Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/58916
Dean and CEO T oday's business school deans have much in common with chief executive officers of major corporations. They run complex, money- making enterprises that have to keep pace with the competition and respond nimbly to changes in the corporate world. They demonstrate strong leadership as they motivate and manage their senior staff. They work long hours, travel around the world, and act as the most public faces of their organizations. But deans also must handle the challenges of the academic environment, If business schools operate like businesses, should deans consider themselves chief executive officers? by George Bickerstaffe which include raising funds and supporting research initiatives. Few CEOs have to add such duties to their list of responsibilities. In fact—as eight inter- national deans profiled here can attest—today's deans must fit one of the most complex job descriptions on record if they are to survive and succeed. Groomed for the Role Today's deans are more like CEOs than ever because business schools are growing closer to the business world, says Gabriel Hawawini, dean of INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France, and Singapore. This convergence is happening, he says, "partly because schools need the support, partly because executive education is becoming of greater importance, and partly because business is now starting to say what it wants from business schools—in the type of MBA graduates it wants, for example." In the past, as business schools delivered education via disciplinary silos, schools sometimes preferred a dean who would not interfere with the tra- ditional academic structure. According to Peter Lorange, president of IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland, some schools tended to choose deans who would not cause any problems—who were, in effect, the weakest candidates. That's no longer true. "The role is not ceremonial anymore," he says. But are prospective deans prepared to act as CEOs—in effect, to take on the challenges of running complicated, expensive, international orga- nizations? Maybe not. According to Leo Murray, former long-term dean of Cranfield School of Management in the U.K., business schools and the management education industry generally are not doing enough to groom individuals with the necessary skills of leadership, salesmanship, business acumen, and interpersonal communication. "Academia is not producing enough talent for business schools as an industry to remain successful," Murray says. In fact, unlike the business world, the academic world offers little formal training to candidates for top roles. "I think business schools only started to think about developing their own people relatively recently," says Chris Bones, the principal of Henley Management College in the U.K. Bones is trying to amend that. Henley runs an advanced management program designed for managers, and recently the school opted to put one of its own young faculty through the program. Bones notes that academics 42 BizEd MAY/JUNE 2006