“The challenges for us in the decade ahead are to match our vision, capability and rhetoric with the resources available to enable us to meet our ambitions.”
In Part 3 of our series on 'The Decade Ahead' we talked to Camilla Jonsson, Portfolio Director at Cranfield Executive Development, about her insights into what the next decade might bring.
At Cranfield Executive Development, our stated mission is to prepare individuals and organisations for the decade ahead.
We talk about the decade ahead, and frame what we do in that way, because we know that we need to start to prepare the ground that far ahead. We need to move ourselves and the whole executive development ecosystem forward now, in order to create the path to that future in the next decade.
Looking into the future
Figuring out what comes next isn’t easy. What is the future of work? What will organisational structures look like, and what skills will be needed? How will businesses attract talent, and how long should they expect those people to stay?
As Portfolio Director in CED, I lead our sales and marketing teams across our apprenticeships, open programmes, and customised executive development solutions.
My job is to direct our internal teams, but also to be very much in touch with the market, understanding the trends and discovering what challenges are keeping our clients awake at night. I discover, explore and interpret those things, and bring the knowledge back into Cranfield so we can use it to shape how we help corporates, charities and government organisations solve their challenges.
For me personally, in this role, ‘the decade ahead’ means staying at the forefront, having dialogue, building networks and ecosystems, community collaborations and partnerships.
I think it’s quite akin to the concept of open innovation. We are all having to solve problems and challenges that we’ve never had to think about before. That means the capabilities that are needed and where you take your anchor from is very different to where it has been.
Learning to tolerate ambiguity
When you ask senior business people what they worry about and what keeps them awake at night, the answer is always people, capability and retention, and the future of work.
At Cranfield, we try to move organisations away from thinking that there is a solution to any of these issues – because there simply isn’t one. The future is ambiguous, and learning to live with and operate within that ambiguity is essential.
So, our work focuses on developing what we term meta capabilities – things like sense-making, curiosity, judgement, systems thinking and tolerance of ambiguity, as well as reinforcing the importance of communication and connection. We talk about modelling hypotheses, tuning in, and connecting to your gut feel.
We do quite deep work, and our philosophy that businesses have to be prepared to live with ambiguity is uncomfortable for some – but we don’t shy away from that. We’re quite clear on what we’re about, what we have to offer, and how our offering differs from that of commercial consulting firms.
Leadership for good
At Cranfield we talk about delivering ‘leadership for good’. We’re a university-based business school, and it is in the DNA of a university to spread knowledge and to enhance the world in some way for the greater good – so there is a philanthropic underpinning to what we do.
But Cranfield is also unique in our practical approach. We walk your floorboards. We move to where you are in order to get you to where you want and need to be. We aim to be a strong thought partner, and we have the knowledge and experience to challenge and support you and your business to reach your goals.
The challenges for us in the decade ahead are to match our vision, capability and rhetoric with the resources available to enable us to meet our ambitions. We have some huge strengths as a university – in combining technological and management expertise, in sustainability, and in working closely with industry – and a massive opportunity to own the impact agenda.
We need to make sure we can harness our capabilities and potential to provide clients with what they need – now and in the future.
If all that sounds very internally-focused, that’s because it is. We are very, very clear on where we are, what we have to offer, and where we want to get to. We’ve put a lot of time and thought into developing that vision – and now we have to strive for it.
The decade ahead
Where will Cranfield be in 10 years’ time? Well, we are looking to grow the profit-making side of business substantially by 2030 and are in the middle of putting the building blocks in place to support that growth.
It’s been a tough few years; we’ve had to roll with all the changes that Covid brought, we’ve streamlined our business, and we’ve had periods where we’ve been short-staffed. But we are quickly regaining ground now. We’ve hired some brilliant new people who have come in with new energy and ideas, and there is a real buzz about the place and a very strong air of optimism – it’s palpable.
As an institution we believe in our vision of “Thinking, brilliantly applied”, and want to have a bigger place in the world so that we can leverage that for deeper impact and cement our place as the most relevant-to-business university and business school in the world.
We have the leading-edge research. The ground is fertile. We will make it happen.
Author
Camilla Jonsson is Portfolio Director at Cranfield Executive Development
