Are you wired for growth leadership? Has the standard way of doing business become a dysfunction for your organization? Now, more than ever, you need to embrace different approaches that will lead to growth for your firm—growth that is attainable in any environment; growth that will continue through uncertainty. Through the course, Catalyst: Becoming an Extraordinary Growth Leader, you will learn to leverage existing assets to find new ways to advance. You will become a champion at proving that nothing external is necessary for expansion; internal conduits can lead to evolution when properly engaged. Together, we will explore new ways of thinking, behaving, and leading, using the “growth mindset” as a strategy to catalyze and drive success!

• General managers interested in honing their skills in leading growth and creating sustainable growth environments.
• Individuals engaged in the process of creating new businesses in established firms.
• Middle and senior managers responsible for achieving top-line and bottom-line growth.
• Upper- to senior-level executives who seek significant growth opportunities for their organizations.

Catalyst is aimed at helping operating managers meet aggressive revenue targets for growth. The tools and approaches shared in this participative environment have been tested and optimized in real business situations. With an emphasis on general discussions, work in small learning teams, and peer coaching, the program will assist you in thoroughly examining a personal business case and developing a growth strategy.

Participants will:

• Build a detailed implementation plan based on the key uncertainties when going to market.
• Discover a proven framework for leading growth.
• Gain a full kit of hands-on tactics to propel growth in mature corporate settings.
• Learn how to think like an entrepreneur—but act like a corporate diplomat—to find and execute new opportunities that competitors miss.
• Sharpen their focus on customer needs using the lens of ethnography.
• Strategize ways to optimize systems and operations in order to achieve and sustain growth.
• Understand the role of leadership and the challenges of implementing new growth strategies.
• Understand what makes successful growth leaders “tick” and get personalized feedback about your own strengths and weaknesses.

• Assessing Growth Leadership: Participants will assess how well they are leading growth in their businesses prior to coming to Darden. They will leave with a plan through which they can continue to build their abilities to lead sustained growth and value creation, and to develop this talent in others.
• Leading in an Uncertain World: Explore techniques for managing growth initiatives under conditions of extreme uncertainty and for leveraging internal and external resources.
• Linking Technology and Growth: Understand how to use technology in ways that enable growth, creating transparent measurement systems that drive the bottom line.
• Managing Growth Portfolios: Develop a framework for simultaneously managing top-line, bottom-line, and new-concept growth initiatives.
• Seeing Opportunity: Examine how growth leaders sense new opportunities and reframe their value propositions.
• Thinking Like a Successful Entrepreneur: Understand the profiles of entrepreneurial leaders within established enterprises who have achieved sustained, internally generated growth.

• CEO
• Director of Market Research
• Executive Vice President/Chief Banking Officer
• Manager, OSP Engineering
• President
• Sales Director, New Business

• New Release: Participants will receive and work through a copy of the new release (March 2009)
  The Catalyst: How YOU Can Become an Extraordinary Growth Leader. This book is written by faculty team members Jeanne Liedtka, Robert Rosen, and Robert Wiltbank.
• Post-program Online Leadership Toolkit: Upon returning to the workplace, all participants will have access to the program’s web-based toolkit, which provides continued coaching through future phases of business growth.

Edward D. Hess
Professor of Business Administration and Batten Executive-in-Residence, The Darden School, University of Virginia.

Jeanne M. Liedtka
Professor of Business Administration, The Darden School, University of Virginia.

James O. Mathews
President, Healthy Companies International (HCI).

Robert Rosen
Founder and CEO, Healthy Companies International, (HCI).

Robert E. Wiltbank
Assistant Professor of Strategic Management, Atkinson Graduate School of Management, Willamette University; Batten Institute Research Fellow, The Darden School.