Re-engineering the Productivity Initiative Programme

This paper explains the fundamentals of the leadership-based education model, and proceeds to apply the relevant principles to re-engineer the Productivity Initiative Programme, run by the European Commission to re-train 3500 Russian executives. The authors considered the retraining of executives to constitute a project whose goals and delivery means were ambiguous at the commencement of the programme. They realized at the outset that success of any methodology would depend on the extent of empowerment of the participant executives achieved, and on the release of their creative energies, as well as time. The leadership-based project management approach was chosen to specifically respond to the empowerment of the participants and engage them positively in the definition of the goals, context of application and the delivery of the programme goals. Using the empowerment philosophy the authors set out to re-engineer the entire programme to make it project-based, while providing a structured learning experience that would achieve a paradigm shift in the mindsets of the participants without offending their cultural sensibilities. To create learning focus and continuity the authors chose to recommend preparation of business plans by the syndicate executives as the primary learning vehicle and as means of progress monitoring and performance evaluation. Business plans were to reflect the realities of Russia's business and cultural environment as perceived by the participants. Thus, learning through application (as part of a total internship experience), was deliberately adopted to demystify ‘business management’ and to encourage development of competency in business planning in the designated time. The success achieved so far indicates that leadership-based project management is a powerful approach to achieving accelerated cultural changes and transformation of human mindsets in a pluralistic and focused manner.