Institution: Melbourne Business School
Course: General Management Program
Firstly, a big thank you to Industry Leaders Fund for supporting me on my learning journey.
Background
My current role at HMPS includes a diverse portfolio including finance, admin, commercial and sales. HMPS is a family owned company specialising in the design, development and manufacture of machinery for the packaging process and has undergone several years of significant growth due to the demand for automation in food and beverage. To capitalise on the potential this opportunity provides, I did some self-assessment to understand my current skillset. It was identified that I needed some formal training in marketing, strategy and people management to become a well-rounded manager and thereby bringing my best to the table as an executive team member.
The search for an all encompassing course went on for months with no result, until I was invited to the 2015 Industry Leaders Fund Awards night by a grant recipient. On this night I met Geoff Vogt, over the following months Geoff visited our facilities and through Geoff’s encouragement I applied for a grant under the Industry Leaders Fund initiative to attend the General Management Program at Melbourne Business School.
The two staged written application process was made easy through the access to Geoff. The third stage interview with members of the Board was a rewarding experience in itself as an opportunity to meet so many people who have made great contributions to the state of South Australia.
My Experience at Melbourne Business School
I undertook the General Management Program (GMP) at Mt Eliza in November 2016, it was definitely the right course for me at this stage in my career as it covered off on the areas of marketing, strategy and people management which were areas of weakness. The GMP was set on the Mornington Peninsula and involved 5 intensive days of interactive training with an equally valuable opportunity to network with 35 other business leaders from around Australia and the Asia Pacific.
The line-up of presenters over the five days was extraordinary; all professionals who were at the forefront of their academic field constantly challenging us with new thoughts and ideas from around the world. We were asked to step outside our comfort zones and even to make ourselves vulnerable as in these situations we were able to fully appreciate the concept and what benefits it would bring if they were adopted. Needless to say my current thinking was challenged in all fields.
The course gave me a number of take away action points to implement in everyday situations to maximise the take away value. I continued to apply and evolve the learnings to my interactions with staff to better understand their motivation, to customers and supplier interactions to strengthen the partnership relation we pride ourselves on at HMPS. Stop, think and proceed with care and be flexible in your approach is a key take away. Whilst this sounds simple, it is not always easy to implement in the forever changing global business environment.
To me the X factor that the GMP course offered was opportunity to connect with 35 other likeminded business leaders from around Asia Pacific with whom I still keep in contact.
The Future
Equipped with the learnings from GMP I will become a more impactful leader for HMPS and the state of South Australia thanks to the Industry Leaders Fund.
