Corporate Strategy Training

Turning Strategy Into Results

Duration: Six hours (Recommended: 0900 – 1200 and 1300 – 1600)

Overview

Leaders of organizations – large and small – usually have a short window of time to ensure their strategy takes root and delivers desired results. This one-day seminar is designed to help leaders – and their teams – acquire the foundational skills and tools for rapidly articulating their strategy and launching execution, many of ELG's Executive Smarts™ disciplines and methodologies. This seminar continues to prove its effectiveness in many organizations – including as part of a senior leadership program taught at the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, California.

Your organization or initiative will benefit from this seminar if . . .

  • You have new leadership with new direction
  • You have a new strategy or initiative that must be successful
  • It’s time to change course – for whatever reason
  • You’re not sure your team is properly focused or aligned
  • You aren’t seeing the right results or results fast enough, or
  • You’d like to build greater competency within your organization for making results happen

Participants

The principles and tools in this seminar are highly scalable and apply to individuals at any level in an organization – from senior executives to project initiative managers. When possible, we recommend that participants include intact teams: the team leader and his or her direct reports or core team. Seminar exercises will be tailored to address the team’s strategy. This seminar can also be conducted with a diverse group of individuals. In this case, more generic exercises ensure that participants leave with the core capabilities.

Course Outcomes

Class graduates improve their strategic thinking and skills so as to . . .

  • Target strategic results (instead of defensible efforts)
  • Define “indisputable results,” so that progress and success are clear and not open to interpretation
  • Prevent negative side-effects resulting from “successful” execution
  • Use collaborative planning, but individual accountability, to ensure intelligent and effective follow-through.
  • Cascade strategic results – and accountability for achieving them – down through the organization
  • Employ a systematic “governance” process to stay on course – or change course, to stay smart and relevant

Approach

This fast-paced seminar is led by two instructors experienced in strategic planning and execution in both public and private organizations. The seminar contains discussion, lecture and hands-on group exercises. When the seminar is provided for an intact team, the instructors will ask to speak with the team leader in advance to ensure exercises are tailored to team needs.

Fee

The fee for this seminar is $15,000 plus travel expenses. This fee assumes the sponsoring organization provides the facility for the seminar, any customary food and beverages for participants, an LCD projector and five turn charts (easels with poster-sized paper). Instructors will bring written materials for the participants, and additional required supplies and materials.

Participant Comments

  • Great presentation. Will definitely be using this information in the near future!
  • This course helped clarify the strategic planning process. It will definitely help me in my organization. They key is accountability for indisputable results.
  • Enjoyed putting what I learned into practical application. Certainly appreciated the team interaction since this could be an example on how my team would interact.
  • Outstanding!
  • Very well done, very applicable, good stuff from good speakers. Now I know how strategic plans are suppose to work!
  • The instructors distilled the essence of organizational alignment and presented it in a way that was very enlightening, yet simple. Additionally, the group exercises were very effective in etching the concepts into our way of thinking as leaders.
  • Extremely useful thought process and tools essential for turning strategies into actions that is well presented and facilitated.

Timeframe

ELG can usually schedule Turning Strategy Into Results course within 15 working days of formal authorization.


Launching Your Strategy: Rapid Team Alignment

Purpose

This three-day workshop aims to ensure that a leadership team understands exactly what it’s trying achieve, and who is accountable for what element of the strategy to get there. All portions of the workshop — education, tools, templates, and in-class work — are aimed at aligning the team to execute the organization’s strategy.

The tangible output of the workshop is a high level map of the organization’s goals and the major strategies for achieving those goals, with individual names on each major strategic outcome. Groups also find that the session discussions are as beneficial as the output, as the leadership team can engage in robust dialogue that results in common understanding and commitment to the decisions made.

Audience

The principles and tools are highly scalable and may be used at any level within the organizational hierarchy. We recommend that group participants include the leader and the individuals directly accountable to that person, often called the “command group” or “leadership team.” This usually ranges from five to 20 people. Attendance of others tends to inhibit the candor requisite for success, so we recommend limiting any attendance beyond this group.

Workshop Results

Most teams find that, following this workshop, they now understand what the leader is trying to accomplish better than they ever have before. At the end of the workshop, the organization will have the following, in draft form: The organization’s high-level goals, and the primary strategies for achieving these results will be defined. Each team member will leave with:

Commitments to a personal set of results that fully support the leader’s goals Parameters for those commitments: the negative results they agree NOT to produce while supporting team goals A new appreciation for their fellow team members and the cooperation that must exist for success Goals suitable for performance management (e.g., NSPS), if desired Linkages within the team–dependencies, hand-offs, etc.–will be established and baked into each person’s goals Linkages outside the team will be identified, with action plans in place for establishing or fixing those linkages

Approach

This three-day workshop is led by two instructors experienced in strategic planning and execution. One-on-one preparation interviews with the leader and each member of the team prior to the workshop session helps ELG tailor the session to the organization’s needs and challenges. This is followed by the three-day, off-site workshop, where the team alignment happens and strategies and accountabilities are refined and documented. If three consecutive days off site are not practical, other configurations are possible.

Following the workshop, ELG will provide recommendations for finalizing and communicating the organization’s goals, the primary strategies, and the subordinate goals. Also included is the availability of up to 10 hours of follow-up assistance to help ensure that performance commitments remain real and relevant.

Fee

The fee for this three-day (consecutive days) workshop is $55,000, including travel for workshops conducted within the continental U.S. This fee assumes that the sponsoring organization provides the venue for the workshop. For workshops outside the continental U.S. the fee is negotiated, to account for travel time and expense.

Timeframe

ELG can usually schedule Launching Your Strategy: Rapid Team Alignment within 20 working days of formal authorization.