Download - Global Citizens Leader Report
The Global Citizen Leaders Program
Impact Report
Sarah Stawiski, Ph.D. & Anand ChandrasekarThe Evaluation Center, CCLMay 30, 2015
TABLE OF CONTENTS
3 Program Overview
4 Executive Summary
5 Highlights
6 Challenges
9 Solution
13 Impact–Job Competitiveness
23 Conclusions
24 Evaluation Methods
25 About the Organizations
26 Resources
17 Impact–Career Effectiveness
15 Impact–Career Planning
Global Citizen Leaders Program
A Global Citizen Leader (GCL) is a self and socially aware individual who is able to
work courageously and collaboratively to take on
complex, boundary-spanning challenges. A GCL is
someone who can transform organizations—be they
small family businesses, large global corporations, or
emerging social enterprises—while transforming themselves.
A GCL is a continual and agile learner who is able to step
into new environments and empathize from multiple
perspectives. A GCL is someone who seeks to transform the
world from a positive and collaborative mindset. A GCL acts as a representative of the global
community—someone not confined by local paradigms –
when developing solutions.
3
Does GCL help students with
their career planning and competitiveness
on the job market? Starting in 2012, a partnership was formed between the
Leadership Beyond Boundaries initiative at Center for Creative Leadership (CCL),
Design Impact, and two Business Schools in India, Welingkar Institute of
Management Development (WeSchool) in Mumbai, India, and at the Institute for
Future Education Entrepreneurship and Leadership (iFEEL) in Lonavala, India to
transform business school students into Global Citizen Leaders through an
immersive program on leadership and innovation.
Executive Summary Some of the questions we sought to answer:
CCL’s Evaluation Center has measured the impact of the
program since it began. This report focuses on the program’s success in preparing
students to be more competitive job applicants and more effective in their careers.
Now in it’s third year, close to 1,000 students have completed the
program. There were three major components to the program: classroom learning,
team projects and mentoring.
4
Is the program helping students develop
the “right” skills?
Does GCL help students and
program alumni to be more effective
once they start working?
Improved Career Planning: Students report improvements in career planning, for example with 88% reporting
an improvement in their ability to build professional relationships.
Report highlights based on perspectives of students, alumni, faculty and organizational sponsors:
Improved Job Competitiveness: 80% of program alumni report that the GCL experience
made them more competitive job applicants. Teamwork & collaboration was rated as the skill they developed the
most as a result of GCL and as the most important skill needed to be effective in the workplace. Corporate sponsors described
alignment between what they were looking for in early career entrants and the skills developed in the GCL program.
Improved Leadership Confidence: Students report GCL helped them develop in multiple areas
related to career effectiveness, for instance, 88% reported improved confidence in themselves as leaders. Students reported that
they developed in all 4 areas of the program framework, including leading self, collaboration, innovation & taking action.
88%
Improved Innovation: 93% of GCL students reported that the program helped them generate creative
solutions and create vision. But not only did they hone their creativity skills; they also developed courage to persist in
the face of obstacles and a willingness to experiment with new approaches to get results.
88%
80%
93%
5
Competition for jobs is getting tougher globally.
Unemployment is on the rise, and the situation for youth is
especially problematic with 75 million youth currently
unemployed, making them three times more likely to be out of a
job than adults. Students in India seeking higher education are
also experiencing the impact of a highly competitive job market.
By 2030, it is predicted that India will be among the youngest
nations in the world and one in every four graduates in the world
will be a product of the Indian higher education system. A recent
article titled “MBA Graduates in India Struggle As Economy
Continues to Slow” argues that there is now a surplus of
business students in India, but graduates
are struggling to find work or reporting
salary decreases.
To address the challenge of a
competitive job market,
the top business schools in India
are doing what they can to help
differentiate their graduates in the
market and to equip them with the
skills they need to be successful
in their careers.
Competitive Job Market
6
What challenges do young people in India face?
