This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.

A strategy that has not been converted into a structure, a budget and a set of metrics is not a strategy. It is a document with a nice cover.

Where strategies die

Almost always in the same three places. The org chart still reflects the previous strategy, so the new one has no owner anywhere. The budget was built by extrapolating last year, so the money is already committed to the old plan. And the metrics measure activity rather than the few factors that decide whether the strategy works at all. I have watched a good strategy fail on all three, and none of the failures happened in the strategy session. They happened in the four months afterwards, quietly, while everyone assumed it was progressing.

What this course actually covers

Five layers. First, the executive view: what a chief executive actually decides — direction, team, product, growth, money, crises, technology, and how that work divides with the operating side. Second, the machinery of producing a strategy: preparing the session, choosing who is in the room, running two days of it, and leaving with an implementation plan. Third, organisational design: the six design drivers, choosing between archetypes and matrices, redesigning the leadership layer, and running the transition. Fourth, the financial model — turning strategy into goals and resources, budgeting as a decision tool, the strategy pyramid, Lean applied to finance, and what scaling actually requires. Fifth, measurement: critical success factors, designing indicators that measure the strategy, reporting them properly, and the six myths that break most systems, starting with tying metrics to pay.

A note on scope

This is the whole chain, not the inspiring part of it. Roughly half the course is structure, budgets and metrics, because that is where strategy either becomes real or does not. If you want a course on visionary thinking, this is not it. If you have a direction and need it to survive contact with the organisation, it is.

Who is teaching this

I am Mike Pritula. I built the people system at Preply as it became a unicorn, and I have worked at Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank. More than 1.6 million students have enrolled in my courses across 185 countries, and over 150,000 specialists have gone through my programmes. I hold PHRi and SHRM-CP certifications and represent HRCI in more than ten countries.

What is included

• Lifetime access to all 44 lessons

• Active instructor support in the Q&A section

• A Udemy Certificate of Completion

• Working frameworks: the five-step design process, the six design drivers, the two-day session agenda, the strategy pyramid, impact mapping, the 10-80-10 rule

• Real organisational cases, including Wargaming and ArcelorMittal

Where to start

Open your current org chart next to your current strategy. If you cannot point at the person accountable for each strategic priority, you have found the problem before lesson one. Enrol now and start today.