Business Acumen Training Grows Competitive Advantage in Lexington, KY
High Performance through Business Acumen and Strategic Thinking Development in the Lexington area
Effective business acumen is a competency that alludes many leadership teams. Even though senior executives understand the importance of business and financial acumen and its role in driving growth, companies find developing business acumen to be an ambiguous task. As a "given" competency, one that is simply expected, and one that many leaders believe they already possess, companies fall short of their goals because they fail to actively assess and develop their team's "business savvy" competency.
Develop your organization's or company's (or business units) strategic plan and cultivate greater business acumen within your team with our strategic planning and alignment program. Learn more here or call us at 281-469-4244.
Who would benefit from the training?
TurnKey Coaching & Development Solutions’ customized Business Acumen & Strategic Thinking for Managers programs combine learning with real work projects to produce strategic solutions while developing your team’s business and commercial acumen. The training focuses upon developing strategic thinking and planning competency, strategic agility, financial and business acumen and more through a customized, business simulation competition experience.
Alternatively, our data-driven strategic alignment program builds business acumen while fostering alignment and commitment to a common vision. We also have a unique strategic alignment (similar to strategic planning) workshop that uses research-backed tools to drive out leadership’s priorities and the path forward, while cultivating a unified vision and business acumen. For more on our Strategic Growth Consulting and X-Ray program, please visit here.
As the cohort works collaboratively, through real business problems, the program improves your managers and/or HiPos’ leadership, collaboration, and teamwork skills. We believe it’s better than business simulation competition for your team, as all of the projects are selected to specifically solve company identified challenges.
An effective leadership development program includes competency development opportunities in three areas - Leading Self, Leading Others, and Leading in Business.
Our business strategy simulation and business acumen program can be optioned alone, or as part of a more comprehensive approach to leadership development. When optioned as part of a builds upon foundational competency development including interpersonal effectiveness and managing and motivating a team, for example. Our comprehensive leadership development program builds over time through phase 1 (leading self), phase 2 (leading others) and finally, phase 3 (leading in business).
How does it work?
Our Leading in Business Training focuses on Business Acumen Skills through experiential learning opportunities (better than business simulation training), customized cohort work projects, the collaboration between peers and mentors, business case development and capstone project presentations (a la Shark Tank presentations).
Note: Our programs are facilitated on or off-site for organizations. We do not offer public seminars at this time. While we have speakers and trainers that are available to facilitate and speak at public engagements, we do not offer public seminars.
Objectives
The learning objectives for the program include:
Organizational
- Strategic human resource development
- Align development with the Mission, Vision, and Values
- Increased competency
- Business competency development designed to impact the bottom-line
- Team projects with tangible strategic impact on the business
- Direct observational opportunities between executives, board members, and high-potential employees in support of future leader identification and succession planning
- Development aligned with strategic priorities
At the Cohort Level
- Encourage participants to routinize the sharing of best management practices
- Expose leaders to cross-functional problem solving with minimal risk to the business
- Build alliances across functions that can develop into concrete linkages for future collaboration
- Healthy competition and collaboration, a la “Shark Tank” type challenge and capstone projects
At the Individual Level
The program delivers a business simulation experience with real-work projects for a holistic and immersive, active-learning program. Participant learning objectives include:
- Develop strategic and critical thinking skills
- Develop quality decision-making skills
- Learn how to make a business case
- Gain an understanding of all areas of a business’ operations
- Ensure foundational confidence in financial analysis competency
- Comprehend the importance of strategic agility
- Build financial acumen and budgeting skills
- Develop the ability to ask questions that generate new thinking and solutions
- Set effective team goals
- Practice negotiation and influence skills
- Develop insight into the interconnectedness of business functions and operations
- Collaborate with their team to establish plans
- Presentation skills development
- Evaluate and Improve work processes
- Align organizational systems
- Engage in systems thinking and a continuous improvement focus
- Develop risk management skills
- Understand the builder mindset vs. the protector mindset
In 2012, the Society for Human Resource Management surveyed Human Resources Professionals and asked what the four most critical business competencies would be in 10 years. Those surveyed believed the most critical competencies were Business Acumen (42%), Organizational Leadership and Navigation (40%), Relationship Management (37%), and Communication (35%).
According to the survey, business acumen was the most highly rated competency required for business success. Yet, business acumen is like the synchronized swimming of business, as a fringe skillset, it's complex and so much more than just business knowledge. Anyone can get in a pool and dance. But the art of synchronizing all movements in perfect unison with teammates - that's what opened Olympia's gates for a sport on the fringe. Business acumen is often ignored in development programs, mostly because it's hard to pinpoint, let alone to develop.
Business acumen is the ability to assimilate functional knowledge with the what, how, and why of business. For example, a leader may be quite astute in the disciplines of finance and accounting, but less competent at evaluating how the nuances of external and internal factors inform astute financial decisions. A CFO who only knows "tighten the belt" will never understand the builder mindset required for business growth. Likewise, a CEO who only understands - grow at all cost, will never understand the protector mindset required for business sustainability.
When / Important Logistics / Important facts for ensuring success
Our immersive, business strategy simulation and business simulation competition program leverages active-learning and real-work projects for an effective and results-oriented learning experience.
What are the logistics and delivery formats of the program?
Our programs are infinitely flexible. Each component is custom-designed around your organizational goals and budget. Programs are available in a variety of formats, including:
- Lunch and learns / Brown-bag learning opportunities
- 90-minute to half-day introductory sessions
- Comprehensive programs include full-day to multi-day active-learning training events
- Development programs (moving employees from skills knowledge to high-performance requires more change and accountability components) typically include a variety of learning events over a period of 12 to 24 months
- In-Person, on or off-site programs are typically the most effective
- Virtual, Instructor-Led training is also available
What are the components of the program?
