Train yourself and your team to be strategic leaders

To be a great leader, you must be strategic.  To quote a classic Harvard Business Review article on leadership:

“As a prerequisite to building brand, firms must master what we call the Leadership Code.  Roughly speaking, the code consists of these requirements: First, leaders must master strategy; they need to have a point of view about the future and be able to position the firm for continued success with customers.”
– Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood, Building a Leadership Brand, HBR August 2007

Mastering strategy, however, is not simple. Professor Malcolm McDonald’s research has shown that there is often basic confusion between strategy and objectives. The word ‘strategy’ is used to describe even the most detailed of tactics like a referral strategy or an email strategy.  Moreover, strategy is often learned on-the-job by taking decisions and then learning from the mistakes.

Being strategic is not the exclusive right of the CEO or the Chief Marketing Officer.  Every senior executive should be strategically competent, able to provide good input to the overall business strategy, review the strategies of others and develop their own strategic plans.  Finally, as the authors of a book on the subject, we know that being strategic is crucial for implementation success.

Our Simulations give executives a chance to learn and practice their strategic skills in a safe environment. Sure, you can read books and articles on the subject – and even attend training sessions. But just like an aircraft pilot who has read or heard all the theory, you cannot be competent until you have practiced it, safely in a simulator and clocked up a few flying hours. Our simulations have been used in executive workshops and online to improve strategic leadership skills. They have been used for training purposes and for war-gaming specific strategies. Those battle-tested strategies are then revised before being implemented. They have also been used in recruitment to find the best future leaders.

This is true for developing sales leaders as it is for developing any other leader. Our SAM2Win simulation is specifically focused on developing great sales leaders and is used in business schools to teach strategic account management.

You can even build your own simulation around your specific market conditions!

Our Academy breaks the subject down into affordable bite-size learning courses, all available online so you can studywhere you like, when you like.  They combine solid academic research with practical tools and templates that have all proven highly effective with our executive clients over the years. We take a simple step-by-step approach to explaining the key tools, how to use them and how to profit from them. Developed by experts with senior experience of applying the concepts in real life, the courses are full of case examples and learnings that will really enhance your understanding of the subject.

Our Services help you customize our off-the-shelf products to fit your specific business and market conditions. These include custom built training programmes geared around teaching the relevant learning points to your business, coaching on a 1:1 basis and consultancy to support significant change programmes.

Our Shop provides a wide range of free and affordable tools, articles and books.  They have been developed over many years of real experience working with clients in many different industries around the world.  They are useful additional resources to understanding the concepts properly and mastering the art of applying them effectively.