STRATEGY ACTIVATION
Confidently drive your next change initiative by bridging the gap between your vision and implementation
In today’s modern organization, it takes more than a CEO directive to compel people to adopt change. How do you engage people with a new initiative and get them actively engaged in moving forward?
In this three-day course, you will move from feeling frustrated that you can’t get people on board with change to effectively applying a powerful process that moves people from alignment to adoption and a personalized strategy activation plan for your organization. The course will introduce an overall framework as a first step in building your strategy activation practice.
By the end of this course you will:
- 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
- Problem solve and build relations with other professionals navigating similar change challenges
- Gain powerful insights into reasons strategy activation fails—and how to avoid the pitfalls
- Experience the framework in action led by an expert practitioner
- Complete activities and leave the course with a full draft of your unique strategy activation plan
Learners will leave with:
- A strategy activation plan geared to your organization you can implement right away
- An instructional guide for how to lead the activities, and critical questions to ask in order to continue refining your plan for your context
- 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 initiative in your organization
- You are part of a change or transformation team and want to build new skills to be more successful
- You are advising others on how to activate change in their organizations
- You need to more deeply engage employees in a change program
- You want to build new skills in change tools rooted in people-centered design, co-creation, and visual thinking
- You want to embed a more effective change methodology into your organization
- If you’re an advanced change practitioner, you may benefit from the upcoming deep dive series
Course Features and Benefits
While the course is fully virtual and will be delivered via Zoom and MURAL, you’ll be able to connect with and learn from fellow participants as well as your course instructor. The group will be divided into small cohorts, with whom you’ll be working and discussing, in addition to the full-group activities and discussions.
About the Learning Experience
- Learn from expert practitioners
- Video Content
- Hands-on, learn by doing in the live-instruction sessions
- Each day includes short video lecture followed by hands-on activities in the live workshop
- Real-time guidance and feedback to troubleshoot and practice key skills you can immediately apply to your organization
- Benefit from rich discussions with other professionals attending the course who are also leading change initiatives in their organizations
This class is designed to be an open and collaborative environment where you and other learners will be able to see each other’s work. We ask learners to practice discretion.
Ongoing Benefits
- An instructional guide for how to lead the activities, critical questions to ask in order to continue refining your plan for your context
- The tools and frameworks for leading the activities in your daily practice
- One on one, 30-minute consultation on your specific change challenge with an expert practitioner
- Lifetime access to course portal and materials including MURAL template
- Access to new tools, bonus content, and course updates as the course evolves
- First look at new course offerings
BEFORE DAY 1
Prework
• Collect data, information, or a scenario that you need to tell a story about
• One 30-minute new learner orientation
DAY 1
DAY 2
DAY 3
Fundamentals of strategy activation
- Course objectives and what to expect
- Change theory
- Four phases intro
Async Video Lecture
Map the inside landscape of the organization
- Discovery cards
- Barriers to Change cards
Async Video Lecture
Adapt and refine the plan
- Share draft plans and gather feedback
- Use insights to make the plan stronger
Live Group Instruction
Getting started with strategy activation
- Craft a clear vision
- Developing the measurement system
- Use empathy to understand key stakeholders
Live Group Instruction
Understand the outside forces working for and against your organization
- Force field analysis
- Bring it together insights
- Prepare the activation plan
Live Group Instruction
Bring your strategy to life and ongoing refinement
- Design your dashboard
- Design the governance model
- Bring your strategy to life and ongoing refinement
Async Video Lecture
Your Instructor
Aric Wood, CEO
Aric leads XPLANE as its CEO and leader of the Strategic Planning and Strategy Activation practices, helping non-profit, government, and Fortune 500 clients chart a clear strategy and a path to achieve it. He is an international keynote speaker, and has appeared in publications and broadcasts including Forbes, CNN, Business Week, Entrepreneur, and Inc. Magazine.
Prior to XPLANE, Aric served in leadership roles at Intuit and Epinions.com, and as a strategy consultant at Bain & Company. He earned his MBA at Harvard Business School.
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 Bootcamp.”
—J. Michael Hawthorne, PG, Principal, Sr. Vice President at GEI Consultants, Inc.
“The recordings, the access to material, the accessibility of the instructors, the willingness of the participants…XPLANE’s Strategy Activation Bootcamp was a course 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
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 25+ 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’s spread out across three days, and during the course you will have access to:
- Asynchronous video content to view at your own pace in your own time (zone).
- AND three hands-on, live, group-instruction session with your instructor to practice key skills, answer questions, and provide you with additional feedback on activities.
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