Leeds University Executive Education Program

Managing in the Midst of Deep Uncertainty

World Class Empowerment

The University of Leeds is a top-ranked UK University and a member of the prestigious Russell Group of research-intensive UK universities. The Leeds University Business School is one of a small number of business schools worldwide to be triple accredited by AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS.

The University’s Strategic Management Program on ‘Managing in the Midst of Deep Uncertainty’ is to be conducted by the University of Leeds Business School at the Ivey Campus, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

‘Managing in the Midst of Deep Uncertainty’ is a program that is customized by the University in collaboration with Ivey Campus to engage with Sri Lanka’s current crisis context in order to directly enable building of corporate leadership. The objective is to equip private sector top managements to better understand and navigate the current urgent challenges confronting business. The Leeds training program will combine preparatory remote/online exercises together with a two-day in-person lectures/ brainstorming modules in Colombo conducted by a senior Leeds expert especially flown in.

Beyond Default

Beyond Default® (https://beyond-default.com) is a methodology championed by David Trafford and Peter Boggis in their bestselling book of the same name. It provides an alternative to the traditional vision, mission, values and objectives approach to developing and executing strategy. Instead, it adopts the premise that all organisations are on a trajectory to their default future – which is the place they will end up if no action is taken other than that currently planned.

Leaders have an obligation to understand the default future of the organisations that they run and continuously lead through uncertainty. If this future is considered to be unacceptable, they need to confront it by taking action to put it on a trajectory towards an improved future. This is the essential purpose of strategic leadership – to change the current trajectory of the organisation towards a better one.

Programme structure

The programme will leverage the contemporary Beyond Default method of strategic management, covering all phases of strategy formation and addressing the concept that the world is increasingly uncertain. This programme approach is particularly suited for senior leaders who are already aware of the traditional vision, mission, values, and objectives approach.

The programme will focus on each of the four aspects indicated in the diagram below:

The four sessions will be structured as follows, spread across either two or four weeks:

Learning approach

The programme will leverage a number of learning techniques not just to cognitively engage the participants but also to embed learning that can be leveraged to build the strategic capabilities of the delegate organisations. It will leverage case studies to motivate a structured, open and interactive approach.

Preparatory work

Participants will be expected to complete some preparatory work before attending the sessions. However, we recognise that the target audience consists of senior leaders and so this will be minimal and focussed. Before starting the session, they will be expected to complete a seven-page synopsis on the Beyond Default approach and view a short interview with the authors.

Programme facilitator

This programme will be entirely facilitated by Prof. John Palfreyman. John is an adjunct faculty with the Leeds University Business School. Prior to this, he spent 20 years at IBM, working at a European and global level on a mixture of government business and emerging technology development advising in areas such as defence, intelligence, cyber security, machine learning, big data and analytics.

John leverages the deep practical experience that he has gained over his career to help support organisations such as the Virgin Group and AstraZeneca in their own strategy development and business growth.

John’s current interests include strategic organisational agility, digital transformation, metaverse and the cultural enablers of organisational transformation. John is also the author of three books:

• Digital Transformation Handbook
• Non-Executive Director’s Playbook
• Business Blockchain: Unlocking Transformational Potential