Strategy Fundamentals:

• Understanding the concept of competitive strategy and distinguishing good strategy from others
• Exploring the characteristics and components of effective strategy implementation

Global Context and Strategy Analysis:

• Recognizing the impact of the global context on strategic decision-making
• Developing skills in strategy analysis to gain valuable insights into market dynamics and competitive forces

Challenges in Strategy Execution:

• Appreciating the complexities of implementing strategic initiatives in complex business environments
• Identifying and addressing common challenges that arise during the execution phase

Learn approaches, frameworks and techniques for developing capabilities for strategic thinking and execution. Understand how to develop and implement strategy in an increasingly complex and volatile operating environment.

A particular emphasis is placed on customer-focused growth exploration and the role of ambidextrous leadership in driving organizational success.

To ensure the long-term viability of your innovation, you need to develop strategies to secure your resources and mitigate the power of rival firms thereby expanding your long-term competitive advantage. In this module, we will explore a variety of tactics and strategies you can use to protect your strategic resources and increase their value over time. These strategies will enable you to optimize your competitive advantage and create a more sustainable position.

Sustainable business opportunities can be simple, have positive impacts, and increase profitability — sometimes without having to do or change much about how a company functions. In this module, we will understand how businesses are increasing profitability by identifying and pursuing sustainable business opportunities. We will explore the many questions that businesses face in the changing landscape of sustainability norms, making it an area of untapped potential. Understand how businesses can be a facilitator for system-level change in the face of significant global issues by making deliberate decisions along the lines of sustainability.

You will identify activities that will improve productivity and support forward-thinking and far-reaching transformation. You will then explore any gaps in your strategy and plan to support incremental change and further continuous improvement. You will also identify the risks you are willing to take.

You will also deep-dive into topics including:

• Learn the ‘Do-Think-Do’ innovation-focused approach
• How and why innovation and execution are diametrically opposite skillsets
• How to develop innovation and execution capabilities
• How do businesses respond to sustainability norms
• Decision-making in times of global change- Creativity, Innovation, Process, Sustainability

Furthermore, the module covers essential topics related to effective leadership, including:

Advanced Negotiation skills:
Negotiation can be a complex and unpredictable process that requires you to juggle multiple factors. This module introduces you to basic distributive negotiation tactics. You are also provided with a practical tool to which you can refer as you prepare for any future negotiations that require the use of distributive tactics. Through a series of in-class exercises, we will learn fundamental tools and techniques to create value, claim our fair share of that value, and do both in a context where the parties may or may not be completely rational.

Emotional and Social Intelligence:
With the help of assessments and frameworks, participants will improve their emotional intelligence by better identifying and managing their emotions along with effectively navigating interactions with others, building trust, and engaging in differences, to enable outcomes with greater impact.

• Understanding the concept of emotional and social intelligence and its importance in leadership
• Assessing personal emotional predispositions and exploring traits such as negative affect and positive affect
• Enhancing self-awareness and self-management abilities to improve emotional intelligence
• Learn about the key drivers and elements of Social Intelligence
• Understand and deepen awareness of how others respond to you, how others see you responding to them and how you respond in moments of difference

Leading Effective Teams:

• Gaining insights into the key factors that contribute to team effectiveness, including goals, roles, and processes
• Acquiring skills to lead and improve team performance, regardless of technical expertise

Gamified Experience: Simulation on Leadership
This award-winning simulation is a high-stakes wilderness expedition that challenges participants’ abilities in group dynamics and leadership. It immerses participants in an intense and gripping scenario where they take on one of five different roles within a climbing team aiming to conquer a treacherous mountain.

Throughout the simulation, the team faces the daunting task of reaching the summit, which involves passing through a series of five camps over six simulated days. This tightly-packed experience spans intense decision-making and teamwork. The climbers must confront a variety of critical factors, such as weather conditions, health concerns, available supplies, their ultimate objectives, and the speed at which they hike.

Complicating matters further, participants must handle three hidden challenges during their journey, each of which has significant repercussions on their progress. A major aspect of the simulation revolves around the delicate balance of information sharing. The team members are faced with the dilemma of deciding how much of the gathered information to disclose to their fellow climbers. This element adds a layer of complexity to the decision-making process and can significantly influence the group’s dynamics. The experience is meticulously designed to instill crucial skills like collaboration, strategic thinking, and leadership under pressure.