While competition is getting tougher, skills needed by entrants
to the job market are also changing; work is becoming more complex,
requiring more innovation and interdependence than ever before. It is not enough
to learn facts and skills; students also need to develop a lifelong passion for
learning, adapting and developing over time. It is not enough for students to “get
along well with others,” they need to be able to truly empathize with others to
solve the toughest problems.
There is also evidence of critical gaps between the skills needed and the skills
possessed by leaders at work. For instance, in research conducted at CCL,
managers from India identified key leadership gaps such as participative
management (involving others in critical initiatives), as well as building and
mending relationships (responding to others diplomatically; gaining trust from
peers, treating people fairly). These key gaps were considered both
highly important to the future of the company
and weaker in terms of current skill level.
“The ability to stall jumping to conclusions in the initial stage I think will be the most useful thing to take
away in their careers, because this is what will encourage them to discover
deeper, discover different and innovate. And the not jumping to conclusions is not just about project ideas but also
applies to dealing with people.”
Quote from faculty member7
Skills GapWhat challenges do young people in India face? (cont.)
These gaps are not unique to India.
For example, The Conference Board reports that based on a
sample of U.S. managers, leadership is considered
“deficient” in college graduates entering the workforce.
With India having such a large population of young people and
having one of the fastest growing economies,
it will be critical for institutions
of higher education to develop
industry-ready graduates
with the necessary skills.
Skills Gap
Leadership0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
82%
15%
% who report skill is very important for new entrants
% who rate new entrants as "excellent" in skill
* Conference Board Data (U.S. Sample) 8
What challenges do young people in India face? (cont.)
Starting in 2012, a partnership was formed between Leadership Beyond Boundaries effort at Center for Creative Leadership, Design Impact, and two Business Schools in India, Welingkar Institute of Management Development (WeSchool) in Mumbai, India, and at the Institute for Future Education Entrepreneurship and Leadership (iFEEL) in Lonavala, India to design and deliver a 6 month leadership and innovation program for business students.
Now in it’s third year (2014-2015), close to 1,000 students have completed the GCL program. There were three major components to the program: three multi-day, interactive classroom learning sessions, team innovation projects in an organizational setting and mentoring from faculty and organizational sponsors.
CCL’s Evaluation Center has measured the impact of the program since it began. This year’s evaluation has focused on the program’s success in preparing students to be more competitive job applicants and more effective in their careers using data from multiple sources including students, alumni, organizational sponsors and faculty.
What was done to address the challenges?
Overview
Program Goals: The four-part framework is
designed to help students build their capability to:
lead themselves, work effectively with others,
and enact creative and conscientious change. 9
What was done to address the challenges?
Classroom Learning
Session 1 highlights included exercises about the importance of active observation,
drawing maps of their life journey and sharing it with others to understand how they have
grown during hard times and to build empathy and relationships, and adopting a growth
mindset and forming a team charter.
Session 2 highlights included working in teams on challenging tasks to learn about
Direction, Alignment Commitment in leadership, providing one another with 360 degree
feedback, brainstorming techniques and prototyping.
Session 3 highlights included presenting their team projects, conducting after action
reviews, focusing on their own personal brands and presenting elevator pitches about
themselves.
All students attended three 3-day sessions focused on leading self, collaboration, innovation and taking action. The students were actively
engaged in the learning experience. Classroom sessions were facilitated by faculty, not
taught. All three sessions focused on different aspects of innovation through design thinking
and leadership.
10
“The techniques taught by you to look at the problem are not only helping me with my internship
project but also my daily life personal and professional problems. For all the problems now, a
miniature version of GCL keeps going on in my head. Things look so sorted and it won’t be an
exaggeration to say GCL has solved my biggest personal life problem, i.e., of assuming things just in
a go without observing and empathizing.”
Quote from student
What was done to address the challenges?
Team & Project-based Learning
“The team project done for GCL is almost perfectly
planned for preparing us for challenges in corporate life.”
