MOST Analysis

Mission Statement

Our Program Mission is to:

1) Empower Leaders to build organizations that perform at extraordinary levels by generating trust, enabling teamwork, stimulating innovation, creating new sources of value, aligning functions, constructing internal and external alliances, and managing complexity.

2) Build Leadership Capability that can create spirited and energized organizational cultures, work productively in teams, integrate across the boundaries of specializations, respond rapidly to change, use differentials in thinking and diversity of cultures to spur joint innovation and problem solving.

3) Provide Leaders and Managers with the design systems thinking, core principles and processes, best practices, and tools to perform collaboratively in situations requiring interaction, joint effort, and high complexity.

4) Use Collaborative Excellence methods and processes to avoid the pitfalls of polarization, unproductive conflict, withdrawal, disengagement, and divisiveness.

5) Increase the ability to Engage Employees in finding meaning and purpose in their work

6) Provide a series of frameworks and methodologies to improve day-to-day operational communications and teamwork, while substantially reducing the amount of non-value added work.

7) Reduce the risks of running an organization by enabling more work, problem solving, and decision-making to be done at lower levels.

8) Provide a structure for assessing performance blockages, areas of impeding breakdowns, and root-cause understanding of human behavior meltdowns.

9) Reduce turnover among millennials by giving them more meaning and purpose in their lives, along with a sense of family/community they can trust.

10) For those who attended technical or professional schools, provide the strategies and methods they did not receive in their formal education enabling them to increase their personal and teamwork capabilities significantly.

Ultimately, the Mission of the Collaborative Excellence Program is to increase significantly a company’s Competitive Advantage through Collaborative Systems Design Architectures, Strategies, Methods, Principles, Processes, Metrics, and Rewards.

Bottom Line:

In most organizations, the Collaborative Excellence Program aims to create sustainable 25% improvements in Competitive Advantage including Profit, Productivity & Innovation Gains by aligning and integrating people, functions, and value chain partners.

The System Design Architecture makes this achievement replicable year after year, no matter what the changing circumstances.

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Objectives

1. Clear Definition of “Success”

Reasoning: Clients must know what they want, otherwise “any road will get them there.” If outcomes and expectations are specific at the outset, the chances of success are dramatically increased.

2. Commitment of Senior Executives

Reasoning: A united Senior Leadership Team in supporting the Program and the effort to instill collaboration at all levels reinforces the results and methods we teach. With senior executive sponsorship, not only is there a champion in the C-Suite to inspire and align senior management, but, as importantly, every employee who signs up for the program knows it is career enhancing.

3. Compelling Rationale

Reasoning: Without a Compelling Rationale, there is no reason for the Program. This establishes a clear connection answer to the question “WHY?”

4. Belief that Collaborative Leadership Produces Results

Reasoning: Both the Stakeholders that promote the Program, and those Practitioners who engage in the Program must be unequivocal that collaboration is effective and essential. Executives who harbor strong hidden doubts or have major uncertainties can potentially undermine the Program. While skeptics often become the greatest advocates after engaging in the Collaborative Excellence Program, it is not wise to try to “convince” cynics who will, by their nature, refuse to be convinced. If Senior Execs hold fundamental beliefs that are contrary to our approach, we will not be likely to succeed.

5. Establishment of a Steering Committee/Team

Reasoning: This group of insiders will work with the Appleton Greene Learning Provider to Design, Develop, Delivery and Review the Program. This team is shares responsibility to bring the Collaborative Excellence Program into their organization and help the Learning Provider make adjustments to strategies, content, processes, and delivery methodology to achieve the metrics of success and exceed expectations. This process will not be serial or linear, it will be interactive; together we will be implementing and delivering portions of the program, while at the same time developing future activities, learning and refining and customizing as we go through the four year cycle. At least one senior executive sponsor should be a member of this team to link senior C-Suite issues, objectives, and concerns to the Program’s evolution.

6. Clarity about the Architecture of Collaboration

Reasoning: One of the most powerful elements of this program is that it integrates a holistic “systems design architecture” to key factors and principles for success, best process road maps, best practices in implementation, and key metrics for diagnostics and evaluation. Simplicity and precision about what collaboration means is one of the hallmarks of this program. Participants will also be able to distinguish very rapidly how collaboration differs from other congenial, transactional, and adversarial systems of performance.

7. Commitment to Trust Principles

Reasoning: Collaboration only functions in a trusting culture that is based on core principles of human interaction. Leaders and managers who are not held to the highest standards of trust will undermine and corrode Collaborative Excellence. In the Program we will outline the standards of trust and what to do when trust is eroding.

8. Metrics of Success & Diagnostics of Health

Reasoning: Excellence in virtually everything is dependent upon quality metrics. Without identifiable measures, management is like sifting fog, and there will be no unanimity of vision, value, methodologies, and results.

– Alongside Metrics must be Diagnostics which can be used to ensure the organization is functioning well and any emerging difficulties can be addressed before they create a crisis. The Program addresses these core Metrics Diagnostics of Health, which can be adapted to any organization’s unique culture and industry. Any annual review should include both these elements.

9. Four-Dimensional Leadership Alignment

Reasoning: This is one of the fundamental tenets of great collaborative leadership which prescribes that there are four alignments organizations must engage in to support Collaborative Excellence: 1) strategically, 2) culturally, 3) operationally, and 4) dynamically in time. These four alignments ensure the organizational “system” shifts to a new order of beliefs, attitudes, actions, and metrics in a unified and holistic manner, otherwise the shift won’t “stick.” This also involves alignment of values, operational processes, and rewards systems to ensure congruence and synergy. If the organization does not adapt to the changes forthcoming from the Program, the corporate culture’s “immunal rejection response” will see collaboration as a “foreign entity.”

10. Quality and Alignment of Coaching

Reasoning: Whether the Client company uses their own internal coach or an Appleton Greene Consulting Coach, it is essential that the coaches all use the common architecture and language of leadership frameworks, operational engagement, and methodology contained in Collaborative Excellence for producing results. While the Coach/Consultants are encouraged to use their vast experience and knowledge, they must use caution to begin to mix models from other sources because it carries some risks of confusion and misalignment. One of the important advantages of the Collaborative Excellence Program is that we’ve already spent years integrating models and frameworks which enables a more “universal architecture” that can understood across the boundaries of professions, cultures, specializations, and technologies.

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Strategies

1. Clear Definition of “Success”

1.1 Reasoning: Clients must know what they want, otherwise “any road will get them there.” If outcomes and expectations are specific at the outset, the chances of success are dramatically increased.

1.2 Strategy: Engage Key Stakeholders and Learning Provider in mutual formulation of Success Criteria, Key Factors for Success, and Performance Metrics early on in the Design and Development stages. These do not have to be set in concrete at this point, but must be clarified to the best of the Client’s ability to enable the Learning Provider to Deliver in alignment with what the Client expects. Knowing what you “want” for outcomes essentially defines what “winning” means in the alliance between Client and Learning Provider. Unclear or unstated expectations at this stage are like “time bombs” which will explode later, usually in the middle of a Program, often with unsatisfactory results. Any unrealistic expectations should be addressed at this point.

2. Commitment of Senior Executives

2.1 Reasoning: A united Senior Leadership Team in supporting the Program and the effort to instill collaboration at all levels reinforces the results and methods we teach. With senior executive sponsorship, not only is there a champion in the C-Suite to inspire and align senior management, but, as importantly, every employee who signs up for the program knows it is career enhancing.

2.2 Strategy: A Senior Corporate Sponsor should be identified before the recruitment of participants and subsequent delivery of the first workshop. An internal strategy must be formulated for the Program. Key considerations involve: “What levels of the organization will be part of the capability building?” (notice we do not use the word “training” when it involves senior executives).”What departments, branches, or business units will pilot the first rounds?” “Do we use a ‘top down’ or combination of ‘top down, bottoms up” rollout?” “How do we message the program?” “What are the biggest concerns of the participants?” “What will be the biggest objections and resistance?” and a myriad of other practical issues that should be anticipated and dealt with before the first session. Getting out in front of these questions is essential so we don’t become reactive at the outset.

The Collaborative Excellence Program will impact the essence of the corporate culture and the way people interact. For some senior executives, this program may not feel appropriate because it runs contrary to their fundamental beliefs about more hierarchical, command and control approaches to leadership; this program is not for them, for they will be seen as dinosaurs in the organization. In other words, Collaborative Excellence is not a panacea nor for everyone.

3. Compelling Rationale

3.1 Reasoning: A strong reason for the effort (raison d’etre), either a real or impending crisis or a powerful vision of the future provides this rationale. People want to know the reason “Why?” they should make the Collaborative Excellence Program a major priority, devoting the time, focus, and commitment necessary to succeed.

3.2 Strategy: The Collaborative Excellence Program should have a direct STRATEGIC impact on the company’s future. All too often internal advocates push a program because it’s their personal preference, or they have a score to settle, or it’s the “flavor of the month;” these are all recipes for failure. The best approach is to tie the Program directly to the company’s mission, purpose, value proposition, and organizational values.

Collaborative Excellence, at the highest level, is designed to create COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE. If this linkage is vague or misconstrued, perhaps this is not the right program or the right timing.

4. Belief that Collaborative Leadership Produces Results

4.1 Reasoning: Both the Stakeholders that promote the Program, and those Practitioners who engage in the Program must be unequivocal that collaboration is effective and essential. Executives who harbor strong hidden doubts or have major uncertainties can potentially undermine the Program. While skeptics often become the greatest advocates after engaging in the Collaborative Excellence Program, it is not wise to try to “convince” cynics who will, by their nature, refuse to be convinced. If Senior Execs hold fundamental beliefs that are contrary to our approach, we will not be likely to succeed.

4.2 Strategy: There are three major components to this strategy: 1) examining the evidence of what Collaborative Excellence actually produces for results in other companies, 2) understanding how Collaborative Excellence increases performance, productivity, and profitability, and 3) extrapolating the what and how will impact their own organization. Being aware of possibilities, understanding the design architecture, and being committed to the right actions will help bring the belief systems into alignment. This is so important, it is the reason why it is the first Module in the Learning Program.

5. Establishment of a Steering Committee/Team

5.1 Reasoning: This group of insiders will work with the Appleton Greene Learning Provider to Design, Develop, Delivery and Review the Program. This team is shares responsibility to bring the Collaborative Excellence Program into their organization and help the Learning Provider make adjustments to strategies, content, processes, and delivery methodology to achieve the metrics of success and exceed expectations. This process will not be serial or linear, it will be interactive; together we will be implementing and delivering portions of the program, while at the same time developing future activities, learning and refining and customizing as we go through the four year cycle. At least one senior executive sponsor should be a member of this team to link senior C-Suite issues, objectives, and concerns to the Program’s evolution.

5.2 Strategy: Project Management – The Steering Team is responsible, with the AG Learning Provider, to manage the design, development, delivery, and review of the Collaborative Excellence as a project, with goals, milestones, tasks, interdependencies, and review.

5.3 Strategy: Relationship Management – There are multiple relationships in the roll-out of this initiative. Some of the relationships are strategic, thus they are essential to success. Others are more tactical. Overall, the adage “people support what they help create” prevails. These relationships must establish a joint vision of the outcome, a foundation of trust, performance expectations, and determine what information will be shared, created, exchanged, etc.

5.4 Strategy: Senior Executive Engagement – The Steering Team must have an integral linkage to top management to ensure long-term strategic alignment. Typically this is the role of the Senior Executive Sponsor, who will need to champion the Collaborative Excellence initiative and shepherd its evolution. If baseline diagnostics are needed, the formulation of the analysis and feedback mechanisms must involve the senior sponsor. Often it is advisable for the Board of Directors to be supportive of an initiative like this, which should be handled through the senior sponsor.

5.5 Strategy: Employee Engagement – Ultimately it will be the managers, their direct reports, and employees at every level that will be impacted and will be doing the real work that produces results. Not only should these people know about the Program, but they should be represented on the Steering Team. This is where millennials’ input is important. Additionally, in union-organized companies, finding the right union rep on the team may have very beneficial impacts in the long run.

6. Clarity about the Architecture of Collaboration

6.1 Reasoning: One of the most powerful elements of this program is that it integrates a holistic “systems design architecture” to key factors and principles for success, best process road maps, best practices in implementation, and key metrics for diagnostics and evaluation. Simplicity and precision about what collaboration means is one of the hallmarks of this program. Participants will also be able to distinguish very rapidly how collaboration differs from other congenial, transactional, and adversarial systems of performance.

6.2 Strategy: Ensure People Understand and are talking about the Real Thing. Ever so frequently we hear people say “Oh, we are doing Collaborative Excellence,” or “We already do Strategic Alliances,” or “We know how to Create Trust,” then walk away. 9 times out of 10, they really don’t do well at what they claim to do. In reality few organizations have established either the programs, operational standards, or diagnostics for collaboration. Reading an author’s book about such things is simply not enough. We take the time to outline the architecture, its components, its impact, and provide key readings and videos so that people all have a common frame of reference about what it means to be excellent collaborative leaders and managers. In all too many organizations, people confuse “congeniality” with “collaboration,” and immediately, without knowing it, move into a mode that is muddled and mediocre. This is why this issue is a key element of the first Module in the Learning Program.

7. Commitment to Trust Principles

7.1 Reasoning: Collaboration only functions in a trusting culture that is based on core principles of human interaction. Leaders and managers who are not held to the highest standards of trust will undermine and corrode Collaborative Excellence. In the Program we will outline the standards of trust and what to do when trust is eroding.

7.2 Strategy: All collaborative enterprise is built on a foundation of trust. There is no avoiding this, no circumventing it, and no means to diminish its importance. Trust, while it embraces ethics, goes far beyond moral rectitude. This is so important, it is the reason why it is the second Module in the Learning Program. Because of the horrible decline in trust in institutions around the world, and the demise of trust in Millennials, the rebuilding of trust is pivotal to the success of the Collaborative Excellence Program. Our “trust architecture” is world class and based on empirical research, neuroscience, and statistical analysis. Our clients rave about its immediate effectiveness.

8. Metrics of Success & Diagnostics of Health

8.1 Reasoning: Excellence in virtually everything is dependent upon quality metrics. Without identifiable measures, management is like sifting fog, and there will be no unanimity of vision, value, methodologies, and results.

– Alongside Metrics must be Diagnostics which can be used to ensure the organization is functioning well and any emerging difficulties can be addressed before they create a crisis. The Program addresses these core Metrics Diagnostics of Health, which can be adapted to any organization’s unique culture and industry. Any annual review should include both these elements.

8.2 Strategy: Early in the Program Design and Development stages, we will jointly create a Value Proposition for the Collaborative Excellence Workshop Program. Each client will have their own unique Value Proposition (although they are often similar). A Value Proposition is a “vision made measurable,” tied directly to the organization’s mission, purpose, and strategy.

8.3 Strategy: In many companies, before rolling out the Collaborative Excellence Program, it is advisable to do a pre-program diagnostic base-line evaluation of how the organization is functioning. Then the feedback of the analysis can be used to engage different levels of the organization in analyzing problems, opportunities, and priorities for capability building. This provides two advantages: 1) it engages employees early on, and 2) creates a base-line standard against which a Program Review can be benchmarked.

9. Four-Dimensional Leadership Alignment

9.1 Reasoning: This is one of the fundamental tenets of great collaborative leadership which prescribes that there are four alignments organizations must engage in to support Collaborative Excellence: 1) strategically, 2) culturally, 3) operationally, and 4) dynamically in time. These four alignments ensure the organizational “system” shifts to a new order of beliefs, attitudes, actions, and metrics in a unified and holistic manner, otherwise the shift won’t “stick.” This also involves alignment of values, operational processes, and rewards systems to ensure congruence and synergy. If the organization does not adapt to the changes forthcoming from the Program, the corporate culture’s “immunal rejection response” will see collaboration as a “foreign entity.”

9.2 Strategy: The Collaborative Excellence Program is based in a “systems design architecture,” which means it has impacts, interactions, and interdependencies throughout the entire organization in the four dimensions (outlined above). Early in the design and development stages, we advise the Steering Team begin to examine the organization to understand how these four-dimensional impacts will affect old standards of practice and existing processes. Then a realignment plan can be developed and implemented to ensure adverse impacts are avoided and transitions managed adroitly.

10. Quality and Alignment of Coaching

10.1 Reasoning: Whether the Client company uses their own internal coach or an Appleton Greene Consulting Coach, it is essential that the coaches all use the common architecture and language of leadership frameworks, operational engagement, and methodology contained in Collaborative Excellence for producing results. While the Coach/Consultants are encouraged to use their vast experience and knowledge, they must use caution to begin to mix models from other sources because it carries some risks of confusion and misalignment. One of the important advantages of the Collaborative Excellence Program is that we’ve already spent years integrating models and frameworks which enables a more “universal architecture” that can understood across the boundaries of professions, cultures, specializations, and technologies.

10.2 Strategy: Skilful Delivery, Implementation, and Execution is essential to success of the Program. As we are jointly engaged in Design and Development phases, we must be considering the Delivery Phase to ensure effective execution, difficulties in implementation, opportunities for impact, and ease/simplicity of understanding and operation. We need to address how to keep things simple, how to turn breakdowns into breakthroughs, how to enable participants to communicate their earning to others, and other such issues. The implications here require forethought about who will be directly facilitating the delivery of the Program, and who will get overseeing the monthly outputs and results of the participants/teams. The importance of this cannot be overstated. As much of the learning may be delivered remotely, if someone is not shepherding the participants’ practical implementation assignments, things can go astray quickly, with disappointing results.

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Tasks

1. Clear Definition of “Success”

1.1 Reasoning: Clients must know what they want, otherwise “any road will get them there.” If outcomes and expectations are specific at the outset, the chances of success are dramatically increased.

1.2 Strategy: Engage Key Stakeholders and Learning Provider in mutual formulation of Success Criteria, Key Factors for Success, and Performance Metrics early on in the Design and Development stages. These do not have to be set in concrete at this point, but must be clarified to the best of the Client’s ability to enable the Learning Provider to Deliver in alignment with what the Client expects. Knowing what you “want” for outcomes essentially defines what “winning” means in the alliance between Client and Learning Provider. Unclear or unstated expectations at this stage are like “time bombs” which will explode later, usually in the middle of a Program, often with unsatisfactory results. Any unrealistic expectations should be addressed at this point.

Tasks:

• Form Informal Client Team including Senior Executive Sponsor
• Client Team discuss preliminary outcomes & expectations with Learning Provider
• Client Team survey stakeholders to surface & refine desired outcomes and expectations
• Client Team meet with Learning Provider to finalize outcomes and expectations
• Mutually Agree on Success Criteria

2. Commitment of Senior Executives

2.1 Reasoning: A united Senior Leadership Team in supporting the Program and the effort to instill collaboration at all levels reinforces the results and methods we teach. With senior executive sponsorship, not only is there a champion in the C-Suite to inspire and align senior management, but, as importantly, every employee who signs up for the program knows it is career enhancing.

2.2 Strategy: A Senior Corporate Sponsor should be identified before the recruitment of participants and subsequent delivery of the first workshop. An internal strategy must be formulated for the Program. Key considerations involve: “What levels of the organization will be part of the capability building?” (notice we do not use the word “training” when it involves senior executives).”What departments, branches, or business units will pilot the first rounds?” “Do we use a ‘top down’ or combination of ‘top down, bottoms up” rollout?” “How do we message the program?” “What are the biggest concerns of the participants?” “What will be the biggest objections and resistance?” and a myriad of other practical issues that should be anticipated and dealt with before the first session. Getting out in front of these questions is essential so we don’t become reactive at the outset.

The Collaborative Excellence Program will impact the essence of the corporate culture and the way people interact. For some senior executives, this program may not feel appropriate because it runs contrary to their fundamental beliefs about more hierarchical, command and control approaches to leadership; this program is not for them, for they will be seen as dinosaurs in the organization. In other words, Collaborative Excellence is not a panacea nor for everyone.

Tasks:

• Senior Executive Sponsor, with Informal Client Team, in consultation with Learning Provider, develop preliminary plan for implementation.
• Senior Executive Sponsor engage Senior Leadership Team Stakeholders to review outcomes, expectations, refine plan, determine support, suggest roll-out options, determine resistance, predict areas of high acceptance or difficulty.
• Senior Level Messaging announcing the Program (general message at this point)

3. Compelling Rationale

3.1 Reasoning: A strong reason for the effort (raison d’etre), either a real or impending crisis or a powerful vision of the future provides this rationale. People want to know the reason “Why?” they should make the Collaborative Excellence Program a major priority, devoting the time, focus, and commitment necessary to succeed.

3.2 Strategy: The Collaborative Excellence Program should have a direct STRATEGIC impact on the company’s future. All too often internal advocates push a program because it’s their personal preference, or they have a score to settle, or it’s the “flavor of the month;” these are all recipes for failure. The best approach is to tie the Program directly to the company’s mission, purpose, value proposition, and organizational values.

Collaborative Excellence, at the highest level, is designed to create COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE. If this linkage is vague or misconstrued, perhaps this is not the right program or the right timing.

Tasks:

• Determine the Compelling Rationale – either crisis or vision driven
• Link Program Objectives to business strategy and corporate values
• Provide messaging to those affected by the Program to understand rationale and provide ideas and inputs.
• Identify key influencers and decision-makers who should support the Program.

4. Belief that Collaborative Leadership Produces Results

4.1 Reasoning: Both the Stakeholders that promote the Program, and those Practitioners who engage in the Program must be unequivocal that collaboration is effective and essential. Executives who harbor strong hidden doubts or have major uncertainties can potentially undermine the Program. While skeptics often become the greatest advocates after engaging in the Collaborative Excellence Program, it is not wise to try to “convince” cynics who will, by their nature, refuse to be convinced. If Senior Execs hold fundamental beliefs that are contrary to our approach, we will not be likely to succeed.

4.2 Strategy: There are three major components to this strategy: 1) examining the evidence of what Collaborative Excellence actually produces for results in other companies, 2) understanding how Collaborative Excellence increases performance, productivity, and profitability, and 3) extrapolating the what and how will impact their own organization. Being aware of possibilities, understanding the design architecture, and being committed to the right actions will help bring the belief systems into alignment. This is so important, it is the reason why it is the first Module in the Learning Program.

Tasks:

• Determine the level of belief in Collaborative Excellence among key decision-makers and influencers.
• Based on this determination, develop a short succinct presentation to address the questions of what it is, how it produces value, and the potential impact on organizational performance, productivity, profit, and competitive advantage
• Revise any objectives, outcomes, expectations and rollout plans.

5. Establishment of a Steering Committee/Team

5.1 Reasoning: This group of insiders will work with the Appleton Greene Learning Provider to Design, Develop, Delivery and Review the Program. This team is shares responsibility to bring the Collaborative Excellence Program into their organization and help the Learning Provider make adjustments to strategies, content, processes, and delivery methodology to achieve the metrics of success and exceed expectations. This process will not be serial or linear, it will be interactive; together we will be implementing and delivering portions of the program, while at the same time developing future activities, learning and refining and customizing as we go through the four year cycle. At least one senior executive sponsor should be a member of this team to link senior C-Suite issues, objectives, and concerns to the Program’s evolution.

5.2 Strategy: Project Management – The Steering Team is responsible, with the AG Learning Provider, to manage the design, development, delivery, and review of the Collaborative Excellence as a project, with goals, milestones, tasks, interdependencies, and review.

Tasks:

• Based on the learnings and engagements (above)

1. Finalize the composition of the Steering Team
2. Develop a Project Plan in coordination with the AG Learning Provider
3. Assign a Project Manager
4. Ensure Milestones, assess Interdependencies, create Timelines, determine Resources needed, etc.

5.3 Strategy: Relationship Management – There are multiple relationships in the roll-out of this initiative. Some of the relationships are strategic, thus they are essential to success. Others are more tactical. Overall, the adage “people support what they help create” prevails. These relationships must establish a joint vision of the outcome, a foundation of trust, performance expectations, and determine what information will be shared, created, exchanged, etc.

Tasks:

• Identify the key relationships that need to be managed to ensure project success
• Determine critical drivers, needs, concerns, and interests for each relationship
• Ensure building and maintaining these relationships, soliciting ideas, input, and gauging value on a regular basis.

5.4 Strategy: Senior Executive Engagement – The Steering Team must have an integral linkage to top management to ensure long-term strategic alignment. Typically this is the role of the Senior Executive Sponsor, who will need to champion the Collaborative Excellence initiative and shepherd its evolution. If baseline diagnostics are needed, the formulation of the analysis and feedback mechanisms must involve the senior sponsor. Often it is advisable for the Board of Directors to be supportive of an initiative like this, which should be handled through the senior sponsor.

Tasks:

• Senior Executive Sponsor provide regular updates, presentations, opportunities for engagement, and feedback to senior leadership team and Steering Team
• Make course adjustments as necessary
• Determine if Short Executive Briefing (1-3 hours) on Collaborative Excellence is valuable and/or necessary
• Identify any key supporters, skeptics, or cynics in the top echelons
• Determine if Baseline Diagnostics are valuable

– Note: just doing Diagnostic Assessments will raise expectations that someone will be fixing any problems identified. If there is no interest in fixing problems surfaced in a diagnostic, don’t do it.

5.5 Strategy: Employee Engagement – Ultimately it will be the managers, their direct reports, and employees at every level that will be impacted and will be doing the real work that produces results. Not only should these people know about the Program, but they should be represented on the Steering Team. This is where millennials’ input is important. Additionally, in union-organized companies, finding the right union rep on the team may have very beneficial impacts in the long run.

Tasks:

• Steering Team, with Learning Provider input, determine how to embrace Employee Engagement, level of engagement, types of input that would be most valuable.
• Identify person(s) who should be part of the Steering Team.
• Determine how to make Collaborative Excellence exciting, meaningful, and worthwhile for all involved.
• Develop Employee Engagement Strategy & Plan

6. Clarity about the Architecture of Collaboration

6.1 Reasoning: One of the most powerful elements of this program is that it integrates a holistic “systems design architecture” to key factors and principles for success, best process road maps, best practices in implementation, and key metrics for diagnostics and evaluation. Simplicity and precision about what collaboration means is one of the hallmarks of this program. Participants will also be able to distinguish very rapidly how collaboration differs from other congenial, transactional, and adversarial systems of performance.

6.2 Strategy: Ensure People Understand and are talking about the Real Thing. Ever so frequently we hear people say “Oh, we are doing Collaborative Excellence,” or “We already do Strategic Alliances,” or “We know how to Create Trust,” then walk away. 9 times out of 10, they really don’t do well at what they claim to do. In reality few organizations have established either the programs, operational standards, or diagnostics for collaboration. Reading an author’s book about such things is simply not enough. We take the time to outline the architecture, its components, its impact, and provide key readings and videos so that people all have a common frame of reference about what it means to be excellent collaborative leaders and managers. In all too many organizations, people confuse “congeniality” with “collaboration,” and immediately, without knowing it, move into a mode that is muddled and mediocre. This is why this issue is a key element of the first Module in the Learning Program.

Tasks:

• Steering Team, with Learning Provider input, develop a presentation and messaging plan to ensure prospective participants have a clear view and set of expectations about the Collaborative Excellence Program.
• Based on response to presentation, design a recruitment strategy and plan to begin the learning sessions.

7. Commitment to Trust Principles

7.1 Reasoning: Collaboration only functions in a trusting culture that is based on core principles of human interaction. Leaders and managers who are not held to the highest standards of trust will undermine and corrode Collaborative Excellence. In the Program we will outline the standards of trust and what to do when trust is eroding.

7.2 Strategy: All collaborative enterprise is built on a foundation of trust. There is no avoiding this, no circumventing it, and no means to diminish its importance. Trust, while it embraces ethics, goes far beyond moral rectitude. This is so important, it is the reason why it is the second Module in the Learning Program. Because of the horrible decline in trust in institutions around the world, and the demise of trust in Millennials, the rebuilding of trust is pivotal to the success of the Collaborative Excellence Program. Our “trust architecture” is world class and based on empirical research, neuroscience, and statistical analysis. Our clients rave about its immediate effectiveness.

