News Archive

Cultivation Tomorrow’s Leaders in our own Backyard

Sunday, November 24, 2002

Cultivation Tomorrow’s Leaders in our own Backyard
William Van Faasen
Reprint from The Boston Sunday Globe | November 24, 2002

Ask someone to name a great leader, and he or she is likely to answer Winston Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt, of Nelson Mandela. Recently, however, the image of leadership too often has been of failure at the top – in corporations, government, and religious institutions. We desperately need leaders whose vision is based on strongly held principles that give them the courage to take positions that can cut across the grain, positions that respond to all parts of a community and not just their own self-interest.

Occasionally, a natural-born leader comes along who has “it” – that combination of charisma, intelligence, and values that holds great promise. But we don’t have to sit around and wait for that rare individual to arrive. We already have the tools to prepare the next generation to shoulder the challenges facing us today. The year-old Emerging Leaders program at the Center for Collaborative Leadership at UMass/Boston is designed to do just that.

The UMass program calls upon senior executives at corporations and nonprofits to nominate young professionals with five to ten years experience in Greater Boston who have demonstrated potential and want to enhance their leadership skills and opportunities.

I know from personal experience that this program will work. I went through such training as a young businessman in Detroit. Leadership Detroit taught us that leadership is not finding out where the crowd is headed and then catching up to get in front. We met every month, working on education, health, criminal justice, and other important issues. We ended up socializing and came to understand perspectives other than our own. In the process we came to know ourselves better, too.

Former Leadership Detroit participants have made their marks on virtually every sector of the Detroit community. So, too, can Greater Boston benefit from the UMass/Boston Emerging Leaders Program.

The UMass program is diverse by race, gender, and profession. It reflects the face of the city and changing makeup of our population, to tap the potential of all groups to make our region a better place to work and live. It also reflects the voice of the city – of labor and management, for-profit ad nonprofit, government and corporate. The point is to move people out of their natural comfort zone and provide opportunities and friendships outside their traditional circles.

National or international crises aren’t the only situation that call for leadership. Steering a corporation, government or community organization requires skills that should not be left to chance.

The nine-month program starts each January with a weeklong seminar critical issues facing the region. Fellows learn about resources, networks, and ways to identify and achieve common goals.

They meet monthly from February through September and work in teams to produce and present to the mayor action plans to address particular Boston-area problems. With teamwork there is buy-in, and people say involved.

An effective business leader doesn’t enter a meeting possessing the answers; he or she engages in the process and helps solutions evolve. Knowing the importance of an outcome that responds to the needs of all. The collaborative model assumes issues can best be addressed by leadership that is diverse and collaborative. This has not been the operating style in Boston. Collaboration is not necessarily easy, but it is the best way to get thing done. Power-driven solutions are imposed on people; collaboratively developed solutions are embraced by people.

This program isn’t about getting on the fast track to corporate or government achievement, though it certainly can’t hurt a person’s opportunity for professional advancement. Rather, it is about community betterment. It understands that business leaders have an obligation beyond their companies. It recognizes that connecting rising corporate stars with young professionals from government and nonprofit entities and getting them to work together on problem solving can result only in the improvement of the community.

At UMass/Boston, the Emerging Leaders selection committee is about to choose its second class of fellows. Among that group of “emerging leaders” may well be Massachusetts’ new leaders for a new century. They will probably have a lot to say about the kind of community we are and the way we live

William Van Faasen is chairman, president, and CEO of Blue Cross, Blue Shield of Massachusetts.

Nurturing a New Generation of Business Leaders

Monday, March 1, 2004

Nurturing a New Generation of Business Leaders by Rick Friedel
Boston Business Journal | March 1, 2004
http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2004/03/01/editorial3.html

Conducting business today requires innovative thinking and a seemingly contradictory combination of a broad perspective and laser-like focus. Competition has become global in scope, more diverse in type and, yet, more specialized in terms of what is required to meet the unique needs of every customer.

More than ever, a new generation of leaders is required to expand a company’s ability to engage and compete in today’s world. This future leadership must possess a deep understanding of the impact of economic, social and cultural drivers on market and customer behaviors. Developing that leadership can no longer be left to chance, which is why the Emerging Leaders program in the College of Management at the Center for Collaborative Leadership at UMass Boston is so important.

Nourishing the next generation of leadership right here in Boston is critical if we are to remain a world-class hub for the finance, education, technology, communications and health care industries. As today’s business leaders, we must teach the executives of tomorrow how to collaborate effectively with others in an unprecedented fashion. We need to build in them the confidence to infuse their academic learning with their unique personal experiences. We need to instruct them on how to consider the impact of their decisions on a variety of diverse constituents, each with their own specific concerns.

Companies often invest incredible amounts of time and money in technical, sales and product training, but too often they fail to focus resources on developing leadership skills. The Emerging Leaders program adds substantial value to everything that companies do in-house to identify and develop leaders, and the program does it in a remarkably cost-effective way.

For example, in 2003 AT&T’s Leaders Engaging in Accelerating Learning program was set up to enhance the managers’ abilities to thrive, and not get bogged down, amid the complexities surrounding today’s commercial enterprise. Many companies are developing similar programs to prepare tomorrow’s business leaders. But companies, no matter how progressive, cannot do it alone.

That’s why we are fortunate in New England to have the Center for Collaborative Leadership creating an environment where professionals with diverse backgrounds, from across many sectors, can come together to explore and refine collaborative leadership models. Each year, a “class” of approximately 40 fellows is exposed to training unavailable elsewhere: guiding change, developing communication skills, working in teams, managing diversity, dealing with risk, understanding the political process, resolving conflicts, honing networking skills, building personal brands and learning about the crucial issues facing the city.

