STRATEGY ACTIVATION

Confidently drive your next change initiative by bridging the gap between your vision and implementation

November 18, 20, 22, 2024
8:00 AM – 10:00 AM PST

Price: $995

Making change happen is a monumental task.

As a change leader, you’ve likely poured massive amounts of time, energy, and resources into implementing a change only to run out of oomph and insight when it comes to actually getting people to change their behavior.

This can happen for many reasons, but one of the biggest challenges is knowing how to move people from hearing about a change to actually living it.

In this three-day course, you will move from feeling frustrated that you don’t have the right tools to engage people to effectively applying a powerful framework that moves people from alignment to adoption. You’ll even build a personalized strategy activation plan.

Take the first step in building your strategy activation practice.

Why take this course

Learn from the author of The Strategy Activation Playbook
Learn a step-by-step, proven system for engaging employees in change initiatives
Acquire flexible change activation tools that can be applied immediately and reused for multiple applications
Collaborate and problem-solve with peers navigating similar change challenges
Gain powerful insights into reasons strategy activation fails—and how to avoid the pitfalls

Create your own strategy activation plan

This course is designed for practical application. Bring your change challenge, apply new methods, and build your activation plan.

Throughout the course, you’ll learn critical questions to ask in order to continue refining your plan and get tools and frameworks for leading the activities in your daily practice.

This course is for:

Executive Leaders: Responsible for enacting organizational strategy across large and complex organizations.

Managers: Making sure their teams are contributing effectively to corporate strategy.

Strategy and Management Consultants: Supporting/facilitating clients through change initiatives.

Transformation and Learning Professionals: Looking to equip and align teams toward effective collaboration.

This course is for you if...

You are responsible for major change initiatives in your organization
You are part of a change or transformation team and want to build new skills to be more successful
You need to more deeply engage employees in a change program
You want to embed a more effective change methodology into your organization
You are advising others on how to activate change in their organizations
You want to build new skills in change tools rooted in people-centered design, co-creation, and visual thinking
You want to teach others how to make change happen

Course Features and Benefits

About the Learning Experience

This hands-on course is led by an expert change practitioner. It combines on-demand content with live workshops designed for real-time collaboration, instruction, and practicing key skills.

This course is fully virtual and will be delivered via Zoom and MURAL. You’ll connect with and learn from fellow participants as well as your course instructor. In addition to the full-group activities and discussions, the group will be divided into small cohorts for further collaboration.

Added Bonus

Each course registrant will have the opportunity to book a 30-minute consultation on your specific change challenge with your course instructor. This invaluable one-on-one time will allow you to get more in-depth feedback, and tailored suggestions and best practices to help craft a successful activation campaign.

You’ll also receive a copy of The Strategy Activation Playbook with your course registration.

Additional Benefits

Lifetime access to course portal and materials including MURAL template
A library of strategy activation tools and frameworks, as well as an instructional guide for how to use these in your daily practice
Access to new tools, bonus content, and course updates as the course evolves

BEFORE DAY 1

Prework

Define your change challenge
One 30-minute new learner orientation

DAY 1

Fundamentals of strategy activation

Course objectives and what to expect
Change theory
Four phases intro

Getting started with strategy activation

Craft a clear vision
Develop a measurement system
Use empathy to understand key stakeholders

DAY 2

Map the inside landscape of the organization

Discovery cards
Barriers to Change cards

Understand the outside forces working for and against your organization

Force field analysis
Bring it together insights
Prepare the activation plan

DAY 3

Adapt and refine the plan

Share draft plans and gather feedback
Use insights to make the plan stronger

Bring your strategy to life and ongoing refinement

Design your dashboard
Design the governance model
Bring your strategy to life and ongoing refinement

Your Live Session Instructor

Zac Ryland, Consultant

Zac brings a blend of experiences as a former educator and from a decade of consulting with large, Fortune 500 clients across a wide range of industries. His career has been focused on experience design methodologies, all applied to help drive change at both the individual behavior changes level and in support of broader organizational changes.

