IMD 75 years

IMD 75 years, Challenging what is, inspiring what could be is for anyone looking to develop their personal leadership as well as the success of their organization. The book highlights the insights and ground-breaking accomplishments achieved during IMD's rise to prominence as one of the world's leading providers of executive educat

• Language: English
• Publisher: IMD International
• Release date: Nov 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9782940485468

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Edited by Jeremy Kourdi.

With thanks to Georges Haour and Paul Strebel for indicating valuable sources and recounting the history of IMI and IMEDE respectively, and to Anand Narasimhan for his contributions on IMD today.

Chemin de Bellerive 23

P.O. Box 915

CH – 1001 Lausanne

Switzerland

Tel: [phone] – Fax: [phone]

www.imd.org

Copyright 2021 © IMD - International Institute for Management Development

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of IMD.

ISBN offset print: 978-2-940485-40-6

ISBN print-on-demand: 978-2-940485-45-1

ISBN EPUB: 978-2-940485-46-8

Foreword

Welcome to the story of IMD

IMD was created through the merger of two great independent business schools (CEI/IMI and IMEDE) that had been founded by two visionary businesses, Alcan and Nestlé.

As we celebrate our founding, 75 years ago, we have been reflecting on the many lessons and insights since the first class of international executives (including many Chinese and North American participants) began their studies at CEI in 1946.

Our predecessors’ pioneering vision in the aftermath of World War II was to develop leaders who understood one another and would build a better future. Their approach was to provide real, insightful learning experiences that, crucially, would have real impact and lasting benefit. Our work continues to fulfill this vision, not only supporting organizations as they develop their strategy, talent and purpose, but also helping leaders to develop the capabilities and mindset needed to take action and succeed.

At IMD we are in a privileged position, trusted by executives and organizations to help them achieve their goals. As this book illustrates, we have been able to achieve this because of a unique blend of factors. These include our practical focus, born from industry, combined with an international perspective and an innovative approach to learning. Our unique, department-less structure and collaborative, purpose-driven culture enable IMD faculty and staff to design and develop innovative and integrated programs addressing carefully identified needs and objectives. In recent years our distinctive positioning and capabilities have enabled us to expand our activities in a quasi-advisory direction, building on the strong belief that our role is to help leaders find their own solutions, embedded in their own organizations.

As we reflect on the past, we owe a deep gratitude to the talented employees and innovative faculty that have worked together tirelessly for 75 years to shape and develop IMD. We also owe special thanks to the executives and organizations that have trusted us over these years. Alumni, especially those executives that have made the significant investment to pursue an MBA or EMBA, are our family – their personal brand is connected with ours. We passionately believe that learning is more than an event, it is a lifelong journey. And coming to IMD is more than a program, it is a lifelong connection.

As we celebrate this major milestone, it is clear that we live in a time of opportunity but also of profound challenge and change, brought into sharp focus this past year by the global COVID-19 pandemic. At IMD we believe that the world is at a crossroads. There is a compelling need for organizations in general, business in particular, and leaders everywhere, to build a world that is more inclusive and secure, as well as generating economic growth in a way that is more sustainable. Building on our first 75 years we commit to being an ever more present and powerful voice on issues of importance to society; challenging, inspiring and enabling leaders to shape a better world.

The world is dynamic and changing in many ways and there can be no room for complacency. Our prominent position, carefully developed over 75 years, places a huge expectation on all of us. That expectation comes from executives, organizations and employees – past, present and future – who work with IMD because of our purpose.

Looking forward, we will continue to challenge what is and inspire what could be. We hope you will too.

As with much of our work at IMD, this book has been a collaboration across the organization and before concluding I would like to express my gratitude and sincere appreciation to all those who have generously contributed their insights, recollections and expertise, allowing us to tell this story.

We hope you will enjoy reading this book as much as we enjoyed preparing it for you.

Jean-François Manzoni

Nestlé Professor of Leadership and Organizational Development

and IMD President

November 2021

Chapter 01

Real Learning, Real Impact:

IMD’s Unique Origins

01

The story of how Dr. Paul Haenni came to be chosen by Edward K. Davis, President of Alcan, to start an international training center for young managers has now become legend. In 1946 the Natural Resources Commission of China was planning an aluminium complex on the Yangtze River. The commission gathered a group of young Chinese engineers and economists in the United States and asked the State Department to organize for them some training in aluminium-making. The group was directed to Alcan in Canada and then put under Dr. Haenni’s wings. He sent them to visit plants and laboratories and also invited them regularly to his home to discuss religions, ideologies, political and economic systems, trends in art, and evolution of human thought. ln their reports, the Chinese students apparently wrote that they were getting the keys to understanding the world. This precipitated the idea to create a school in which executives would not only learn management, but would also gain an understanding of the world.

