Advanced Management Program: Prepare for the Highest Level of Leadership

• Understand the role innovation plays as organizations evolve and leadership's role in shaping transformation and change
• Drive the strategic alignment of organizational structures, systems, competencies, and culture for successful outcomes
• Overcome the unique challenges of open innovation and digital transformation
• Deliver short-term results while working toward longer-term innovation
• Explore how leadership renewal is linked to organizational renewal

• Learn how digitization, mobile, AI, and social media forces are disrupting the consumer landscape, and how to capitalize on that disruption
• Leverage core marketing principles to create, communicate, and deliver customer and brand value at all stages of the product life cycle
• Continually fine-tune strategies to remain relevant and address shifting market conditions
• Use pricing strategies to effectively capture and maximize value
• Recognize changing customer needs and innovate new products and services to meet them

• Responsibly handle situations that involve competing responsibilities, serious legal issues, factual uncertainties, aggressive or hostile stakeholders, and intense time pressure
• Understand the different stakeholders and shareholder interests involved in many CEO and C-suite managerial decisions
• Clearly define the specific economic, legal, and ethical responsibilities you and your company have to investors, customers, employees, and society
• Use your understanding of responsibilities to resolve "gray area" problems in practical, effective ways

• Understand how digital transformation and artificial intelligence (AI) impact operating and business models
• Maximize new opportunities for digital value creation and capture
• Address the common strategic, operational, and cognitive challenges of digital transformation and AI
• Establish a framework for understanding the digitally transformed world and developing strategies and tactics for shaping your business environment
• Understand the broader digital transformation implications impacting the labor force and society at large

• Develop a comprehensive framework for driving organizational performance
• Create a winning culture, drive sustained financial results, promote personal accountability, and manage risks
• Facilitate effective governance among top executives, boards of directors, and investors
• Understand the interplay between boards and capital markets
• Balance creating short-term accountability with fostering a long-term orientation

• Understand the behavioral factors that affect decision-making, ethics, and negotiations
• Create an organizational architecture that leads to better decision-making for yourself, employees, and key stakeholders
• Engage in a series of real-world simulations, with feedback on your own behavior, to test your analytic ability and tactical skills and to experiment with new ideas
• Learn a negotiation framework that will help you analyze, prepare for, and execute negotiations more systematically and effectively
• Gain techniques for mitigating your weaknesses and leveraging your strengths

• Increase self-awareness through introspection and feedback from peers and coaches
• Gain clarity about your values, motivations, and leadership purpose
• Lead and live with greater mindfulness and intentionality
• Participate more fully in group discussions and learn how to "deeply listen" to peers
• Empower and inspire others by communicating authentically

• Gain a conceptual framework and techniques for understanding and analyzing financial issues
• Assess the financial health of your business through the three pillars of financial performance: profitability, liquidity, and financial structure
• Understand your critical role in company valuation
• Analyze opportunities for adding value to the organization
• Evaluate the risks of your decisions in an uncertain and turbulent environment

• Dissect your firm's external environment to understand how external factors combine to shape the overarching competitive environment
• Evaluate the patterns that distinguish highly profitable industries
• Manage the relationship between the competitive strategy of a business unit and the corporate strategy of an enterprise
• Think holistically about your environment, your firm, and your own role as a leader
• Take strategic actions to position your firm for future success in an environment experiencing profound transformation

• Understand the trends driving globalization
• Accurately assess regional business environments and growth trajectories
• Analyze a country's economic performance, social and political context, institutional strengths and weaknesses, and government strategy
• Identify and anticipate policy barriers (and incentives) to doing business and the potential impact of a country's accounting, fiscal, investment, and innovation policies
• Make competitive decisions that consider and address country differences

Both program formats provide the time and support you need to build trusting relationships with a group of peers outside your organization who not only can understand your challenges, but also can provide objective feedback. Each day, you will gain new insights by:

• Collaborating with executives who span industries, countries, and cultures
• Considering diverse perspectives during case discussions and assignments
• Contributing to small group exercises and projects as part of a team
• Giving and receiving confidential feedback in a safe environment

You will assess your personal leadership strengths and weaknesses through a 360-degree leadership and personality assessment.

Our distinctive coaching method is highly integrated into the program to accelerate both individual and team growth. You and your peers will meet with your professional HBS executive coach to accelerate the living group process. Your coach will also help you assess your personal leadership strengths and gaps through one-on-one sessions—one focused on your 360-degree leadership and personality assessment at the start of the program and another focused on your reentry strategy following the program. All coaching sessions are strictly confidential, giving you the freedom to share your personal goals and professional challenges.

Throughout the program you will work on developing a personal case. Your personal case will involve building a comprehensive strategy and implementation plan that will address a personal leadership challenge or strategic opportunity facing your organization. As you develop your personal case, the faculty, your living group, and your HBS Executive Coach will deliver feedback that will help you fine-tune your action plan.

Members of the Advanced Management Program faculty are often available to meet with you one-on-one and provide new perspectives on your business challenges.

You will have exclusive access to unparalleled resources that you can use to extend your learning, investigate topics of personal and professional importance, and identify new learning objectives.

• Research Assistance – Take advantage of exclusive access to research specialists from the Baker Library/Bloomberg Center, the world's largest business archives. These experts will help you navigate the vast library collections and use your time effectively.
• Harvard ManageMentor® – This self-directed learning resource includes 44 modules that address critical management issues and empower you to build, broaden, and refresh your leadership skills.

During a three-day break midway through the program, we will invite your family members or guests to participate in an optional two-day, on-campus program that includes special class sessions, social gatherings, and children's activities. If you prefer, you can use the time to travel home or explore New England.