Leadership & Strategic Impact

Introduction:

This training course is designed to offer the delegates a range of tools and techniques to assist them in preparing forecasts and envisioning potential futures. It also addresses key leadership skills needed to galvanize the workforce including communication, persuasion, influence, and delegation. Through this course we aim for the participants as leaders of organizations to adopt a more adaptable and agile approach to strategy and strategic planning. 

Targeted Groups:

• Head of departments
• Managers among all managerial levels
• Supervisors and Team leaders
• Strategic Planning department

Course Objectives:

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

• Utilize a range of strategic analysis tools
• Appreciate the need for developing scenarios to manage uncertainty
• Understand the importance of questioning, prior to delivering solutions
• Enhance your key leadership skills such as: influence, persuasion & negotiation
• Recognize staff qualities needed for implementing change

Course Content

Unit 1: Strategic Analysis and Strategic Thinking

• What strategy ‘is’ and what it ‘is not’
• The importance of understanding stakeholder interests
• Which tool to use and when
• Understanding Life cycles: Business, Product, Market
• Tools to understand the business environment
• Achieving business sustainability, the value chain

Unit 2: The Planning Process:

• How to build and manage a strategic planning team
• The framework of a strategy: avoiding 'paralysis by analysis'
• Using effective tools such as the “new” SWOT, Porter’s 5-Forces, GE, etc.
• Strategy Matrix: understanding options and analyzing business attractiveness
• External analysis: using the PESTLE tool to gain insight & Market analysis
• Determining the right strategies for the organization
• Goals & Objectives: the specifics are critical
  • Short-term
  • Medium-term
  • Long-term
• Contingency planning because something always goes wrong
• Documenting the plan

 Unit 3: Strategy, Innovation and Adaptability

• The process of strategy development
• Tools to imagine possible futures
• Research showing how CEOs apply the tools
• Zooming In (detail) - Zooming Out (big picture)
• Selecting different types of innovation
• The process of innovation - managing failures and successes

 Unit 4: Key Leadership Skills: Communications

• Are Vision, Mission and Values just words?
• The impact of organizational culture on strategy implementation
• Communicating internally & externally
• Making effective use of communication channels
• How good are your persuasion, influence & negotiation skills?
• Addressing the challenge of virtual communications

Unit 5: Communication – The Challenge of Getting Everyone On The Same Page:

• How do we communicate the plan?
• Using multiple channels to get the message across
• Leveraging people’s learning styles to communicate more effectively
• Communicating strategy through the organization
• Using Your Emotional Intelligence
• Dealing with resistance effectively
• Setting up a Rewards system
• Celebrating success – but not stopping the momentum

Unit 6: Strategic Implementation:

• Effective implementation - converting planning into action
• Planning the implementation: Using a project management tool
• Setting expectations: benchmarks, hurdles, milestones
• Creating Team & Tasks
• Setting accountability in place
• Using the Deming model: Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDCA)to increase the success
• Developing action plans that work
• Documenting & Doing

Unit 7: Team Leadership

• The roles & responsibilities of team leaders
• Motivating individuals and teams
• Engaging with staff for mutual benefit
• Team communications: meetings
• Evaluating effectiveness of different communication channels
• Personal action planning

Unit 8: Measurement for Success:

• How to develop accurate and relevant measurement systems
• Separating the KPIs from everything else
• Blending the financial and non-financial measurements - the balanced scorecard concept
• Organization performance review as a baseline
• Using the Balanced Scorecard as a Tool of Success
• Linking the BSC to the strategic (flexible) budget
• Using variances analysis to manage the plan