moral function – they are embodying the values of society while trying to benefit society.
will it be difficult for Schools to implement the UN’s sustainable development goals?
It will be difficult to adapt to reform. But these principles are nothing new. So it is about doing as much as we can through investment in education and generalised development.
How do international relations impact Latin America?
International relations have helped us create Schools, bring in faculty, and establish MBAs. We’ve learned how development can create good results for a country, and we made this into a reality. International relations have also helped us become aware of innovation and entrepreneurship. Business has played an important role in the growth of Latin America.
How are Schools in Latin America preparing MBAs for the future?
Business Schools are preparing MBAs for an open economy, and everything that has been done by Business Schools is an investment in Latin America. MBAs are also learning about the linkage between the Business School, industry, and government, and the importance of moral values.
Racheli Gabel Shemueli
Research Fellow and Professor in the Graduate School of Business of the Pacific University in Lima, Peru
What do you look for in a prospective MBA student?
We want people who are different and who acquire knowledge and implement it. They have to be responsible leaders who want to create change. We are looking to the kind of person that makes a difference.
What are the challenges in attracting these students?
The challenge is to state that our Business School is different. We say we are looking for quality, and we are very demanding.
How important is it for MBAs to have cross-cultural experience?
When we think about inter-cultural experience, we also think about local experience because Peru is very diverse. Cross-cultural experience is not just about travelling the world, but about working with diverse people. For an MBA to be exposed to cross-cultural experiences, and know how to work with this is important, in order for them to lead.
In what ways can cross-cultural issues be addressed in the future?
In-house learning is important so we can see what our students understand. Then it is a matter of doing the exercise, and doing it in your own life.
Why is innovation important?
Learning is interactive. I am learning from my students and they are learning from me.
Professors are now just facilitators of limited information, and as a result, knowledge comes from both sides, the students and the professor.
Enhancing social innovation in Africa
With Africa’s population projected to grow to 2.4 billion by 2050, there is an urgent need for the emergence of more social innovators, operating at scale, to address pressing problems in sectors from education and healthcare to employment and housing, writes Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli
Oiginally labelled the ‘dark continent’ and largely unknown to the rest of the world, Africa is now being described as the ‘last frontier’.
Following decades of slow and uneven economic growth, the average growth rate across African countries is estimated at 5%, and more than two-thirds of the countries in the region have enjoyed 10 or more years of uninterrupted growth.
The majority of the countries are recognised as democracies and internal and cross-border strife has diminished significantly. An average African woman’s life expectancy rate has risen from 41 in 1960 to 57 years in 2017, and more than 70% of children are in school, compared to around 40% in 1970. Many of these advances can be linked to the work of a growing number of passionate and committed social innovators: individuals who have identified novel solutions to the continent’s most pressing problems that are affecting the masses. These innovators operate in the public, private and non-profit sectors and are concentrated in the health, education and energy landscapes, with a growing number emerging in financial services, agriculture and sanitation.
Their work is being propelled by the rapid advances in mobile technology, which facilitates mobile health, mobile education, payment systems and mobile money. In addition, they are gradually being supported by a range of initiatives including innovation accelerators, hubs, prizes, and fellowships.
The most popular Africa-based social enterprises include the African Leadership Academy and African Leadership University, Ashesi University, Bridge International Academies, One Acre Fund, Riders for Health and Sanergy. These organisations have received numerous local and global awards and prizes for their pioneering efforts, and have strong links to the international community, which has provided funding and support for their work.
There is also a growing number of organisations operating on the African Continent, which are essentially home-grown initiatives with minimal global recognition. They include:
- Action Health Incorporated established by Dr Uwem and Nike Esiet in 1999, to address the rising incidence of HIV / AIDS and teenage pregnancies in Lagos, Nigeria. Over a 10-year period, they designed and introduced sexuality and reproductive health curricula into public schools, fighting against the odds in a deeply religious society. Today, this curricula and its delivery has been adopted across the majority of the public schools in the country, and have played a key role in reducing HIV/AIDs and teenage pregnancies.
