Paul D. Leinwand

Strategic Decisions: A Guide to Making Winning Choices (STRT-960-5)

This course reviews the critical strategic decisions senior leaders must make to secure competitive advantage. We will discuss real-world examples to challenge traditional strategy development and will introduce a practical strategy framework which focuses on the power of capabilities. This framework enables CEOs to develop a differentiated strategy that is grounded in the idea that to thrive organizations must be "great at something," particularly in disruptive environments. Because of its emphasis on capabilities, this approach to strategy leads to effective execution more often than other frameworks. You will work through many cases to gain perspective on how senior executives from winning companies make their strategic decisions through this lens. You will hear the real stories that provide context to these difficult decisions and get an inside view of how these strategies are executed.

Strategy and Renewal in Established Nonprofits (STRT-931-5)

The longest-lived organizations in the world are nonprofits; consider for example, universities and churches. Within the US, there are close to two million nonprofit organizations, accounting for an estimated 5.5% of GDP and 6.5% of the workforce. Throughout the last century, nonprofit organizations have played a critical role in delivering needed human services, promoting the arts and humanities, and fostering education, debate and dialogue about core issues within society. Given their distinct market structure and funding models, these mission-focused organizations face a unique set of challenges in adapting to changing social and economic conditions and assuring their financial health and longevity. The focus of this class will be on strategy and governance within large, established, self-standing nonprofits, i.e., those that have survived beyond their founder generation, formalized their staff and board structures, and grown to a sustainable, operating scale of $50 million on more. The course will focus on nonprofits in human services, the arts, and education that typically operate at a local or regional level, drawing many of our examples from the Chicago and New York metropolitan markets as exemplars. We will also include organizations that have affiliate/franchise operating models (e.g., Boys and Girls Clubs, Junior Achievement, Feeding America) that are 90+% funded at the local operating level. We will study the overall structure of the nonprofit sector, the predictable cycles of decline and renewal that characterize entities in this space, and the strategic and governance mechanisms required to sustain vitality and relevance over decades. Note: With just five sessions of content, this course will not attempt to meaningfully address the management of large-scale, nonprofit, divisional and group-divisional models in education (e.g., large universities and school systems), religion (e.g., the US or global Presbyterian or Catholic Church), or healthcare (e.g., nursing homes, hospitals, and hospital systems).