The event encouraged students to apply their theoretical knowledge towards a real-life problem.
Last month, LSE’s Department of Management launched a new event for talented second and third year BSc Management students with a specific interest in people strategy. Exchange and General Course students within the Department also attended, bringing with them insights and perspectives from other prestigious institutions.
The Management Consulting Competition set 17 students (divided into five teams) a real-life strategic issue faced by the London School of Economics Human Resources Division in devising their LSE 2030 strategy. Chris Watt, Head of Organisational Learning at LSE (the ‘client’ at the event), posed the problem to students and gave them detail around the larger context of the organisation. The students then had two hours to generate, collaborate and create a ‘solution’ or ideas to inform the development of the strategy.
Students were asked “How can you best lead an agile working team?” They linked their strategies to HR theories, such as Vroom’s expectancy theory and theories of motivation, and showed synthesis across their degrees by including topics such as risk management and referencing disciplines outside the Management curriculum, including psychology, technology and well-being.
The event encouraged students to engage in enquiry and apply their theoretical knowledge to provide a solution of a real life ‘problem’, and to connect their academic learning with skills for the workplace.
The Management Consulting Competition was devised to give students an opportunity to network across different years of study and with different groups of people and think about contemporary business trends (in this case, agile working). The event also brought together LSE professional services staff with students to think around solutions as a unified group.
Students presented their ideas directly to the ‘client’ and a panel of judges. They were urged to be creative and flexible in their presentations and bring their own views of the world to the table. Rosie Cook (Senior HR Business Partner and UK Lead for Inclusion & Diversity at Mars), Chris Watt (Head of Organisational Learning, LSE) and Kieran Darling (HR Policy Adviser, LSE) were guest judges for the day, with Dr Stephanie Lambert (Academic Mentor at LSE's Department of Management) being the final member of the panel.
Kathryn Saunders (Careers Consultant at LSE's Department of Management) facilitated the event and gave valuable advice on working as a team and providing direct feedback on performances during the day. The event replicated strategy away-days often seen in many large organisations by using ‘blue-sky’ thinking methods to reflect and plan the future.
All participants received a Certificate of Attendance and team feedback on their performance and LSE’s HR division benefitted from the many of the outputs of the day. Competitors will be kept abreast of all developments that may arise from the day in practice.
Thursday 5 March 2020