- CLEEN Foundation founded by Innocent Chukwuma, was established in 1998 to address rising crime rates in Nigeria’s major cities and create bridges between the police and citizens. Faced with stiff resistance from both sides of the divide from the onset, CLEEN worked with the Nigerian Police Force to revive and strengthen its internal accountability mechanisms such as the Police Public Complaints Bureau (PCB) in six Nigerian states. It also encouraged the police force to make its processes open and transparent, which ultimately exposed the gross misconduct of many police officers, leading to the dismissal of more than 5,000.
- IkamvaYouth in South Africa was established in 2003 by Joy Olivier and Makhosi Gogwana. The organisation equips students in grades 9, 10 and 11, from disadvantaged communities, with the knowledge, skills, networks and resources to access tertiary education and / or employment opportunities. These ‘learners’ eventually become volunteers and ultimately continue the cycle of giving back to the next generation of ‘learners’. IkamvaYouth operates in the Western Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, North West, and the Eastern Cape, reaching thousands of young people.
- The Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX), was initiated in 2008 as a marketplace or platform that facilitates the trading of agricultural produce between buyers and sellers. It provides transparent price information for both farmers and buyers, and protects both farmers and traders from price drops and price hikes, respectively. ECX harnesses innovation, technology, and storage infrastructures to mobilise products from smallholder farmers and ensures product quality, delivery, and payment.
Challenges faced by social innovators
Social innovators operating on the African continent face challenges that are not unique to Africa, but are often more severe, with higher stakes. My interviews with more than 80 African social innovators have raised four critical shared challenges:
- lack of credible data for local communities, countries, and regions, which slows down the processes for planning, piloting, and scaling social innovations and hinders the ability of key stakeholders to measure their impact on society.
- heterogeneity within and across countries, which includes significant diversity in colonial histories, language, religion, culture, community assets, and social development, essentially means that there is ‘no single story’. Innovations must be tweaked or significantly altered to enable scaling from one community to another, which is not only more expensive, but also slows the scaling process.
- fragmented ecosystems, in almost every sector, especially the agricultural, education and health landscapes, limit the ability of innovators to reach large numbers of people in record time. Consider the agriculture sector, where 85% of arable land in Africa is cultivated by farmers with less than two hectares. This essentially means that any intervention that wants to scale up in this sector can only do so by working with farmer clusters as opposed to individual farmers. The process of creating clusters of farmers, hospitals, schools, small and medium-sized enterprises, and other sectors, and building trust among
- these groups, takes time and requires financial resources.
- significant talent, infrastructure and financing gaps which limit scaling. For example, only one-third of Africans living in rural areas are within two kilometres of an all-season road, compared with two-thirds of the population in other developing regions. This, in turn, makes it extremely difficult and expensive to extend healthcare, education, and agriculture innovations to communities in rural areas. Sadly, with underdeveloped distribution and marketing systems, social innovators essentially work along all aspects of the value chain, filling gaps that ordinarily would not exist in other markets to reach people.
Prerequisites for success
All social innovators need to invest in critical building blocks for success – rooted in sound management principles: clear missions, visions, and values. However, there are at least four prerequisites to establishing successful social innovations in the African context which deserve significant attention.
