Nineteen businessmen from LG Electronics returned to Korea with anew arsenal of change-management skills after completing an intensive summer organizational-development program at Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Management.
“Our goal was to teach these managers how to introduce and accelerate new ideas as internal changeagents, not as consultants brought in from the outside,” said Michael Thompson, organizational leadership andstrategy department chair.
The 19 businessmen, all human-resource professionals, spent five weeks developing their changemanagement skills by attending seminars and lectures and participating in case studies. They also got a taste ofthe Western United States listening to cowboy poetry and exploring Yellowstone National Park.
Christopher Meek, associate professor of organizational behavior, and Young Kee Kim, LGE vicepresident of human resources and a Marriott School alumnus, first brought LGE employees in groups of two orthree to the Marriott School to earn masters degrees in organizational behavior eight years ago. The success ofthese programs and their desire to provide the opportunity to a larger number of LGE employees led Meek andKim to develop the intensive change-management program.
“We were able to provide a unique, customized educational program because of the organizationalchange knowledge of BYU’s MOB faculty and the language capability of our former graduates,” said KateKirkham, director of the Master of Organizational Behavior program. “Because of the number of participantsin this session and the commitment LG Electronics, the ‘back home application’ of the participants’ newly-acquired knowledge and skills has a greater chance of success.”
Meek and Kim utilized the experience and expertise of four Marriott School faculty—Lee Perry,associate dean, Mark Hansen, assistant professor of organizational leadership, Kate Kirkham, director of MOBprogram, and Michael Thompson, Brooklyn Derr, professor of management at the University of Utah, andnumerous others also helped organize and conduct the training.
Because of the program’s success, Meek and Kim hope this will be the first of many such programsconducted at the Marriott School.
The Marriott School is located at Brigham Young University, the largest privately owned, church-sponsored university in the United States. The school has nationally and internationally ranked programs inaccountancy, business management, information systems, organizational behavior and entrepreneurship. Themission of the Marriott School is to educate men and women of faith, character and professional ability whowill become outstanding managers and leaders throughout the world. Approximately 3,000 students areenrolled in the Marriott School’s graduate and undergraduate programs.
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Writer: S. Wade Hansen
