Being Strategic: Thinking and Acting with Impact
What you'll learn
- Identify the strategic differentiation and capabilities that set your company apart
- Organize work across three organizational systems, and protect your most competitive work
- Define your role to make maximum strategic impact on your company’s performance
- Deal with the pressures and challenges of doing more strategic work
Requirements
- Basic business acumen (for example, an understanding of financial metrics like profit and loss)
- Basic understanding of how your company competes and operates (key customers and competitors, and how the organization is set up (functions, regions, etc.))
Description
I’m sure you’ve heard the term “strategic thinking,” but what does that actually mean? An internet search reveals more definitions of it than you can count. You know you want to be recognized as someone who is strategic, have your ideas heard, and make a difference for your company, but you’re not sure where to start.
This course cuts through all of the mythology and mystique and gets down to the concrete focus and actions it takes to think and act strategically. With a 30+ year track record accompanying leaders on some of their most important strategic transformations, instructor Ron Carucci will walk you step by step through understanding the fundamentals of strategy, and how to focus your job on the most strategic opportunities your company cares about. You’ll learn about
What competitive differentiation means, and how to identify where your company sets itself apart from the competition
How organizations separate critical work across the operating, coordinating and strategic systems of your company
The difference between competitive work, competitive-enabling work, and business-essential work, and how to optimize your day for the greatest impact and satisfaction
This course will become your go-to resource for helping you and your team raise your game, focusing on the most important strategic activities you can to drive performance for your company. It will demystify all of the confusion about what strategy and strategic thinking does, and does not, mean. You’ll walk away with concrete tools you and your team can use to redefine the focus of your work, set and keep strategic priorities, and deal with the pressures and challenges of thinking and acting more strategically.
Who this course is for:
- You are a leader with ambitions to make important impact on your company’s performance; you desire to become “more strategic,” or have been given feedback that you need to be but aren’t quite sure what it means or where to start.
- You feel like your organization isn’t focused on the most important priorities, or that they keep shifting, but aren’t quite sure why. You know you and your team can add greater strategic value, and you need to figure out how to make it happen.
- You are tired of putting out fires all day and not feeling like you’re working on the most important things your company needs you to focus on; you want to figure out how to shift your attention to the things that will be deeply gratifying, give you a sense of purpose, and actually have impact.
Course content
- Preview05:39
- 06:55What being strategic does not mean
Instructor
![Ron Carucci](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 64 64"%3E%3C/svg%3E){kind=avatar}
- 4.5 Instructor Rating
- 1,331 Reviews
- 3,652 Students
- 2 Courses
Ron is co-founder and managing partner at Navalent, working with CEOs and executives pursuing transformational change for their organizations, leaders, and industries. He has a thirty year track record helping executives tackle challenges of strategy, organization and leadership. From start-ups to Fortune 10’s, non-profits to heads-of-state, turn-arounds to new markets and strategies, overhauling leadership and culture to re-designing for growth. He has helped organizations articulate strategies that lead to accelerated growth, and design organizations that can execute those strategies. He has worked in more than 25 countries on 4 continents. He is the author of 8 books, including the recent Amazon #1 Rising to Power. He is a regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review, where Navalent’s work on leadership was named one of 2016’s management ideas that mattered most. He is also a regular contributor to Forbes, and a two-time TEDx speaker. His work’s been featured in Fortune, CEO Magazine, Inc., BusinessInsider, MSNBC, Business Week, Inc., Fast Company, Smart Business, and thought leaders.
He lives in the Seattle area with his wife and two children. On weekends, you’ll find him on his bike, on the lake, on his skis, at the movies, or cheering for the Seahawks. His greatest joy is seeing leaders thrive by having an impact on the lives of those they lead. Helping leaders find their voice, and use it to serve their organization’s greater good is what gets him up every morning. In his office, Ron has a collection of antique door knobs, door knockers and skeleton keys. Every day, they remind him that life is about finding and pursuing the open doors in front of you, and making sure those doors open for others. In the morning, one of his favorite routines is picking the coffee mug in the conference room from among his collection. Each mug hails from a different experience and person in his life, and helps him begin his day remembering to be grateful for all those in his life who’ve been part of his story.