CERN hosts training event on international management

CERN held its first training event on international management at the Globe on 2 October, sharing its expertise with high-level Swiss managers as part of their year-long part-time executive training programme on advanced management.

CERN is often talked about in terms of impressive statistics: the coldest place in the universe, the largest accelerator, the greatest volume of data. Whilst the science is undeniably remarkable, it is backed by a management infrastructure that has to be as cutting-edge as the research it supports. On 2 October, the Learning and Development section of HR organised an event for 60 delegates to come to CERN to learn about international management from those who have taken on the management challenges at the heart of this unique institution.

It was the first time that CERN had prepared such an event. SKU, a non-profit organisation, approached our management training team to arrange the event as part of a week in Geneva focussing on international management that also included visits to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Federation and UN agencies. The Swiss-German delegates were experienced middle to senior managers including CFOs and CEOs from a variety of private and public sector companies, who were keen to learn about how CERN deals with some of the management challenges it faces.

The main theme was how CERN manages the international collaboration of staff from 20 member states and around 8000 visiting scientists from 111 different countries. But other issues arose such as managing the intercultural differences not only between nations but also between professions, and the challenge of information and knowledge transfer in projects that span years rather than months.

The day also covered the HR challenges faced by the Organization; the management of global inter-institutional projects covering extended time scales, information technology and a purchasing practice to satisfy all the member states.

The event show-cased the practical and motivational solutions to managing this geographically and culturally diverse workforce. Training programmes as well as frequent collaboration meetings, for instance, bring people together to meet and network, and as Sudeshna Datta-Cockerill, Head of Learning and Development in HR, explained, "this puts names to faces and helps people to understand better how different parts of the Organization work by sharing experiences in the context of these courses and meetings." On global management, Lyn Evans, LHC Project Leader, talked about the EVM (Earned Value Monitoring) system, a project management tool that allows the user to track work and costing all over the world, and monitor progress very precisely.

Pure passion for science was also clearly identified as a major driving force for success. According to Enrico Chiaveri, Head of HR, in his presentation to the delegates, cultural barriers are often broken down through shared goals: "Everyone speaks the language of science; the passion and the excitement of working on the type of projects undertaken at CERN is shared and helps to iron out all the differences because, in the end, everybody is motivated by the same goal."

The attendees were also treated to visits of sites around CERN including the Computing Centre, the Antimatter Factory and ATLAS, organised by Silvia Schuh, HR’s Technical Training Programme Co-ordinator. This helped them appreciate the enormity of the management challenges presented during the morning’s programme.

SKU have indicated that they would like to return in the future and the team has since been approached by other institutions interested in similar programmes. Part of the draw seems to be that CERN deals with issues not faced by any other organisation. "CERN is definitely unique," commented one of the delegates. "Whereas the other international organisations are very much politically driven, at CERN you have the scientific community culture."

It’s the first time that CERN has been asked to arrange an event like this, on such a large scale and focussing on management aspects. But with such success, it is unlikely to be the last.