We ‘co-produce' each program with the client's learning, organizational development and human resources professionals. It is inherent in the nature of our co-producing a custom program that it will be unique to the sponsoring organization. This starts with our understanding the client's business, challenges and competency requirements and proceeds with our developing a close relationship through each phase of work - Organizational Needs Analysis, Custom Program Design, and Onsite or Online Program Delivery. We partner with you to create and deliver programs that address your expectations of post-program behavior and performance and that further participants' execution of your company's business strategy.

Organizational Needs Analysis

The first phase of the process is to conduct an organizational needs analysis. This starts with developing an understanding of the company's business strategy, its organizational strengths and weaknesses, and the particular competencies to be developed within a target population of executives. For publicly traded companies, we conduct our own research on the client, its businesses, financial performance, competitors and industry challenges. After executing a Confidentiality Agreement, we review internal documents the client shares with us, such as the mission statement, strategic objectives, internal assessments of prospective program participants, and other information to put the intended program within its organizational culture and business context. Finally, we will conduct face-to-face interviews with C-suite executives, unit heads, directors of human resources, learning and organizational development staff, and a sampling of prospective program participants. After we review the results of our needs analysis, we will share the data with our key contacts at the client and fill-in any gaps, such as political sensitivities, hidden agendas and other understandings not elsewhere obtainable. In the cases of family-controlled enterprises, we will also utilize psychological assessments to identify personal and family dynamics that can impact the transfer of business responsibilities to the next generation of family members.

Custom Program Design

The second phase of the process is to develop a preliminary custom program design based upon the aforementioned information. We then share that preliminary design with our key contacts at the client to get their feedback and additional input in order to ensure that we leverage both internal and external resources. Once we together ‘tweak' the preliminary design, we flesh out the program design in more detail, including: descriptions of each content area; learning methodologies; recommended faculty; pre-program work; instruments and assessments; business cases; action-learning exercises; the basis of evaluation; inter-module projects; and production of participants' materials and binders. We also offer the option of having a professional case writer prepare a business case about your company. This can be a particularly powerful learning tool that can be utilized within your organization beyond the confines of a particular management development program.

Pilot Program and Global Program Rollout

The third phase of the process - especially for programs with multiple deliveries in different global venues - is to deliver a Pilot Program to test deliverables against participants' expectations. For programs to be delivered online through your IT platform, we coordinate with your IT Department to ensure adequate bandwidth to enable you to scale your online programs for high numbers of participants. We recommend Pilot Programs be populated with a cross-functional / cross-regional group of participants who can provide a wider array of perspectives in the evaluations. Once all program details are fine-tuned, the program is rolled-out with full confidence that each delivery is achieving the program's objectives with each group of participants. After each delivery, we will ask participants to complete a questionnaire and discuss the feedback with the client, making any refinements that may be jointly agreed as useful for subsequent program deliveries.