Tasks:

• Determine the Level of Trust in the organization by either:

1. Informal Assessment with Steering Team
2. Informal Interview with Key Leaders
3. Formal Diagnostic Assessment

• Based on Results (above), determine if current level of trust is sufficient to proceed without preliminary work with Senior Leaders

1. If current trust levels are reasonably strong, proceed ahead.
2. If current trust levels are awry, conduct sessions with Senior Leadership Team before proceeding. Then promulgate trust architecture prior to conducting Workshop Sessions.

8. Metrics of Success & Diagnostics of Health

8.1 Reasoning: Excellence in virtually everything is dependent upon quality metrics. Without identifiable measures, management is like sifting fog, and there will be no unanimity of vision, value, methodologies, and results.

– Alongside Metrics must be Diagnostics which can be used to ensure the organization is functioning well and any emerging difficulties can be addressed before they create a crisis. The Program addresses these core Metrics Diagnostics of Health, which can be adapted to any organization’s unique culture and industry. Any annual review should include both these elements.

8.2 Strategy: Early in the Program Design and Development stages, we will jointly create a Value Proposition for the Collaborative Excellence Workshop Program. Each client will have their own unique Value Proposition (although they are often similar). A Value Proposition is a “vision made measurable,” tied directly to the organization’s mission, purpose, and strategy.

Tasks:

• Learning Provider, with Steering Team, conduct briefing on how to create a powerful Value Proposition
• Steering Team create a Measurable Value Proposition for the Workshop Program, linking the Value Proposition to Metrics of Success.
• Value Proposition promulgated to prospective audience as part of the expectation-setting and recruitment plan.

8.3 Strategy: In many companies, before rolling out the Collaborative Excellence Program, it is advisable to do a pre-program diagnostic base-line evaluation of how the organization is functioning. Then the feedback of the analysis can be used to engage different levels of the organization in analyzing problems, opportunities, and priorities for capability building. This provides two advantages: 1) it engages employees early on, and 2) creates a base-line standard against which a Program Review can be benchmarked.

Tasks:

• Determine the value of a formal baseline diagnostic, assessing the impact on senior management, employee expectations, and how the workshop process will be used to close the gaps in the current condition versus the envisioned level of excellence.

1. If the survey is conducted with the hunch that there are major problems in the organization that will rise to the surface and generate a powerful impetus for change, consider conducting an intense 1-2 day workshop with key decision-makers after the survey results are tabulated to formulate a plan and program to fix the problems

2. If the survey shows tolerable levels of difficulties that can/should be remedied over the long term, proceed with the original plan.

9. Four-Dimensional Leadership Alignment

9.1 Reasoning: This is one of the fundamental tenets of great collaborative leadership which prescribes that there are four alignments organizations must engage in to support Collaborative Excellence: 1) strategically, 2) culturally, 3) operationally, and 4) dynamically in time. These four alignments ensure the organizational “system” shifts to a new order of beliefs, attitudes, actions, and metrics in a unified and holistic manner, otherwise the shift won’t “stick.” This also involves alignment of values, operational processes, and rewards systems to ensure congruence and synergy. If the organization does not adapt to the changes forthcoming from the Program, the corporate culture’s “immunal rejection response” will see collaboration as a “foreign entity.”

9.2 Strategy: The Collaborative Excellence Program is based in a “systems design architecture,” which means it has impacts, interactions, and interdependencies throughout the entire organization in the four dimensions (outlined above). Early in the design and development stages, we advise the Steering Team begin to examine the organization to understand how these four-dimensional impacts will affect old standards of practice and existing processes. Then a realignment plan can be developed and implemented to ensure adverse impacts are avoided and transitions managed adroitly.

Tasks:

• Steering Team, with the Learning Provider and Coach (see below) analyze the current levels of alignment in the organization in the four dimensions: 1) strategically, 2) culturally, 3) operationally, and 4) dynamically in time. (this can be built into the formal Diagnostic Assessment is used as a precursor to the Workshop Program.)
• Determine the areas where alignment is strong, weak, conflicted, muddled.
• Determine the driving forces that are causing misalignments.
• Develop corrective plan.

10. Quality and Alignment of Coaching

10.1 Reasoning: Whether the Client company uses their own internal coach or an Appleton Greene Consulting Coach, it is essential that the coaches all use the common architecture and language of leadership frameworks, operational engagement, and methodology contained in Collaborative Excellence for producing results. While the Coach/Consultants are encouraged to use their vast experience and knowledge, they must use caution to begin to mix models from other sources because it carries some risks of confusion and misalignment. One of the important advantages of the Collaborative Excellence Program is that we’ve already spent years integrating models and frameworks which enables a more “universal architecture” that can understood across the boundaries of professions, cultures, specializations, and technologies.

10.2 Strategy: Skillful Delivery, Implementation, and Execution is essential to success of the Program. As we are jointly engaged in Design and Development phases, we must be considering the Delivery Phase to ensure effective execution, difficulties in implementation, opportunities for impact, and ease/simplicity of understanding and operation. We need to address how to keep things simple, how to turn breakdowns into breakthroughs, how to enable participants to communicate their earning to others, and other such issues. The implications here require forethought about who will be directly facilitating the delivery of the Program, and who will get overseeing the monthly outputs and results of the participants/teams. The importance of this cannot be overstated. As much of the learning may be delivered remotely, if someone is not shepherding the participants’ practical implementation assignments, things can go astray quickly, with disappointing results.

Tasks:

• Steering Committee and Learning Provider jointly develop criteria for a good Coach/Facilitator for the Program Delivery. This should include personal skills and subject matter expert competence.
• Identify whether Capability Building Coach/Facilitator will be chosen from within the Client company or from the stable of Appleton Greene consultants.
• Identify potential candidates for interview by Steering Committee, with final approval by Learning Provider (who will need to work closely with this person)
• Determine the level skill building need by the coach/facilitator and take corrective action as necessary.
• Recommendation: Involve the Coach/Facilitator in the final design of the program and the rollout. (don’t just insert the Coach/Facilitator in at the last minute and expect them to do a first-class job.)

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Introduction

Planning Phase

Establishing and framing the Planning Phase for the Collaborative Excellence Workshop Program is an essential process because it sets up the preconditions for success. This phase consists of four steps, which can be conducted simultaneously:

Step One: Compelling Rationale

Before launching any program of this importance, there must be a good answer to the central question “Why?” Everyone is challenged in their business with too many tasks and not enough time. People want to know the reason “Why?” they should make the Collaborative Excellence Program a major priority, devoting the time, focus, and commitment necessary to succeed. Powerful forces in global business are driving the need for far greater collaboration by all varieties of people, marketing experts, engineers, supply managers, product developers, and many others, as well as between all types of businesses, functions, and technical specialties. The business world is changing at a bewildering pace. In no other period in the history have we encountered so much change so fast (with the exception of wartime). Collaboration plays a central role in this change – it’s termed the Collaborative Shift.

Senior business executives are recognizing the value of collaborations, partnerships, organizations, and the need for better cross-functional/boundary integration to increase quality of problem solving, speed of competitive advantage, development and delivery of innovation, and applications of solutions from one field/industry to another. Today, about 90% of senior executives echo this need for better collaboration, but the desire has largely been unfulfilled. And those companies that have done a good job with collaboration realize they could do much better.

The Collaborative Excellence has a very powerful Value Proposition: Companies that follow-through with this program will receive a 20-25% competitive advantage in their market-space. This will show up in a number of dimensions, including productivity, innovation, cost effectiveness, employee retention, strategic leverage, rapid response, faster decision-making, agility and, most importantly, profitability.

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Step Two: Senior Management Commitment

Having a united Senior Leadership Team that supports the Collaborative Excellence Program helps instill an energy and focus for collaboration at all levels, and plays a great part in reinforcing the results and methods we teach. With senior executive sponsorship, not only is there a champion in the C-Suite to inspire and align senior management, but, as importantly, every employee who signs up for the program knows it is career enhancing. We encourage companies interested in Collaborative Excellence identify Senior Corporate Sponsor at the earliest point in the Planning Phase, preferably before the recruitment of participants and subsequent delivery of the first workshop.

This Senior Sponsor will help spearhead the formulation of an internal Program strategy. Key questions to address include: “What levels of the organization will be part of the capability building?” (notice we do not use the word “training” when it involves senior executives).”What departments, branches, or business units will pilot the first rounds?” “Do we use a ‘top down’ or combination of ‘top down, bottoms up” rollout?” “How do we message the program?” “What are the biggest concerns of the participants?” “What will be the biggest objections and resistance?” and a myriad of other practical issues that should be anticipated and dealt with before the first session.

Getting out in front of these questions is essential so we don’t become reactive at the outset.

Because the Collaborative Excellence Program will impact the core of the corporate culture and the way people interact. Program participants will want to gauge the importance of the Program by the alignment of the Senior Sponsorship.

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Step Three: Organizing for Action

Each of the 10 Pilot Companies should establish an internal Steering Committee/Team that will “Champion” the Program inside their organizations. The head of this Steering will be the Central Point of Contact for Client Company, with Decision Making Authority and will represent key stakeholders and program participants. Each of the Pilot Company Steering Teams should include an Executive Sponsor, who will link Senior Management into the Development, Delivery/Implementation, Management, and Review of the Program.

At an early stage, other members of the Steering Committee should be selected to represent various stakeholders who would participate in the Program or be beneficiaries of its impact. Employee engagement will be a critical factor for success. Ultimately it will be the managers, their direct reports, and employees at every level that will be impacted and will be doing the real work that produces results. Not only should these people know about the Program, but they should be represented on the Steering Team. This is where millennials’ input is important. The overall philosophy is “People Support What They Help Create.”

Additionally, in union-organized companies, finding the right union rep on the team may have very beneficial impacts in the long run. This Steering Team of insiders will work with us as the Appleton Greene Learning Provider to Design, Develop, Delivery, Manage, and Review the Program. This team shares responsibility to bring the Collaborative Excellence Program into their organization and help the Learning Provider make adjustments to strategies, content, processes, and delivery methodology to achieve the metrics of success and exceed expectations. This process will not be serial or linear, it will be interactive; together we will be implementing and delivering portions of the program, while at the same time developing future activities, learning and refining and customizing as we go through the four year cycle. At least one senior executive sponsor should be a member of this team to link senior C-Suite issues, objectives, and concerns to the Program’s evolution.

The Steering Team is responsible for the internal Program Management, with the AG Learning Provider, which will handle the external aspects of the Program. In this way, the Steering Team and AG Learning Provider will guide the management of the design, development, delivery, and review of the Collaborative Excellence as a Project, with goals, milestones, tasks, interdependencies, and review.

There are multiple relationships in the roll-out of this initiative. Some of the relationships are strategic, thus they are essential to success. Others are more tactical. The Steering Team will need to ensure these key stakeholder and influencer relationships are managed proactively, not reactively when someone gets upset because they weren’t advised or consulted when a major decision is made. Obviously, the Senior Leadership Team will be the responsibility of the Senior Sponsor. Overall, the adage “people support what they help create” prevails. These relationships must establish a joint vision of the outcome, a foundation of trust, performance expectations, and determine what information will be shared, created, exchanged, etc.

The Steering Committee should also begin the process of selecting either an internal delivery facilitator, or begin selecting an Appleton Greene Consultant/Facilitator to work closely with the Steering Team and the Learning Provider.

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Step Four: Gap Analysis

The Steering Team should start the planning process by understanding the “gaps” between their current condition and what is needed to win in the future.

At a minimum, two gaps should be addressed:

A. Strategic Gap
B. Personnel Capability Gap

The Strategic Gap addresses the difference between what the competitive marketplace demands and what an organization is capable of delivering. Often companies find there is a massive chasm between the level of collaboration needed for in their value delivery chain and their capability to deliver what’s required. Key questions need to be asked, including:

What are the realities … the obstacles, the opportunities and the necessary shifts required?

What’s needed for Engineers to spur engagement and lead more effectively?

What can Engineers do to be more impactful in solving the great problems we face today?

What can be done in universities to deliver higher levels of innovation?

What new levels of thought and action are needed?

What is the new paradigm for the future?

While the business world has been clamoring for more innovation and anticipating a collaborative shift for more than two decades, despite the verbal interest by CEOs in numerous surveys, the ability to deliver is often disappointing, with seemingly more talk than results, more smoke than fire, more heat than light. This must change. Opportunity is beckoning. The Collaborative Excellence Program should have a direct STRATEGIC impact on the company’s future. The best approach is to tie the Program directly to the company’s mission, purpose, value proposition, and organizational values. The Collaborative Excellence Program, at the highest level, is designed to create COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE. If this linkage is vague or misconstrued, perhaps this is not the right program or the right timing.

The Collaborative Excellence Program is designed to help organizations lead the way into the future.
For this reason, a company may want to engage in a strategic review as a point to begin. The simplest approach is to do a SWOT ANALYSIS, examining Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Bringing in your Strategic Planning team at this point will help position the Program in alignment with corporate strategy. Should there be any difficulties or questions in this area, our team will be happy to provide expertise.

The Personnel Capability Gap is equally essential to assess. Typically, this will be linked closely with the Human Resources group, who will not only have a vested interest in the results, but may also have significant data that has already been collected. Some of the essential elements to understand are how well people and teams cooperate, communicate, perform, trust, solve problems, work cross-functionally, and interact with customers and suppliers. Additionally, each Steering Team, in consultation with the Senior Executive Sponsor and Human Resources, should determine if they want to engage in a Survey Guided Assessment which would determine both current conditions, needs, and problems in the organization, as well as gaps and aspirations for improvement. Such a survey will establish a “base-line” against which the Program can be evaluated.

Should you have any issues that are vague or uncertain, our team has had lots of experience working with HR departments to conduct these assessments. Once the Strategic and Personnel Capability Gaps are assessed, together we will have a much more realistic idea of what the program will need to do to be successful.

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Step Five: Define Success

Successful delivery of the Collaborative Excellence Program will depend upon how well Clients realistically define what success looks like. Clients must know what they want, otherwise “any road will get them there.” If outcomes and expectations are specific at the outset, the chances of success are dramatically increased. This will require engaging Key Stakeholders in the organization who will be the beneficiaries of the results, and will be sending participants. We, as Learning Provider, will mutually formulate preliminary Success Criteria, Key Factors for Success, and Performance Metrics early on. These will be refined and solidified in Phase Two: Design & Development.

This will likely involve formulation of Success Criteria, Key Factors for Success, and Performance Metrics. These not be set in concrete at this point, but must be clarified to the best of the Client’s ability to enable the Learning Provider to Deliver in alignment with what the Client expects. Knowing what you “want” for outcomes essentially defines what “winning” means in the organization between Client and Learning Provider. Unclear or unstated expectations at this stage are like “time bombs” which will explode later, usually in the middle of a Program, often with unsatisfactory results. Any unrealistic expectations should be addressed at this point.

Excellence in virtually everything is dependent upon quality metrics. Without identifiable measures, management is like sifting fog, and there will be no unanimity of vision, value, methodologies, and results.

These do not have to be set in concrete at this point, but must be clarified to the best of the Client’s ability to enable the Learning Provider to deliver in alignment with what the Client expects. Knowing what you “want” for outcomes essentially defines what “winning” means in the organization between Client and Learning Provider. Unclear or unstated expectations at this stage are like “time bombs” which will explode later, usually in the middle of a Program, often with unsatisfactory results. Any unrealistic expectations should be addressed at this point.

Alongside Metrics must be Diagnostics which can be used to ensure the organization is functioning well and any emerging difficulties can be addressed before they create a crisis. The Program addresses these core Metrics Diagnostics of Health, which can be adapted to any organization’s unique culture and industry. Any annual review should include both these elements.

In many companies, before rolling out the Collaborative Excellence Program, it is advisable to do a pre-program diagnostic base-line evaluation of how the organization is functioning. Then the feedback of the analysis can be used to engage different levels of the organization in analyzing problems, opportunities, and priorities for capability building. This provides two advantages: 1) it engages employees early on, and 2) creates a base-line standard against which a Program Review can be benchmarked.

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Design and Development Phase

The results of the aforementioned Assessment in Program Planning will drive the Program Design & Development Phase. If the Client Steering Team opts to bypass the Assessment, the questions in the Assessment will be used by the joint responses of the Team members to guide the Learning Provider in Program Design. During this phase, the Steering Team with the Learning Provider, will firm up the value that needs to be created/delivered, including specific/measurable impacts, and return on time and money invested. Together they will advise about revisions to module objectives/focus, current content, delivery methodology, support requirements, difficulties & obstacles expected or encountered, improvements and customizations required, applicability to specific audiences, and new module or program development required.

Programmatic Approach

While the delivery of monthly workshops are central to the success of this effort, we take a much more holistic approach: a “program” is more systematic – process and practice driven. It aims at integrating strategy and implementation; it consists of multiple elements, including briefings, planning, diagnostics, leadership & resource commitments, engagement, implementation roll-out, metrics, action workshops, feedback and learning. We have learned from experience that this larger picture frame of reference helps our clients be far more successful in the short run, producing faster results, and ultimately creating a much more sustainable long-term impact.

Working with our Partners

Designing and Developing the Pilot Program with 10 “partners” will prove to be a very exciting, thought provoking, and interactive process. As a Learning Provider, we look forward to Client Companies engaging in the process of adapting and evolving our current programs to the next level. We are, from our roots, organization builders, and have years of designing and developing a very wide variety of programs, including learning programs. As a Learning Provider, we love working with committed champions seeking to bring their organizations to a new level of performance and spirit.

Pracademics

Our roots in Collaborative Leadership are very different from many other organizations that teach leadership. We came from the field of action — honing our insights, practices, and frameworks from practical experience in the fields of strategic organizations, high performance teams, collaborative innovation, entrepreneurship, complex projects, turn-arounds, and trust building. As Thought Leaders, “Pracademics,” and experienced Practitioners, we bring mindsets, strategies, and skillsets that really work in the crucible of action. For those not familiar with the term “Pracademic” it means what it implies – practical, down to earth leaders and managers who cut their teeth in the trenches of business, and then, later in their careers, decided to give back and share what they learned by teaching (usually at the graduate or executive education levels), and many times we wrote books describing our wisdom and adventures for others to learn from.

Leading is Very Different from Managing

We believe the current forms of leadership, especially those taught in business schools, have placed most of their emphasis on “managing,” not “leading.” Especially for MBAs, typically graduating in their mid-twenties, this has resulted in producing too many entry-level “managers” who have a muddled view of their role when they rise to more senior levels. Most are not refined in their thinking about leadership, nor can they distinguish between the different leadership styles and when each is appropriate. In simple terms, managers tend to maintain stability, seeking efficiency, while minimizing risk. On the other hand, the leader’s quest must be continuous improvement, adaptation to change, innovation, integration across organizational boundaries, and generating competitive advantage, while building high performance teams that take advantage of the collective skills and insights of the people in the organization.

Value Proposition

Early in the Program Design and Development stages, we will jointly create a Value Proposition for the Collaborative Excellence Workshop Program. Each client will have their own unique Value Proposition (although they are often similar). A Value Proposition is a “vision made measurable,” tied directly to the organization’s mission, purpose, and strategy.

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Action-Learning Methodology

The Workshop Program Design is based on an Action-Learning Methodology. Each Workshop contains Modules that evolve in a sequence that starts with Concept or Key Factors For Success, then proceeds to Best Process & Best Practices, followed by Tools for Implementation, and then some form of Implementation/Application. This enables immediate monthly implementation and impact evaluation. Ideally there will be in each of the Client companies, team participants for who will engage in joint learning and application to their immediate circumstances. This prevents the “Alien Returning from a Foreign Land” syndrome that occurs when participants go away for their learning. HR leaders are more and more focused on identifying how to achieve excellence rather than nice stories about the “few” who achieve it.

We customize and tailor our programs when required to meet corporate clients’ needs and goals.
This involves an initial, up-front analysis and/or audit with a resulting organizational profile. While collaborative excellence is generic, how that is achieved varies with each unique company and is influenced by tradition, culture, size, composition of work force, industry classification, geographic location, organizational structure, and budget. A well-constructed and tailored profile— using many reliable measures & diagnostics of behaviors — is the first step in development of a short- and long-term comprehensive development plan and associated budget. It is a meaningful first-step in establishing a trusting relationship with corporate clients.

When and if appropriate, we might spend a couple of days on-site to provide a stem-to- stern evaluation of strengths and weaknesses and then jointly develop an appropriate plan-of- action. This starts the relationship with clarity of goals, roles and how we will interact to achieve both.

Our Methodology & Approach to Capability Building

Our Basic & Intermediate Level Programs can be delivered in “Standardized Format,” which is the most economical approach. For our Advanced and Mastery Level Programs, we typically custom-design these Programs. For any level program we can also customize to your unique circumstances.
Our objective is always with your end result in mind: You want practical applications – fast. Executives rate all programs far more highly if three things are present:

1. It was practical and directly applicable to my situation
2. I can use the material immediately
3. The program leader was knowledgeable, experienced, wise, and responsive

The greatest myth in training programs is the false belief that knowledge brings results. Studies show that simply attaining knowledge does not improve performance. Adults learn differently than youth — adults value learning when it can be applied to an immediate problem, opportunity, or objective, which gives it utility and impact…

When adults immediately APPLY what they learn, they retain 80% three weeks later.

When they DON’T APPLY, they’ve forgotten 80% three weeks later.

That’s why every learning module in our programs follows this Four Stage Capability Building sequence:

1. The Concept and overall Design Architecture is clear, easily understood, and rapidly communicated to others.

2. A Best Process & Practice has been illustrated to bring the concept into a realistic framework

3. A set of “Tools” (such as a Checklist, Process Map, Key Factors for Success, etc.) makes the best practice useable in everyday practice.

4. Whenever possible, attendees are requested to Apply the concept, best practice, and tool kit to a real-life situation in order they gain immediate applicability (and consequently the longest retention)
All our Executive Development Programs ensure these four key elements are employed in the design and presentation of the program delivery. Our workshops are designed to flow these steps seamlessly so that people learn & apply in one continuous motion – making our capability programs highly successful.

We recognize that much of leadership training cannot be done solely as an academic exercise; it can only be exercised in the heat of a real challenge – in the crucible of action and the tension of emotions.
Our programs focus on integrating frameworks & architectures with success factors, tools, coupled with a heavy dose of application. For this reason, we do not rely heavily on case studies, but instead use the pressure cooker of real life situations, simulations, and interactive co-creation.

Systems Design Architecture – Principle & Process Driven

Our Collaborative Excellence Program is the first and only fully integrated systems design “architecture” for leaders to engage both workforce and value chain in generating collaborative advantage, innovation and speed. The “Architecture of Collaborative Excellence” promises to be a powerful framework for leaders of the future.

Why?

Because the primary reason why leaders do not have a good grasp on how to engage their workforce in a manner that produces synergy is because they have no systems design architecture for collaboration. Thus they patch together fragments of experiences, incomplete advice, and a hodge-podge of often conflicting information, ideas, and processes that simply produce misaligned results. Ultimately, little “sticks.”

Note: For definitional purposes, “architecture” is the design that aligns, integrates, unites, and enables a system’s diverse components to function efficiently & synergistically. It is a holistic perspective, which is then empowered by processes, practices, interconnectivities, and tools to achieve excellent performance.

The lack of this architecture is why so many companies, leaders, organizations, acquisitions and turnarounds fail or are unsustainable. All-too-often managers get sucked into the belief that tools will create greater performance. This is sometimes true, but often the tools alone are inadequate because one or more of the factors higher on the pyramid are dysfunctional. For example, an excellent process can be stymied by a missing Key Success Factor or faulty Strategy & Execution, or a fundamentally flawed Systems Design.

The “Architecture of Collaborative Excellence” works because it sees human interaction from a “systems perspective” – a design structure of interconnected frameworks that aligns beliefs, ideas, evidence, and best practices to produce trustworthy behaviors resulting in teamwork, innovation, efficiency, high performance and synergy.

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Paradigm Shifts Require a Powerful New Design Systems Architecture

We are priming for a the Collaborative Paradigm Shift — a sea change in beliefs, perceptions, thinking, actions, and reactions. Paradigm Shifts are never easy, because of the massive “installed base” of legacy thinking and vested interests that have money, pathway dependency, and career commitments lodged deeply into the status quo of today’s institutional fabric. New Paradigms are always a combination of “Revolution” (highly disruptive with deep resistance to change) while at the same time being “Revelation” (highly alluring while carrying its own basic logic and passion).

What’s more, the New Paradigm seldom has the sophisticated “architecture” attributed to the legacy paradigm. That’s why it’s so important that that when we propose such shifts, we need clear architecture, language, metrics, strategies, value propositions, problem solutions, evidence, and broad based organizations to move the needle and create the movement/momentum. Both Collaborative Leadership and Management Excellence is critical to triggering and sustaining the shift. While it is true that Leadership is necessary to triggering the shift, Management is critical to sustaining it. Management must embed and institutionalize the architecture, mindset and the techniques of collaboration into the organization in a way that will last and weather the inevitable people churn at both the operational and the leadership levels.

Whether Leadership or Management is more important is not the point – situationally both are vital at different points in the shift. Without both, each applied at the right time, the shift will fail. At some points Leadership is the motive force, but at other points Management becomes the stabilizing energy because leaders can’t handle all the nuts and bolts of the shift.

The Nature of a “Collaborative Operating System”

Collaborative Excellence is not just a shift in “technique”, it’s a shift to install a “collaborative operating system” in organizations. To use an analogy, your computer’s operating system “architecture” aligns and integrates diverse components to function efficiently and synergistically to accomplish three things:

1. Manage Assets & Resources of the Organization (computer’s), such as the human resources, assets, structures, key functional areas, inputs, and outputs, (Analogy: computer’s hardware)

2. Establish User-Interface, (the Culture) especially how people perceive their realities, interact with others, understand their roles, priorities, rewards, punishments, (Analogy: user)

3. Execute Functional Operations — and provide services for applications and functions, such as operations, customer service, delivery of products, research, etc.

The Collaborative Excellence Systems Architecture aims at creating a fully integrated design system where all the frameworks have been field tested, documented, and proven in a wide number of industries as diverse as automotive, aerospace, military, airlines, steel, insurance, food, consumer goods, sports, and research & development. These have proven to create quantum jumps in competitive advantage, often exceeding 20% greater than the norm. In the big picture, it’s competitive advantage that ultimately generates sustainable profitability.

Six Core Frameworks of Collaborative Systems

All systems architectures are composed of sub-systems.

A building’s architecture is composed of subsystems such as foundation, structure, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, plumbing, electrical, fenestration, fire safety, and so forth. A human’s architecture is composed of subsystems such as neural, pulmonary, vascular, gastro-intestinal, and so forth. So too must we break the Collaborative Excellence Systems Architecture down into these sub-systems… For the sake of clarity, we have chosen to call the subsystem architectures: “frameworks” to distinguish from the larger holistic systems design architecture.

The entire Collaborative Excellence Workshop Program is based on these six fundamental frameworks: Trust, Culture, Innovation, Value Creation, Four-Dimensional Leadership, and Management of Complexity. We have found that these are the basic, foundational building blocks of virtually all more advanced professional activity. With systems architecture clarity, we can then hang detailed best processes & practices and improve the practices that increase the systems synergy. So too can we isolate those practices that destroy or undermine the integrity of the system because they were actually designed for transactional or adversarial cultures. While the best practices will change and evolve over time, the architectural principles – the “core truths” remain steady.

What’s more, the Collaborative Excellence Architecture provides the frameworks for any collaborative endeavor – organizations, cross-functional integration, project management, etc. – making it a “universal passport” for much broader application – opening the avenue for engineers to evolve into experts in collaboration – the next generation of organizational transformation.

To Summarize

You are a co-developer with us. This is not “training;” it’s Capability Building. The Program is more than Workshops. The Integrated Systems Design Architecture gives it enormous power. Things will evolve (something we like) – what we present in the next section will most likely look significantly different at the end. We expect and look forward to you and your teams presenting us with your challenges, your problems, your vision your expectations, and your insights, and wisdom.

