Even the Coffee Breaks are a carefully engineered and serious part of the Business School's Advanced Management Program. An intense twelve and one-half-week mind-stretching session, the Program grooms "mature, experienced executives for top management positions.

The lean, balding Englishman with a "British Cake and Oil Mills Ltd." tag on his vest pocket takes a sip of coffee and smiles. "Now we've been getting along fine with our trade unions for years. If a man wants to join a union, and it's in his interest to do so, we let him go right ahead. A "Right to Work" law would be absurd in Britain." A Californian manufacturer behind him overhears, turns around, and the pair are soon in eager debate over their coffee cups.

Benevolent Exile

Since Advanced Management executives--"AMP's", for short--are forced to deal with business problems through discussion and insight, rather than throught time-tested methods, the coffee hour debate in Hamilton Lounge or 2:00 .m. bull session is no more uncommon among greying sales amnagers than among freshmen in the Yard.

Pretend, for a moment, that you are about forty-four years old, married and with a family, a pillar of your community ("active in community affairs, but not a 'politician',"), and On Your Way Up in a rather large organization.

Given these peaceful conditions, you suddenly find yourself and your luggage shipped off to the Business School. You have a pretty good idea that you are about to be promoted, and another man just below you has been appointed to fill in at your job while you are away. In short, you have been benevolently exiled with pay.

Benevolently exiled, because, with the exception of dormitory living, AMP's are supported "in the style to which they are accustomed" during their stay at Harvard. Lobster, steaks and liquor flow in the upper regions of Kresge Hall, far from the pot roast and New England boiled dinners of the first floor serving line. "Of course, we wouldn't make our lowest salesman stay in accomodations the size of these dormitory rooms," a Texas vice-president declared, "But it's clean."

Dormitory living lends a spirit of asceticism and dedication to the program. Wives are left behind when the executive arrives at the Business School, and, whether he likes it or not, he is forbidden to work on company business during the training program.

"We've made up our minds"

But all the AMP's are in the same boat. There is a period of somewhat uneasy adjustment--to the role of "just another student," and to the drop in prestige which comes as you realize your opinions and insights of twenty years' business experience are different from and perhaps no better than those of the production engineer who is your roommate.

The AMP's have mixed reactions to their role as forty-four year old students. "We have one real disadvantage over the regular M.B.A. students," an AMP declared "in that most of us have made up our minds already about certain things. At home you are an important man in your community--here you're just another student.

"You have to fight back"

"There's one dean here that's had a lot of academic training, but not much business experience," another AMP complained. "He's used to handling men of stature in business like undergraduates. They fight back too. When you're in a group this size you have to fight to keep your identity. They're polite about it, but they fight back the same."

It is roughly the feeling experienced by the valedictorian of Wood-row Wilson H. S. when he discovers all the other valedictorians in his college freshman class. Golf-playing vice presidents, Army majors, men who never read anything weightier than Time suddenly find themselves thrown together to study, discuss, and (as one troubled AMP expressed it) "read, read, read."

The Program was orginally a "war baby" of the U. S. Office of Education, but in 1945, the Business School soon received numerous requests to continue the program on an industry sponsorer basis. By 1949, demand had boosted the Program's size from eighty to one-hundred and fifty executives per session.