Executive Management Program

The Executive Management Program provides a framework for making strategic decisions that impact your organization.  Specifically, the program prepares you to identify changing patterns within your competitive environment, formulate and implement growth strategies, align processes for organizational effectiveness, and lead successfully in complex situations. It holistically integrates the knowledge, vision, and processes required of the senior executive to set business objectives and achieve results.

In a design built to help you weather the stress of economic shifts, the content focus is on innovation as a tool for generating creative solutions to difficult problems.

This program is for seasoned executives with significant management experience who make strategic decisions at the corporate or division level.  It is designed to benefit those who wish to broaden their strategic perspective and leadership effectiveness, and those positioning themselves for promotion into top roles.

Note to Government Professionals: This program fulfills much of the Executive Core Qualifications (ECQ) required for Senior Executive Service.

Penn State is also on the 2009 approved list of providers of executive training for the Navy’s Civil Engineer Corps.

The Executive Management Program is conducted in a uniquely interactive environment. You will work with our best and most experienced faculty--two of whom have been named Top 10 leadership coaches--to apply concepts and tools to real challenges you face. As a result you will:

• develop a broad global perspective,
• acquire deep strategic insights,
• understand the impact of corporate culture on organizational transformation, and
• build networks and resources to achieve personal and organizational goals.

Plus, you will engage with other successful executives to expand and challenge your own perspectives.  You will return to your responsibilities with greater clarity and direction that can immediately impact your organization.

 “Excellent program - exceeded my expectations in every way. I came to learn about growth strategy, especially implementation ideas, and I got them. . . .[The program leaders] were terrific and went out of their way to maximize our overall experience.”

The intent of the Executive Management Program is to maximize your personal and professional development.  Our learning  approach is to provide frameworks and tools that, when combined with your experience and expertise, will enable you to more quickly identify what is happening in your business and what actions to take. The program is carefully designed to take you through a logical thought process that elevates you from your current level of understanding and ability to a higher level of expertise. We use three techniques to help you personalize this learning:

• First, faculty leaders present topics that reflect how companies work, discuss how these concepts are being applied in organizations around the world, and discuss with you how they apply to your situation. Faculty draw upon their consulting and real-world experience, as well as personal research and academic perspective.
• Second, to analyze your current environment using real data, you will use two assessment tools (overall organizational assessment and personal leadership assessment) to gather information on yourself and others in your organization. One, unique to Penn State, is the Strategy, Leadership, Culture Questionnaire (SLCQ), a simple but powerful process that measures 18 critical dimensions of organizational effectiveness.  Feedback from the instrument and coaching by the faculty provide important personal and organizational insight that, when combined with new perspectives and tools, form the basis of real change. Learn more here. (with link to http://www.smeal.psu.edu/psep/documents/SLCQ.pdf)
• Third, the applicability discussions are a focal component in sessions. We occasionally use cases as a way to bring out the concepts, but unlike the approach of the majority of other school, we are not case-driven. You will leave with a well-developed perspective on your business and an action plan for your leadership role in it.

Major content areas include:

Business Growth

• Understanding the life cycle of organizations
• Assessing market opportunity
• Developing compelling market strategy
• Defining and designing competitive business architecture
• Developing a global business strategy
• Using organizational networks for market success
• Understanding and using innovation for sustained competitive advantage
• Evaluating IT trends and opportunities

Operational Effectiveness

• Market valuation and driving shareholder value
• Aligning core capabilities with competitive strategy
• Measuring value creation
• Maximizing supply and value chains
• Assessing culture, climate, and influence for organizational alignment
• Implementing innovation as a collaborative process
• Building a succession planning program

Leadership Competency

• Communicating, leading, and managing organizational change
• Driving strategy implementation and execution
• Tapping creativity in search of innovation
• Managing in networked organizations
• Developing a portfolio of leadership styles

This program also includes optional individual coaching sessions. You will have the opportunity to cover in-depth your 360 feedback reports and hone your leadership style and personal effectiveness.

“The program was very well designed, with enough activities to keep us occupied but also with enough free time to allow us to explore and really enjoy our various differences in experience. The way things are organized allowed us to absorb as much as possible. Very well run and presented.”

Directors

Virginia M. Tucker, Associate Professor of Business  and Senior Executive Education Consultant, The Smeal College of Business,
Penn State 

Leaders

Joseph L. Cavinato, Professor of Supply Chain Management at Thunderbird; and Executive Director, Institute for Supply Management's Center for Strategic Supply Leadership

Duane "Andy" Gustafson, Assistant Professor and Director of the Managerial Communication Program, the Smeal College of Business, Penn State

Robert Macy, Assistant Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship, The Smeal College of Business, Penn State

Craig M. McAllaster, Professor of Management and Dean of The Crummer School, Rollins College

Steven Sawyer, Associate Professor of IST, Syracuse University               

William Rothwell, Professor of Workforce Education, College of Education, Penn State

Albert A. Vicere,Executive Education Professor of Strategic Leadership, The Smeal College of Business, Penn State

Rockney Walters, Professor of Marketing, Indiana University

Randy Woolridge,Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Frank P. Smeal Endowed University Professor of Finance, The Smeal College of Business, Penn State