Making it sticky : How to facilitate the transfer of executive education experiences back to the workplace

Purpose – To provide and describe an inventory or practices executive education (EE) instructors can use to facilitate the transfer of program participants' learning back to their workplace. Design/methodology/approach – A number of experienced EE instructor team leaders, from one highly‐ranked business school EE provider, met to share and discuss the mechanisms they use in their EE programs to facilitate the transfer of program participants' learning back to their workplace. This paper presents an overview of each of those mechanisms. Findings – About 30 mechanisms for facilitating the transfer of EE program participants' learning back to their workplace are discussed along with an organizing framework intended to focus EE program instructors' attention on the key protagonists and the timing of the facilitating mechanisms. Practical implications – This paper provides a number of very specific, readily implementable things EE program instructors can do to facilitate the transfer of program participants' learning back to their workplace. Originality/value – Prior literature has documented: the challenge of EE program participants transferring their program learning back to the workplace, identified barriers to the transfer, and even reported on executives' views regarding generalized ways that might be helpful for this transfer to occur. This paper complements this literature by exploring what one top‐ranked EE institution's program instructors actually do in this regard, all in the context of pertinent adult‐learning concepts.