MAN 5054 Managing for excellence
MAN 5054 Managing for excellence
This is a program on how to manage for excellence in organizations through a dual attention to what makes people thrive and grow and what creates extraordinary performances. The course assumes that employee and group thriving is the key to organizational excellence and that we need to understand how work practice can be generative for both individuals and organizations. Drive, energy, initiative, humility and action orientation are the basis virtues that we seek to develop. The program is based on an assumption that individual and team thriving and growth is key to unleashing the extraordinary. Building a sustainable performance culture neccessitates that we put the concerns of humans and nature first.
We build on traditions of research and managerial practice that are explicitly strength-based, including Positive Organizational Scholarship and Appreciative Inquiry. We also borrow from recent developments within practice-based approaches to organizations, regenerative leadership, narrative psychology, philosophy and the field of Design thinking.
The target group of the program is middle managers, project managers, domain experts and other professionals in business, voluntary organizations and the public sector: people who are responsible for developing the performances of themselves and others in organizations.
We emphasize practice from both an academic and an action oriented point of view. Leadership and professional creativity to bring about excellence is first of all something that takes place sin everyday practice, something that we do.
You will be challenged to discover and/or cultivate those generative practices in which you yourself can thrive, manage at your best and be valuable to others. In line with the focus on practice, the course will present rich examples from recent research along with new theory and historical overviews. The course has four main themes, all integrated with a sustainability perspective. Each of them will be the subject of a separate 4-day program session.
1.Quality and energy in relations
2. Motivation and driving forces
3. Positively oriented development work
4. Experimenting and building culture
The overall objective of the course is to provide knowledge, skills and attitudes for how to manage for excellence in organizations and create the basis for extraordinary performances.
Acquired knowledge:
Students will acquire solid research based knowledge on how to manage for excellence in organizations. After having completed the program, the participants will have deep insights into key terms, approaches, theoretical roots and rich examples of practice within all the four program areas.
Practical tools: Students will acquire capabilities to manage for excellence in organization through practical experiences with a range of new tools. Some of these tools will enable the participants to better lead development processes with a focus on learning from positive deviance, visualizing progress, prototyping, user involvement and making physical space for creative collaboration. Other tools will enable the participants to create relations and practices that drive performance in many settings
Personal development: The program will seek to practice what it preaches in terms of offering students possibilities to use theory and tools purposively to develop themselves and others. This includes for example building high-quality connections, offering generative resistance and the “reflective best self” exercise.
Acquired attitudes: Participants will also be taught the basic attitudes, values and perspectives on life that we know from research are central in managing for excellence. Keywords here are initiative, action capability, openness, other-orientation, giving behavior, long terms views, tolerance for failure and respect for the people one interacts with, within and outside ones organization.
Several of the themes that are taught have ethical questions and dilemmas that participants are exposed to through exercises and discussions.
MODULE 1: Quality and energy in relations.
Objectives
- Get a broad introduction to the program and the lecturers, as well as getting to know and create relations to other participants
- Learn about key concepts and approaches within the program, including strength based approaches
- Master and being able to apply theory about building quality and energy in relationships as a basis for managing for excellence
- Kick-start the individual reflection log and clarify expectations to personal learning and achievements during the program, as well as organizational benefits
MODULE 2: Motivation and driving forces
Objectives
- Acquire deep understanding of the motivational basis for achieving excellence and what it means for practice
- Be able to apply this understanding to develop the motivation of oneself and others to pursue the extraordinary
- Understand and be able to apply theory on pro-social motivation through end user involvement, including the power of mastering experiences, visualizing of progress and activating drama
- Gain experience in using the reflected best self-portrait exercise as well as mechanisms for energizing behavior in one' own organization
- Start term paper projects linked to development challenges in (some of) the participants' own organizations
MODULE 3: Positively oriented development wok
Objectives
- Understanding positively oriented development work as applied to individuals, organizations and for social change
- Gain deep knowledge of systematic prepping for creativity and extraordinary performance
- To acquire deep knowledge of practices and philosophy for development workT in leading high-performance organizations
- To discuss experiences with the first phase of student term paper projects and adjust research design
MODULE 4: Experimenting and building performance culture
Objectives
- To learn about the theoretical basis and practices for experiential learning as a work form in development projects, including prototyping, design of small experiments, design thinking and punk.
