Mark Sheffert, Chairman and CEO of Manchester Companies, reflects on the long-term impact his attending the Minnesota Executive Program had on him and his career.

I participated in the Minnesota Executive Program (MEP) through Carlson Executive Education during 1980-1981. At that time, I was Executive Vice President of an insurance company, and the board of directors encouraged me to obtain further training and development as part of their succession planning for the president’s office.

When they first mentioned it, I was afraid that the company could not survive without me while I went through the residency. However, the chairman of the board encouraged me to do it despite my hesitation, and I have always been glad that I followed his advice. Up to that point, I had a narrow view of business, but didn’t realize what I didn’t know!

The MEP experience broadened my knowledge and deepened by analytical skills through the high caliber of professors and their broad range of disciplines. My previous education was narrowly focused on finance and marketing, so the MEP expanded my skills to include other disciplines such as organizational behavior and development, operations and IT, strategy, and a deeper dive into marketing and finance.

MEP gave me new vistas that made me a much stronger and broader executive. For example, it allowed me to transition from the insurance industry to banking where I achieved the level of President of the eighth largest bank holding company in the country at that time, and I now have owned my own professional services firm for the past 20 years.

Throughout my career, I have drawn upon concepts that I learned in MEP due to the methodology employed and the quality of the professors that I had. For example, John Mauriel, former Harvard professor and head of MEP at that time, used the case study method in the MEP program, which was similar to Harvard’s method. The beauty of the case study method is that there is no right or wrong answer - it forces you to think outside the box and examine all aspects of the company and how you would make the company better and improve its performance. When you combine that methodology with the high quality of professors, the MEP had a profound impact on me.

Over the years I have been an enthusiastic advocate of the MEP, having sent employees through it, plus I have taught in the program. Many companies have decreased their spending on training during these tough economic times, but I believe that’s a mistake - the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Businesses today can’t afford to keep doing business as usual. They need executives who can see the bigger picture from multiple disciplines and make informed decisions. MEP prepares executives to lead their companies through distressed times.

While it’s impossible to quantify the return on investment in an executive who has been exposed to a broader vista of functional areas and has a more disciplined approach to strategic planning, I would suggest that it’s substantial because with the MEP, you’re going to get a leader who is exposed to the best of class in contemporary learning and problem solving. You won’t be sorry!

For more information on MEP, visit the MEP website.
http://www.carlsonschool.umn.edu/execed/MEP