Bottom line 101 - managers going to school to improve business skills - includes related articles on corporate campus and utilizing executive training

Nation's Business, Oct, 1985 by Mary-Margaret Wantuck

In 1974, Scott Goldsmith traded his car in on a dream.

Then 25, he had observed the growing demand for vitamins, natural foodS, personal-care items and other products associated with health, fitness and a youthful appearance.

Convinced he had identified an opportunity to start his own business, Goldsmith quit his job with a wholesaler of office furniture, sold his car for $3,500 and launched Vita Plus Industries in his Las Vegas apartment. The company now has a manufacturing plant with 100 employes and annual sales of $6 million. Goldsmith wants the business to keep growing, but he wants well-planned, orderly growth. And he wants to acquire the ability to identify and avoid pitfalls.

Shelley Ward has been a schoolteacher and summer employe of Spillman Company, in Columbus, Ohio, when she was invited to become a full-time employe of the firm, which fabricates steel frames and moldings. Now purchasing agent and customer service representative, she wants to achieve as much growth as possible in her new career.

Thomas Venable, founder and president of Spectrum Control, an Erie, Pa., firm that makes filters to prevent radio-frequency interference, was concerned when his company's longtime, solid management appeared to be generating "too many errors."

Roger Dodson, president and part owner of Long Pride Broadcasting, Wichita Kans., recognized that the owners and managers of smaller businesses tended to be long on energy and creative ability, but short on formal training in management. He particularly wanted the managers of his company to understand business planning.

While each of those managers had different needs, they sought the answers to their problems in the same manner--in education and training programs outside their respective businesses.

Scott Goldsmith enrolled in the owner-president program that Harvard University offers to individuals who have started or inherited businesses grossing between $3 million and $100 million a year, and who have at least 10 years of business experience. Shelley Ward participated in a Smith College program designed to help women who move from subordinate to supervisory roles.

Thomas Venable took his executives to a training program that promises to "hold the company's hand while it implements changes." Roger Dodson and five of his executives became students at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management at Wichita State University's College of Business Administration.

In seeking such outside help, those four business people joined one of the fastest-growing activities in the business world today--the mass movement of managers back to the classroom to improve their business skills. Those classrooms are in major educational institutions, in community colleges and high schools, in hotel meeting rooms where seminars are held and, to a great extent, in the facilities of companies themselves.

Oscar G. Mink, professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Texas in Austin, estimates that nearly 8 million working adults are participating in education programs companies conduct in their own classrooms. He says these employes are either seeking training to improve job performance, education to prepare for future jobs or development for personal growth.

Samuel A. Pond, publisher of Brickerhs International Directory, a guide to university executive education programs, surveyed management schools in 1984. There were, he says, 5,543 participants in programs that these university-level management schools conducted for companies at their facilities. Worldwide, there has been a 63 percent increase in such programs in the last decade.

"The programs fall into two categories," says Pond. "One is general management programs that deal with the various functions of a business, as well as overall strategies and policies. The second is functional--marketing or finance or operations."

Lawrence Winters, director of sales for Dun & Bradstreet Business Education Services, says his company's one-day seminars have shown significant growth.

"In 1985 we're planning on having 3,200 programs. That's a fairly sharp growth over last year, when we had about 2,200."

Estimates of what companies are spending on formal education and training programs for employes range from $50 billion to $80 billion a year, with a substantial portion of that going into development of managerial skills.

Another measure is found in an analysis that William G. Thomas, a management and organizational development consultant with the Consul Group, made of companies cited in the bestselling books, In Search of Excellence and The 100 Best Companies To Work For in America. He found that 97 percent of the firms have in-house management development programs, 96 percent pay for courses employes take in college and university management programs, and 43 percent give time off for study.

Why this back-to-school trend in business? To a great extent, it reflects the complex forces affecting today's business world and the individuals striving for success in it.