5 Day 'MBA' Training Course

This course will focus on key subject areas for executives and managers who operate in fast moving, competitive environments and who need to build a road map of the challenges and threats they will need to navigate. It will highlight and investigate a range of issues that they will need to master and will unlock and expand the central skill sets that they will need in order to be more effective as managers and leaders within their respective organisations.

With the central theme being “executive leadership”, this course will also be particularly relevant in today’s climate. It will contend that the current crisis in confidence in the business world and many of the recent failures (both corporate and regulatory) have been directly due to the adverse impact of inappropriate culture in key organisations and to the absence of effective leadership at all levels in detecting and managing the systemic risks that arise as a result.

It has never been more important than now to invest in training executives in the areas of leadership, strategy, decision making, organisational culture, negotiation and effective project implementation.

Scroll down for the agenda.

• The Importance of Strategy in Business Success

Overview of Strategy

• What is strategy?
  – A range of definitions
  – The impact of different contexts on strategic planning
  – The effect of turbulent conditions on planning assumptions
  – Strategy providing a sense of direction – Strategy as a heuristic to focus decision making
• Strategy v tactics
• “I have a cunning plan…”
• Strategy, vision and mission
• Why successful strategy formulation is more than just theory – When smart brains fail in practice

How is Strategy Made?

• Design v emergence
• Linking strategy formulation with strategy implementation
  – Adjusting for real world experience
• Strategy processes within organisations
• How much scientific analysis?
• Corporate and competitive strategy
  – What businesses or industries should we be in?
  – How should we compete?

Organisational Values Underpinning Strategy

• Core ideology
  – values and purpose
• Vision and mission
• Profitability and economic value added – For Shareholders or Stakeholders? – Balancing short term financial measures with
• strategic development and implementation
• Organisational values as a differentiator

Building Blocks of Strategic Analysis

• Analysing an industry
  – Profit potential
  – Structure
  – Competition
  – Market share
  – Competitor analysis
  – Segmentation
  – Strategic groups and complementors 
  – Game theory – competitors’ likely reactions to your strategic moves
  – Key success factors for securing competitive advantage
• Analysing your resources and capabilities
  – Core competences
  – SWOT and BWOT analysis
  – Cost advantage v differentiation advantage, and  the value chain
  – Maximising superior resources and capabilities
  – Exploiting differences and key strengths
  – Developing resources and capabilities
  – Impact of organisational design and structure
  – Establishing competitive advantage
  – Knowledge management and human resources

Competitive Advantage

• What is it? How does it arise?
• Identifying others’ competitive advantage
• Cost advantage v differentiation advantage
• First mover advantage
• Differing market environments
• Responding to change – internal and external
• The role of innovation
• Sustaining competitive advantage

Applying Strategy to Different Environments

• Industry life cycles
• Innovation and disruptive technologies
• Strategy in the face of uncertainty
• Scenario planning

Adapting Strategy for Developing Markets

• PESTLE analysis
• Institutional voids
• Asymmetry of information
• Differentiate between market and non-market factors
• Create “rules of the game”
• Understand formal and informal rules
• The non-market environment – four “I”s. Integrating with market strategy
• Entry strategy
• Local partners
• Understanding the social network of key local decision makers
• Reshaping the value chain – reorganise or relocate?
• Importance of local knowledge and information channels
• Exploiting voids
• Corruption – how does this affect entry strategy?
• Importance of what not to do

Strategy Implementation

• Strategy without implementation – not much of a future
• Implementation as the real value-added
• The challenges to implementation
  – Bridging the link between strategy and organisational capability
  – Inertia and the politics behind getting things done
• Impact of process, actors, organisational structure, contingencies
• Three “R”s for implementation
• Implementation in contested arenas
• Aligning organisational architecture and technology
• Leveraging resources
• Using organisational architecture and technology to manage changes to strategic environment, harvest opportunities
• Strategy fits the environment and architecture supports the strategy
• Three Frames approach to implementation
   

Case Study – The differing strategy implementation of the USA and North Vietnam in the Vietnam War: how and why David beat Goliath 

Making Informed Decisions

The Importance of Process in Decision Making

• Classic approach
  – Define the objective
  – Gather relevant information
  – Evaluate the feasible options
  – Choose the best alternative
  – Make and validate decision
  – Implement and re-evaluate
• Lobster Pot model
• Identifying the problem – Pareto analysis – Five “Why”s ?
• Effects of underlying psychology – Cognitive bias
• Understanding key business drivers and variables
• Understanding and assessing risk parameters
• Building post-decision tracking, evaluation and adjustment process

Limits to Rational Decision Making 

• Smart people sometimes make dumb decisions
• “Bounded rationality”
• Dangers of Groupthink
• Measures to avoid Groupthink
• Abilene paradox
• Organisational structure and politics – effect on individual decision making
• Personality, culture, social interaction
• Impact of bias in groups
• Sloan’s dilemma

Case Study – US President Jimmy Carter and the Iranian Hostage Rescue Mission – Operation Eagle Claw (1980)

Group Input to Decisions

• Delphi technique
• Vroom-Jago decision model
• Stepladder technique
• Brainstorming
• Charette procedure
• Starbursting
• Reframing a problem
• Six Thinking Hats

Practical Exercise – Group brainstorming a problem

Decisions With Multiple Criteria

• Paired comparison – the relative importance of options
• Force field analysis – weighing the pros and cons
• Decision matrix

Traps in Decision Making

• The impact of first impressions
• Anchoring
• Confirmation bias
• Overconfidence
• The inertia of the status quo
• Retrievability and availability bias
• The conventional wisdom
• The apparent power of experts
• Affirming what we know
• Risk attitudes and framing
• Unnecessary risk aversion

