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Thursday 2:15 - 3:45 pm                  

Colin F. Jackson, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Strategy and Policy, U.S. Naval War College

The U.S. Naval War College is home to some of the greatest thinking our nation possesses on the creation and execution of strategy. So significantly, that numerous leading educational institutions (e.g. Yale, Harvard, Penn, Johns Hopkins University, and Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy of Tufts University) are now featuring former War College professors to provide students with the military’s strategic thinking, planning, and implementation capability. With increasingly rapid and complex change facing corporate environments, it is opportune for us to learn from military expertise in managing more advanced levels of change and ambiguity.

Center to the military’s creating winning strategy is the understanding that survival of organizations in competitive environments depends on their responses to a perennial set of choices. In the words of James March, organizations must decide how much effort to invest in the “exploitation” of existing ideas and processes and how much to devote to the “exploration” of genuinely new ones. The answers to these questions depend on the organization’s explanation of past events. What explains the dramatic rise and subsequent collapse in energy prices over the past 24 months? Why did security conditions in Iraq improve in 2007 and 2008? Such explanations are shaped not only by objective characteristics of the historical events, but also by the organizations’ shared beliefs about the nature of the environment and the laws of cause and effect in that domain – in short, the organization’s operational code.

American military strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrates formidable obstacles to historical inference and strategy formulation on the part of large organizations. And, our experience with counterinsurgency since 2003 underlines the perils of organizational explanations that overstate the strategists’ control/influence and understate the role of competitors’ actions and chance. Commercial military organizations must grapple not only with changes in their competitive environments but also with the influence of their existing causal beliefs on the interpretation of performance and the development of effective strategies. Drawing on recent military and commercial cases, Dr. Jackson’s session will highlight the practical importance of valid, historical inference – the process of explaining past outcomes and relating those explanations to prospective choices.

This session pre-approved by HRCI for 1.5 recertification credits - Strategic Credit*

Friday 7:30 - 9:00 am                  

Gregg T. Barratt, Vice President, Frontier Corporation

Michelle Carpenter

With terrorism and war, recession, corporate restructuring and layoffs, mergers & acquisitions, and a turbulent, global economic environment, increasingly we are relying on both individual and organizational resiliency to not only help us to survive, but ultimately, to succeed. Our 21st century workplace, spilling over with unrelenting, complex and fast paced-change, organizational churn, extreme cost cutting measures, non-stop demand to do more with less, and intense global competition ---has left us with a workforce that is over stressed, over loaded, over tired, and struggling to problem-solve and respond to serious business issues. Individuals’ and organizations’ ability to cope, produce efficiently, serve customers effectively, and to innovate/create new products and services is seriously challenged. Our ability to compete and win on the global stage is being impacted and threatened. This interactive work shop will provide the background and identify the drivers of what has created this perfect storm. Those of you who have goals around building a workforce that can adapt to constant change and respond quickly to competition, while thriving under continuous job pressure, will not want to miss this highly interactive session.

• Hear how experts define resiliency, share your personal stories and insights, learn how HR can truly add value to their organizations in ways not previously understood, and leave with a plan to meet with your business leader upon your return. List and describe the three critical characteristics of being truly resilient
• Learn how to hire talent who are resilient and develop that skill in existing staff
• Learn how you can support your business leaders in fostering resilience in their organizations

This session pre-approved by HRCI for 1.5 recertification credits - General Credit

Friday 9:30 - 11:00 am                  

Margaret-Ann Cole, Senior Consultant, Towers Watson

Kathryn Yates, Director, Towers Watson

Business strategies shift with reasonable frequency, reacting to the competitive environments in which companies function. Organizational structures also will change to accommodate the needs of the business. In the past, culture changes occurred over prolonged periods of time. In our current business climate this change period is being dramatically compressed. This session will provide practical solutions and leading thinking on how to assess and design the culture your organization needs to best support the achievement of strategy and facilitate sustainable leader championship. Participants will gain knowledge on:

• Best practice methodologies utilized to conduct  cultural assessments
• How to examine your culture in context with business strategy and external forces’ trending
• Critical practices (and those to avoid) to successfully present your findings and recommendations to leadership
• How to prioritize culture shifting needs

This session pre-approved by HRCI for 1.5 recertification credits - Strategic Credit*

Friday 1:30 - 3:00 pm                  

Scott Cawood, Ph.D., SPHR, Vice President, Worldwide Human Resources for Synygy, Inc.

The role of culture permeates all aspects of organizational life. This session will explore the role of culture as a strategic contribution to your business from both a people and profitability perspective. There is compelling evidence to suggest that organizations and the cultures they create will ultimately have enormous implications to the business. The information shared will be pulled from extensive research that has examined the unique ways culture has helped (and sometimes hindered) organizational performance for many of the best places to work in the US. Participants will learn:

• The role culture can play in creating a sustainable advantage for the business;
• How to link the culture with the strategic direction of the business and make modifications where needed;
• What elements of culture help or hinder organizational performance;
• How some of the best places to work in the world have built cultures that help them reach their goals while not compromising on their employee experience;
• How having the right culture can provide protection from economic  downturns and other external threats to your business; and
• That a great culture can be built without high cost if managed appropriately.

This session pre-approved by HRCI for 1.5 recertification credits - Strategic Credit*

Friday 3:15 - 4:45 pm                  

Kathleen Molloy, M.A., MBA, Founder & Principal, ChangeWorks International

Culture change initiatives, whether organizations are building high performance and accountability, diversity and inclusion, customer –centrism, or globalization, seriously hiccup or fail more often than succeed. As organizations are rapidly re-examining their strategies, re-positioning, and restructuring to remain viable in the future, significant culture change will be unavoidable. Learn from a notable expert on how to plan, lead, and implement a successful culture shift and gain the effectiveness of tools she will share. Learn answers to:

• How do cultures change, really? 
• How do you build a realistic and flexible culture change plan?  How do you build the right communications strategy and action plan? 
• Who has what role?  What is the role of HR in culture change? 
• How can you best measure your success?

This session pre-approved by HRCI for 1.5 recertification credits - Strategic Credit*

*A PHR may obtain General Credit by attending any session approved for Strategic Credit or International Management Credit.

To learn more about PHR, SPHR, and GPHR certification and recertification, visit the Human Resource Certification Institute web site at www.hrci.org