We find that each company or non-profit organization will have very specific goals, budgets, and logistical requirements. Thus, we will not insist on a routine approach. However, we can share that our most effective business-simulation and acumen corporate development programs include:
- Stakeholder interviews to uncover the organization's goals
- Management consulting in support of well-considered and selected work projects (capstone projects)
- Coaching focused on business-case development related to the company's selected work projects
- Cohort groups collaborate on real work-projects and prepare business cases
- Presentations to the executive team or board of directors
- The program finale is a fun, engaging and competitive Shark Tank*-like presentation to the company's internal "investors";
- Workshops designed using active-learning and adult-learning principles
- Training agenda is focused on business, financial, and commercial acumen and is tailored for the industry and specific to your organization (i.e. private/public/non-profit/governmental entity)
- Optimal programs include a series of training events. For example, we recommend multi-day, and/or full-day training sessions and bi-monthly half-day sessions focused on the business acumen topics, plus group coaching, internal mentor support, practice presentation sessions, and one-on-one coaching, as needed.
- The group coaching is an essential component as each cohort group works with an experienced management consultant and executive coach to build their business cases with relevant feedback and constructive criticism in support of a dynamite presentation at the conclusion of the program.
- Internally facilitated project meetings to ensure accountability and cross-functional teamwork.
- Internal mentors serve as in-house experts and are provided well-defined rules of engagement that ensure fairness across all teams. Tip: Mentors cannot do the work!
- The final business case presentations culminate in a memorable and exciting conclusion and celebration.
Here's a sample time-line of events for our best-practice approach to the training:
Business Acumen is not simply knowing how to read the numbers, but being able to interpret the numbers to make sound business decisions aligned with company goals. Similarly, it's one thing to know the score of a basketball game, and quite another to understand each player's strengths and weaknesses, the statistics, and environmental factors the coaches study to inform their strategy.
Asking the questions, "How do we cut costs?" or "How do we increase sales?" is not enough. Business acumen helps employees understand they must dig deeper and take into consideration the potential impact of decisions and actions. There's an acute awareness that every decision impacts performance. Organizations need managers that are capable of sizing up problems while seeing the bigger picture and thus, marry decisions to the organizational goals. Unfortunately, business acumen is not an inherent skill, nor is it a trait consistently imparted with an MBA, as skilled leaders gain business savvy through practice, application and real-world experience. With the pace of change quickening, companies must proactively develop employees' business sense, instead of patiently hoping their team will gain the skill over time. To address this concern, many organizations have integrated financial literacy and business acumen as managerial competency requirements and offer management development curriculum that instills these skills.
One aspect of Business Acumen is financial literacy, but as indicated above, it is not simply knowing how to read the numbers, but being able to interpret and think strategically about how the numbers inform the business. Financial acumen, one of a handful of business discernment skills taught in a good business acumen training program, is the skill set of knowing how to read a balance sheet, profit, and loss statements and financial projections to make sound business decisions. However, it's also balancing the goal of profitability (fund-raising or cost management for nonprofits / governmental entities) with the company's strategic priorities and organizational values. Thus, there's more to reading a financial statement than meets the untrained eye. Skipping to the profit line is not enough to qualify as sufficient critical thinking. When a leader has spent time developing thinking skills, they are better equipped to formulate strategies that will positively affect the long term viability of the organization.
The Training Problem
We know that a one size fits all approach to training employees doesn't work. This is particularly true for developing Business Acumen. We will be the first to advocate for coaching and training, as the benefits are well-documented and undisputed. However, for strategic thinking, financial acumen, and some of the more advanced thinking and analytical skills, an effective program may also include:
- A change management and accountability approach
- Real work-projects provide immediate opportunities to apply the skills learned in the training sessions
- Real-world business simulation-style training
- Subject matter experts to inform and mentor participants
- A practical approach for learning about lateral and vertical thinking models
- Top-down support to foster real buy-in to the program
- Accountability check-points ensure engagement and prioritized attention
- Performance management protocols and oversight
- Quality assurance measures
- Coaching to foster integration and skill practice
- Peer-to-peer interaction to maximize learning retention and develop additional learning opportunities
For our business acumen development program we customize our proven curriculum for relevance and alignment with your business, industry and strategic priorities. Each program is designed to actively engage participants in rich learning experiences and adult-learning best practices.
NOTE: We do not have public training events. While our programs are available for groups only, we do have individual, one-on-one coaching programs for individuals seeking business acumen coaching. Please inquire.
Please also see more information on our customized leadership development options:
Have questions? We have answers. Please also read our Strategic Thinking & Business Acumen Training Frequently Asked Questions here, for the details on our Business Acumen Training and Capstone Project development programs.
Leaders at all levels need a high level of business acumen to be able to efficiently perform their jobs. Every day, they make decisions about employees, projects, processes, expenditures, customers and much more — decisions that ultimately roll up into larger organizational results. Managers who make these decisions through a myopic lens will fall short of operational excellence at best and damage a company at worst. On the other hand, managers who can think strategically and make quality decisions using sound business acumen significantly bolster a company's profitability and long-term viability.
Make sure to also check out TurnKey's other services in the city: executive coaching programs, corporate leadership development, leadership team development, programs for emerging leaders and high potentials, Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team programs, business retreats, and strategic planning consultations.
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Disclaimer:
* Shark-Tank-Like: we are not associated in any way with the television show. We think it’s an awesome show and use the verbiage “shark-tank-like” because it accurately describes how our final capstone, business simulation competition, and business strategy simulation presentations are experienced by our clients. SHARK TANK is a trademark of Sony Pictures Television Inc. and is not associated in any way with this company or program.
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