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Implementation phase – Delivery

There are two aspects of the Implementation Phase – 1) “Workshop Delivery” (outlined in this section) and 2) “Program Management” which addresses at all the other elements of the Program itself, such as communications, logistics, technology, etc. (outlined in the following section).

Workshop Implementation – Overview of Years 1 & 2

1. Collaborative Imperative

Modules

Why Collaboration?” addresses the critical rational underpinning the whole program. It enables participants to understand the impact expected, particularly the compelling value produced and why a “systems architecture” gives it holistic potential. We also address why other efforts at collaboration have failed.

“3 Archetypes of Human Behavior, Economics, & Leadership” provides clarity about what collaboration actually means. There is a lot of confusion about collaboration. Often people “play nice” and think that is collaboration. In this module we also compare collaboration with transaction (let’s make a deal) and adversarial approaches (typified by win-lose)

“Value Created from Collaboration” addresses the significant advantages that can be achieved in many areas, including strategic impacts, operational performance, productivity gains, reduction of breakdowns, lowering of risk, better on-time, on-budget project delivery, employee satisfaction, and competitive advantage among others. Participants should be articulate in understanding these value creation possibilities so that they can recognize opportunities when the present themselves.
“What the World Needs Now from Great Places to Work” examines the data from a variety of sources, all of which point to the potency of collaborative cultures to integrate people and purpose in ways that people look forward to the work experience.

“Why Millennials Love Collaborative Excellence” provides the compelling rationale addressing pressing needs and concerns about this generation, particularly their need for trust and fellowship to fill the gaps of broken families and failing institutions.

“What Collaborative Leadership Looks Like” provides the dramatic distinctions between a variety of leadership frameworks so the participant can see the differences and know why the majority of the time they should be embracing the collaborative approach.

“What Is Not Collaboration” addresses both the false notions about collaboration and the limited circumstances when collaboration is not the best approach to use.

“Application of Learning” directs participants, preferably in teams, to use the learnings, principles and processes from this Workshop in a real life situation to achieve better results and outcomes.

2. Human Behavior

Modules

“What Evolution & DNA Tells us about Human Behavior” examines the current scientific research about the nature of human beings and how our behavior has been shaped by historic events and circumstances.

“Myths of Machiavelli & Darwin” dispels the false beliefs we have held about the writings of these two authorities and what they said about humans. For centuries we have misinterpreted their admonitions, much to the detriment of our leaders.

“What’s Right with Maslow?” takes a deeper look at what is perhaps the most popular and pervasive framework for human behavior. Maslow’s model, which is fifty years old, does get some things right, such as the Need for Meaning & Purpose, the Need for Trusting Relationships (teams, families), the Need to Make a Difference, and the Need to Have Positive Beliefs.

“What’s Wrong with Maslow?” challenges Maslow’s whole view that people are “Needy” and thus motivated by being inherently dependent. Further, his “hierarchy” framework is fundamentally inaccurate, and Self-Actualization is has not been proven scientifically to be the Highest Level of Human Behavior.

“Lawrence’s 4 Drives” reveals the breakthrough framework that is destined to replace Maslow’s hierarchy. It serves as more than just a Motivational Compass. It is based on the understanding that humans are not inherently “needy,” but “driven” by four fundamental “drives” – Acquire Drive, Bond Drive, Create Drive, and Defend Drive. This model provides the system of interactions that enable us to understand trust and why synergy is attained only in collaborative environments.

“NeuroScience of Human Behavior” digs deeper into the “4-Drive” model to examine the brain chemistry of the drives, which explains in a easily understood manner, why humans seem to behave in sometimes inconsistent ways.

“Impacts & Influences on Behavior” addresses the critical question: Is behavior a result of ‘Culture or Personality?’ While the answer is both, the evidence shows that culture is the predominant force, followed by personality. This has massive implications on leadership’s role in generating collaboration in organizations.

“Leader’s Impact on Culture” builds on the perspective of the importance of leaders creating a culture of collaboration, which is then illustrated from a case example: the Union From Hell.

“Application of Learning” directs participants, preferably in teams, to use the learnings, principles and processes from this Workshop in a real life situation to achieve better results and outcomes.

3. Trust Building

Modules

“Why Trust is Essential to Collaboration” makes the critical link between collaborative systems and the presence of trust. We show that trust is more than just ethics, but is tied directly to the 4 Drives of Human Behavior, and is deeply rooted in our DNA.

“Impact of Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt, Divisiveness on Trust” builds upon the Neuroscience of Trust in the previous workshop, demonstrating how trust can be destroyed, almost instantaneously, by the presence of several factors. Participants quickly come to learn how unscrupulous and misguided leaders use fear to divide people. From this framework we establish a process to rebuild trust.

“Four Drives & Ladder of Trust” is the extremely valuable framework linking the 4 Drives to an elegant and highly impactful model of trust and distrust. By reinforcing certain human drives and aligning others, extremely high levels of trust can be created by leaders and managers.

“Trust & 3 Archetypes of Human Behavior” links the trust framework to the 3 Behavioral Archetypes, thus completing a simple but masterful “Architecture of Trust” that leaders and managers can use in the field to enable their workforce to generate the foundation of trust necessary to fuel and sustain Collaborative Excellence.

“Rebuilding Trust” utilizes the frameworks and processes in this workshop to empower participants to take specific action to rebuild trust in their network of people.

“What to do with Difficult People & Negative Behavior” addresses specific difficulties with those who are resistant to the world of trust, often because of dysfunctional families or traumatic experiences.

“Application of Learning” directs participants, preferably in teams, to use the learnings, principles and processes from this Workshop in a real-life situation to achieve better results and outcomes.

4. Collaborative Culture

Modules

“Why Culture is so Important” examines the real impact of culture on outcomes and results. This module addresses the role culture has played throughout history and how today’s leaders and managers can harness human energy by carefully architecting a high-performance culture.

“START Culture” is a framework for designing culture composed of four key elements: 1) Spirit: emphasizing the “esprit de corps” in your team or organization to give it vitality and life, 2) Trust: making trust the central foundational principle for the culture, preserving this aspect of interpersonal relationships, not matter what the circumstances, 3) Adversity Response: responding positively to adversity, which is bound to occur, often unexpectedly and unjustifiably, and 4) Teamwork: making this the central organizing principle for high performance, decision-making, and unity of purpose.

“Leader’s Role in Establishing & Maintaining Culture” addresses the leadership processes and actions that are essential ingredients to a ensuring the collaborative culture remains solid, highly functional, and efficient. This module includes, What Leaders Must Expect of Managers, What Managers Most Often Overlook, and the Essential Criteria for Collaborative Culture & Leadership.

“Consequences of Not Paying Attention to Culture” focuses on what happens when cultures start to deteriorate, the Early Warning Signals of decline, and how to rebuild a broken culture.

“Application of Learning” directs participants, preferably in teams, to use the learnings, principles and processes from this Workshop in a real life situation to achieve better results and outcomes.

5. Trusted Teams

Modules

“Collaboration is not the Opposite of Competition” frames the important issue of collaboration in the context of competition. The two are not opposites, and can actually engage synergistically. Humans are naturally collaborative, and naturally competitive – it’s a matter of getting the two energies into alignment. Sports coaches do a much better job of this than most business leaders.

“Why Trust is Essential to Teamwork” examines what happens to teamwork when trust is either present or absent. The performance metrics data reveals how trust can give many teams a massive boost in performance.

“Key Factors for High Performance” sets forth the critical elements of great teams, building on the design elements in the previous Workshops. This module addresses: Team Member Selection (Five C’s), Team Leadership, Team Purpose, Team Culture, Team Standards of Excellence, Team Operational Principles, Team Performance Metrics, and Team Rewards & Discipline

“Responding to Breakdowns, Failure & Adversity” sets forth the principles and processes for responding to adversity, particularly how to avoid the “blame game” when breakdowns occur (and they will), how to reframe failure into learning, and how to use adversity to advantage by responding collaboratively.

“Case Examples” will be used to illustrate good and bad ways of responding to adversity. Participants will be asked to find specific examples in business, sports, and other leadership situations.

“Application of Learning” directs participants, preferably in teams, to use the learnings, principles and processes from this Workshop in a real life situation to achieve better results and outcomes.

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6. Collaborative Innovation

Modules

“Why Collaborative Innovation in Invaluable” establishes the rationale for the “collaborative” aspect of innovation, building a powerful case that without collaboration, innovation will soon dry up, leaving companies with obsolete products, solutions, technologies, and services.

“10 Core Processes of Collaborative Innovation” outlines the most critical processes needed to establish an “innovation engine.” Each process is bolstered by best practices and examples.

“Optimizing Diversity” sets forth the key factors in bringing diverse perspectives, beliefs, and cultures together that generates the “fuel” for the engine of New Idea Generation.

“Trust’s Impact on Diversity” demonstrates how trust is the central principle to underpin the ability of diversity to

“Building the Innovation Team” sets forth the Key Factors for Success in selecting and orchestrating a team that has the right balance of creativity with implementation skills to generate innovation that creates real value. During this module we will demonstrate how these processes have been used throughout history to produce breakthrough results during the Greek Age of Innovation, in Thomas Edison’s Laboratories, and in the modern age in places like IDEO in Silicon Valley.

“Application of Learning” directs participants, preferably in teams, to use the learnings, principles and processes from this Workshop in a real life situation to achieve better results and outcomes.

7. Value Creation

Modules

“Beyond Money” challenges the notion that money is the objective of business – “Is money the Measure or the Objective?” is far more than an esoteric question. When money becomes the objective, it can blind businesses to the fundamental issue – “How do we create value that people will pay for?” And “What do our customers consider ‘value’?” Understanding these perspectives then opens the avenues to sustainable value creation, which must be accomplished collaboratively.

“Economics of Trust” presents a powerful analytic framework for understanding the economic value of trust in any business process. The essence of this module enables participants to gauge, for themselves from their experience, the real advantage of trust on value creation. With this data they can remove significant amounts of “non-value added work.”

“Value Maximization” examines the strategies, principles, and processes for building new value in an organization. It addresses key methodologies, including “Value Evolution,” “Value Innovation” and “Value Destruction.”

“Application of Learning” directs participants, preferably in teams, to use the learnings, principles and processes from this Workshop in a real life situation to achieve better results and outcomes.

8. Collaborative Leadership (part 1)

Modules

“Leadership as a System” examines why and how leadership has been such a difficult issue to this very day. Deficiencies in “leadership theory” are exposed to reveal why most leadership models are a morass of muddled thinking, and how to untangle the thinking to be clear about intentions, actions, and consequences. The critical role of Executive Leadership Team is addressed, as well as the importance of front-line management in generating Collaborative Excellence.

“Four Alignments” focuses on how great leaders do four alignments very well: 1) Strategic Alignment, 2) Cultural Alignment, 3) Operational Alignment, and 4) Dynamic Realignment in time. When these four alignments are engaged, leadership is functioning at elevated levels and producing great. Performance. Each of the alignments are examined in detail with key principles and processes for enactment.

“Application of Learning” directs participants, preferably in teams, to use the learnings, principles and processes from this Workshop in a real-life situation to achieve better results and outcomes.

9. Collaborative Leadership (part 2)

Modules

“Distinction between Leadership & Management” delineates the critical differences between these two types of roles, the perspectives of each, the importance of both Leadership & Management, and the circumstances and outcomes which maximizes the impact of each.

“Collaborative Leader as “Champion” sets forth the critical functions of being a “champion” when acting in a leadership capacity, including Advocacy, being a Systems Design Architect, responding positively to adversity, turning adversity into opportunity, preserving culture & trust. One segment addresses how to fostering and protecting champions, particularly emerging leaders.

“Employee Engagement & Empowerment” addresses how leadership and management should design programs based on Collaborative Excellence to draw employees into key activities that give them a sense of belonging – something for which there is a deep yearning in the Millennial generation.

“Power of Purpose” focuses on the massive motivational power of giving people meaning and purpose in their lives.

“Collaborative Exercise of Power & Control” focuses on how to use power in positive ways, how to control via alignment and coordination and integration, and how to make consensus-based decisions without getting bogged down.

“Influence Without Authority” provides guidance on how leaders and managers can increase their influence in situations where they are not in positions of authority.

“Application of Learning” directs participants, preferably in teams, to use the learnings, principles and processes from this Workshop in a real-life situation to achieve better results and outcomes.

10. Overcoming Resistance

Modules

“Seven Factors of Resistance to Change” outlines a framework and core processes for assessing resistance, examining the causes and successful approaches.

“Diagnostics” dives deeper into the seven factors, providing an analytic framework base on using the 4 Drives of Human Behavior to understand the resistance and map a way forward. Having a strong Diagnostics Framework is useful not only for assessing Resistance to Change, but also to maintain organizational health

“Assessing Cynics versus Skeptics” provides leaders with important analytic frameworks and practical advice on distinguishing the difference between skeptics (who may actually be transformed into great advocates for change), and cynics (who cannot be convinced and may torpedo the change, no matter how much energy is expended).

“Key Factors for Successful Change” outlines the major proactive and reactive solutions required to overcome resistance. It also is based on the 4 Drives of Human Behavior as well as the 4 Alignments of Leadership, thus integrating models, learnings, and actions together tightly. How to position change and language are critical issues addressed here.

“Application of Learning” directs participants, preferably in teams, to use the learnings, principles and processes from this Workshop in a real life situation to achieve better results and outcomes.

11. Managing Complexity

Modules

“Why Complexity Generates High Failure Rates” examines the direct causal relationship between complexity and failure. There are two basic strategies to cope with complexity – simplicity and collaboration. Both are effective, particularly when used in tandem.

“Results of Complex Project Analysis” is the result of a long-term study of complexity by members of our team. It provides important frameworks for setting up collaborative systems well in advance of any project launch.

“Dangers of Adversarial & Transactional Leadership in Complex Systems” focuses on how the 3 Archetypal Framework is essential for understanding success and failure. It demonstrates how Collaborative Excellence will increase the likelihood of on-time, on-budget delivery four-fold.

“Innovation & Feedback Loops” addresses the importance of building an innovation system into any complex situation to handle problems quickly and effectively.

“Why & How Collaboration Conquers Complexity” provides a framework and core processes and practices that effectively diminish the impacts of the “Law of Unintended Consequences” and the “Law of Compounding Risks.”

“Application of Learning” directs participants, preferably in teams, to use the learnings, principles and processes from this Workshop in a real life situation to achieve better results and outcomes.

12. Sustaining Collaboration

Modules

“Annual Health Check & Feedback” provides a strategy and diagnostic tools to examine the organization’s health and functioning annually, along with critical Metrics and Diagnostics assessments of collaborative interaction. After the assessment is completed, the proper feedback of the data and corrective actions can be deployed.

“Collaborative Standards & Discipline” addresses the actions leaders and managers must take both proactively and reactively to maintain a sound collaborative culture. Maintaining collaborative order and discipline is essential to preservation of the system.

“HR Policies & Programs” are an essential part of organizational health. A full examination of policies, programs, training, and rewards is vital to ensure collaboration is recognized and reinforced.

“Executive Leadership Team” must be at the forefront of orchestrating the Collaborative Excellence initiative and ensuring deviations and internal conflicts are addressed forthrightly.

“Board of Directors” are often either left out of the collaboration initiative or even hostile to it. Gaining their support and commitment is the role of the CEO and the Executive Leadership Team; they must communicate the value and importance of their efforts to ensure Board support.

“Application of Learning” directs participants, preferably in teams, to use the learnings, principles and processes from this Workshop in a real life situation to achieve better results and outcomes.

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Year 2 Advanced Collaboration

Part 1 – Expanding Internal Collaboration

13. Collaborative Advantage

Modules

“Creating Competitive Advantage with Collaboration” examines the key elements of competitive advantage (market impact, organizational effectiveness, innovation, value delivery, financial return, etc.) to pinpoint key areas where collaboration can result in significant improvements.

“Key Factors for Success” reexamines the generic KFSs and learnings from the first year, to generate a more refined and precise set of KFSs for each organizational entity. These will be used to make the Collaborative Excellence Program more effective going forward.

“Designing Breakthroughs” is a process by which extraordinary performance can actually be designed and implemented. It becomes a powerful strategy for moving innovation to another level.

“Shifting Paradigms” is the companion piece to the prior module, laying out a methodology for seeing the world from new frames of reference. It is also a foundational element for innovation and collaborative negotiations (see later Workshop).

“Changing Beliefs” is essential for the long-term sustainability of Collaborative Excellence. Using evidence from the results produced to date, we will lay out a plan and process for shifting the beliefs of those skeptics who are yet to be convinced.

“Application of Learning” directs participants, preferably in teams, to use the learnings, principles and processes from this Workshop in a real life situation to achieve better results and outcomes.

14. Cross-Functional Integration

Modules

“Internal Organizations” focuses on overcoming the obstacles, difficulties, and resistance to cross functional integration, will addressing the critical importance of teamwork and collaboration for achievement of mission as well as the opportunities to generate much greater innovation. When forming external organizations, the lack of internal organizations can be a major problem for partners.

“Connecting Siloes with the Cross Functional Integrators” addresses the powerful role and qualities of people who are effective Cross-Functional Integrator. The frameworks in the first year are instrumental in the selection and performance of these integrators. In addition, often their actions look invisible, and thus their performance measures and rewards must be carefully designed to ensure they are effective in their jobs.

“Collaborative Lean Management” takes another look at why Lean Management has had such a poor track record in so many organizations. Our team’s field work has produced excellent results by integrating trust, innovation, productivity, value creation, and cost reduction into Lean Management.

“Application of Learning” directs participants, preferably in teams, to use the learnings, principles and processes from this Workshop in a real life situation to achieve better results and outcomes.

15. Employee Engagement

Modules

“HR’s Role in Sustaining Collaborative Culture” addresses the positive and proactive processes HR must do to link engagement with collaboration.

“Employee Selection” provides guidance on who HR must recruit and screen to ensure the collaborative system is not derailed by the wrong hires, particularly in the leadership and management ranks.

“Employee On-Boarding” delineates the key elements of bringing new employees on board to ensure the highest standards and rapid acculturation.

“Millennial Retention” is a difficult issue for any company. Millennials are likely to change jobs every four years or more. Keeping the workforce intact can be challenging. Hiring and retaining millennials is less difficult when they are part of a Collaborative Excellence program because, while trust is generally this generation’s weakness, they are seeking work environments where trust is high.

“Diversity as an Engine of Innovation” takes a deeper look at the HR program to capitalize on the impact of diversity in the innovation process, which has real, often untapped, power.

“Collaborative Communications” outlines the best ways to use the art & science of speaking, listening & asking questions to reinforce collaboration. It also provides guidelines for transforming appreciative inquiry into creative inquiry.

“Application of Learning” directs participants, preferably in teams, to use the learnings, principles and processes from this Workshop in a real-life situation to achieve better results and outcomes.

16. Value Maximization

Modules

“Trust’s Impact on Profits” does a deeper refinement of the Economics of Trust in the first year, examining exactly what line items in the Profit and Loss Statement have been affected. Working with the finance and accounting division, participants will analyze profit and cost impacts.

“Total Cost of Ownership Analysis” refines the cost modeling to account for secondary and long-term effects of cost reductions from more collaboration.

“Creating Value Propositions” provides a process methodology linked to designing breakthroughs to align human energy on greater value creation. By building a Breakthrough Value Propositions, metrics can be used to trigger jumps in performance.

“Collaborative Risk Management” outlines a powerful new paradigm the demonstrates that, in many cases, the shift from a transactional to a collaborative paradigm can reduce risk 30%.

“Application of Learning” directs participants, preferably in teams, to use the learnings, principles and processes from this Workshop in a real life situation to achieve better results and outcomes.

17. Organizational Transformation

Modules

“Key Factors for Success in Transformation” delineates the fundamental factors and preconditions that must be in place for non-crisis driven transformation to take place. Many of the key elements from the first year’s workshops will be shown to set the stage for success.

“Managing Change versus Leading Shifts” challenges conventional thinking about “change management,” which often lacks both the behavioral underpinnings of change and the strategic understanding that change is more a leadership function, not a management function. Orchestrating turnarounds is highly enhanced by using the Collaborative Systems Architecture.

“Designing Synergy” utilizes the phenomenon basically only available in Collaborative Systems to generate the greater output and throughput with the same resources. This module builds on research from the Bio-Economics of Synergy. It utilizes key learnings from the last two thousand years coupled with examples from modern business and sports teams.

“Application of Learning” directs participants, preferably in teams, to use the learnings, principles and processes from this Workshop in a real life situation to achieve better results and outcomes.

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Part 2 – External Collaboration

18. Why Partner

Modules

“Organizations: Internal & External” addresses the importance of both internal cross-functional organizations and external cross-business organizations as a strategy to be agile and nimble. Best Processes in Organization formation and management will provide participants with a road map.

“Pre-Merger & Acquisition” demonstrates the value of creating organizations as a way to test the waters and gauge the potential success of a later acquisition. This “softer and gentler” approach has shown the wisdom of such a strategy by its much stronger level of success if the acquisition is consummated.

“Solutions Delivery” is a powerful strategy to join several companies together to deliver solutions that one company could never attempt alone.

“Research Collaborations” can be used to stimulate new technologies and innovations. But they are not easy to manage, unless you know the best processes and practices.

“Value Chains & Eco-Systems Organizations” are the most complex, with lots of moving parts and dynamic change. We will examine how to make these work effectively and where to position your company in the eco-system

“Joint Ventures” are usually large, capital intensive, and used for launching large business enterprises.

“When Collaboration is NOT the Best Strategy” ensures you don’t create an organization with the wrong partner. Knowing your limits and alternatives is essential.

“Application of Learning” directs participants, preferably in teams, to use the learnings, principles and processes from this Workshop in a real life situation to achieve better results and outcomes.

19. Collaborative Strategies

Modules

“Why Collaborative Strategies are so Powerful” examines the basic leverage and multiplication advantages of collaboration, as well as the innovative capacity to reframe the competitive landscape.

“How Collaborative Strategy is Different from Adversarial Strategy” compares and contrasts the two approaches, outlining the advantages and disadvantages of both. The objective is not to use collaborative strategies strictly, but when to use one or the other. Some of the topics will include Strategic Evolution, Key Factors for Success, who to Partner with, and What to Avoid.

“Stratagems Win” addresses the 12 Basic Collaborative Stratagems, and how they are executed in real situations. These stratagems can be used independently, but are often combined in unique patterns that confuse and compound competitors who don’t fathom what’s really going to happen.

“Co-opetition – How to Join Forces Successfully with a Competitor” outlines the strategies, selection criteria, and processes for aligning with a competitor (usually to defeat or outperform a bigger or more onerous competitor)

“Strategic Execution” show how to leverage collaboration to launch New Initiatives.

“Application of Learning” directs participants, preferably in teams, to use the learnings, principles and processes from this Workshop in a real life situation to achieve better results and outcomes.

20. Collaborative Negotiations

Modules

“Understanding Win-Lose, Win-Win, & Synergistic Negotiations” compares and contrasts the three forms of negotiations to enable negotiators to choose the form that is right for the situation.

“Understanding the Synergistic Game” outlines the Rules of Engagement, Strategies & Tactics, Legal Issues & Contractual terms and conditions required.

“Shifts in Perspectives” outlines the means of shifting paradigms to get people “unstuck,” including important shifts in mindsets, language, and expected outcomes.

“Application of Learning” directs participants, preferably in teams, to use the learnings, principles and processes from this Workshop in a real life situation to achieve better results and outcomes.

21. Strategic Organizations

Modules

“Power of Best Processes & Practice” reviews the data gleaned from organization professionals on the impact of best process/best practice frameworks.

“Building an Organization” is a practicum in organization Formation, Structure, Negotiations, Operational Planning, Management, and Launching a real organization. This will involve all the learnings for the last year and a half, bringing together all the Collaborative Excellence Principles, Processes, and Practices into focus. Success criteria will be established at the outset, which will form the basis of evaluation as the organization evolves.

22. Supply Chains

Modules

“Creating Competitive Supply Chain Advantage” examines the best strategies used to transform supply chains from transactional cost-driven to collaborative innovation & speed driven. The key advantages of Collaborative Supply versus Transactional Supply are quickly obvious.

“Driving Innovation & Speed in the Chain” invokes the best principles, processes, and practices to create new streams of value that flow through the entire network from suppliers to customers. Emphasis is focused on how to create value maximization at every juncture.

“Collaborative Negotiations” at this point will embrace key ideas of “Collaborative Contracting, “Collaborative Value Bidding,” and “How to Get the Best Value & Lowest Cost of Ownership”.

“Supply Chain Simulation” is an “Application of Learning” in which participants, preferably in teams, apply their learnings, principles and processes from this Workshop in a real life game to achieve better results and outcomes.

23. Complex Projects

Modules

“Collaborative Project Management vs Adversarial & Transactional Management” compares the three models and how each performed “under load.” We will explore the Key Collaborative Leadership Factors,” how Collaboration significantly mitigated Risk, and how the Laws of Compounding Risks & Unintended Consequences favored trusting relationships.

“Managing a Complex Project like a Strategic Organization” applies the frameworks of organizations with a new approach to “Strategic Project Leadership” to evolve a “super-hybrid” model of effective project delivery.

“Application of Learning” will involve all the learnings for the last year and a half, bringing together all the Collaborative Excellence Principles, Processes, and Practices into focus. Success criteria will be established at the outset, which will form the basis of evaluation as the project evolves.

24. Collaborative Business

Modules

“ISO 44001 Certification” takes the participants through the steps in the ISO Collaboration Life Cycle , which includes the Standards of Practice provides a general sequence for implementation of the framework and best practices, Planning, Training, Implementation, Auditing & Certification.

“Using ISO 44001 to Create Strategic Competitive Advantage in Value Chain” addresses the strategies to make the Certification a powerful means of attracting and interacting with the best partners around the globe.

“Application of Learning” will involve all the learnings for the last year and a half, bringing together all the Collaborative Excellence Principles, Processes, and Practices into focus. Success criteria will be established at the outset, which will form the basis of evaluation as the project evolves.

Delivery Methodology

The Delivery Methodology will be a balance of interactive presentation, participant/team interaction, and application to real circumstances. Each workshop in the program will have quality graphics, support materials, written materials, and at least one 10-15 minute video overview. A Facilitator Manual for the facilitator’s process interaction will be provided. Readings will be provided with each Workshop.

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Implementation Management Phase

Delivery of the Program will involve on-going Steering Committee Engagement. This will involve content applicability, understandability, and ease of use, among other issues. The Steering Team is responsible, with the AG Learning Provider, to manage the design, development, delivery, and review of the Collaborative Excellence as a Program/Project, with goals, milestones, tasks, interdependencies, and review.

The Purpose of “Program” Management is to ensure that all support elements of the Program are proceeding with speed, agility, and purpose. This Phase will be on-going, simultaneous with the Workshop Delivery.

Rollout and Launch Planning

Each Steering Team, with the AG Learning Provider, will set up a Program Rollout and Launch Plan. The Learning Provider will provide the Steering Team with a Project Management Template covering all “generic” issues that need to be built into each company’s unique rollout and launch. However, every company is different, with its own unique personality, culture, structure, norms, and values. Thus the generic template should be carefully scrutinized and adjusted to ensure it is customized to fit each Client partner.

Project Manager

The Steering Team will need to assign the Program Project Manager to ensure all the elements of the Rollout and Launch are met, including milestones, assessment of interdependencies, creation of timelines, determination of resources needed, budget, etc. The Project Manager will be responsible for ensuring that all internal support requirements are met, including stakeholder input/engagement, senior executive sponsorship, logistics, printing, web access, facilitation, and availability of content materials (reading, workbooks, etc.)

On-going monthly Program Reviews will be conducted with Steering Committee with continuing updates and revisions, and feedback loops from participants and stakeholders. These monthly meetings need not be lengthy, and can be done by phone call.

