The Oxford Advanced Management & Leadership Program

Introduction:

This course introduces the principle of strategy and develops an effective process for developing strategy at all levels in an organization. This seminar will also focus on the critical roles of team leader and middle manager in controlling their team's potential, and introduces and practices techniques for moving the team to peak performance.

Targeted Groups:

• Head of departments
• Managers among all managerial levels
• Supervisors & Team leaders
• Employees & persons who are interested in gaining this great knowledge

Course Objectives:

At the end of this course the participants will be able to:

• Define and to demystify the concepts of ‘strategy’ and ‘strategic plans’, but also to demystify the strategic process - as part of ‘Helicopter Thinking’
• Break the strategy process down step-by-step, providing a practical toolkit for managers for each key stage
• Illustrate it through some well-chosen and highly stimulating case studies - and to distill the lessons from this
• Apply it to their area of management responsibility - through planning the analysis, option generation, choice, implementation and measurement phases of strategy
• Put this within the overall context of the organization and the change and influencing process generally
• Give more confidence in managing their role strategically within their organization
• Understand their role as a manager and a leader
• Establish clear objectives and standards of performance for your team and to manage and use conflict and challenge
• Gain better decision-taking and time and resource allocation - leading to better organizational and individual performance
• Use of a well-proven planning process
• More effective implementation
• Accelerate thinking speed and problem resolution for all dilemmas
• Expose to a range of perspectives on teams and the leadership function
• Practice new and sometimes challenging techniques that build flexibility and confidence in harnessing the power of the team.

Targeted Competencies: 

• Business analysis
• Strategic team working
• Strategic presentation skills
• Identification and use of team members’ talents and preferences
• Structuring the team for peak effectiveness
• Creating and communicating a compelling vision
• Motivating and developing your team
• Managing performance and conflict
• Emotional intelligence
• Empowering & Delegation

Course Content:

Unit 1: 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 - macroenvironmental factors, growth drivers, competitive forces, market dynamics
• Benchmarking your own strategic position/competitor analysis
• Analyzing customers
• “Thinking backward from the customer”
• Mini-case on importance of external analysis

Unit 2: 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

Unit 3: 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

Unit 4: 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

Unit 5: Strategic Implementation and Getting The Value Out of Strategy:

• Effective execution - converting strategic analysis and planning into action
• Linking strategy with operational objectives
• Implementation – getting practical things done
• Strategic planning of your career
• Creating tomorrow’s organization out of today’s organization
• Conclusion - the corporate and individual value of strategic thinking

Unit 6: Teams and Their Leaders: 

• Teams, leaders and managers
• Key leadership tasks
• Influence, authority and power
• Leadership styles and style flexibility
• Self-awareness
• Emotional intelligence and rapport

Unit 7: Vision, Direction & Alignment:

• Creating a shared vision
• Aims, objectives and goal alignment
• Developing meaningful objectives and indicators
• Divergent approaches to problem-solving
• Communicating a compelling vision
• Delivering challenging messages

Unit 8: Team Dynamics:

• Team development
• The sociology of the team
• Characteristics of high-performing teams
• Balancing team roles
• Non-traditional team structures
• Delegation and empowerment

Unit 9: Developing the Team:

• Learning and competence
• Building a coherent team
• Self-managing teams and their challenges
• Coaching, mentoring and self-directed learning
• Feedback and appraisal
• Leveraging team strengths for peak performance

Unit 10: Performance & Conflict Management: 

• Defining performance
• Approaches to measuring team and individual performance
• Performance through the eyes of the customer
• Performance management: science or art?
• Conflict as a catalyst for team development
• Dealing with challenging interpersonal relations