Course Overview
In today’s times, if you aren’t willing to change, you will be left behind. One thing we all know for sure is that Life. Will. Change. You must be able to change with it. It can be difficult, but people need to be willing to reinvent themselves and their organizations. Dreams, plans, businesses, and more can survive, thrive, and come alive again if you learn how to pivot.
This course will focus on what pivoting is and why it is critical for successful and sustainable change and innovation in today’s times. Strategic planning tools we'll study including:
The Five Forces, the Boston Consulting Group’s Portfolio Matrix, the Ansoff Market Development Matrix, Blue Ocean Strategy and Lean Start Up Theory will help identify and apply competitive advantages for pivots across industries. Importantly, this course also addresses how to maximize the art of the pivot personally, and how those skills will benefit you when leading others and making key decisions. Class time will be devoted to selected cases, lectures, and group presentations. Topics include honing vision, shifting energy, harnessing possibilities, defining priorities, developing effective positioning, utilizing resources, addressing roadblocks, using discernment, managing perceptions, gaining cross-functional alignment and more.
The cases of companies that have made significant pivots that we will discuss will be Netflix, Inc. and Tesla, Inc.
The ability to pivot is a critical step in the innovation process that can be disruptive and industry changing. You cannot be a successful innovator without having significant pivoting skills. According to the 2021 Deloitte Innovation Study, “learning precedes earning." And "those learnings made manifest in persistent pivots is the recipe for (eventual) superior profits." Consider this statistic from a 2022 McKinsey Innovation report: Over 80 percent of executives surveyed say that innovation is among their top three priorities, yet less than 10 percent report being satisfied with their organizations’ innovation performance. So, whether you desire to be an entrepreneur or work in management to drive innovation, studying the strategic art of the pivot can be a game changer.
Key Course Takeaways
- Transform your thinking to the next level about how to pivot
- Leave knowing how to use strategic pivoting concepts, tools, applications and processes
- Have 10 Pivot Points in your wheelhouse you can use every day personally and professionally
The Pivot for Success course will provide the opportunity to study, discuss and learn from a number of unique avenues with readings, cases, multimedia content, guest speakers, role play and the professor's own deep experiences of pivoting corporately, as an entrepreneur and advising Fortune 500 clients to successfully do so. This course may not be for everyone--I expect students to bring their full selves to the course. Understanding your own personal and professional pivots and being willing to to share your learnings with the class to help others as future leaders is key.
Guest speakers from industry who have made significant pivots professionally often visit the class to share their insights. This quarter, our Guest Speaker will be Kenard Gibbs, VP of MidWest Sales for BET Networks, a key division of Paramount. His insights will be particularly interesting given we are studying Netflix.
Prior speakers have included:
Sheryl Sandberg, former COO of Meta
Indra Nooyi, former CEO of PepsiCo
Marc Schulman CEO of Eli's Cheesecakes
Karla Davis, former VP of ULTA Beauty
Hugh Johnston, Former CFO of PepsiCo
