“Understand the cause of things.” The LSE motto means that TRIUM students are required to look... [+]
“To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.” Oscar Wilde’s words are as true today as they were in 1893, and expecting the unexpected is a skill particularly important for those at the head of industries in today’s rapidly shifting geopolitical climate.
Take the UK for example, two weeks on from the General Election and, for most onlookers it is still unclear as to who is actually running the country – if anyone. The election was widely expected to be a walkover for the Conservatives, so when the exit poll’s prediction of a hung parliament came true, people were a little wrong-footed – not just the general public but expert political analysts and commentators. Jon Snow, the respected UK news broadcaster summed up the confusion on camera in the immediate aftermath; “We, the media, the experts, the pundits, know nothing. We simply didn’t spot it.”
The result in the UK follows on from the Brexit vote a year ago, which has again left many scratching their heads over what their next step should be. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has moved in to the White House. Whether these are isolated incidents, and the last effort of ageing white men to turn back the clock on history, or whether they mark a bigger shift in global social culture remains to be seen. But what is clear is that the world’s experts perhaps don’t have as strong a grasp on local social political sentiment as they think.
Business and politics have always gone hand in hand. In such times of uncertainty, the bar has been raised for business leaders who, in an ever more interconnected world can be as impacted by the actions of the US Government in their homes in London, Paris and Berlin as they would be in New York. Today’s leaders, of course, need to be aware – politically and socially – but more importantly they need to be resilient in the face of change. And it falls upon the training houses of these executives, the world’s business schools, to provide education programs that help develop leaders with the analytical tools and frameworks to put isolated events into a broader context.
“It’s not so much about teaching Geopolitics 101, but instead teaching students how to use this knowledge to understand and anticipate global trends, which can be tricky,” says Dr Robert Falkner, Academic Director of the TRIUM Executive Global MBA program, at the London School of Economics.
The program was launched at the turn of the millennium and, over the past 16 years has coached senior executives through a series of dramatic global changes. Offered through a partnership of some of the world’s leading education institutions – the New York University Stern School of Business, and HEC Paris make up the trio – TRIUM was the first Executive MBA of its kind, and was built with social political analysis at its core.
“A big theme throughout our program’s existence has been global power shifts. In 2001 the US was the main power, unchallenged all over the world, but as we moved through the decade China became ever more assertive. The financial crisis of 2008/09 exposed the non-resilience of Western economies, and emerging economies took over as the engine of growth. We’ve continually reflected these shifts in the program.”
Falkner estimates that within ten years, one quarter of the Global Fortuna 500 will be from China, so understanding how local business functions is vital. The study module in Shanghai includes courses on deal making in Asia, and emphasizes the need to understand the political and social environment. And the business plans of students in their capstone projects increasingly focus on Asia.”
But to challenge any short-term thinking of its own, TRIUM is already looking beyond Asia for longer-term trends. “The big prediction of the 1980s was that Japan would take over the world. In the 1990s China was predicted to takeover the world. We look at the structural features that prevented either of those happening, and why China is unlikely to replace the US to provide global security. Now with Chinese labor costs rising, companies are looking at re-shoring their business, or relocating to Vietnam, Turkey and elsewhere. We run a course in London on Rising Africa, and take students to South Africa to better understand the risks and opportunities.”
According to Dr Falkner, a large part of the program is about challenging received wisdom, and encouraging thoughtfulness and open-mindedness. LSE’s motto “understand the cause of things” means that TRIUM students are required to look beyond current affairs and go deeper. “It takes a brave business leader to go back to take a fresh look at the world, but we are broadening the minds of very successful executives in their late 30s and 40s, and challenging them to pause, reflect and let new ideas enter into their minds.”
Falkner recalls the first module of the first cohort of the programme back in September 2001 when, during a class discussion on the dangers of globalisation the news broke that aircraft had struck the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Centre. The class were, in part, from the US – many of them New York based.
“We were left with a question, how do we proceed? Instead of making the call, we let the students decide. We could have stopped our classes, but they decided to persevere because this was the very essence of a complex world they needed to understand.”
The reaction is typical of the responses Dr Falkner has aimed to build in his TRIUM students, in times of political turmoil and global uncertainty, he hopes to develop a generation of leaders that can seek understand the social and political factors at the root of such events, and use this knowledge to build a stronger, more stable world. “We develop stayed reactions in our students,” he says, “not knee-jerk responses which have, in the past, been the root cause of some big political and business disasters.”