Student Quote11
Students rated the team projects as the part of
the program that most contributed to the
students’ learning and development.
In teams, students were sponsored by local
organizations to take on an “innovation project” where they
got to practice applying what they learned in the classroom, including the
design thinking process.
Students researched, developed prototyped and presented a solution not
only to their organizational sponsors but to a panel of judges at an end-of-
program session. Working on the projects as teams, they also got to
practice teamwork, giving and receiving feedback, managing conflict,
holding one another accountable, and taking turns leading and
stepping back.
What was done to address the challenges?
Mentoring
Student teams received ongoing mentoring from faculty as they worked on their projects. Faculty
mentors helped students not only on the technical aspects of
their projects but also in the ups-and-downs of working as a
team and the students’ own leadership journeys. Student
teams also had mentoring from the organizational sponsors that
were overseeing the team projects.
Throughout the team projects, there were disappointments,
frustrations, set-backs and conflicts.
While the team projects are challenging
for students, mentoring provides
support to get through the challenge,
a critical element to development.
Click hyperlinkto watch a faculty member talking about her how her
experience mentoring students in GCL was enriching.
https://youtu.be/dQf4a8NA07412
The Impact: Competiveness on the Job Market
88 %of alumni who are currently working believe
that having the GCL experience made them a
more competitive job applicant.
“It is always beneficial to have a direct corporate connection before you even
start your career. Adaptability is a major issue in the corporate world and it helps us to get an edge over other students.
This is what GCL is providing us.” Quote from GCL Graduate
The # increases to 93% for alumni who completed the program for 2 years rather than one.
93%
88%
Program Alumni
13
Program alumni believe GCL has made
them more competitive job applicants. In
both surveys and focus groups, GCL alumni shared multiple
examples of how they discussed GCL during job interviews and
how they felt more confident about finding a job as a result of the
program. One alumnus shared a story of being part of a group
job interview process. One of the other applicants was constantly
interrupting others. The GCL alumnus had learned how to
effectively deliver feedback in the GCL program and decided
to practice in this situation! The interviewer informed her that she
was selected for the next round of the hiring process, in
part, because of the way she so tactfully provided feedback
during the group interview. She ultimately secured the position at
the organization.
The Impact: Competiveness on the Job Market (cont.)
Organizational Sponsors
Click hyperlink to watch what one corporate judge had to say about the
creativity and collaboration he saw demonstrated by the
students: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhtmKEJ6glA 14
The organizational sponsors reported alignment between skills they are looking for in new entrants and skills developed through GCL. These sponsors played a key role for GCL students in this program. They worked directly with the students on the assigned team projects, providing feedback and mentoring throughout. They are also well suited to comment on whether the skills developed through GCL will help students be more marketable upon graduating.The sponsors who participated in the final presentations and in interviews were impressed with the students’ quality of work and willingness to learn. When asked about skills they are looking for out of new entrants they cited examples such as fresh thinking, strong work ethic and eagerness to learn.One sponsor stated that he is looking to hire people who have humility, who are not afraid to be wrong, who know what they don’t know. He also stated that he saw the GCL students exhibit this level of self-awareness and willingness to learn.
The Impact: Career Planning More than three quarters of students report
improvement in areas critical to career planning as a
result of GCL. They report increased confidence about finding a
fulfilling job and an improved ability to make decisions about their
careers and future plans.
In a focus group, one student described how through GCL, the students
learned more about themselves and helped them envision what was
important to them in their careers and what type of organization and
position to seek.
In particular, 88% reported improvements in ability to build
professional relationships which could be crucial in securing a job
after graduation. Establishing a professional network may be especially
useful in a hyper-competitive job market.
Current GCL Students
Ability
to b
uild p
rofe
ssional r
elatio
nships
Confidence
I will
find a
fulfi
lling jo
b afte
r gra
duation
Ability
to m
ake d
ecisio
ns about m
y car
eer and fu
ture
pla
ns
88%76% 75%
% of Students who report improvement or significant improvement as result of
GCL
15
16
GCL helps students become more competitive on
the job market and helps them with their career
planning, but does it help them to be more
effective once they start working?
