Executing Strategy

Course Number 1263

Senior Lecturer J. Bruce Harreld
Winter, 29 Sessions
Exam

Career Focus

This course is designed for students who believe they will have responsibility for implementing a new strategy at some point in their career. Such positions include CEO's, senior line executives, and Chief Strategic Officers. Students who plan on working for major strategy consulting firms will also benefit from this experience.

Educational Objectives

The educational objectives of this course are to sensitize students to the issues confronting leaders as they implement strategy and to provide students with practical techniques for successfully executing strategy.

Course Content and Organization

In the RC Strategy course you were introduced to the principles and tools for assessing a firm's strategic position and formulating a new strategy. Additionally, in the RC LEAD course you were exposed to the Congruence Model. This EC course builds on these RC courses by focusing on how general managers translate a new strategy into successful organizational action.

This is a hands on, practical course which consists of five modules:

• Introduction - This module sensitizes the student to the importance of aligning the firm's executional model with the firm's strategy. Cases of effective and ineffective alignment will be discussed.
• Strategy & Execution Alignment - This module explores what effective alignment looks like and exposes students to tools for aligning the tasks required to execute the new strategy with the firm's formal structure, skills, and culture.
• Dynamic Strategy - As external forces evolve so must the organization's strategy and executional model or, the organization will hit a wall. Thus, strategy & execution must not only be aligned once but continuously or the organization hits a wall. This module explores how leaders proactively sense the need for a shift in strategy and constructively introduce change to an organization.
• Culture - Culture is one of the most powerful control systems in an organization. This module explores what culture is, how it can be effectively used to build organizational momentum for a new strategy, and how leaders do so.
• Leadership - The course closes with an examination of leaders dealing with alignment and change. In so doing, the importance of personal leadership is emphasized, mistakes ineffective leaders have made are discussed, and the various tools effective change agents use are emphasized.