Why it’s Smart to be Leveraging Your Leaders to Drive Business Strategy

By Anya Clitheroe and Gordon Robinson

As the pace of change continues to increase, forward-looking organizations will be planning to invest in enhancing the capabilities of their senior leadership teams.

Why now? Because across multiple areas of business, opportunities are emerging to gain significant competitive and commercial advantage – and smart companies know that investing in the development of their key executives is vital if they are to successfully seize these opportunities.

At the same time, cost management is at the forefront of the C-suite’s agenda, which is why OrgShakers has created the Executive Action Series – a leadership development program which is laser-focused on supporting your senior leaders and executives with their strategic goals in the face of five emerging business challenges:

1. Customer Experience

Customers are the fuel that keep the fire burning for organizations, so the future needs to be all about driving customer experience. This means personalized marketing that only requires a simple approach for putting it to good use which will deliver what someone needs when they need it, as well as efficient problem resolution. The idea is that companies will be creating business strategy that promotes a sense of individuality and value for each customer, making their experience unique to them and putting their specific needs at the forefront.

2. Generative AI

A recent survey from Access Partnership discovered that 93% of employers expect to use generative AI in the workplace in the next five years. While the presence of AI isn’t necessarily new, generative AI has opened up a whole new realm of possibilities for organizations, and is seemingly the harbinger for the age of working smart. But in order to optimize its uses, business leaders need a deep understanding of how generative AI will support and enable their business strategy to unlock its full potential.

3. Remote and Hybrid Working

The tug-of-war between employers issuing ‘return to office’ mandates and employees wanting flexible working arrangements has been going on since lockdown ended. But aside from flexibility being a strategy for attracting talent, the digitalisation of the working world has seen the barriers of place and time evaporate, allowing organizations to gain access to the best talent on a global scale. Hybrid and remote work, if managed successfully, can play a huge role in a business’ economic strategy.

4. Skills-Based Hiring

Employers have increasingly relaxed their need for qualifications in favor of skills, aptitude, and attitude. Skills-based hiring continues to gain momentum, and by identifying areas where this can be woven into business strategy, employers will catalyse social mobility and foster a more diverse workforce.

5. Resilience

An organization that can foster both organizational and individual resilience is going to be best prepared for disruptive events that can happen at any given moment (economic downturns, cyber-attacks, global pandemics, etc). Having the knowledge to recognize, predict, and mitigate risk will be fundamental to the health and sustainability of a business.

The Series is divided into five modules that are spread across the corporate calendar. Each module covers the theory behind best practices, and then brings these to life through a combination of facilitated conversation and group coaching paired with case studies, real-world scenarios, and visits to organizations where these practices can be experienced first-hand. Participants will also hear directly from world-class subject matter experts, as well as collaborating with other leaders in their organization.

Executive Action Series

Each module will help equip leaders with a variety of new tools and knowledge that will yield resilience and sustainability for the future:

• Module #1: Leadership Portrait

We use comprehensive diagnostics, alongside personal and team reflection, to gain deep, meaningful insights into individual leadership brand and enhance contributions to team effectiveness. We will also consider how the ensuing levels of trust allow leaders to leverage differences of opinions for enhanced outcomes.

• Module #2: Shaping Strategy Through Customers, Diversity & AI

Together, we examine the impact on strategy of three levers that the research above identifies as critical to current success: customer experience, workforce diversity, and harnessing the power of AI. In addition, we’ll introduce world-class thought leaders to facilitate discussions about key issues that will be important to future success.

• Module #3: Activating Strategy

At this stage, we explore a range of powerful tools for activating strategy through operations, including effective leadership of large-scale change and the impact of operational choices on customer experience. We will also introduce the concept of the Program Acceleration Office as a best practice for optimizing a portfolio of projects.

• Module #4: Winning Through Talent

Knowing that 46% of CEOs have Talent in their Top-3 immediate priorities, we will explore the evolution of the workplace and the talent strategies that will help us win the war for talent. What can senior leaders do to enable the recruitment, development, and retention of the right people across the right organization?

• Module #5: Sustaining and Evolving a Resilient Strategy

To sustain success, we must smooth out the peaks and troughs that are typical of ongoing change. We will explore the latest methods of building strength and flexibility throughout the organization to cultivate resilience across your workforce, your culture, and your strategy, and help weather turbulent business cycles.

To ensure skills and insights gained from the Series are applied when executives return to the workplace, Coaches will provide virtual facilitation between modules and encourage ongoing collaboration through small group peer support coaching.

If you would like to discuss the Executive Action Series in more detail, please get in touch with us via anya@orgshakers.com or gordon.robinson@orgshakers.com or reach out to us through our website.