It is highly beneficial for the Program Roll-out to be flawless. This means ensuring all aspects of the first session come together without glitches, such as sponsorship, target audience marketing, team recruitment, announcements, setting expectations, logistics, IT and audio visual, time availability, metrics, rewards for attending, making the Program a priority, and the AG consultant/facilitator selection and preparation.

Stakeholder Engagement

Stakeholders need to be engaged and their inputs garnered at the outset. Additional aspects of the Implementation will involve forecasting including future demand, obstacles & uncertainties, resistance & fears, and unintended consequences – positive & negative. Scalability is an important factor during this phase. Key issues should be addressed, such as the size and scale of the rollout, internal value perceived, cross-functional teamwork desired, human resource requirements and policies, impacts on external suppliers and customers, and other organizational interdependencies that may be affected.

Organizational culture is always a factor that must be addressed, as well as operational processes that may be affected. Shifting to a highly collaborative approach to an organization will impact those powerbases in an organization that may have been operating in a hierarchical, transactional mode for years. Sometimes it’s best to avoid these pockets at the beginning of the Program.

Action-Learning Applications

The most valuable part of the Collaborative Excellence Program is the Action-Learning Application whereby the participants bring the learning content down to earth in the form of producing real-time results in their own organizations. While there will be case studies in the reading material, we look to the participants to engage in putting their learning to work every day. This is why the learning sessions are called “Workshops.”

We recognize that much of leadership and management training cannot be done solely as an academic exercise, because it can only be exercised in the heat of a real challenge – in the crucible of action and the tension of emotions. That’s why this Program focuses on integrating frameworks/architectures with success factors, tools, coupled with a heavy dose of application.

For this reason, we do not rely heavily on case studies, but instead use the pressure cooker of real life situations, simulations, and interactive games. In our approach to “capability building,” we ensure that every principle or success factor can be distilled into a usable “best process & best practice,” to which we provide a set of “tools” (questions, frameworks, diagnostics, etc.) that then are applied to real life situations.

Most importantly, we know that when people are able to apply something immediately, they retain 80% of what they learned three weeks later; but if they can’t apply it, their retention plummets to 20% or less three weeks later.

And when people apply their learning and produce better results, the Client stakeholders are able to recognize real value, which then creates a “virtuous value cycle” of more people wanting to come for more Workshops, which generates a greater “critical mass” in the organization, which enhances the possibilities of even more success, and opens up larger and broader opportunities.

Learning in Teams Creates Critical Mass

We have learned from years of experience, how difficult it is to send one person to a program, have them return, and then face the disappointing challenge of having the “corporate immunal reject response” kick in where the corporate culture kicks out the person with the new ideas because they look like a “foreign body.” Thus we encourage teams to come to our sessions, plan their actions together, and then re-enter their parent organizations as a critical mass that can effect improvements. This is why it is so very critical that the design of the Action-Learning component of the Program be carefully orchestrated at the Client level. Participants are encouraged to link the Workshops to their operational responsibilities by using the Workshop Learning to do something better, or to address a particular vexing problem, or to launch a new initiative – something where they can demonstrate how their monthly Workshop learning produces a measurable difference.

While each monthly Workshop can be linked to a simple, short-term monthly application, and each application can be different, depending on what’s immediate and urgent that month, we emphasize that Action-Learning Applications can be used to address longer-term issues as well.

Role of the Coach/Consultant/Facilitator

Management of the Workshop Program is the Project Manager’s responsibility. However, this person can also be the same person as the individual who is serving as the Workshop Coach/Consultant/Facilitator, (either an internal person or outside Appleton Greene Consultant). This is an important role, and the person selected should be both qualified and passionate about Collaborative Excellence. It is often not enough for business leaders to learn, develop new skills, and create action plans during a session. We know it is often valuable upon “re-entry” to have a coach/mentor to help shepherd the participants in developing and implementing a concrete plan that will deliver measurable impacts — either to top-line, bottom-line, innovation on flow, removal of non-value added work, sustainable cost reductions, or something similar that will validate the return on investment from leadership capability building.

As the Learning Provider, we will work with and provide this person with a Facilitator’s Handbook, a monthly one-hour conference call (or ZOOM meeting) with all pilot program Coach/Facilitators, and email guidance and support when needed.

Logistics, Information Technology & Media

Today, remote learning and far-flung business units can present some logistical and technological obstacles to program delivery. We request that the Project Manager pay particular attention to these issues and be the Learning Provider’s single point of contact in the Client’s company on these matters.

Communications

Great communications between the Learning Provider and the Client Steering Teams is important. So too are the communications between Project Manager and the learning participants. As Learning Provider, we will provide basic templates for communications at various stages of the Program’s evolution, such as recruitment, first session, and annual reviews. We will also provide a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) sheet. Each Client company may want to add more information or revise for their unique situation.

Learning Credits

As your Learning Provider, we have taught extensively in Executive Education in several business schools throughout the United States and Canada, as well as in certified learning centers, such as the American Management Association. We realize it is often advantageous to have participants receive learning credits to advance their careers. As this Program is delivered internationally, the requirements for Adult Learning Credits vary greatly. We suggest you consult with your Human Resources department to determine how to handle this issue.

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Review

There are two levels of Review: Monthly and Annual.

Monthly Reviews include the quality of the monthly Workshops and monthly Action-Learning Applications

Annual Reviews start at the commencement of the Collaborative Excellence Program and are then conducted as Annual Health Checks

Monthly Workshop Review

There are two parts to this Monthly review: The Workshop Review and the Action-Learning Application Review.

At end of every Workshop, participants (as Teams or as Individuals) will be asked several questions:

“What are the 3-5 Take-Aways from this Workshop?”
“What Messages are your going to deliver to your Team or Organization?”
“What Insights (Architecture, Language, Beliefs, Perceptions, Understandings) do you now have?”
“What Actions will be different?”
“What would you change, add, subtract, or improve in this Workshop?”
“Other suggestions for gaining more value?”

After every Workshop the Steering Committee will meet to digest the Participant’s feedback and suggest course adjustments to the Learning Provider.

Monthly Action-Learning Application Review

Because the real value of the Workshop is measured by the results it produces, it is critical to ensure the application of the learning to real-time problems or opportunities in the workplace. This review is best done by the Coach/Consultant/Facilitator, in conjunction with the Client Steering Team. Each Application of the Learning should gave a goal, clear metrics of success, an assessment of the obstacles or forces holding things back, a root cause analysis, specific actions that need to be enacted, a timeline for achievement, who will be responsible for what tasks, and who should be informed or consulted during the application. This need not be a long, drawn out plan, one page will generally suffice.

If there are difficulties in achieving the goals of the application, the Coach/Facilitator should be able to assist in helping the participant(s) team(s) accomplish their task. They are close to the participants and the field of action, and are thus best positioned to assist. We, as Learning Providers, as “Pracademics” have had a lot of experience in applying the key learnings in the Program during our careers. We are available to the Coach/Facilitators should there be a need for our assistance or advice. Nevertheless, we do request to be informed about any great successes or difficulties in application in the field to help us know what to reemphasize or change in the Program.

Annual Program Review

The Annual Program review’s purpose is to ensure that the Client receives significant value from the time, money, and human energy invested. It is our aim, as Learning Providers, to exceed expectations. We can only learn whether our aim has hit the mark by the feedback from the Steering Teams.

We seek to receive both “qualitative” (your opinions, insights, critiques, and suggestions) and “quantitative” (measured survey assessments) feedback. This enables everyone to learn and get better. The Annual Program Review process starts at the commencement of the Program, assessing the baseline level of capability and performance. Ideally, this is both a qualitative and quantitative assessment. (Please see the section at the end to see our advice about quantitative assessments and “Survey Guided Development.” These assessments are not part of the Workshop Program fee. If we, as Learning Providers, are needed to provide Survey Guided Development, this can be arranged via separate contract between Appleton Greene and the Client company.)

The baseline levels establish the foundation level that gives us a reference point to determine the impact of the first and second year efforts. Annual Program Survey Guided Assessments should be conducted to determine the magnitude of improvement have been achieved over the base-lines at the beginning of the program. If the Survey Assessment surfaces new issues, those can be addressed. The entire Steering Team should be involved in each Review should, at a minimum, assess the value created, including specific/measurable impacts, the Return On Investment (ROI) for time & money, changes needed in delivery in content, process, media, support, or facilitation, improvements required, customizations required to make it more applicable to specific audiences, and any new module or program development required.

All stakeholders should be consulted and interviewed by the Steering Team to determine their point of view about the Program, and its value in the field of operations. This should include the perspective of the Senior Executive Team.

Notes on Third Year Programs

We have a design for a Third Year for this Program. It includes Systems Alignment, Diagnostic Reviews, Preservation and Protection of Culture, Corporate Response to Adversity, Eco-System Design, Aligning Metrics, and several other issues. We have chosen not to propose this third year for two reasons: first, we believe that the feedback from practitioners in the first two years will significantly alter our thinking about year three, and second, we did not see that the audience for such issues would be broad enough. As the Program evolves we will be happy to propose a third year, or alternatively propose several separate programs, such as Strategic Organization Leadership, Strategic Project Leadership, Collaborative Excellence for Engineers, and Strategic Supply Chain Leadership. Any of these can be ready for rollout in 2021 by our team of senior pracademics.

Notes on Survey Guided Development & Diagnostics

Based on the results of years of learning, experiment, and refinement, we have developed an approach to diagnostics that is an integral part of organizational capability building.

Value of Diagnostics

Being able to understand what is going well, or poorly, in an organization is critical to all innovation practitioners, particularly when many organization members are spread around the globe and things have a propensity to change rapidly. A good diagnostic instrument must be a powerful tool providing an ability to see deeply into the inner workings of an organization just as an MRI combined with lab tests and blood samples, see into a human being.

Types of Diagnostics Instruments

The two most common diagnostic tools are surveys and interviews. Each has its pros and cons. Surveys (usually done over the internet now) are fast, relatively inexpensive, and can create excellent baseline benchmarks for trending. Experience has shown that individuals will provide a better level of information via a strictly confidential internet survey than written questionnaires. As a quantitative instrument, surveys lack the ability to gain deep insight into critical organizational issues.

Interviews can derive rich information, are interactive, and, when done by a skilled interviewer (who knows the industry and organization field) can provide deep insight into issues, motives, and solutions. However, interviews can take a long time to set up, compile, and analyze, thereby becoming costly due to the high labor expense. (We have also observed that many interviewers are hired because of interviewing skills, but often they lack an understanding of both the organization and the specific industry, thus missing many of the nuances of their subjects.)

After years of using both methodologies, we have found that high stakes organizations can best be served by the right combination of the two approaches: a set of 4-5 telephone interviews with key leaders on both sides of the organization couple with an internet-based survey reaching to the far corners of the world into the depths of the organization. This hybrid approach is both economical and effective.

Applications of Diagnostics

We have found that Diagnostic Assessments can be used successfully in a wide-variety of organizational assessments including trust & teamwork, employee engagement, innovation, customer relationships, cross-functional effectiveness, and many others where Collaborative Excellence and Organizational Health is important.

The Organization Health Assessment is the most common use of diagnostics. It provides a snapshot of key issues and a handle on how to fix problems. We look for several key factors that will tell us the health of the organization, and pinpoint key areas that are either malfunctioning, or, conversely, functioning effectively. Periodic surveying of the relationship can create benchmarking data to determine trends: which dimensions of the organization are improving or deteriorating. It is also used as an Early Warning System — by a frequent use of surveys (annual or semi-annual), difficulties in an organization can be spotted early. This approach will enable the global manager to spot difficulties that may otherwise go undetected until the problem is terminal.

The Readiness Assessment is designed to gauge a company’s readiness to engage in an organizational collaborative shift or if there is a perceived need that an initiative will truly create a competitive advantage. This is particularly useful if a company’s internal team is inexperienced, or if there are a multitude of global teams (each with very different needs and capabilities) that must be coordinated to start the organization,

The Internal Capability Assessment can be used to assess internal capabilities or business development’s ability to work collaboratively both internally and externally. This is particularly useful if a company is getting ready to embark on a strategy of that will engage in both internal cross-functional integration and external alliances, but there may not be sufficient expertise to be successful. A survey instrument may be used to introduce a new idea, perspective, or frame of reference, or to test the waters before embarking on a new idea or program. Depending upon the acceptance level, leaders will learn where pockets of resistance may lie, or what parts of their ideas are likely to survive. Surveys can ask open-ended questions to surface new ideas. Similarly, by seeding a survey with some new ideas, new ways of thinking can begin to be imbedded in an organization.

We have brought new concepts, such as “organizations as engines of innovation” or “total cost of ownership” into the organization’s thought process by using survey instruments. The data from these types of questions can then be used as the beginning of a process to produce a paradigm shift.

The Diagnostic Myth

One key myth about diagnostics is that, in and of themselves, diagnostics are helpful. The harsh reality is that diagnostics for their own sake are actually harmful if problems are uncovered without a follow-up program of corrective action.

Here’s why: Expectations are raised whenever someone probes into problem areas; what might have been subliminal difficulties are now poignant, and old hurts are renewed just by asking questions. Consequently, we build in a feedback and action-planning program into every diagnostic program we do.

The Diagnostic Process

There is a fundamental rule in diagnostics: “You get what you measure.” Therefore, understanding the underlying metrics and expectations of a survey instrument before bringing it to the participants is essential. Otherwise, the wrong expectations can be raised, with very frustrating results. Inexperienced surveyors fail to realize that every diagnostic intervention will generate expectations for correction of any problems surfaced by the survey. Therefore, there must be sufficient executive support for addressing a problem; otherwise leave it alone.

Feedback & Identification of Points of Leverage

Data is collected in a database. If desired this information can be run through a sophisticated statistical analysis software program. This core database can then be expanded upon in the future. We suggest initially conducting pilot studies with three important organizations to investigate some strategically pressing hot spots/issues. Once the surveys/interviews are completed, our standard practice is to convene a core team of senior internal organization leaders, aided by an external consultant, to review the collected data and isolate points of leverage for significantly improving the performance of the organization.

This is an important discussion which enables the organization leaders to privately examine what might be causing the problems, what options might be necessary for correction, and what leverage points they have for change. By giving the organization leaders a preview of the data, they are not blind-sided or caught flat-footed when the problem-solving session begins in the next phase.

Then a succinct executive report can be created to present to the senior sponsoring management, targeted at informed decision making along with an Executive Briefing and Action Planning Session. Included in the report are follow-on activities that we can directly implement to advance your organization capabilities for your other organization relationships.

However, the most valuable next step is to engage in an Action-Planning Workshops within the organization. One effective strategy is to weave the feedback of the data into the next levels of leadership and management as a part of the Collaborative Excellence Workshop Program. As a matter of policy, we tend to shy away from any diagnostic work unless there is a commitment by senior management to engage in some form of sessions to address problems if they are surfaced by the survey. Otherwise, expectations are raised, hopes are dashed, and the organization can actually be further damaged if no action is taken.

In conclusion, diagnostics are an essential component of any robust organizational improvement program. Diagnostics can assess a great variety of issues, from organization health, readiness for action, capabilities to perform, or to trigger collaborative innovation. With a commitment to follow-up action, diagnostics provide a strong return on every dollar invested.

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Executive Summary

History

The themes of Collaborative Excellence and Collaborative Leadership have been some of the most compelling themes of human civilization. It is the quest for synergy that is deeply imbedded in our human psyche, and, as evolutionary scientists have found, it is in our DNA. That’s why the quest for leadership excellence finds its roots ingrained in our historic literature, where good and evil collide, where unity struggles with divisiveness, where brotherhood and sisterhood conflict with an equally forceful betrayal of honour and justice.

If one looks carefully into the histories of leadership, there is one quest that is often subtle but profound: the Quest for Synergy. The opposite of synergy is not individual aggrandizement – that is just the result. Synergy’s opposite is Betrayal, which then results in separation, disillusionment, isolation, and often worse, such as anger, revenge and vindictiveness. Our civilization’s written history is replete with tensions between the Quest for Synergy and the Terror of Betrayal, often portrayed by the ancients simply as the battle between good and evil. These histories are inextricably linked to the leaders who stood on either side of the battle-line, and those who transactionally straddle the divide, often reaping opportunistic rewards.

Leadership has a very long history of attracting intense scrutiny and analysis, and has been the intense study of some of the greatest minds in our culture. Homer, writing in the early Grecian era chronicled the adventures of Ulysses, not only a leader and but also and adventurer. Historians Herodotus and Thucydides documented generals and sea battles, describing the strategic thought process and courage of leaders. Certainly our courageous view of Spartans is the result of written histories of leadership. Coaching leaders is an ancient art. Aristotle was the personal advisor of Alexander the Great.

The themes of betrayal are deeply imbedded in the Greek writings of Euripides, Homer (Scylla & Charibdys), (Abduction of Helen of Troy), Aesop. Socrates, who had practiced the synergy principles so carefully, had bonded closely with his students in a manner that could not be understood by outsiders. Threatened by the sense of internal community, Socrates was accused of having an intimate homosexual relationship with his students. The accusation alone was the most horrific of betrayals, because the nature of the accusation meant interminable defenses and lingering innuendo, regardless of the outcome of any trial. Rather than suffer such degradation of character, he chose hemlock (poison), death being a better alternative than living dishonorably.

The Old Testament tells of leaders battling the forces evil, characterized by the devil. Leadership is frequently the power that tips the balance between self-interest and mutual benefit. Trust in others, and faith in moral character is a major theme, especially in the betrayal stories of Adam and Eve, and then Cain and Able, with Cain, rather than bond with his brother, slews him. With so few people on the earth, Cain chooses to take it all for himself rather than create more together.

Another Greek, Plutarch, writing during the Roman era, brilliantly compared the qualities and traits of Greeks leaders and Roman leaders. His analyses make remarkable reading to this day. His keen ancient insights are, today, both a blessing and a curse. By establishing the methodology of understanding leaders in terms of their qualities and traits, almost all leadership analyses have used this framework, which has meant we don’t rethink the leadership paradigm from a new perspective – something we aim to do.

The study of leadership essentially went fallow following the fall of Rome, Despite the onslaught of despair during the Dark and Middle ages, there was not a dearth of the synergy quest. The search for the Holy Grail and the codes of chivalry were all stories or allegories of the quest for synergy, and, true to form, with tales of betrayal and intrigue.

But notably the legends still remain of characters like Robin Hood or King Arthur or Joan of Arc which herald the qualities of courage and morality in the face of adversity.

Perhaps no story imbedded in our collective psyche could be as compelling as the medieval legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The story is significant as a cultural claim of the leadership qualities of collaboration, which elevates the collaborative dream in the DNA of humans. Camelot is the land of collaboration, high trust, and the Round Table is the synergy symbol of what are human’s highest qualities. While the dream was not sustainable – at least at that time and under the conditions of a darker age, we now have the knowledge, strategies, processes, and tools to build organizations that are sustainable, profitable, and competitive.

Central to the story of Arthur and Camelot is how a leader must come to grips with forces of trust versus betrayal, good versus evil, and mutual benefit versus self-interest. In the story, the heir-apparent to Arthur’s throne is Mordred, a classic conniver, a no-holds-barred schemer whose only intent is to relentlessly destroy every trusting relationship among the Knights of the Round Table. Playing one off against the other, setting each out to destroy the values and ideals that created Camelot, Mordred systematically destroys everything that Arthur dreamed or created. Portraying himself as a realist who can act appropriately in the arena of real politic, Mordred, in the most sinister of plots, excommunicates nearly all of the knights, who, now marginalized, join forces with Arthur’s enemies and overthrow Camelot, destroying the ever-present and forever lingering dream of synergy.

This is not just a great historical story, it has repeated itself over and over in business, government, communities, and even families. It has been the plot-line of thousands of movies. Sometimes reality has an ending that’s tragic, other-times bitter sweet, and in the best cases, triumphant. It is these latter endings that have been our focus for fifty years – learning how the “good guys” can win without leaving a holocaust in their wake.

Today, one of the most significant writers that is acknowledged by many as one of the top ten authors on leadership was Niccolo Machiavelli, who wrote his classic tale: The Prince nearly five hundred years ago. It was designed as a leadership handbook for manipulative power and control. Machiavelli, a student of real politic, details the use of initiating scheming techniques to offset, counter-balance, overthrow, or combat others engaged in Mordred like activities. Writing nearly five hundred years ago, formalized the tactics of intrigue, making betrayal, conniving, conspiracy, and scheming its own art form. Machiavelli’s Prince is not strictly evil, he is a cunning fox.

What most leaders don’t realize is that Machiavelli had a crisis of conscience. Shortly after writing the Prince, he wrote a second book, the Discourses, in which he moved from tactics to strategy, outlining how to neutralize the scheming Prince. Unfortunately, the Prince makes much more salacious reading, and has endured, despite its sinister intent.

Shakespeare latched onto both the Mordred and Machiavelli characters, modeling many of his plays on their schemes and strategies. Consequently, despite the great artistic vision of the Renaissance, as a practical matter, western society was left with a helpless archetype for a role model, a modern Hamlet bedeviled by treachery, cunning, and manipulation, with few tools or strategies to create a sustainable Camelot.

As the Age of Enlightenment unfolded in America, the synergy quest became the united passion of the Founding Fathers. Blessed with a deep understanding of the fundamentals of the Greek experiment with democracy and training in reading ancient Greek, coupled with a strong foundation in Christian theology, a unique group (Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Franklin, et al) congealed to frame the Declaration of Independence and later the Constitution. Each document carefully outlines the vision for a synergistic new republic based upon a rebirth of Plato’s Republic. The Bill of Rights was designed to produce a win-win relationship between people and their society, while the system of checks and balances was intended to prevent tyrannical abuses from the likes of Mordred and Machiavelli that continually prowl and prey upon the ideals and values of democracy.

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, leadership never overcame the interplay between the three archetypal adversarial, transactional, and collaborative mindsets. Dictators like Hitler, Stalin and Mao Tse Tung, under the guise of noble idealism, slaughtered or imprisoned tens of millions (perhaps over 100 million all tolled) setting a new standard for hideous and uncompassionate disregard for human life). Robber Barron capitalists manipulated markets, swindled investors, and, when unregulated, abused workers.

It is against this backdrop that our current world still struggles with its concept, teaching, and evaluation of leadership.

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Current Position

Are we stuck?

In our world of emerging value networks, alliances, and cross functional teams, it is essential for every leader to be both cautious and courageous. As one respected leader told me recently:

“I’m leaving my organization to join another. My boss hired a person for our team who has been so disruptive that now everyone is being played off against the other. I spend all my time now worrying about who is going to put a knife in my back. I used to be a high flyer. Unless I leave I’ll have no future.”

Another executive lamented about her subordinates:

“I hired the most qualified people I could afford. But they are always breaking down, working for their own self interest. There is no teamwork, no synergy, and no synchronicity. We don’t coordinate well. No amount of team building seems to work.”

Unknowingly, she made the mistake of hiring her team based on competence, not character, resulting in a majority of people being distrustful and becoming highly competent manipulators.

How an organization creates a culture of innovation and collaboration is critical in either stimulating or repressing behavior. As I was editing this piece, the phone rang. It was a senior manager from a large corporation who lamented:

“There is no real innovation here and little collaboration. We all have a fear of failure because people are fired if they fail. If we do make a mistake, we are criticized in front of others. So no one takes any risks. We talk of innovation, but we don’t walk it. No one collaborates unless someone else is willing to take the risk and responsibility if something doesn’t work out. When we try to work in alliance with other companies, there’s an attitude that our products are always better, and theirs are junk. We see only a very limited set of options. If someone does have something good, our approach is arrogant: ‘We’ll just buy them.’ When we do, we kill all their innovation.”

This was said by a man of courage and vision who had been struggling for years to rally his small team against the overwhelming power of an antithetical culture.

Leaders play an enormous role in determining attitudes and behaviors, which then produce results, good mediocre, or ugly. When noble expectations are unfulfilled, their morale takes a long, low road to disappointment and despair. The climate of excitement and innovation yields to an attitude of complaint, blame, and resentment. It is in this swamp of despair where distrust and divisiveness breeds like a mosquito.

Like the smoker who gets a momentary nicotine high, leaders who feast on a diet cynicism, criticism, blame, negativity, and rule by fear may get an emotional power-high, but in the long run, with each passing day, sustainable energy is drained from the organization on its slow anxiety-ridden decline. Work then becomes nothing more than a bitter-sweet travail with neither victory nor valor, honor nor heroics.

The bottom line: we still don’t produce great leaders, and too many organizations seem to be slipping farther from their leadership quest. The evidence is everywhere in politics, high levels of employee turnover, and countless lawsuits, projects falling behind schedule, and increasing costs.

The troubling shortfalls of “teaching” leadership

The ideas of collaboration, teamwork, synergy, positive leadership, and trust building have been the theme of books, academia, movies, television series, and sports. One would think there could be nothing new said or explored.

However, we must ask the question: “for a subject matter that’s been top-of-mind for so many centuries, why are we still having trouble?”

It’s essential to start challenging our beliefs about leadership training; we have been trapped in paradigms that don’t necessarily produce better leaders. We must challenge our own assumptions about what great leaders do and how to best “train” people to find their own “inner guidance system” that enables them to respond in inspirational ways to demanding circumstances.

There are many points of view on how leadership excellence should be inculcated into leaders. Some argue that leaders are born, not made: leadership is an innate quality and thus cannot be trained. Another approach dictates that priorities, such as mission and strategy, must prevail above all else; which is contradicted by those that say people and their feelings are just as important and cannot be subjugated to the demands of mission. Still other authorities define leadership as a personal “style” while others define it as an “art,” or a series of “principles, practices, and best processes,” aiming at a specific skill set, such as great leader’s abilities to communicate their message, advocating that there are specific skills and mindsets that can taught. Still others teach leadership by case examples of great or poor leaders. Others. Another school of thought believes that trust, respect, and integrity are the qualities of success, and these supersede all else. Others frame leadership in terms of aphorisms, admonitions, or principles, outlined in books such as Covey’s “Characteristics of Abundance Managers.”

The problem is: all of these are true, but all are only partly true, they only address a section of the larger picture. These approaches are not holistic, and if these approaches worked, you wouldn’t be reading this, you’d be satisfied with the current offerings and happy with the results. However, you probably sense that there is something wrong or missing with the Leadership development. We have concluded this too, and spent years developing a better way – that’s why this Collaborative Excellence Program is being offered.

We believe the current approaches and methodologies are actually deficient – not bad but certainly not great – just look at the results being produced.

Here’s what works:

1) Leaders can be taught. Some people are better in leadership roles than others, but everyone has some innate ability to lead, after all they must lead their own lives. However, the “three archetypes of human behavior” – Adversarial, Transactional, and Collaborative – can be implanted in their minds with a set of beliefs at an early age that thwart or disrupt their abilities.

2) Leadership must be addressed first from a systems perspective, not as a bunch of component parts. People must see the larger holistic “systems architecture” which is needed to unify and integrate leadership into a “game plan” that produces extraordinary results.

3) Leadership is best learned in work teams where people can act and react in real time to understand the cause-and-effect relationship between beliefs, strategies, principles, processes, actions and metrics of success. This is why Action-Learning is, far and away, the very best approach to teaching leaders and managers currently in the workforce.

It is upon these three principles that the Collaborative Excellence Workshop Program is built.

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Future Outlook – The Case for Collaborative Leadership

Teaching leadership a new way is not enough; we must teach the right kind of leadership that is designed for our twenty-first century world.

The business world is changing at a bewildering pace. In no other period in the history of human events have we encountered so much change so fast, with the exception of wartime.

What kind of leadership will be most likely to succeed under these volatile conditions?

What is the nature of the challenge leaders face today and into the future?

The new era of change, speed and complexity

Change, speed, and complexity are the by-words of our age. In workshops conducted over the last twenty years, our team has asked thousands senior executives all over the U.S. Canada, and Europe to graphically express the impact was of the rate of change/speed/complexity since 1970.

