EVOLUTIONARY STRATEGIES
PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS
Evolutionary Strategies offers bespoke leadership development programs for executives, high-potential managers,
and artists, as well as consulting services on personal and group/organizational creativity and innovation.
Talent Development:
Evolutionary Strategies offers two customized programs designed to address high
potential managers and executives: Executive Leaders and High Potential Leaders.
Managing Complexity
Strategic Consultation offer an opportunity for ongoing in-depth dialogues,
assessment and development of strategies for organizational change and transformation in a complex, rapidly changing world.
Individual and Collaborative Creativity & Innovation
Customized service for individuals, teams, and organizations seeking to engage their creativity.
Individualized Consultation
TALENT DEVELOPMENT
People are a company’s major asset. Hiring, retaining, and making best use of talent by aligning individual skills and organizational needs is central to success. And in business, just as in sports and the arts, talent needs to be developed, and the development of leaders needs to be supported.
Individualized Leadership development programs can successfully supplement in-house trainings and education for high-potentials and provide opportunities for self-renewal for executives. Evolutionary Strategies offers two customized programs designed to address high potential managers and executives: Executive Leaders and High Potential Leaders.
Executive Talent
Executives constantly face a multitude of complex challenges. Today’s 24/7 environment is increasingly fast-changing, uncertain, and fast-paced. Honest feedback is increasingly hard to get. Consequently it can be difficult to take time to assess, reflect, learn, and renew.
The Executive program offers a customized opportunity for an ongoing process of reflection and renewal. Highly individualized, but based on time-tested research and assessment processes, this program gives the client a sense of where s/he is in the present, assess strengths and areas of growth, and provides in-depth dialogue and reflection in light of the client’s self-assessment and the 360. This is followed by the development of an action plan and one year of ongoing support to ensure success. Key to this process is also getting in touch with untapped abilities and passions, as well as becoming aware of habitual behaviors that may mask possibilities for great effectiveness and creativity.
The program uses multiple modalities including:
Extensive in-depth interviews with the client
Regular sessions to address ongoing challenges & possibilities
Customized 360 feedback with in-person interviews
Discreet shadowing process to assess client in meetings and daily interactions
Sophisticated inventories of cognitive, personality, and management preferences
Integrated summary feedback report
Assessment of strategic challenges and opportunities
Review of past patterns and examination of possible future scenarios
Development of an action plan with appropriate implementation tools
One year of ongoing support while the action plan is implemented.
Emerging Talent
Highly talented individuals can go far purely on their talent. But in order to fulfill their potential and move to positions of higher responsibility they need to assess what is limiting their overall potential, how to best leverage the potential they already have, and how to align their talents, interests, and behaviors with their organization’s needs.
The Emerging Talent program provides extensive developmental support for high potential managers and others who are wanting to make the most of their potential. It begins by systematically assessing strengths and weaknesses, areas of growth, exploring blind spots, addressing any potential career-limiting issues, and valorizing and supporting existing strengths. Central to the program’s success is the intensive individualized attention to given to every participant.
The program uses multiple modalities including:
Extensive in-depth interviews with the client
A customized 360 feedback with interviews conducted in-person
Sophisticated inventories of cognitive, personality, and management preferences
An integrated summary feedback report
Developmental action plan with appropriate implementation tools
One year of ongoing support while the action plan is implemented.
STRATEGIC CONSULTATION: MANAGING COMPLEXITY
Today’s complex and fast-changing world constantly creates new challenges for individuals and organizations. Whether start-ups, rapidly growing or mature organizations, Strategic Consultation offer an opportunity for ongoing in-depth dialogues and assessment of specific needs and opportunities and how to address them. Alfonso draws on his research skills as well as his background in future studies to inform the conversation with the most recent relevant research to provide support for organizations.
INDIVIDUAL AND COLLABORATIVE CREATIVITY
Creativity and innovation are key competencies for individuals and essential for organizations. An IBM poll of 60 CEOs found creativity to be the most important competence for the immediate future.
The Individual/Collaborative Creativity & Participatory Leadership Program is entirely customized to the clients needs. These may include the need to develop personal or organizational creativity, break out of a personal “rut,” a persistent organizational problem, the awareness of “stuckness” and the need to find new challenges.
The future is uncertain and the world seems to be changing ever more rapidly. New directions and possibilities need to be considered in order to stay ahead of the curve. But how do we think about the future of our company, business unit, or team—or even our own personal future? Traditional strategic planning has proved to be less than satisfactory. One of the best way to approach the future is by mobilizing our ability to create the future by mobilizing and applying our creativity.
Creativity is not just for the arts or new technology development. It’s also about “self-creation,” creating ourselves as individuals and creating our future. Alfonso brings over 20 years of research on creativity, innovation, and futures studies, backed by his extensive publications in scholarly journals, books, and encyclopedias.
Collaborative Creativity & Participatory Leadership provides a structured context and tools for mobilizing creativity, exploring the future, outlining possibilities and engaging directions in a series of conversations designed to address the client’s specific needs and context. Alfonso draws on his research skills as well as his background in future studies to inform the conversation with the most recent relevant research.
The processes are completely customized and can be applied to individuals, groups, and organizations.
Depending on the clients’ needs, they may include:
Making values and goals explicit using dialogues and assessments
Half-day off-sites to stimulate reflection and creative breakthrough thinking
Problem-solving
The use of a variety of techniques including scenarios and generative conversations
Interviews with thought leaders in the field, and the development of a report based on the interviews
Use of individual associate consultants brought in either because of their specific area expertise (subject or process), or because they can stimulate insights by bringing in new perspectives from other industries or the arts.
JAZZ, CREATIVITY, AND IMPROVISATION
The “jazz metaphor” has increasingly become a popular way to illustrate how to address a fast-changing and uncertain environment creatively and efficiently. This second option is an “edutainment” performance that highlights the many dimensions of creativity and innovation through a live performance by the award winning jazz singer Kitty Margolis (www.kittymargolis.com) with her band. The session includes an entire jazz concert as well as a brief introductory contextualizing lecture, a discussion/Q&A session highlighting various dimensions of jazz performance, improvisation, collaborative creativity, and the development of an improvisational mindset. These half-day or full-day events can be designed to suit the clients’ needs and interests. They are informative and entertaining and include a host of take-home insights and tools.