Mind Over Business Matters

Lisa Porche-Burke is explaining that when she arrived at Phillips Graduate Institute in 1999, the school’s primary offering was a master’s program in marriage and family therapy. The two-year program, she says, meant that each year, the school had to replenish half of its student body. Then, with a sense of humor one comes to see as characteristic of Phillip’s president and CEO, she tells her visitor, “What we really needed to do in order to be viable was to have longer term programs. Any business that loses 50 percent of its revenue base every year is not necessarily going to be around for the long haul.” Porche-Burke’s search for a better business model has thus far led to a doctorate level program in psychology and the school’s latest move into fields that combine business management and the behavioral sciences on which Phillips was founded, including a doctoral program in organizational consulting and its newest addition set to start this September, a master’s degree program in leadership and human resources management. And Porche-Burke, who joined the school in 1999, is now eyeing other business-oriented programs such as executive coaching. Founded as the California Family Study Center to provide training in psychology, Phillips Graduate Institute, with campuses in Encino and Tarzana, now offers eight degree programs. The institute also runs California Family Counseling Center, providing a range of community services from parenting groups to psychological testing programs. The center also provides “real life” training opportunities for the school’s students. Porche-Burke, who last week was honored by the American Psychological Association’s society for the psychological study of ethnic minority issues for distinguished contributions, talked to the Business Journal about the increasing role behavioral science plays in the business arena. Question: How did the leadership and human resources management program come to be? Answer: I had been looking for a human resources professional for the institute. What I encountered in that process, which led us to the new master’s in leadership and human resources management, is I was having a very challenging time finding the type of person that I thought could be effective within our organization. There were people out there that understood all the technical aspects but didn’t understand the human aspects of human resource management, or I found people that understood the human aspect but didn’t have the technical expertise. And I thought we should be producing these professionals. If I was having this problem other CEOs were having the same type of challenge. So I began to do some research and talk with a number of CEOs in a number of different kinds of companies, and I found that was exactly the case. I found that most CEOs ended up hiring two people, one to do the technical aspect and one to do the human aspect. Q: How does the leadership and human resources management program solve that problem? A: This program exposes students to not only the technical aspect of human resource management, but also how to be effective change agents within the organization: How to work effectively with a broad group of people; how to address interpersonal issues; how to help people with negotiation and conflict resolution, all of those human pieces that don’t often get addressed in a traditional program. Q: You worked a lot with Boeing to develop this program. Has Boeing made a commitment to send some of its employees to the program and do you expect other corporations will do the same? A: Boeing had made that commitment and my hope is to begin to dialogue with other corporations and to begin to solicit their support as well. Q: How does a school like yours, which has its roots in touchy-feely kinds of disciplines, incorporate business’s bottom line orientation into the training? A: The program is designed to expose them to the business side as well as the human side. For example they’ll be exposed to how to deal with high absenteeism, turnover, what the rules are in terms of policies and adherence to policies. But on the other hand they’ll be taught, how do you help people be effective negotiators or work to their peak. All the issues businesses confront have an underlying psychological component. The more you can get people to come to work the more you understand how they work and how they can be effective then that’s going to help your bottom line. Theories of motivation came out of the field of psychology for example. Q: Where, in your opinion, is the educational system generally falling short in preparing students? A: That’s a very lengthy question. I’ll tell you one of the things I notice. I notice students applying to a graduate school today are not as well prepared for writing. It’s not just can they write a sentence. But putting a set of ideas together in a coherent, logical fashion to illustrate a particular point or tell a particular story and that’s because I’ve decided the classes at the undergraduate level are so massive that the kind of attention you and I profited from is not as prevalent today. In addition I think with the introduction of technology, everything is online. No one goes to the library and looks through the stacks. They punch a button and have access to information almost immediately so the ability to identify a project and take it through all the steps is more challenging. Q: Do you think there will come a time when even a school like this will offer remedial programs? A: Oh yes. We offer support programs. We have a writing lab that we provide for two reasons. One, to help them improve their writing skills, but the second part is there are technical aspects to writing papers in the field of psychology. And as various and sundry needs arise, we pay attention to them and should we need, we’ll put together a support program. Q: Your educational background is in psychology from the undergraduate through the doctorate level, yet your career has mostly been in education. Did you want to do therapy at any point? A: I did an internship at Boston University School of Medicine in the department of psychology and psychiatry. It was designed to teach skills working with the underserved population. It was housed in a hospital setting, but we also worked out in the community. Subsequent to my internship, I was a part-time school psychologist. I thought about it, but life just took a different course, and I still felt like I was involved in training people to be effective practitioners and I found I had a skill for the administrative side of things and it just evolved that way. Q: Do you think the business community has become more responsive to personal and psychological issues related to the workplace or less responsive? A: I think they’re becoming more responsive because I think that many of the businesses are beginning to realize that if you’ve got people that are happy and functioning effectively it’s going to improve their bottom line. I also think the workforce has changed dramatically, and you’re having more and more women in the workplace, many of whom have families and children they’re responsive to, and if you want to get the most out of your employees you have to come up with out-of-the box thinking in terms of work schedules and when you have meetings and what kinds of demands you place in terms of travel. So as the workforce changes, so must the way you deal with your employees. Lisa Porche-Burke Title: President, Phillips Graduate Institute Born: Nov. 9, 1954, Los Angeles Education: Bachelors’ degree, Psychology, University of Southern California, 1976; Master’s degree, Ph.D, counseling psychology, University of Notre Dame, 1981, 1983. Most Admired Person: Nelson Mandela Personal: Married, three daughters, ages 20, 17, 13