Operational Best Practices Course
A Practical Way to Invest in the Future Leaders of your Business
Every organization has young leaders who have the potential to have an outsized impact on the future of their business.
However, very few managers know how to invest in those leaders to maximize that impact. And because of this, many of those young leaders are leaving for other opportunities.
I’ve spent the last three decades building teams of hundreds of employees, with tens of millions of dollars in operating budgets – and have consistently found that investing in young leaders is one of the highest leverage things that any company can do. And yet very few companies make it a real priority or do it well.
As a result of building these teams, I’ve codified a series of practical, repeatable business skills that I work on with every young leader. None of these are rocket science, but I’m always surprised by how transformative they can be to these young leaders when someone takes the time to invest in them and give them concrete tools that help them in their actual work.
Over the last dozen years, I’ve started sharing these ideas with CEO’s, business leaders, and young executives outside my organization. I’ve found it deeply fulfilling to get reports of the impact of these ideas on these businesses. As part of this process, I’ve now organized these skills into the Operational Best Practices Course and decided to offer it to 3-4 organizations a year.
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David Delk, former President and CEO of Man in the Mirror and Executive Pastor, Grace Church, upstate South CarolinaItem description
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It’s simple – to train young executive and operational leaders in practical, tangible business skills that will make them more effective in your organization. No consulting jargon, just hard-earned, hands-on lessons on how to be more effective.
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We cover 20 concrete skills in ten 90-minute sessions. The ideal plan is to do two sessions per month. Each participant also has an individual one-hour meeting per every two class sessions to talk through any questions they have as well as to get practical about how they are applying the skills to their job.
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I find that these ideas make the most impact on leaders between 25 and 35 years old who have received one or more promotions (older participants are welcome, especially if they have been newly promoted to management roles). It’s helpful if they are actively managing people and solving real problems. The ideal group size is four to six, with an upper limit of eight.
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A detailed list, with descriptions and sample presentations, is provided on request.
How to Lead A Meeting
How to Handle Criticism
The Power of a One-Page Draft
The Necessity of One-Person Accountability
The Power of Systems
The Theory of Constraints
The Power of Culture
The Shadow Side of Strengths
How to Fire Someone
Bullying with the Large Stack (pressing your unique market advantages)
How to Have a Difficult Conversation
The Power of Communication
The Importance of Failing Quickly
Good Enough vs. The Best
Types of Decision-Making
The Power of Personal Relationships
Designer-Developer-Maintainer: Understanding Personality within Teams
The Importance of Self-Awareness
The Power of Priorities
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I currently only have capacity to partner with 3-4 companies each year, so it’s important to me that we ensure it’s a good fit. If you’d like, I’m happy to host a workshop with a group of your young leaders to give you and them a taste of what the full course will be like, free of charge. These workshops typically last 75 minutes, and work well for groups of up to 8 leaders (with additional observers welcome).
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The cost for the first four participants is $3,500 per participant. For participants five through eight, the cost is $2,500 per participant.