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MASTERING MANAGEMENT – SKILLS AND VISION FOR WOMEN ON THE MOVE
Women in early middle-management positions gain the competencies and perspective they need to become greater assets to their organizations.
They learn how to work more effectively
as leaders and collaborators through a curriculum focused on:
- management acumen
- strategic thinking
- organizational awareness and skills
- personal development
Through simulations, case studies, and classroom analysis, participants strengthen their repertoire of core technical skills and business knowledge. Coaches provide just-in-time assistance, allowing a greater degree of independent discovery within a structured context of assessment and feedback.
Key to advancing professional success is a thorough grounding in the fundamentals of strategic process. With the help of simulations and role interaction with experienced practitioners, participants learn to distinguish near-term operational and tactical decisions from the truly strategic perspective that delivers long-term benefit to the organization.
How multicultural women interact with corporate organizations can often determine their career achievement. Communication, influence, coalition building, championing, teamwork, and networking are a large part of the program’s content, helping participants see the organization as a networked system requiring continual management and development. Through multiple pedagogical approaches—ranging from classroom discussions and simulations to team projects and emersion exercises—participants expand their capability to recognize and solve organizational challenges using their unique perspective as multicultural women.
A primary objective of the program is to develop career resilience that allows each woman to manage her own career path, leverage professional opportunities, overcome obstacles, and celebrate accomplishments. Participants benefit from rigorous self-assessment supervised by experienced mentors, helping them become aware of their talents and the potential for growth and improvement. Through emersion experiences as well personal reflection, women focus on their own courage and capacity to take risks. Each participant leaves the program with an individualized plan for self-development.
Ultimately, much of the value of the program is received after it is over: from continuing interaction among a network of peers and predecessors. Network building is a continual subtext of all our activities, and its professional value cannot be underestimated for multicultural women. Equally important to these women, however, is the realization that an effective network is not composed solely of people just like them. So the program strives to diversify each participant's professional contacts while maintaining her unique, proud, and courageous identity.
Unique Characteristics of The Mastering Management Program:
- ASCENT’s curriculum addresses core corporate leadership competencies, so women who complete this program are better equipped to advance professionally and are conscious of the strategic, cultural and political ramifications of their work – making them more valuable and attuned to the company.
- By making an investment in the careers of multicultural women on the front end of their tenure companies will affirm their value and encourage them to stay with the company and to advance up the ranks, thus reducing the costs of recruiting, replacement and training.
- ASCENT is truly multicultural and multi-industry – our participants learn in an environment that is safe and nurturing while learning from others who face similar challenges though in different sectors – thus cultivating a cross-pollination of ideas and approaches.
- A by-product of ASCENT is that the participants create an informal support system within their companies and outside of their companies and this network serves to help them navigate professional and personal challenges – thus making them better corporate citizens.
- The program by design is small and intimate and teaching is somewhat organic to respond to the emerging needs of the participants and the industries they represent. This provides a more tailored approach.
- Curriculum is taught by the best academic thought leaders in the business and the faculty mirrors the multicultural composition of the class make-up.
- Theoretical concepts taught in the classroom are readily distilled to practical application in one-on-one coaching or in small coaching pods.
- Faculty make themselves available to participants on a one-on-one basis for follow-up on an as desired basis.
- ASCENT participants become better global corporate citizens for they are sensitized to a variety of cultures, customs and practices and are better prepared to embrace globalization.
Return on Investment:
- Participants in the program get over 100 instructional hours over four sessions in a five-month period from top tier faculty who come from business schools across the country, including Tuck, Harvard, and UCLA.
- Individual and group coaching further contextualizes and complements participant learning. Participants receive approximately 15-20 hours of coaching from one primary coach, which helps them apply their learning to their work environment and provides consistency overall.
- Participants receive a wide range of resource materials and in some instances have the benefit of meeting with scholars and authors to discuss their research, theories and publications.
- Participants take four separate assessment tools that provide in-depth self-awareness into their interpersonal and professional styles. The participants achieve a stronger sense of self and a capacity to walk into their best leadership characteristics and potential.
- By design, the program starts and ends at one of the sponsoring business schools and meets off-site on two other occasions – this enables participants to be present and engaged in each session and not to be distracted by pending work or family obligations. This approach helps ensure participants get the full benefit of the educational growth experience. Often faculty also make themselves available during meal functions, thus, healthy discourse often ensues around their presentations.
- Upon completion of the program, participants receive a Certificate of Management from the Tuck School of Business and the Anderson School of Management – two premier business schools who directly oversee program design, content and faculty.
Long-Term Benefits of The Mastering Management Program:
- Participants are tracked over the long-term to determine the impact of the program on their professional development. This data is fed back to participating companies and will be able to inform your retention and advancement strategies associated with multicultural women.
- Sponsoring companies will have access to groundbreaking research by ASCENT Scholars who take up short-term residency at the Tuck School of Business to research multicultural women in the corporate sector. This research will be distributed to partners who will have the opportunity to come to Tuck and learn from ASCENT Scholars and from each other about what are emerging trends in the field.
Selected Quotes from 2008 The Mastering Management Program Participants:
"The Mastering Management Program exposed me to tools and assessments that I am using to improve the communication and overall effectiveness of my direct reports."
"The Mastering Management Program introduced me to a network of executive coaches, mentors and women of color within my company and other Fortune 500 companies."
"The Mastering Management Program has provided me with a sense of who I am and the value I bring to my organization."
"The Mastering Management Program has provided me with the confidence to make difficult decisions and not to question my abilities or judgment."
"I learned to ‘see’ through strategic, political and cultural lenses in my professional and personal life. As such, I have a framework for addressing professional and personal challenges and for holding myself accountable to that mode of thinking."
"If the classroom learning dimension of ASCENT Mastering Management Program is the body, then the coaching dimension is the soul. The coaching pods allowed us to apply the theories and frameworks we absorbed during lively classroom discussions to real-time, real-life situations we were facing in the workplace. They tested our internalization of the lessons and ensured we walked away with not just knowledge but wisdom. I consider the coaching dimension to be the single most powerful element of the ASCENT Program."
For more information, please contact:
Dr. Ella Bell
Ella.Bell@dartmouth.edu
Founder and President
Michael Chapman
Michael@ascentleadership.org
Executive Director
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UPCOMING
PROGRAMS
Mastering Management Program:
Spring, 2010
Premier Navigating Organizations:
Summer, 2010
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