2022-24 NFPA Executive Leadership Program Overview

Introduction and Program Overview - Professor Fred Harburg

VS1 will provide Program Fellows with an overview of the two-year program, an introduction to classmates, and an explanation of class one assignments.

VS1 Outline

• Congratulations and welcome to the NFPA Executive Leadership Program
• Introduction to Program Fellows
• Program purpose, process, product, timeline, and logistics
• Overview of Session One - Leader as Coach and Executive Judgment
• Explanation of assignments and pre-session homework
  • Core Ethos Pre-work
  • AJIL® Assessment
  • Flight Plan One
  • Readings regarding Core Ethos, Leader as Coach, and Judgment

Morning Session: Core Ethos™ Leading with Purpose - Professor Fred Harburg

Great companies jealously protect and nurture their brand essence - a combination of values and aspirations synthesizing their purpose and promise. The same principle is true for great leaders. We will begin our Executive Foundations Day as you work with a colleague to refine and deepen your leadership purpose and promise, your Core Ethos™. 

Executive Judgment

The need for leaders to use adaptive discernment to make positive change has never been higher. Sound judgment guides our actions, determines the quality of our results, and springs from the core. Executive judgment is the ultimate executive skill because the effectiveness of all other capabilities depends on it. Understanding your judgment is the second focal point of the day.

Lunch 'n Learn Session: Jon Goreham, President/ CEO, QCC

Past NFPA Board Chair Jon Goreham will join the cohort for an informal discussion during lunch, sharing his experience and helping to contextualize the day's content for the fluid power industry. 

Afternoon Session: Leader as Coach - Professor Fred Harburg

Every leader has a fundamental responsibility to develop the talent and performance of others and to help them deal with non-stop challenges and changes. Yet, surveys show that a widespread failure to provide feedback and coaching is the primary complaint of most employees. These facts support the idea that coaching is an essential but neglected tool for leadership effectiveness. The final element of our day will incorporate the first two building blocks as you coach and are coached by a colleague to optimize your judgment and impact.

IPS1 Results Review and Preparation for IPS2 - Professor Fred Harburg

During VS2 Fred will lead a review discussion with Program Fellows regarding their 90-day coaching and judgment development results. Fred will field questions and lead a discussion among the Fellows regarding their insights and learning from their experience using the F>A>C>T-Based Coaching™ process, the Ajility Growth Process™, and the Ajility Flight Plan™.

Three or four Program Fellows (notified well before this session) will provide a five-minute personal spotlight:

• Their professional journey and current role
• Highlights of their company history, philosophies, and best practices
• Personal insights regarding their lives, family, activities
• Current and future challenges, aspirations, and growth objectives

A few minutes will follow each spotlight for questions and response from the listening Fellows. Particular attention will be given to ideas of support and insight from the Fellow network regarding the last segment on challenges, aspirations, and growth objectives.

The session will conclude with a preview of, and assignments for Session 2 – Strategic Leadership.

Morning Session: Strategic Frameworks - Professor Matt Ranen

Strategy encompasses an explicit set of decisions regarding where we compete, how we can be best positioned to win, what distinct capabilities and resources (i.e., people, capital, intellectual property, relationships, assets) will enable success, and what we are willing to forgo or not do. Good strategic process involves using excellent judgment to make these decisions with agility, flexibility, and foresight as conditions change and opportunities arise. However, without sufficient stability, strategy can be mercurial and erratic. Finding the right balance is the daunting role of senior leadership.

In this session, Program Fellows will:

• Gain understanding of the strategic cascade framework for business success
• Identify ways to answer the fundamental strategic questions
• Anticipate ways that strategy can go wrong
• Commit to use the strategic tool kit to view their respective businesses

Lunch n' Learn Session: Jeff Hand, President/CEO, ROSS Controls.

Past NFPA Board Chair Jeff Hand will join the cohort for an informal discussion during lunch, sharing his experience and helping to contextualize the day's content for the fluid power industry.

Afternoon Session: Operational Execution - Professor Achal Bassamboo

Strategy establishes the playing field and operations make the plays. Understanding the constraints and options for optimizing execution is essential to win the game. Inventory control, storage, supply chain excellence, and operational implementation either bring a strategy to life or put it to rest.

