Advanced Business Leadership (ABL) Experience

Program Description

This 5 1/2 day, interactive experience is a unique program designed for CEOs, C-Suite Executives and high-potential managers. Held in a retreat setting near the Great Smoky Mountains, participants interact with peers both in the classroom and in informal gatherings. A number of exceptional enhancements are included in this package.

Seven Modules, covering the key elements of management excellence are presented in depth. We identify current behaviors and present affirmations or modifications of the behavioral practices necessary to succeed as a manager or leader. Behaviors that characterize high-achieving managers and significantly distinguish them from their less-achieving colleagues are presented. These Behavioral philosophies and practices are based on major research efforts involving over 16,000 managers.

 

The ABLE experience was developed using classic validated theories of human behavior, including the models of McGregor, Rosenthal, Maslow, Herzberg, McClelland, Lewin, Blake & Mouton, Luft & Ingham, Hall, and others. This experience provides unique insights that enable managers to be more effective. We are gratified that many participants refer to this program as the “turning point” in their careers.

Number of Participants: 10-18

Duration: 5-1/2 Days (46 hours)

Off-Site Seminar: Lodging and meals included in investment

Target Audience: CEO’s, C-Suite Executives, Senior Leaders, High-Potential managers

Enhancements for 2012 seminars:

1. Comprehensive self-assessment and coaching debrief. Assessment measures 20 scales, including Thinking Styles, Behavior Traits and Occupational Interests.
2. 360-degree feedback assessment and coaching session. Feedback assessments measures 8 major areas and 18 sub-areas.

Click on information on these modules:

Module 1:	Management Values
Module 2:	Employee Involvement
Module 3:	Communication
Module 4:	Work Motivation
Module 5:	Empowerment
Module 6:	Group Decision-Making
Module 7:	Management/Leadership Styles

Public Seminar Schedule

 

Program Objectives

1. To identify managers’ personal ideas about managerial effectiveness – the “best way” to make decisions, how “best” to communicate, motivate, etc.;
2. To introduce and experiment with validated behavioral science models of personal and organizational effectiveness;
3. To compare these personal ideas and behavioral science models so that participants will have access to data-based insights into current and potential effectiveness;
4. To provide opportunities for managers’ self-appraisal of their practices from a behavioral science perspective;
5. To link the seminar experience to the “real world” and to “real people” via co-worker appraisals of managers’ practices;
6. To present a broad base of behavioral science thought so that managers may come to understand and make enlightened choices about their personal interactions.

Beginning the Process

ABLE is the beginning of a management enhancement process; initiated by the individual and ended only when that person decides to go no further. The process begins when participants complete learning instruments and 360° feedback prior to the seminar.

 

Co-worker materials provide feedback to the participant when examined and placed in context during the seminar. Data from the workplace makes the learning have real meaning because it is to the workplace that these participants will return to apply the process and test its utility. It is this “linkage” between the seminar and the “real world” that enables participants to really apply what they learn. This linkage also significantly distinguishes Teleometrics’ programs from most other management training and development programs available today.

Awareness Precedes Choice

Managers’ assumptions dictate their practices. The way leaders/managers think about and plan, the actions they see as desirable and feasible, all stem from their personal “theories” of management. This seminar creates conditions under which participants become aware of these personal theories and of their impact on others – as well as of alternative theories they might use. Such awareness becomes the basis for making enlightened choices, among identified options, in managerial or leadership behavior.

 

Group Problem Solving

The group is the basic vehicle for learning in the seminar experience. Unlike learning designs that focus solely on the group, recognizing personal identity is explored in this experience. Our program design recognizes that groups and organizations are composed of individuals, each of whom has different needs, resources, and preferences. Emphasizing the creative use of individual resources strenghtens the group and increases organizational effectiveness . Group problem-solving therefore, is a major part of the Advanced Business Leadership Experience.

 

Structured Process

Seminar activities never occur randomly or in a vacuum. Using unique, specially designed work booklets, videos, and validated personal feedback instruments, each group session is presented within an appropriate structure. Participants are often unaware of certain aspects of learning at the time they occur, and the structure allows them to discover, recall and learn from these otherwise elusive dynamics.

 

Organizational Dynamics

The dynamics that characterize small group work mirror the dynamics of organizational life. Participants may study, at close range, under more systematic and less anxiety-producing conditions, the cause-and-effect relationships underlying both the effectiveness and the ineffectiveness of organizational systems. For example, how often do people seem committed to decisions and then fail to follow that commitment with affirmative action? Or, why do some people seem to distrust any kind of group action while others revel in committee meetings?

Understanding one’s group in the experience setting provides the framework for understanding the real life systems of the workplace.

 

Linkage: Revealing the Real World

Co-worker materials, sent to the participants before the seminar, provide much needed, but difficult to obtain, feedback data from one’s work associates. These linkage materials inject realism into the seminar that is unmatched in other programs. Simultaneously, they provide the mechanism for transferring seminar learning back to the real world of work. These materials are the basis for back-home discussion and greatly assist the leader/manager in applying the seminar learning within the organization.

 

Synthesis

Many programs concern themselves with a single behavioral theory or model, as if it covered the entire spectrum of managerial and organizational issues. A more comprehensive approach, however, is designed into the Advanced Business Leadership Experience.

There are several models that apply to the process of managing and to the effectiveness of organizations. The work of Drs. McGregor, Rosenthal, Maslow, Herzberg, Blake & Mouton, McClelland, Luft & Ingham, and Hall are explored. These models address the nature of people in the workplace. Because it is possible to explain these models in terms of one another,
it greatly expands a participant’s grasp of each of the individual models – and their interrelationship. This process of synthesizing is unique to ABLE and enables the leader/manager to understand his or her own behavior and the behavior of others in the organization.

2015 Public Seminar Schedule

To be announced