Is GCL helping students develop the
“right” skills?
The Impact: Career Effectiveness
GCL Alumni
List of 10 Skills* Assessed
Critical Thinking/Problem Solving
Oral Communications
Written Communications
Teamwork/Collaboration
Diversity
Leadership
Creativity/Innovation
Lifelong learning/Self Direction
Professionalism/Work Ethic
Ethics/Social Responsibility
*Conference Board Skills
17
According to alumni data, the GCL program helps
develop students on all skills considered most
important to career success indicating that GCL is
effective in helping students develop skills that matter
most. Alumni were asked to rate 10 skills in terms of importance to
success in their current job and the extent they improved in each skill
as a result of GCL. Program alumni report, on average,
moderate to great extent of improvement in
all skills assessed, as a result of GCL.
The skill that students reported the greatest
improvement in as a result of GCL was “Teamwork
and Collaboration” which is also what they rated as the #1 most
important skill for success on the job. See Table 1 for the top 5 most
important skills and their connection to the GCL program.
Skills Most Important to Job Effectiveness Rated by GCL Alumni
Definition How GCL Develops Each Skill
(1) Teamwork & CollaborationBuild collaborative relationships with colleagues
and customers; be able to work with diverse teams, negotiate and manage conflicts.
Team-based projects; content and mentoring on working effectively with others, drafting
team charters.
(2) Oral CommunicationArticulate thoughts, ideas clearly and effectively;
have public speaking skills. Presenting solutions to a panel of judges and
their peers; practicing elevator speeches.
(3) LeadershipLeverage the strengths of others to achieve
common goals; use interpersonal skills to coach and develop others.
Taking turns in the team stepping up and stepping back; encouraging and coaching
others through tough times.
(4) Lifelong Direction and Learning
Be able to continuously acquire new knowledge and skills; monitor one’s own learning needs; be
able to learn from one’s mistakes.
Content and tools on resilience, reflection, self-awareness; mapping life journeys, the learning curve, adopting a growth mindset.
(5) Work Ethic/Professionalism
Demonstrate personal accountability, effective work habits; e.g., punctuality, working productively with others, and time and workload management.
Projects based in organizations, gaining exposure and experience in a professional
setting; managing challenging situations with the project team, holding self and one
another accountable.
Table 1. How GCL Develops the Top 5 Skills for Job Effectiveness
18
The Impact: Career Effectiveness
0%
40%
80%85% 88% 86% 78%
% of Students reporting Improvement or Significant Improvement as a Result of GCL
“GCL has helped to build stronger inter- personal relations with my team members,
think beyond various possibilities and work together to achieve various goals and
objectives. All this will help me to be a better person and leader as I enter the corporate
world.”
Student Quote
Current GCL students do not only see GCL as
helping them plan for their careers, but also helping
them become more effective in the workplace. They
have more confidence, more experience in a professional
setting and a greater ability to deal with business and
organizational challenges.
Clearly the team project in local organizations is a big contributor
to improvements in these areas. Additionally, the changes can be
attributed
to the support they receive from
mentors and peers, and the
opportunities they get to reflect on
their own strengths and resilience
as leaders.
19
Current GCL Students
The Impact: Career Effectiveness
Nearly all students report developing an ability to
learn from mistakes, effectiveness working in teams
and ability to empathize with others as a result of
GCL; all of these skills are critically important to career
effectiveness.
Some of the teams’ projects required them to do fieldwork in places
that they had not seen before or to interact with people they would
not typically interact with, with examples ranging from local people
in rural villages to neurosurgeons. All of these experiences
required stepping out of
comfort zones and promoted
empathy. Working with others
on the team itself also required
openness to and learning
from diverse perspectives.
