December 17, 2008

"Telling is not teaching and listening is not learning."

These words exemplify the teaching approach of Professor Xavier Gilbert who has officially retired from IMD after 37 years of service.

Professor Gilbert joined IMEDE (one of IMD’s two founding institutions) in 1971 and is the school’s longest serving full-time member of Faculty.

On December 16, Faculty colleagues and many staff members paid tribute to his exceptional contribution to the business school at a special ceremony on the IMD campus

Professor Bob Collins, one of Xavier Gilbert’s colleagues from the early years, reminded everyone present of the latter’s “bon mots” (good words) that have become legendary at the school. In addition to the quote above, another one is particularly appropriate in these difficult times: “It is precisely during times of adversity that companies cannot afford to neglect their people. Look at it this way: Why is a company in trouble in the first place? Is it really only the fault of the economic environment? Were the employees perfectly competent? In reality, being in trouble points to an urgent need to learn. Saying that learning is a luxury is about the same as saying that breathing is a luxury."

Professor Gilbert says this about his time at IMD: “I have tried to think about what has made IMD successful. It is always difficult to debrief success and one can easily fantasize about its root causes and not learn much from it. But looking at our history, two key points were really unique.

“In the 80s, when Harry Hansen and then Derek Abel were Deans (as they were called then), we had a dream of a very special kind of business school, much more relevant than the existing models. This is when we decided that we wanted to be above all practical and relevant to managers in a dynamic world. So, for example, we chose to have no departments – only program teams looking at managerial issues rather than disciplines. And we chose not to have a tenure system because you are never done with creating the future. And we chose colleagueship and institutional commitment as our key values. All together, we built the business school of our dreams and this dream was kept alive through tough and better times.

 “And then, we were always working in teams, program teams: customer focused teams. IMD is not a place for soloists. We are not hunters, we are farmers. And it is not just Faculty teams. It is teams of program coordinators, program managers, blackboard cleaners, cooks and waiters, client-relations people, client-services people, and the whole hidden support, and Faculty. We can have big arguments with each other; but when a customer is in sight, only one obsession matters: to make the learning effective.

“This is IMD’s secret formula: we have a dream and we work as a team to make it come true. Not easy to copy!”

IMD sincerely thanks Professor Gilbert for his outstanding service to the development of our school. As Professor Stewart Hamilton noted: “Without Xavier’s contributions, IMD would not be where it is today- one of the world’s leading business schools.”