Transitions

Program outcomes

Participants and their sponsoring organisations will benefit from the Transitions program by:

• Reflecting on their organisational and strategic environment;
• Taking stock of their leadership and managerial performance;
• Building fresh perspectives, scoping not only the bigger business picture, but also understanding the operational detail in new ways, and over the longer term;
• Interacting with and learning from a group of peers;
• Improving their analytical capabilities and environmental sensitivity;
• Formulating strategies and action plans that are context-appropriate to their organisations;
• Honing their strategic sense and decision-taking skills;
• Becoming more agile, responsive and managerially adept;
• Developing a robust proposal for an action learning project that they will implement within their organizations;
• Acquiring new confidence, knowledge, and self-awareness;
• Positioning themselves for the step up to general management or deeper accountability.

Program content

The program builds leadership and management capability in three key areas: strategic thinking, people management, and innovation and change. It analyses these three themes into a series of interrelated threads that participants tie together for themselves as the program progresses.  Sharing their particular issues in informed, facilitated dialogue, they develop practical and concrete approaches to their unique individual challenges, which they will present at the end of the program.

The program’s structure reflects the typical sequence of managerial action.

In Day 1, participants explore the wider context of demands on managers today, through guided consideration of:

• Current management issues and themes
• Managerial effectiveness
• The strategic imperative
• The importance of teams.

Day 2 builds understanding of:

• Performance and people development
• The organisational environment
• Organisational systems
• The drivers of competitiveness.

During Day 3, the emphasis shifts to the foundations of robust management decisions:

• Sustainability analysis
• Decision making/taking
• Managerial courage
• Financial management.

The individual’s capacity to influence is the focus of Day 4:

• The psychology of influence
• The nature of leadership
• Advanced negotiation
• Managerial communication.

The program culminates on Day 5 with a focus on outcomes:

• Change management and implementation
• Presentation of action learning projects
• Review.

Pre- and post-program components

Before coming on the program, participants will be asked to asses their own management situations, by working with some diagnostic instruments that will be considered on the program, and discussing their expectations for their learning with a key stakeholder or sponsor from their organisations. This consultation will be important for framing and clarifying the commitment, by both parties, involved in undertaking such executive development.

Through the management situation assessment, particularly the sponsor consultation, participants will bring to the program a significant management and/or leadership issue. During the program, they will develop a concrete proposal for dealing with the issue that reflects specific ways they can apply their learning in relation to the analysed themes. As the end of the program they will present this Learning Application Proposal (LAP), a deliverable with potentially significant returns to their organisations.

After the program, participants will be provided with a range of options for capitalising on the benefits they receive from it. Such options may include:

• A range of coaching options for support in the implementation of their LAP, including assistance with a report on outcomes to project sponsor(s) and/or key stakeholders;
• Follow-up coaching and performance feedback options, including further diagnostics and advice on next steps;
• Assistance with making a formal report on the outcomes of their LAP to the project sponsor and key stakeholders.