Strategic Thinking

Course: Strategic Thinking: Building innovative network-level strategies
Instructor: Dr Ing. Martijn Rademakers*

Course Objective:
• To gain an understanding of conflicting schools of thought on corporate and network strategy issues
• Gain insights into the assumptions, possibilities and limitations of different theories and beliefs
• Creatively combine opposite views on corporate and network strategy
• Attain a critical, analytical, flexible and creative mindset that challenges organizational industry and national paradigms and problem‐solving recipes in the field of strategy.

Course Description:
Organizations operate in an increasingly complex and competitive environment. Leaders face the challenge to guide their organizations towards sustainable success. Given the importance adhered to value creation through creativity, the strategy sessions will not be about applying standard recipes. By contrast, participants will be expected to challenge and question received wisdom, and exhibit unconventional thinking. Topics that will be covered include:

• Making sense of the Mission‐Vision‐Strategy ‘trinity’;
• How specific should strategies be to secure implementation?
• How do successful leaders think when it comes to strategy?
• Network‐level strategy: balancing competition and cooperation

The sessions will be based on a mixture of plenary discussions of concepts, theories, and examples, and group work on business cases. Leading philosophy is that understanding both practice and theory, and acquiring the skill to apply one to the other, enhances participants’ strategic creativity at the fullest. Class discussions are aimed to arrive at insights applicable in practical situations.

*Instructors may vary