General Information
Instructors
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Target Audience
Students who are global citizens and leaders and want to be equipped with the tools and frameworks to lead through uncertainty. This course is for those who are looking to gain a deeper understanding of the management consulting profession and develop the necessary skills and experiences to help clients succeed.
Course Description
“I don’t know where I’m going, but I know exactly how to get there.”
Boyd Varty, A Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life.
In this course, we believe that uncertainty brings opportunity, and the course material seeks to introduce critical concepts and frameworks to help leaders lay the foundation to achieve this mindset. We will then apply these concepts to two real-world consumer organizations in the apparel and cannabis consumer space. Student teams will be asked to select one of their two organizations as their “client”. C-suite leaders from these organizations will participate in the course who are leading organizations facing global market forces for growth. The class will also host Deloitte’s Global Chief Economists who advises the global business community to assist students in shaping scenarios. Finally, student teams will also be assigned senior mentors from the business community to help guide the teams and give feedback as you debate, discuss, and collaborate on identifying real world scenarios.
From the global pandemic to global trade wars and regional societal unrest ranging from Europe to US and Asia, business leaders are grappling with how to manage uncertainty as they execute their strategic imperatives. The ongoing volatility in the market can often feel it is never ending, which can make leaders feel worn down and exhausted from the constant change which seemingly happens on a daily and weekly basis.
Social, economic and political uncertainty is here to stay and is a new reality for all leaders, regardless of industry, location or area of expertise. More and more, leaders of human capital and talent organizations will need to grapple with workforce burnout and the “great resignation”; supply chain leaders will need to grapple with a globally inter-connected supply chain whereby global events create gridlock; strategists will need to consider the tension between strategy and agility; and finally, CEOs will need to consider how they drive growth for their organizations.
For some, uncertainty is viewed as a series of extraneous forces that happen to them and therefore hinders their ability to grow. For more sophisticated organizations, there is an inherent understanding that the exponential and rippling uncertainty we see across the globe presents opportunity and accelerates action. The latter requires leadership to be agile and resilient.
How do leaders manage through uncertainty and build resilience into their organization?
This mindset shift assists executive teams in not only managing uncertainty within their organizations but also helps leaders navigate and chart a more defined growth destination for the enterprise.
In this course, you will explore
- How to understand and synthesize an organization’s strategy;
- Frameworks and approaches to identify and scope uncertainty;
- The mindset shift required to embrace uncertainty and align an organization around key growth scenarios to which they can rally around;
- Structuring and shaping specific political, social and economic scenarios based on degrees of uncertainty and persistence of change;
- Identifying risks and opportunities and shaping these opportunities into tangible strategies to be considered by your C-suite client;
- How to “Make A Case” to a real world C-suite client via solid well thought through management consulting PowerPoint storyboards and compelling presentations.
Course Mission
Students will be able to achieve the following learning outcomes for this course:
- Learn how resilient organizations establish resilient leadership and identify and shape complex real world scenarios;
- Learn how to evaluate extensive amount of information and synthesize into scenarios;
- Gain exposure to real world C-suite executives who face uncertainty on a daily basis;
- Learn how to work with real world business mentors, who will act as sounding boards for your growth thesis;
- Gain experience in presenting a compelling case to a broader audience and to a C-suite client;
- Gain experience in tackling a real world management consulting client problem
Course Scope
Through a combination of lectures, featured guest presentations, discussion, Q&A sessions and group exercises, you will experience a Management Consulting client assignment. Tackling a client “problem” in Management consulting requires a multi-dimensional skillset. Students will be asked to begin the course by identifying their leadership style via an online tool entitled Business Chemistry. This course is designed to equip students with leadership skills required for any executive role. In this course, your leadership will be further enhanced by:
- Understanding how to identify strengths of each team member and harness those talents in the project via a Business Chemistry framework;
- Collaborating in teams and incorporate diversity of thought into debate, discussions and in your key deliverables;
- Meeting diverse guest lecturers who are making an impact in their respective industries.
- Guest speakers are a combination of industry executives and speakers from the professional services and private equity community:
- Global chief economists in Canada and from around the world who advise C-suite on the changing geopolitical, social and economic shifts.
- CXO executives from the consumer industry
- Senior Partners and practitioners from global professional services firms, who specialize in financial due diligence, operational due diligence and value creation.
- Senior strategy leaders, such as Bill Marquard, Managing Director, Deloitte US who have entered new markets and grappled with scenario development to enter new markets and build a resilient organization – https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/profiles/bill-marquard.html
- Industry specialists will be invited to speak in the areas of consumer markets and technology to deepen the student’s industry analysis
Evaluation and Grade Distribution
| Component | Delivery | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Team Collaboration (teams to evaluate each other) | Online | 40% |
| Group Presentation & PowerPoint deck | Online | 60% |
Required Resources
Various resources as assigned.
Experiential Course Limit
There are limits to the number of RSM27XX range courses that students may take for credit toward their degree. Please refer to the Experiential/International Course Eligibility Specifics and Limits section on the RO website for all details.
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