Strategic Planning, Development & Implementation

The Course:

Effective strategic leadership is central to the future success of any organisation. This starts with defining a clear strategic vision – setting out the leadership team’s strategic intent for the organisation and its various businesses. This then needs to be translated into an agenda for action – not merely a ‘strategic plan’ but a set of guidelines or a road map clearly setting out where the business needs to go and empowering managers at all levels to make the multitude of decisions that they need to make in the clear understanding of where the business is heading.
In this comprehensive two week programme, both strategic leaders and first line professionals will participate in how to develop, implement and structure the changes necessary to make a new strategy, vision or mission work effectively in today’s dynamic climate. Week one focuses on the development of the core strategies and plan to make the organization reach its vision or targets, while week two drills deeper into the organization to develop techniques that get the workforce “on-board” with the changes and have them participate in working out the problems and implementing the new strategies. It is strongly suggested that strategic leaders attend.

The Structure:

• Module 1 - Strategic Planning, Development & Implementation
• Module 2 - Smart Leadership

The Goals
This intensive ten day programme will help you learn how to:

• Develop the three key strategic agendas for leaders – Intellectual, Managerial and Behavioural.
• Enhance and improve your own and your organisations strategic thinking and ability to envision powerful strategic futures.
• Generate and support effective strategic thinking at all levels in the organisation.
• Identify the most effective balance of Operational Excellence and Breakthrough Strategic Performance.
• Identify critical strategic issues and opportunities.
• Prioritise issues based on their capacity to enable real value creation.
• Lead and motivate teams and businesses in diverse, turbulent and complex environments.
• Encourage your people to think differently and workout new initiatives and innovate.
• Change your environment to support your new strategic initiatives.
• Find new approaches to old problems in your organization strategies.
• Implement your plan using all the resources at your disposal.

The Benefits
Following completion of this unit, you will know:

• Interpret the internal and external forces shaping the future
• Develop an effective strategic roadmap through a clear vision and statement of strategic intent
• Identify the competencies and capabilities of strategically agile and effective organisations
• Recognise your own strategic leadership style, and the styles of others – and match leadership styles to the strategic necessities of the roadmap
• Effectively prepare and guide your organisation, unit or team towards the vision
• Motivate people towards the strategic ‘light on the hill’!
• Command respect
• Develop a culture or climate that supports your initiatives
• How to gain the participation of the whole workforce

The Results
This unit has been designed to assist you to develop your ability and capabilities to:

• Think strategically about your organisation’s future
• Identify strategically important issues and opportunities
• Interpret and identify the strategic implications affecting the organisation now and likely to impact on the organisation’s future
• Clearly articulate a strategic vision and a statement of strategic intent
• Your skills in translating strategic vision into a clear roadmap for the organisation/ unit / team’s future
• Identify the mindsets and behaviours needed to achieve the vision and follow the roadmap
• Identify and communicate clear strategic implementation plans and practices
• Develop your own strategic leadership styles
• Develop leadership within others in your own organisation, unit or team
• Motivate people to achieve breakthrough performances
• Create the type of initiatives that move your plan forward
• Gain the “Buy-In” of the people that can lead the changes
• Develop a Change Management Strategy

The Core Competencies
This unit will assist you to understand and enhance your strategic behaviours around:

• Analytical strategic thinking
• Strategic visioning and articulating plausible futures for an organisation, unit or team
• Communicating strategic intent and a strategic roadmap
• Effective implementation planning
• Structuring effective strategic teams and systems
• Displaying strategic leadership
• Balancing the demands for performance and strategic longer-term success
• Developing strategic leadership throughout units and teams
• Motivating and influencing people to build new initiatives to move the strategy forward
• Allocating hard and soft resources to the places which will have maximum strategic impact
• Make the changes necessary to advance your plan
• Develop new behaviours in your people

The Programme Content
Strategic Planning, Development & Implementation
Understanding The Strategic Environment:

• Understanding the strategic leadership agenda – intellect, management and behaviours
• Recognising and interpreting forces in the strategic environment
• Understanding strategic inflection points and strategic scenarios
• Analysing and prioritising strategic issues
• Formulating strategic vision and expressing strategic intent
• Developing a strategic roadmap

Understanding Strategic Models And Paradigms:

• The strategic journey – common models and frameworks for strategic thinking (from Ansoff to Hamel via Porter and Mintzberg)
• Identifying strategic horizons and using the 7S framework
• Recognising and developing the characteristics of strategic agility
• Understanding and leveraging strategic competences and skills

Effective Strategic Implementation:

• Strategic implementation tools and frameworks
• Structures and systems for strategic agility and performance
• Monitoring and adjustment
• Measurement, analysis and knowledge management

Strategic Leadership:

• Preparing for the future
• Effective styles and practices for strategic leadership
• Recognising, analysing and developing the strategic leadership styles used by you and others
• Developing inspiration and motivation
• Communicating the roadmap and gathering support

Driving Strategic Performance & Success:

• Transforming the organisation to enable strategic success
• Balancing the focus on performance and strategy
• Spreading leadership capabilities throughout the organisation
• Maximising organisational learning and knowledge transfer to embed strategic success

Smart Leadership
Encouraging a Creative Climate at Work:

• Innovative leadership for excellent performance
• The Critical mass for change and innovation
• Innovation VS Constant Improvement
• How a Leader Creates a Climate of Innovation
• Case Study on Most Innovative Companies
• Innovation and current business breakthroughs

Gaining the Participation of the Workforce:

• The G.E. “Workout” Strategy
• Developing Creative Solutions for Strategies
• Gaining the “Buy-In” from the workforce
• Overcoming Paradigms
• Dealing with Organizational “Drift”
• Case Study on Gaining Empowerment

Leading on the creative edge:

• Developing Creative Potential in People and Teams
• Understanding Creative People
• Convergent & Divergent Thinking Skills
• Motivating Creative Individuals at work
• Incubating ideas
• Interacting creatively
• Converting expenses to assets using creativity

Creating a Motivating Climate for Higher Productivity:

• The Ten Key Elements to Setting up new Missions
• Setting Goals and Targets Creatively
• Creating a “Sense of Significance”
• Rewarding Performance
• The Four Step “Pygmalion” theory
• Generational Motivators

Driving Strategic Change:

• Managing the Change Process
• Kotter’s Change Management Techniques
• Communicating with a Sense of Urgency
• The Downside of Change
• Creating a climate of Constant Change
• Successful techniques for Changing People