“GCL has taught me empathizing, if I can empathize with my customers well, I am successful in my
work. GCL taught me patience, confidence, observing and looking beyond obvious and all
these qualities seem… mandatory in (my) professional career.”
Student Quote
0%20%40%60%80%
100% 92% 90% 88%
% of Students Reporting Improvement or Significant Improvement as a Result
of GCL
20
Current GCL Students
“GCL gave me the confidence to think out of the box. It also help me understand how to
solve any problem and work systematically in any project.”
Student Quote
Ability t
o care
fully obse
rve th
e world
and see new th
ings
Ability t
o generate new id
eas and cr
eate a visio
n
Courage to
take
action eve
n when fa
ced w
ith obsta
cles
Willi
ngness to tr
y new appro
aches t
o get resu
lts0%
20%40%60%80%
100% 93% 90% 91% 91%
% of Students reporting Improvement or Significant Improvement as a Result of GCL
21
Current GCL Students
Nearly all GCL student respondents reported
improvements in skills related to innovation and
taking action; students learned how to see new
opportunities and generate new ideas. In open-ended
comments on the final survey, students reported that they
learned to look at problems differently, spot
opportunities and generate ideas. They also developed
the courage to persevere when facing challenges and a
willingness to try new approaches to get results.
These skills are critically important to solving tough, complex
problems within organizations.
The Impact: Career Effectiveness
Faculty believe the program is helping students prepare
for their careers. Faculty were key stakeholders in this program.
They facilitated classroom sessions and mentored student teams
throughout the life of the innovation projects. They got to know students
throughout this process and had a unique viewpoint to assess the impact
of the GCL program on students.
GCL Faculty
100% of faculty who responded to
the survey believe that the GCL program
has already or will positively impact
student careers.
They cited examples such as learning about team processes,
the Hero’s Journey, learning not to jump to
conclusions, confidence, empathy, tools such
as DAC, learning curve, SBI, design thinking,
observations, & stakeholder mapping as being
very helpful to the students’ career success.
“The program is beyond normal education, it is indeed a practical program where students have learned many important concepts in do-it-yourself-ways. They will be more confident, more concerned to the feelings of their team
mates, and also apply empathy, design (thinking) and SBI while at the work place.”
Quote from faculty member22
The Impact: Career Effectiveness
Conclusions
The GCL program focused on leading self, collaboration, innovation and taking action and was
clearly effective in developing students in key areas related to career competitiveness and
effectiveness.
Data from all groups (faculty, students, alumni, organizational sponsors) provide evidence that the GCL program has helped
and will continue to help set students up for success in securing jobs and in their careers. However, GCL has the
potential to do more than just help ambitious individuals succeed at work. It promotes coming together with others in new
ways. Building on capabilities of leadership and innovation is what India will need to reach it’s vast potential.
23
Classroom Sessions Through classroom sessions, they
learned the design thinking process, had
the opportunity to reflect on their life
journey and practiced techniques for
learning-from-experience.
Team Innovation ProjectsThe team projects allowed them to get
experience in a professional setting; they
used insights to identify opportunities and
ultimately generated solutions to tough
challenges. Through these projects they
also developed skills around empathy,
leadership and collaboration.
Mentoring The mentoring from faculty and
corporate sponsors allowed them to get
the support they
needed to persevere thorough
challenging times, while still focusing on
their personal development.
Summary of Evaluation Methods
Method # of Respondents
Survey of 2014-2015 GCL students 207
Survey of 2014-2015 GCL Faculty 8
Survey of GCL Alumni 123
Focus Group with GCL Alumni 14
Focus Group with 2014-2015 GCL students 45
Focus Group & Interviews with 2014-2015 GCL Faculty 8
Interviews with Corporate Sponsors 4
Observations of March sessions by CCL Evaluator N/A
* All data used in this report were collected in March 2015 24
About the Organizations
Leadership Beyond Boundaries, is an
initiative by the Center for Creative Leadership to
democratize leadership development and unlock
the power of human potential. By extending
leadership development to all, we’re expanding the
leadership equation. By helping individuals lead
themselves, work more effectively with others, and
enact inclusive change, we’re improving lives,
advancing organizations, and transforming
communities. We believe that leadership
development is a lever that can and will change the
world.
