One part of the course involves identifying and understanding the more frequent disruptions that business executives encounter. This is accomplished through readings of current literature and case simulations. Teams of students reconstruct outstanding cases based on reading, experience, and creative thinking. Alternative approaches for achieving quality from a Japanese and an American orientation will be considered. The emphasis is particularly on the role of vision, what it is, where it comes from, how it is used and abused.
Technical tasks are vitally important, but they are only a fraction of a manager's job.
This fraction shrinks over time as a manager's career develops. Inside, effective managers develop good networks with a wide range of people - superiors, board directors, peers, team members, subordinates of subordinates, and many others. Outside, effective managers cultivate strong networks with suppliers and vendors, customers and clients, competitors, labor unions, investors, the capital markets, governments, local communities, and many other public and outside constituencies. The course is devoted to the relationship building part of your job. It begins by examining relationships and networks inside the organization.