“I WANTED TO BECOME AN EQUAL SPARRING PARTNER FOR MY MANAGEMENT”
TIAS EXPERIENCE
“I have become much better at making connections between what’s happening within our company and the markets in which we operate,” says Mike Burgers. Following his Executive MBA at TIAS, his employer, Moba Groep, designed a new position just for him: Head of Customer Care & Digitization. In this role, Mike is guiding the transformation of their service organization. “Thanks to the progress I’ve made, I now have much better insight into my personal role towards the teams and individuals under my leadership, the stakeholders within my company, my interactions with customers and the advice I can provide to our board.”
In the five years before he assumed his current role, Mike was responsible for various R&D projects at Moba Groep. “Those were all highly technical projects. I’m a mechanical engineer originally, after all. However, I also dealt with questions such as, “What’s the competition doing? What should we be developing? What exactly does the customer need? What’s happening in our industry? What are the macroeconomic trends? How should we adapt in response?” I discovered that I actually found answering such questions the most interesting aspect of the R&D projects in which I was involved.”
DEVELOPING FURTHER IN BUSINESS AND LEADERSHIP
Mike reached a point where he wanted to dive deeper into how to navigate the interactions between a company’s positioning within its industry, customer needs and macroeconomic trends to support his company’s growth. “I noticed that I could use a bit more grounding to help me achieve that. Additionally, I kept being appointed to leadership and project management roles, despite my lack of relevant training. My background was purely technical. Apparently, I have an aptitude for such roles. I therefore wanted to develop myself in that area as well. An Executive MBA felt like the perfect way for me to improve my business sense and leadership skills.”
GETTING A GRIP ON STRATEGY ISSUES
“My goal was to become a sparring partner for Moba’s management team on at least an equal basis, and preferably to be able to teach them a thing or two occasionally. I was interacting a lot with my company’s management; experienced people who were used to thinking ahead. While I was capable of sparring with them up to a point, sometimes they’d come up with solutions that made me go, hey, I never thought of that. I wanted to get a better grip on issues such as, “How fast can our company evolve? Will that be fast enough? How should we invest our money? What is our company culture? What are our strategic plans and how can we bring them to fruition?”, and combine that with ways to share my knowledge and insights with others. It requires excellent personal skills to be able to communicate well with both the guys who work on our machines from day to day and the C-suite executives.”
“How do you deal with power structures? How do you treat your colleagues? What’s your approach to the environment and society? That requires a new leadership. They’re committed to that at TIAS.”
WHY TIAS?
Several things appealed to Mike on first encountering TIAS. “It’s immediately apparent that things at TIAS are more personal and smaller-scale. They dedicate a lot of time and effort to learning from one another, with plenty of interaction during and outside of classes. Then, there’s their slogan, ‘Never stop asking,’ and their focus on sustainability. Social corporate responsibility, for example. The idea that a business should be motivated by stewardship; doing what’s most beneficial to society. To me that’s a whole new perspective, one based on very different values and standards: How do you deal with power structures? How do you treat your colleagues? What’s your approach to the environment and society? That requires a new leadership. They’re committed to that at TIAS. I thought: this place has a lot to teach me. Looking back, TIAS absolutely fulfilled its promises regarding this study program. I like that.”
Name Mike Burgers
Position Head of Customer Care & Digitization at Moba Groep, an internationally active manufacturer of machinery for egg sorting, packaging and processing. In this role, Mike is responsible for the development of a new value proposition. To that end, Moba asks: “How can we further distinguish ourselves from the competition through the expansion of our current basic range of services and addition of advanced services & servitization?” Study Program
Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA)
“If you take the first path you see, you may well be missing out on a lot of opportunities or actually creating new problems.”
BROADER PERSPECTIVE AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE BUSINESS
The EMBA amply fulfilled Mike’s previously noted desire to explore the interactions between a company’s positioning within its industry, customer needs and macroeconomic trends. “Each new discipline, such as accountancy, supply chain and innovation, provided me with a different perspective on my company. Then, we’d return to discussing strategic considerations again. This gave me a broader perspective regarding the business and improved my understanding of the relationships between the various disciplines.”
Remaining critical of academic knowledge “The business knowledge we were taught was based on academic literature and therefore well-researched. However, what’s stayed with me is the fact that we shouldn’t simply accept that knowledge unquestioningly. We definitely got taught to think things through, to reflect on what they actually mean. Whether the research was properly substantiated and to what extent it’s applicable to your own organization. Learning to think for ourselves, in other words. That may sound trivial, but if the people in leading roles aren’t thinking critically, you’ve got big problems. Management isn’t an exact science, it’s an art, and you can never be sure things are truly as they appear. They can change from one day to the next.”
“Now, when I run into a problem, I know three or four different approaches to try.”
LINKS BETWEEN THEORY AND PRACTICE
According to Mike, the classes about the various business disciplines were taught by a good mix of lecturers and professors with excellent academic credentials and real-world experience. “They are living examples of how to bridge the gap between business theory and practice. That was really nice to see.”
Applicability to your own organization “I liked the way knowledge was presented, with space built in to introduce, analyze and review elements of our own business practice. It taught us a lot about how our own organizations worked and the reasons behind certain decisions. Furthermore, it meant we could put our newly acquired knowledge to use immediately. We were also assigned a lot of papers about topics relevant to our business practice. Occasionally, that revealed issues that made me go: we really need to do something about this. And often, we could.”
Many different perspectives “On top of this, I learned a lot from fellow students who were also involved in manufacturing or in totally different industries, and who faced similar or entirely unrelated issues. We got to test out our ideas on everyone else. That produced lots of different perspectives on the same problem. Now, when I run into a problem, I know three or four different approaches to try.”