Amazingly, for well over 90 % of the executive responses, the curve rises slowly until the late 1980s, then takes off like a rocket. The phenomenal shift from a more predictable, slow-time world to an integrated fast-time world are massive. It affects every aspect of management and has rocked the very foundations of organizational thinking. But with this shift, leaders have been caught flat-footed. The shift, driven primarily by technology, has not been paralleled by a shift in the way leaders think and interact.

In the first half of this era (1970-1990), the business world was slower moving, a period of relative predictable change, characterized by five and ten year strategic plans and three year sales forecasts. Organizations stood as independent entities that transacted business independently, alone and predominantly hierarchically. The rules of management in this era had been developed from years of experience, handed down through generations of tradition and the esteemed learning from our business schools. The transactional nature of business (which had been the principle form of commerce for millennia), set the stage for a predominantly transactional leadership style that pervaded the core of many business relations for centuries. The culture of many companies reflected the transactional leadership style, and this became the accepted expectation about business. Often leaders would mix and muddle their leadership styles, combining some adversarial and collaborative methods in with their transactionary primary style.

While this may have been okay for the past, the new world of change, speed and complexity required an entirely different approach, one that was suited for interaction, innovation, and integration across the boundaries and siloes that had been the bastion of the earlier era. But in the new world, with the advent of globalization, computers, and the internet, things began to shift dramatically. Command and control unravelled. The transactional leadership styles and structures of a past world are collapsing under the stress of greater needs for integration, innovation and rapid adaptation, and inter-connected decision-making.

This called for a collaborative shift to go hand-in-hand with the roaring pace of the technology shift – hallmarked by teamwork and trust, not the bureaucratic emblem of hierarchies, nor the “survival of the fittest” mentality of the adversarial style.

The Collaborative Leadership Advantage

The Technology Shift that gathered unstoppable warp-speed momentum in the 1990s with the proliferation of computers and the internet, and its companion Collaborative Shift are both Paradigm Shifts – it means the rules of the game are different, because the conditions are dramatically different. Where the prevailing underlying conditions are unpredictability, rapid change, paradox, turbulence, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, there is a tremendous requirement for collaboration, high trust, simultaneity, connectedness, continuous innovation, strategic alliances, and agile, non-linear adaptation.

The Collaborative Excellence Workshop Program is designed to develop leaders and managers specifically for these modern conditions and requirements where tectonic shifts are becoming the norm. In today’s complex networked and rapidly changing world, the most effective way to create competitive advantage is through a collaborative approach to business and leadership.

Collaborative leaders understand the need for rapid adaption, and call upon their employees, their suppliers, their alliance partners, and their customers to engage in a wide variety of forms of innovation to maintain competitive advantage.

The Impact of Collaborative Leadership in a Complex World

Does collaborative leadership actually produce a substantial competitive advantage? This is one of the most compelling leadership questions of our era.

Over the past four decades our team of “pracademics” (senior executives who decided to teach Executive Education later in their careers) have been involved in activating, analyzing, researching, rolling out, and field testing thousands of projects, business strategies, new ventures, and program initiatives in scores of industries.

Which of the three approaches – adversarial, transaction, collaborative — was most effective? The answer is very revealing. There was overwhelming evidence that the neither the adversarial nor the transactional leadership delivery styles had a positive impact on the outcomes. To illustrate, in the field of complex project management, the adversarial and transactional leadership systems not only underperformed, but consistently produced 50-100% over-time, over-budget conditions – highly expensive while eroding ROI (Return On Investment). Only the collaborative approach produced consistent success. We learned that high levels of complexity require high levels of collaboration and trust in order to have a fluid flow of interactions across a network of complex interfaces.

Similar results were obtained when our team developed a complex Supply Chain simulation, which compared transactional supply interaction against high-trust integrated collaborative buyer-supplier value networks. Over 500 seasoned purchasing managers have gone through the simulation. The results were equally dramatic. Fulfillment rates jumped from 50% to 90-100% when shifting from transactional to collaborative systems, while costs of running the entire supply chain inventory dropped 50-80%.

These comparisons of adversarial/transactional versus collaborative strategies ultimately prove that high levels of complexity require high levels of collaboration and trust in order to have a fluid flow of interactions across a network of complex interfaces. Adversarial and transactional systems breakdown under the burdens of complexity.

Productivity results from people working from many collaborative interactions that enable people solve hundreds of small problems every day – a condition made vastly more difficult in the presence of distrust.

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Collaborative Excellence Systems Architecture

Earlier we stated that one of the most important breakthroughs in our approach to Leadership Development was the understanding that it must be addressed from a “systems design” perspective. This was the most important thing virtually every leadership program lacked; it was the thing that people sensed was missing, but couldn’t figure out what it was (since they had never seen it before, like the “black swan”).

To start, imagine you were the architect of a new building.

A building’s architecture is composed of subsystems such as foundation, structure, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, plumbing, electrical, fenestration, fire safety, and so forth.

Similarly, if you were a doctor, you’d know that a human’s “architecture” is composed of subsystems such as neural, pulmonary, vascular, gastro-intestinal, and so forth.

So too must we break the Collaborative Excellence Systems Architecture down into these sub-systems.. For the sake of clarity and simplicity, we have chosen to call the subsystem architectures: “frameworks” to distinguish from the larger holistic systems design architecture.

It is composed of six integrated frameworks, each of which builds on the prior framework, like you were constructing a skyscraper. Because each is carefully integrated, learning them is simplified because we don’t jump around from one authority’s nomenclature to another, just confusing the student practitioner with complex jargon. This is a great learning advantage.

Six Frameworks of Collaborative Excellence for Leaders & Managers

The entire Collaborative Excellence Workshop Program is based on these six fundamental frameworks:
Trust, Culture, Innovation, Value Creation, Four-Dimensional Leadership, and Management of Complexity.
We have found that these are the basic, foundational building blocks of virtually all more advanced professional activity.

With systems architecture clarity, we can then hang detailed best processes & practices and improve the practices that increase the systems synergy. So too can we isolate those practices that destroy or undermine the integrity of the system because they were actually designed for transactional or adversarial cultures. While the best practices will change and evolve over time, the architectural principles – the “core truths” remain steady.

The “Architecture of Collaborative Excellence” works because it sees human interaction from a “systems perspective” – a design structure of interconnected frameworks that aligns beliefs, ideas, evidence, and best practices to produce trustworthy behaviors resulting in teamwork, innovation, efficiency, high performance and synergy.

What’s more, the Collaborative Excellence Architecture provides the frameworks for any collaborative endeavor – organizations, cross-functional integration, project management, etc. – making it a “universal passport” for much broader application – opening the avenue for engineers to evolve into experts in collaboration – the next generation of organizational transformation.

In the past, leadership development has been a patchwork of fragmented experiences, incomplete advice, and a hodge-podge of often conflicting information, ideas, and processes that simply produce misaligned results. Ultimately, little “sticks.” The “Architecture of Collaborative Excellence” promises to be a powerful framework for leaders of the future because integrates the leadership experience into a synergistic system.

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Curriculum

Collaborative Excellence – Workshop 1 – Collaborative Imperative

1. The Systems Design Architecture
2. Our Methodology & Approach to Capability Building
3. Establishing the Compelling Rationale
4. Readiness for the Collaborative Paradigm Shift
5. Socio-Technical Systems Innovation
6. Addressing Resistance to Change
7. How Collaboration Leverages Resources
8. Human Resource Advantages & Impacts
9. Launching the Collaborative Excellence Initiative
10. Process Communications
11. Process Performance Review
12. Health Diagnostics

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Distance Learning

Introduction

Welcome to Appleton Greene and thank you for enrolling on the Collaborative Excellence corporate training program. You will be learning through our unique facilitation via distance-learning method, which will enable you to practically implement everything that you learn academically. The methods and materials used in your program have been designed and developed to ensure that you derive the maximum benefits and enjoyment possible. We hope that you find the program challenging and fun to do. However, if you have never been a distance-learner before, you may be experiencing some trepidation at the task before you. So we will get you started by giving you some basic information and guidance on how you can make the best use of the modules, how you should manage the materials and what you should be doing as you work through them. This guide is designed to point you in the right direction and help you to become an effective distance-learner. Take a few hours or so to study this guide and your guide to tutorial support for students, while making notes, before you start to study in earnest.

Study environment

You will need to locate a quiet and private place to study, preferably a room where you can easily be isolated from external disturbances or distractions. Make sure the room is well-lit and incorporates a relaxed, pleasant feel. If you can spoil yourself within your study environment, you will have much more of a chance to ensure that you are always in the right frame of mind when you do devote time to study. For example, a nice fire, the ability to play soft soothing background music, soft but effective lighting, perhaps a nice view if possible and a good size desk with a comfortable chair. Make sure that your family know when you are studying and understand your study rules. Your study environment is very important. The ideal situation, if at all possible, is to have a separate study, which can be devoted to you. If this is not possible then you will need to pay a lot more attention to developing and managing your study schedule, because it will affect other people as well as yourself. The better your study environment, the more productive you will be.

Study tools & rules

Try and make sure that your study tools are sufficient and in good working order. You will need to have access to a computer, scanner and printer, with access to the internet. You will need a very comfortable chair, which supports your lower back, and you will need a good filing system. It can be very frustrating if you are spending valuable study time trying to fix study tools that are unreliable, or unsuitable for the task. Make sure that your study tools are up to date. You will also need to consider some study rules. Some of these rules will apply to you and will be intended to help you to be more disciplined about when and how you study. This distance-learning guide will help you and after you have read it you can put some thought into what your study rules should be. You will also need to negotiate some study rules for your family, friends or anyone who lives with you. They too will need to be disciplined in order to ensure that they can support you while you study. It is important to ensure that your family and friends are an integral part of your study team. Having their support and encouragement can prove to be a crucial contribution to your successful completion of the program. Involve them in as much as you can.

Successful distance-learning

Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes or workshops, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace and for their own purposes. But unlike traditional internal training courses, it is the student’s responsibility, with a distance-learning program, to ensure that they manage their own study contribution. This requires strong self-discipline and self-motivation skills and there must be a clear will to succeed. Those students who are used to managing themselves, are good at managing others and who enjoy working in isolation, are more likely to be good distance-learners. It is also important to be aware of the main reasons why you are studying and of the main objectives that you are hoping to achieve as a result. You will need to remind yourself of these objectives at times when you need to motivate yourself. Never lose sight of your long-term goals and your short-term objectives. There is nobody available here to pamper you, or to look after you, or to spoon-feed you with information, so you will need to find ways to encourage and appreciate yourself while you are studying. Make sure that you chart your study progress, so that you can be sure of your achievements and re-evaluate your goals and objectives regularly.

Self-assessment

Appleton Greene training programs are in all cases post-graduate programs. Consequently, you should already have obtained a business-related degree and be an experienced learner. You should therefore already be aware of your study strengths and weaknesses. For example, which time of the day are you at your most productive? Are you a lark or an owl? What study methods do you respond to the most? Are you a consistent learner? How do you discipline yourself? How do you ensure that you enjoy yourself while studying? It is important to understand yourself as a learner and so some self-assessment early on will be necessary if you are to apply yourself correctly. Perform a SWOT analysis on yourself as a student. List your internal strengths and weaknesses as a student and your external opportunities and threats. This will help you later on when you are creating a study plan. You can then incorporate features within your study plan that can ensure that you are playing to your strengths, while compensating for your weaknesses. You can also ensure that you make the most of your opportunities, while avoiding the potential threats to your success.

Accepting responsibility as a student

Training programs invariably require a significant investment, both in terms of what they cost and in the time that you need to contribute to study and the responsibility for successful completion of training programs rests entirely with the student. This is never more apparent than when a student is learning via distance-learning. Accepting responsibility as a student is an important step towards ensuring that you can successfully complete your training program. It is easy to instantly blame other people or factors when things go wrong. But the fact of the matter is that if a failure is your failure, then you have the power to do something about it, it is entirely in your own hands. If it is always someone else’s failure, then you are powerless to do anything about it. All students study in entirely different ways, this is because we are all individuals and what is right for one student, is not necessarily right for another. In order to succeed, you will have to accept personal responsibility for finding a way to plan, implement and manage a personal study plan that works for you. If you do not succeed, you only have yourself to blame.

Planning

By far the most critical contribution to stress, is the feeling of not being in control. In the absence of planning we tend to be reactive and can stumble from pillar to post in the hope that things will turn out fine in the end. Invariably they don’t! In order to be in control, we need to have firm ideas about how and when we want to do things. We also need to consider as many possible eventualities as we can, so that we are prepared for them when they happen. Prescriptive Change, is far easier to manage and control, than Emergent Change. The same is true with distance-learning. It is much easier and much more enjoyable, if you feel that you are in control and that things are going to plan. Even when things do go wrong, you are prepared for them and can act accordingly without any unnecessary stress. It is important therefore that you do take time to plan your studies properly.

Management

Once you have developed a clear study plan, it is of equal importance to ensure that you manage the implementation of it. Most of us usually enjoy planning, but it is usually during implementation when things go wrong. Targets are not met and we do not understand why. Sometimes we do not even know if targets are being met. It is not enough for us to conclude that the study plan just failed. If it is failing, you will need to understand what you can do about it. Similarly if your study plan is succeeding, it is still important to understand why, so that you can improve upon your success. You therefore need to have guidelines for self-assessment so that you can be consistent with performance improvement throughout the program. If you manage things correctly, then your performance should constantly improve throughout the program.

Study objectives & tasks

The first place to start is developing your program objectives. These should feature your reasons for undertaking the training program in order of priority. Keep them succinct and to the point in order to avoid confusion. Do not just write the first things that come into your head because they are likely to be too similar to each other. Make a list of possible departmental headings, such as: Customer Service; E-business; Finance; Globalization; Human Resources; Technology; Legal; Management; Marketing and Production. Then brainstorm for ideas by listing as many things that you want to achieve under each heading and later re-arrange these things in order of priority. Finally, select the top item from each department heading and choose these as your program objectives. Try and restrict yourself to five because it will enable you to focus clearly. It is likely that the other things that you listed will be achieved if each of the top objectives are achieved. If this does not prove to be the case, then simply work through the process again.

Study forecast

As a guide, the Appleton Greene Collaborative Excellence corporate training program should take 12-18 months to complete, depending upon your availability and current commitments. The reason why there is such a variance in time estimates is because every student is an individual, with differing productivity levels and different commitments. These differentiations are then exaggerated by the fact that this is a distance-learning program, which incorporates the practical integration of academic theory as an as a part of the training program. Consequently all of the project studies are real, which means that important decisions and compromises need to be made. You will want to get things right and will need to be patient with your expectations in order to ensure that they are. We would always recommend that you are prudent with your own task and time forecasts, but you still need to develop them and have a clear indication of what are realistic expectations in your case. With reference to your time planning: consider the time that you can realistically dedicate towards study with the program every week; calculate how long it should take you to complete the program, using the guidelines featured here; then break the program down into logical modules and allocate a suitable proportion of time to each of them, these will be your milestones; you can create a time plan by using a spreadsheet on your computer, or a personal organizer such as MS Outlook, you could also use a financial forecasting software; break your time forecasts down into manageable chunks of time, the more specific you can be, the more productive and accurate your time management will be; finally, use formulas where possible to do your time calculations for you, because this will help later on when your forecasts need to change in line with actual performance. With reference to your task planning: refer to your list of tasks that need to be undertaken in order to achieve your program objectives; with reference to your time plan, calculate when each task should be implemented; remember that you are not estimating when your objectives will be achieved, but when you will need to focus upon implementing the corresponding tasks; you also need to ensure that each task is implemented in conjunction with the associated training modules which are relevant; then break each single task down into a list of specific to do’s, say approximately ten to do’s for each task and enter these into your study plan; once again you could use MS Outlook to incorporate both your time and task planning and this could constitute your study plan; you could also use a project management software like MS Project. You should now have a clear and realistic forecast detailing when you can expect to be able to do something about undertaking the tasks to achieve your program objectives.

Performance management

It is one thing to develop your study forecast, it is quite another to monitor your progress. Ultimately it is less important whether you achieve your original study forecast and more important that you update it so that it constantly remains realistic in line with your performance. As you begin to work through the program, you will begin to have more of an idea about your own personal performance and productivity levels as a distance-learner. Once you have completed your first study module, you should re-evaluate your study forecast for both time and tasks, so that they reflect your actual performance level achieved. In order to achieve this you must first time yourself while training by using an alarm clock. Set the alarm for hourly intervals and make a note of how far you have come within that time. You can then make a note of your actual performance on your study plan and then compare your performance against your forecast. Then consider the reasons that have contributed towards your performance level, whether they are positive or negative and make a considered adjustment to your future forecasts as a result. Given time, you should start achieving your forecasts regularly.

With reference to time management: time yourself while you are studying and make a note of the actual time taken in your study plan; consider your successes with time-efficiency and the reasons for the success in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future time planning; consider your failures with time-efficiency and the reasons for the failures in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future time planning; re-evaluate your study forecast in relation to time planning for the remainder of your training program to ensure that you continue to be realistic about your time expectations. You need to be consistent with your time management, otherwise you will never complete your studies. This will either be because you are not contributing enough time to your studies, or you will become less efficient with the time that you do allocate to your studies. Remember, if you are not in control of your studies, they can just become yet another cause of stress for you.

With reference to your task management: time yourself while you are studying and make a note of the actual tasks that you have undertaken in your study plan; consider your successes with task-efficiency and the reasons for the success in each case; take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning; consider your failures with task-efficiency and the reasons for the failures in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning; re-evaluate your study forecast in relation to task planning for the remainder of your training program to ensure that you continue to be realistic about your task expectations. You need to be consistent with your task management, otherwise you will never know whether you are achieving your program objectives or not.

Keeping in touch

You will have access to qualified and experienced professors and tutors who are responsible for providing tutorial support for your particular training program. So don’t be shy about letting them know how you are getting on. We keep electronic records of all tutorial support emails so that professors and tutors can review previous correspondence before considering an individual response. It also means that there is a record of all communications between you and your professors and tutors and this helps to avoid any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation. If you have a problem relating to the program, share it with them via email. It is likely that they have come across the same problem before and are usually able to make helpful suggestions and steer you in the right direction. To learn more about when and how to use tutorial support, please refer to the Tutorial Support section of this student information guide. This will help you to ensure that you are making the most of tutorial support that is available to you and will ultimately contribute towards your success and enjoyment with your training program.

Work colleagues and family

You should certainly discuss your program study progress with your colleagues, friends and your family. Appleton Greene training programs are very practical. They require you to seek information from other people, to plan, develop and implement processes with other people and to achieve feedback from other people in relation to viability and productivity. You will therefore have plenty of opportunities to test your ideas and enlist the views of others. People tend to be sympathetic towards distance-learners, so don’t bottle it all up in yourself. Get out there and share it! It is also likely that your family and colleagues are going to benefit from your labors with the program, so they are likely to be much more interested in being involved than you might think. Be bold about delegating work to those who might benefit themselves. This is a great way to achieve understanding and commitment from people who you may later rely upon for process implementation. Share your experiences with your friends and family.

Making it relevant

The key to successful learning is to make it relevant to your own individual circumstances. At all times you should be trying to make bridges between the content of the program and your own situation. Whether you achieve this through quiet reflection or through interactive discussion with your colleagues, client partners or your family, remember that it is the most important and rewarding aspect of translating your studies into real self-improvement. You should be clear about how you want the program to benefit you. This involves setting clear study objectives in relation to the content of the course in terms of understanding, concepts, completing research or reviewing activities and relating the content of the modules to your own situation. Your objectives may understandably change as you work through the program, in which case you should enter the revised objectives on your study plan so that you have a permanent reminder of what you are trying to achieve, when and why.

Distance-learning check-list

Prepare your study environment, your study tools and rules.
Undertake detailed self-assessment in terms of your ability as a learner.
Create a format for your study plan.
Consider your study objectives and tasks.
Create a study forecast.
Assess your study performance.
Re-evaluate your study forecast.
Be consistent when managing your study plan.
Use your Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) for tutorial support.
Make sure you keep in touch with those around you.

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Tutorial Support

Programs

Appleton Greene uses standard and bespoke corporate training programs as vessels to transfer business process improvement knowledge into the heart of our clients’ organizations. Each individual program focuses upon the implementation of a specific business process, which enables clients to easily quantify their return on investment. There are hundreds of established Appleton Greene corporate training products now available to clients within customer services, e-business, finance, globalization, human resources, information technology, legal, management, marketing and production. It does not matter whether a client’s employees are located within one office, or an unlimited number of international offices, we can still bring them together to learn and implement specific business processes collectively. Our approach to global localization enables us to provide clients with a truly international service with that all important personal touch. Appleton Greene corporate training programs can be provided virtually or locally and they are all unique in that they individually focus upon a specific business function. They are implemented over a sustainable period of time and professional support is consistently provided by qualified learning providers and specialist consultants.

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Support available

You will have a designated Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and an Accredited Consultant and we encourage you to communicate with them as much as possible. In all cases tutorial support is provided online because we can then keep a record of all communications to ensure that tutorial support remains consistent. You would also be forwarding your work to the tutorial support unit for evaluation and assessment. You will receive individual feedback on all of the work that you undertake on a one-to-one basis, together with specific recommendations for anything that may need to be changed in order to achieve a pass with merit or a pass with distinction and you then have as many opportunities as you may need to re-submit project studies until they meet with the required standard. Consequently the only reason that you should really fail (CLP) is if you do not do the work. It makes no difference to us whether a student takes 12 months or 18 months to complete the program, what matters is that in all cases the same quality standard will have been achieved.

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Support Process

Please forward all of your future emails to the designated (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit email address that has been provided and please do not duplicate or copy your emails to other AGC email accounts as this will just cause unnecessary administration. Please note that emails are always answered as quickly as possible but you will need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general tutorial support emails during busy periods, because emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. You will also need to allow a period of up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Please therefore kindly allow for this within your time planning. All communications are managed online via email because it enables tutorial service support managers to review other communications which have been received before responding and it ensures that there is a copy of all communications retained on file for future reference. All communications will be stored within your personal (CLP) study file here at Appleton Greene throughout your designated study period. If you need any assistance or clarification at any time, please do not hesitate to contact us by forwarding an email and remember that we are here to help. If you have any questions, please list and number your questions succinctly and you can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each and every query.

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Time Management

It takes approximately 1 Year to complete the Collaborative Excellence corporate training program, incorporating 12 x 6-hour monthly workshops. Each student will also need to contribute approximately 4 hours per week over 1 Year of their personal time. Students can study from home or work at their own pace and are responsible for managing their own study plan. There are no formal examinations and students are evaluated and assessed based upon their project study submissions, together with the quality of their internal analysis and supporting documents. They can contribute more time towards study when they have the time to do so and can contribute less time when they are busy. All students tend to be in full time employment while studying and the Collaborative Excellence program is purposely designed to accommodate this, so there is plenty of flexibility in terms of time management. It makes no difference to us at Appleton Greene, whether individuals take 12-18 months to complete this program. What matters is that in all cases the same standard of quality will have been achieved with the standard and bespoke programs that have been developed.

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Distance Learning Guide

The distance learning guide should be your first port of call when starting your training program. It will help you when you are planning how and when to study, how to create the right environment and how to establish the right frame of mind. If you can lay the foundations properly during the planning stage, then it will contribute to your enjoyment and productivity while training later. The guide helps to change your lifestyle in order to accommodate time for study and to cultivate good study habits. It helps you to chart your progress so that you can measure your performance and achieve your goals. It explains the tools that you will need for study and how to make them work. It also explains how to translate academic theory into practical reality. Spend some time now working through your distance learning guide and make sure that you have firm foundations in place so that you can make the most of your distance learning program. There is no requirement for you to attend training workshops or classes at Appleton Greene offices. The entire program is undertaken online, program course manuals and project studies are administered via the Appleton Greene web site and via email, so you are able to study at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office as long as you have a computer and access to the internet.

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How To Study

The how to study guide provides students with a clear understanding of the Appleton Greene facilitation via distance learning training methods and enables students to obtain a clear overview of the training program content. It enables students to understand the step-by-step training methods used by Appleton Greene and how course manuals are integrated with project studies. It explains the research and development that is required and the need to provide evidence and references to support your statements. It also enables students to understand precisely what will be required of them in order to achieve a pass with merit and a pass with distinction for individual project studies and provides useful guidance on how to be innovative and creative when developing your Unique Program Proposition (UPP).

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Tutorial Support

Tutorial support for the Appleton Greene Collaborative Excellence corporate training program is provided online either through the Appleton Greene Client Support Portal (CSP), or via email. All tutorial support requests are facilitated by a designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). They are responsible for deciding which professor or tutor is the most appropriate option relating to the support required and then the tutorial support request is forwarded onto them. Once the professor or tutor has completed the tutorial support request and answered any questions that have been asked, this communication is then returned to the student via email by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). This enables all tutorial support, between students, professors and tutors, to be facilitated by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM) efficiently and securely through the email account. You will therefore need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general support queries and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because all tutorial support requests are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Consequently you need to put some thought into the management of your tutorial support procedure in order to ensure that your study plan is feasible and to obtain the maximum possible benefit from tutorial support during your period of study. Please retain copies of your tutorial support emails for future reference. Please ensure that ALL of your tutorial support emails are set out using the format as suggested within your guide to tutorial support. Your tutorial support emails need to be referenced clearly to the specific part of the course manual or project study which you are working on at any given time. You also need to list and number any questions that you would like to ask, up to a maximum of five questions within each tutorial support email. Remember the more specific you can be with your questions the more specific your answers will be too and this will help you to avoid any unnecessary misunderstanding, misinterpretation, or duplication. The guide to tutorial support is intended to help you to understand how and when to use support in order to ensure that you get the most out of your training program. Appleton Greene training programs are designed to enable you to do things for yourself. They provide you with a structure or a framework and we use tutorial support to facilitate students while they practically implement what they learn. In other words, we are enabling students to do things for themselves. The benefits of distance learning via facilitation are considerable and are much more sustainable in the long-term than traditional short-term knowledge sharing programs. Consequently you should learn how and when to use tutorial support so that you can maximize the benefits from your learning experience with Appleton Greene. This guide describes the purpose of each training function and how to use them and how to use tutorial support in relation to each aspect of the training program. It also provides useful tips and guidance with regard to best practice.

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Tutorial Support Tips

Students are often unsure about how and when to use tutorial support with Appleton Greene. This Tip List will help you to understand more about how to achieve the most from using tutorial support. Refer to it regularly to ensure that you are continuing to use the service properly. Tutorial support is critical to the success of your training experience, but it is important to understand when and how to use it in order to maximize the benefit that you receive. It is no coincidence that those students who succeed are those that learn how to be positive, proactive and productive when using tutorial support.

Be positive and friendly with your tutorial support emails

Remember that if you forward an email to the tutorial support unit, you are dealing with real people. “Do unto others as you would expect others to do unto you”. If you are positive, complimentary and generally friendly in your emails, you will generate a similar response in return. This will be more enjoyable, productive and rewarding for you in the long-term.

Think about the impression that you want to create

Every time that you communicate, you create an impression, which can be either positive or negative, so put some thought into the impression that you want to create. Remember that copies of all tutorial support emails are stored electronically and tutors will always refer to prior correspondence before responding to any current emails. Over a period of time, a general opinion will be arrived at in relation to your character, attitude and ability. Try to manage your own frustrations, mood swings and temperament professionally, without involving the tutorial support team. Demonstrating frustration or a lack of patience is a weakness and will be interpreted as such. The good thing about communicating in writing, is that you will have the time to consider your content carefully, you can review it and proof-read it before sending your email to Appleton Greene and this should help you to communicate more professionally, consistently and to avoid any unnecessary knee-jerk reactions to individual situations as and when they may arise. Please also remember that the CLP Tutorial Support Unit will not just be responsible for evaluating and assessing the quality of your work, they will also be responsible for providing recommendations to other learning providers and to client contacts within the Appleton Greene global client network, so do be in control of your own emotions and try to create a good impression.

