Terry Custom Programs

Terry Custom Program for Change Leadership — A Deliberate, Thoughtful Approach to Change

Despite tens of thousands of books dedicated to the topic of change leadership, most organizations struggle when trying to implement major change. Working with change leadership expert David Herold, PhD, professor emeritus at the University System of Georgia, and author of Change The Way You Lead Change: Leadership Strategies that Work, UGA's Terry College of Business helps organizations design and implement successful change initiatives. Our unique approach goes against the grain of many change gurus, who offer "easy" steps for implementing change, and provides business leaders with a more thoughtful, sustainable approach to reaching their goals.

"American business culture thrives on being action oriented, and all too often, organizational leaders are quick to jump into change without engaging in a thinking process that addresses their organization's unique situation," says Herold, who has worked with organizations such as GM, IBM, Corning and the Milliken & Company.

Terry Custom Programs provide companies with a Change Framework to address the key questions that every business leader needs to consider before implementing a new strategic initiative. Participants along the way determine the internal and external context of implementing change, as well as who will lead it and who is expected to follow. At the end of the program, business leaders typically identify three options — implement the change as initially identified, reconsider the change, or alter elements of the situation before implementing the change.

"Every company is different — there is no one-size-fits-all change formula. Our framework serves as a thoughtful mental model for addressing an organization's specific problem, as opposed to knee-jerk reactions," says Herold. "We challenge executives to validate their thinking against other people's perceptions. Once leaders are able to trust their views of the underlying problem and response, only then is it time to think about implementation."

Terry Custom Program for Innovation — Leveraging the Latent Innovation Potential in Every Organization

In today's challenging economy, more companies are focusing on the bottom line and optimizing existing processes, rather than investing in creating something new. As a result, many will grow stagnant in generating new ideas that could lead to a competitive advantage.

Terry's Custom Program for Innovation helps companies achieve top-line growth by finding the right balance between optimization and innovation. According to Terry innovation expert David Sutherland, PhD, companies that invest more in innovation, ultimately add to their bottom line faster. Sutherland, advisor to world-class innovators, including BMW, General Electric, Deutche Bank, The Cleveland Clinic and Proctor & Gamble, leads the Terry Custom Program for Innovation by helping companies tap into their latent innovation potential in ways that they haven't before. Specifically, this program addresses:

1. Innovation as a process — defining the steps, roles, accountabilities and an organizational structure to support the innovation process.
2. Innovation based on relevant market insight — leveraging insight from multiple forms of research, including traditional market research and new tools and techniques used by best-in-class innovators.
3. Innovation and culture change — understanding operational and organizational strengths and weaknesses in order to effectively shift to a culture of innovation.

Terry Custom Program for Strategy Development — Mastering Alignment of Planning and Doing

In today's hyper-competitive markets, business leaders require a new approach to strategy for their companies.

Terry's Custom Program for Strategy Development combines leading academic theory and industry best practices to transform strategy across all levels of the organization — from Finance to IT, to Marketing to Operations. Working with Terry Strategy expert, Allen Amason, PhD, your company will master new and sustainable methods for strategy development using his proven, four-step process:

1. Competitive Analysis — a process for the ongoing examination of customers, competitors, industry trends, and technological and demographic changes to anticipate what customers want now and in the future.
2. Organizational Analysis — a process for the ongoing examination of internal resources and capabilities in order to match up skills with future needs.
3. Synergistic Analysis — a process for high-level analysis of internal capabilities that looks at different activities and how they can be leveraged for greater impact.
4. Implementation — a process for leaders to execute strategy, while ensuring everything is in line, performing as intended, and providing a feedback mechanism to help refine the strategy going forward.

Terry Custom Program for Strategy Development emphasizes real-world, practical and actionable solutions that help companies bring their strategy to life and succeed in growing their bottom line.

Methodology

The Terry Custom Programs methodology offers a framework to help organizations better align their people to business performance. We provide an end-to-end solution to the performance challenges you face, with the ability to scale, using a six-phase approach:

• Stage One: Business Goals — We begin with understanding your organization's business growth goals and the critical skills needed to support that growth.
• Stage Two: Skills Identification — We define the core competencies or capabilities within your talent base that will be necessary to achieve your strategic goals.
• Stage Three: Gaps/Obstacles to Performance — We work with you to assess your staff's current capabilities, identifying key gaps and obstacles to performance.
• Stage Four: Solution Development and Execution — We work hand in hand with your organization's training, HR and operational leaders to execute a program that addresses your specific development needs. The customized talent solution could include a combination of classroom lectures, real-world simulations and team building, to enhance your target group's performance and sustain it over the long run.
• Stage Five: Measurement — Our measurement tools assess the ROI of your learning engagement. They can include:
  • pre- and post-program evaluations
  • surveys
  • program-specific action plans and other measurement tools

While each custom program is built from the ground up with every new client, Terry's Custom Program methodology serves as a building block to ensure that the program targets the unique needs of your organization.