搬入位于曼哈顿下城区(Lower Manhattan)百老汇大街25号的WeWork共享办公空间的公司，租下的是创业国度的典型配置。

Rough wooden tables lend an industrial feel and tenants can break off to play shuffleboard, or refresh themselves with draft beer and “micro-roasted” coffee. In the bathroom, the slogan on the mouthwash dispenser nags you to “pitch a fresh idea”.

粗糙的木桌呈现出一种工业感，租客工作之余可以玩沙狐球，或是来一杯生啤和“微焙”咖啡给自己提提神。在卫生间，漱口水分液机上的标语提醒你“抛出一个新点子”。

It would be easy to dismiss the presence of McKinsey in such surroundings as just glib symbolism. However, the product that the buttoned-down strategy consultant has been working on here is part of a trend that has genuine potential to reshape the business education market.

在这样带有轻松元素的环境中，很容易忽视麦肯锡(McKinsey)的存在。然而，这家严肃的战略咨询机构在这里开发的产品，正是真正有可能重塑商业教育市场的趋势的一部分。

The WeWork space has helped to incubate McKinsey Academy, an online training service that brings the company into more direct competition with business schools, the traditional providers of executive education.

WeWork空间帮助孵化出了麦肯锡学院(McKinsey Academy)——这个在线培训服务让麦肯锡与作为高管教育传统提供者的商学院展开了更直接的竞争。

“We are a leadership factory ourselves,” declares Charlotte Relyea, a senior McKinsey consultant and Harvard MBA graduate involved in the project. About 400 former McKinseyites lead organisations with more than $1bn in revenues, she adds. They include Jim McNerney at Boeing, Tidjane Thiam of Credit Suisse, Oliver B?te at Allianz and Vittorio Colao at Vodafone. (The factory churns out faulty leaders too, of course, such as Enron’s Jeff Skilling and Rajat Gupta, the former McKinsey head jailed for insider trading.)

“我们本身是领导力工厂，”参与该项目的哈佛大学(Harvard) MBA毕业生、麦肯锡高级顾问夏洛特?雷利亚(Charlotte Relyea)称。她补充称，约有400位前麦肯锡人如今领导着年收入逾10亿美元的机构。他们包括波音(Boeing)的吉姆?迈克纳尼(Jim McNerney)、瑞士信贷(Credit Suisse)的迪德简?蒂亚姆(Tidjane Thiam)、安联保险集团(Allianz)的奥利弗?拜特(Oliver B?te)以及沃达丰(Vodafone)的维托里奥?科劳(Vittorio Colao)。（这家工厂当然也会生产出有缺陷的领导者，比如安然(Enron)的杰夫?斯基林(Jeff Skilling)和因内幕交易而锒铛入狱的麦肯锡前掌门人顾磊杰(Rajat Gupta)。）

The consultant had done leadership development work for a couple of decades but the current effort dates from 2013, with the creation of the McKinsey Academy online platform — a customised version of the edX software developed by MIT and Harvard.

麦肯锡在领导力培训方面已经付出了二十年的努力，但是当前这项工作始于2013年麦肯锡学院在线平台创建之时。该平台是麻省理工学院(MIT)和哈佛大学研发的edX软件的定制化版本。

The service is being offered both to existing clients and companies that have not used McKinsey before. For the former, it is touted as a way of making sure that strategy set at the top gets implemented further down the hierarchy. For the latter, it is something of a taster product.

该服务同时面向现有客户和之前从未使用过麦肯锡服务的企业。对于前者，麦肯锡称该服务可以确保高层制定的战略逐级向下贯彻。对于后者，该服务相当于一种体验产品。

A typical McKinsey Academy course might drill the user in the “10 timeless tests” that it applies when hatching corporate strategies (“Does your strategy rest on privileged insights?” asks test five, while number 10 inquires: “Have you translated your strategy into an action plan?”). Alternatively, the student might get sucked into a fictional case study involving a playground equipment manufacturer that has lost its way and needs to get sales growing again.

