Head of the class: toys and games maker Hasbro Inc. is infusing skills and knowledge at the top ranks in partnership with the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth

HR Magazine, Jan, 2005 by Ann Pomeroy

The result would be a week of highly relevant classes combining academic theory and practical business applications. At the conclusion, participants would be divided into small groups, assigned a real-life problem facing the company and given six months to work on a solution. At the end, each group would present its case to the top executive team.

Mr. Potato Head Goes to School

In August 2003, the first 26 Hasbro executives traveled to the Tuck campus in Hanover, N.H., to participate in the Hasbro Global Leadership Development Program, known as Tuck I.

It was important to Hasbro that the class be diverse, not only in terms of race and gender, but globally and across business units. The company hoped to counteract the silo effect and bring together people who otherwise might not have met.

To underscore the importance top management placed on the program, Hassenfeld spent the entire week at Tuck, and Verrecchia and several other members of the executive team served as faculty for some of the classes. For instance, Carniaux and Verrecchia taught the ethics class together.

But even with the highest level of support, some of the participants were cynical. "I think a lot of us went into Tuck I skeptical," says Michael Block, president of Hasbro Latin America, "and I was one of the most skeptical of all." At this successful stage of their careers, each participant had attended at least one executive education program in the past. Why should this one be different?

By the end of the week, however, Block was a believer. In addition to academic classes described by several as "very MBA-like," Block found the real-world "action learning projects" relevant. Verrecchia says the six-month action learning projects are "almost like a second job" for these high-potential leaders since their regular work still must get done.

"What I admire a great deal about the program," says Lorrie Browning, who wears two hats--general manager of international marketing, U.S. brands, and general manager of girls' toys and Disney Entertainment--"is senior management's willingness to put big, meaty Hasbro issues on the table and let upcoming leaders deal with them." Because of the action learning projects, "you stay in it after classes end," Browning says. She's enthusiastic about the long-term effects of the program. "You feel like you really could, if not change the world, have a significant impact on the company."

For Bryony Bouyer, senior vice president of marketing of the Hasbro Properties Group for the Americas, the Tuck program was "a surprise." It was a combination of theoretical and practical learning in which, says Bouyer, "you learned some things you thought you already knew." For example, "I learned that if you've already figured out the answer, you are probably not strategic, because the ball is always moving."

Across the board, the reaction of the first Tuck program participants was dramatic. People were so enthusiastic about the program, says Carniaux, that it was as if "the heavens opened up and the earth shook. There was a sense that [the Tuck program] changed people's lives," he says, and that kind of reaction has continued in successive classes.