More information at www.leadbeyond.org
Design Impact provides community leaders
with design, social enterprise, and creative
development services. The organization embeds
designers with nonprofits, develops social
enterprise capacity, and delivers design
consultations to development projects worldwide.
By spreading social innovation practices to leading
change-makers, Design Impact aims to create
more sustainable, desirable, and meaningful
solutions to some of society’s most pressing
needs.
More information at www.d-impact.org/
WeSchool, founded in 1977, is a top-ranked Indian business school that aims to transform management education. At WeSchool, the belief is that management education has
the potential to influence the country’s growth and development. In an era where unarticulated needs require new approaches, being a conventional b-school is not enough. The
WeSchool constantly renews its values, challenges convention, and collaborates with corporations, NGOs, and government to design innovative programs that equip today’s talent
to face tomorrow’s challenges. WeSchool has been ranked amongst the Top 10 Business Schools in India by the Times B-School 2015 survey also received the BMA Best
Management Institute of the Year Award, 2015.
More at www.welingkar.org/
Institute for Future Education,
Entrepreneurship and Leadership (iFEEL) is a
state-of-the art residential school located at
Lonavla offering specializations in HR, Marketing,
Finance, Operations and Information Systems
and Technology with a special focus on
Entrepreneurship and Leadership. iFEEL nurtures
managerial talent to think beyond the traditional
system of business and come up with innovative
ideas to transform the business environment.
More at http://www.ifeel.edu.in
25
Additional Resources
Unemployment data from the World Economic Forum
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_DisruptingUnemployment_Report_2015.pdf
CCL Leadership Gap Research
http://www.ccl.org/Leadership/pdf/capabilities/LeadershipGap.pdf
GCL Article
http://www.leadingeffectively.com/the-inconvenient-realities-of-learning-by-doing-lessons-from-rural-and-urban-india
/
Story of impact:Developing Global Citizen Leaders
http://leadbeyond.org/2013/10/03/global-citizens-leaders-impact-story/
GCL Blog Postings
Turning India’s B-School Students into Global Citizen Leadershttp://leadbeyond.org/2012/10/16/turning-indias-b-school-students-into-global-citizen-leaders/
Global Citizen Leaders Lessons Learned 2014http://leadbeyond.org/2014/08/11/global-citizen-leaders-lessons-learned-2014/
Global Citizen Leaders win National Entrepreneurship Challengehttp://leadbeyond.org/2015/03/20/global-citizen-leaders-win-national-entrepreneurship-challenge/
WeSchool Named Among India’s Top 10 B-schoolshttp://leadbeyond.org/2015/03/27/weschool-named-among-indias-top-10-b-schools/
Equipping B-Schools Students to Be the Changehttp://leadbeyond.org/2013/04/08/equipping-b-schools-students-to-be-the-change-3/
Living Life in Demohttp://leadbeyond.org/2013/03/04/living-life-in-demo/
MBA Students Talk About Transformational Changehttp://leadbeyond.org/2013/09/16/2747/
26
For More Information on the Evaluation, contact Sarah Stawiski: [email protected]
For More Information on the Program, contact Lyndon Rego: [email protected]
http://www.p21.org/storage/documents/FINAL_REPORT_PDF09-29-06.pdf
The Conference Board, Partnership for 21st Century Skills, Corporate Voices for Working Families, Society for Human Resource Management. (2006).
Conference Board Report:
FICCI E&Y Report on Higher Education Vision 2030.http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Higher-education-in-India-Vision-2030/$FILE/EY-Higher-education-in-India-Vision-2030.pdf
Predictions for 2030: