Leading in the Knowledge Economy (LIKE): 7-week cohort-based training

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that there would be three things coming to fruition this month, and here’s the first. Beginning Wednesday, April 30th and running for seven 2-hour sessions, I’ve adapted the 3-day classroom training Leading in a Transforming Organisation for a cohort-based format, renaming it to Leading in the Knowledge Economy, or LIKE. If you’re wondering how three days fits into 14 hours, here’s how: as well as the Zoom sessions, we’ll be making use of the Agendashift Academy’s video-based material also for some light between-sessions study also.

What is it? Well, from the booking page:

We’ll be answering some important questions about leadership and organisation, questions that become increasingly critical as our organisations become more and more information-dependent. In a nutshell: What does it mean to be creating the conditions for business agility when the critical resources are communication capacity, decision-making capacity, and the context everyone needs to make good decisions?

This course will change two things for you: how you think about organisations, and how you engage with their challenges. Our main focus will be the digital-age (though not necessarily technology-centric) organisation, in which product development, customer-focused service delivery, and organisational improvement are becoming increasingly integrated. With that come challenges of context and scale which process-based approaches are ill-equipped to meet.

At its heart is the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation, a fresh, complexity-aware, and ground-up reconstruction of Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model. The diagnostic power of this classic model remains unrivalled, and to it we bring a truly 21st century approach. We work with rather than against the grain of two key realities: that everyone’s experience of the organisation is different, and that they see different possibilities emerging for it, possibilities they may already be motivated to help bring about. We’ll be turning the traditional change management paradigm on its head!

Training participants are typically a mixture of leaders and practitioners, all with an interest in going beyond process-centric approaches to organisation and improvement.

I’ve actually scheduled two of these; there’s one for each of the summer and autumn terms. Take your pick! And between those, the next online TTT/F:

30 April to 11 June, online, cohort-based – 7 weekly sessions, 2 hours each:
Leading in the Knowledge Economy (LIKE) – Spring 2025 cohort 16-19 June, four 4-hour sessions online, afternoons UK time:
Leading with Outcomes: Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) 30 September to 11 November, online, cohort-based – 7 weekly sessions, 2 hours each:
Leading in the Knowledge Economy (LIKE) – Autumn 2025 cohort

There are some early bird tickets available, so grab those while you can.

For a 30% discount on block bookings of three or more places, ping me. For government, public health (eg NHS), and NGO employees, discounts are available from the first seat and increase to 50% for three or more.

I’m also open to doing this privately, and for organisations considering adding LIKE or other Leading with Outcomes trainings to their internal leadership development curriculum, we even provide a path to self-sufficiency via our Authorised Trainer and Facilitator programmes.

That’s it for now – watch out for announcement #2 later in the week!