By George ILIEV
Snow and camels don't usually go together in our mind. Yet they do in the real world. The two-humped Bactrian camels in western China and Central Asia regularly eat snow in the winter or at high altitudes to satisfy their water needs. This is largely true of all animals living above the snowline, as the only water that exists there is in the form of snow and ice. However, the problem of eating snow is that, once ingested, it takes a lot of food calories to melt and heat up the water to body temperature, as the latent heat of snow and ice is very high. This energy sacrifice requires that camels pace themselves and eat only small amounts of snow at a time.
Education and training have a role in the corporate world analogous to the physiological role of water in an animal's body. Without knowledge and skills, it would be impossible for organisations to function. And while mainstream universities provide "liquid education" below the snowline (i.e. for young employees), after a certain age Executive Education remains the primary source of new knowledge and skills that is available and suited to the needs of a busy professional.
Executive Education courses are delivered by both the leading business schools and the in-house corporate universities of large multinationals (where they exist). Yet, these courses are a very expensive resource irrespective of the channel in which they are delivered. This is why business units pace themselves and use them sparingly, within the limits of their employee development budgets. Getting your company to sponsor you for an Advanced Management Programme is invariably a very competitive process, as the programme fee can be up to $80,000 for this 50-day course at Harvard.
Whether you are a Bactrian camel or a corporate workhorse, you would probably enjoy equally eating snow and taking courses at Harvard. But that's life above the snowline.
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