The Times: 'Policeman boosts his academic armoury'
Published 16 November 2011
This article, featuring Lancaster Executive MBA graduate Ian Hesketh, was orginally published
in The Times on 5 October 2011. It is reprinted
here under license and with the permission of
The Times.
Simon Midgley reports on one officer's
progress from Kosovo to the lecture room
A police sergeant who served with the UN in Bosnia and Kosovo has just completed a part-time MBA at Lancaster University Management School.
Ian Hesketh, 43, spent the past two years studying for the qualification while continuing to work at Lancashire Constabulary's headquarters in Preston.
Hesketh, from Poulton-le-Fylde, near Blackpool and married with two young children, left school after taking nine O levels to work for British Aerospace as an apprentice electrician.
Ian Hesketh
At the age of 20 he joined the police force, in which he has served for 22 years. At present he is part of a team focusing on reducing bureaucracy within his force.
Over the years he has worked in community policing, the road traffic division and been part of Lancashire police's armed response team. His secondment to Bosnia in 1998 involved monitoring the way the Bosnian police followed postwar UN guidelines, He helped to set up the infrastructure for a new police force in Kosovo in 2000, after the ceasefire.
"They were very good experiences,'' he says. "They opened my eyes to completely different cultures. You benefit from working with other police forces and the armies of different countries.'' For many years now Hesketh has had a thirst for acquiring knowledge and learning. Over the years in his spare time he has gained teaching qualifications and a management and leadership diploma.
Hesketh chose to take an MBA to learn to advance his career. He studied before he started his shifts and in the evenings and at weekends. He also paid the course fees of £17,500 himself.
"I wanted to complement my operational ability with some academic ability. I loved it. The people, the learning environment; it opens your eyes. It's completely refreshing. I really benefited from it personally and hopefully it will benefit my career as well.
"I think it will help me to do my job better. In the police there is an operational capability but there is so much more going on in the modern police force.
"You need a bit more in your own armoury than operational skills and experience. You need a broader outlook on the world and I think the MBA gives you that. Certainly for promotion you could be found lacking in skills in certain areas and I think the MBA fills in that area.
"When you are working in the public service, you are always intrigued by what is beyond it in the private sector. On the MBA course you realise that this is not always as rosy as you perhaps imagine. I think life is quite hard in the private sector — probably a bit more cut-throat.''
He adds: "The lecturers really go overboard to make sure that concepts are understood and. if they are not, they are very open to explaining further. I thought the teachers were excellent.''
Hesketh enjoyed the course so much that he has now embarked on a PhD in management, also at Lancaster University Management School.
“Public service staff gain a broader strategic perspective”
Dr Andy Bailey, director of Lancaster University's Executive MBA programme, says doing the MBA gives public service employees, such as those from the police, fire service, NHS and local government, a broader strategic perspective on management and leadership. "It gives them a greater choice of available strategies and actions to deal with pressures coming from reductions in public funding and the increasing need to deliver against targets."
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Times article: 'Policeman boosts his academic armoury'
