Innovation Center
A collection of aids for managers and facilitators to “take it to the team” and cascade the resource center’s learning to groups and individuals. The Toolkit offers:
- How to Execute Effective Leadership During Downturns
Empower your managers to protect and extend your company’s core business and employees when faced with uncertainty. Leading Through Uncertain Times is an online resource center with self-paced and group learning activities that prepare managers to handle the downside of business cycles.
The Center’s content, tools and task-based activities provide guidance on adapting business strategies, focusing on fundamentals and building resilience in the face of an unpredictable future
Target Audiences
Leading Through Uncertain Times provides advice, tools and actionable resources for leaders who must effectively re-position business priorities, and motivate people through times of crisis and business downturns.
Integrate Downside Wisdom into Your Leadership Development
Blend the latest ideas on leadership during uncertain times into your learning curriculum. The resources in the online collection can support and reinforce both self-directed and group action learning. The content can be chunked according to tasks for targeted learning.
Leading Through Uncertain Times is organized for fast, easy navigation through a wide breadth of learning assets:
- Content: Three topic areas-Adapt Your Strategy, Manage the Fundamentals, and Communicate for Strength – provide guidance to managers on how to effectively lead others through tumult. Task-based Action Plans promote learning by doing and goal setting.
- Featured Experts: Video clips by leading experts that highlight key conceptual material in each section.
- Media Collection: An extensive selection of articles, book chapters, mobile downloads, case studies, videos, eLearning modules, practical tools, and Conversation Starters.
- The Managers’ Toolkit: A collection of aids for managers and facilitators to “take it to the team” and cascade the resource center’s learning to groups and individuals. The Toolkit offers:
- Discussion Guide: helps managers and facilitators assign readings on critical topics in preparation for group discussions.
- Blended Learning: provides classroom Facilitation and Participant Guides for each section.
- Tools Index: quick access to all the tools in the collection, listed by section.
- Conversation Starters Index: offers quick access to all the Conversation Starters in the collection, which can be e-mailed to stimulate dialogue around a specific topic.
Leading Through Uncertain Times links to blogs and RSS feeds to connect your managers to the top sources for the latest news and thinking on difficult business environments. The site’s “coverflow” design and index provide easy access to site assets.
Tips, Tools, and Action Plans to Counteract Adversity
When the economic landscape undergoes radical change, managers must re-orient their organization and teams to be more resilient for the daunting challenges ahead. Leading Through Uncertain Times delivers up-to-the-minute thinking on tackling the troublesome issues that arise during business downturns.
The collection, implemented in both self-paced and blended learning formats, addresses techniques from adjusting strategies to sharpening business discipline and strengthening communication.
Leading Through Uncertain Times presents an array of content in three sections organized around nine tasks:
- Adapt Your Strategy: Insightful directions on how to assess the situation at hand, protect core competencies, and uncover unique new opportunities.
- Manage the Fundamentals: Technique and lessons for improving cost discipline while driving revenue and identifying growth opportunities. Managers will learn how to review best practices, scrutinize and contain costs, and find ways to boost revenues.
- Communicate for Strength: Best practices to help your organization foster a positive climate by opening up dialogue, restoring confidence, and building resilience.
The “Managers’ Toolkit” makes it easy to cascade groundbreaking ideas and best practices throughout an organization. The Toolkit features an instructive Discussion Guide that enables managers and facilitators to “take it to the team”—by assigning readings on critical topics prior to group discussions.
Leading Through Uncertain Times contains a rich variety of materials: articles, mobile downloads, book chapters, case studies, task-based Action Plans, expert video, and eLearning modules. Each section ends with a series of tools, including assessments, checklists, worksheets, and forms.
Proven Practices from the Pros
Darrell Rigby is a partner in the Boston office of Bain & Company and heads the firm's Global Retail and Global Innovation Practices, specializing in corporate strategy and winning in turbulent markets.
Darrell founded and launched Bain's Management Tools Survey, a global survey on the usage, satisfaction, and effectiveness of several widely used management tools among a broad range of senior executives. For the past 14 years, he has published Management Tools: An Executive's Guide, containing the 25 most popular and pertinent tools.
Darrell is the author of the forthcoming book Winning in Turbulence: Strategies for Success in Tumultuous Times (Harvard Business Press, 2009), which is being serially released by chapters on the Harvard Business Publishing web site. He is a frequent Harvard Business Review author and speaker on strategy issues, including innovation, managing in turbulence, customer relationship management, and change management. He has been a keynote speaker at global business conferences and has made media appearances on CNN, Moneyline, CNBC, and Bloomberg.
Prior to joining Bain, Darrell earned an MBA from Harvard Business School with high distinction and was a Baker Scholar. He is a graduate of Brigham Young University where he received a BS in business management, summa cum laude.
Scott Anthony is the president of Innosight, an innovation consulting and executive education company with offices in Massachusetts, Singapore, and India. He has helped clients in a range of industries improve their ability to generate ideas, develop strategies, commercialize opportunities, and develop innovation processes. Prior to joining Innosight, Scott was a Senior Researcher with Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen, co-founder of Innosight, and managed a group that worked to further Christensen’s research on innovation.
Previously, he was a Consultant for McKinsey & Co., Strategic Planner for Aspen Technology, and Product Manager for WorldSpace Corporation. While at McKinsey, he co-authored a publicly released report on the United Kingdom's economic prospects.
Scott is the lead author of the book , The Innovator’s Guide to Growth: Putting Disruptive Innovation to Work (Harvard Business Press, 2008) and of the forthcoming book, The Silver Lining: An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain Times (Harvard Business Press, 2009), which is being serially released by chapters on the Harvard Business Publishing web site. Previously, he co-authored (with Christensen) Seeing What’s Next: Using the Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change (Harvard Business Press, 2004).
Scott has written articles for The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Advertising Age, Marketing Management, and PressTime. He also serves as the editor of Strategy & Innovation, a bimonthly newsletter published by Innosight and Christensen.
Scott received a BA in economics, summa cum laude, from Dartmouth College and an MBA with high distinction from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar.