In this session, Program Fellows will:

• Gain an understanding for logistics and supply chain interdependencies
• Increase their tools for operational analysis optimization
• Use tools and frameworks in a case to make a crucial operations decision
• Identify how they will use these tools in their respective businesses

IPS2 Results Review and Preparation for IPS3 - Professor Fred Harburg

During VS3 Fred will lead a review discussion with Program Fellows regarding their implementation of the concepts and tools from strategy and operations. Fred will field questions and lead a discussion among the Fellows regarding their insights and learning

Three or four Program Fellows (notified well before this session) will provide a five-minute personal spotlight:

• Their professional journey and current role
• Highlights of their company history, philosophies, and best practices
• Personal insights regarding their lives, family, activities
• Current and future challenges, aspirations, and growth objectives

A few minutes will follow each spotlight for questions and response from the listening Fellows. Particular attention will be given to ideas of support and insight from the Fellow network regarding the last segment on challenges, aspirations, and growth objectives.

The session will conclude with a preview of, and assignments for Session 3 – Negotiation Tools and Strategies.

Morning Session: Tools for Negotiation - Professor Leigh Thompson

Not only is everything negotiable, but we are also negotiating all the time, even when we fail to realize it. In a sense, every conversation is a negotiation in which we are asking for and providing information, making requests, and fielding the requests of others, asking for and giving support. In each case there is an implicit or explicit negotiation under way. In the best case all parties optimize their outcomes because they are working for the attainment of the interests of all. Sadly, that is rarely how things work out.

In this session, Program Fellows will:

• Gain understanding of the subtle elements of negotiation
• Identify their personal negotiating tendencies
• Strengthen their negotiating approach
• Increase their negotiating tool kit

Lunch n' Learn Session: Ed Howe, President, Enfield Technologies

Past NFPA Board Chair Ed Howe will join the cohort for an informal discussion during lunch, sharing his experience and helping to contextualize the day's content for the fluid power industry.

Afternoon Session: Negotiation in Practice - Professor Leigh Thompson

Understanding the negotiating tools is essential but insufficient for sustained negotiating success. Negotiating excellence requires practice, acknowledgment of blind spots, and deliberate effort to improve the nuanced skills needed to succeed.

In this session, Program Fellows will:

• Have an opportunity to use new and familiar concepts
• Receive feedback regarding the efficacy of their approach
• Create a game plan for improvement

IPS3 Results Review and Preparation for IPS4 - Professor Fred Harburg

During VS4 Fred will lead a review discussion with Program Fellows regarding their implementation of the concepts and tools from Negotiations Tools and Practice. Fred will field questions and lead a discussion among the Fellows regarding their insights and learning.

Three or four Program Fellows (notified well before this session) will provide a five-minute personal spotlight:

• Their professional journey and current role
• Highlights of their company history, philosophies, and best practices
• Personal insights regarding their lives, family, activities
• Current and future challenges, aspirations, and growth objectives

A few minutes will follow each spotlight for questions and response from the listening Fellows. Particular attention will be given to ideas of support and insight from the Fellow network regarding the last segment on challenges, aspirations, and growth objectives.

The session will conclude with a preview of, and assignments for Session 4 – Presentations and Presence.

Morning Session: Presenting for Impact - Professor Steven Franconeri

Leaders are called on to make presentations daily. It is alarming and dismaying how poor the quality of graphic presentation, particularly technical or data presentations can be. The way the brain processes and absorbs information is at the crux of the issue. Most of us violate the fundamental aspects of neural processing every time we step up to the screen or podium.

In this session, Program Fellows will:

• See the fundamental errors of most graphic presentation
• Understand how to organize visual data for impact
• Gain very specific tools and practices for immediate implementation

Lunch n' Learn Session: Marc Weston, Area Vice President, Applied Industrial Technologies.

Past NFPA Board Chair Marc Weston will join the cohort for an informal discussion during lunch, sharing his experience and helping to contextualize the day's content for the fluid power industry.

Afternoon Session: Executive Presence - Professor Brooke Vuckovic

Executive presence is more than stagecraft it begins with self-concept and ends when a leader brings their full and best self to a presentation opportunity. The basics have to do with using the vocal instrument. It deepens when one connects at a profound level with listeners.

In this session, Program Fellows will:

• Grasp the concepts a gravitas and the signature of the leadership presence
• Work with a colleague to use the tools that command respect and followership
• Identify ways they will continue to cultivate their impact on others

IPS4 Results Review and Preparation for IPS5 - Professor Fred Harburg

During VS5 Fred will lead a review discussion with Program Fellows regarding their implementation of the concepts and tools from Presenting with Presence. Fred will field questions and lead a discussion among the Fellows regarding their insights and learning.

Three or four Program Fellows (notified well before this session) will provide a five-minute personal spotlight:

• Their professional journey and current role
• Highlights of their company history, philosophies, and best practices
• Personal insights regarding their lives, family, activities
• Current and future challenges, aspirations, and growth objectives

A few minutes will follow each spotlight for questions and response from the listening Fellows. Particular attention will be given to ideas of support and insight from the Fellow network regarding the last segment on challenges, aspirations, and growth objectives.

