CII Executive Leadership Program (XLP)

(Subject to Change)

Change Management
Dr. Doug Dierking

Grow as a leader.

• Identify, optimize and adapt your personal leadership style.
• Strengthen your leadership ability through a combination of classroom instruction in leadership concepts and frameworks, assessments, peer discussion, and outdoor experiential exercises, which will result in personal reflection, learning and action planning.
• Achieve awareness and mastery of your own leadership approaches and expertise.
• Improve your understanding of contextual demands and how different leadership styles and behaviors best meet those demands.
• Draw out personal learning based on tangible opportunities to practice the art of leadership.

Communication Effectiveness
Dr. John Daly

• Persuade busy audiences (focusing on brevity, familiarity, repetition, visual images, and pitching),
• Navigate difficult situations (framing bad news, reframing tough situations, and staying positive through adversity), and
• Address mistakes (public speaking mistake, personal mistake, common mistakes in question and answer sessions).

Creative Solutions to Complex Problems
Dr. Gaylen Paulson

Elegant solutions may appear obvious in hindsight, but are difficult to identify in the moment. During this interactive session we’ll learn very practical strategies for discovering creative solutions. Individual problem solving methods and tactics will be explored, along with ways to overcome barriers to innovative thinking. We then learn ways to approach interpersonal issues, emphasizing techniques for promoting collaboration and overcoming the emotional and psychological barriers of conflict. Finally, you’ll learn ways to better manage and solve problems as a member of a team or group. Going beyond brainstorming, we’ll explore tactics to harness the creative energy of the group while avoiding “analysis paralysis” and the dreaded “groupthink.”

Executive Negotiation Skills Workshop
Dr. Gaylen Paulson

Negotiation:
The art and science of securing an agreement between two or more interdependent parties. The negotiated agreement will guide & regulate their future behavior.

• Multiple Parties
• Interaction Based
• Seeking to Reach Agreement
• Formally/Informally Guides & Regulates Behavior

Financial Overview
Prof. Jim Nolen

• Accounting and finance are the languages of business and you need to have a basic understanding to communicate effectively.
• Being able to describe the value proposition and determine Return on Investment (ROI) will enable you to:
  • Get more corporate resources. Internally, the better you can communicate the value proposition, the more likely you are to get corporate resources.
  • Become a more effective sales person. Externally, the better you can communicate the ROI of your product or service to your customer, the more effective you will become as a sales and marketing person.
  • Move into greater leadership roles. You will need to communicate with both internal executives and external stakeholders using accounting and financial terms as you progress in you careers.

Leadership Challenges and Advocacy
Dr. John Daly

Master the art of effective leadership. This course covers vital aspects such as personal branding, building trust, team dynamics, and gaining commitment. Develop the skills to overcome obstacles and thrive as a leader in today’s business world.

• Personal Branding: Align your strengths with organizational goals.
• Trust Building: Foster transparency, accountability, and collaboration.
• Team Dynamics: Understand your team and maximize productivity.
• Commitment: Inspire and align individuals with shared objectives.

In Advocacy for Leaders, you will develop and implement an internal strategy that will build your credibility, construct and deliver persuasive messages that work in any context, gain support from your alliances and networks, and inspire change throughout your organization to reach common goals.

Managing for Growth and Profitability – Business​ Strategy Simulation
Prof. Jim Nolen

• Use of financial information
• Forecasting and aligning proper resources
• Development & execution of a coherent strategic plan
• Management of competing goals
• Management of product life cycles & product mix
• Management of company problems through the company’s life cycles

Overcoming Cognitive Bias to Improve Decision Making
Prof. Don Ruse

They say the first step is always recognition of the issue. Participants in this session will enhance their ability to recognize cognitive biases, both their own and those of others. They will focus on overcoming these biases by acknowledgment and understanding of the tendency and developing the disciplines of thought and practice to overcome them to improve their leadership decision making.

Presentation Skills and Executive Presence
Prof. Melissa Murphy

This session will focus on physical and vocal delivery secrets to leadership presence, audience analysis techniques to customize content to maximize audience connection, incorporating figurative language and stories, as well as powerful PowerPoint design tips to create a visual complement to participant presentations. This session will focus on the types of audience participants need to reach, providing them with the confidence, knowledge, and skills required to present messages with clarity, confidence, and passion.

Situational Leadership
Prof. Melissa Murphy

Participants will have the opportunity to reflect on their results from their Big 5 Personality assessment in this session. Considering their tendencies, interaction style and types of situations they feel most comfortable or uncomfortable in they will gain ideas of how they can best lead, adjustments they may need to make, and behaviors they need to develop to best lead in any given situation. This session will also provide and activity-based opportunity for providing feedback in various situations.

Smart Thinking
Dr. Art Markman

To be an effective leader, it is important to understand the motivations of the people you work with – and particularly those who are working for you. In this session, Dr. Markman provides an overview of how people’s motivational system functions and how you can use the emotional reactions people give to better understand what is motivating them in the moment.

To understand longer-term motivations, we will explore three frameworks – personality, values, and career goals – that have significant influence on the motivations that employees and project partners bring to work.

Stakeholder Relationships
Prof. Karen Landolt

To better understand:

• History and rationale of CSR activities
• Best practices in Stakeholder Relations
• The context (legal, political, cultural) in which companies interact with stakeholders on issues related to CSR, particularly recurring and sensitive issues