Obituary for Dr Paul Haenni, Founder of the Centre d’Etudes Industrielles (CEI),

in IMI Report, winter 1981

How does a relatively small international institution situated in an intensely competitive and constantly evolving business become one of the world’s best, in terms of influence and impact, and then sustain that pre-eminent position year after year?

IMD’s origins

The organization that was to become IMD was first founded by Alcan in Geneva in 1946 as the Centre d’Etudes Industrielles (CEI), and in 1981 CEI was renamed the International Management Institute (IMI). Meanwhile, in 1957 the Institut pour l’Etude des Méthodes de Direction de l’Entreprise (IMEDE) was established in Lausanne by Nestlé in coordination with Harvard Business School.

In 1990 IMI merged with IMEDE to create IMD – International Institute for Management Development – based in Lausanne.

This is now and has always been an institution founded by business, for business, with an international orientation, a bias for practical impact, an emphasis on innovation and excellence (its market-leading founders would expect nothing less), trusted leadership, and a clear purpose to develop leaders who transform organizations and contribute to society. IMD’s experience has resulted in an organization with a culture and set of values that are pioneering, open, collaborative and brave.

Although it has been tested at key moments over the years, for example, by the global COVID-19 pandemic, IMD has managed to survive, prosper and progress by valuing its past, adapting to the present, and embracing change. In fact, it is sometimes said that the best way to predict the future is to create it. This approach is encapsulated by IMD’s purpose: challenging what is and inspiring what could be.

This question describes the journey of IMD — International Institute for Management Development. From unassuming origins in Geneva in 1946, a time their organization. We describe this journey as the road to leadership.

Since its foundation IMD has become widely regarded as the trusted learning partner of choice for ambitious individuals and organizations worldwide. In the years since 1946 IMD has developed to become a pioneering force in developing leaders who transform organizations and contribute to society. This book tells the story of this journey, and in doing so highlights the drivers of their success as well as the insights and ground-breaking accomplishments achieved during IMD’s rise to prominence. Written to celebrate the organization’s 75th anniversary, this book provides a guide to the events that shaped the organization and, in turn, enabled it to develop and transform the success of many thousands of leaders and organizations worldwide.

The road to leadership

IMD’s story began in 1946 with the Canadian firm Alcan establishing a corporate training center in Geneva that became CEI in 1948 and IMI in 1981. IMEDE was founded by the Swiss multinational company Nestlé in 1957, with IMI and IMEDE merging to form IMD in 1990. Both Alcan and Nestlé valued the style of management training developed in the post-war years by North American business schools, which at the time were leading the way in the relatively new area of specialized management education.

The decision by Alcan and Nestlé to establish their own business schools was exceptional in post-war business education, and had two direct consequences that continues to shape IMD today.

Born from industry. Because IMD was started by businesses, Alcan and Nestlé, and not by universities, it developed a practical, field-based research and executive education orientation. This meant that from the outset IMD and its forebears were designed to help executives and companies create value. There was a passion for working with companies in a way that was relevant, practical and impactful, and over time that passion and expertise only deepened and strengthened. As a result, IMD’s brand identity highlighting the institution’s focus on Real Learning, Real Impact would have been as relevant for Alcan in 1946 and Nestlé in 1957 as it is for IMD’s present-day clients. It could not afford the distraction of knowledge or research without practical utility, so the organization developed an approach to research that was firmly grounded in business issues and needs.

Crucially, the mission and drive to create value for business executives and organizations meant that IMD had to adopt an integrated, holistic approach. IMD could not afford to take the view that a client’s issues were only in one or two areas – for example, marketing, strategy, finance, operations, leadership – however important that single issue may be. In reality, business issues cut across disciplines. It is ironic that while business is recognized as being systemic, requiring input from multiple disciplines to achieve a coordinated, concerted outcome, business schools are invariably organized by function. Focusing on the need to stay relevant and achieve impact for business meant that IMD faculty could not be organized by function, and they could not have ranks and tenure based on academic research. As a result IMD avoided the pitfall of saying and meaning one thing (our work needs to deliver business impact) and then structuring in a way that would frustrate this objective, and might in time lead to a culture that would undermine it completely.

