Those of you who follow my blog are obviously interested in driving growth and managing to be strategic in high-uncertainty environments. What you may not know is that myself, Ian MacMillan and a great group of faculty and practitioners are part of a one-week Columbia Executive Education Course Leading Strategic Growth and Change. I direct the course and am there with its participants for the whole week that it runs, which will be next from April 18-23, at a beautiful conference center in Norwalk, Connecticut.
What can you expect if you were to attend? Firstly, a fantastic group of international participants who are all wrestling with growth issues—particularly in this economy. Recent classes have included participants from Wal-Mart, Berlitz, Siemens, Nokia, Start-ups, Emirates Bank Group, several banks in Nigeria and Boeing. Each person in the program prepares and brings a ‘personal case’ involving a growth challenge, and we set aside good blocks of time for teams to work on taking each others’ cases forward. In terms of content, we get in-depth on many of the tools and techniques you’ve told me have been helpful, including opportunity portfolio mapping, discovery driven planning, MarketBusting, leading major changes, handling politics, and a lot of other great ideas. We also bring practitioners into the course to provide real-life examples of how firms have used the material. Principals from design firm IDEO are going to be with us in April for that segment. We’re also going to have a special lecture from one of our young Columbia superstars on social networking and social media.
Interested? Well here’s the good news – I persuaded Columbia (very nicely, thank you!) to offer readers of my blog a 20% discount from the price of the course, which includes lodging, all meals, course materials and of course sessions with all those great faculty. Here’s what you have to do if you are interested: Register on-line and make sure to note “RGM blog” in the box that asks: What are your objectives in attending this program?”
Intrigued? Want more information? Email me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and I’m happy to answer questions. It is a really magical week, and I hope that the discount might make it easier for some of you to join us.