通用電氣傳奇CEO杰克?韋爾奇曾經(jīng)聘請一名獵頭顧問，為他的在線管理學院尋找課程主任和教員主任人選,。韋爾奇向這名獵頭提出了一些不同尋常的要求,。

這名獵頭是Lochlin Partners公司的邁克爾?柯克曼。他后來回憶道：“杰克不喜歡那種夸夸其談的學術型人才,?！?/p>

盡管韋爾奇給出了嚴格的限制，柯爾曼還是沒費多大周章就找到了一群高等教育人才,。

柯爾曼表示：“人人都對這份工作很感興趣,，尤其是這個項目還掛著杰克的大名。其中很多人都厭倦了傳統(tǒng)學術環(huán)境中的官僚主義和不切實際的作風,?！?/p>

韋爾奇最終聘請杜克企業(yè)教育學院前執(zhí)行董事克雷格?克勞森擔任課程主任，聘請原喬治華盛頓大學教授,、曾經(jīng)擔任美國海軍陸戰(zhàn)隊營銷總監(jiān)的麥克?澤利夫擔任教員主任,。

這兩項招聘充分反映了一個事實：成立四年的韋爾奇管理學院，是目前少數(shù)幾家采取企業(yè)式經(jīng)營模式,，對客戶服務極為關注的商學院之一,。這所商學院在管理上緊密結合針對學生的調查結果。這些調查旨在衡量學院教育的影響,，以及學生將學院推薦給朋友或同事的可能性,。

在韋爾奇管理學院，每名行政或教職人員都深知,，學生就是學院的客戶,。學院核心領導團隊的獎金（最高可達全年基本工資的25%）就是根據(jù)這些“客戶”的滿意度發(fā)放的。韋爾奇為了監(jiān)測學員滿意度而使用的評價指標“凈推薦值”（Net Promoter Scores）是學院管理團隊經(jīng)常討論的一個指標,。甚至連學院開設的12門MBA課程中每一門課程的凈推薦值得分,，都是管理團隊關注的對象。

上個月剛滿80歲的韋爾奇指出：“我們運營這所學院的方式就和經(jīng)營一家公司一樣,。目前,，大多數(shù)商學院都和現(xiàn)實中的最佳商業(yè)實踐脫節(jié)了。并非是那些商學院不教這些東西,，而是他們不去親自踐行,。”

在MBA市場總體趨平甚至有所下滑的大背景下,，這種教育理念幫助韋爾奇商學院在線MBA項目的注冊人數(shù)迅速增長,。成立短短四年來，該學院的MBA學員人數(shù)就已經(jīng)超過了1000名,，2016年,，其注冊學員有望達到1400名,。要知道，2014年,，該學院的注冊人數(shù)還僅有782人,，而今年就已經(jīng)躍升了35%，達到1057人,。

如此快速增長的趨勢,，顯然是受到了一系列因素的共同影響：韋爾奇?zhèn)€人的聲譽和金字招牌；這是一種基于韋爾奇名言的務實教育,；相對較低的價格（印第安大學Kelley Direct在線MBA項目的費用高達6.6萬美元,，北卡羅來納大學MBA@UNC項目的價格更達到了令人咂舌的9.97萬美元）；以及較高的學員滿意度,。今年夏天,，該學院的凈推薦值得分達到了建校以來最高的77分，好于亞馬遜的69分,、捷藍航空的68分,，與全美凈推薦值最高的好市多（79分）已經(jīng)十分接近。

今年10月,，杜克大學富卡商學院測評了其MBA項目的凈推薦值得分,，它的得分是67分，已經(jīng)相當不錯了,，但仍比韋爾奇管理學院低了10分,。然而這個分數(shù)已經(jīng)與iPhone持平，僅僅略低于蘋果公司本身（70分）,。而且它已經(jīng)遠高于哈佛和沃頓商學院的校報針對學員的測評得分——根據(jù)這些不是特別嚴謹?shù)恼{查顯示,，哈佛的凈推薦值得分僅為41，沃頓比哈佛高出10分,，但得分也僅有51分,。

那么，韋爾奇管理學院為何會獲得如此高的滿意度得分呢,？對此,，韋爾奇表示：“我們正在改變人們的生活，這是一件大事,?！?/p>

該學院今年針對MBA學生的調查顯示，有70%的學生表示,，自從就讀韋爾奇管理學院在線MBA項目后，他們的薪水增長了10%以上,；98%的學員認為這是一筆有價值的投資,；27%的學員認為這是他們一生中最有價值的投資,；100%的畢業(yè)生表示，讀完該MBA項目后,，他們對自己領導能力的自信程度均有所加強,。