1 Compelling business models: Social innovators need to develop compelling business models, defined by six critical components: demand driven, measurable impact, simple, engages the community, leverages technology and low-cost. These six components differentiate initiatives which die at the pilot phase or when the donor funding ends, from initiatives that are sustainable and able to achieve scale, spanning communities and even countries. Innovations that are demand driven essentially meet the needs of individuals, who value the product or service and are willing to contribute their time and financial resources, regardless of how minimal, to obtain them. In addition, the innovators have determined the most cost-effective approaches to deliver at scale and developed effective systems and structures to support their scaling effort. They often use simple payment mechanisms using mobile technology and support from microfinance partners, where applicable. These tools are highly dependent on a robust data – tracking system to gauge impact and usage. Two examples from the energy sector that demonstrate the power of demand-driven and sustainable business models are M-KOPA Solar and Off Grid Electric, which both operate in East Africa. They provide solar solutions to more than 550,000 households using a pay-as-you go model, and have demonstrated the tremendous potential at the bottom of pyramid
2 Talent for scaling: Talent on the African Continent remains a huge constraint for all growth sectors given the weak education systems and the global opportunities that are available to the best and brightest. As a result, every social innovator needs to invest in attracting and retaining a dream team composed of mission-driven high achievers. They also need to invest in recruiting a committed and independent board of directors, and engage volunteers, short-term consultants, and fellows. Organisations such as EDUCATE! In Uganda and Sanergy in Kenya, have designed and implemented creative strategies for attracting, retaining, and developing talent. They have also invested in building a culture of innovation and excellence, which attracts individuals from the private sector to their organisations.
They offer tailored training programmes, travel fellowships and significant job responsibilities for their team members and have also developed modular approaches for scaling talent.
3 Funding for Innovation: There is a broad range of financing options available to social innovators in Africa, depending on whether they operate for-profit, nonprofit or hybrid organisations. These financing options range from fee-for-service and cross subsidisation to externally generated funds such as grants, awards, fellowships, challenge funds, crowdfunding, impact investments and loans. In addition, the funding landscape, especially for impact investments, has expanded dramatically over the past 10 years, with cities such as Nairobi hosting more than 60 impact investment funds and other investment vehicles, where only a few existed 15 years ago. In-spite of the plethora of funds, most local social innovators struggle to obtain financing for their ventures, while funders complain that they cannot find initiatives that are investment ready. Indeed, external funders are only interested in engaging with organisations that have strong credibility, governance structures, financial management systems and controls and can demonstrate the ability to use the funds to achieve results.
Social innovators operating in Africa have obtained financing work diligently to establish and communicate a strong business case and theory of change, backed by sound data that establishes a clear need and sustainable demand. They also amplify their impact work through creative communication strategies to raise broad-based awareness and effectively differentiate themselves. In addition, they demonstrate strong transparent systems and structures, a culture of ethics and accountability, attractive return on investment ratios and exit options for impact investors, where applicable.
4 Partnerships with key stakeholders in the public, private and nonprofit sectors: Social innovators cannot achieve impact and scale without cross-sector collaborations, rooted in shared values and a desire to achieve collective impact. This is especially relevant in highly regulated sectors such as health and education.
Sadly, there are few examples of partnerships in the African context, largely linked to significant distrust among actors, the intense competition for the perceived ‘small pie’ of resources and support structures and the fear of giving up control. Partnerships are also challenging in an environment where there is a high level of bureaucracy and red tape within government institutions which ordinarily should serve as catalysts for collaborations and innovations. In reality, social innovators who successfully collaborate in this context, actively map the ‘ecosystem’, determining which stakeholders can serve as champions, opponents or even beneficiaries. They then develop strategies for interfacing with all key actors, proactively shaping their ecosystems and forming strategic cross-sector collaborations that foster impact and scaling.
Preparing for The future
With Africa’s population projected to grow to 2.4 billion by 2050 – more than 70% under the age of 30 years old, with 60% in cities and towns – there is an increasing need for the emergence of more social innovators, operating at scale. These individuals will essentially need to develop creative and innovative solutions in education, healthcare, employment, sanitation, security, electricity, transportation, and housing to meet the needs of the people.
The social innovators will need also need critical leadership and management skills, as well as the talent, financing and partnerships required to surmount the obstacles they will face to pilot and scale interventions.
Indeed, Business Schools in Africa and around the globe will have to play a critical role in preparing this next generation of social entrepreneurs and innovators.
