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

Todd Wise, vice president of research and development of boys' games, was a participant in the second program offering, Tuck II, and came away feeling that his week at Tuck had been "life-changing." Quoting a Chinese proverb, Wise says, "We may sleep in the same bed, but we have different dreams." He now has a better sense of the company's perspective after attending the program.

Why it's so successful, says executive coach Sandra Drought, who leads the 360 assessment process for the Tuck program, is the involvement of top management from the beginning. She credits Janson with "masterminding" the program for Hasbro. "Kim did a great job of influencing the top leaders to understand how this could benefit their business," she says. Ultimately, the program's success is the result of careful planning, execution and communication every step of the way, Drought says.

So important does Verrecchia consider the training that he required one Tuck I attendee to go through the program again. "He didn't take it as seriously as we thought he should have," Verrecchia says. The man repeated the program, and "he's doing a great job now."

After the Classes

An executive education program can be really great--for the time the participants are there. A mark of an excellent program is what happens after everyone goes home. Do participants apply what they learned in their daily business lives?

For Hasbro, one positive result is that the officers now speak a common language. Participants use the expression "we be they" to remind themselves that responsibility lies with the individual and not with a nameless "they." They also refer to "box 1, box 2, box 3." This language comes from Govindarajan, who defines box 1 as "managing the present," box 2 as "selectively forgetting the past," and box 3 as "creating the future."

June Youngs, Hasbro's senior vice president for logistics, came back from a "very intense" week at the Tuck II class last spring looking for ways to integrate what she had learned into her own department. It's always possible for logistics [which is responsible for Hasbro's transportation and warehousing operations] to be outsourced," says Youngs, so "I wondered if we could become a profit center instead of a cost center. Why not link up with some smaller noncompetitors whose off-peak seasons coincide with our peak season," she recalls, and thus help Hasbro leverage its ocean freight costs? A box 3 idea--a new way of doing business--was born. After looking into it, she has arranged for some future ocean freight contracts to be negotiated to take advantage of off-peak seasons with smaller companies.

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"We need this kind of thinking to be part of the blood of the entire organization," believes Youngs. She has talked to her staff about the program and arranged an off-site "mini-Tuck" experience for them. She wants to cascade what she has learned down to the clerical level, she says.

Tweaking the Program

The general consensus on both sides is that Hasbro and Tuck did, indeed, get it right. Three classes had gone through the program by the end of 2004. Two or three more sessions are planned for this year. Verrecchia wants all of Hasbro's top executives--about 225 to 250 in all--to participate in the program.