Programme for Supervisory Board members improved after Risbo research

"Of course we use evaluation forms; We actually alway score well. But those are still rather flat, short evaluations, which are likely to be filled out in politically correct way. So what can we learn from them? I wanted to dive deeper into the alumni experiences," reflects Liesbeth van Laak, managing director of EGI.

Erasmus Governance Institute (EGI)

EGI is a professional expertise center for executive education in (corporate) governance, which, among other things, organises a training programme for future and experienced Supervisory Board members. This training programme has three learning lines: A substantive line in which knowledge transfer is central, a practical line in which participants work on a case in groups, and a personal line in which each participant is engaged with personal development and personal leadership. The program is built around subject matters experts and speakers from the field, and has personal attention at its core.

Van Laak and her team also had a number of assumptions they wanted to test among alumni. "Of course we have updated the curriculum over the years, to keep up with developments in society. But I wanted to test whether we should do more in the areas of diversity and interactive education, for example."

Theory of Change

Van Laak, who already knew Risbo's consultant Joost Maarschalkerweerd, who coaches EGI lecturers and hosts. Following Joost's suggestion, she sat down with Risbo researcher Rick Wolff to discuss the design of the study. Wolff: "It is still quite unknown yet that Risbo combines its research and educational expertise in the proposition 'impact research.' At EGI we didn't do a full impact research, because then we would have had to hold a so-called theory of change session with them beforehand, for example, to analyze step by step why they think their learning programme has impact. But the way we set up and conducted a harvesting session with all stakeholders is a core element of our impact research."

Impact research in the context of education means conducting research to understand how to increase the quality of an intervention - for example, a course or programme - and thus its impact. This involves - according to the theory of change - explicitly looking at whether the intervention does lead to the desired results and whether it contributes to a sustainable change in behaviour. Van Laak: "The research showed, among other things, that our alumni indeed very much like the course, which is very nice to hear, of course. I also found it very valuable to learn that alumni felt that the course brought them more insight and understanding of how directors on the one hand and supervisory board members on the other relate to each other."

To do list for improvement

Wolff emphasises the difference between classical, often linear research and impact research: "What's important is that in impact research we work very closely together with educational consultants, the client and relevant experts. Together we translate the research results into a practical to do list." Van Laak: "Ultimately, you always want to develop and keep improving your proposition. Besides the pleasant and smooth cooperation with Risbo, that concrete translation of the research results was really of added value."

Following Risbo's advice, the EGI programme team engaged with the hosts and speakers about more interaction in their presentations. Content-wise, they worked on adding more practical and personal dilemmas, to strengthen the line to the practice of supervision. And because it turned out that participants did not sufficiently understand the connection between the learning lines, a "learning journey" was made. This visualisation of the structure of the programme makes it clearer for the participants.

The survey also showed that participants would appreciate a more diverse speaker panel. Van Laak: "Rightful feedback and certainly something we are going to work on. But that's a change that will take more time. I am particularly pleased that we have a better picture of the needs of participants and that these have been recorded. That gives direction and underpins improvements in the future."