LEARNING ENVIRONMENT FOR LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
TIAS has created an integrative learning environment for the development and strengthening of leadership knowledge and skills, an approach which Mike finds very effective. “The groups’ composition, group assignments, an external coach to help you understand everything you’ve learned and encountered, fellow students’ diverse experiences and backgrounds; the combination of all of these elements really puts on the pressure. You can’t help but develop yourself.”
Pressure cooker formula
“An EMBA is a pretty competitive environment to begin with, in a positive sense. Everyone is highly motivated. Some people have personalities similar to your own, while others are the opposite. The pressure cooker formula means you have four weeks to complete an assignment together, while simultaneously preparing for your next class. You’re basically doing two things at once. And your regular work still needs to be done as well.”
Making good decisions under stress
“The busy schedule forces you to learn how to choose, while also collaborating effectively under pressure, even if those people are not your first choice. Making good decisions under those circumstances asks a lot of you personally. It can be hard, challenging and even painful at times. It’s also highly instructive. These experiences subsequently inform your own work, where things won’t always be so stressful, but you can still encounter similar situations. Where you may have broken down occasionally in the relatively safe environment of the EMBA, which was fine by the way, you now know that this won’t happen at work anymore.”
Group interactions instructive to all concerned
“I admired TIAS’s skillfulness at selecting EMBA participants and composing groups for shared assignments. The mix of industries, ages and career stages was nicely varied. For example, my own groups included people who were five to ten years ahead of me career-wise and had quite different personalities. That composition produced some challenging interactions, which were instructive to everyone in the group. Very impressive.”
“I am now capable of understanding my own company’s strategic issues and decisions very quickly.”
IMPORTANT SKILLS
According to Mike, thanks to the high-pressure learning environment, diverse perspectives and continuing emphasis on critical thinking, you cannot help but develop critical judgment. “For example, you may be given two hours to evaluate a company’s strategic decision. In that time, you must make a quick assessment to determine the impact of this decision on the various stakeholders and business units within the company. I am now capable of understanding my own company’s strategic issues and decisions very quickly, because I can see the reasons behind them. That makes it both possible and easier for me to provide constructive criticism.”
Main takeaway One of Mike’s main takeaways from his EMBA is that everyone has their own unconscious preferences when it comes to solving complex problems. “Once you realize that, you become open to others having radically different approaches. You see that there can be more than one solution. You also make time to consider an issue from different perspectives, possibly resulting in a very different solution; perhaps a faster or even a better one. If you take the first path you see, you may well be missing out on a lot of opportunities or actually creating new problems.”
“I can see the EMBA’s personal impact on everyone in my class.”
CAREER AND ORGANIZATIONAL IMPACT
On completing his EMBA, Mike became living proof of TIAS’s promise that the program inspires a personal transformation in students, enabling them to create an impact on both their own future and that of their organization. “I don’t just see elements of my master thesis reflected in my own organization, they also designed a new position for me. As Head of Customer Care & Digitization, I’ve become responsible for transforming our service organization. That’s made a huge impact on our company.”
Valuable network “I can see the EMBA’s personal impact on everyone in my class. No-one has the same job as before they started this program. Some made an internal move, others switched to a different field or left to work in another country for a year. The great thing is that we’ve stayed in touch. We’ve become almost brothers in arms, thanks to our intense experiences and the personal development we’ve been through. That’s very valuable.”
COMBINING WORK, STUDY AND PRIVATE LIFE
Occasionally, Mike looks back on his EMBA period. “How on earth did I manage it? I like to compare it to a two-year training program for competitive swimmers. As you swim each race, you’re already thinking about how to train for the next one. It never stops. You’re receiving intensive training – inescapably so – on how to make decisions and rearrange your life. If you don’t, you simply won’t make it.”
Life continues as usual
“Outside of the program, life continues as usual. All kinds of events may happen in your private life. Things you didn’t anticipate beforehand. In my case, we had another son unexpectedly. I was ecstatic, but it did have me thinking, How are we going to make this work? The EMBA program won’t stop, life won’t stop, but I do want to be done with it in two years. It was doable, but it definitely wasn’t easy. On completing the program, I took a three-month sabbatical to recover from the speed I’d been operating at for the past two years.”
MIKE'S ADVICE
Mike’s advice to others considering this program
“If I were to compare the program to a pool, I’d say put on your swim trunks and dive right in. Immerse yourself; don’t hold back.”
Becoming future-proof in leadership and strategic thinking
It takes leadership and strategic thinking to build the right bridges and mobilize the organization. The Executive MBA (EMBA) will help you increase your agility in complex, changing environments – based on a sound understanding of business.
Intensive attention to your personal development and leadership qualities allows you to master your new skills. This way, in situations that require both broad and in-depth knowledge, you’ll know which questions to ask and how to act. That’s how you make the difference. Our English-taught EMBA is a top-ranked 2-year program that lets you combine your work, study and private life.
LEARN AT TIAS
Do you want to create more impact on your organization and on society?
With the flexible approach of TIAS, you create impact:
- Tailor your education and learning path to your learning needs
- Learn a lot in a short time through frequent interaction
- Individual attention is at the heart of the TIAS approach
- Learn at your own pace, both online and on-site
- Start whenever you want
Would you like more information about our program design?
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THE NEXT STEP
What suits you? Are you interested in exploring your learning question in depth, discussing the options and discussing the most appropriate learning path? I am happy to help you discover which learning path fits well with your ambitions, learning goals and phase in your career.
TIAS is the business school of Tilburg University and Eindhoven University of Technology.
NEVER STOP ASKING
TILBURG UNIVERSITY
EINDHOVEN UNIVERSITY
OF TECHNOLOGY