Week at the Harvard Club of Australia’s 2005 Leadership Program

There are no flies on the wall at the Harvard Club of Australia’s annual Leadership Program. If you are fortunate to attend, you will breathe in a week of what can only be described as rocket fuel, and return to your workplace armed and dangerous.

Unfortunately for the Bunnings executive I replaced, his wife’s first ride in his best friend’s newly acquired Ferrari landed her in hospital with multiple, though fortunately not life-threatening, injuries and left him with no choice but to withdraw from the course (true story!). Through the Harvard Club, Bunnings generously donated their manager’s place to a non-profit organisation and Foodbank Australia was the grateful recipient.

The course offered a unique opportunity for stimulation, challenge, benchmarking, strategizing and 'time out' thinking. It wasn’t just the quiet luxury of the Crowne Plaza Resort Hotel at Terrigal, or the presentations of two highly skilled and captivating Harvard Professors, or the interaction with a broad range of Australia’s corporate managers, or the graceful professionalism of the Harvard Club’s team of voluntary organisers (most of whom were real alumni). It was the whole energizing package.

Those with a natural inclination toward strategic thinking were in their element, as were those stimulated by interaction and debate with corporate sector executives of diverse pedigree. Add to that, manageable homework of a few of hours of riveting reading a day (the case studies beat anything in the IN tray, hands down), a gourmet menu (more than a few of us needed to let the belt out a notch by week's end), opportunities to exercise (a well equipped gym, pool and spa), and time to debate, intellectualize and socialize (the range of colourful people made for interesting evening conversations), and it is a wonderful break too (though I doubt the Harvard Club of Australia holds ‘give an exec a break’ as a core course objective).

The Professors pitched their presentations at the level of the participants, and the network opportunities unravelled accordingly. Interaction, with both presenters and participants, was at a surprisingly high level and kick-started the most drained of brains. And the lectures were spellbinding. Judo strategy, game theory, keeping under the radar, the dangers of mooning the giant, staying in with the outs, and never being caught between a dog and a lamppost, may not sound like textbook Harvard techniques, but they were some of the most valuable lessons of the course.

With over eighty attendees and only two presenters one would expect to have been lost in the crowd at least some of the time. But it just didn’t happen. The blend of physical layout and skilled presenters, meant you always felt as though the next question was heading right for you. There’s nothing more stimulating than a Harvard professor, whose CV includes current directorships of several of the world’s most dynamic companies (eg Intel), and twenty years business and education experience, bearing down on you with a live microphone in his hand, his eyes fixed firmly on your oversized name-tag, and your last ‘complete idiot’ question ringing in his ears!

Apart from such micro-moments of terror, there was tireless encouragement to think both strategically and creatively, prompted by excellent lectures and presentations, delivered by extraordinarily skilled educators, using the proven Harvard case-study method. Unless you are deaf or dead, such an environment is bound to result in a flood of ideas, experiences and opportunities which would take years of ‘normal’ corporate life to accumulate.

For several years the Harvard Club of Australia has been intent on increasing the professionalism and effectiveness of the non-profit sector in Australia. Providing sponsored places to its annual leadership course is a sure way to achieve this aim. Any corporate, government, or non-profit leader, regardless of their organisation and the role they play in it, would be privileged to attend.