Prepare for the challenges your company faces today and tomorrow by developing your skills as an expert manager

• Develop an understanding of the core and current management frameworks, theories, and tools and assess their relevance to the issues of twenty-first-century leading and managing
• Increase awareness of different perspectives on, and approaches to, managing and leading in different organizational and cultural contexts
• Develop the ability to engage critically with management frameworks, theories, and tools by helping to select and adapt techniques and approaches appropriate to different management contexts
• Develop awareness of the wider global context in which business and management take place, and increase the ability to work confidently across sectoral and national boundaries
• Develop interpersonal and conceptual skills that will help to use ideas and frameworks to make sense of, and work with, organizational complexity
• Challenge thinking and practice by reflecting upon it critically in the light of the ideas you encounter, and through debates with others
• Enhance the ability to plan and implement change which will have a real impact within your organizational context

Recommended background

The program is targeted primarily at people with preferably five years’ experience managing people and aiming to move into more senior roles. 

What you will learn

This course gives you a thorough grounding in management concepts and principles, from management context and practice to improving performance, project management, and managing change.

Course format

The program is a mixture of theory and practice. Throughout the program, participants will perform numerous exercises that will enable them to practice their management skills

Day 1: Managing and Managing People

Managing and managing people will introduce you to the world of management. We will be looking at a range of topics, including what managers do, what skills they require, and how you can develop as a manager.

After studying this module, participants will be able to:

• understand what is meant by management and managerial effectiveness
• identify the roles which are fulfilled while working as a manager
• identify managerial activities that contribute to managerial effectiveness
• identify a cause of stress in managerial life from a range covering mismatches between capabilities and role, player-manager tension and everyday stressors
• understand time pressures and the need for time management.

Day 2: Management: perspective and practice

In this module, you will be studying different ways to think about understanding organisations and approaches to managing the people who work within them. The theories and models in this module look at the organisational context (the ‘organisation’, the ‘context’ and the ‘wider environment’) and help you to begin to answer the question:

How does my organisation context and environment affect my management practice?

This module is comprised of:

• Exploring ideas, Understanding organisations and Organisational culture
• discussing ways that organisational theorists have characterised organisational structures and cultures, the impact of different national cultures on organisational practice and ways in which managers might make sense of these
• a short pre-reading activity asking you to think about a problem/opportunity situation in your own context, to see how these theories and models are both relevant and irrelevant to your own management practice.
• Creative problem solving
• developing your skills in creative problem solving by learning some techniques based on systems theory
• learning how to use case studies and their analysis to better understand and apply the ideas you are studying.
• Making connections: thinking more closely about your organisation’s culture and how you can use metaphors to better understand the way organisations work

Day 3 morning: The importance of Interpersonal skills

To succeed in management, you need good interpersonal skills, you need to understand how to deal with other people. The importance of interpersonal skills will help you gain an awareness of your own skills and understand that an awareness of the interpersonal skills of others can help us enormously in dealing with the work tasks we are responsible for.

After this module participants will be able to:

• recognise the importance of interpersonal skills
• describe how good communication with others can influence our working relationships
• outline the roles we play in our work groups and teams

Day 3 morning: Making Decisions

Do you hate making decisions? Does the ability of others to make snap decisions frustrate you? This module will help you understand some of the processes involved in decision-making. Attention to the psychology of decision-making and the social context in which decisions are made can improve your understanding of others and yourself.

After this module, participants will be able to:

• have greater insight into decision-making processes
• use that insight to make more effective decisions
• possess a range of different perspectives on what counts as an ‘effective’ decision
• be better equipped to understand and influence the decision-making processes of other individuals and groups
• understand better how people perceive and decide about risk.

Day 3 afternoon: Creativity and Innovation

This module offers an introduction to factors that are important in creativity and innovation at work. It addresses different ideas about the cause of creativity and some key approaches to innovation in organisations.

After the module, participants will be able to:

• understand the roles of skill, experience, motivation and culture in creative endeavours
• appreciate how the perspective taken on creativity affects the policy used to engender it
• differentiate between radical and incremental innovation
• identify some potential disruptive innovations and take advantage of ‘open’ innovation
• reflect on experiences of creativity and innovation at work.

• This course has been exactly what I needed for my new role! It's been insightful, interesting and largely impactful. I'd recommend it for anyone who needs to understand management in the 21st Century and profitability in a world with changing dynamics.
• A very unique perspective and analysis of the pros and cons of some of the long-standing management frameworks. A detailed discussion of some of the pitfalls of these frameworks what to be on the lookout for to avoid some common mistakes and how to build on these frameworks for successful management policy
• This was a fantastic course. Before taking this course I had no idea of the concepts surrounding strategy management. Now I have learned a great deal.
• The instructor is very engaging, articulate, and captivating! This course offers a very high-level view and understanding of strategy and how businesses come up with them.