BB&T's Best Practices in University Partnership

By Margery Weinstein When BB&T (along with Bank of America, First Union, and Wachovia) departed from the North Carolina Bankers Association in 1997—an act that made employees of those banks ineligible to attend the North Carolina School of Banking (at UNC-Chapel Hill)—the company responded by creating the BB&T Banking School at Wake Forest University. BB&T has since rejoined the North Carolina Bankers Association, but has continued to operate its own internal school—the only one of its kind in the United States. The BB&T Banking School is a rigorous, 17-month program, the purpose of which is to move selected bank officers from a tactical understanding of their current jobs to a broader understanding of the bank, the financial services industry, and the world of business as a whole. Its curriculum, targeted at mid-level managers, is designed to prepare employees to make better decisions in their current jobs and to provide and enhance career development opportunities. Coursework taken during The Banking School includes the BB&T culture, mergers and acquisitions, accounting, economics, finance, essentials of lending, corporate governance, business ethics, risk management, leadership and personality, stress management, analyzing bank financial statements, asset/liability management, the BB&T sales culture, process management, human systems policy, money and financial markets, leadership fundamentals and processes, financial instruments, and marketing. Each student is required to produce a comprehensive research paper on identifying and implementing process improvements in his or her respective work unit. In addition, Year Two participants are placed on three- and four-person teams to conduct a bank management simulation, giving each student the opportunity to apply concepts learned during The Banking School to running a bank in a simulated economic environment. While some of the course work is a part of regular offerings of the BB&T University, many of the activities of The Banking School are delivered during two seven-day, in-residence sessions held on the campus of Wake Forest University. BB&T employees who are participating in The Banking School live, dine, and go to classes on this campus, located in Winston-Salem, NC. The on-campus class days often run from about 7:30 a.m. until as late as 9 p.m., creating an environment that, while “fun,” is both rigorous and challenging. Year One students end their in-residence session with a comprehensive final examination, testing their retention of the concepts presented in home study and classroom sessions. For the Year Two students, all of their work culminates with formal presentations on their simulated banks' performance before a "board of directors," made up of selected senior BB&T officers. Later on that same day, a graduation ceremony featuring BB&T's Chief Operating Officer Chris Henson is held on campus; at that time, each student is presented with a framed diploma and a Banking School lapel pin. Special recognitions bestowed during graduation include Best Simulation Team, Best Paper Award, and Most Outstanding Student Award. The winner of this latter award becomes a member, for one full year, of The BB&T Banking School Advisory Board. Since its establishment in 1997, more than 500 BB&T employees have graduated from The BB&T Banking School. The current class of 2010, which started in March 2009, is made up of 65 students.   Interested in doing something similar for your company? John R. Lough, manager, Professional Development Programs, offers the following key questions to ask of your organization:

1. Are you ready? Do you have the unequivocal support of the top leaders of the organization? Is your initiative clearly linked to the achievement of your organization’s corporate strategy.
2. How inclusive/comprehensive do you want to be? Do you want to focus on a specialty body of knowledge (e.g., sales skills) or do you want the range of what you cover to be more broad (leadership, operations, interpersonal skills, etc.)?
3. Who are your stakeholders? On whom will the success of your initiative depend? Who will benefit if you are successful? Who will suffer if you don’t succeed?
4. What will be your operating principles? Who will be eligible to attend or participate? How will you handle admissions? Will there be testing? Will your offerings be open to those outside your organization?
5. What will your governance look like? Who will manage your school? To whom will he or she report? Will you make use of an advisory board or some similar oversight body?
6. How will you staff your university or school? Will you make use of permanent staff or will you contract out with others? What use will you make of internal experts? Can you make effective use of your organization’s senior management?
7. What will be your funding source? Will you have your own budget? Where is the money going to come from? Will you charge for your services internally? Will you be a revenue center?
8. What are your plans to build brand identity and relationships? What image do you want to project within the organization? Does your substance match that image? Who do you need to make sure knows you exist?
9. How will you measure your performance? Is the organization’s ROI (or other financial performance measure) all that matters? Will you look to the Kirkpatrick Four-Level Evaluation model for guidance in this regard? How will you justify your value to the organization?
10. What role will technology play? How sophisticated, from a technological perspective, do you want to be? How can your IT staff be co-opted into and provide support for your vision?
11. Will you make use of a learning management system (LMS)? How will you coordinate registrations, course credits, student records, learning plans, and the like? Can your current system handle this new initiative?
12. What are your preferred delivery options? Will you rely on more traditional instructional methodologies? Or do you expect to employ a more blended learning approach?  
13. How will you be structured? Will you be departmentalized by subject area? Will you operate on any kind of calendar? What will be your reporting relationships within the school or university?

Don’t overlook the ultimate goal, Lough emphasizes. "Your focus has to be on performance improvement across the organization, not on the mere delivery of curriculum."   HAVE INPUT OR TIPS on this topic? If so, send them our way in an e-mail to lorri@trainingmag.com with the subject line "University Partnership," and we'll try to include your advice in an upcoming issue of our Training Top 125 Best Practices/Executive Exchange e-newsletter.