Program

Curriculum: A Systemic Approach to Heightened Performance for Your Organization…and You

Imagine that you’ve just been promoted. Last week, you had responsibility for a single product line; today you’re the senior vice president of a strategic business unit. It’s your first meeting with your leadership team: VPs of finance, marketing, sales, supply chain, IT, and human resources. As you look around the table, you appreciate the ultimate benefit of the Smith EMBA: a curriculum based on a systems thinking approach to solving and dissolving problems.

Everything we do is based on a systems thinking. The most successful organizations today grow and prosper because their leaders understand that all parts of their organization are interconnected and interdependent. Systems thinking celebrates this interconnectedness, and it’s the driving force behind the Smith executive education philosophy.

Using a systems approach, the Smith EMBA helps you “think big” by providing a breadth of knowledge across all business disciplines and the understanding that many problems—in fact, the most vexing problems—happen at the intersection of disciplines and functions of the organization. Throughout the curriculum, you’ll learn an approach to problems and complex situations that cross multiple functional areas. Where you used to focus on a single area, you’ll learn how that area interacts with and affects the entire organization. Thinking big helps you see beyond the obvious, simple and often inadequate small solution to find a more comprehensive approach – and one that may possibly dissolve the problem entirely.