General Information
Instructors
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- Leadership and Change Management (r)
- Social Impact & Sustainability (c)
Description
Professors Rick Powers and David Beatty will be offering the TMP course on-line this Fall with entry limited to 40 students. Each Tuesday the class will run from 13:45 until 15:45 – two hours.
As much as possible, both Rick & David will be in each ZOOM class so there will be a lot of action and interest as they frequently comment upon each other’s materials. So, we anticipate a lot of dynamism to keep you involved. And you can also send us your comments on the chat feature.
The subject matters to be taught won’t change (see last year’s course outline attached at the end of this memo.) And the marking won’t change (also in the outline).
As we will have 40 students, Rick will take responsibility for 20 students and so will David. The 20 students in each “section” will form 4 teams of 5 students each and they will stay together all term.
David & Rick will be able to supplement the formal class teaching hours with individual ZOOM team meetings. This contact will mean a closer linkage to the class members than was possible previously.
All of the visiting CEOs, and we would hope to have 12 to 15 again this year, will be on ZOOM and that might just prove to be more fascinating than the classroom with 60 people in it. We will be able to stockpile questions as we go along and pitch them to our CEOS in the last 15 minutes of each encounter.
What we won’t be able to have is the dinner at David’s house with Issy Sharp the founder of the Four Seasons Hotel chain.
The special startup company we studied last year, SoClean, continues to progress but there have been some speed bumps on their road. This year we will study GEOTAB, a telematics startup company in Oakville that has grown into the world’s leading vehicle tracking company – you can get a feel for it at www.geotab.com. The founder and CEO, Neil Cawse, will be with us frequently – this will be an amazing learning experience!
Rick & David have already been teaching online in the Directors Education Program so will be no strangers to the medium.
But it will be different than previous years.
The two of us believe that the differences will be positive on balance and we look forward to welcoming you to the TMP version 2020.
Target Audience
The course should be of interest to future consultants, general managers, investment analysts and entrepreneurs. The course demands a lot of work outside the boundaries of text books and lectures so it is not for everyone.
Format
Online Synchronous.
Course Mission
The objectives of this course are to make you a better decision maker by:
- Making you think logically and teaching you to communicate in a clear, memorable and compelling way
- Developing your understanding of the theory and concepts of strategic management in complex business organizations
- Providing you with a set of practical analytical tools to enhance your strategic skills
- Building your self-confidence as a decision maker at the most senior managerial level
Course Scope
This is a course designed to make you a better strategic decision maker and to integrate all the skills you have acquired in your career and at the RSM.
The course is built on some high level frameworks, such as LogicWorks, that enhance your capacity to reason logically, to identify effective solutions and to learn continuously from your own experiences.
The course works with practical tools and techniques such as momentum analysis, Porter’s 5 forces, core competence, the GE/McKinsey 9-box and others. These tools and the exercises designed to make them useful will assist you in making real world, real time decisions in complex business environments.
The course perspective is that of the CEO of large, global businesses as well as smaller entrepreneurial start-ups. Companies studied in the past include Four Seasons, Gildan, CAE, Loblaws as well as Longslice Brewery, Dick Duff’s Inc. Organic Jerky, Open Door Productions and Mobile Klinik.
Students will be required to develop insights from the provided readings (Annual Reports and Analysts’ Reports) and from their own independent investigations. There are no boundaries. Each day’s newspapers may add further dimensions to the course.
If you are prepared for hard work, aggressive thinking and insightful reflection about yourself this course may well transform your career trajectory.
We supplement the “in class” work with visits to or from CEOs often in their corporate boardroom. These exchanges are normally held from 07:30am until 08:4am and require full business dress. We ask the CEOs to talk about:
- Themselves: background and career trajectory.
- Current job as CEO – almost nothing can prepare you for the responsibility of being the top boss.
- Advice for you as you set out upon the next stage of your career.
Evaluation and Grade Distribution
| Component | Weight |
|---|---|
| Participation In-Class and Externally (Individual) | 20% |
| In-Class Case Presentations (Group) | 40% |
| Final Paper (Individual) | 40% |
Please note that this course has both graded and ungraded work. You should not sign up for the course if you are not prepared to commit fully to the work. To give you a sense of the expectations, here is what the weekly workload consisted of in 2020:
Attend “coffee with….” sessions with CEOs. It is expected that you show up for all of these 12 -15 sessions. After each session, within 24 hours you must submit a journal entry for each guest speaker. At the term’s conclusion, you will be asked to summarize your key “take-aways” from these “coffee with…” sessions.
Thoroughly prepare the case and any readings for each week.
Prepare a short presentation every week on the case, using a framework to be provided. Each group gets to present at least once.
Enrolment in this course is limited and very competitive. If you are not sure you are willing or able to do the work, please let someone else join the class who is.
Required Resources
The readings will be drawn from Corporate Annual Reports, Investment Analysts’ Reports and selected HBR articles on relevant topics.
Students will also be required to develop their own information sources from interviews, literature searches or company/industry reviews.
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