Day 1: Widening the Executive Issue Perspective

Reframing the Issue

• Identify question that genuinely requires decision
• Shift boundaries to expose hidden causes
• Distinguish problem from team's preferred solution
• Reframe three issues in structured lab

Thinking in Systems

• Map stakeholders flows and influence loops
• Expose delayed and unintended consequences
• Identify leverage points with multiplied impact
• Build system map around enterprise decision

Strategic Time Horizon

• Separate near-term from long-term decision effects
• Assess risks of short-term optimization
• Identify options preserving future flexibility
• Analyze decisions with misleading short-term success

Day 2: Evidence, Assumptions, and Judgment

Executive Evidence Quality

• Evaluate source currency and decision relevance
• Separate important signals from information volume
• Identify missing evidence changing judgment
• Analyze a contradictory executive information pack

Assumptions and Mental Models

• Surface untested team assumptions
• Classify assumptions by impact and uncertainty
• Seek counterevidence to the dominant hypothesis
• Create assumption register for decision file

Biases in Judgment

• Detect anchoring overconfidence and authority effects
• Use dissenting viewpoints to strengthen deliberation
• Separate social consensus from evidentiary agreement
• Diagnose bias in simulated executive committee

Day 3: Strategic Options and Tradeoffs

Generating Meaningful Alternatives

• Build pathways with different value logic
• Include both incremental and transformational options
• Avoid cosmetic alternatives hiding predetermined decision
• Generate alternatives for a high-impact issue

Executive Judgment Criteria

• Define value risk flexibility and feasibility
• Weight criteria according to decision context
• Compare outcomes, not option features
• Apply a multi-criteria tradeoff matrix

Cost of Choice and Exclusion

• Estimate opportunity cost for every pathway
• State explicitly what will be surrendered
• Compare delay costs with decision costs
• Prepare a leadership tradeoff statement

Day 4: Strategic Decisions Under Uncertainty

Applied Scenario Construction

• Identify variables resistant to precise forecasting
• Frame distinct plausible future conditions
• Test preferred option in each future
• Stress-test an investment decision through scenarios

Bets and Flexibility

• Choose smaller moves that purchase information
• Identify commitments difficult to reverse
• Set review points before increasing exposure
• Design a staged decision pathway

Stopping and Escalation Rules

• Set thresholds preventing endless analysis
• Define conditions requiring reconsideration
• Establish limits for delegated executive authority
• Simulate new information emerging before resolution

Day 5: Strategic Executive Decision Laboratory

Preparing the Judgment File

• Summarize question evidence and critical assumptions
• Present alternatives and tradeoffs without concealment
• Define risks and adjustment points
• Write a one-page executive recommendation

Testing the Recommendation

• Expose logic to financial and challenge
• Address objections revealing weak assumptions
• Change position when material evidence emerges
• Review recommendation with critical peer team

Decision Memorandum and Follow-Up

• Record decision rationale and boundaries clearly
• Assign indicators testing decision soundness
• Define timing and triggers for reconsideration
• Approve memorandum that supports later learning

 

• Reframing and systems exercises using executive issues
• Ambiguous evidence packs exposing assumptions and bias
• Scenarios and tradeoffs testing option flexibility
• Laboratory concluding with an executive decision memorandum