韋爾奇管理學院MBA學生的平均年齡為38歲，其中最年輕者為30歲,，最年長者為60歲,。每個班級的規(guī)格都被控制在20人以內。要想獲得該項目MBA學位,，即讀完所有課程,，完成所有討論和項目，最短只需要18個月,。

韋爾奇表示,，韋爾奇管理學院的學員接納率約為80%左右。從《美國新聞與世界報告》的數(shù)據(jù)來看,，從這個比率與全美在線MBA項目的“三甲”——印第安那大學（76%）,、天普大學（72%）和北卡羅萊納大學（51%）相差不大。

韋爾奇管理學院CEO迪恩?西佩爾表示：“我們采取的并不是傳統(tǒng)方式,，而是真正的英才教育,，我們想要最好的人才幫助學生獲得最大的回報?！?/p>

韋爾奇率先承認,，他的在線MBA并非適合所有人。

他表示：“我們不能幫你進入華爾街,，如果那才是你的目標,，你最好去沃頓商學院。我們的學生主要是那些想做得更好的小企業(yè)主,。他們想學習更有效的管理,。我們的任務就是幫助他們實現(xiàn)這個目標?！?/p>

前杜克企業(yè)教育學院執(zhí)行董事的克勞森于今年7月加盟韋爾奇管理學院,。他也表示：“我們的目標是以一種非常實用的方式改善人們的生活，我們希望學員能立竿見影地看到成效,?！?/p>

克勞森指出，專心傾聽“客戶的聲音”是非常重要的,。學院會要求學員就課程,、教職工、學員服務和學校活動提出直率的反饋意見,。

克勞森還表示：“學員的反饋非常熱心,，簡直出乎意料，是我在其他任何教育環(huán)境中都不曾見過的,。我們要確保學生能夠學會這些理念,，更重要的是要確保他們能夠應用這些理念?！?/p>

曾經(jīng)有一陣子,，金融課程的滿意度得分開始有所下降。

教員主任麥克?澤利夫表示：“我們的金融課程肯定不是那種最能令人興奮的課程,。因此,，我們的教職團隊決心一定要讓會計和金融課程變得令人興奮起來?！?/p>

因此,，澤利夫聘請曾在寶潔公司多個財務類崗位上效力近24年的財務高管約翰?肖，他將金融課程打造成了一門重實踐,、輕理論的課程,，從而使這門課程的凈推薦值得分由70分左右一躍上升至98分。

韋爾奇管理學院目前共有45名兼職教師和4名全職教授,，這一點和傳統(tǒng)的教育機構也有很大區(qū)別,。學校首先會對教職員工進行嚴格篩選，然后會衡量他們是否有熱情挑戰(zhàn)和激勵學員,。所有教職員工均擁有相應專業(yè)領域的博士學位或其他最高學位,，并且平均擁有20年的專業(yè)經(jīng)驗。

另外,，該學院的教職團隊還制定了一套指導原則和一張價值與行為列表,。排名第一的價值是：“慷慨：相信你的學生，專注于學生的成功,，提供訓練與指導,，帶著激情與理解去教學，提供坦率的反饋,，為學生注入信心,。”

另一條指導原則指出,，再好的課程內容,，也架不住差勁的教學水平?！敖搪殕T工要不斷重視提高教學水平,，促進自身進步。”

當然,，在韋爾奇管理學院,，教師是沒有終身職位的,。

韋爾奇嚴肅地指出：“終身職位是一個最糟糕的發(fā)明,。”韋爾奇在他的商學院里引入了通用電氣式的績效文化,，學員打分最低的10%教職工會被“末位淘汰”,。

澤利夫補充道：“我們會表揚最優(yōu)秀的那20%，對中間的70%進行培訓,，嚴格審視排名末位的10%,，然后我們會問，這是否是他們的真實水平,。我們每季度都會搞一次這個流程,，然后會把所有信息反饋給教師們?！?/p>

每當澤利夫招聘新教師時,，他都會要求他們先做一陣子助教，判斷他們是否適合學校,。

澤利夫表示：“他們首先要有很好的研究能力,，但我真正需要的素質，是要投下身子,，積極與班級的學生進行互動,，并且使每一次與學生的互動產(chǎn)生最大的價值。你必須要有能把教學內容應用到現(xiàn)實生活的實際經(jīng)驗,，并且要按學生期待的方式對他們提供支持,。另外，如果你不相信杰克的理念,，你就不應該到這里來,，這是一個前提條件?！?/p>