Remember that quality is preferred to quantity

Please remember that when you send an email to the tutorial support team, you are not using Twitter or Text Messaging. Try not to forward an email every time that you have a thought. This will not prove to be productive either for you or for the tutorial support team. Take time to prepare your communications properly, as if you were writing a professional letter to a business colleague and make a list of queries that you are likely to have and then incorporate them within one email, say once every month, so that the tutorial support team can understand more about context, application and your methodology for study. Get yourself into a consistent routine with your tutorial support requests and use the tutorial support template provided with ALL of your emails. The (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit will not spoon-feed you with information. They need to be able to evaluate and assess your tutorial support requests carefully and professionally.

Be specific about your questions in order to receive specific answers

Try not to write essays by thinking as you are writing tutorial support emails. The tutorial support unit can be unclear about what in fact you are asking, or what you are looking to achieve. Be specific about asking questions that you want answers to. Number your questions. You will then receive specific answers to each and every question. This is the main purpose of tutorial support via email.

Keep a record of your tutorial support emails

It is important that you keep a record of all tutorial support emails that are forwarded to you. You can then refer to them when necessary and it avoids any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.

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Individual training workshops or telephone support

Please be advised that Appleton Greene does not provide separate or individual tutorial support meetings, workshops, or provide telephone support for individual students. Appleton Greene is an equal opportunities learning and service provider and we are therefore understandably bound to treat all students equally. We cannot therefore broker special financial or study arrangements with individual students regardless of the circumstances. All tutorial support is provided online and this enables Appleton Greene to keep a record of all communications between students, professors and tutors on file for future reference, in accordance with our quality management procedure and your terms and conditions of enrolment. All tutorial support is provided online via email because it enables us to have time to consider support content carefully, it ensures that you receive a considered and detailed response to your queries. You can number questions that you would like to ask, which relate to things that you do not understand or where clarification may be required. You can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each individual query. You will also then have a record of these communications and of all tutorial support, which has been provided to you. This makes tutorial support administration more productive by avoiding any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.

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Tutorial Support Email Format

You should use this tutorial support format if you need to request clarification or assistance while studying with your training program. Please note that ALL of your tutorial support request emails should use the same format. You should therefore set up a standard email template, which you can then use as and when you need to. Emails that are forwarded to Appleton Greene, which do not use the following format, may be rejected and returned to you by the (CLP) Program Administration Manager. A detailed response will then be forwarded to you via email usually within 20 business days of receipt for general support queries and 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Your tutorial support request, together with the corresponding TSU reply, will then be saved and stored within your electronic TSU file at Appleton Greene for future reference.

Subject line of your email

Please insert: Appleton Greene (CLP) Tutorial Support Request: (Your Full Name) (Date), within the subject line of your email.

Main body of your email

Please insert:
1. Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) Tutorial Support Request
2. Your Full Name
3. Date of TS request
4. Preferred email address
5. Backup email address
6. Course manual page name or number (reference)
7. Project study page name or number (reference)

Subject of enquiry
Please insert a maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Briefly outline the subject matter of your inquiry, or what your questions relate to.

Question 1

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Question 3

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Question 4

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Question 5

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Please note that a maximum of 5 questions is permitted with each individual tutorial support request email.

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Procedure

* List the questions that you want to ask first, then re-arrange them in order of priority. Make sure that you reference them, where necessary, to the course manuals or project studies.
* Make sure that you are specific about your questions and number them. Try to plan the content within your emails to make sure that it is relevant.
* Make sure that your tutorial support emails are set out correctly, using the Tutorial Support Email Format provided here.
* Save a copy of your email and incorporate the date sent after the subject title. Keep your tutorial support emails within the same file and in date order for easy reference.
* Allow up to 20 business days for a response to general tutorial support emails and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because detailed individual responses will be made in all cases and tutorial support emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received.
* Emails can and do get lost. So if you have not received a reply within the appropriate time, forward another copy or a reminder to the tutorial support unit to be sure that it has been received but do not forward reminders unless the appropriate time has elapsed.
* When you receive a reply, save it immediately featuring the date of receipt after the subject heading for easy reference. In most cases the tutorial support unit replies to your questions individually, so you will have a record of the questions that you asked as well as the answers offered. With project studies however, separate emails are usually forwarded by the tutorial support unit, so do keep a record of your own original emails as well.
* Remember to be positive and friendly in your emails. You are dealing with real people who will respond to the same things that you respond to.
* Try not to repeat questions that have already been asked in previous emails. If this happens the tutorial support unit will probably just refer you to the appropriate answers that have already been provided within previous emails.
* If you lose your tutorial support email records you can write to Appleton Greene to receive a copy of your tutorial support file, but a separate administration charge may be levied for this service.

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How To Study

Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can help you to plan a task list for getting started so that you can be clear about your direction and your priorities in relation to your training program. It is also a good way to introduce yourself to the tutorial support team.

Planning your study environment

Your study conditions are of great importance and will have a direct effect on how much you enjoy your training program. Consider how much space you will have, whether it is comfortable and private and whether you are likely to be disturbed. The study tools and facilities at your disposal are also important to the success of your distance-learning experience. Your tutorial support unit can help with useful tips and guidance, regardless of your starting position. It is important to get this right before you start working on your training program.

Planning your program objectives

It is important that you have a clear list of study objectives, in order of priority, before you start working on your training program. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance here to ensure that your study objectives have been afforded due consideration and priority.

Planning how and when to study

Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace and for their own purposes. This approach is designed to let you study efficiently away from the traditional classroom environment. It is important however, that you plan how and when to study, so that you are making the most of your natural attributes, strengths and opportunities. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance and useful tips to ensure that you are playing to your strengths.

Planning your study tasks

You should have a clear understanding of the study tasks that you should be undertaking and the priority associated with each task. These tasks should also be integrated with your program objectives. The distance learning guide and the guide to tutorial support for students should help you here, but if you need any clarification or assistance, please contact your tutorial support unit.

Planning your time

You will need to allocate specific times during your calendar when you intend to study if you are to have a realistic chance of completing your program on time. You are responsible for planning and managing your own study time, so it is important that you are successful with this. Your tutorial support unit can help you with this if your time plan is not working.

Keeping in touch

Consistency is the key here. If you communicate too frequently in short bursts, or too infrequently with no pattern, then your management ability with your studies will be questioned, both by you and by your tutorial support unit. It is obvious when a student is in control and when one is not and this will depend how able you are at sticking with your study plan. Inconsistency invariably leads to in-completion.

Charting your progress

Your tutorial support team can help you to chart your own study progress. Refer to your distance learning guide for further details.

Making it work

To succeed, all that you will need to do is apply yourself to undertaking your training program and interpreting it correctly. Success or failure lies in your hands and your hands alone, so be sure that you have a strategy for making it work. Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can guide you through the process of program planning, development and implementation.

Reading methods

Interpretation is often unique to the individual but it can be improved and even quantified by implementing consistent interpretation methods. Interpretation can be affected by outside interference such as family members, TV, or the Internet, or simply by other thoughts which are demanding priority in our minds. One thing that can improve our productivity is using recognized reading methods. This helps us to focus and to be more structured when reading information for reasons of importance, rather than relaxation.

Speed reading

When reading through course manuals for the first time, subconsciously set your reading speed to be just fast enough that you cannot dwell on individual words or tables. With practice, you should be able to read an A4 sheet of paper in one minute. You will not achieve much in the way of a detailed understanding, but your brain will retain a useful overview. This overview will be important later on and will enable you to keep individual issues in perspective with a more generic picture because speed reading appeals to the memory part of the brain. Do not worry about what you do or do not remember at this stage.

Content reading

Once you have speed read everything, you can then start work in earnest. You now need to read a particular section of your course manual thoroughly, by making detailed notes while you read. This process is called Content Reading and it will help to consolidate your understanding and interpretation of the information that has been provided.

Making structured notes on the course manuals

When you are content reading, you should be making detailed notes, which are both structured and informative. Make these notes in a MS Word document on your computer, because you can then amend and update these as and when you deem it to be necessary. List your notes under three headings: 1. Interpretation – 2. Questions – 3. Tasks. The purpose of the 1st section is to clarify your interpretation by writing it down. The purpose of the 2nd section is to list any questions that the issue raises for you. The purpose of the 3rd section is to list any tasks that you should undertake as a result. Anyone who has graduated with a business-related degree should already be familiar with this process.

Organizing structured notes separately

You should then transfer your notes to a separate study notebook, preferably one that enables easy referencing, such as a MS Word Document, a MS Excel Spreadsheet, a MS Access Database, or a personal organizer on your cell phone. Transferring your notes allows you to have the opportunity of cross-checking and verifying them, which assists considerably with understanding and interpretation. You will also find that the better you are at doing this, the more chance you will have of ensuring that you achieve your study objectives.

Question your understanding

Do challenge your understanding. Explain things to yourself in your own words by writing things down.

Clarifying your understanding

If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your understanding.

Question your interpretation

Do challenge your interpretation. Qualify your interpretation by writing it down.

Clarifying your interpretation

If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your interpretation.

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Qualification Requirements

The student will need to successfully complete the project study and all of the exercises relating to the Collaborative Excellence corporate training program, achieving a pass with merit or distinction in each case, in order to qualify as an Accredited Collaborative Excellence Specialist (ACES). All monthly workshops need to be tried and tested within your company. These project studies can be completed in your own time and at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office. There are no formal examinations, assessment is based upon the successful completion of the project studies. They are called project studies because, unlike case studies, these projects are not theoretical, they incorporate real program processes that need to be properly researched and developed. The project studies assist us in measuring your understanding and interpretation of the training program and enable us to assess qualification merits. All of the project studies are based entirely upon the content within the training program and they enable you to integrate what you have learnt into your corporate training practice.

Collaborative Excellence – Grading Contribution

Project Study – Grading Contribution

Customer Service – 10%
E-business – 05%
Finance – 10%
Globalization – 10%
Human Resources – 10%
Information Technology – 10%
Legal – 05%
Management – 10%
Marketing – 10%
Production – 10%
Education – 05%
Logistics – 05%
TOTAL GRADING – 100%

Qualification grades

A mark of 90% = Pass with Distinction.
A mark of 75% = Pass with Merit.
A mark of less than 75% = Fail.
If you fail to achieve a mark of 75% with a project study, you will receive detailed feedback from the Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and/or Accredited Consultant, together with a list of tasks which you will need to complete, in order to ensure that your project study meets with the minimum quality standard that is required by Appleton Greene. You can then re-submit your project study for further evaluation and assessment. Indeed you can re-submit as many drafts of your project studies as you need to, until such a time as they eventually meet with the required standard by Appleton Greene, so you need not worry about this, it is all part of the learning process.

When marking project studies, Appleton Greene is looking for sufficient evidence of the following:

Pass with merit

A satisfactory level of program understanding
A satisfactory level of program interpretation
A satisfactory level of project study content presentation
A satisfactory level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
A satisfactory level of the practical integration of academic theory

Pass with distinction

An exceptional level of program understanding
An exceptional level of program interpretation
An exceptional level of project study content presentation
An exceptional level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
An exceptional level of the practical integration of academic theory

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Preliminary Analysis

Getting Prepared for this Workshop

There are several “Preconditions for Success” a potential client should be thinking about to be prepared for this Workshop Program:

1. Endorsement and Support from Key Stakeholders: It is imperative that Senior Management endorse and support this effort. Collaborative Excellence will touch virtually every part of the company in some way. A united Senior Leadership Team in supporting the Program is an important precondition for success. This should translate into a specific senior executive sponsor – champion in the C-Suite – to inspire the participants and to ensure senior management is aligned with the effort.

2. Alignment of Mission, Objectives & Metrics of Success: While these issues don’t have to be solidified yet, stakeholders should be asking what impact they expect from the Collaborative Excellence. Specifically, how well does our mission align with your corporate vision, strategy, and approach to the future of your business.

Here is our mission, which your team should assess to see how well we align with your and if there is the likelihood our Program is compatible with your pathway to the future:

• Empower Leaders to build organizations that perform at extraordinary levels by generating trust, enabling teamwork, stimulating innovation, creating new sources of value, aligning functions, constructing internal and external alliances, and managing complexity.

• Build Leadership Capability that can create spirited and energized organizational cultures, work productively in teams, integrate across the boundaries of specializations, respond rapidly to change, use differentials in thinking and diversity of cultures to spur joint innovation and problem solving.

• Provide Leaders and Managers with the design systems thinking, core principles and processes, best practices, and tools to perform collaboratively in situations requiring interaction, joint effort, and high complexity.

• Use Collaborative Excellence methods and processes to avoid the pitfalls of polarization, unproductive conflict, withdrawal, disengagement, and divisiveness.

• Increase the ability to Engage Employees in finding meaning and purpose in their work

• Provide a series of frameworks and methodologies to improve day-to-day operational communications and teamwork, while substantially reducing the amount of non-value added work.

• Reduce the risks of running an organization by enabling more work, problem solving, and decision-making to be done at lower levels.

• Provide a structure for assessing performance blockages, areas of impeding breakdowns, and root-cause understanding of human behavior meltdowns.

• Reduce turnover among millennials by giving them more meaning and purpose in their lives, along with a sense of family/community they can trust.

• For those who attended technical or professional schools, provide the strategies and methods they did not receive in their formal education enabling them to increase their personal and teamwork capabilities significantly.

If there are areas where we aren’t aligned, you should be assessing what needs to be adjusted to bring things into convergence.

3. Is our Value Proposition worthy of the time, money, and human energy invested?: Ultimately, the Mission of the Collaborative Excellence Program is to increase significantly a company’s Competitive Advantage through Collaborative Systems Design Architectures, Strategies, Methods, Principles, Processes, Metrics, and Rewards. In most organizations, the Collaborative Excellence Program aims to create sustainable 25% improvements in Competitive Advantage including Profit, Productivity & Innovation Gains by aligning and integrating people, functions, and value chain partners.

4. There should be a strong compelling rationale for the Program: People want to know the reason “Why?” they should make the Collaborative Excellence Program a major priority, devoting the time, focus, and commitment necessary to succeed. The Program should have a direct STRATEGIC impact on the company’s future. The best approach is to tie the Program directly to the company’s mission, purpose, value proposition, and organizational values. Collaborative Excellence, at the highest level, is designed to create COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE. If this linkage is vague or misconstrued, perhaps this is not the right program or the right timing.

What would be the compelling rationale that would satisfy senior management and attract people to the Program?

5. Does the Human Resources Department endorse the Collaborative Excellence Program?: HR is an important stakeholder in the decision to proceed. People’s future is at stake; employee engagement is a very powerful outcome and foundation of Collaborative Excellence, which as has been proven to lower turnover because it:

• engages people
• improves morale
• builds tight teams
• creates high levels of trust
• recognizes the value of people
• channels energy into purposeful action
• capitalizes on the joint creative energies of employees
• empowers employees to become more entrepreneurial
• flows ideas and innovation across internal and external boundaries
• maximizes the creation of value while reducing non-value added work

Does this Program mesh with HR’s strategy and operational approaches?

6. Metrics of Success: Excellence in virtually everything is dependent upon quality metrics. Without identifiable measures, management is like sifting fog, and there will be no unanimity of vision, value, methodologies, and results. At the early stages, a company should be thinking about what metrics should be used as a gauge for determining whether the program achieved its objectives.

7. Diagnostics of Health: Alongside Metrics must be Diagnostics which can be used to ensure the organization is functioning well and any emerging difficulties can be addressed before they create a crisis. The Collaborative Excellence Program addresses many core criteria for Diagnostics of Health, which can be adapted to any organization’s unique culture and industry. Any annual review should include the baseline diagnostics plus post-Workshop assessments.

8. Begin Formulating a Prospective/Preliminary Plan: Important questions should be asked (but don’t need to be solved quite yet) that establish an “internal improvement strategy.” Here are some of the questions the sponsors should be asking:

• “What levels of the organization will be part of the capability building?”
• “What departments, branches, or business units will pilot the first rounds?”
• “Do we use a ‘top down’ or combination of ‘top down, bottoms up” rollout?”
• “How do we message the program?”
• “What are the biggest concerns of the participants?”
• “What will be the biggest objections and resistance?”

A myriad of other practical issues should be anticipated and dealt with before the first session. Getting out in front of these questions is essential so we don’t become reactive at the outset.

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Course Manuals 1-12

Course Manual 1: The Systems Design Architecture

The Collaborative Excellence Program is carefully designed after years of research, testing in the field of action, and innumerable upgrades, refinements, and feedback from around the world. All our material is displayed in both written and graphic PowerPoint formats, with process mapping via VISIO.

Six Frameworks

What makes this Program so impactful is that it is built on a Systems Design Architecture that holistically incorporates six key sub-systems (we call them “frameworks” to avoid using the word “system” to much and confusing people). These six frameworks (described below) have been found to be built into all great organizations, but have seldom (if ever) been identified clearly and codified with clear processes, practices, and metrics.

Three Archetypes

Additionally, in the years we have been developing this system, we were able to identify the core reason why collaboration has had such difficulties sustaining itself, despite its powerful impact. We were able to identify three “archetypal” patterns (adversarial, transactional & collaborative) of human behavior that are built into our DNA (according to evolutionary biologists) that are all-to-often interacting in highly dysfunctional ways, what we called “muddling.” These three archetypes form the basis of human behavior, as well as leadership and our economic systems. Each of these archetypes has a design to it that has evolved over several millennia into specific strategies, processes, and actions that produce highly predicable results. We focus on the collaborative archetype because it has the greatest positive impact on performance in a fast moving, rapidly changing world.

Human behaviour and Trust Models

What’s more, we have been deeply involved in uncovering and designing a very illuminating set of models for both human behavior and trust building that provides the foundation for collaboration. These models also have clear strategies, processes, metrics, and best practices that also produce highly predictable outcomes.

The entire Program integrates these frameworks, archetypes and models with a common language and structure that can be used within most every strategy and operation in business to give it a substantial “high-octane” boost – generally in between 15-25%.

Our “Collaborative Systems Design Architecture” incorporates the Frameworks, Archetypes, and Models into process applications at every stage on our Program, including each module of each workshop. Our Collaborative Excellence Program is the first and only fully integrated systems design “architecture” for leaders to engage both workforce and value chain in generating collaborative advantage, innovation and speed. The “Architecture of Collaborative Excellence” works because it sees human interaction from a “systems perspective” – a design structure of interconnected frameworks that aligns beliefs, ideas, evidence, processes, best practices and metrics to produce trustworthy behaviors resulting in teamwork, innovation, efficiency, high performance and synergy.

This enables leaders and managers to get a firm handle on how to engage their workforce in a manner that produces synergistic results. When the three archetypes (adversarial, transactional & collaborative) conflict inside organizations, the result is fragmentation, polarization, distrust, and a hodge-podge of often contradictory information, ideas, and processes that simply produce misaligned results. Ultimately, little “sticks.”

The lack of this collaborative architecture is why so many companies, leaders, alliances, acquisitions and turnarounds fail or are unsustainable. All-too-often managers, seeking some way out of the quagmire, get sucked into the belief that “tools” will create greater performance. This is sometimes true, but often the tools are inadequate because it’s system itself that’s dysfunctional. Understanding the power the three archetypes have on leadership, culture, and economics is essential for the collaborative shift to occur. Collaborative Excellence maps the architecture and methodology for aligning organizations to produce extraordinary results.

About the Three Archetypes

Here’s what the three archetypes look like so you can identify them as you progress through the Program:

Built into the DNA of human cultures all over the globe are three very basic patterns of human behavior: Adversarial, Transactional, and Collaborative. These are archetypical because they can be observed all the way into the past recorded history of humankind. These three are universal across all cultures everywhere on the globe, with unique variances that derive from local adaptation. Organizational cultures, strategies, leadership, and economics follow these three themes, summarized here:

Adversarial:

– Always Take Advantage
– Manipulation, Distrust
– Win-Lose, Dog Eat Dog
– Survival of Fittest
– Might makes Right
– My Way or the Highway
– He who has the gold, RULES!
– What’s Mine is MINE, What’s Yours is Negotiable

Transactional:

– Everything’s a “Deal”
– Quid Pro Quo, Trade
– Buy Low – Sell High
– Almighty Self Interest
– Tactical Transactions
– Price Price Price
– Hierarchical Power
– Positional Power
– Win-win is okay if both sides bargain very hard

Collaborative:

– Teamwork & Trust
– Synergy – Strategic Alignment & Integration
– Work Ethic, Integrity
– Long-Term, Strategic View
– Value is more than Price
– Cherish Differences as innovation engine
– Mutual Benefit
– Vision & Values Driven
– Share Fairly, Create Anew

Think of these three as “primary colors” – just like Red, Blue, & Yellow. Seldom do we find organizations or people that are purely one “color” – most are a unique colorful blend of the three themes. Most organizational cultures are tragically muddled – a conglomeration of all three, each popping up at various times, even in same person – which produces large chucks of non-valued work, and erodes joy in one’s work. Unscrambling this muddled “spaghetti” can create quantum jumps in productivity.

Many leaders intuitively know the value of collaboration, but falter when asked about truly measurable differentials between collaborative and non-collaborative situations.

For years our team has been involved in actually implementing collaborative project and alliances, as well as studying them to glean the factors for success as well as the comparative advantages. While our team is not alone engaging in these studies our conclusions follow the same trend, time and time again: collaboration beats its transactional and adversarial counter-parts by 25% or more. The ability to create a 25% competitive advantage showed up across industries, cultures, and a wide variety of organizations, including in business: Airlines, Automotive, Insurance, Pharmaceuticals, Steel, and many others. In case after case, the level of trust impacted the productivity of collaboration and innovation.

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Course Manual 2: Our Methodology & Approach to Capability Building

Ever since the Greeks, leaders and educators have known that great learning emerges when the mind and spirit are engaged, when people integrate knowledge and desire, when what’s best merges with what’s good, when concepts become measurable processes, when mindsets align with skillsets. This is why every module in every Workshop has an Action-Learning component. Our objective is always with your end result in mind: You want practical applications – fast. Executives and managers rate all programs far more highly if three things are present:

1. It was practical and directly applicable to my situation
2. I can use the material immediately
3. The program leader was knowledgeable, experienced, wise, and responsive

The greatest myth in training programs is the false belief that knowledge brings results. Studies show that simply attaining knowledge does not improve performance. Adults learn differently than youth – adults value learning when it can be applied to an immediate problem, opportunity, or objective, which gives it utility and impact…

When adults immediately APPLY what they learn, they retain 80% three weeks later.

When they DON’T APPLY, they’ve forgotten 80% three weeks later.

That’s why every learning module in our programs follows this Four Stage Capability Building sequence:

1. The Concept and overall Design Architecture is clear, easily understood, and rapidly communicated to others.

2. A Best Process & Practice has been illustrated to bring the concept into a realistic framework

3. A set of “Tools” (such as a Checklist, Process Map, Key Factors for Success, etc.) makes the best practice useable in everyday practice.

4. Whenever possible, attendees are requested to Apply the concept, process, best practice, and tool kit to a real-life situation in order they gain immediate applicability (and consequently the longest retention)

All our Executive Development Programs ensure these four key elements are employed in the design and presentation of the program delivery. Our programs seamlessly flow these steps so that people learn & apply in one continuous motion – making our capability programs highly successful.

We recognize that much of leadership training cannot be done solely as an academic exercise; it can only be exercised in the heat of a real challenge – in the crucible of action and the tension of emotions. Our programs focus on integrating frameworks & architectures with success factors, tools, coupled with a heavy dose of application. For this reason, we do not rely heavily on case studies, but instead use the pressure cooker of real life situations, simulations, and interactive co-creation.

Evolving the Six Core Frameworks

All systems architectures are composed of sub-systems.

A building’s architecture is composed of subsystems such as foundation, structure, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, plumbing, electrical, fenestration, fire safety, and so forth. A human’s architecture is composed of subsystems such as neural, pulmonary, vascular, gastro-intestinal, and so forth. So too must we break the Collaborative Excellence Systems Architecture down into these sub-systems, which for the sake of clarity, we have chosen to call the subsystem architectures: “frameworks” to distinguish from the larger holistic systems design architecture.

Having been engaged in examining the fundamental causes of success and failure in thousands of alliances and other collaborative ventures, large-scale projects, mergers, acquisitions, and turnarounds, we’ve determined there are six key areas where joint initiatives took the critical path toward success or failure, victory or defeat. These become the basic foundation of the Collaborative Systems Architecture. As the Program moves forward, the participant will be successively introduced to the Six Core Frameworks, which will, in the second year, underpin the advanced learning about Collaborative Excellence. In Year 1, each workshop and the exercises embedded in them will address these Six Frameworks, each of which seamlessly builds on the prior framework.

Human Behavior & Trust: All Collaborative Enterprise is built on Trust. Without trust, a massive psychic vacuum is filled with FUDD – Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt, and Divisiveness. To understand Trust, we first need a framework for understanding Human Behavior, which was developed by mentor and colleague Paul Lawrence of Harvard Business School. It is elegant, simple & straightforward — the E=mc2 of Human Behavior (far better than Maslow’s Hierarchy). His Four Drives of the Brain explains why people are “driven” to act, predicts and prescribes behavior. It’s backed up by breakthrough neuro-chemistry research conducted we conducted with Prof. Lawrence. It is this neuro-chemistry of the brain provides deep insight into trust and fear, and explains how fear can defeats collaboration if not managed carefully. – and how to overcome the fear factor

The human behavior model enables leaders and managers to quickly understand dysfunctions, realign and rebalance individuals and teams. This behavioral model then forms the foundation of trust framework.

Our trust model is both elegant and simple to use. It is all based on our breakthrough work in the neuro-chemistry of the brain. The framework includes quick and straightforward tools to assess and build trust, without which it is impossible to generate high performance teamwork and very difficult to produce consistent innovation.

The Trust Ladder & Tornado of Distrust are powerful tools to create extraordinary relationships, the 8 Principles of Trust enable people to generate critical Operating Principles, and our exercises facilitate how to rebuild trust.

This breakthrough modelling is pivotal to understanding the Economics of Trust, Value Creation and exactly how trust generates productivity, performance, profitability and competitive advantage. Leaders quickly understand how to diagnose trust breakdowns, and the prescription to rebuild/sustain trust
This sets the foundation for understanding how culture impacts behavior, how to turn diversity into a self-regenerative engine of collaborative innovation, how sustainable value is created, how to keep organizations aligned with four-dimensional leadership, and ultimately how to manage complexity and connectivity both within a company and within a value chain.

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Course Manual 3: Establishing the Compelling Rationale

The first step in any process analysis should be to address the critical question “WHY?”

If there is no compelling reason for doing something, then it probably isn’t worth the time, energy, or money invested.

We know that CEOs, leaders and managers are not happy with the performance of their organizations. They intuitively know something is wrong, but very often can’t put their finger on exactly what it is. Most have invested heavily in technology, but productivity, and profitability hasn’t gone up. Certainly Millennials have voted with their feet – fully 25% change jobs every year, at great cost to their companies. Millennials are seeking for something that is missing; and it’s more than just Employee Engagement.

What will the future bring? Across North America and Europe we are seeing disturbing signs our cultures are turning sour, polarized, and adversarial.

Will the next generation of Millennial be able to turn the tide and make collaboration a fundamental underpinning of their inner belief system? Millennials (ages 18-29) are rapidly becoming a very large proportion of our population and workforce.

Millennial Distrust

All is not well for a young generation that proclaims to be so “connected;” their level of distrust is at a traumatic level. In America a recent Pew Research poll found nearly three quarters (73%) of Millennials think that most of the time, people just look out for themselves, and 71% believe most people would try to take advantage of you if they got the chance. This is a skeptical generation, bordering on cynical; these are called “Distrusters.”

People who are distrustful are more likely to become depressed, angry, anti-social, create more distrust, make poor teammates, and are likely to see ill-will as the motive for human behavior, thus becoming engrossed in protective self-interest. This bodes poorly for future business leaders whose careers depend on teamwork, community, and collaborations for achievement of their vision and goals. Their ability to engage in change and innovation will be severely thwarted, filled with conflict and anxiety. Valiant courage and inspirational exhortations will not be enough.

