Manchester Business School and CCL become fellow travellers

Manchester Business School and the Centre for Creative Leadership (CCL) are to launch a fellowship programme in June 2014 that hopes to address many of the most difficult issues facing the top dogs in today’s organisations.

“One of the problems for leaders in modern organisations is that there’s a big difference between being right and doing the right thing,” points out Chris Bones, professor of creativity and leadership at Manchester. Managers often bend the rules to get results, he says, and this culture then becomes prevalent. “That’s sort of what got us into the mess we’re in today,” he adds.

Part of the value of the fellowship is that it will support those managers who want to change this kind of culture. “It becomes increasingly difficult as a manager in any of these organisations to stand up to the culture. Managers very rarely have people to talk to outside the company,” he says. “One of the reasons this programme is so timely is that it puts people together to become a community to help.”

The fellowship begins with an executive education programme for senior managers, which has four one-week modules over a 10-month period and which looks at how to increase value to society while creating economic value, says Hamish Madan, Emea Markets Director for CCL. “It will allow people to be more proactive in tackling complicated societal problems.”

Each of the modules will be in a different location and will study a different topic: in Palo Alto (US) the participants will study innovation; in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) they will study NGOs; in Shanghai (China) they will study growth; and the Windsor (UK) module will be on self-reflection.

Participants who complete the programme will become Global Fellows, with the responsibility to help shape the development of the programme and act as a mentor and teacher for future cohorts. “The culture we’re trying to build is one of constant review and challenge,” says Prof Bones. “The fellowship will be a self-regulating community.”

Fellows will also be able to continue their education more formally through an accelerated pathway to the Manchester Global Executive MBA or DBA programme, helping address the increasing problem of how to educate an ageing managerial workforce.