The session will conclude with a preview of, and assignments for Session 5 – Cultivating Culture, Values and Virtues.

Morning Session: A Value-based Leader - Professor Peter Rea

The indisputable keel for a vessel plying turbulent waters is forged from the values that give it stability in a storm. In a similar way, values when fully understood and incorporated into actions beyond words give a leader the constancy of purpose and character needed to lead effectively in the worst of conditions.

In this session, Program Fellows will:

• Define the concepts of values and character
• Examine how the essential ideas take shape in a leader
• Dive deep into comprehending and place values into action

Lunch n' Learn Session: John Stenz, CEO, FORCE America.

Past Board Chair John Stenz will join the cohort for an informal discussion during lunch, sharing his experience and helping to contextualize the day's content for the fluid power industry.

Afternoon Session: A Value-based Culture - Professor Peter Rea

Espoused values vs. lived values are the essential guidepost for life in an organization. When the leaders of a business place the proper emphasis and attention of practical ways to bring admirable values to play in their organization, the values become a magnet for talent, a source of customer loyalty, and a profit generating engine.

In this session, Program Fellows will:

• Understand how a values-based culture can transform a business
• Identify ways they can lead a values revolution in their companies
• Plan to lead the revolution as a values-based leader

IPS5 Results Review and Preparation for IPS6 - Professor Fred Harburg

During VS6 Fred will lead a review discussion with Program Fellows regarding their implementation of the concepts and tools from Cultivating Culture, Values, and Virtues. Fred will field questions and lead a discussion among the Fellows regarding their insights and learning

Three or four Program Fellows (notified well before this session) will provide a five-minute personal spotlight:

• Their professional journey and current role
• Highlights of their company history, philosophies, and best practices
• Personal insights regarding their lives, family, activities
• Current and future challenges, aspirations, and growth objectives

A few minutes will follow each spotlight for questions and response from the listening Fellows. Particular attention will be given to ideas of support and insight from the Fellow network regarding the last segment on challenges, aspirations, and growth objectives.

The session will conclude with a preview of, and assignments for Session 6 – Leading Under Pressure.

Morning Session: Leading in a VUCA World - Professor Bernie Banks

Our world is increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. The capacity to keep calm and carry on is essential for those entrusted with the welfare of a business, its people, and its customers in this turbulent context. The only certainty is that business will be more uncertain in the future. Having ways to frame, manage, communicate, and engage follower is chaos becomes a distinguishing quality for distinguished leaders.

In this session, Program Fellows will:

• Understand the way the VUCA environment necessitates a new leadership
• Identify how this environment is affect them at personal level
• Gain tools and strategies for steering their crew through turbulent waters
• Lunch n' Learn session with TBD

Lunch n' Learn Session: Steven Meislahn, Global Director of Engineering, Sun Hydraulics

Industry leader Steven Meislahn will join the cohort for an informal discussion during lunch, sharing his experience and helping to contextualize the day's content for the fluid power industry.

Afternoon Session: Thriving in Challenge - Professor Fred Harburg

The ability to prepare for, recover from, flourish, and grow stronger physically, intellectually, emotionally, and ethically amidst demanding challenges and setbacks separates the most effective and fulfilled from the merely competent. Having evidence-based approaches to boosting energy and thriving in the face of significant challenges is the lifeline we all need to deal with the exigencies of challenging times. The lessons from performance psychology, nutrition, exercise physiology, and neuroscience provide a playbook for times when the rules are constantly in flux.

In this session, Program Fellows will:

• Understand the science of resilience and human energy
• Identify current resilience position and opportunities for growth
• Personalize personal resilience routines in all four dimensions

IPS6 Results Review and Preparation for Life as an Exceptional Leader - Professor Fred Harburg

During VS7 Fred will lead a review discussion with Program Fellows regarding their implementation of the concepts and tools from Leading Under Pressure. Fred will field questions and lead a discussion among the Fellows regarding their insights and learning.

Three or four Program Fellows (notified well before this session) will provide a five-minute personal spotlight:

• Their professional journey and current role
• Highlights of their company history, philosophies, and best practices
• Personal insights regarding their lives, family, activities
• Current and future challenges, aspirations, and growth objectives

A few minutes will follow each spotlight for questions and response from the listening Fellows. Particular attention will be given to ideas of support and insight from the Fellow network regarding the last segment on challenges, aspirations, and growth objectives.

In this culminating virtual session, Fellows will reflect on the journey they have taken together. They will identify the highlights of their leaning and the ways in which they have applied the six pillar sessions. Each of them will reflect on what they have learned from each other and how they can continue to support and encourage their one another in the future.