The fellows divide into teams and work on significant issues facing the Greater Boston community. In the fall, they present their findings to the mayor and other business and civic leaders. Last September, one team reported on the need to reduce the waiting list for individuals who need to learn English in order to function in their workplaces. This year, a team working with the Boston Municipal Research Bureau will look at the city’s tax structure, and another, working with Boston Medical Center, will examine societal and health issues facing children.

The Center for Collaborative Leadership is a good example of the type of organization that is required to appropriately nurture and educate the future’s brightest leaders. It’s why we support it, and why companies like Nstar Inc., State Street and Citizens Bank do as well.

Exceptional growth opportunities are available to the organizations that can fully integrate this new generation of leaders. And the Center for Collaborative Leadership is a hothouse for business talent right in our own backyard.

RICK FRIEDEL is the AT&T Corp. regional vice president for New England and a board member of the Center for Collaborative Leadership.

Growing Boston’s New Leaders

Friday, November 17, 2006

Reprint from The Boston Business Journal - November 17, 2006
http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2006/11/20/editorial2.html

By Marshall N. Carter

Our region and our city are poised for significant leadership changes as more of our current leaders retire or move on. It is critical that outstanding individuals be ready and willing to take their places. Iconic names from the past, from Richard Hill to John Larkin Thompson, guided our community with distinction and made notable contributions to civic life. But the new leadership will not and should not look like that of old. It must be more inclusive and respond to national and regional demographic changes. It must also be more collaborative—a characteristic not always the norm in Boston. It is clear that building such leadership cannot be left to chance.

UMass Boston Emerging Leaders Program Tops in Europe

Monday, June 25, 2007

June 25, 2007
BostonNow.com

Emerging on top
UMass program takes top honors


The UMass Boston Emerging Leaders Program won top honors last week in an international competition featuring leadership development programs. The European Foundation for Management Development in Brussels voted the Emerging Leaders Program as its choice for the “Excellence in Practice” award. EFMD is a global organization devoted to the continuous improvement of management development and has over 600 member organizations from business, academia, and research centers in the United States, Europe and Asia.

“Why do Young Professionals Stay in Massachusetts?”

Sunday, March 2, 2008

March 2, 2008

On Sunday, March 2 Channel 7’s Urban Update featured members of the 2007 Emerging Leaders Program cohort, Sonal Gandhi, BRA; Michael Rawan, Sovereign Bank; Trevor Dunwell, Raytheon; and Director Pat Neilson about the success of the program and about the 2007 group project on “Why Young Professionals Stay in Boston.”

The University Reporter

Monday, September 8, 2008

September 2008, Volume 13, No. 1, page 6

The Center for Collaborative Leadership at UMass Boston has received a grant for $25,000 from State Street Corporation to work on a project to solicit and publish the voices of emerging leaders.

UMass eyes philanthropy to lure young professionals

Friday, October 24, 2008

Reprint from the Boston Business Journal | October 24, 2008
Philanthropy File | Mary Moore

With Boston struggling to retain young professionals, the University of Massachusetts-Boston’s Emerging Leaders program found that corporate philanthropy might just be the way to keep them here.

Seven teams of Emerging Leaders explored whether civic engagement could be the glue to bond peers their age to the Boston region.

Massachusetts lost 300,000 residents between 2000 and 2007, many of them between 25 and 40 years old, said Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University.

The Emerging Leaders project was not about young professionals gathering on Saturday mornings at a soup kitchen, albeit commendable volunteerism, but rather exploring how they can leverage their executive-level skills and apply them to the nonprofit sector.

The teams each worked on different niche projects with various corporate and nonprofit partners, ranging from The Bank of New York Mellon and the Massachusetts Business Roundtable to Hunt Alternatives and the Catalogue for Philanthropy.

Study: More CEOs say good works boost recruiting

Monday, May 18, 2009

Reprint from the Boston Business Journal | May 29, 2009
By Mary Moore

A report issued by the Massachusetts Business Roundtable shows that Boston-area companies are incorporating social responsibility initiatives in their business plans not just because they are good for the community, but also because they help recruit and retain workers.

This marks a shift in corporate philanthropy since the Roundtable released its Primer for Strategic Corporate Philanthropy in 2000, which noted that corporate responsibility was beginning to evolve from community impact to bottom line impact. The most recent report shows that the evolution, indeed, has taken place.
Boston struggles to maintain its college grads as they move into the workforce, and the Round Table report underscores that philanthropy is a factor making some local companies more attractive to younger workers.

The Roundtable issued the report in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts Boston Emerging Leaders Program. A team from the Emerging Leaders Program started working on the report last summer, interviewing 20 Massachusetts companies about their corporate social responsibility activities—predominantly large companies and representing a cross-section of industries.

A core value that helps the bottom line

Saturday, May 30, 2009

The Boston Globe
Op Ed by Perri Petricca and Sherry Penney | May 30, 2009
Read article on line at Boston.com

WITH THE slowed economy, major law firms across the country are now paying first-year associates not to work at their firms, but, rather, to pursue full-time work for a nonprofit for a year. This sophisticated, coordinated Corporate Social Responsibility strategy to recruit and retain talent while making a philanthropic contribution to the community makes good business sense.

In the past, businesses large and small would engage in philanthropy based upon a sense of responsibility to their community. Today, with greater competition for customers and for talent both nationally and internationally, Corporate Social Responsibility is proving to be a powerful tool not only for community engagement but for bottom-line success.