The Bertha Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Cape Town is just one example of the numerous institutions in Africa and across the globe that are working to inspire, empower, and equip the social innovators.
I am convinced that the ability of more social innovators to pilot, establish and scale their initiatives to solve Africa’s most pressing problems will transform the continent and continue to ensure that Africa progresses from the last frontier to the brightest continent over the next decade.
Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli, Harvard MBA 1999; Wharton Undergrad 1995 is a serial social entrepreneur based in Lagos Nigeria. She is the founder of LEAP Africa – www.leapafrica.org, co-founder of AACE Foods Processing & Distribution Ltd. – www.aacefoods.com and co-founder of Sahel Consulting & Advisory Ltd – www.sahelcp.com. She is the author of – Social Innovation in Africa: A Practical Guide for Scaling Impact, published by Routledge in 2016.
Broadening students’ cultural experience
Josep Franch, Dean of ESADE Business School, Barcelona, discusses current differences between Spanish Business Schools and those in Latin America and the opportunities for Latin American Schools to attract more international students. Interview by Andrew Main Wilson
Considering the landscape of the top Spanish Business Schools compared to Latin America, what are your main observations of the differences and the similarities?
I would say that European Business Schools in general, and Spanish Schools in particular, have made significant improvements over the past 10 to 15 years.
If you take, for example, the Financial Times Global MBA Ranking, in 2000 it was made up of 80% US Schools and 20% European Schools. If you consider the same ranking today, you’ll find 40% US schools, one third European Schools and 20% Asian Schools.
This improvement didn’t come overnight. It started in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when European Schools began to internationalise. They started to change their reputation to attract international students and faculty. This happened 25-30 years ago and, as a result, the majority of European Schools today are probably at the forefront of internationalisation.
When I consider Latin America, I still see it as regionally based, attracting regional talent, whereas at the majority of European Business Schools – and in the case of top Spanish Schools – we’re attracting students from all over the world in our MBA.
We have 30% of students coming from Latin America, 30% from Asia, 25% from Europe and 15% from North America, so it’s a broad profile.
What do you think Latin American Business Schools need to do to attract more students from Spain and Portugal?
Spain has, traditionally, been seen as the gateway to Europe for many Latin American Schools and countries. But at the same time [as a Latin American School] you need a focus on quality.
International accreditations are the first step, but you also need to establish your brand. This can be done through publications of your key faculty who can produce and publish research in top journals.
You need also to be relevant in the corporate world. Here, I believe Latin America has a great opportunity, with corporates coming from the regions expanding abroad. A number of [global multinationals] are seeing opportunities in Latin America.
At ESADE, some students from Europe or Asia take our MBA because they see it as a gateway to Latin America.
In a global world, there are lots of opportunities, but [success] doesn’t come overnight. It’s based on years of investment, publications, visiting companies, attracting people and placing graduates in
those companies.
At the end of the day, your graduates and alumni are your best ambassadors.
Do you think blended and online learning this will be the next step for Schools in Latin America, and will it be a struggle, in terms of investment?
We’re all facing the same huge challenge. But, at the same time, it’s a huge opportunity. You can develop e-learning programmes anytime and anywhere, so the online revolution allows physical boundaries to disappear. I don’t see a difference between Latin American Business Schools and Schools in other parts of the world, in the sense that blended programmes are not a choice. A blended solution is something you need. It’s a percentage of your curriculum, but all programmes have to be blended. Fully-online degrees are a different issue. Schools across the world are discussing the next steps. How fast they’ll be able to go depends on how many resources they have and how fast a School moves.
It also depends on how many risks they’re willing to take, because those that move first will bear the greatest risk. Other Schools will be playing the safe route of jumping on the bandwagon, but they’ll not be the first mover. In saying that, top Latin American Schools are coping well with, and addressing this challenge.
You have partnerships with Schools in Chile, Colombia and Peru. What advice would you give Latin American Schools in building partnerships in Europe?
