But creativity can’t be switched on and off on demand. It is essential for business leaders to understand obstacles to creativity and how to overcome them, learn and practice creativity techniques, and learn from best practices at what point creativity has the most impact on the outcomes. In this session, participants will learn and then apply specific tools, processes and techniques that help them to utilize practices with a real-life example.

Focusing on the critical importance that foresight has for companies in fast changing business environments, participants explore real-world examples in which an established foresight process has helped organizations to anticipate critical (both positive and negative) trends and outsmart competitors. Learning from a blend of theory, real-life examples, and proven methods to evaluate opportunities, executives will build the foundation to initiate and sustain an organization-wide strategic reorientation and competitive revitalization.

This course will highlight the importance of utilizing strategic thinking and methods within a holistic, collaborative perspective. In addition, participants will be exposed to and will apply the concepts of Idealized Design to explore new strategic possibilities and fundamentally transform the current way of doing business and solving problems. This process will follow an interactive planning approach known as Idealized Design. There are two general constraints that we will use as a framework. The first constraint is that the Idealized Design must be feasible and second, that it must be capable of surviving in the current environment if it were to come into existence. During this session, executives will spend some time developing some of their ideas for the company and take some first steps in designing a vision for the future.

This session introduces a four-component model of planned change and illustrates its features through the use of both case studies and experiential exercises. Participants will learn to use the model in overcoming major obstacles to successful change and build skills in planning, leading, and sustaining large scale organizational change. Participations will also learn about a framework designed to better understand team effectiveness and minimize team dysfunctions in order to move from idea to implementation, evaluation and improvement without losing momentum.

It will be important to recognize the difference between productive and unproductive failures and to translate this knowledge into action. Making things happen sometimes requires challenge, change and even conflict. Learn how to work out what really matters; how to gain buy-in from others; how to have a “good” fight; and how to move past decision-making bottlenecks as you work to realize the company’s future.