The ASABE Leadership Experience:

A Simulation-based Course for Improving Business Outcomes through Systematic Management and Leadership

November 10-13, 2008

Indianapolis, IN

While engineers are well-trained, educated and experienced in technical areas, their development in effectively managing and leading other people often is neglected.

Through decades of research and practical application, LeaderPoint has determined a way for engineering professionals to gain hands-on management experience, practice the skills of leadership and management, and develop the mental framework for utilizing these skills in professional settings.

This is a 3 1/2-day session created specifically to help technical specialists develop their managerial and leadership skills, enabling them to get greater business results working cross-functionally and through other people. This is a simulation-based course with real-time facilitation and PRACTICAL APPLICATION — it is not a motivational class or a "talking head" course.

It is designed for those who must lead groups and project teams, work cross-functionally and with others over whom they have no direct authority.

Day One

• Introduction:
The mindset of exceptional leaders. What
separates good leaders from excellent ones is the manner in
which excellent leaders view the world of work — especially
with regard to problems and opportunities. They approach
these problems and opportunities with a different mindset.
It is this mindset that is the target for this development
experience.

• Movie:
"Twelve O’clock High" — This film forms the
foundation for future facilitator interventions throughout
the development session. This movie also serves as a model
for leadership interventions detailed on the final day.

Participants are divided into teams and begin operating their
simulated companies.

Day Two

Participants continue to operate their simulated companies.

Sessions scheduled:

Structure & Organization

• Purpose: In order to create the environmental context that
will allow people to commit to the work to be done, it is
important for managers to be able to specifically define
structure and organization and to understand their use. To
this point in the session, participants will have been exposed
to some varying degrees of organization and structure, but
they will have appeared and disappeared. This discussion is
designed to provide a review of these concepts in light of the
experience of each group to address the business problem
with which they are faced.

• Description: Structure divides, organization unites. Organization
is the process of working together, while structure is the
result of breaking the whole into progressively smaller parts
(working through people). Types and aims of organization are
revealed; exploration of the practical uses of each and how
they affect the ability of the individual or group to perform.
Individuals organize at the activity level in the workplace.
They will organize in one of four ways:
This session allows participants to identify how people work
together and how to recognize and correct dysfunctional
group dynamics.

• Outcomes: An understanding of the need to allocate
resources, assign accountability and delegate authority. An
understanding of the elements of organization (building of a
willingness to serve; system of communication; commonality
of purpose) and how they relate to defining the work and
what needs to be done. Beginning understanding of the need
to have net satisfactions be equal to or greater than burden(s)
and the role this concept plays in motivation.

Policy

• Purpose: To provide the working foundation for managers to
create expectations of performance from others. “Make no
small jobs.”

• Description: The difference between good and exceptional
managers is that good managers use people as they would
any other resource. They take assigned work away – they
instruct people on how to do the work rather than what is to
be accomplished. An often-used description is that “they
manage at the wrong level.” Exceptional managers work
through people to accomplish significant outcomes. These
managers provide focus and direction and allow others to
accomplish significant business outcomes. Exceptional
managers understand that policy is the creation of
accountability through the creation of business outcomes, the
assigning of authority, and the allocation of resources.

• Outcomes: Specific skills are learned to accomplish
significantly more with fewer people and financial
resources.

Day Three

Participants continue to operate their simulated companies.

Sessions scheduled:

Cooperation

• Purpose: Create an understanding of the types and nature of
cooperative systems; develop an ability to engineer and use
these systems in accomplishing the common end; and
recognize how to determine if cooperation has been effective.

•Description: Participants are asked to relate the key concepts of the nature of cooperation to their experience working together over the past few days. Can they define the activity levels and common ends? Were they able to communicate effectively? Did everyone contribute and engage in the work? What conclusions can they draw from their efforts to cooperate? In this discussion examples of the different types of organization they have experienced emerge. These are related to examples from "Twelve O’clock High," and compared to contexts that they have created through the week.

•Outcomes: Participants are able to quickly diagnose and correct dysfunctional group dynamics. Most importantly, they understand the specific actions they must take to allow a group of people working together to cooperate.

Incentives

•Purpose and Description: Incentives can be a powerful force in changing behavior. Unfortunately, incentives are often misunderstood and misused creating a series of unintended consequences. The question of “Why use incentives if you don’t have to (why cost the company more money)?” is addressed in specific detail.

•Outcomes: Participants develop an understanding of the roles incentives play on behavior.

Executive Function

•Purpose: Create an understanding of the functions of the executive and the processes used to accomplish these functions.

•Description: The fundamentals of maintenance of communication, securing of essential services from individuals, and the formulation of common ends. The identification of barriers to cooperation (communication, commitment and commonality of purpose), identification of critical factors that limit or inhibit performance, and the reestablishment of cooperation are discussed in relation to the environment they have been experiencing. The role of mindsets in establishing and changing behavior and how people relate to the work.

•Outcomes: Understanding the leadership dilemma: Is the rock too big or are the people too small? How to change the perspective of people in relation to the work at hand. Understanding the need to focus on the worker, not the work.

Sessions scheduled:

Real World Issues

•Purpose: The purpose of this discussion group is to relate the concepts that have been introduced to real-life issues facing the participants.

•Description: This is accomplished in a couple of different formats, depending upon the makeup of the session. Participants are encouraged to speak openly, but are also provided a method to anonymously contribute questions that are then addressed by the facilitators.

•Outcomes: Participants receive clear understanding of how to apply specific concepts to their workenvironment.

Leadership

•Purpose: Participants are exposed to a definition of leadership that is specific and provides for direct application in both the simulated and their real environment.

•Description: The session provides a template that will allow managers to identify and correct significant high-level performance problems quickly and easily. Participants learn the need to identify the barrier, the problem and the critical factor that is limiting performance.

•Outcomes: Participants know how to quickly identify and correct significant performance issues immediately.

Surviving the Experience

•Purpose: Provide a context from which the participants can return to work and begin to apply the material.

•Description: This session centers around helping participants understand that they should not attempt to return to work and “change the world”— rather, they need to work on applying the principles and concepts to their area of control.

•Outcomes: Participants often cause this dialogue to become another “Real World” session, where direct application to specific problems becomes the dominant theme.

(seating is limited to 25)

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Important Dates

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Hotel

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