Strategic issues
Learning from Experience
Our learning philosophy is simple but powerful: the participants bring their experience and the faculty introduces cutting edge concepts. The learning takes place where these meet, in an atmosphere conducive to thoughtful reflection for changed action.
Each company group brings to the program a strategic issue or challenge of central concern to its organization. These issues become a key focus of attention in all the modules. An issue could be either a long-standing unresolved problem or a particular opportunity for the business. For example, one group might address deficiencies in new product development while another might be trying to consolidate a difficult merger.
This makes the ALP both a learning community and a company specific program, capturing the best of both. It is public in that several companies share their issues and perspectives. And it is company specific in that each group spends considerable time focusing on an issue of key concern to its organization.
Guidelines for the ALP Challenges
The real power of the ALP is its ability to get teams so deeply in their challenges that they see the company in new and profound ways. Corporate culture, in particular, plays a major role in the discussions, with class time developed in all three modules to questions such as:” How do we understand culture” and “How do we bring meaningful change to our corporate culture”
- Is the challenge a significant point of leverage for the organization?
- Is it something that, if progress is made on, will have a lasting impact on the organization?
- Are participants passionate about the challenge?
- Is the challenge part of the participant’s work objectives?
- Can participants directly effect the outcome?
Examples of Company Challenges brought to the ALP:
- Organizing for innovation within our organization
- Developing a culture of customer service
- Improving our speed to market
- Motivating our front-line employees
- Fostering collaboration across units
- Stimulating innovation with our partners
- Bringing meaningful change to our culture
Our experience shows that most issues come down to a change in organizational culture. Time in all three modules is devoted to questions such as:” How do we understand culture”, “How do we bring meaningful change to our organizational culture” and “How does our culture inhibit real change”
Faculty are available throughout the whole program as coaches to help teams overcome specific hurdles they may encounter while moving their challenges forward.
