Assessment and coaching around both leader-specific competencies and deeper dimensions of capacity and motivation.

Based on experience gained through advisory relationships over many years, The Clarion Group has developed a proprietary approach to executive assessment and coaching that is centered on the roles and responsibilities unique to senior leadership.

Assessment extends beyond the level of competencies utilized by most 360° instruments to include deeper dimensions of leadership capacity and motivation that, in combination, provide more meaningful development of insight at various stages of executive maturation. For executives seeking deeper reflection, this more introspective approach is particularly well aligned with The Clarion Institute at Ocean House retreat experience.

While highly flexible in design, a 2-3 day process is recommended, preceded by the administration of the Clarion Leadership Assessment on-line and feedback interviews with your business colleagues when feasible. Alternatively or additionally, Clarion Advisors can evaluate data from previously administered 360° assessments to determine if they provide sufficient level of insight.

Through application of tools and practice of techniques, leaders strengthen mental and behavioral muscles that sustain leadership focus for themselves and their organizations.

Davenport and Beck argue that "understanding and managing attention is now the single most important determinant of business success." (The Attention Economy). In a business world that is increasingly characterized as "ADD" by nature of its complexity, multitasking and relentless pace, this working session is designed to help executives recognize and strengthen the mental and behavioral muscles that increase leadership capacity for focus and attention, especially under stress.

The approach combines the development of individual mental capacity with leadership practices (applied tools) that enhance organizational focus. It builds upon knowledge of how our brains perceive and process information to achieve either broad or focused attention (recent neuroscientific research) reinforced through the practice of mental techniques designed to strengthen individual focus and concentration.

Clarion Advisors can facilitate an analysis of the full Operating Model of a business to help executives challenge their assessment of priorities, introduce a strategic portfolio discipline to decision making, and create a dashboard that identifies and focuses priorities. This is accomplished in a way that reinforces natural thinking preferences and compensates for blind spots.

The introspective Ocean House setting, away from the frenetic pace of day to day business, is conducive to developing more intellectually intensive practices that sharpen focus, such as "root cause" analysis and a systems thinking approach to identifying which interventions have greatest leverage and highest impact.

Executives expand their grasp of emotional capacity in the business setting and heighten their personal awareness of themselves and their influence over others.

There is widespread recognition in leadership circles that emotional capacity is as much a contributor to business and organizational success as intellectual capacity. Emotional Capacity in leadership includes the heightened perceptual awareness and constructive management of emotions in one’s self and in others from a place of mental balance and overarching optimism.

Much like language or cultural emersion programs, The Clarion Institute at Ocean House Emotional Capacity experience is designed as an emersion program in a relaxed and restorative setting. Executives expand their conceptual grasp of emotional capacity – including insights from evolving research findings in neuroscience – as required for success in the business setting, while at the same time exploring a series of experience-based mental exercises that are designed to heighten their personal awareness of self and others, as well as the human and natural environments around them. The approach can actually deepen the enjoyment of the Ocean House vacation experience while paradoxically strengthening Emotional Capacity upon return to one’s business environment.

Senior leaders gain a practical understanding of their role in creating and sustaining a discipline of innovation in their companies.

This work session focuses on the specific role of senior executives in leading innovation.

While much of the innovation literature focuses on cultural and behavioral attributes of companies envied for their innovation environment, there is little that is of practical use to leaders in understanding their unique role in creating and sustaining a discipline of innovation in their organizations.

This work session offers an approach to clarify and evaluate those aspects of innovation that leadership uniquely owns (e.g., innovation at the business model level; investment decision-making at the innovation portfolio level) versus the role of leadership as enablers of creativity and innovation in others (e.g., building the management systems that reward innovation, acting as champions of important innovation projects) to create the environment for creativity and innovation throughout the company.

The unique natural setting of Ocean House also provides an environment that is conducive for executives to explore the mental and environmental factors that contribute to their own creativity, whether personal or in business.

Assessment and development of the Top Team’s performance – in their unique role – in delivering the business objectives of their company.

While many organizations have long recognized the value of developing individual executive talent, the critical dimension of developing top leadership as a high performing team is very often overlooked. Aware of this gap, The Clarion Group created a proprietary approach to senior team assessment and development.

The Clarion Institute at Ocean House experience is an ideal opportunity for a senior team to take an in-depth, more introspective look at its own performance in delivering the business objectives of their company.

Advanced preparation includes completing an online team evaluation. Individual interviews by Clarion advisors will be conducted either in advance or on location at The Ocean House. This typically requires a 2+ day process, and it is recommended that this evaluation be combined with strategy and/or execution work in progress.

Leadership teams learn specific actions and tools that enhance their awareness of complex business environments and build useful feedback systems to anticipate evolving changes.

It is the responsibility of the senior leadership team to build and maintain the management systems that communicate execution of strategic initiatives and monitor their effectiveness down through the organization.

In order to be effective in fulfilling this responsibility, executives must sense the pulse of the organizational environment in which they lead. Said differently, in a world characterized by the immediacy of information, leaders must cultivate a holistic awareness of their complex business environments, inside and out, and develop astute feedback systems to anticipate evolving changes. While on one level this can be understood as a more expansive and holistic application of Emotional Capacity, on another level there are specific actions, tools and frameworks that leaders and their teams can undertake to enhance awareness and feedback loops.