麦肯锡学院的经典课程或许会用“10条永恒测试”训练用户，麦肯锡在制定企业战略时就使用这些测试（其中第5条问道：“你的战略是基于特权化的观点吗？”，而第10条问道：“你把战略转为行动计划了吗？”）。或者，学生可能浸入一次虚构案例研究，研究对象是一个迷失了方向、亟需再次提升销量的游乐场设备制造商。

The content tends to be broken up into 3-5 minute snippets to reflect the fact that participants are unlikely to have much time to spare — there is even an option to watch videos at double speed. McKinsey consultants serve as “teaching assistants” and top students are rewarded with a place on a leaderboard. There is also a “group work” element where participants are broken up into small teams.

课程内容往往会分成3-5分钟的片段，以适应参与者不太可能有很多空闲时间的事实——参与者甚至可以选择以两倍速度观看视频。麦肯锡的顾问担任“助教”，最优秀的学生可以登上排行榜。课程中还有“小组作业”环节，参与者会被打乱分成小组。

Business schools are watching the rise of this new rival closely. “When people ask me where my competition is, McKinsey Academy is on the list,” says Glenn Hubbard, dean of Columbia Business School in New York.

商学院正密切关注着这个新竞争对手的崛起。“当人们问我的竞争对手是谁时，麦肯锡学院就榜上有名，”纽约哥伦比亚商学院(Columbia Business School)的院长格伦?哈伯德(Glenn Hubbard)称。

But McKinsey, which runs an annual business book award jointly with the Financial Times, is by no means alone in its push into education. Other consultancies making similar moves include Korn Ferry and PwC, says Dominique Turpin, president of IMD, the Swiss business school.

但是，与英国《金融时报》联合评选年度商业图书奖的麦肯锡，绝对不是唯一一个进军教育的咨询机构。瑞士洛桑国际管理发展学院(IMD)总裁多米尼克?图尔平(Dominique Turpin)称，其他采取类似行动的咨询机构包括光辉国际(Korn Ferry)和普华永道(PwC)。

Meanwhile, other newcomers providing corporate training courses include LinkedIn’s Lynda.com and an alliance between the FT and IE, the Spanish business school.

与此同时，其他推出企业培训课程的新来者包括领英(LinkedIn)的Lynda.com、以及英国《金融时报》与西班牙IE商学院(IE Business School)建立的联盟。

Prof Turpin’s IMD topped the open enrolment section of the FT 2016 rankings of executive education providers, announced today.

在近期公布的英国《金融时报》2016年高管教育课程排行榜中，图尔平教授领导的IMD在开放课程中位列第一。

The arrival of the consultancies means that there are now more rivals trying to knock the school off its perch but he says it also presents new opportunities for partnerships.

咨询公司纷纷加入高管教育，意味着如今更多竞争对手试图将IMD赶下榜首之位，但图尔平表示，这也为合作带来了新机遇。

IMD teamed up with management consultant BCG to deliver a customised executive education programme to Singapore’s Changi airport, for instance.

例如，IMD联手波士顿咨询集团(BCG)为新加坡樟宜机场推出了一项定制高管教育课程。

However, he suggests that consultancies and other new entrants will face a challenge making money in executive education, assuming they can source enough professorial talent.

但他表示，咨询公司及其他新进机构将在从高管教育获利方面面临挑战——即便他们能招徕足够的专业人才。

While accepting that the consultancies’ move into training reflects market demand, he argues that some clients might fear that signing up for such a course from a consultant would lead to a sales pitch for other products and services when the training is over: “The consultancies are not seen as being as neutral as business schools.”

虽然他承认咨询公司进入高管培训领域反映了市场的需求，但他提出，一些学员可能担心，如果报名咨询公司的此类课程，培训结束后，他们可能将被推销其他产品和服务：“咨询公司给人的感觉没有商学院中立。”

Josep Valor heads Spanish business school Iese’s customised executive education programmes, which top the FT rankings.

