Barnstone Academy fine tunes its business readiness training

The Barnstone Academy, Barnstone Corporate Services innovative and practical solution to graduate unemployment, has celebrated the successful completion of its second graduate class. The two-month course is designed to equip participants for a future career in consulting.

According to Mike Shorten, principal consultant at Barnstone and dean of the Academy, the combination of classroom teaching, mentoring and extensive on-the-job experience is what makes the course so successful. It is designed, he says, as a business readiness course, which will assist these graduates to get workplace training and help launch their careers with valuable work experience.

"The course includes a monthly stipend, paid to each of the graduates, and has a curriculum that encompasses Barnstone's focus technology areas in the mining, energy and financial services sectors, as well as basic business methodologies. This includes business ethics, the basics of financial management, team dynamics, project management and marketing and sales," says Shorten.

Intensive training

"This second course was much more structured than our first attempt, as we were able to put into practice a number of lessons learned from our earlier experience. During the first course, which ran for six months, we found that there were too many instances where the graduates had little to do. So this time, every single hour was structured, and since the course was only two months long, it was extremely intense for the graduates."

In fact, he adds, feedback received from the graduates indicated that they felt that perhaps the Academy was trying to cover too much in too little time. However, explains Shorten, this was exactly what he was trying to achieve, since the world of consulting is a high pressure one and it was thus very important to push them beyond what they thought they could cope with.

"As graduates reasonably fresh out of university, many still adopt the approach that they are still in a learning environment. The idea with this high pressure course was to rattle their cages and make them aware that they are now working in the real world. It is my opinion that the additional pressure placed them in a position where they were given no choice but to swim, rather than sink."

Focused on team dynamics

Deon Crafford, director of Barnstone Corporate Services and sponsor of the Academy says that a key aspect of the second course was the focus on team dynamics and conflict resolution. This, he says, is a skill that is vital for consultants to have. In addition, an entire week of the course was dedicated to teaching the graduates how to train. This is because being able to act as a trainer is a wonderful entry point for a consultant into a new organisation.

"The course comprised seven weeks of training and two weeks of practical exposure in a client's company. This practical aspect enabled us to give them a genuine feel for how consulting works in real life," says Crafford.

He points out that the original course, which spun out of a project Barnstone was involved in that required it to work with men only, meant that the first course was obviously heavily tilted in favour of men. The second course therefore has redressed this gender imbalance with seven women and just one man graduating from it.

Asked about what the future may hold for these graduates, Crafford says that he believes there are sufficiently strong candidates coming out of the course that Barnstone would be foolish not to consider employing some of them.

"Furthermore, at least two of our clients - to whom these graduates were exposed during their practicals - have suggested that they are considering bringing some of them on board following their graduation."

"Ultimately, the Academy is our way of doing our bit to reduce unemployment and increase the skills capability in our industry. In fact, our aim is to develop it further as we move forward, with the aim of expanding it to our clients, thereby enabling it to become a training academy for their junior employees," concludes Crafford.