韋爾奇本人也為學院投入了很大的精力,，每個季度他都要與學生舉行視頻會議，他還經(jīng)常出現(xiàn)在談論當前商業(yè)事件的視頻中,，與學生通電子郵件,，并且密切關注學院的所有課程。每個工作日,，韋爾奇都會收到兩篇關于學校信息,、申請與注冊情況以及凈推薦值調查結果的報告。

澤利夫回憶道，在一次向韋爾奇報告工作的會議上,，由于凈推薦值得分正朝著正確的方向發(fā)展,，整個管理團隊都非常高興?！拔覀冎挥?8個差評,，我們對結果感到非常興奮。但杰克想聽聽那18個人都說了些什么,。我說：‘那真的不是實際情況,。’杰克卻說：‘但這18個人說的話,，都是一個讓我們改進的機會,。畢竟我們沒有達到他們的預期?！?/p>

韋爾奇無法掩飾入學人數(shù)的增長給他帶來的喜悅,。他表示，由他擔任高級顧問的私募基金Clayton Dubilier & Rice,，目前已經(jīng)向韋爾奇管理學院的20名MBA學生提供了助學金,，第二批助學金將于明年1月發(fā)放。助學金獲得者是這只基金投資的15家企業(yè)中具有較高發(fā)展?jié)撃艿闹袑咏?jīng)理,。

韋爾奇表示：“這充分驗證了一家擁有大量MBA畢業(yè)生的私募基金喜歡我們的教學成果,。事實證明，他們喜愛我們的教職團隊,，總是要個沒夠,。這簡直難以置信?！保ㄘ敻恢形木W(wǎng)）

譯者：樸成奎

審校：任文科

When legendary General Electric CEO Jack Welch hired a headhunter to search for new deans of curriculum and faculty for his online management institute, he had an unusual requirement.

“Jack didn’t like pie-in-the-sky academic types,” says Michael Kirkman, a search consultant with Lochlin Partners.

Despite that limitation, Kirkman had little trouble rounding up an impressive portfolio of higher ed candidates.

“Everybody was very interested, particularly with Jack’s name attached to it,” Kirkman says. “A lot of them are just tired of the bureaucracy and garbage that goes on in traditional academic environments.”

Welch ultimately hired Craig Clawson, former managing director of Duke Corporate Education, as dean of curriculum, and Mike Zeliff, a faculty member at George Washington University and a former marketing director for the U.S. Marine Corps, as the dean of faculty.

Both hires go a long way in telegraphing the fact that the four-year-old Jack Welch Management Institute is one of the very few business schools that is run like a business, with a laser-like focus on customer service. The school is closely managed on student surveys that measure the impact of the education as well as the likelihood that a student would recommend the institute to a friend or colleague.

At JWMI, every administrator and faculty member understands that students are customers. In fact, the incentive pay of the core leadership team—up to 25% of their annual base salaries—is based on satisfying those customers. Net Promoter Scores (NPS), the metric Welch is using to monitor student satisfaction, are widely discussed among the leadership team, even down to the scores on the 12 courses that make up the MBA curriculum.

“We’re running this school the way we would run a company,” insists Welch, who turned 80 last month. “Most business schools are disconnected from best business practices. It’s not that they don’t teach them. They just don’t practice them.”

That approach to an online MBA program based on Welch’s leadership beliefs has led to fast growth at a time when the overall MBA market has been flat or in decline. The school has increased its student population to more than 1,000 MBA students in four years and expects to boost enrollment to 1,400 students in 2016. This year MBA enrollment jumped 35% to 1,057 students, from 782 in 2014.

It’s clear that the growth is due to a confluence of factors: Welch’s reputation and brand; a pragmatic education based on Welch’s well-known dictums; the relatively low $39,000 price of the program (Indiana University’s Kelley Direct program costs $66,000, while the University of North Carolina’s MBA@UNC is priced at $99,700); and high levels of student satisfaction. The institute’s Net Promoter Score this summer reached a record 77, better than Amazon (69) or JetBlue (68) and nearly as high as America’s NPS leader, Costco (79).

When Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business measured the NPS of its MBA program in October, the school found that it hit an impressive 67, 10 points lower than the Welch Institute. Still, a 67 is on par with the iPhone (67) and just below Apple itself (70). It’s also much better than surveys done by the business school student newspapers at both Harvard and Wharton. In those unscientific polls, Harvard Business School had an NPS of 41, while Wharton was 10 points higher at 51.

The reason for the high scores? “We are changing lives and that is a big deal,” says Welch.

