Berlitz for the Boss: Where to go to pick up the tools for coping with the increasing pressures of being at the pinnacle - Training

Chief Executive, The,  Dec, 2001  by Dale Buss

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Biggest takeaways: "It helped me understand and appreciate the difficulty of what we face as well as the need for celebration as we go forward," she says. Walker also discovered she needed more exercise and bought another piece of workout equipment.

Effective Leadership

Jeff Taylor, 41

Founder and CEO, Monster.com (an online career Web site and unit of TMP Worldwide), Maynard, MA

Training path: Owner-President Management Program

Provider: Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

Cost: $16,750

Format: Three three-week annual sessions on the Harvard campus in Cambridge, MA. The goal is to teach CEOs to be-more effective leaders. Year one lays a foundation, exploring tools for leading an enterprise as well as developing a better understanding of CEO functions including managing people, money, operations, and control. Year two applies these tools and helps attendees focus on taking their companies to the next level. In year three, the focus is on developing management and achieving long-term company and personal goals. Taylor graduated in 1999 from OPM and was the commencement speaker.

Reason for attending: Taylor was an entrepreneurial wunderkind but a college dropout. Yet a Harvard professor told him he might be eligible for OPM. After he sold Monster.com to TMP in 1995, he got the OK to attend. "I would get to go to school full time for three weeks and then go back to work for a year," he says. "That's amazing, because in the traditional college experience, you learn stuff but you can't apply it right away."

Major revelation: "In the second year, I realized how much I do know," he says. "We had a lot of casework, and there was no right answer. We could explore our own issues through every case."

Biggest takeaways: "After the program, I completely changed the direction of my business--the name of the company, the marketing strategy, and the management team," he says. When Taylor was opening European offices, he wound up in a class with executives from more than a dozen countries. "I not only got experience doing casework on the difficulties of managing a company with international locations but also gained the perspectives of people who live in those countries," he says.

Finding a Focus Frank Martin, 54

Founder, president and CEO, Martin-Harris Construction (a $200 million general contracting company), Las Vegas

Training path: The Management Course for Presidents, Captiva Island, FL

Provider: American Management Association, New York City

Cost: $4,195 to $4,595

Format: Five-day, classroom-based workshop that teaches "a proven, practical approach to ensuring that your leadership is on target for success." Sessions include: creating the future, leading the enterprise, formulating strategy, developing people, and driving corporate performance.

Reason for attending: After starting as a carpenter, Martin founded his own company. By 1999 he had a $60 million to $70 million organization and "was making more money than I had thought was possible. But I had lost focus," he recalls. At the same time, a number of veterans among his more than 500 employees were asking whether Martin-Harris Construction would remain in business. "They were putting pressure on me to figure out what I was going to do, and I didn't know what my goals were. It became apparent that I was going to start to lose people if I didn't figure this out," Martin says.