Strategy and Innovation

Experienced business executives operating within strategic environments, typically at director level and above.

Sample job titles:

• Chief Executive Officer
• Chief Financial Officer
• General Manager
• Vice-President
• Director
• Consultant
• Business Strategy Manager

Strategy provides the tools you need to lead your organization through turbulent times. This program will help you:

• Apply effective cutting-edge strategic tools to your business
• Foster innovation and creativity and harness them for competitive advantage
• Understand the current and future business environment and how to plan for the unexpected
• Assess and leverage your strategic organizational culture
• Effectively manage the change required to deliver on your vision
• Build your confidence and skill in operating in the strategic arena

Benefits for your organization

Strategy elevates good leaders to exceptional performers. This program will help participant organizations:

• Develop their organizational capacity to define and implement effective business strategies
• Capture the competitive benefits of innovation and creativity in the workplace
• Capitalize immediately on the deepened insights and skills brought back to the workplace
• Support their teams through periods of organizational change
• Develop a long-term plan for the sustainability of the organization

• Fundamentals and core concepts of strategy: Classic macro environment scanning (PEST, SWOT, Porter’s 5 Forces)
• New tools in strategy: Blue Ocean Strategy, Business Model Canvas and Lean Launch Pad, The End of Competitive Advantage, Playing to Win
• Creativity: what it means to be a creative leader, key skills and techniques to develop individual creativity for business impact
• Innovation case studies: how very different companies successfully innovate (Apple, IBM, 3M, Lockheed Martin)
• Systems for innovation and appreciating failure
• Evaluating and managing uncertainty in the business environment, understanding the political landscape
• External risk management and reducing the impact of crises: horizon scanning, risk reputation management and effective stakeholder engagement
• Scenario approaches to the development of strategy
• Organizational culture: What does it mean to be a ‘great place to work’ and why does it matter? Assessing your own culture and leveraging it for success
• Effectively managing change

Strategy project

This program is designed to build applied skills in strategy, innovation and change management. To this purpose, you will engage in a Strategy Project that focuses on the future of your organization. The project will consist of:

• Opportunity statement: map out a significant strategic direction or opportunity for your company, and describe its strategic importance
• Analysis: develop a business case in the face of your chosen challenge or opportunity
• Recommendations: draft a proposal on how to tackle your plan, and outline the expected strategic outcomes

During the week you will receive one-on-one time with a faculty advisor to support your project. At the end of the program you will present your proposal to the group, and get feedback for moving it forward in your organization.

For financial assistance opportunities, please refer to Financial Assistance, Scholarships and Team Rates .