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Excellence Academy 1

In 2013 TPC will be launching a Distance Learning Programme designed to help people focus on Excellence in their own situation. Here is an outline of our latest thinking. All input and reactions welcome!

Target Audience:

Small/medium sized business leaders, unit/team leaders and individual professionals. People who are looking for stimulation and support to develop and improve themselves and their teams, and have a more positive impact.

Objectives:

The Excellence Academy is a place to focus on aspects of your business that can benefit from change.

We will explore, discuss, and try out (new) approaches to increase the distinction and merit of your (and your team’s) work.

This involves improving self-awareness, and opening your mind up to alternative ways of working.

Programme Structure:

“You can’t just do what you know you should do. Why not? Because your subconscious (that is in charge of your daily activities) isn’t listening to what you have to say” Roger Schank, Teaching Minds, (2011)

To address this learning challenge, the Excellence Academy programme will be like a slow burning carbohydrate diet – ie it contains a sustained, steady delivery of energy. It will emphasize trying things out, practicing and learning from experience and will keep theoretical discussions to the minimum.

There will be a series of asynchronous modules, the first of which enables everyone to set their own excellence agenda for the next 180 days.

Subsequent modules (4?) will deal with a series of topics, expressed as problem or challenge statements, such as:

  • “the way ahead for me/us is far from clear”
  • “we/I need more intrapreneurship”
  • “our bureaucracy is strangling us”
  • “our workforce is too one-dimensional in its behaviour”
  • “we/I don’t have enough commitment from our employees/suppliers/partners”

We’ll choose a commonly accepted issue for the second module and finalise the remaining modules with input from participants. These will be chosen to make up a balanced Excellence agenda.

A final module will sum up the progress made and invite all participant to submit/present their work to others.

Module Structure:

The following broad structure will be used for each module which will run over a month:

  • Explore your current understanding of this topic (ie diagnose the ‘problem’ and its cause)
  • Consider alternative approaches/case studies/examples (ie. challenge people to look afresh at the subject and evaluate the comparative benefits of alternative approaches)
  • Take part in an activity that develops your understanding (ie explore alternative approaches in a safe environment and work in a team to achieve a result)
  • Decide on ways to incorporate new ways of working into your life (ie experiment with actions and that are different to your normal actions and use your influence to persuade others to co-operate)
  • Review and learn from experience of applying the new ideas (ie evaluate and judge your experience)
  • Record progress in your Portfolio (ie describe your new understanding/belief)

Teaching methods include:

  • Stories
  • Case Studies
  • Simulations
  • Games
  • Practice
  • Do and copy
  • Work in a team
  • Learn from mistakes (Do, try, fail, review, re-do)

Throughout the programme, everyone will build their own Excellence portfolio, which they use to record their actions, learning and developing awareness of the specific concept being studied. Portfolios are presented for any participant to read and comment on and everyone will be encouraged to do so.

Portfolio assessment by TPC can be offered as an optional (paid-for?) extra.

A Twitter Hashtag and facebook page will provide online commentary for participants.

Web Platform:

  • Regular (daily?) inspirational/reminder quotes will be sent
  • Course materials – video, audio, book references, white papers, articles, url links assessments, tools, provided
  • Course activities/discussions via online discussion board
  • Journal webspace to keep individual portfolio records
  • Occasional live discussions/webinars provided as required/desired

Pricing:

An initial charge of £250 followed by a monthly charge (£100pm) for access to Excellence Academy (Total £750).