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Interview with Gloria Cordes Larson: Part 8: Integrating the Role

webmaster@standishgroup.com (Jim Johnson) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 13:16:21 +0000

Interview with Gloria Cordes Larson, President Bentley University. As Gloria says, “I don’t think about being an executive sponsor as simply my “day job.” I think about it as being my job. When I became president of Bentley, I decided that I would try to be both visible and accessible. I attend numerous meetings and functions on and off campus every week. I have parties at my home for students, faculty, staff, trustees and alumni throughout the year. So when we’re in the middle of developing a program like the new MBA, I look for every chance I can to talk about our plans and get feedback. An executive sponsor should always be on the lookout for opportunities to help the team get more support.”

Interview with Gloria Cordes Larson: Part 7: Chief Enabling Officer

webmaster@standishgroup.com (Jim Johnson) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:13:52 +0000

Interview with Gloria Cordes Larson, President Bentley University. As Gloria says, “I see the role of an executive sponsor not so much as a chief executive officer, but as more of a “chief enabling officer.” As chief enabling officer my job is to make sure I provide the support, resources and guidance to allow our academic and administrative team to be successful. The executive sponsor helps set the vision and the strategic direction to accomplish our mission. An equally important job of the chief enabling officer is communication around these things. I can say without hesitation that you can never have enough communication. And it’s not only important for the executive sponsor to communicate regularly with key audiences, but the entire leadership team needs to so as well. Projects work best when you have a team of “evangelists” spreading the word and reporting feedback from your stakeholders.”

Interview with Gloria Cordes Larson: Part 6: Decision Process

webmaster@standishgroup.com (Jim Johnson) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:11:17 +0000

Interview with Gloria Cordes Larson, President Bentley University. As Gloria says, “In higher education, it takes much longer than any other type of organization I’m familiar with to come to a decision. Decision making in this environment requires process, more process, and more process, and then you finally reach a point where you can call the question. For example, with the new MBA, there were numerous forums for the faculty to ask questions and provide their viewpoint - - all designed to get people’s input, build consensus, and ultimately create a comfort level with what was a large scale overhaul of our MBA program. Everyone knew we would be pulling people and other resources from other programs, as well as investing new funds to make it work. We were creating a whole new structure that involved team teaching and a studio format that didn’t exist previously, so there was a lot of understandable apprehension. As the executive sponsor, I needed to link arms with my academic leadership team and let everyone know that this was a personal priority. We all had to be united in our view that over time, the new MBA could have a positive effect on our rankings and on our standing in the education and business worlds. This was a democratic process, so we ultimately had to call the question and get people to vote. In the end the new MBA prevailed with a sizeable majority, but it was no landslide.”

Interview with Gloria Cordes Larson: Part 5: Iterative Process

webmaster@standishgroup.com (Jim Johnson) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:07:48 +0000

Interview with Gloria Cordes Larson, President Bentley University. As Gloria says, “One of the priorities that came out of the strategic planning process was a commitment to develop a new, signature MBA (masters of business administration) program for Bentley. We wanted to move from the traditional discipline and finance based curriculum that characterizes most MBA programs, to one defined by broader management and leadership skills. We wanted to be innovative: adding more critical analysis, problem solving, liberal arts creativity and ethics as integral aspects of our MBA, as well as well-designed field experiences. We brought various academic stakeholders together to design the curriculum for the new MBA, as well as to think about the new studio setting we wanted for the program. The process was a very inclusive and iterative one. It took a long time to complete, but going through this type of process is reaping benefits for us in the execution phase. We ended up with four major themes for the new MBA: Innovation, Value Creation, Environments and Leadership. We’re launching the program next fall.”

Stat of the Week: Project level resource allocation

webmaster@standishgroup.com (Jim Johnson) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 13:47:01 +0000

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Interview with Gloria Cordes Larson: Part 4: Highly Participatory

webmaster@standishgroup.com (Jim Johnson) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:25:35 +0000

Interview with Gloria Cordes Larson, President Bentley University. As Gloria says, “When I first got to Bentley, the school had a strategic plan that had expired. So one of the first things I did as the new president of Bentley, was to launch a new strategic planning project. I listened to some very thoughtful faculty and senior staff, who suggested that we use a democratic, highly participatory approach to help plan the next level of Bentley’s trajectory around research and education. We wanted to have a better sense from the whole community about where we needed to make new investments in both research and education. We also needed to review an increasingly stale marketing and branding approach to be able to better tell our story to the world. So our team of faculty and administrators went on a listening tour and the results of that exercise became the foundation for our new strategic plan. It also served as a foundation for evaluating and prioritizing future projects. Executive sponsors of new initiatives can use inclusive strategic planning processes to better focus their efforts and gain much needed buy-in.”

Interview with Gloria Cordes Larson: Part 3: Listening

webmaster@standishgroup.com (Jim Johnson) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 13:24:02 +0000

Interview with Gloria Cordes Larson, President Bentley University. As Gloria says, “I’m a lawyer who likes to negotiate not litigate outcomes, but I know I often talk too much, talking when I should be listening. The biggest lesson I learned from the convention center project is that you need to learn to really listen. Listening to others including our neighbors made our building so much better, and it helped us build a good reputation with our neighbors and city leaders. For example the South Boston neighborhood was very concerned that this huge building would loom over their homes and cast shadows. So our architect revised the design of the portion of the building closest to the neighborhood to not go over the height of a typical Boston, 3-story row house, while the front of the building soared to a much greater height with a prominent canopy, appropriately announcing its singular design. We included more green space, we repositioned the building on our site to reduce the look of its massive size, and we located loading docks on the side farthest from the neighborhood to reduce noise. We took a lot of feedback from local citizens and business people directly into consideration when designing and building the center. This requires the executive sponsor to do a lot more listening than talking, and I’m glad to say that our whole team did just that.”

Interview with Gloria Cordes Larson: Part 2: Interested Parties

webmaster@standishgroup.com (Jim Johnson) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:20:46 +0000

Interview with Gloria Cordes Larson, President Bentley University. As Gloria says, “As executive sponsor of the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center (BCEC), I thought it was important to reach out to the myriad interested parties to get feedback and support. This included not just legislators, the governor and the mayor, but the neighborhood groups that surrounded the convention center. The new convention center site is located in South Boston, which is a very traditional, close-knit neighborhood, and we did not want to infringe on people’s daily lives or disrupt their sense of community. Pulling all those groups together is the essence of this type of management capability. This project was not about me, it was about the team: a project oversight team that involved someone who knew construction really well, another person that ran a development company that had built large commercial structures in the Boston area, folks like me who understood the politics, people who had experience in the travel and tourism industry, and local neighborhood leaders. Having such a diverse team was a much different approach than other large public projects in and around Boston had taken previously, virtually all of which had faced major challenges that often tarnished project reputations and results. I think our group dynamic was a major factor in the project being so successful, coming in on time and on budget, and later serving as a model for convention centers around the globe.”