Creative Strategic Planning & Leadership

Creative Strategic Planning & Leadership

INTRODUCTION

• This  Creative Strategic Planning & Leadership training seminar is designed to provide leaders and professionals with a set of transformational tools and techniques to help them maximise their own and their team’s creative potential in a strategic context. Its starting-point is self-discovery: participants will work on the inside first and then focus outwards to impact on the world of business.
• The focus of the first week of this 2-week Management & Leadership training seminar will be on thinking in different ways. Participants should be prepared to move out of their comfort zone and experiment with new ways of creating and communicating an inspiring leadership vision.
• The second week helps demystify the frequently-misunderstood concept of ‘strategy’. Whilst focusing on the analytical disciplines on which successful strategy is based, it centres on strategic planning as a value-adding process which harnesses the leader’s and the team’s ability to combine analysis with creative thinking and enables ideas and plans to be nurtured through to reality.

The highlights of the 10-day training course are as follows:

• Demonstrating how to balance analytical and creative thinking in plans and decisions
• Understanding how to discover and focus the creative capabilities of teams and individuals
• Understanding the linkage between operational and strategic management
• Aligning your own responsibilities and objectives with the strategy of your organisation
• Improving personal leadership and management competencies

OBJECTIVES

By the end of this training seminar, you will be able to:

• Demonstrate innovative methods for harnessing others’ creative potential
• Communicate your vision in refreshing and engaging ways
• Define the concepts of ‘strategy’ and ‘strategic plans’
• Understand and explain visionary thinking as part of the strategic process and apply strategic planning to your own management issues
• Place your own part of the organisation within the overall context of corporate strategy
• Gain confidence in managing your own contribution to strategic implementation 

TRAINING METHODOLOGY

• This Creative Strategic Planning & Leadership training seminar uses a range of approaches to learning, including experiential group activities, individual visioning exercises, case studies and syndicate discussions, to allow you to see and feel for yourself the power of the creative mind in a strategic context. Formal inputs are used to introduce a limited amount of underpinning theory. A key part of the learning process is sharing the differing experiences participants bring, as well as experimenting with novel – and sometimes challenging – techniques. In the second module, the course leader will use case examples based on organisations with which he has been personally involved. There will be additional presentations on DVD from world-leading authorities in the fields of strategy formulation and strategic management. There will also be group work on a major case study.

ORGANISATIONAL IMPACT

• Leaders at all levels who can develop and communicate a shared vision
• Leaders who can engage and motivate their teams
• Increased effectiveness against personal KPI’s through more effective use of team
• Much better decision-taking and time / resource allocation - leading to better organizational and individual performance
• Introduction of strategic thinking into new levels of the organization
• Top management having more confidence in the ability and judgement of its operating managers and the staff will have a better appreciation of the need and content of organisational change 

PERSONAL IMPACT

• Increasing career flexibility (vertically and horizontally)
• Accelerated thinking speed and problem resolution for difficult dilemmas
• Improved understanding of the impact of operational specialisation on corporate strategy
• Improved team working capabilities in analysing and solving strategic problems creatively
• Improved skills in ensuring most effective impact of individual specialisations
• Greater motivation through multiple organisational levels 

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

• Senior Management Professionals, Team Leaders, Supervisors and All Professionals who are responsible for driving company growth by creating or eliciting new ideas and paradigms. Alternatively, you may be stuck with your own ‘logical’ career journey and seeking an opportunity to explore beyond its boundaries
• Anyone who wants to forge innovative approaches to communications, or to human resource and training managers searching for breakthrough ideas and tools they can use to harness the creativity in others within their organization

 Course Outline

MODULE I: Leading Creatively

Creative Problem-Solving

• Leadership Reality Assessment
• Leadership vs. Management
• Understanding Our Brain Function
• Myths of Creativity
• The Limitations of The Rational
• Divergent Approaches to Problem-solving
• Letting Go of Logic
• Analogous Thinking Modes
• Convergent and Divergent Modes

Overcoming Personal Blockers to Creativity

• Sigmoid Curve - Lifecycle Model
• Continuous Improvement
• Breakthrough Step Change
• Self-awareness and The Nature of The Ego
• Personal Goal Alignment
• Adaption and Innovation: Personal Preferences For Creating Meaning
• Exploring Attitudes to Risk
• Left- and Right-brain Thinking

Developing The Vision Creatively

• Six Thinking Hats
• Using Differing Thinking Styles
• JoHari’s Window
• The Business Plan Process & Creating A Vision
• Harnessing The Power of The Team
• Organisational Culture and Its Influence on Innovation
• Letting Go of The Ego
• Working with Different Creative Preferences

Communicating The Vision Creatively

• The 7 Step Creative Process
• Models of Communication
• Viral Visioning
• Authenticity and Trust
• Creativity Tools, Techniques & Strategy
• Letting Go of The Vision
• Leading Without Directing
• Possible Leadership Beliefs

From Ideas to Action: Creativity and Change

• Motivation - Hierarchy of Needs
• Overcoming Organisational Barriers to Creativity and Change
• Nurturing a Learning Environment
• Is Money A Motivator?
• Personality Profiling
• Building a Creative Consensus
• Engaging Stakeholders Creatively
• Influencing and Motivating through Change

MODULE II: Strategy & Strategic Planning

Strategic Thinking and External Analysis

• Definitions of Strategy and Strategic Planning
• Why are strategy and strategic planning important?
• Understanding The Main Frameworks For Strategic Analysis
• Private and Public Sector Strategies – similarities and differences
• External Analysis - Understanding and Analysing Business Attractiveness
• Analysing Customers and Benchmarking Your Own Strategic Position
• How attractive is the game that we have chosen to play?

Internal Analysis and Fusion into Strategic Choice

• The Interface and Balance of External and Internal Analysis
• Internal Analysis: Financial
• Internal Analysis: Non-financial
• The Concept and Practicalities of the “Balanced Scorecard”
• Diagnosing and Analysing Strategic Problems and Opportunities
• Fusion of Analysis into Strategic Choices - SWOT and The Strategy Matrix

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
• Management of Alliances and Joint Ventures
• Examples of Best Practice in Alliances and Joint Ventures

Global Strategy, Team Building and The Management of Internal Communication

• The Essence of Globalisation and Global Strategy
• Globalisation – The Strategic Dimension
• Globalisation – The Organisational Dimension
• Globalisation – The Human Dimension
• How to Build and Manage a Strategic Planning Team
• Communicating Strategy through The Organisation
• Gaining Your Team’s Commitment and Buy-in to The Strategy

Strategic Implementation and Getting The Value Out of Strategy

• Alignment of Strategy, Culture, Structure and People
• Effective Execution - Converting Strategic Analysis and Planning into Action
• Aligning and Linking Strategy with Operational Objectives
• Implementation – Getting Practical Things Done
• Creating Tomorrow’s Organisation Out of Today’s Organisation
• Strategic Planning at A Personal Level
• Overview: The Complete Strategy Process
• Summary and Conclusions - The Corporate and Individual Value of Strategic Planning