Decision Making in Uncertainty

• Using probability analysis
• Bayes’ theorem
• Applying expected value and the use of Perfect Information
• Decision tree analysis
• Sensitivity analysis

Practical Exercise – Build a decision tree from data and scenario provided

Negotiating for Successful Outcomes

• Why Negotiate?
• Defining negotiation
• Differentiating between needs and wants
• Understanding business dynamics and stakeholder interests
• Understanding why “we are where we are” – the alternatives to negotiating
• Balancing time and effort of negotiating with possibilities of better outcome

Understanding the Process

• Preparation
• Presenting
• Bargaining
• Settle/Abandon
• Agree

Bargaining Strategy and Style

• Understanding power
• Win/win or win/lose? – Integrative bargaining – Distributive bargaining
• Getting to “Yes”
  – Decouple people from issues
  – Needs rather than positions
  – Seek options for mutual gain
  – Objectivity not subjectivity
• Behavioural implications
  – Awareness
  – Patience
  – Communication skills

Negotiation Tactics and Ethics

• Bluffing v lying
• Dealing with liars
• Spying v information gathering
• Intimidation, games and manipulation
• Competing for success
• Logistics
• When to adjourn/break out
• Decoupling the opposing team
• Exploiting team differences and positional inconsistencies
• Coalition building in multi-party negotiations

Negotiation Psychology

• Time pressures
• Emotion
• Cultural differences
• Relative power
• Motivation
• Hidden agendas
• Personality types
• Ego

Summary: the Dos and Don’ts of Negotiation

• Negotiation Role-play Exercise

 
What Makes Managers Effective?

• What is a Manager?
• Management v administration
• What is “management”?
• Mintzberg’s 10 Managerial Roles
• Fayol’s Five Functions of Management
• Fayol’s 14 Principles of Management
• Control over task content and methodology
• Control over resources – physical and human
• Management as an economic activity
• Marshalling resources to maximise economic output
• The role of authority
• The source of managerial power
• Managing personal interdependencies
• A managerial identikit

The Business Context

• Organisational culture, legacy and environment
• Zeitgeist
• Hierarchy, power and influence
• Personal interdependence
• Networking and information flows
• Cultural factors
• Hofstede’s five Dimensions of Culture
• Managing teams and groups

Managers as Leaders

• What is a leader?
• Must managers be leaders?
• Core models of leadership
• Leadership styles
• Contrasting leadership and power

Group Discussion – Barack Obama – what type of leader?

Leading Teams and Groups

• Fundamentals of group behaviour
• Five stage model of group development
• Why people join groups
• Role identity and role perception – Zimbardo’s prison experiment
• Conformity
• Social loafing effect
• Groupthink and input to decision making
• Difference between groups and teams
• Types of teams
• Key roles within teams
• Team effectiveness models

Leaders as Motivators

• Theories of motivation
  - Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
  – McGregor’s X and Y theory
  – Expectancy theory
  – Equity theory
• Does pay motivate?
• Aligning incentives
• Goal setting and reinforcement theory
• Work Interest Schedule
• Maintaining motivation over time – AMO Theory
• Role of trust 
• Implications for managers 

Group Discussion 

• What really motivates me?
• Implications for my managerial style and effectiveness 

Leading Clever People

• Defining “clever people”
• Understanding the needs and motivations of clever people
• The challenges of leading clever people
• Dynamics of clever people within teams
• Organisational implications of clever people
• Dos and Don’ts

Developing New Leaders

• Identifying and selecting potential leaders
• Training leaders
• Mentoring and coaching
• Structuring leadership opportunities

 
Change Management and Project Management

Leading in The Face of Change

• Understanding the dynamics of change
• Types of change
• Planned v emergent
• People, process and culture
• Understanding the forces resistant to change
• Managing emotions and fear
• Complexity theory
• Change strategies
• The tipping point
• What can leaders do to effect change? – Kotter’s eight Steps
• Change managers and change agents
• Participants and stakeholders
• Managing the transition curve – three phases
• What happens when change stalls?
• Building in exit points
• Change audit – what are the costs of change?

Project Management

• What is a project
  – Why do projects fail?
  – PRINCE2
• Aligning organisational culture and structure to projects
  – Identifying the project players
  – Roles and accountability
• Project framework
  – Project stages and gates
  – Milestones
  – Planning the project and developing control methodology
• Cross functional boundaries
• Building the project team

Running the Project

• Balancing the project (cost, time & scope)
• Resources and financing
• Controlling the project
• Risk management
• Reporting and project meetings
• Communication and information flows
• Managing “scope creep”
• Assessing performance (time, cost, quality)

Closing a Project

• Formal user acceptance
• Ongoing operational procedures
• Documentation and reference materials
• Implementation plan for follow-on action
• Resources and plan for dealing with snagging issues
• Ongoing support from third parties involved in the project
• Lessons learned report and post project review

Case Study – UK Passport Agency delays – summer 1999

Course Debrief

Group discussion: What are the five most important managerial insights I have gained?

The key focus of this course is to create value -both for you as an individual and for your organisation. As a result of this value-focus you can expect the programme to be highly intensive and experiential with opportunities to work with others, test out learning and apply it to yourself.

The course’s approach will be directed throughout towards practical application of theory, through interactive discussion with participants using case studies and group discussion and a comparison with contemporary events and trends in business. The sessions themselves are also a forum for debate and discussion to help participants ground the learning in their own reality.

The central aim of the course will be to be thought provoking enough to leave delegates with a clear idea of how to build their own “toolkit” for managerial and leadership success.