Framing Complex problems with Systems Thinking – Whether you need to tackle a complex project, communicate more effectively, rethink your organization or your job, solve world hunger, or figure out your teenager, systems thinking can help you. All of these are complex and challenging real-world problems, sometimes called wicked problems. We all confront problems, big and small, in our personal and professional lives, and most of us are searching for better ways to solve them. In this module, Professors Derek and Laura Cabrera will demonstrate how we can use systems thinking to solve everyday and wicked problems, transform our organizations, and increase our personal effectiveness. Systems thinking attempts to better align the way we think with how the real world works. Our thinking is based on our mental models, but these models, created from our unique perspective with its inherent biases, are usually inadequate representations of reality. The Cabreras illustrate how we can use feedback to recognize and adapt our mental models so that they better align with reality, enhancing our problem-solving capabilities. For systems thinking to be successful, it must be adaptive. In this module, you will explore the concept of complex adaptive systems, and while these systems seem unnecessarily complicated, the Cabreras will reveal a surprising discovery. Underlying all complex adaptive systems are simple rules, and applying these rules is the key to transforming the way we frame and solve everyday problems.

Takeaways

• Identify and describe the problems you want to solve in your personal and professional lives
• Examine the mental models you have and how they differ from reality
• Determine how you can use feedback to improve your mental models
• Recognize the biases that you have that can distort your mental models
• Examine complex adaptive systems and the simple rules that underlie these systems
• Determine how systems thinking is a complex adaptive system
• Explore the four simple rules that underlie systems thinking

Problem Solving Using Evidence and Critical Thinking – Have you ever known a very intelligent person who made a very bad decision? If so, you know that having a high IQ does not guarantee that you automatically make critically thoughtful decisions. Critically thoughtful problem-solving is a discipline and a skill—one that allows you to make decisions that are the product of careful thought, and the results of those decisions help your team and organization thrive. In this module, you will practice a disciplined, systematic approach to problem solving that helps ensure that your analysis of a problem is comprehensive, is based on quality, credible evidence, and takes full and fair account of the most probable counterarguments and risks. The result of this technique is a thoroughly defensible assessment of what the problem is, what is causing it, and the most effective plan of action to address it. Finally, you will identify and frame a problem by assessing its context and develop a well-reasoned and implementable solution that addresses the underlying causes.

Takeaways

• Assess the context of the problem
• Determine the current and desired states and confirm this with decision makers
• Identify and articulate the questions that must be answered to bridge the gap between current state and desired future state
• Determine root causes and distinguish symptoms from problems
• Brainstorm a range of possible solutions to address each significant underlying cause
• Assess each option for the extent to which it bridges the gap between the current and future state, whether it is implementable, and if it is ethical

Value Creation and Profitability – Increasing and sustaining profitability requires that you deliver unique value to consumers while guarding against competitive threats. Developing a successful strategy requires recognizing and planning for the specific challenges in your market so as to avoid costly mistakes, seize new opportunities, and raise long-run profits. In this module, you will explore a variety of real-world examples and powerful frameworks to supercharge your strategy and profitability. You will analyze how your organization currently creates value and strategize how best to create new value for your targeted customers, beyond what rivals offer.

Takeaways

• Perform a market diagnosis to describe your target customers and determine how you can best create value
• for them
• Develop a plan to align your organizational resources with your value creation objectives
• Identify and assess threats to your organization’s profits
• Select appropriate strategies to mitigate these and other threats you may encounter

Cross-Cultural Communication – The workplace is filled with employees, clients, and leaders from different backgrounds and cultures. Your Social Style® plays a role in how you communicate and behave in the workplace. This module will prepare you to communicate effectively, efficiently, and empathetically with different cultures no matter your Social Style®. In this module, you will practice becoming more aware of how your Social Style® is interpreted by others and how that impacts your interactions with others at work. You will also develop strategies for overcoming social blind spots in order to mitigate the risk of ineffective communication in cross-cultural settings. Finally, you will discover the ways you can adapt your Social Style® without compromising your core values for effective communication. By the end of this module, you will have gathered the tools needed to communicate appropriately and effectively in a cross-cultural environment.

