Introduction

This 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 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’. Rather than viewing strategy as an academic exercise, it centres on strategic planning as a value-adding process which harnesses the leader’s and the team’s creativity and enables ideas to be nurtured through to reality.

Seminar Objectives

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

•  Select appropriate techniques for self-discovery;
•  Demonstrate innovative methods for harnessing others’ creative potential;
• Articulate a vision using multiple sensory representations;
• Communicate their vision in refreshing and engaging ways;
• Explore the outer limits of group creativity;
• Set out creative options for implementing change;
• Define the concepts of ‘strategy’ and ‘strategic plans’;
• Explain the strategic process as part of ‘Helicopter Thinking’;
• Apply strategic planning to their own management issues;
• Place strategy within the overall context of the organisation;
• Gain confidence in managing their strategic role.

Training Methodology

This 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.

Organisational Impact

Creativity and innovation are at the heart of organisational performance. Leaders at all levels who can develop and communicate a shared vision are better able to engage and motivate their teams and can focus on longer-term organisational and customer needs. By taking the shared vision forwards, and focusing on the Task, individuals and team to complement the organisation, leaders can effectively bring about results by focusing on needs of the organisation, employee and customer.

Personal Impact

Participants will be challenged to explore and articulate a personal vision of the future based on aligned and coherent values. They will learn key elements of developing a strategic personal and professional brand, contributing to their ability to position themselves in the organisation to best effect; and acquire a new attitude in terms of thinking, motivation, behavioural flexibility and resolution. Opportunities for networking and sharing ideas will provide a further catalyst to personal growth.

Who Should Attend?

This seminar is designed for leaders and 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.

It will also be of great benefit to 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 organisation.

Programme Outline

Day 1 - 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

Day 2 - 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

Day 3 - 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

Day 4 - 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

Day 5 - 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

Day 6 - 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 backwards from the customer”
• Mini-case on importance of external analysis

Day 7 - 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

Day 8 - 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
• Introduction and briefing for the main case study
• First-phase group work on the main case study

Day 9 - 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
• Second-phase work on the main case study

Day 10 - Strategic implementation and getting the value out of strategy

• Final-phase work on the main case study
• Group presentations of the main case study
• Effective execution – converting strategic analysis and planning into action
• Linking strategy with operational objectives
• Implementation – getting practical things done
• Strategic planning of your own career
• Creating tomorrow’s organization out of today’s organization
• Conclusion – the corporate and individual value of strategic thinking