Teaching
Teaching
George has more than 30 years of experience teaching undergraduate, postgraduate (including MBA) and delivering executive education. This teaching includes strategic management, scenario planning, and delivering facilitation skills.
Teaching strategic management includes the application of a wide range of theories including competitive advantage, industry and competitor analysis, market analysis including segmentation, strategic group analysis, business idea and scenario analysis. From this analysis students are encouraged to synthesize their findings, focusing on key issues to determine a proposal for the future. A key element out the outcomes is to draft a report for the organisation’s CEO setting out the findings, the proposal, and the sustainable competitive advantage to be gained in the future.
Teaching scenario planning can take a number of approaches. The first approach is based on an in-depth application of the scenario process through several iterations. The first iteration of the process is to designed to enable individuals to gain familiarisation with and experience of the (steps in the) scenario process. Having had that experience the next stage is a reflection on the experience to tease out learning insights. Such learning insights are then applied in the second iteration. The second iteration is the application of the scenario process is then undertaken as a ‘consulting’ project. The most recent experience of teaching the ‘consulting’ approach was based around the UNDP’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, with the ‘client’ the UNDP.
The first step is to choose a ‘case’ country, do research to develop some historical knowledge on the chosen country, and map out progress towards the achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals in the present. From there develop a set of scenarios to the chosen target date, usually 15 to 20 years in the future. Once these scenarios have been developed for the chosen country then undertake an analysis of each of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals one-by-one to determine progress or regression over time. Doing so will help UNDP to determine how best to support the chosen country in the future.
The second, approach to teaching scenarios is based on application within a business context. The approach is developed around two aspects – the business idea and the development of scenarios. The business idea is a negotiated representation of the assets, accumulated knowledge and collective skills which are developed over time. Senior management agree an aspect of the business where they have potential possibilities or concerns (that are not yet understood) and they wish a group of managers to have the opportunity to explore and develop a set of scenarios from which insights on the potential possibilities or concerns are derived. From such insights the development of strategic options to either harness possibilities or avoid the downside impact of their concerns.
One feature that is common to both these approaches is to stretch the thinking of individuals, individually and collectively. Stretching the thinking of individuals with scenarios enables them to develop personal capabilities to understand the familiar anew, to see the unseen, and to connect ideas to broaden understanding and develop new knowledge.
Executive Education
George has extensive experience designing and delivering executive education, again covering strategic management and the scenario process. These are custom programmes designed to meet the needs of the organisation. Design could be a based around a one-day, two-day or five-day programme. With design based on discussion and consultation and agreement with the ‘client’.
Examples of executive education clients include Babcock International, William Grant & Sons, PETRONAS (Malaysia), Arts Council England, and Thales. In addition, George has delivered scenarios and strategy programmes for the University of Strathclyde Business School, Curtin Business School (Australia), and University of Western Australia.
Consulting
George has more than 30 years consulting experience, starting from the time he spent as a chartered accountant, and subsequently throughout his academic career.
Examples of organisations where I have undertaken consulting projects include World Bank, PayPal, Plan International, Shell, Doosan Babcock, Church of Scotland, LRQA, Arts Council England, Edrington Group, Stirling Council, Dumfries and Galloway Council, and Scotland Excel.
Building capability
Building capacity involves one-to-one or small group coaching in-house staff to enable them to design and deliver strategy and scenario planning capability internally. This involves practical exercises as well as exploring issues of facilitation including a wide range of issues in managing group dynamics.