Stanislav Shekshnia*

*Partner at Zest Leadership Consulting, Adjunct Professor at INSEAD, author of the books New Russian Business Leaders, Kak Eto Skazat Po-Russki?: Contemporary personnel management methods in contemporary Russia, and Personnel Management at Contemporary Organizations.

INSEAD, the first European business school, was founded in 1957 and was always trying to catch up to its more experienced overseas competitors. When Philip Anderson became head of the school in 2001, he decided to make INSEAD into the global leader in entrepreneurial instruction.
A former army officer, Anderson worked as a freelance programmer and founded several businesses of his own. He taught entrepreneurship at the business schools at Cornell and Dartmouth in the US. He has conducted research on technological innovation, growth management at entrepreneurial companies, and direct investment strategies. He has worked as a consultant for companies such as American Express Financial Advisors, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Commerce One, Dow, Glaxo SmithKline, Hewlett-Packard, J.M. Huber, Intel Capital, John Deere, Merrill, The New York Times, Roche, Sonera, and Telenor.
- Professor Anderson, a company and entrepreneurship begins with a single individual, with this person’s ambitions, dreams, and visions, to use the language of business. What is your vision of INSEAD and the Entrepreneurship Department?
- I have a very clear vision. By the end of this decade, INSEAD will be the number one international school in the field of entrepreneurship and the division I head, which I prefer to call the Department of Entrepreneurship and Family Business, will be the best in the world in its field.
Today INSEAD is one of the world’s leading business schools. According to various reports we are firmly in the top ten, generally near the top of the list. INSEAD is basically Europe’s leading business school. Perhaps we would also be justified in calling ourselves the most international business school, though we still can’t say this about entrepreneurship.
- Why does INSEAD want to do this? Wouldn’t it be better to develop what is already strong, the school’s internationalization? Entrepreneurship is a completely different matter. Many people laugh when they hear about courses in entrepreneurship. None of Russia’s successful businessmen studied entrepreneurship, yet they still managed to build huge empires in a very short span of time…
- First of all, I believe in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship moves humanity forward. And not just in the realms of economics or total output per capita. When a person becomes an entrepreneur, this person has the unique opportunity to shake up the existing social structure. If you make something that has use value, people will buy your product regardless of your background, social status, religion, or skin color. Entrepreneurship unites people.
Secondly, society needs entrepreneurs to avoid going into hibernation, as catalysts for change. Big corporations rarely like entrepreneurs, and this is unfortunate. By attacking the giants or working with them, the “little guys” force them to change and therefore to survive. For this very reason we teach entrepreneurship as a way of thinking and acting. We prepare our students for a variety of entrepreneurial careers, such as founding their own operational business, buying partial or entire existing companies, managing direct investments, consulting, and other forms of individual professional activity.
- You have gained a reputation in the academic world by dividing innovations into “destructive capacities” and “constructive capacities.” What is INSEAD’s “destructive” power in terms of other business schools that also teach entrepreneurship?
- It’s in what we do and the way we do it. You mentioned that many people laugh at entrepreneurship courses. They laugh because entrepreneurship is taught as a set of ready-made recipes. Students are given a recipe for writing a business plan, seeking investors, and hiring employees. The main problem with the recipe method is that many think that there is one, single recipe. You just need to figure it out. The rest is seen as diverging from the recipe due to cultural or geographical differences.
We reject this approach at INSEAD. The main question we ask when teaching or researching entrepreneurship is “why?” and not “what’s correct?” Why do so many entrepreneurs with technically excellent ideas fail to make them a reality? Why do such a high percentage of businesses fail? Why do the majority of entrepreneurial companies fail to grow beyond a certain point? We teach entrepreneurs from various cultures and industries to see general trends that will allow them to answer these basic “whys.”
What is the department of entrepreneurship at most business schools? It’s a couple of teachers that have retired from the business world who lack any academic background or research interests. I put particular emphasis on world-class academics who will define the development of entrepreneurship as a discipline for the next decade. These people make up the intellectual foundation of the department. Secondly, there are affiliated professors who combine academic and entrepreneurial activities. They are literally teaching what they live. Finally, the entrepreneur in residence is a very important figure, whose main function is to answer questions. If students or graduates want to know anything from where to look for investors to what paper to print their business plan on, they have someone to talk to who has been through all the trials and tribulations of entrepreneurship.
With this combination of experience and knowledge, we offer students at INSEAD a level of instruction and advising unavailable at any other school
- Russia today is one of the few countries where graduates from leading business schools have a broad range of opportunities to either work for someone else or found their own business. However, few of them prove successful.
- There is a huge blank spot at INSEAD regarding what’s happening in Russia and in a few other regions of the world. Fortunately, we have found a way to fight this, it seems. How did we conduct research on Russia at INSEAD until recently? If some professor got excited about Russia, he went there on his own, conducted research, made his conclusions, and moved on to something new. Sometimes this research led to very interesting conclusions, and sometimes not, but it was always at the periphery and was not integrated into curriculum. We understood that we needed a special center dedicated to research on Russia. INSEAD had already founded a similar center to study business in Asia. Today it has already turned into a second campus in Singapore.
There is much to study in Russia. In the last decade, the Russian economy has changed beyond all recognition, and the main force behind these changes was entrepreneurs. Their experience is extremely interesting from the point of view of initial business financing in a country without a capital market and the creation of entire new industries such as investment banking or systemic integration with the state sector and the state itself. It will be interesting to observe how successful Russian businessmen will solve the problem of preparing and handing over their companies to the next generation, one of the most complex problems for any company.
- A Russian center at INSEAD is practically already in operation. Case studies have been prepared, research conducted on Russia’s business leaders, and a conference will be held on world-class companies in Russia. What do active Russian entrepreneurs stand to gain from this?
- First of all, INSEAD is not just an MBA program. It is also a major center for continuing education for working managers and entrepreneurs. We have special programs such as “Managing Family Businesses” or “The Business Owners and Directors’ Program.” I also wouldn’t rule out creating special programs reflecting the specific nature of business in Russia. INSEAD creates individualized programs for many international companies and we will do the same for Russia.
Secondly, INSEAD is the center of a huge network of knowledge and connections, which involves, in addition to our professors, graduates, and students, hundreds of companies, banks, venture capitalists, individual entrepreneurs, and politicians. This is a very productive business environment, and Russian entrepreneurs have a lot to gain by becoming part of it. We need working Russian entrepreneurs. We need them as both the heroes of our research projects and as entrepreneurs in residence, as conference and round table participants, as guest lecturers, and as sponsors. INSEAD does not receive a penny from any government and survives on tuition and donations.
- Could you see INSEAD opening a campus in Moscow in 2010?
- For now, I only see the number one department of entrepreneurship in 2010. And it has INSEAD’s name written on it.

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