Takeaways

• Evaluate how your Social Style® is interpreted by others
• Become aware of your social blind spots in the cross-cultural work environment
• Adapt for effective communication

Available personalized tracks:

CEO (Chief Executive Officer)

Develop strategic leadership skills essential for guiding organizations to success, covering topics such as Developing Innovation Strategy, Navigating the Global Business Landscape, Strategically Governing the Organization, Leading Strategic Change Initiatives and many more.

CSO (Chief Strategy Officer)

Explore innovative approaches to strategy development and execution, focusing on areas such as: Change, Disruption, and Growth, Game Theory and Business Strategy, Strategic Business Planning and Forecasting, Synergies, Mergers, Alliances and many more.

CFO (Chief Financial Officer)

Dive into financial management strategies and techniques critical for driving business performance, including topics such as Determining Appropriate Budgeting, Debt Financing, and Cash Flow, Financial Planning, Valuation and Dilution, Fundraising and Revenue Generation, Making Capital Investment Decisions and many more.

CTO (Chief Technology Officer)

Master technology-driven innovation and digital transformation strategies, exploring topics such as AI and Digital Technology: Opportunities and Pitfalls, AI and the Future of Work, Identifying New Business Models Enabled by AI, Demystifying AI and Digital Technologies and many more.

COO (Chief Operating Officer)

Gain insights into operational excellence and process optimization, covering areas such as Aligning Performance Measures with Business Strategy, Designing Organizations for Systems Thinking, Planning and Managing Resources, Identifying and Evaluating Risk and many more.

CMO (Chief Marketing Officer)

Explore cutting-edge marketing strategies and consumer insights, focusing on areas such as Creating and Communicating the Value of Your Brand, Drivers of Consumer Behavior: Attention, Emotion, Coherence, Using Behavioral Science to Influence Customer Behavior Online, Storytelling Across Media and many more.

CHRO (Chief Human Resources Officer)

Focus on human capital management and organizational development strategies, covering topics such as Aligning HR Strategy with Organizational Strategy, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Work, Countering Bias in the Workplace for HR, Assessing the Financial, Strategic, and People-Related Return on Pay for Performance and many more.

Managing Complexity

In this immersive module, participants will gain insights into how the brain learns, how to learn more quickly, why we frequently make poor judgments and how to learn from both successes and failures. Through real-life examples and interactive activities, participants will learn how to make more deliberate and informed decisions while potentially doubling their learning capacity. Participants will also learn how to systematically think back on their experiences and draw lessons from them.

AI tools and applications

In this module, participants will gain insights into the accelerating disruption of the Digital Age, drawing from best practices of digital leaders. Uncover the profound impact of AI on organizations, and understand the evolving landscape with a focus on leadership roles. Develop strategies for implementing AI, leading initiatives, and fostering a culture of innovation. Explore collaboration with AI for enhanced productivity with cutting edge tools. Anticipate future trends and discover how to nurture an AI-ready leadership mindset.

Creative Leadership

In this intensive module, participants will develop an understanding of how to boost individual and collective creativity and get an appreciation of why so many organisations look at creativity as an important strategic capability. Learn techniques for boosting individual and collective creativity towards achieving higher levels of organisational innovation. Unleash your personal and organisational creative potential with interactive lectures, case study discussions and experiential exercises.

Operational Excellence

The goal of this module is to provide participants with an in-depth understanding of how and why operational decisions are integral to the success of an organization. First participants explore the question of how a firm’s operations should be structured so as to be consistent with the firm’s chosen way to compete. Then participants will consider the question of what operational activities should remain in-house and what should be done by a business partner and the long-term implications of these decisions on competitive advantage and the issue of managing the business relationships with supply chain partners. The module will force participants to consider key decision categories in operations, e.g., capacity decisions, process choices and managing networks, and shows how these decisions can lead to distinctive capabilities.

Commercial Acumen (Simulation – 5 sessions)

One of the biggest obstacles that hinder the growth of senior managers today is their inability to judge the financial strength of their strategic and operational decisions. This handicap results from a lack of financial background. Senior Executives who address this problem early enough can transform their careers with a new-found ability to visualize the cause and effect of their ideas in a financial context. This program provides a concise overview of how financial management is used to create higher market values for an organization, and how value creation impacts the day-to-day life of managers.