UCD: Making a difference to companies and countries

The new Diploma in Advanced Management Performance at the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School is aimed at helping companies gain a competitive advantage through the implementation of the best management practices and the latest strategies.

"There is increasing research evidence that the competitiveness of economies is directly linked to the quality of management," says Pat Gibbons, academic director at UCD Executive Education. "And it's not surprising that if good management can make a difference to companies it will also make a difference to countries – that's the background to this new programme."

The programme is mainly aimed at people who may have moved into a new role on senior management or who wish to brush up on their existing skills and knowledge. “It is very much targeted at people with experience,” Gibbons points out. “By this I mean with five to six years experience of senior management as an absolute minimum. Managers who have received training in the past can update this with the latest thinking, while others can use it to help them in a new role and to focus on achieving growth for their organisations over the longer term.”

Delivered in separate modules over six weekends – Fridays and Saturdays – the programme seeks to help participants gain a comprehensive understanding of how their organisations function and give them the knowledge and skills to apply to the specific challenges and goals they face in their own working lives.

The first module deals with leading strategic growth. “This explores participants’ personal approach to strategic leadership through which through organisation can enhance performance and strengthen capabilities for sustainable, long-term growth,” says Gibbons. “This module will demonstrate how to apply tools and techniques to manage business growth and assist in creating strategic road maps for growth, innovation and profitability.”

The second model is centred on the Smurfit School’s acknowledged strengths in marketing. It emphasises the need for managers in every function and at each level to understand the key marketing challenges facing their organisation.

Shift in focus
"Evidence from the marketplace is that firms who are driven by the market and who integrate marketing with their overall strategy, grow more and achieve higher profits," Gibbons points out. "This module will enhance understanding of the essentials of marketing while acknowledging the wider strategic perspective."

Creating adaptive organisations is the focus of the next module. According to Gibbons, all business processes from across the value chain need to be completely integrated and mutually supportive if organisations are to remain competitive. This shift in focus has enabled organisations to attain new levels of competitive advantage by viewing the entire organisation as a system of interacting processes and aligning them to the corporate strategy.

“We take a practical approach enabling participants to align their own corporate strategies with a well-designed business architecture. It will support the transformation of organisations and provide a road map for continued improvement and enhanced strategic flexibility.”

The course then moves onto the culture of organisations. “We want to move away from fear and compliance and towards something a bit more dynamic. There is a need to contextualise leadership in order to nurture what I call a ‘human organisation’ – establishing and sustaining a high performance culture, leading change and creating high engagement work practices to support long-term business goals.”

The module will also will explore the effect of team dynamics on goal achievement and develop effective conflict resolution strategies, with participants learning to understand the importance of managing others in order to make an impact at a personal, team and strategic levels.

Business profitability is the topic of the fifth module, but it is aimed at more than just an understanding of the pure financial aspects of the business. “It will help gain an understating of the financial consequences of commercial and all other business-related decisions and to interpret financial data in a strategic manner as well as what lies behind the information.”

The final module moves outside of the organisational areas and looks at the personal impact and presence of the individual participants. “The importance of personal impact and the ability of leaders to communicate authentically cannot be overestimated,” Gibbons contends. “Exceptional leaders influence their companies as well as the people around them. We will look at the experiences and passions that inform leadership: self-awareness, values, ethics and standards, life balance and leadership through purpose.”

One of the most important aspects of the programme is that it is not solely classroom based. “After each module participants have to take two or three key lessons and apply them to their own organisation and see how they can be of benefit and analyse what the barriers to their application might be.

“In one of our other programmes we focused a lot on senior management teams and their decision-making processes. That resulted in one of the participants going back to their company and mapping out how they made decisions. What he found was a completely dysfunctional process where the two or three loudest voices around the table effectively held sway with everyone else being excluded. As a result the company was able to put in place processes to enhance decision-making; we are hoping that similar things will happen as a result of the Diploma in Advance Management Performance.”

Change the culture
Ultimately, he is hoping that the course will enable the participants to help design the organisations which will be competitive in four or five years' time. "In a rapidly changing environment it is only the most innovative organisations which will survive and this requires the right culture. People are motivated if they believe they are contributing to progress on an important task. If they think what happens today is the same as what's going to happen tomorrow and that their contribution is not valued the whole organisation will suffer. The programme will help equip managers with the skills they need to change the culture when that is required and to create the most effective organisation for the future."

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