He has led work and solutions across a variety of changes, evolutions, and transformations spanning customer/patient experience improvement, systems implementation/adoption, process improvement, awareness and communications, innovation system creation, and employee experience/retention/burnout. He recently led the design and development of two award-winning solutions – one focused on evolving the customer experience in one of our nation’s largest retail healthcare organizations and another focused on changing the sales organization in one of the world’s largest medical device manufacturers.

Featuring Pre-Recorded Content from the Author of "The Strategy Activation Playbook"

Aric Wood, Author

Aric Wood, author of The Strategy Activation Playbook, is a leading expert in strategy activation and innovation. His proficiency spans strategy, general management, innovation, and entrepreneurship, with a focus on applying design thinking to uncover opportunities and drive transformation.

During his two decades leading XPLANE, he guided large organizations in clarifying, communicating, and activating their strategies. Aric also directed the firm’s Strategy Activation practice, which helped organizations bring their strategies to life by aligning, engaging, and empowering employees.

Aric is a sought-after keynote speaker and has been featured in CNN, BusinessWeek, Forbes, and Inc. Magazine. His earlier career includes leadership roles at Intuit and Epinions.com, as well as strategic consulting with Bain & Company.

What Our Learners Say

“I highly recommend this course to anyone who wants to apply a proven analytical process to achieving lasting strategic change. XPLANE provided simple yet detailed tools, a contextual overview of their process, and a clear step-by-step guide to successfully gain team buy-in. Their expertise was clear throughout the entire course.”

—J. Michael Hawthorne, PG, Principal, Sr. Vice President at GEI Consultants, Inc.

“The recordings, the access to materials, the accessibility of the instructors, the willingness of the participants…XPLANE’s Strategy Activation course was one I dreamt of. I am so glad I took it. I feel more confident and capable in my role.”

—Jill Kinison, Senior Manager, Global Operations at Slalom

“Thank you, Aric! You hugely surpassed my expectations of the session. I’m very excited to dive into much of what you shared. I loved how complex concepts were laid out in a simple manner that would be digestible by leaders engaged in change which makes it easier to engage in the change work necessary to make things stick.”

—ACMP Strategy Activation Masterclass Participant

Course Resources

For more information about the content that will be covered and what to expect throughout the course, download our course syllabus today.

Get the eight tactics that will help you build your strategy activation plan and accelerate your organization’s change transformation results.

A future leader will have the best ability to execute strategy through people. Enhance your change leadership skills and help your organization thrive in today’s world of unrelenting change by using a modern change management methodology and tried-and-true tips found in our playbook.

FAQ

Q: We’ve tried strategy activation methods before, what makes this different?

A: We’ll give you the critical missing piece between strategy planning and change implementation that’s essential to success: How to activate your employees and leverage how employees and organizations embrace change.

Q: How can you help me get traction on my change initiative?

A: We’ll reveal how employees learn and provide tools to help you better navigate common barriers to change.

Q: Why should I trust XPLANE?

A: XPLANE has been helping leaders worldwide tell impactful change stories since 1993. Frequently, clients come to XPLANE with an overwhelming amount of data, and look to us to simplify and construct the information into a narrative people can better understand and align around.

Our storytelling methods have successfully helped organizations’ employees (1) buy-in to a new culture, (2) adopt a new process or methodology, (3) get them aligned around a new vision, and more.

With over 30 years of trying and learning on real projects with our clients, we’re eager to share our methods and resources with you to help you create impactful stories for positive change.

Q: I’m super busy. How many hours will I need to invest? What’s the estimated course hours and assignment time?

A: Our course is built to fit your busy schedule. It includes:

An hour of asynchronous video content to view at your own pace.
6 hours of hands-on, live, group-instruction sessions with your instructor to practice key skills, ask questions, and get additional feedback on course activities.