We have a joint multinational MBA with Adolfo Ibáñez University in Santiago, Chile, and a double degree with Fundacao Getulio Vargas EAESP in Sao Paulo, Brazil. We are working with Universidad de los Andes in Colombia and Universidad del Pacifico in Peru. In Rio de Janeiro, we’re working with Fundacao Getulio Vargas on some executive education programmes. We’re working with some other universities in the region as well.
I believe these partnerships are going to grow because they allow Business Schools to combine resources, areas of expertise and the footprint of the different partners in the same programmes.
Partnerships also allow Schools to launch programmes that maybe they wouldn’t have launched on their own because of [limitations in terms of] size, capability, or lack of influence that they have in a
certain market.
These partnerships are a good thing, but Business Schools have to be able to find a suitable partner. To me, one of the most important things is that you share the same approach and philosophy. A partnership is like a marriage. When you’re dating, you need to know the person and share
some things. Partnerships based on economic or financial factors are probably not the best partnerships, if you don’t share a vision, values, or if you don’t have the same ideas in terms of the programme and the education proposal for the Business community.
What would you advise our Schools to do to encourage more Spanish and Portuguese-speaking European students to come and experience a Latin American School?
Students have different ideas and motivations to go on exchange programmes. I’ve found very often that we might have Spanish students who prioritise going to the US or Asia because they see them as ‘cool’ destinations, rather than opting to go to Latin America.
Sometimes, students assume – mistakenly in my opinion – that in the majority of Latin American countries, because the same language is spoken there, they cannot improve in a second language, but they can if they go to the US or another destination.
It’s not just about the language, but also the cultural experience. If we share the same language or similar language, students can still learn different ways of doing business compared to Spain in terms of how international markets are evolving. There are fast-growing markets in Latin America with lots of opportunities.
Some students want to go to Latin America because they want to pursue an international career and want to spend some years in that region because they will have lots of opportunities to develop themselves. We [as Business School leaders] need to keep insisting that there are plenty of opportunities [in Latin America] that students are failing to identify because they’re looking for the big names of American universities, that are attracting them to a place – rather than what they can learn.
Josep Franch, Dean of ESADE Business School
Josep Franch has extensive teaching experience in various countries. He is an expert in international marketing and global marketing, and his main area of specialisation is brand management in multinational and global companies. He has also worked on subjects related to digital marketing and relationship marketing.
From an educational point of view, he is one of the main European experts in the case study method. He has published more than 50 case studies in the fields of marketing and international business, some of which are available through the The Case Centre (formerly the European Case Clearing House).
He has won the EFMD Case Writing Competition on three occasions (1999, 2001 and 2013) and also has three case writing awards at the North American Case Research Association (NACRA) Annual Conference (2004, 2010 and 2015). He regularly serves as a track chair in several case conferences and as a reviewer for different case journals and case collections, he sits on the Editorial Board of the Case Research Journal and Wine Business Case Research Journal and is one of the Co-Editors of the
Global Jesuit Case Series. He regularly delivers sessions on how to write and teach with case studies, both at
ESADE as well as for other programmes including the International Teachers Programme (ITP).
He has previous experience as marketing manager at Fuji Film and has worked as a consultant for different companies, including FC Barcelona, Interroll, Novartis, Soler & Palau, Sony and Xerox.
He has also worked in many in-company training programmes with different companies including APM Terminals, Bunge, Desigual, Esteve, Novartis, Roca, Roland DG, Saint-Gobain, Sony, Telefónica and Tenaris.
Putting innovation and entrepreneurship at the heart of learning
You must login/create an account to view this content
Achieving positive change
You must login/create an account to view this content
Strategic leadership: a simple cure for short-termism
You must login/create an account to view this content
Building a conscious culture: how to implement and measure organisational culture
You must login/create an account to view this content
How would you define your leadership style?
You must login/create an account to view this content
