Step Up International: Applying Strategic Management Principles for Personal & Career Development

Step Up International, Sta Rosa, Laguna.

The pursuit of effectiveness and success for companies and individuals, at the core level, are founded on the same knowledge framework and skills sets – which can be learned and honed for personal development.

Strategic Management is usually taught as the culmination of two years in an MBA, we were given an hour and a half to teach it in an applicable manner to more than 2000 bright-eyed graduates looking for professional wisdom. As usual we were up to the challenge – and the opportunity to speak in a seminar with Francis Kong – so we applied ourselves to the task of extracting and distilling the essentials of management into a tight seminar for aspiring leaders. We started off with a review of the doomed Fyre Festival – essentially, your worst event nightmare come to life due to a disregard for solid management principles. From there, we discussed the need to develop key mindsets and skill sets that lead to practical management effectiveness: > Value Mindset – the ability to make decisions in terms of costs and the resulting value gained

> Service Mindset – the commitment and practices to outperform competitors in delivering value to customers, for repeat business

> Excellence Mindset – the perspectives and disciplines needed to generate ever-increasing value products, services, and operations

> Leadership Mindset – the principles and culture that result in the energy and creativity for building value

We entertained insightful questions about how these principles should be applied – say in the case of the Fyre Festival, or more importantly, in real life. At the end of the day, sense makes sense, and the audience knew that they were receiviing firsthand insight from the corporate world. After we left, there were still audience members emailing us for consultation, which we were happy to do – just our part in helping out the next generation.