The Business of Education by Steve Coomber, Training Journal, April 2009

This is one of a series of three articles based on different business schools. I have only included one because they all say much the same things and are, to a varied extent, ‘puffs’ for different schools. This one is chosen because it has more to say about broader issues and because it features Mike Osbaldeston, former colleague of the MTP founders at Ashridge and now on the point of retiring as Dean of Cranfield.

Inevitably such articles tend to be self serving and this one is no exception. In common with every management training institution, Osbaldeston emphasises the growth of customised courses as the main trend of the last few decades. Less typically he also stresses the importance of research to the Cranfield course designs, saying ‘research improves practice and our teaching is rigorously based on research’. It would have been interesting to explore in more detail precisely what is meant by research in this context and how this links in with the trend to customisation; for example, how far these days do global companies want their course content to be based on external academic research? Don’t most of them prefer course design and content that relate to their own needs and therefore require customisation to their own issues and culture?

The article contains other interesting information. Cranfield was apparently rated number one in the UK for customised courses (presumably only business schools were included in the survey as MTP courses did not feature!) and this may be something to do with the previous Ashridge experience that Osbaldeston brought to Cranfield. It is also interesting - and perhaps the reason for their success - that a third of their customised programmes are off the Cranfield site. Previously the need to fill bedrooms and conference rooms was a major barrier to flexibility of this kind and it is obvious that Cranfield have had to accept the reality that companies want to specify where their managers will be trained. A barrier to this trend in the past was the fact the academic staff were providing off-site training on a private consultancy basis and it would be interesting to know how Cranfield dealt with this sensitive issue.

Most interesting are Osbaldeston’s views on the recession and how Cranfield are coping. He states that some aspects of management training are counter cyclical, for example managers may use the opportunity during the downturn to take a year or two out to gain an MBA. He also believes that the trend to customisation makes management training more resilient; the cost of individuals going on expensive public courses would be the first to be cut, but the corporate programme would be more likely to continue because of its link to strategy and because cancellation would send out the wrong messages.

There is a final part of the article when the trends for the future are discussed and, in line with our own views at MTP, Osbaldeston emphasises the move to modularised programmes with a blend of face-to-face and on-line learning. It is interesting and surprising however that, while he mentions Cranfield’s podcasts and blogs, he does not mention the major trend that we are seeing, the delivery on-line by tutors in a virtual classroom environment.


To access this article go to:

http://www.trainingjournal.com/tj/2031.html