Self-Fulfilling Prophesies: Distrust is not a benign tumor; it’s a malignant cancer that will poison the carrier who will then transmit it to others. At the crux of the problem are the dark self-fulfilling prophesies: early-stage “Distrusters” treat their world in distrusting ways, thus triggering distrustful responses turning their world continuously inward, ego-centric, bleak, caustic, angry, and even revengeful.

Disillusioned people, with a deep propensity to distrust, experience their world as hard, bitter, and meaningless. They attract other distrusters, and kill the sense of community and collaboration. It would be imprudent to condemn Millennials for their presumed faults. If a business is to retain its competitive edge, it is our responsibility to create a strong, trustworthy, inspired culture in which their innate capacities can flourish.

What Can Be Done? First, it would foolhardy to bury our heads in the sand, throw up our arms in despair, or wail and complain. This is a stressed-out generation alive today. Collaborative Excellence Program will help leaders and managers create the foundational support for Employee Engagement. If they feel excluded they will assume the worst and react very negatively. While we ought not be overly critical and nor try to show how smart we are, we should ask them questions from a perspective of understanding and inquiry; engage them in collaborative innovation. Engage them in assessing options and opportunities.

Many Millennials have no framework in their mind for building trust – it’s just a word that has mixed connotations to them. By using the Trust Principles and Processes, you will help them know where you are coming from and what you consider trustworthy.

One central aim of Collaborative Excellence is to heal and positively transform the ideals of human possibility – both in the workforce and in the emerging leadership. Collaborative Excellence’s aim is to provide the beliefs, evidence, mind-sets, and skill-sets to enable the full potential and capacity of human interaction to produce remarkable results and have the participants enjoy, be engaged, and be fulfilled while on the journey.

For those leaders faced with the challenge of creating a collaborative culture, and are wary of the massive distrust in the younger generation entering into the job market, there are two leverage points to initiate action:

1) the large proportion of people actually desire collaboration (71% according to the Pew Research study) and

2) there are clear frameworks for implementing collaborative excellence and innovation (which are delivered in the Collaborative Excellence Program).

Inherently people know it’s better to work together than is directly related to Innovation, for without innovation, engineering becomes stale and focuses on bigger not better. But it is highly risky to assume that collaboration will happen naturally; it will take adroit leadership and deep commitment on the part of stakeholder.  

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Course Manual 4: Readiness for the Collaborative Paradigm Shift

Empowering the Collaborative Systems Architecture is not just a matter of layering on a more extensive set of Best Practices. The reality is that we are really dealing with a Paradigm Shift.

For organizations – whether they be a corporation, architectural & engineering firms, mega-projects, or inter-industry alliances – to be effective at empowering their organizations to function faster, more adroitly, and symbiotically, collaborative systems thinking must be proliferated widely – both internally and in value networks. It is a profound journey, not to be attempted superficially. Doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result is insanity and just plain foolhardy. The future hangs in the balance.

Paradigm Shifts are not just about “doing things differently”, it is:

– Thinking differently,
– Envisioning differently,
– Discerning differently,
– Measuring differently,
– Designing differently,
– Speaking differently,
– Acting differently,
– Valuing differently,
– Treating people differently,
– Asking questions differently,
– Experiencing your world differently.

A bold new approach is essential. These profound differences require a fundamentally different “Systems Design Architecture”, not merely tweaking old stuff designed for a legacy paradigm. How do we know we are ready for a Paradigm Shift? When great intentions yield mediocre results; when the tried-and-true ceases to work, when every attempt to fix things is met with frustration and failure…then it’s likely the design has reached its limits, and the paradigm is ready to shift. Opportunity is present; creative vision is called for, and bold action in new dimensions is the nature of things to come…

From BREAKDOWNS to BREAKTHROUGHS

Creating a New Paradigm is perhaps one of the most important things any Thought Leader can accomplish in his or her lifetime. New Paradigm generation is the most noble of intellectual quests for it is so impactful on what the world believes, perceives, conceives, achieves, and receives in return. Yet this is also a thoroughly difficult and daunting task; one can work in intense intellectual and creative thought for a lifetime, never shifting a paradigm.

Over my career I have studied breakthrough thinkers such as the great Greek innovators, religious divinity prophets, scientific thought changers, prolific inventors, “business gam e-shifters,” and political leaders, all of whom have left a massive impact on the world today. Collaborative Excellence addresses the process by which this is done, which is briefly summarized here:

Starting the Process with Breakdowns & Faulty Explanations

Dissatisfaction is the Mother of Invention: For many of the great thinkers, they start their breakthrough quest by examining breakdowns – something that just doesn’t work well enough to satisfy some need or yearning. Many times there’s an “intuitive sense” that something is just not right or there must be another way. In other words:

• There is a “pain” that triggers a search for a “solution”
• “Dissatisfaction,” not necessity, is the “mother of invention”

High Performance Teams

In examining how high performance teams handle breakdowns in sports and science operate, what surprises many who have not attained performance excellence is that high performance teams actually have more breakdowns than low performance teams. Yes, that’s right.

Why?

Because high performance teams experiment more on the edge, and then, when a breakdown occurs, instead of engaging in the “blame game,” they focus on learning from their mistakes and generating solutions. On the other hand, low performance teams blame others: the coach, their boss, their team mates, the referees, Wall Street, or whomever; they never take responsibility for a failure, thus no one trusts them to own up to their reality and learn together. From there, things get worse, not better; as insecurity, defensiveness, fear, and distrust corrodes the foundations of revival.

Power of a Positive Adversity Response

Adversity is a test of honor, commitment, duty, and integrity; blamers fail this crucial test. Faced with adversity, high performance teams excel under pressure, using competition to improve their collaboration, synchronization, and synergy. They love stress because they channel the energy into learning, improvement, innovation, and performance. They build trust in their teammates under pressure. With their coach’s aid, they squarely face the truth, good or bad. The role of the leader of breakthrough teams is to:

– inspire with strategy and vision
– give clear goals and directions to achieve that vision
– train people in the competencies needed to win
– insist on character-based decisions
– build respectful, trusting team relationships
– ensure best practices are in place to maximize the chance of winning
– bring out the best, in people under pressure
– align metrics and rewards to support the vision, goals, and values of the effort

The typical breakthrough team will have a very clear Value Proposition and Value Metrics (measures of what success looks like). They will relentlessly pursue their objective.

Excellence exists in the “heart of the mind” – it’s a soulful journey, certainly not a place to rest.

Einstein’s Five Principles for Creating Breakthroughs

Einstein was clearly one of the world’s foremost breakthrough thinkers. He had several principles (guidelines) for Breakthrough Thinking that we should embrace:

1. From Clutter Find Simplicity
2. From Discord Make Harmony
3. From Problems Seek Opportunity
4. Creativity is More Important than Knowledge
5. We cannot solve the problems of today with the same level of thinking
that created the problem

In the Collaborative Excellence Exercises, we will address important perspectives on Breakthrough Thinking & Paradigm Shifting. We will examine the “triggers” for Paradigm Shifting, those with the highest likelihood of having success from “Breakthrough Thinking.”

Paradigm shifts are the hardest to design and even after they are designed, many people can’t even see the structure of the new paradigm until it’s too late, because they are so invested in the old paradigm. That’s why often it takes the younger generation to engage in the shift. Creating a Paradigm Shift means seeing today’s world through a different lens. What you believe is what you will perceive, conceive, achieve, and receive.
 
Principles of Breakthrough Thinking in the Quest for Paradigm Shifting

There are several principles we will be applying to break out of the old paradigm paralysis:

• Thinking “outside the box” of convention
• “Connecting boxes” to understand the interactions
• Seeing holistically as a system
• Seeking to understand the inner design architecture
• Thinking nonlinearly
• Thinking the unthinkable
• Suggesting the unreasonable
• Challenging one’s own assumptions and prejudices
• Creating a new audacious possibility
• Being Alert not to be boxed in by Barriers
• Hearing the Big Idea in what others dismiss

These make the Workshop Exercises not just interesting, but value creating.

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Course Manual 5: Socio-Technical Systems Innovation

Process redesign in not a new thing, it is actually quite old. It can be established that process redesign began with the Greeks, and especially with Aristotle and the invention of Scientific Method. When combined with the new fields of mathematics, physics, and engineering over two thousand years ago, every process began to be transformed. This included the processes of literature, arts, and government, such as the first democracies – a social redesign process.

The essence of the Industrial Revolution resurrected the Greek methodologies, and by the late 1700s machines were replacing humans and horses. Certainly the twentieth century’s technological revolutions have changed the face of the earth and most all work processes shifted as well.

One of the great masters of the technological shift from the mechanical era of the 1800s to the electrical era of the 1900s was Thomas Edison. He, unlike many other master inventors, was keenly alert to aligning human needs and technological advancement. That’s why his inventions, of electrical power (including the light bulb), the movie camera, the phonograph, and many others set the standard of value creation. He was seeking to “align the dynamo of humanity with the dynamo of technology.”

The Collaborative Excellence Program carries forth Edison’s principle of socio-technical systems alignment. Embracing systems means, first and foremost, comprehending something from a holistic perspective, understanding how everything functions (or malfunctions) as a whole – the components, the connectivity, the processes, and the integrations – the complete architecture.

Great Systems Architecture has critical elements that make it powerful:

• The whole is greater than the sum of the parts

• Core Truths, Key Logical Concepts and Conditions, Guiding Principles, and Key Factors for Success (both universal and situational/conditional) are evident and symbiotic

• Diagnostic Analysis and Principles-Guided Prescriptive Corrective Actions are tailorable and applicable to unique situations and conditions

• The System is integrated sufficiently to be Sustainable Under Stress

• Essential Principles, Fundamental Rules, and Best Processes/Practices can be used universally to create similar results

• Cause & Effect Relationships are logical and understandable

• Consistent Language, Powerful Underlying Attitudinal Belief Systems and Consistent Actions are integrally linked the to the core frameworks

Great Systems Architecture is Leverageable enabling it to increase and extend its impact:

• Learnable – it can be taught by a Master who can teach it to others, who can, in turn, teach it to others, enabling it to multiply

• Replicable – it will work successfully in a variety of circumstances

• Reliable – has inherent stability, safety, and certainty

• Scalable – it will work in large organizations as well as small scale situations

By focusing on the human side of the socio-technical interface, Collaborative Systems Excellence is like the creation of an alloy, melding together different elements into a stronger final material: fusing human systems with technical systems into a socio-technical systems architecture.

The Collaborative Excellence Systems Architecture aims at creating a fully integrated design system where all the frameworks have been field tested, documented, and proven in a wide number of industries as diverse as automotive, aerospace, military, airlines, steel, insurance, food, consumer goods, sports, and research & development.

Collaborative Innovation and the Importance of Adding Value

One often unheralded methods of creating breakthroughs is to engage in the daily practice of Continuous Improvement by Adding/Creating Value. In the Process Redesign elements of Collaborative Excellence, practitioners develop the habit of adding value to everything they touch or see. It is remarkable how this helps enable Breakthrough Thinking.

Adding Value implies its polar opposite: eliminate Non-Value Added (NVA) activities and thinking that clogs up the flow of value and innovation. (don’t assume that Value Added Work is the Opposite of NVA). Practitioners, engaging in our Collaborative Innovation Framework start examining the causes of Non-Value Added and Waste, such as:

• Thinking Too Small/Narrow
• No Systems Design Architecture
• Lack of Key Factors for Success
• Inadequate Processes, Practices, or Tools or Information
• Lack of Training in Competence, Character, & Collaboration
• Lack of Standards of Excellence
• Misaligned Goals, Poor Decisions or Poor Communications
• Culture of Distrust
• Division of Labor in Siloes (poor cross-functional integration)
• Unsynchronized Scheduling

These sources of NVA can be recognized by typical symptoms:

• Excess Paperwork
• Unneeded Data Collection
• Too many Steps, Signoffs, Delays
• Inflexible Policies
• Gatekeepers
• Inaccessible or Late Information
• Excessive Reporting & Auditing
• Duplication of Effort
• Slow Processes
• Overproduction
• Excessive Specialization & Division of Labor
• Too much/little/inadequate Data
• Idle time
• Delivery Waste
• Inventory Waste

This is the beginning of the Collaborative Innovation Process Redesign. People are willing to address these issues because there is a substantial amount of trust in the corporate culture – people aren’t threatened by thinking they might get laid off by solving problems or that they might be punished because the “junk in the system” existed in the first place.

Thresholds of New Value

Reviewing over the thousands of changes and innovations over the last three centuries, on thing can be concluded: for humans to change their patterns of behavior (i.e. their processes, their habits and their beliefs), there must be a substantial, measurable improvement or value received. Without a “quantum kick,” people would rather continue to do things the old way. For example if you were given the option of taking an inexpensive pill that promised you a 10 pound weight loss in two weeks or having to run five miles every day for two weeks, most people would choose the easy way. And if you had no guarantee running five miles every day for two weeks would produce anything more than a two pound loss, you probably would decline the running option.

So too with Collaborative Excellence. It promises to produce quantum jumps in competitive advantage, and performance often exceeding 20% greater than the norm. In the big picture, it’s competitive advantage that ultimately generates sustainable profitability. We held back with this program for a decade and a half until we were assured we could actually produce this “quantum kick” with a reasonable assurance in its success.

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Course Manual 6: Addressing Resistance to Change

Every leader knows that the biggest problem with Process Redesign is not the new design, it’s the Resistance to Change that so often kills innovation. That’s why, according to the Lean Management Institute, 90% of the Lean Initiatives fail. Similarly, two-thirds of new strategic initiative fail; so too with mergers and acquisitions.

Improving the Risk Exposure

On a very bright note, the process redesign of strategic alliances has had a remarkable track record of success. Before the Collaborative Excellence strategies, principles, processes, and practices were initiated in companies, the success rate of alliances was a dismal 25%. With the process re-design that rate has flipped upside down – 75% are now successful. And, to emphasize a point, the learnings from the years of field-work in alliances has influenced many of the foundational frameworks of Collaborative Excellence. This dramatic shift reduced the risk of engaging in an alliance three-fold – something most risk managers have overlooked.

Similarly, when Collaborative Excellence was embedded in large scale mega-projects, the on-time, on-budget success rate increased 300%, also reducing the risk levels of any investment, a vivid contrast to the typical cultures in most large-scale projects.

Change is not a splendid experience

Many leaders flunk out when workers hear the dreaded the “I’m going to change things!” pledge. Along with this pace of dynamic change comes a train-load of psychic stresses, causing most people to resist change. Here a few good reasons why:

– Most people’s experience with change has been negative. We’ve done informal surveys of thousands of managers and leaders; about 3 in 4 have said their experience has not been good. Most leaders who try to “change” things botch the job. Acquisitions are a good example; most good people jump ship within a year of an acquisition, leaving a hollow core of mediocre people behind.

– It’s somewhat traumatic to hear the dreaded “I’m going to change this place (and you too)!” declaration. Change requires a lot of unknown/unpredictable risks, and often a loss of security. When people say they’d prefer the “devil they know to the devil they don’t know,” it says a lot. Most change carries with it the burden of fear, uncertainty and doubt, raising people’s anxiety levels. Leaders who don’t understand that emotions will kill the human spirit are aimed at the abyss of failure. When things aren’t going well and change is a necessity, it takes a very adept leader – one who has a clear vision and can build trust to make good things happen.

– The idea of “change management” is, in and of itself, a massive deception, and people know it. First, the word “change” does not necessarily connote a positive value nor direction, thus it implies “different” but not necessarily better. Second, the whole idea that change can be managed is bizarre. Management is the efficient use of resources, while change requires a reframing of the way people think; thus change requires both systems thinking and leadership before trying to engage management concepts. No wonder most managers lack confidence in their leadership to navigate through the chaos.

While resistance to change has always been difficult, it’s actually more difficult today because of the complexity of change married to the loss of trust in institutions and leadership. This is why today’s leaders need a far deeper of understanding of the change process and what causes resistance to change.

Resistance to Change versus Innovation & Paradigm Shifting

In carrying out the activities of innovation, it’s essential to understand and execute the “shifting process.” Just like driving a manual car, shifting gears must be done with the right sequence of events, pushing in the clutch to release the pressure on the gears, selecting the right position for the shifter, and feathering the clutch to avoid straining the drive train. Practitioners attending the Workshops will learn how to Lead the Shifts, often in situations where they must influence people’s motivation without having any direct authority.

Establishing high leverage pilot projects with a good chance of success is often a strategy that creates visible “quick wins” to help gain momentum. Fostering champions to lead these shifts is an essential part of collaborative leadership in reducing resistance to change. Often, they are called upon to initiate low risk, high visibility pilot projects to demonstrate viability and have the latitude to work bugs out of the system. In software development this is referred to as “alpha” and “beta” testing. Then other leaders that are lesser risk takers can be brought on board. Usually this means starting with the “healthy skeptics” who doubt but can be convinced if they see the evidence.

Of course, there are always those who are less apt to buy into the change, especially those who are stubbornly resistant, chronic complainers, and cynics. (Often, it’s best to let them find work elsewhere.)

Seven Deadly Seven that Create More Resistance to Change

We have learned from experience in the trenches that there are several “sins” that most leaders overlook when trying to shift a system to a new level. We will be employing these principles and processes when practitioners engage in the exercises to implement Collaborative Excellence:

1. Insufficient Value Proposition: This requires a Measurable Impact above Hurdle Rate

2. Too Much Uncertainty & Fear: This is usually amplified by too much doubt and distrust in the messenger or leader. It is usually complicated by too little safety, security, recognition or compassion.

3. Too much Ambiguity & Complexity: Here the brain’s pattern recognition & prediction capability
is confounded by complexity or says “no way!” There may also be insufficient training/knowledge/education/understanding.

4. Too Little Engagement: Those who must support change feel left out, isolated, castigated. Remember: “People Support What They Help Create”

5. Too Little Leadership: neither senior leaders nor peers are strong advocates or there are no personal relationships with those who are affected. Remember: “Innovation Needs Champions”

6. Too Little Evidence: We probably need a Pilot Program to demonstrate value and create real, concrete evidence.

7. Rewards & Measures Reinforce Old Behavior: This will require realignment of Rewards & Metrics to the new desired behavior.

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Course Manual 7: How Collaboration Leverages Resources

Have you ever spoken with someone recently who boasted “Our company has more resources that we know what to do with.” Of course not. And now that we are in the middle of the Covid19 crisis, the problem is even worse.

The realities are stark. In adversarial corporate cultures, resources are horded; in transactional cultures resources are exchanged; and in collaborative cultures resources are shared. This is the reason mothers encourage their children to share their toys – to extend the use of resources among their children. This quote puts trust versus fear in another context:

“Courage enlarges, cowardice diminishes resources. In desperate straits the fears of the timid aggravate the dangers that imperil the brave.” — Christian Nevell Bovee

Collaborative Excellence emphasizes and enables the expansion of resources, not just by sharing, but by leverage and multiplication. This happens both within a company, and in its external relations in alliances and the value chain. Specifically, value is created and optimized in collaborative, high trust environments. Thus, it’s tied directly to sustainable competitive advantage, and it links to key areas on the Profit & Loss Statement.

Financial Impact of Trust

Trust is to business like fertilizer is to growing plants. Yes, if we don’t give a plant fertilizer, it will survive, but introduce the right fertilizer, and it will flourish and blossom. Without trust, even the best strategies, execution, or core competencies will fall short of their potential. Trust alone does not “cause” high performance, but it is a critical and essential ingredient that, if missing, will dull or even demolish high performance teamwork. The evidence tells us: “Trust is the wisest and most economical means of gaining the most effective Return on Investment for any business.”

Business leaders are always seeking ways to master the forces of creative destruction, outperform the competition, and beat the market averages. Harnessing the power of the “trust engine” will prove to provide a continuous stream rewards, both in the short and long term. And there’s one great by-product: High trust enables many managers and employees to find meaning and purpose in their work, which, in turn, improves productivity in multiple ways.

The problem is that there is a great “trust deficit” in business. How serious is the “trust deficit”? One index, the Edelman Trust Barometer, points out:

• Only 53% of respondents trust business.

• Only 18% of the general population trust business leaders to tell the truth
regardless of how complex or unpopular the truth is.

This “trust deficit” is not just another sociological slam against business. It has serious and widespread ramifications – two major bottom-line impacts:

• Share Price and Profitability

• Sustainable Competitive Advantage

The “trust deficit” acts like high blood pressure – a silent killer from hardening of the arteries – that can go unnoticed for years, but will eventually take you out by a heart attack or stroke. Companies that suffer from the “trust deficit,” experience diminishing revenues, market share, brand reputation, talent turnover, employee engagement, cost levels, stock price, and bottom-line profitability.

Revenue Growth and Market Share

Revenue growth is the hallmark of every successful company. Revenue growth is enhanced by long-term, trusting customer relationships for joint problem solving and value creation. Customers and suppliers share valuable information for deeper insights into emerging customer needs, industry trends, problem solving, and opportunities for adding greater value.

Brand Reputation

Brand reputation is all about trust. Consumers are 3 ½ times more likely to buy a trusted brand than one they’ve never heard of or tried before. A brand that’s not trusted is not competitive and loses market share. Distrust will either shut down the information flow, or cause the customer to find another supplier. For example, Dell experienced significant loss of market share when they outsourced their customer service activities. They lost trust with users who needed technical assistance.

Market Share

Many industries have powerful examples of how trusted companies increase market share: In the airline industry, the company that has the highest trust among customers and employees is Southwest. Southwest has consistently outperformed its rivals in market share growth and profitability. The turmoil of labor-management conflict that epitomizes low trust companies have severely damaged American, Delta, and United, contributing to their lower levels of service and profitability. Grocery stores have some of the thinnest profit margins of any industry (typically 1-2%), and bankruptcies are frequent. In the highly competitive Florida market, Publix, the high trust competitor, holds nearly a 53%% market share compared to only 14% by Wal-Mart. Publix has a compound growth of 18% per year, as opposed to Wal-Mart’s 10.5%. Publix’s high productivity comes from its workforce collaboration.

These two industry examples are not unique; in industry after industry, the high trust leaders hold a substantial market share, and it’s usually growing.

Customer Loyalty and Retention

Study after study reaches the same conclusion: Trusted companies will retain their customers at a rate many times higher than companies that don’t listen to their customer’s needs, don’t provide good service, or will sell the customer something unsuitable to make quota. Customer turnover is expensive: most analyses peg the cost of replacing an old customer at 4-5 times the cost of retaining an existing one.

Sales Force Effectiveness

Customers are far more likely to buy from a highly trusted salesperson, who will close more sales than salespeople with whom the customer is hesitant, worried about service, or bound in negative experiences. A trusted engagement between buyer and seller has a 20-50% higher chance of ending successfully. The speed of selling will increase dramatically, by similar percentages, regardless of price. Customers will not return to buy from sources they do not trust.

Ask the question “If we increased trust just 10%, what would be the % or $ impact on Market Share and Revenues?” (The Collaborative Excellence Program addresses this question profoundly.)

Economic Impact of Trust on Organizational Functioning

Every time people interact, the level of trust will impact the way people produce work. To assess the impact of trust (and distrust) on how trust impacted the way companies operate, we’ve over 5000 participants attending trust workshops to gauge trust against seventeen different organizational functions:

Speed, Innovation, Productivity, Joint Planning, Problem Solving, Risk Management, Time Wasters, Redundancy, Integration, Labor Relations, Coordination, Human Energy, Forecasting, Procurement, Shared Resources, Strategic Alignment, and Early Warning Systems.

The results were shocking. According to the senior managers surveyed, the average “uplift” that can be gained by a high trust environment across the 17 factors averaged 65-68%. Ask yourself the question: “If we increased trust just 10%, what would be the % or $ impact on any of the Organizational Effectiveness factors?”

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Course Manual 8: Human Resource Advantages & Impacts

Employee ‘engagement’ and employee ‘participation’ are hallmarks of ‘high-trust’ cultures. In the high-trust companies, people and the HR Department are considered a strategic asset. In low-trust cultures employees are considered a ‘liability,’ ‘cost-center,’ or ‘replaceable parts.’

Employee Engagement

Disengagement occurs when people put in just enough effort to avoid getting fired but don’t contribute their talent, creativity, energy or passion. In economic terms, they under-perform. The problem is serious:

• Gallup Polls research finds 71% of U.S. workers as either not engaged or actively disengaged.

• The price tag of disengagement is $350 billion a year. That roughly approximates the annual combined revenue of Apple, General Motors and General Electric.

• According to The Economist, 84 % of senior leaders say disengaged employees are considered one of the biggest threats facing their business. However, only 12 % of them reported doing anything about this problem.

Disengagement is a waste of precious resources and extremely costly. In a Deloitte ethics and workplace survey, the number one reason given for employees planning to seek a new job was:

• A loss of trust in their employer (48 %), followed by the next two reasons (which are also trust issues)

• A lack of transparency in leadership communication (46 %);

• Unfair or unethical treatment by employers over the last 18 to 24 months (40 %).

Trust keeps employees engaged, creative and productive. Lack of trust drives away the best employees, or in many cases causes them to be asleep on the job. Poor trust leads to poor productivity. Gallup has conducted a Meta-Analysis of hundreds of companies, millions of employees and numerous studies on the relationship between employee engagement and performance. Comparing the top half of companies on employee engagement with the bottom half, they found those that emphasized people had, on average:

• 56% higher success rate on customer loyalty metrics
• 44% higher success rate on turnover (lower probability of turnover)
• 38% higher success rate on productivity outcomes
• 27% higher success rate on profitability
• 44% higher success rate on safety (lower probability of injuries or lost workdays)

Trust enables Employee Engagement which increases productivity and profit.

Employee Retention

University of British Columbia Economist John Helliwell has conducted extensive research to correlate trust, well-being, and hard-core economic value. He and his team have surveyed nearly 30,000 people across the United States and Canada; his findings are quite revealing and have important implications on employee engagement and retention:

• A 10% increase in trust in management is equivalent to more than a 30% increase in monetary income in terms of one’s sense of well-being.

• Out of all the factors contributing to a strong sense of well-being (including neighborhood factors), work-place factors — such as trust in co-workers — was by far the most influential.

Stated another way: High trust is essential to the sense of well-being workers receive; it keeps them engaged, and diminishes their desire to seek jobs elsewhere. From our experience with scores of companies and anecdotal evidence, high trust companies have annual employee retention rates between 1-3%, and absenteeism rates of 3% or less. Companies with higher rates should pay attention to the trust issue – every percent turnover and absenteeism is costly.

Turnover and the Cost of Employee Replacement

Economists Heather Boushey and Sarah Jane Glynn researched thirty case studies taken from the 11 most-relevant research papers on the costs of employee turnover and found that direct-costs for replacement amount to about one-fifth of a worker’s salary. Moreover about one-fifth (20%) of workers voluntarily leave their job each year and an additional one-sixth (18%) are fired or otherwise let go involuntarily (total 38%). “For businesses that experience high levels of turnover, this can add up to represent significant costs that can potentially be avoided.”

Experts agree that direct costs are only the tip of the iceberg when assessing the total cost of employee turnover. Indirect costs are substantially greater, comprising of: interviewer’s time and salary, training time and trainer’s salary, and, often the most important, lost productivity due to lack of deep knowledge of the way the business really works, needing to gain systems and process experience, and build customer and team relationships. Depending upon the study, indirect costs are pegged at between of $7,000 – $10,000 per employee on the low side to 30%-150% of the employee’s salary on the high side.

Some industries have exceedingly high turnover rates. For example, 37 % of hotel/motel and food services employees voluntarily quit a job – one of the reasons that profit margins in the food service industry are stressed. However, the exceptions prove the power of high-trust, high engagement. Employee turnover is expensive; and the productivity losses of high turnover can be staggering. Small improvements in this category can have large impacts on profits.

Workplace Trust & Return On Investment

What is the biggest factor in a person’s well-being? This question was posed by John Helliwell of the University of British Columbia Economics Department. He and his team conducted several studies between 2001 and 2010, and analyzed nearly 30,000 survey responses across the United States and Canada. He found that, surprisingly, it was neither money nor education that produced the highest well-being ratings.

