Creative Problem-Solving
- Leadership Reality Assessment
- Leadership Vs. Management
- Understanding Our Brain Function
- Myths of Creativity
- The limitations of the rational
- Divergent approaches to problem-solving
- Letting go of logic
- Analogous thinking modes
- Convergent and divergent modes
Overcoming Personal Blockers to Creativity
- Sigmoid Curve - Lifecycle Model
- Continuous Improvement
- Breakthrough step change
- Self-awareness and the nature of the ego
- Personal goal alignment
- Adaption and innovation: personal preferences for creating meaning
- Exploring attitudes to risk
- Left- and right-brain thinking
Developing the Vision Creatively
- Six thinking hats
- Using differing thinking styles
- Johor’s window
- The business plan process & creating a vision
- Harnessing the power of the team
- Organizational culture and its influence on innovation
- Letting go of the ego
- Working with different creative preferences
Communicating the Vision Creatively
- The 7 Step Creative Process
- Models of communication
- Viral visioning
- Authenticity and trust
- Creativity tools, techniques & strategy
- Letting go of the vision
- Leading without directing
- Possible leadership beliefs
From Ideas to Action: Creativity and Change
- Motivation - Hierarchy of Needs
- Overcoming organizational barriers to creativity and change
- Nurturing a learning environment
- Is Money a motivator?
- Personality Profiling
- Building a creative consensus
- Engaging stakeholders creatively
- Influencing and motivating through change
Strategic Thinking and Business Analysis
- What are strategy and strategic planning?
- Why are strategy and strategic planning important?
- What are the main conceptual frameworks?
- External analysis - understanding and analyzing business attractiveness - macro environmental factors, growth drivers, competitive forces, market dynamics
- Benchmarking your own strategic position/competitor analysis
- Analyzing customers
- “Thinking backwards from the customer”
- Mini-case on importance of external analysis
Internal Analysis and Fusion of Analyses into Strategic Options
- The interface of external and internal analysis
- Internal analysis: financial
- Internal analysis; non-financial
- The concept and practicalities of the “balanced scorecard”
- Diagnosing strategic problems and opportunities
- Fusion of analyses into strategic choices - SWOT and the strategy matrix
- Case examples of strategic choice
- Mini-case on importance of internal analysis
Strategic Plans and the Relevance of Alliances and Joint Ventures
- Review of the tools used so far
- The content of a strategy: avoiding “paralysis by analysis”
- Putting a strategic plan together – the 5-page framework
- A real-life example of a business strategy/strategic plan
- Strategies for alliances and joint ventures
- Example of best practice in alliances and joint ventures
- Introduction and briefing for the main case study
- First-phase group work on the main case study
Global Strategy, Teambuilding and the Management of Internal Communication
- The essence of globalization and global strategy
- Globalization – the strategic dimension
- Globalization – the organizational dimension
- Globalization – the human dimension
- How to build and manage a strategic planning team
- Communicating strategy through the organization
- Gaining your team’s commitment and buy-in to the strategy
- Second-phase work on the main case study
Strategic Implementation and Getting the Value out of Strategy
- Final-phase work on the main case study
- Group presentations of the main case study
- Effective execution - converting strategic analysis and planning into action
- Linking strategy with operational objectives
- Implementation – getting practical things done
- Strategic planning of your own career
- Creating tomorrow’s organization out of today’s organization
- Conclusion - the corporate and individual value of strategic thinking