The institute’s survey of this year’s graduates, for example, found that 70% said they had received a promotion or double-digit raise since the start of the program; 98% agreed that the MBA program was a valuable investment; and 27% said it was the best investment they ever made. All 100% of the graduates agreed that their confidence as a leader had grown as a result of the program.

The average age of a Welch student is 38, though they range from 30 to 60. Each class size is limited to 20 students. The degree—with all classes, discussions and projects done online—can be completed in a minimum of 18 months.

Welch says the acceptance rate for applicants to the program is about 80%—not that much different than the 76% rate at Indiana University, the 72% rate at Temple University, or the 51% rate at UNC, the three top-rated online MBAs by U.S. News & World Report.

“We are not wed to an old way,” says Dean Sippel, CEO of the Jack Welch Institute. “It is a true meritocracy. We want the best people who can deliver the best student outcomes.”

Welch is the first to admit that his online MBA is not for everyone.

“We’re not going to help you on Wall Street,” he concedes. “If you want that, go to Wharton! Our students are primarily owners of small companies who want to do better. They want to learn to manage more effectively. We help them do that.”

Clawson, who joined the institute in late July from Duke Corporate Education, where he was managing director, agrees. “We really are driven to improving lives in a very practical way,” he says. “We want people to see results right away.”

Clawson says it’s critical to listen intently to “the voice of the customer.” Students are asked for their candid feedback on every aspect of the curriculum, the courses, the faculty, student services and events.

“The student feedback piece is just intense and incredible, much more so than I have experienced in other educational environments,” says Clawson. “We make sure people learn the concepts and, more importantly, can apply the concepts.”

Consider what happened with the institute’s core course in finance when the satisfaction scores began to lag.

“Our finance course was just not the most exciting course you could take,” says Mike Zeliff, dean of faculty. “The faculty would say you are only going to make accounting and finance so exciting.”

So Zeliff recruited John Shaw, a finance executive who had spent nearly 24 years with Procter & Gamble in various financial roles. Shaw made the course more applied than theoretical and the NPS scores climbed from the low 70s to a high of 98.

Teaching at an institute where there are 45 adjunct teachers and four full-time profs is nothing like traditional academia. Faculty are screened and then measured for their passion to engage, challenge and excite students. They hold a PhD or terminal degree in their field of expertise and have, on average, 20 years of professional experience.

It’s telling, perhaps, that the school’s faculty drafted its own guiding principles and a list of values and behaviors. The No. 1 value is “Generosity: Believe in our students. Focus on student success. Coach and mentor. Engage with compassion and understanding. Offer candid feedback. Instill confidence.”

And one of the guiding principles notes that great course content will not overcome poor instruction. “Faculty relentlessly focus on superior instruction and continuous improvement,” it says.

There is, of course, no tenure.

“Tenure is the worst invention,” deadpans Welch, who deploys a GE-like performance culture that weeds out the bottom 10% of the faculty who fail to get the best scores from students.

“We celebrate the top 20%,” adds Zeliff. “We coach around the 70% and take a hard look at the bottom 10% and ask whether this is the right spot for them. We do that every quarter. and we send all that information to the professors.”

When Zeliff hires in new faculty, he asks them to first spend time as a teaching assistant to judge the fit between them and the school.

“They need to be up on the research, but what I really need them to be is engaged and engaging in the classroom and making the most of every interaction with the students,” Zeliff says. “You have to have the practical experience to bring the teaching to life and the willingness to support students the way we expect. And if you don’t believe in Jack, you shouldn’t be here. That is just a given.”

Welch is deeply engaged in the enterprise. He hosts quarterly videoconferences with students, pops up in videos about current business events, interacts with students via email, and is all over the program’s curriculum. Every work day, Welch receives two reports on leads, applicants, and enrollments, as well as the NPS survey results.

At one briefing with Welch, recalls Zeliff, the NPS numbers were going in the right direction and the team was overjoyed with the results. “We had only 18 detractors, and we were pretty excited by the result,” he says. “Jack wanted to hear about those 18. I said, ‘That’s not really the story,’ and he said, ‘But every one of those stories is an opportunity to get better. We didn’t fulfill their expectations.'”

Welch, meantime, cannot conceal his delight at the institute’s acceptance and growth. He notes that Clayton Dubilier & Rice, the private equity firm where he serves as a senior advisor, is now funding 20 students in his MBA program, with a second cohort to start in January. The students are high potential middle managers from 15 companies in CDR’s portfolio.

“The test was whether a PE firm with a bunch of MBAs love the result,” says Welch. “Well, they love our faculty, and they can’t get enough of it. It’s unbelievable.”