“Workplace trust is one of the most important [factors] in explaining well-being,
across groups of populations, across surveys, and across countries.”

He also observed that significant trust in workplace colleagues carried over into personal friendships and close relationships with these same people outside of work, and in the community in general, stating:

“Without trust, people are loath to reach out, and to make the social connections
that underpin any collaborative action.” He concluded stating simply:

“Trust improves health and saves lives.”

Helliwell’s other conclusions were quite revealing, and some might be considered astonishing:

• “Our results show that those who feel themselves to be living in a trustworthy environment have much higher levels of subjective well-being.

• “Household income does not appear in the trust equations,
since it was found to have no significant effects.”

• Having high trust in co-workers, which we find to be the largest of all the specific directional trust measures, is associated with 7.6% higher life satisfaction.

• This is followed trust in neighbors (5%), confidence in police (3%),
and a belief that a stranger would return your lost wallet (2.5%).

• How much higher life satisfaction is for those who have high levels of trust in all these life domains? The answer is more than 18%.

• After trust, the highest correlations to well-being were good health and a belief in God.

• Increasing trust in management by just one point higher on a ten-point scale has the equivalent effect on life satisfaction as a 40% increase in income.

Conclusion

Just improving trust by a factor of ten percent would remedy many of the ills of the company, increase profitability, and provide as much increase in people’s overall life satisfaction as a 40% pay raise. Where absenteeism and turnover is above the 3-5% norm, look for distrust to be the culprit. Creating a culture of trust may have the most powerful returns on investment. This is one of the central themes of Collaborative Excellence.

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Course Manual 9: Launching the Collaborative Excellence Initiative

At the outset, the Collaborative Excellence Program should be viewed as both a Strategic and Operational Initiative. Strategically, it will greatly enhance a company’s competitive advantage by improving its ability to generate new revenues, accelerating its innovation, removing costs, and enabling greater productivity. At the day-to-day operational level, people will be communicating better, performing better, solving problems faster, heading off other problems before they occur, and making better decisions as the levels of trust and teamwork improve across the organization.

While all these things seem rosy, changing the processes in any organization will inherently create some discomfort. Thus, it is best to think through the creation and launch of this initiative carefully, to engage key stakeholders early, to find internal champions to spearhead the effort, to locate pockets in the organization where quick wins can be attained and amplified.

This initiative needs to be managed adroitly, like any complex project. Communications are essential – two-way communications up and down the organization. We have asked thousands of business leaders “What proportion of change comes from Crisis versus Vision?” Unequivocally they say about 85% from Crisis, and 15% from Vision.

This is significant because it shows how difficult it is to transform an organization without a sense of urgency to mobilize people to action. This is the primary reason why failing leaders “invent” a crisis to make something happen. Visionary leaders have to stay right on top of things, with critical milestones, powerful interim results, and clear roles, responsibilities, and relationships that create a rhythmic drumbeat for the march of progress.

Visionary change is easier for startups and new organizations because the founder is typically the visionary with passion and personal commitment. More mature organizations are often set in their ways; it takes a joint effort to create the energy of innovation and generate pressure to move things.

Emotions Matter

On one extreme, many business leaders would like think of people as rational computers whose emotions don’t matter. This is a mistake, because emotions propel passions, which can be used either positively to achieve remarkable results, or negatively to cut a destructive swath.

On the other extreme, psychologists are constantly probing emotions, asking the questions about “how do you feel,” as if humans were just a jumble of repressed emotions. Replacing negative emotions with positive ones in not just a simple exercise in rational discourse. It’s like telling a warrior returning from combat duty in a war zone that his or her PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is “all in your head” and expecting the stress to magically emulsify. Conversely, too much emphasis on emotions is just as bad as too little. The best leaders will acknowledge the emotional factors, but emphasize rational thinking – focusing on the big picture and the mission confronting everyone.

That is why having a Compelling Rationale for the Program is so important.

There will be roughly about 25% of your organization for whom stability, safety and predictability is of primary importance. For these people, trust is not enough – they need low levels of ambiguity and uncertainty along with trust. They need to contribute to building the plan, the strategy, the contingency plan, the risk management plan, and the rules of engagement. They are the “orderly guardians” who can’t and won’t “create on the fly,” but instead need to be sure all the pitfalls are accounted for. They may at first look like cynics, but are really healthy skeptics who need concrete answers before they lend their support.

Doing an Engine Overhaul While Racing

A veteran CEO lamented to me that trying to change his company was like trying to do an engine overhaul on his race car traveling at 100 mph on the speedway. He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head stating “If it can be done, it’s nearly impossible.” He was frustrated and believed it couldn’t be done. (He was right – if you believe it can’t be done, it can’t.) The problem is, if you don’t overhaul your organization, the competition will overtake it.

The Collaborative Excellence Workshop Program is designed to bring your organization’s engine into tip-top condition, and add fuel injection and a turbocharger while it’s whizzing down the race track.

Launching & Managing Program

In the Launching and Managing Phase, Collaborative Excellence is implemented. This phase involves bringing together the Steering Team, Key Stakeholders, and a Project Manager to ensure all the piece of the Program come together in the right sequence.

Think of the Steering Team as a joint governance board. This council guides policy and strategic alignment to corporate objectives, reviews the performance regularly, and is generally responsible for keeping the multiple stakeholder relationships healthy and focused on continuous improvement. The Project Manager is responsible for ensuring that the initiative is implemented, coordinated, and evaluated in a timely and efficient manner. Communications are an important part of the Project Manager’s role, so this should not be given to a junior manager as a first career assignment; it belongs to someone who “knows the ropes.” At the same time, team members should have strong communication and problem-solving skills that will allow the various parts of the organizations to work together effectively to find new approaches and breakthroughs beyond those spelled out in the original agreement. Contained within the process steps will be the following types of activities:

1. Plan the initiative’s launch and implement the launch plan.
2. Maintain continuity of personnel.
3. Monitor performance.
4. Create value as anticipated by the value proposition.
5. Exploit new opportunities to create value.
6. Review service levels.
7. Resolve problems.
8. Maintain top-management support.
9. Maintain motivation of alliance managers.
10. Renew the energy, spirit, and focus of the Collaborative Excellence initiative.

Launch Event

The launch is aimed at achieving alignment among all those involved in the initiative. Many participants play a role throughout the launch process, and the importance, contributions, and integration of these functions change over time. Establishing clear roles across various functions and their key stakeholders (Sales, Finance, Project Team, R&D, Marketing, Manufacturing, etc.) is a critical first step. Responsibilities of key stakeholders and team members—that is, who decides, who should be consulted, who must be informed—should be confirmed and made explicit at each step or phase.

A great deal of collaborative effort goes into the planning and organizing of launch events and activities. The preparation and strategizing for launch activities are in themselves an excellent opportunity for participants and key stakeholders to begin to work together and to demonstrate to the broader team what good collaborative skills and processes look like. The launch event will often cover topics such as:

• Defining and establishing a common vision
• Setting high but realistic expectations
• Introducing and onboarding the first round of practitioners
• Sharing experiences of other similar programs
• Developing operating protocols for introducing key learnings back to others
• Suggesting or committing to applications of Collaborative Excellence in the practitioner organizations or teams.
• Agreeing on ways to measure the performance and health of the alliance
• Planning the transfer of skills and knowledge
• Introduce the Coach/Consultant/Facilitator and the Learning Provider
• Identifying gaps in resource allocation or training

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Course Manual 10: Process Communications

Managing the Collaborative Excellence Program is more like managing an alliance than managing a normal project in that there are strategic and relationship components that many project managers are not attuned. That’s why a seasoned manager is important. Understanding the interests and aspirations of the stakeholders and the participant practitioners will be important. The Program/Project Manager will be best off if these people are interviewed to determine their needs, concerns, and expected outcomes. This should also be done with all Steering Team members. Often the Project Manager and Coach/Facilitator (if they are not the same person) will do this together.

A great deal of collaborative effort goes into the planning and organizing of launch events and activities. The preparation and strategizing for launch activities are in themselves an excellent opportunity for Program/Project Manager and key stakeholders to begin to work together and to demonstrate to the broader team what good collaborative skills and processes look like. Planning has components of engaging the right people and aligning roles and responsibilities early and throughout the process. The first governance (Steering Team) meeting will usually address the key factors for success, obstacles, stakeholder engagement, logistics, support, and communication planning. The project’s operational planning will take up much of this kickoff meeting. A sample agenda is presented in this Checklist:

Launch Meeting Agenda

• Mission of the Program & Value proposition: Start the meeting with a review of the big picture—the reason the Program has been approved in the first place. Be sure everyone understands, agrees, and is 100 percent committed to the Program.

• Strategic Return On Investment for Stakeholders: Discuss what each stakeholder will get out of the Program, so that everyone understands each partner’s perspectives.

• The Plan including Goals, Timetables, Methods & Outcomes Expected: Be sure everyone understands their roles and responsibilities and what is expected of them. Refine any plans that are unclear or incomplete. so there are few surprises

• Potential problems: Identify possible problems, and develop approaches to resolving them. Pay particular attention to making the people who are attending the Workshops to feel secure in taking a bold new approach.

• Critical Factors for Success: What will be necessary to overcome problems and stay in the success zone?

• Breakthrough Applications: Identify any elements of the plan that require extraordinary results or quantum leaps in performance. Focus on how the Program can be applied to real-time situations in the work environment.

There will often be immediate post-launch follow-up activities that were brought to light during the launch. It may be necessary to address these (final project plan, ongoing meeting scheduling, communication and data sharing protocols) so that the project can start.

Ongoing Program Management involves skills ranging from project management, group facilitation, and technical leadership to business development to allow early recognition of issues, ongoing auditing, and adjustments to the collaboration. Some adjustments will require operational details in the project team, some decisions by the Steering Committee, and others will require amendments to the agreement. All of these activities will return at regular intervals to operational planning to measure progress against expectations, make adjustments, and evaluate the project against the changing needs of each organization. The details of the range of activities will depend on the industry, organization, and capacities of the individual playing the role.

Critical Operational Issues

While strategic issues aim the company in the right direction, operational issues pertain to the efficient use of resources. When operational execution falters, no strategic planning can remedy the problem. Operations means everyone is working together quickly, in rapid coordination, delivering extraordinary performance while innovating continually. Extraordinary operations are about extraordinary execution.

The Operational Issues need careful attention to ensure that Deal Gen moves from a concept of the business in the business plan to a nuts and bolts view of the plan that ensures that Deal Gen can actually perform every day to the highest standards.

Operational rollout is usually most difficult because there are a thousand little things that have to come together in the right sequence. Coordination and communications are essential. Too often start-up companies do not have a careful roll-out plan that causes failure and frustration, along with lost time and money.

Most projects, especially start-ups, come in horribly over budget and over schedule. Breakdowns are the norm, unless seasoned managers are involved. In many respects, the operations plan is like a complex piece of machinery that must have all components properly integrated to make the system work.

This checklist may be helpful in Program Planning and Management to identify key issues for the Workshop Program delivery.

Specifications & Requirements from Stakeholders

• Time Lines, Critical Paths,
• Key Deliverables,
• Critical Risks & Factors for Success,
• Branding Issues,
• Core Processes,
• Measures of Success Win-Win,
• Performance Expectations,
• Clarity about Value to be delivered,

Measures of Success

• Alignment of Goals & Objectives,
• Roles & Responsibilities,
• Resource Allocations,
• Contingencies & Backup Planning,
• Final Budget,
• Communications messaging,
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
• Web Enablement
• Process Map for Delivering the Service

Human Resources Issues

• Recruitment
• Training Materials
• Advancement and Career Opportunity
• Educational Credits
• Rewards for Completing the Program
• HR Metrics for Success

Critical Cultural Issues

Often overlooked is the importance of communicating central messages about collaborative culture. This issue is so important to success, but seems invisible. Great companies have great cultures which enable them to withstand the blows of adversity and rise to great heights with changing times. As IBM’s Lou Gerstner said of his highly successful turnaround effort:

“I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game – it is the game. In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value.”

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Course Manual 11: Process Performance Review

There are three levels of Review and Evaluation that occur during this Program:

1) The Steering Committee will establish Key Performance Indicators and Evaluation Methodologies – Each Client company will most likely have its own KPIs for its own industry and culture. The Steering Committee will be convening monthly to assimilate information and feedback from the Participant Practitioners (Students) and the Stakeholders (Sponsors) to gauge the impact of the program. On an Annual basis, the Steering Committee will conduct an Annual Review, surveying the Participants and Stakeholders to assess the Program Impact.

2) The Participant Practitioners will be providing feedback at the end of each Workshop. We request the Pilot Clients work with us to create a common evaluation form. This will help us isolate if achievements or difficulties are local or universal.

3) The Coach/Facilitator and Learning Provider will confer at least monthly to share insights, achievements, problems, and adjustments needed. Collaborative Excellence, is, by its nature, an Executive Education Programs. It’s focus is on teaching participants how to lead in a particular way. The Practitioner must be the first to realize the value: “Did I think better? Do better? Did others benefit from what changed?” Additionally, those who are being led in the vein of Collaborative Excellence must have had a similar positive experience. Did they go to the next level too?

Perceptions alone are insufficient to validate the value of the Program. Results must be measurable in a way that “proves” the value. In other words, there must be ROI. We believe the Action-Learning framework in Collaborative Excellence begins to address the weakness of many expensive Executive Education programs: the inability to track the results of skill-based training, and quantify how that training affects the business’ big picture. The effects of this program can be tested and the value assessed.

Today, practitioners are facing major business challenges that must be addressed adroitly. Having a gaping hole in their mindsets or skillsets asking for mediocrity or failure. At the end of the year, the value of the program must be linked into both the company, the team, and the individual.

We suggest three different forms of Metrics:

1. Success Metrics
2. Collaboration Metrics
3. Performance Metrics

Success Metrics must be established at the outset of the Program. These metrics must connect directly to the Client company’s strategy, purpose, competitive advantage and results expected. Secondly, success must link to and align with the corporate culture, specifically a company’s foundational organizational values

Collaboration Metrics must be tied to Health Diagnostics. Some examples of Collaboration Metrics include:

• Level of Trust
• Quality of Teamwork
• Rewards for Collaborative Behavior
• Employee Engagement
• Shared Rewards for Joint Effort
• Establishment of Cross Functional / Cross Boundary Teams
• Ideas Exchanged Across Boundaries
• Speed of Joint Decision-Making & Problem-Solving
• All Collaboration Metrics should be jointly developed between Client Leaders and Coaching Team

Performance Metrics must be tied to Success Metrics, Collaboration Metrics, and Reward Metrics.

Some examples of Performance Metrics include:

• Results and Outcomes (not effort expended)
• Goal formulation Interim metrics of Milestones Achieved toward Goals
• On-Time, On-Budget, On-Target Project Delivery
• Response to Breakdowns and Unexpected Obstacles
• Breakthroughs Achieved
• Speed of Problem Solving & Speed of Achievement
• Productivity & Reduction of Non-Value Added Work
• Innovation Development & Innovation Flow

All Performance Metrics should be jointly developed between Client Leaders and the Learning Provider.

Create an Empowering Measurement System

Be sure to design a measurement system that truly empowers the manifestation of great results. This may seem like a strange statement at first glance. However, there is a great deal of truth to the adage, “You get what you measure.” Therefore, when designing the measurement system, focus on key leading indicators and measurable actions that enhance results, synergistic actions, and innovation, which in turn will trigger exceptional results.

While each initiative will have its own unique performance measurement system, there will be common elements based on a foundation of four key measurement quadrants: Strategy, Financials, Operations, and Relationship. Strategy and Financials are outcomes that correspond to how you define “winning” or “success.” Operations and Relationships are leading indicators that measure activities or attributes that contribute to future success. While Strategy and Financial measures will tell you how well your organization is performing, Operations and Relationship measures give you insight into how to achieve success. These are the levers of the engine that help you optimize for future performance.

Relationship health addresses the organization’s ability to perform based on the “soft” issues and relationship dynamics, such as trust, human energy, and well-being. Relationship health is measured through a Health Diagnostic, or “Health Check,” which is discussed next.

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Course Manual 12: Health Diagnostics

Health diagnostics are an important measure of relationship health. By monitoring the health of an organizational system, we can determine if there are early warning signs of distress and take action with ample lead time to prevent serious difficulties.

Performance Metrics give a clear view of whether an organization is performing and how well, but not always why performance is what it is. A well-constructed diagnostic goes beyond the metrics and scorecards and discovers root causes – why something is or is not working and probes the reasons why. It will also reveal the bright spots, which gives managers an opportunity to leverage what is working and to exploit what might be a competitive advantage. Overall performance can be optimized and companies can better leverage their investment.

Today, organizations are inherently dynamic vehicles, because the strategic environment in which they exist is perpetually changing. What’s more, people in the organization will rotate in and out, and the operational elements that deliver value will be under competitive pressures. This means the basis for the organizational internal alignments can change, and this will cause the leaders to continually adjust aspects of the organization – what is called “dynamic realignment.” Failure to make these adjustments can be catastrophic, and could rapidly make the organization obsolete. Just look at what happened to venerable names like Motorola or Nokia, giants one day and gone quickly thereafter.

Transformation is a competitive necessity; consider transformation and innovation to be mutually interactive aspects of evolutionary adaptation and resilience. Resilient organizations that are sufficiently flexible to continually adapt, transform, and innovate have much greater chances of longevity. Wherever there are risks, there are bound to be anxieties and often conflicts.

The Health Check is closely interwoven with a system’s ability to engage in the key elements of adaptation: transformation and innovation.

Purpose and Goals of Health Check

• Ensure successful adaptation to changing strategic, operational, and cultural drivers

• Provide early indications people are capable of leading or adapting to a change that might be forthcoming

• Ensure proactive (not reactive) responses to change

• Sustain competitive advantage during all adaptations and transformations

• Maintain strong executive support for change

• Ensure effective leadership during all times of transition with Win-Win, high-trust relationships to underpin future changes and challenges

• Development of new Value Propositions that embraces a bold new future

• Willingness to bring in new people and alliance partners that have the necessary competencies to make successful overtures and forays into new realms

Only Conduct a Survey If You Intend to Make Changes

A survey of peoples’ opinions will create expectations for change. Be sure to provide feedback of survey findings, then follow up with an action-planning workshop to engage both sides of the alliance in constructive changes. Many organizations use a neutral third party to perform the diagnostics and then conduct a workshop to ensure objectivity

The Health Check not only identifies where and why the organization is functioning well on human factors, but also significantly increases long-term sustainability and reduces the risks of future investments.

Types of Diagnostics Instruments: The two most common diagnostic tools are surveys and interviews. Each has its pros and cons.

• Surveys (usually done over the internet now) are fast, relatively inexpensive, and can create excellent baseline benchmarks for trending. Experience has shown that individuals will provide a better level of information via a strictly confidential internet survey than written questionnaires. As a quantitative instrument, surveys lack the ability to gain deep insight into critical organizational issues.

• Interviews can derive rich information, are interactive, and, when done by a skilled interviewer (who knows the industry, its context and nuances) can provide deep insight into issues, motives, and solutions. However, interviews can take a long time to set up, compile, and analyze, thereby becoming costly due to the high labor expense. (We have also observed that many interviewers are hired because of interviewing skills, but often they lack an understanding of both company’s pressures, competitive position, and the specific industry, thus missing many of the nuances of their subjects.)

After years of using both methodologies, we have found that high stakes organizations can best be served by the right combination of the two approaches: a set of 4-5 telephone interviews with key leaders coupled with an internet based survey reaching to the far corners of the world into the depths of the organization. This hybrid approach is both economical and effective.

Diagnostic Tool Usage

The diagnostic process can be introduced at the very outset of beginning to build high trust relationships as a way of establishing a set of visions, ideals, and opportunities. In fact, it can be viewed as part of the benefits associated with working with your company. As an organization, you care enough for the vision and relationship that you feel it is important to implement a strategic positioning/base line survey at the outset. Such a survey can be targeted to either different business or employee segments.

As the Collaborative Excellence Program progresses, you can use the survey to understand how well different phases of the collaborative systems architecture have been implemented, much like “instant polling” during the transition phase. This could provide insightful information to correct issues before they become a major impediment to success.

Once the Program is underway, the survey process can serve as an Early Warning System to identify emerging problems before they get out of hand, particularly those that might be happening in isolated areas of the organization where your people are not directly connected.

In addition to understanding whether the “in process- measurements” are being achieved, the Diagnostic tool can be customized to address output-related information to determine whether you are achieving stated financial goals. Using a survey, coupled with interviews and analysis, you will be able to assess qualitative levels of expectation that are agreed upon at the outset of an agreement, draw quantitative, statistically supportable conclusions about the alliance performance, and address issues of concern in a timely manner.

In conclusion, diagnostics are an essential component of any Collaborative Excellence Program. Diagnostics can assess a great variety of issues, from organizational health, readiness for action, capabilities to perform, or to trigger collaborative innovation. With a commitment to follow-up action, diagnostics provide a strong return on every dollar invested.

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Workshop Exercises

Collaborative Imperative Exercises

01. The Systems Design Architecture: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
02. Our Methodology & Approach to Capability Building: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
03. Establishing the Compelling Rationale: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
04. Readiness for the Collaborative Paradigm Shift: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
05. Socio-Technical Systems Innovation: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
06. Addressing Resistance to Change: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
07. How Collaboration Leverages Resources: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
08. Human Resource Advantages & Impacts: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
09. Launching the Collaborative Excellence Initiative: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
10. Process Communications: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
11. Process Performance Review: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?
12. Health Diagnostics: Explain in your own words how this process will directly impact upon your department?

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SWOT & MOST Analysis Exercises

01. Undertake a detailed SWOT Analysis in order to identify your department’s internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats in relation to each of the 12 Collaborative Imperative processes featured above. Undertake this task together with your department’s stakeholders in order to encourage collaborative evaluation.

02. Develop a detailed MOST Analysis in order to establish your department’s: Mission; Objectives; Strategies and Tasks in relation to Collaborative Imperative. Undertake this task together with all of your department’s stakeholders in order to encourage collaborative evaluation.

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Project Studies

Project Study (Part 1) – Customer Service

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Collaborative Excellence process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. The Systems Design Architecture
02. Our Methodology & Approach to Capability Building
03. Establishing the Compelling Rationale
04. Readiness for the Collaborative Paradigm Shift
05. Socio-Technical Systems Innovation
06. Addressing Resistance to Change
07. How Collaboration Leverages Resources
08. Human Resource Advantages & Impacts
09. Launching the Collaborative Excellence Initiative
10. Process Communications
11. Process Performance Review
12. Health Diagnostics

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 2) – E-Business

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Collaborative Excellence process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. The Systems Design Architecture
02. Our Methodology & Approach to Capability Building
03. Establishing the Compelling Rationale
04. Readiness for the Collaborative Paradigm Shift
05. Socio-Technical Systems Innovation
06. Addressing Resistance to Change
07. How Collaboration Leverages Resources
08. Human Resource Advantages & Impacts
09. Launching the Collaborative Excellence Initiative
10. Process Communications
11. Process Performance Review
12. Health Diagnostics

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 3) – Finance

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Collaborative Excellence process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. The Systems Design Architecture
02. Our Methodology & Approach to Capability Building
03. Establishing the Compelling Rationale
04. Readiness for the Collaborative Paradigm Shift
05. Socio-Technical Systems Innovation
06. Addressing Resistance to Change
07. How Collaboration Leverages Resources
08. Human Resource Advantages & Impacts
09. Launching the Collaborative Excellence Initiative
10. Process Communications
11. Process Performance Review
12. Health Diagnostics

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 4) – Globalization

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Collaborative Excellence process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. The Systems Design Architecture
02. Our Methodology & Approach to Capability Building
03. Establishing the Compelling Rationale
04. Readiness for the Collaborative Paradigm Shift
05. Socio-Technical Systems Innovation
06. Addressing Resistance to Change
07. How Collaboration Leverages Resources
08. Human Resource Advantages & Impacts
09. Launching the Collaborative Excellence Initiative
10. Process Communications
11. Process Performance Review
12. Health Diagnostics

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 5) – Human Resources

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Collaborative Excellence process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. The Systems Design Architecture
02. Our Methodology & Approach to Capability Building
03. Establishing the Compelling Rationale
04. Readiness for the Collaborative Paradigm Shift
05. Socio-Technical Systems Innovation
06. Addressing Resistance to Change
07. How Collaboration Leverages Resources
08. Human Resource Advantages & Impacts
09. Launching the Collaborative Excellence Initiative
10. Process Communications
11. Process Performance Review
12. Health Diagnostics

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 6) – Information Technology

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Collaborative Excellence process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. The Systems Design Architecture
02. Our Methodology & Approach to Capability Building
03. Establishing the Compelling Rationale
04. Readiness for the Collaborative Paradigm Shift
05. Socio-Technical Systems Innovation
06. Addressing Resistance to Change
07. How Collaboration Leverages Resources
08. Human Resource Advantages & Impacts
09. Launching the Collaborative Excellence Initiative
10. Process Communications
11. Process Performance Review
12. Health Diagnostics

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 7) – Legal

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Collaborative Excellence process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. The Systems Design Architecture
02. Our Methodology & Approach to Capability Building
03. Establishing the Compelling Rationale
04. Readiness for the Collaborative Paradigm Shift
05. Socio-Technical Systems Innovation
06. Addressing Resistance to Change
07. How Collaboration Leverages Resources
08. Human Resource Advantages & Impacts
09. Launching the Collaborative Excellence Initiative
10. Process Communications
11. Process Performance Review
12. Health Diagnostics

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 8) – Management

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Collaborative Excellence process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. The Systems Design Architecture
02. Our Methodology & Approach to Capability Building
03. Establishing the Compelling Rationale
04. Readiness for the Collaborative Paradigm Shift
05. Socio-Technical Systems Innovation
06. Addressing Resistance to Change
07. How Collaboration Leverages Resources
08. Human Resource Advantages & Impacts
09. Launching the Collaborative Excellence Initiative
10. Process Communications
11. Process Performance Review
12. Health Diagnostics

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 9) – Marketing

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Collaborative Excellence process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. The Systems Design Architecture
02. Our Methodology & Approach to Capability Building
03. Establishing the Compelling Rationale
04. Readiness for the Collaborative Paradigm Shift
05. Socio-Technical Systems Innovation
06. Addressing Resistance to Change
07. How Collaboration Leverages Resources
08. Human Resource Advantages & Impacts
09. Launching the Collaborative Excellence Initiative
10. Process Communications
11. Process Performance Review
12. Health Diagnostics

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 10) – Production

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Collaborative Excellence process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. The Systems Design Architecture
02. Our Methodology & Approach to Capability Building
03. Establishing the Compelling Rationale
04. Readiness for the Collaborative Paradigm Shift
05. Socio-Technical Systems Innovation
06. Addressing Resistance to Change
07. How Collaboration Leverages Resources
08. Human Resource Advantages & Impacts
09. Launching the Collaborative Excellence Initiative
10. Process Communications
11. Process Performance Review
12. Health Diagnostics

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 11) – Logistics

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Collaborative Excellence process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. The Systems Design Architecture
02. Our Methodology & Approach to Capability Building
03. Establishing the Compelling Rationale
04. Readiness for the Collaborative Paradigm Shift
05. Socio-Technical Systems Innovation
06. Addressing Resistance to Change
07. How Collaboration Leverages Resources
08. Human Resource Advantages & Impacts
09. Launching the Collaborative Excellence Initiative
10. Process Communications
11. Process Performance Review
12. Health Diagnostics

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 12) – Education

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Collaborative Excellence process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. The Systems Design Architecture
02. Our Methodology & Approach to Capability Building
03. Establishing the Compelling Rationale
04. Readiness for the Collaborative Paradigm Shift
05. Socio-Technical Systems Innovation
06. Addressing Resistance to Change
07. How Collaboration Leverages Resources
08. Human Resource Advantages & Impacts
09. Launching the Collaborative Excellence Initiative
10. Process Communications
11. Process Performance Review
12. Health Diagnostics

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Program Benefits