When updating the program for the modern context of business, we took into account two important factors:

• Modern context. We all experienced the first shock, the first decisive actions that required extreme responsibility and concentration, solving urgent tasks. Many of us changed our usual roles — went to the front, started volunteering. However, most of the community continues to hold the economic front. What will be our next steps? How to solve the dilemma: to move exclusively operationally from day to day, or to think about strategic things? Everyone decides in his or her way how much energy and moral strength is enough. Still, business founders and top managers understand that we cannot help but think about tomorrow, no matter how uncertain it may be. This situation requires a different, new way of thinking.
• Features of the CEO’s role. The key task of the CEO today is to make quick and complex decisions in conditions with many unknowns. These decisions must be made, taking into account the role of the CEO — too much responsibility, but in fact, there is no one nearby with whom you can openly talk about it. After all, on the one hand, there are owners and shareholders who demand results, on the other hand, there is a team that needs to be built, adjusted, kept highly motivated and ready to achieve the set goals.
   

In today’s world, a candidate for the role of CEO must think and act differently than they thought and acted before. This difference concerns the fundamental components of the company’s activities.

The best CEOs:

• See the company’s strategy differently. It definitely cannot be a long-term plan written by the top team during the annual strategic session. Modern strategy is more like deploying and adapting a company’s core idea in an ever-changing context
• Have a different approach to interaction with people in the company, seeing them primarily as people, and not as resources or robots that can be instructed or trained to “clearly perform assigned tasks...” (give freedom and the right to make mistakes, autonomy in adopting difficult decisions)
• Differently understand the client and the value that the company creates for him/her
• Differently approach the construction of internal processes and systems, realizing that the digitization of meaningful things will not give the necessary result. KPI is not what it is usually considered to be — it is primarily about meanings that give birth to results
   

Topic 1. What do the best CEOs do differently?

• CEO as the company's chief marketing officer.
• Systems thinking: seeing the invisible and understanding complexity.
• The company today, tomorrow, and the day after in the CEO's daily management.
• Strategic goals of the company that increase operational resilience and lay the foundation for development.
• How to think differently? The art of the CEO in developing the team through rethinking.
• Personal management style. Developing talents and strengths as the basis for productivity and employee engagement.
• What's ahead? Creating the future.

Topic 2. Manager: Thinking, talents, strengths, and beliefs

• The biology of thinking. The impact of biology on our behavior and decisions. What can we influence, and what is predetermined by nature?
• Managerial beliefs. Beliefs that weaken or strengthen us. How are our beliefs connected to results? What needs to change in thinking and behavior to achieve different results?
• Principles of developing managerial talents.
• Methodology for diagnosing and applying your strengths in the role of CEO and in team development.
• Managerial talents in team interaction.
• What to do with weaknesses? Risk insurance or focus on strengths?
• Directing managerial talents towards achieving goals, developing interactions with others, and forming strong decisions.

Topic 3. Team: Managing the team and developing human capital

• High-performance management. Performance management system.
• Satisfied vs. engaged employees.
• Turning a group into a team.
• Maturity of managers and performers. Levels of responsibility and maturity.
• Goals, tasks, delegation, and assignments for different levels of maturity.
• Balance between trust, responsibility, freedom, and control.
• Feedback and evaluation in management. Types and models of feedback.

Topic 4. Strategic Finance. Management decisions based on financial reporting. View from the role of owner and top manager

• History of finance and financial philosophy.
• Management accounting. Balance sheet, PnL, and Cash Flow. Why FCF is more important than EBITDA?
• Setting, digitizing, and decomposing goals: KPI and BSC.
• Goals and what they won't work without: structure and processes.
• Assessing the financial condition of the company: from the company owner to the business and back.
• Investment strategy. Evaluating investment projects.
• The value of money over time. NPV and IRR.
• Calculating future cash flow.

Topic 5. Client. Strategic marketing and sales

• Logic of marketing strategy. Analysis of external and internal context.
• Strategic marketing decisions: targeting, differentiation, positioning.
• Creating customer value.
• Managing customer experience. Customer Relationship Management vs. Customer Experience Management.
• Logic and approaches to sales management.
• Strategic levels of company growth in sales: product, partnerships, uniqueness, model, and idea. Sales strategies at each level.
• What are we really selling?

Topic 6. Strategy and business development

• Determining the current and target market.
• LeanBizDev© technology. Managing growth, development, capitalization, and sustainability. What to change and what to preserve?
• The state of the company in dynamics and context.
• The state of strategic assets based on business processes. The foundation of system architecture in a process approach.
• Interest model: company and founders.
• Forming a diagnostic conclusion.

Topic 7. Business model. Principles and tools of business modeling

• What is a business model? Components and types of business models.
• Business-Model Canvas.

Topic 8. Processes and operational efficiency

• Lean as a methodology for optimizing business processes. Lean management system.
• What is an inefficient process? Evaluating the process from the perspective of customer value.
• Working with losses vs. costs. 8 types of operational losses.
• Where to start with Lean implementation?
• Lean leadership.

Topic 9. Culture

• Corporate culture and its connection with national culture.
• Interaction of cultures.
• Culture as a system of meanings.
• Transformation of corporate culture.
   

For the final module of the program, participants prepare their own project, which includes:

• Strategic vision of the company: strategic goals, priorities, growth and development opportunities, and related challenges and tasks.
• Personal reflection: managerial conclusions after the program (what has changed and what has been confirmed), personal challenges as a manager, new understanding of the CEO role.
   

Preparation and presentation of the project are mandatory for successful completion of the program.

Dates:

• 1st Module [September 23 - 25]
   
• 2nd Module [October 21 - 23]
   
• 3rd Module [November 18 - 20]
   
• 4th Module [December 15 - 17]
   
• 5th Module [January 20 - 22]
   
• 6th Module [February 17 - 19]
   
• 7th Module [March 17 - 19]