- To get an overviw over and being able to compare approaches to building high performance cultures in organizations
- To share preliminary findings from student projects and prepare the finalizing of the thesis.
- To summarize the learning in the program and get examples from the recent research front
The programme is conducted through four course modules over two semesters.
This is a program that rests on the assumption that learning presupposes active participation. Qualitative research and process approaches form the methodological basis for the program, with an emphasis on detailed understanding of everyday practices and development processes.
We pursue the following learning strategies in our teaching:
- Discussion of real situations, decisions and cases that are messy and complex and therefore ideal for fully engaging the experience f participants in developing judgment
- Discussion of new research that challenges common sense and established mental models.
- Brief overviews of theoretical roots
- Introduction of tools, of which some are chosen for active experimentation by participants in their own organizations
The program also offers a range of activities for learning in and between the meetings. The most important learning activities include:
- Personal log with brief reflections from meetings and exercises, including small excerpts (less than 1 pg) posted on itslearning;
- Active experimentation with mechanisms for positive organizational change, energizing behavior etc in one’s own organizations between meetings
- The participants will work in small teams during and between the gatherings. You will be challenged to connect the program activities to real challenges in your own organization.
The program cannot be accomplished through distance learning. Active participation in all program meetings and positive contributions to the learning of others are expected.
The students are evaluated through a term paper, counting 60% of the total grade and a 72 hours individual home exam counting 40%. All evaluations must be passed to obtain a certificate for the programme.
THE MASTER THESIS PROJECT PAPER shall be linked to challenges in one of the participants’ organizations. The paper can be written individually or in groups of up to three persons. The students then need to establish groups with one insider and up to two outsiders who explore a real development challenge or ongoing process of importance for managing for excelence. The work on the term paper will take place as an integrated part of the meetings with assignments between meetings.
THE INDIVIDUAL HOME EXAM consists of a reflection note about one’s own learning based on the log used to describe and reflect over personal learning episodes (including how the learning may be used in a work situation). The note shall discuss and synthesize the students's own experience in the context of the relevant literature and theoretical perspectives from the course.
The master thesis project paper is included in the degree’s independent work of degree, cf national regulation on requirements for master’s degree, equivalent to 18 ECTS credits per. programme. For the Executive Master of Management degree, the independent work of degree represents the sum of thesis papers from three programmes.
In all BI Executive courses and programs, there is a mutual requirement
for the student and the course responsible regarding the involvement of the student's experience in the planning and implementation of courses, modules and programmes. This means that the student has the right and duty to get involved with their own knowledge and practice relevance, through the active sharing of their relevant experience and knowledge.
Bachelor degree, corresponding to 180 credits from an accredited university, university college or similar educational institution. The applicant must be at least 25 years of age and at least four years of work experience. For applicants who have already completed a master’s degree, three years of work experience are required.
Disclaimer
Deviations in teaching and exams may occur if external conditions or unforeseen events call for this.
| Assessments |
|---|
Exam category: Submission Form of assessment: Submission PDF Exam/hand-in semester: Second Semester Weight: 60 Grouping: Group/Individual (1 - 3) Duration: 2 Semester(s) Comment: Term paper, counting 60% of the total grade. Exam code: MAN 50541 Grading scale: ECTS Resit: Examination when next scheduled course |
Exam category: Submission Form of assessment: Submission PDF Exam/hand-in semester: Second Semester Weight: 40 Grouping: Individual Duration: 72 Hour(s) Comment: Individual 72 hours home exam, counting 40% of the total grade. Exam code: MAN 50542 Grading scale: ECTS Resit: Examination when next scheduled course |
All exams must be passed to get a grade in this course.
| Activity | Duration | Comment |
|---|---|---|
Teaching | 150 Hour(s) | |
Prepare for teaching | 150 Hour(s) | |
Student's own work with learning resources | 500 Hour(s) | Self study, term paper and exam |
A course of 1 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of 26-30 hours. Therefore a course of 30 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of at least 800 hours.