Session A: Understanding the Link Between Personality, Performance & Potential                            

Kevin D. Asbjörnson
Managing Director & Global Executive Coach                                                     

One of the key benefits of the SMU ExD-EXCEL Leadership Programme is the personal insights into leadership challenges that accompany career growth and career transitions into regional, global or senior positions.  Participants in EXCEL Leadership Programme complete the Hogan LEAD Survey, which is one of the leading, global five-factor personality assessments which identifies strengths, values, motivations and opportunities for development  of each participant, based upon the actual personality of each participant.

Hogan LEAD Survey summarizes the identity and predictive reputation of each participant, based upon 50 years of longitudinal research with thousands of emerging, high-potential and C-level leaders from around the world.  The Hogan LEAD Survey also offers information regarding the characteristics, competencies, and values that underlie how a leader approaches work, leadership, and interaction with others in the workplace.

Each participant report is compared against the Hogan global normative database, which provides a global qualitative assessment of comparison for participants interested in promotion to regional, global or senior roles within their organization.  Each EXCEL participant, is partnered with an Executive Coach, accredited in the Hogan LEAD Survey,  during the programme and after the programme to reinforce the insights, learnings and applications from the Hogan LEAD Survey to their individual development and career goals. 

Mr. Asbjörnson will facilitate an interactive conversation on this topic based upon fifty years of global research at Hogan Assessments and his 20 years of experience as a Facilitator & Global Executive Coach, working with Asian and global emerging, high-potential and C-level leaders.

The EXCEL Leadership Programme will be taking place on 16 to 20 May 2016.

Session B: Leadershift - The Next Evolution of Leadership                                      

Tanvi Gautam
Programme Director, Diversity and Inclusion
Singapore Management University Executive Development                          

Most tools, mental models and leadership styles that are used in organizations today represent a legacy system which desperately needs an upgrade. While it is fancy to talk of leading in a VUCA world, the answers to what leaders need to do differently is not explored nearly as much. In this session, Dr. Tanvi Gautam, Winner of the Game changer award by Workforce Magazine (USA) will be sharing her latest insights on the D.A.S.H board of future ready leaders. If you are ready to reinvent the way you lead your people and your customers then this is the session for you.  

The main question the session will seek to answer is - how can leaders lead for influence and impact in a VUCA world ? Be ready to leave with actionable insights and ideas that you can start working on right away from this fast paced session with a faculty who was awarded the Change leaders of tomorrow award by the Asian Thought leadership conference.

In this session, Tanvi will be giving you a preview to a new programme "LeaderShift", which will be taking place in April 2016 (dates TBC).

Session C: The Implementation Challenge Keynote                                               

Robin Speculand
C.E.O Bridges Business Consultancy
International Strategy Implementation Specialist

You have created the strategy and now you have to implement it. You have to go from discussing it with only the top leaders to sharing it with the whole organization and giving people direction. Strategy is about making the tough choices; implementation is about taking the right actions.

Stewards of Strategy

Leaders don’t implement strategy; people do. Leaders are responsible for crafting the strategy and overseeing its implementation. They are the stewards of the strategy. They must engage and support the people, communicate the strategy, align it to the culture, identify the right measures, change the processes and constantly review the strategy and its implementation.

Structural Framework

Many leaders struggle with implementation, for these reasons: Because they underestimate the challenge, because they become distracted with chasing quarterly results, or because they have no structure to guide them.

The Implementation Compass™ provides that structure while highlighting the eight areas required for Excellence in Execution. It is based on research from companies that have successfully implemented their strategy and client experience. Specifically, the Implementation Compass™ directs leaders on how to implement and ensure everyone involved is taking the right actions.

 The Presentation

This straight-talking, hard-hitting, highly engaging presentation is invaluable to company leaders who want to successfully achieve Excellence in Execution and avoid the common pitfalls. It explores:

• Why strategy implementation is one of the hottest leadership topics today
• What it takes to execute strategy using the Implementation Compass™ framework
• How leaders can identify the right actions and take them
• How to galvanize the workforce into action beyond coffee mugs and t-shirts
• What works and what doesn’t work to successfully implement strategy

In this session, Robin will be giving you a preview on the Programme "Excellence at Strategic Execution and Change" which will be taking place on 28 to 31 March 2016.

Session D: Negotiation: Best Practices and Superior Capabilities

Dr. Michael Benoliel
Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour & Human Resources (Practice)                                                   
Singapore Management University

Unlike marketing, research and development, and logistics, negotiation is not yet recognized as a factor critical to the success of an organization. It remains a discrete, unstructured, sporadic, and in some cases, improvised event that often goes unrecorded and rarely analyzed in the post-deal stage. Thus, organizations miss opportunities to create significant negotiation value by not making negotiation a core organizational competency.In this session, Michael Benoliel will share with you:

• His research on some of the best practices of world-class master negotiators.
• The evaluation process of negotiation capability.
• How to build an effective negotiation eco-system.

This session helps business leaders recognize the value of superior negotiation skills and how to create a supportive negotiation ecosystem and also gives you a preview of our "Advanced Negotiation Strategies" programme which takes place on 21 to 22 March 2016.

Session E: The Board Member’s Guide to Digital Media                               

Dr. Michael Netzley
Academic Director
Singapore Management University Executive Development                                                                                          

Few developments have reshaped the business landscape like digitization and social networks.  While advice is abundant for marketing managers and sales, how can a board member think about digital developments?  What are the risks and rewards of developing the online segments of your business?  To answer these questions, Prof. Netzley will walk through the growth of networked societies and discuss digital media within the contexts of B-2-C, B-2-B, and innovation. Audience members will then be asked to think what these insights mean for their business, whether that is an MNC or SME.

In this session, Dr Netzley will be giving you a preview of a six-module programme "Executive Skills for Board Members in Challenging Times".

Session F: Coaching Essentials for Future Leaders

Mike Hughes

Managing Director and Executive Coach                                                                                                                        
Progress-U

Mr Mike Hughes, one of the coaching pioneers in Asia will be describing why coaching becomes an increasingly important approach for any organisation what are the best executive coaching practices. In this session, you will also find out how progressive companies leverage the power of coaching for higher engagement and talent retention and why an increasing number of senior leaders recognize the importance of developing coaching proficiency themselves. The session gives you a preview on the "Leadership Coaching" & "International Corporate Coaching" Programmes.