Interview with Herminia Ibarra, Professor of Organizational Behavior, INSEAD

Interview with Herminia Ibarra, Professor of Organizational Behavior, INSEAD

Herminia Ibarra is the INSEAD Chaired Professor of Organizational Behavior and Area Coordinator for the Organizational Behavior Group. She received her MA and PhD from Yale University, where she was a National Science Fellow. Prior to joining INSEAD in 2002 she served on the Harvard Business School faculty for 13 years. At INSEAD, Professor Ibarra directs The Leadership Transition, an executive program designed for managers moving into broader leadership roles and Women Leading Change, INSEAD’s first program for executive women. She lectures and consults internationally on talent management, leadership development, women’s careers, and career coaching.

What attracted you to working in this field?

My initial research involved looking at informal networks – how people built them, how they used them, who got access to them, who was central and how that all affected the organization. It became very clear that networks affected how peoples’ careers developed and the kind of opportunities they got. As a result my focus shifted from networks to career development because whilst networks play a key role in career development, they are only one element and there were other elements to consider. I made this shift about mid-way through my research career.

What do you see as the biggest challenge in learning development today?

Understanding the relationship between learning and personal transformation and how they go together. We know a lot about how people learn and I think that there is still a missing link from there to how people change. This is the focus of my current research because learning to lead is about learning to change yourself – the two go hand in hand.

What is the biggest challenge in your current role?

It is always the next study! In addition I have two new programs at INSEAD entitled “The leadership transition” and “Women leading change”. The latter is a short leadership course for women and my biggest challenge in relation to these courses is taking what I know about how people learn and change and using this knowledge to design a program that really has an important impact.

In fact, part of my current research involves people who come to these courses. I try and follow them afterwards to see what happens and whether they implemented anything they learned at the program. Putting my research into practice via the design of my programs is a very important and interesting challenge for me.

The Women’s program also comes out of my old research on networks. I did look at whether men’s and women’s networks differ and the effects this may have. Part of the goal of this INSEAD program is to help create a really strong network of senior women in Europe, which is something that doesn’t quite exist yet.

Where do you see development and learning in organizations in, say, ten years’ time?

The developments in brain science have already affected this area significantly and I think this looks set to continue in future. We know a lot more about how the brain works and which parts do what and this has helped us develop a deeper understanding of learning impediments and learning abilities.

Who would you consider to be the key influencers in this field?

Social scientist Karl Weick has been very insightful about human processes and the way we think. His ideas have been influential throughout my different areas of research. John Kotter has also had a big influence on my thinking.

What is your biggest achievement to date in the learning and development field?

I am really proud of the only book that I have written called Working Identity. It is about how people re-invent their careers. I feel that I captured what this is really like rather than simply writing about how people say it is supposed to work. This came out in 2003 and since then I have received so much feedback from people who have felt the book really helped them to adjust to their new careers.

Is the issue of leadership development attracting the attention it deserves in organizations today?

This area has become such a huge business and is probably bigger than it needs to be. Leadership deserves a great deal of attention because we live in changing times where people need to continually change. As a result, there exist a huge number of leadership development programs.

However, many of them are not effective and everyone in this field needs to recognize that. It’s one thing to put together an experience in which people say “wow” and then do little about it, but it is another thing to put together an experience that really has an enduring effect. The first step for participants when attending these programs is when they get back to the workplace. They should pick a “to-do” and do it right away before the window of opportunity closes up.

How do you tackle the dilemma of measuring ROI of training/development?

Training and development managers need to track what happens to the people that they send on development courses both short-term and long term. Are they able to move into new roles? Do they get on succession planning lists? How do they perform?

There is always the qualitative aspect too but you have a sense, particularly when you’re dealing with a senior group, as to whether there is impact at the organizational level. Increasingly companies send groups of their managers,so it is not just one person that tries to implement new ideas or strategies,but the whole group starts to get together with their own language, methodology and framework. This puts them all in a better position to diffuse new ideas within the organization and have a broader impact.