CII Executive Leadership Program (XLP)

Change Management
Dr. Doug Dierking

Grow as a leader.

• Identify, optimize and adapt your personal leadership style.
• Strengthen your leadership ability through a combination of classroom instruction in leadership concepts and frameworks, assessments, peer discussion, and outdoor experiential exercises, which will result in personal reflection, learning and action planning.
• Achieve awareness and mastery of your own leadership approaches and expertise.
• Improve your understanding of contextual demands and how different leadership styles and behaviors best meet those demands.
• Draw out personal learning based on tangible opportunities to practice the art of leadership.

Communication Effectiveness
Dr. John Daly

• Persuade busy audiences (focusing on brevity, familiarity, repetition, visual images, and pitching),
• Navigate difficult situations (framing bad news, reframing tough situations, and staying positive through adversity), and
• Address mistakes (public speaking mistake, personal mistake, common mistakes in question and answer sessions).

Creative Solutions to Complex Problems
Dr. Gaylen Paulson

Elegant solutions may appear obvious in hindsight, but are difficult to identify in the moment. During this interactive session we’ll learn very practical strategies for discovering creative solutions. Individual problem solving methods and tactics will be explored, along with ways to overcome barriers to innovative thinking. We then learn ways to approach interpersonal issues, emphasizing techniques for promoting collaboration and overcoming the emotional and psychological barriers of conflict. Finally, you’ll learn ways to better manage and solve problems as a member of a team or group. Going beyond brainstorming, we’ll explore tactics to harness the creative energy of the group while avoiding “analysis paralysis” and the dreaded “groupthink.”

Executive Negotiation Skills Workshop
Dr. Gaylen Paulson

Negotiation:
The art and science of securing an agreement between two or more interdependent parties. The negotiated agreement will guide & regulate their future behavior.

• Multiple Parties
• Interaction Based
• Seeking to Reach Agreement
• Formally/Informally Guides & Regulates Behavior

Leadership Challenges and Advocacy
Dr. John Daly

Master the art of effective leadership. This course covers vital aspects such as personal branding, building trust, team dynamics, and gaining commitment. Develop the skills to overcome obstacles and thrive as a leader in today’s business world.

• Personal Branding: Align your strengths with organizational goals.
• Trust Building: Foster transparency, accountability, and collaboration.
• Team Dynamics: Understand your team and maximize productivity.
• Commitment: Inspire and align individuals with shared objectives.

In Advocacy for Leaders, you will develop and implement an internal strategy that will build your credibility, construct and deliver persuasive messages that work in any context, gain support from your alliances and networks, and inspire change throughout your organization to reach common goals.

Overcoming Cognitive Bias to Improve Decision Making
Prof. Don Ruse

They say the first step is always recognition of the issue. Participants in this session will enhance their ability to recognize cognitive biases, both their own and those of others. They will focus on overcoming these biases by acknowledgment and understanding of the tendency and developing the disciplines of thought and practice to overcome them to improve their leadership decision making.

Presentation Skills and Executive Presence
Prof. Melissa Murphy

This session will focus on physical and vocal delivery secrets to leadership presence, audience analysis techniques to customize content to maximize audience connection, incorporating figurative language and stories, as well as powerful PowerPoint design tips to create a visual complement to participant presentations. This session will focus on the types of audience participants need to reach, providing them with the confidence, knowledge, and skills required to present messages with clarity, confidence, and passion.

Situational Leadership
Prof. Melissa Murphy

Participants will have the opportunity to reflect on their results from their Big 5 Personality assessment in this session. Considering their tendencies, interaction style and types of situations they feel most comfortable or uncomfortable in they will gain ideas of how they can best lead, adjustments they may need to make, and behaviors they need to develop to best lead in any given situation. This session will also provide and activity-based opportunity for providing feedback in various situations.

Strategic Planning and Execution
Prof. Stephen Courter

Develop the skills to make strategic decisions and execute with confidence across your company. Establish a solid foundation in strategic management by reviewing current industry corporate, divisional, and product strategy frameworks. Enhance your ability to set and reach strategic and economic goals by equipping yourself with methods and frameworks that are proven to be successful. Gain in-depth knowledge of contemporary strategic frameworks and tools along with the skills to apply them immediately in your work environment. 

• Examine the strategic management process and frameworks
• Uncover how industry, corporate, and economic drivers affect strategy
• Identify the strategic forces affecting your business and how to leverage them
• Discuss the importance of keeping the strategy at the forefront of your decision making
• Discover how to perceive products, processes, and firms to enhance your competitive advantage
• Utilize strategy management tools for successful implementation

Stakeholder Relationships
Prof. Karen Landolt

To better understand:

• History and rationale of CSR activities
• Best practices in Stakeholder Relations
• The context (legal, political, cultural) in which companies interact with stakeholders on issues related to CSR, particularly recurring and sensitive issues

Performance Management
Prof. Brian Lendecky

Analyze performance management and control systems, including structured measurement models, analytical techniques, and system biases to discover impact on the behaviors of your team. Establish a grounding in proven measurement techniques while addressing cost-benefit issues. Employ better performance measurement systems to create a culture of planning, execution, and accountability.
 
OPERATIONAL CONTROL
Performance management systems
Identify the elements of effective performance management and control systems
Evaluate the output of systems that report cost and profitability performance in a moderately complex operation
 
EFFECTIVE BUDGETING SYSTEMS
Describe the operation of an effective master budgeting system
Analyze and interpret budget-actual variances and assess responsibility for them
Human dynamics of budgeting
Design a balanced scorecard performance management system for a business unit
 
METRICS RELATED TO PERFORMANCE
Analysis of variances
Effective performance metrics
What gets measured is what gets done
Challenge ineffective or inefficient metrics
Evaluate effective and ineffective KPIs your organization uses and discover how they affect the behaviors of your team, good and bad