Managing for excellence

Introduction

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 seek to develop.

We build on a fairly new and exciting tradition of research and managerial practice called Positive Organizational Scholarship. We also borrow from recent developments within practice-based approaches to organizations, 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 five main themes. Each of them will be the subject of a separate program session.

1. High quality connections and energizing behavior
2. Motivation and driving forces
3. Positive organizational change and professional creativity
4. Experiments and prototyping
5. Culture and networks of excellence

Course content

1. Kvalitet og energi i relasjoner
2. Motivasjon og drivkrefter
3. Positivt orientert utviklingsarbeid
4. Eksperimentering og prototyping
5. Kultur og nettverk for varige prestasjoner

MODULE 1: High-quality connections and energizing behavior.

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 Positive Organizational Scholarship and some of the other main theoretical perspectives in the program
· Master and being able to apply theory about high-quality connections and energizing behavior 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
· 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 and the visualizing of progress
· 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 strategic development challenges in (some of) the participants' own organizations

MODULE 3: Positive organizational change and professional creativity

Objectives
Gain deep knowledge of systematic prepping for creativity and extraordinary performance
Understanding positive organizational change as systematically searching for and reinforcing positive deviance, looking for the positive in the negative and daring to stretch for the extraordinary
To acquire deep knowledge of practices and philosophy for performance development in two of Norway's high-performance organizations
Discuss experiences with the first phase of student term paper projects and set the final design

MODULE 4: Experiments and prototyping

Objectives
· Know the theoretical basis for and practices of different kinds of experiential learning as a work form in development projects, including prototyping and design of small experiments
· Get deep knowledge of design thinking bith in terms f theoretical roots and use in concrete development tasks
· Start to reap the awards of term paper projects and take a closer look at its prototypes
· Understand the theory and practice of making space for creative collaboration through spaces, walls and artifacts, in particular with regards to visual sharing and early phase project mobilization

MODULE 5: Culture and networks of excellence

Objectives
· Learn about what characterizes organizations that remain high-performing through long periods of time
· Understand how excellence is developed and anchored in organizational culture and external networks
· Get and overview of and be able to analyze approaches to high-performance cultures, including the comparison of experiences fro elite sports, businesses and industrial clusters
· Being able to understand and critically assess recipes for managing for excellence
· Presentation and last look at term paper
· Summarize key learning across all five program themes