何塞普?巴洛尔(Josep Valor)领导的西班牙Iese商学院(Iese Business School)定制高管教育课程，领衔英国《金融时报》2016年定制高管教育课程排行榜。

Valor is more outspoken about McKinsey’s incursion than the typical business school leader. In particular, he claims that it could even damage McKinsey clients who sign up.

与典型的商学院主管相比，巴洛尔对于麦肯锡进入高管教育更加直言不讳。尤其是，他宣称，这甚至可能给参加课程的麦肯锡客户造成损失。

If a company is receiving board-level strategic advice from a consultant, he argues, it might be putting too many eggs in one basket to allow the same company to train the echelons below.

他表示，如果一家企业正从一家咨询公司接受董事会层面战略咨询服务，那让同一家咨询公司培训董事会以下各层级管理人员或许就像把太多鸡蛋置于同一篮子中。

“You may end up being handcuffed by these guys. A number of large organisations do feel that way,” he says. “If these guys make a mistake you are dead.” But even as he criticises the newcomer, Valor credits McKinsey’s ability to bring together chief executives from different companies and industries as being equal to the convening power of business schools, where inter-company networking is an important part of executive education offerings.

“你最终可能会被这些家伙束缚住手脚。许多大型机构都有这种感觉，”他说，“如果这些家伙犯了错，你就死定了。”但即便对麦肯锡表示批评，巴洛尔仍认为麦肯锡将不同企业和行业的高管聚拢到一起的能力与商学院的号召力不相上下，在商学院，打造公司之间的人际关系网是高管教育课程的重要组成部分。

Charlotte Relyea is adamant that McKinsey does not face a conflict of interest, saying that its teaching is customised to reflect the client’s approach rather than just the consultant’s. “The fact that we know them so well makes the customisation so much more effective.”

夏洛特?雷利亚坚信，麦肯锡并不面临利益冲突，她表示，麦肯锡的课程是定制的，反映客户的方式方法，而不仅仅是麦肯锡的方式方法。“我们对他们了解至深，这使得定制课程更加有效。”

She also denies any suggestion that McKinsey might be using executive education as a loss leader to pick up big change management consulting contracts. The consultant sees business schools more as partners than competitors, she says. There are indeed multiple ways in which it already works with business schools — not least in the recruits it scoops up each year from MBA programmes.

她还否认了一种猜测，即麦肯锡可能以高管教育作为低价诱饵来获得变革管理咨询的大单。她表示，麦肯锡更多地将商学院视为合作伙伴，而非竞争对手。实际上，麦肯锡已经以多种方式与商学院合作——尤其是麦肯锡每年从MBA项目中招募员工。

Its academic advisory council includes faculty members from MIT Sloan and Rotman business schools, as well as Sir John Hood, the former vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford.

麦肯锡的学术顾问委员会包括来自麻省理工学院斯隆管理学院(MIT Sloan School of Management)、多伦多大学(University of Toronto)罗特曼管理学院(Rotman School of Management)的教员，以及牛津大学(University of Oxford)前副校长约翰?胡德爵士(Sir John Hood)。

Nitin Nohria, dean of Harvard Business School, leans in a similar direction to Relyea, suggesting that the market is big enough to accommodate fresh players.

哈佛商学院(Harvard Business School)院长尼廷?诺里亚(Nitin Nohria)的看法与雷利亚相似，他认为高管教育市场足够大，能容纳新的参与者。

He also points out that the “thought leadership” magazines and websites created by management consultants are another sign of how boundaries with business schools — big publishers themselves, with the likes of Harvard Business Review — are blurring.

他还指出，由管理咨询公司创办的“思想领导力”杂志和网站，是咨询公司与商学院——同样大量出版商业书籍，比如《哈佛商业评论》(Harvard Business Review)之类——之间的边界正变得模糊的又一标志。

“The provision of management education will occur in many more forms by many more providers,” he predicts.

他预言道：“管理教育将由更多供应者以更多的形式提供。”

At the very least, it seems, the upheaval in the market has the makings of a fine business school case study.

至少，高管教育市场的剧变看起来可以成为一个很好的商学院研究案例。