EMBA: more impact, more space, more fulfillment

“The transformation that participants experience in a typical Executive MBA program is usually something of a bonus.” We are talking to Roemer Visser, Academic Director of the Executive MBA program at TIAS since 2021. “At TIAS, we do not want to leave the meaningful shift that participants can experience to chance. Not that we pretend to know what people need or what shift they need to experience, but we can create the right conditions.”

Focus on transformation

 People who are attracted to the Executive MBA program at TIAS are often not initially looking for transformation. Roemer: “They want to expand and deepen their knowledge. And of course we will fulfill that promise. But all our graduates later acknowledge that it wasn’t really about the knowledge after all. The EMBA is a transformation process. It is a cocoon that participants enter into and emerge from a changed person two years later. Nobody can predict how much they will change. I don’t know either. I only know that the participants need more. Not more income, but the opportunity to create more impact, more space, get more fulfillment.” 

Commit to something bigger

Roemer realizes that if you really want to be effective and make more impact as a leader, you need to commit to something that is bigger than yourself. “People who are ultimately only interested in a bonus or promotion, often find themselves driving themselves and others. It is not the same as 
when people commit themselves to a shared purpose, because the vision of that leader resonates with them personally. That is why our leadership component focuses on the question: ‘What do I really want?’ Everything people really want - not what they think they want, but what they really want - is always inclusive.” 

Back to their own organization

Once participants return to their own organization after completing the Executive MBA program, with their degree, the shift they have gone through, and their vision of the future they want to create, a large number of them make significant steps forward and upward. Up to board level, even. But what happens to the dream, the better future they want to create? 

Baby steps

Roemer: “Of course, we hope that people will indeed try to make their dream come true. Everyone knows that the system needs to be changed. But we also know that it’s not going to be easy. It would be naïve to expect a participant to reorganize the entire system on their own after returning to their organization, like a kind of Don Quixote. Because, before you know it, you will be rejected by that same system. And that doesn’t help anyone. Creating a better world is often done in baby steps. What is important, is that we start somewhere.” 

Read more about his vision and the big blind spot in how we look at leadership in the complete interview with Roemer Visser. You will also find out what he means when he says: “You know darn well what needs to be done, and you have all the skills to make it happen. The question is: Why aren't you doing it?”

Read the interview with Roemer Visser