IMD’s focus on delivering business impact is therefore much more than a well-intentioned statement designed to appeal to organizations and executives. It has always been a profound commitment and belief resulting from its origins. This has shaped the way the organization is structured and operates: the programs it delivers; the people it recruits, their skills, expectations and mindset; the organizations and executives it attracts; and, of course, the results that it helps achieve for those clients.

Completely international with a global perspective. From the outset IMD has enjoyed a cosmopolitan, non-parochial outlook, with no single culture dominating. This was partly derived from its birthplace, Geneva in Switzerland, an outward-looking city open to the world. Partly it resulted from the people that came to shape and lead the organization, starting with the founder of CEI, Dr Paul Haenni.

The evidence of IMD’s international perspective is significant. In 1971 CEI supported the establishment of the European Management Forum by Professor Klaus Schwab – one of several forums developed and supported by CEI and its influential director Bohdan Hawrylyshyn, who led the organization from 1968 to 1985. The European Management Forum changed its name to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 1987 and broadened its vision to provide a platform for resolving international conflicts. Today the WEF is a hugely influential and world-renowned non-profit organization and continues to attract global leaders in business, politics, economics and social affairs to its annual event in Davos, Switzerland.

The history of CEI/IMI and IMEDE sheds light on an aspect of management education that is often left in the dark: the connection between individual companies and the schools whose task it is to train future managers of these companies…The intentions that drove Nestlé and Alcan to favor this revolution in management training boiled down to their ambition of underpinning their increasingly global business relations with a management body that would address a more international outlook.

Thomas David and Janick Marina Schaufelbuehl, Transatlantic Influence in the Shaping of Business Education: The Origins of IMD, 1946–1990

Crucially, CEI’s focus on the issue of global competitiveness has continued to develop. Under the leadership of IMD Professor Stéphane Garelli the organization first published the World Competitiveness Yearbook in 1987 and in 1989 established IMD’s World Competitiveness Center (WCC). For more than 30 years, the WCC has pioneered research on how nations and enterprises compete to lay the foundations for future prosperity, recognizing that the competitiveness of economies is one of the most significant developments in modern management.

There is a statement on today’s IMD World Competitiveness Center website that would be easily understood and supported by Paul Haenni and every subsequent IMD director: The competitiveness of nations is probably one of the most significant developments in modern management, and IMD intends to remain the leader in this field.

These two issues are also interconnected: IMD’s global perspective was matched by the context in which the organization developed. Globalization was a driving force in the decades following 1946, profoundly shaping the context for businesses and leaders. Being both born from industry and completely international meant that IMD was uniquely positioned to meet the needs of businesses that were developing across borders. Today, evidence of IMD’s internationalism runs through the organization’s faculty as well as its clients, participants and alumni.

The drivers of success: IMD’s DNA

Numerous diverse businesses have overcome challenges, avoided pitfalls, maximized opportunities, accelerated progress and, in certain instances, charted a completely new course, as a result of their work with IMD. During its first 75 years IMD’s drive for business impact and its global perspective have achieved ground-breaking results in several areas.

Programs that accelerate leadership learning. One reason for IMD’s enduring legacy and impact has been the way it has helped leaders learn and develop: shifting mindsets and behavior as well as teaching skills and developing capability. IMD has consistently excelled by delivering a learning experience that is interactive, intense, highly engaging, with a richness of topics and a variety of innovative learning approaches and tools. This has been achieved through programs that are open to individuals or participants from any organization (for example High Performance Leadership also known as HPL), degree programs (for example the MBA program) or are delivered as part of a client partnership (often referred to as customized executive education).

IMD’s sustained excellence and innovation in leadership learning is remarkable, in part because of its sheer invention, in part because of the outcomes achieved, and also because of the impact on the business of executive education. While many of the approaches now taken for granted by the industry were not necessarily invented at IMD, it was invariably IMD which added new levels of rigor, richness, experience and, as a result, impact.

These include, for example, the highly effective and popular use by IMD Professors Xavier Gilbert and Jan Kubes of real-world International Consulting Projects as part of the MBA program already in the 1970s, followed later by the introduction of discovery expeditions. These techniques have been replicated worldwide, largely because of their efficacy and success. At IMD they have never involved polite, superficial meetings with executives from other organizations. Rather they have involved practical problem-solving projects, challenging participants to enrich their learning experience, share best practices and stimulate new ideas and thinking.

IMD’s changing context

IMD’s context and the markets it serves have evolved dramatically since 1946 and, arguably, even more since the merger that created IMD in 1990. This changing context is highlighted by the rise of globalization, the rapid growth of management education, the enabling impact of information technology, the emergence of major new economies first in Eastern Europe and even more significantly in Asia, and the