21 July 2007

Last year Alan Clark, the European MD of international brewing giant SABMiller, set out to create a revolutionary development programme for his top team – “a programme that reached out into the future”. Clark explains his reasoning: "For executives at this level a much more broad view is needed of the way the world could unfold and the implications for our organisation. I wanted a long-term look into the future so it would not hit us as a surprise."

Clark and SABMiller's HR Development Manager, Richard Waters, approached a shortlist of five leading business schools. They decided to work with Oxford University’s Said Business School, because of Oxford’s long tradition as a seat of learning, its broad-ranging intellectual resources, and the willingness of programme directors Tracey Camilleri and Ron Emerson to engage with a wide range of topics.

Associate Fellow, Tracey Camilleri says: “SABMiller wanted real, hard science – and there was to be no dumbing down. The sessions were not to be in the form of presentations, rather open-ended debate. They were in a way asking us to re-invent the Oxford’s ancient tutorial tradition – but for a high level modern business audience.” 

The programme, which was delivered to nineteen SABMiller European directors over five days at Oriel College, Oxford exposed them to the University’s leading thinkers in politics, economics, history, ethics and science. It featured sessions on:

• the challenge to democracy;
• shifting demographics with Prof Sarah Harper;
• the role of Islam with Prof Tariq Ramadan;
• the economic drivers of China, India and SE Asia;
• understanding DNA (at the University biology labs where participants had their DNA mouth-swabbed and analysed);
• stem cells and regenerative medicine and ethical dilemmas in genetics with Prof Sir Richard Gardner and Prof Julian Savulescu
• nanotechnology;
• climate change with Prof Lord Robert May;

• issues and forces which will shape the 21st century and their relevance to large scale organisations with Dr Ian Goldin

• global economic shifts and the future role of  institutions such as the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO with Dr Ngaire Woods

• global water resources;
• and, at the JET labs in Culham with Professor of Physics Nick Jelley, fusion and the reality of alternative energy.

Post-programme, what was the verdict?

“An extraordinary way of driving us out of our daily box and waking our collective responsibility to the challenges of the twenty-first century,” judged one participant. What was also an eye-opener to the participants was how effectively top Oxford academics could communicate to a business audience, injecting energy, humour and drama into their presentations as well as rigour.

Clark believes the organisational returns should be long-term. “It is about stimulating ideas, imagination and creativity, and ultimately we will benefit as an organisation. Strategy involves linking diverse threads and concepts and crafting them back into the organisation.” He is already talking about rolling out the programme by inviting Oxford experts into the organisation to talk to staff and by repeating the programme in front of a broader range of executives.

Camilleri and co-programme director colleague see the programme as the start of something new – a trend that takes the study of the business context to a much higher level and in the process revolutionises leadership education. “If we are going to transcend merely incremental change, we are going to have to re-imagine leadership education,’ says Tracey Camilleri. ‘We have got to engage with, and understand, forces of change at a much more fundamental level – which the School with all the resources of the University is uniquely well-equipped to do.”