This work session can explore dimensions of both including, for example, aspects of systems thinking, environmental and stakeholder analysis, and the use of leadership dashboards

Executives are provided with tangible techniques that, over time, cultivate deeper levels of strategic intelligence or insight.

An aspect of leadership maturation and development that is especially critical is the need to "think strategically."

Typically organizations are quite unclear about what they mean when they ask an ascending executive to become "more strategic" in their thinking, and offer little by way of concrete direction as to how to get there. What is often implied is the ability to identify new strategic directions or original solutions to old problems, for example, as described in Duggan’s work on Strategic Intuition.

The objective of The Clarion Institute at Ocean House session is to provide executives with tangible techniques that, over time, help to cultivate those deeper levels of Strategic Intelligence or Insight, as well as avoid the pitfalls of unseen bias in perception and decision making. The knowledge and experience of Clarion advisors combined with the setting of The Ocean House are highly conducive to the practice of these techniques.

This work can be effectively combined with both individual and team work on specific business strategies as described in other workshops. For greatest effectiveness, a work session of 3-4 days is highly recommended.

Senior teams use a disciplined methodology to examine their fundamental assumptions about the business, helping them to avoid competitive extinction.

The starting place for Business Transformation is an in-depth examination of the fundamental assumptions of the business.

This is designed to be a provocative 1-3 day working session in which executives teams are challenged to identify and question their own personal assumptions as well as the unseen "ways things are done" that have become "ossified" in their companies.

Drucker, who called this "The Theory of the Business," believed every company should have in place a discipline that forces them to periodically test and validate the value of their fundamental business models in the current market place to avoid competitive extinction. The concern around individual managers stuck in a "business as usual" mentality is substantiated by recent insights from the field of neuroscience: our brains tend to repeat familiar neurological patterns unless confronted by novel situations that activate different mental processing.

The Clarion Group has developed a disciplined methodology that individual leaders and their teams can incorporate into their leadership agenda.

Senior teams understand, architect and commit to their role in making deep changes in business models.

The financial crisis of 2008-09 has forced many companies to transform their business models to prepare for a very different competitive environment coming out the other side. How to go about this is the question.

This is a 2-4 day working session with a senior executive team to understand, architect and commit to the Business Transformation process that will be required for their company. The complete process requires strong, committed leaders who understand their roles in making the strategy come alive through the organizational structures and capabilities that they design and build over time.

Senior Teams, even those in market-dominating companies, learn to plan for robust, long-term growth.

The centrality of growth is so strongly assumed in business planning that it is helpful to call it out as a distinct aspect of Strategic Thinking. The dynamic of competitive markets requires a discipline that enables leaders to objectively evaluate the sustainability of its existing business and constantly seek new opportunities.

Even successful companies that enjoy market dominance often fail to invest sufficiently in a strong pipeline of future business opportunities, both within their core business and without.

Clarion advisors offer approaches to growth planning that start with the identification of a robust growth portfolio and move beyond to consider the type of investment, commitment of resources, and leadership competencies appropriate along different horizons of near term and long term growth.

Executives proactively question "what if" the market changes, and build plans that accommodate a range of options, reducing risk when markets do inevitably change.

In a business world marked by heightened volatility, complexity and disruptive change, even the impossible happens. Reliance upon a singular or narrow strategy leaves companies exposed to unacceptable risk when markets are subject to sudden dislocation.

An increasingly effective approach is to think and plan through the lens of a portfolio of strategic options. A portfolio discipline requires leadership to make a mental shift away from a traditional "either or" linear planning process and management of resources.

Executives will learn how to apply scenario thinking into everyday decision making, as well as gain an understanding of the organizational discipline required to implement Scenario Planning in a company’s long range planning. Clarion advisors help executives explore a portfolio discipline that proactively questions "what if" the market changes, evaluates the probability of competing options, designs a planning process that anticipates the possibility of multiple strategic options, and establishes a process to monitor leading indicators.

"There is nothing that is a more certain sign of insanity than to do the same thing over and over and expect the results to be different." - Albert Einstein

Executives deepen their individual and team ability to think strategically about their current business needs.

The Clarion Group is experienced in helping executive teams clarify exactly what aspect of strategic planning is appropriate to the needs of the organization at a particular point in time, and then facilitating the work of the executive team through that process.

Clarion advisors can work within the strategic tools and frameworks already in place within a company, or suggest alternative frameworks that might be appropriate. At times The Clarion Institute at Ocean House experience will encourage executives to deepen their individual and team capacity for strategic thinking in parallel with specific business objectives by combining aspects of Strategic Planning with Strategic Intelligence over a 2-3 day working session.

Leaders address the challenge of translating strategy into action and execution, with emphasis on their role in enabling implementation.

"Stratecution" addresses the leadership challenge of translating Strategy into Action and Execution. Too often great strategies falter on take-off and never gain flight.

This 1-2 day working session identifies critical design principles, pushes the team to stress test strategic initiatives for feasibility, and turns the strategic concept into a useable set of organizational and resource blue prints that will stage the build-out effectively over time. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of leadership in walking the talk and holding the organization (including each other) accountable through to implementation at every stage.

Components of Leadership Concentration and Focus can be helpful in combination with this team work session. Depending on the nature of the strategic plan under consideration, assessing the organization’s readiness for change and the role of the senior team as agents of change may be recommended.