Architects of Human Capital Strategies
At a Glance
THE USES AND MISUSES OF THE TERM CORPORATE UNIVERSITY
An attempt to categorize and define today’s corporate university
By Kevin Wheeler
No function, department,
or organization can
successfully implement
change
or
achieve
excellence unless its longterm purpose is clearly defined. This mission should
be the foundation upon which all strategic decisions
are made and must precede the decision to create a
corporate university.
I have been in so many companies where the
corporate university was not clearly chartered and
where its energy was dissipated in many directions.
Very often no one can tell me how the corporate
university differs from the training and development
or the career development functions. Having focus and
having goals are prerequisites to success.
As corporate universities have evolved over the past
several years, successful ones have adopted a primary
strategic focus loosely as described below. While every
corporate university may have elements of more than
one of these directions, those who are most successful
are easy to identify because of their clear reason for
existing.
organization did. These universities are usually
characterized by the “catalog”. This is most likely a
hefty volume produced once or twice a year that lists
all the courses that the university has decided are
needed for and wanted by employees. More often
today it is a web listing or even a portal that provides
access to a potpourri of e-learning programs.
There is no indication as to how these have relevance
to any specific business needs, although it is hard to
say the courses aren’t useful. After all, who couldn’t
benefit from better presentation skills or a more
complete understanding of finance? But are these
courses really going to do anything to make the
company more profitable? Or more strategic? Or
more innovative? Or better able to face competition?
Or more understanding of the marketplace?
I doubt it. This is the type of renaming that we should
all try to avoid creating or perpetuating because it
distorts and dilutes what the corporate university,
done well, can be and do for an organization.
Let’s look at some of the ways that a corporate
university can differ from this tactical and unfocused
approach.
Initiative-Driven
In Name Only - What NOT To Be
Often the corporate university is the training
department in sheep’s clothing — it just changes its
name but still does everything that the training
One type of corporate university is recognized
because its primary public activity is driving a corporatewide initiative or business plan or project. This is often
an initiative that the CEO is passionate about and
which is being cascaded throughout the company.
© 2003 Global Learning Resources, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited.
Global Learning Resources, Inc.
www.glresources.com
510.659.0179
Architects of Human Capital Strategies
THE USES AND MISUSES OF THE TERM CORPORATE UNIVERSITY
This is an appropriate and excellent model when
there are ‘great things afoot’. Motorola University
very successfully drove the quality initiative
throughout Motorola. At the same time, Motorola U
was also involved in strategic planning and in helping
the company cope with expansion into China and
other parts of the world. It pioneered bringing focus to
one or two issues and putting a structure in place to facilitate
delivering the content, coaching the implementation and
building understanding and acceptance of the issues with
management and the employees.
General Electric’s recent focus on Six-Sigma training
for its management team is another example of how
a corporate university can drive a program that has
far-reaching consequences and strategic importance.
Examples of initiatives include such things as
globalization, productivity, process improvement, and
empowerment.
This turns out to be one of the most important
of the emerging definitions of a corporate
university.
Change-Management Focused
Another form of corporate university concentrates
its efforts on driving change or on facilitating a
complete transformation process for a company. This
is often a transitory role as a company embarks on a
new strategy or is in the process of merger or
acquisition. The university may then go through a
metamorphosis from this type to being an initiativedriven or skill provider type.
National Semiconductor used National
Semiconductor University to drive a Leading Change
program through the company which helped lead
to a financial turn around in the mid-nineties. Today,
the university is more focused on leadership and
skill development, but retains its ability to respond
whenever needed to bringing about change.
This focus on helping managers and employees
understand and deal with vast change, internally or
in the marketplace or both, is a second definition
of a corporate university.
Leadership Development-Driven
The prototype for this strategic focus is General
Electric’s Management Development Institute at
Crotonville, New York. This institute has focused
on developing managers and leaders for General
Electric for decades. It was almost exclusively the
tool of the former CEO, Jack Welch, for orienting
and assimilating new managers to the company.
It has also been the tool for driving change and
initiatives. Programs such as Workout and the
Change Acceleration Process are all products of
Crotonville. Corporate universities with CEO-level
support and a single primary focus on leadership
development are usually very successful and produce
great internal management strength.
This third definition of a corporate university
is especially powerful when combined when
one of the other strategies.
© 2003 Global Learning Resources, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited.
Global Learning Resources, Inc.
www.glresources.com
510.659.0179
Architects of Human Capital Strategies
THE USES AND MISUSES OF THE TERM CORPORATE UNIVERSITY
Business Development Driven
A few universities are chartered to help develop
business opportunities or to guide an exploration
process to what is possible. When an organization
decides to embark on a particular business strategy,
for example opening several international offices, the
corporate university can prepare employees for their
role; help educate about the new country, do research
on competition and on recruiting and development
and generally support the process in a way that adds
a great deal of value.
Some companies make this the function of the
marketing department, but by putting it into a
corporate university that also does other things (e.g.
leadership development); they get a more synergistic result.
Of course, this requires people in the university that
are very different form the ones we often find now
working as trainers.
Customer/Supplier Relationship
Management Orientation
A strategic orientation that is closely allied to the
business development orientation described above
focuses on educating and managing the customer and
supplier relationship. Universities engaged in this
activity focus on educating employees in negotiating
skills and in relationship management. They may offer
skills training to suppliers and even set or educate to
standards. This is a practice common among
manufacturing companies such as Ford or Motorola.
These two practices above for m a fourth
definition of a modern corporate university that
is oriented toward ensuring the success of a
corporate strategy through education, research
and standard setting.
Competency-based, Career Development
Focus
The final strategic orientation that I have identified
is characterized by the organization that focuses on
individual skill development and on managing the
process of career development in a company. This
may also include assisting in developing a
performance management system and working
through the career development activities and
aggressive education strategies to help retention. All
corporate universities need to provide this (or make
sure it is being done somewhere and somehow), as it
is the underpinning of all the other orientations.
Final Definition of a Modern Corporate
University
So in a broad final definition, a corporate university
is a function or department that is strategically
oriented toward integrating the development of
people as individuals with their performance as teams
and ultimately as an entire organization by linking
with suppliers, by conducting wide-ranging research,
by facilitating the delivery of content, and by leading
the effort to build a superior leadership team.
© 2003 Global Learning Resources, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited.
Global Learning Resources, Inc.
www.glresources.com
510.659.0179
Architects of Human Capital Strategies
THE USES AND MISUSES OF THE TERM CORPORATE UNIVERSITY
About the Author
Kevin Wheeler (kwheeler@glresources.com), the
President and Founder of Global Learning
Resources, Inc., is a globally-known speaker, author,
columnist, and consultant in human capital
acquisition and development. His extensive career,
global client base, and research affiliations make
GLR a leading provider of both strategy and process.
GLR focuses on assisting firms architect human
capital strategies.
To learn more or get started, contact Global
Learning Resources at (510) 659-0179 or email
info@glresources.com.
Global Learning Resources, Inc. provides advice, analysis,
strategic planning assistance, custom research and
benchmarking, workshops, and on-going consultation focused
around human capital including corporate education, staffing
and retention.
© 2003 Global Learning Resources, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited.
Global Learning Resources, Inc.
www.glresources.com
510.659.0179