Executive Decision Making and Enterprise Leadership Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Advanced Certificate on completion
Who attends Executive Directors, Senior Managers and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 7 Nov 2026 Course code SD-EM-080

Before you join: Participants should have substantial management experience and regular involvement in business planning, budgets, major projects, governance forums or cross-functional decisions.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Senior leaders are expected to make timely, defensible choices when information is incomplete, stakeholders disagree and consequences extend across business units. Decisions on capital allocation, market entry, regulatory response, operating model change and crisis action can fail when authority is unclear, assumptions remain untested or implementation ownership is weak. This course addresses the disciplines required to improve decision quality while maintaining pace, accountability and enterprise alignment.

Participants examine how executives frame problems, set decision rights, assess evidence, manage uncertainty and challenge bias. They use RAPID and RACI to clarify authority, issue trees to structure complex problems, scenario planning to prepare for uncertainty, and financial techniques to test investment choices. The course also addresses strategic resource allocation, board-level communication, stakeholder influence, crisis decision processes and executive-team behaviours that support constructive challenge.

Teaching combines concise instructor briefings with realistic cases, facilitated group analysis, decision simulations and peer challenge. Participants work with decisions resembling those faced by banks, public bodies, multinationals and regulated organisations: funding a strategic initiative, responding to a service disruption, resolving cross-business priorities and presenting an uncertain recommendation to senior governance forums. Each participant leaves with a practical executive decision toolkit, including decision-charter, evidence-register, scenario and implementation-planning templates, plus a 90-day application plan. The course is delivered over five instructor-led days in classroom locations across 50+ cities or live online, with a certificate of completion.

The course suits experienced managers moving into enterprise leadership roles, and established executives seeking a more disciplined approach to high-stakes decisions.

What you will be able to do

  • Design decision rights using RAPID and RACI for enterprise decisions
  • Structure complex executive problems using issue trees, hypotheses and evidence registers
  • Test assumptions and counter cognitive bias through premortem and red-team methods
  • Assess uncertainty using Cynefin, scenario planning, signposts and contingent actions
  • Evaluate strategic investments using NPV, IRR, sensitivity analysis and opportunity costs
  • Frame recommendations for boards and senior stakeholders with explicit trade-offs
  • Lead executive discussions that produce accountable decisions and committed actions
  • Build a 90-day implementation plan with milestones, measures and review triggers

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Make high-stakes recommendations with clearer logic, evidence and stated assumptions
  • Challenge executive groupthink without creating avoidable personal conflict
  • Present financial and strategic trade-offs credibly to senior governance forums
  • Lead cross-functional decisions with defined authority and implementation ownership
  • Build a personal 90-day plan for improving executive decision habits

For your organisation

  • Faster decisions through clearer rights, escalation thresholds and accountable owners
  • Stronger investment choices through disciplined financial and scenario testing
  • Reduced rework from documented assumptions, dissenting views and review triggers
  • Better cross-business alignment on priorities, resources and delivery commitments
  • More defensible governance records for major strategic and operational decisions

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can establish clear decision rights, ownership and escalation rules for major enterprise choices.

  • Decision rights mapped through RAPID for recurrent enterprise choices
  • Classify decisions by reversibility, consequence, urgency and information requirements
  • Distinguish Type 1 and Type 2 decisions using Bezos model
  • Set escalation thresholds that prevent executive bottlenecks and shadow decisions
  • Create decision charters defining owner, contributors, approvers, evidence and deadlines
  • Apply RACI where accountability clarification is more suitable than RAPID
  • Audit decision latency, rework, reversals and unowned commitments

Participants can frame executive problems precisely and assess the quality of available evidence.

  • Frame executive problems using issue trees and mutually exclusive hypotheses
  • Separate facts, assumptions, inferences and judgments in decision briefs
  • Use base rates to counter anecdotal evidence and availability bias
  • Test causal claims with counterfactual questions and disconfirming evidence
  • Construct an evidence register showing source quality, uncertainty and gaps
  • Apply premortem analysis before committing capital, reputation or scarce capacity
  • Record dissenting views without converting disagreement into personal conflict

Participants can identify cognitive bias and introduce constructive challenge into executive decisions.

  • Recognise confirmation, anchoring, sunk-cost and overconfidence biases in executive teams
  • Design red-team challenges that test assumptions, incentives and failure modes
  • Use structured analytic techniques to widen alternatives before selecting a course
  • Calibrate confidence estimates using reference classes and probability ranges
  • Run a premortem to identify preventable causes of strategic failure
  • Separate advocacy from inquiry during high-stakes leadership discussions
  • Document minority positions and trigger conditions for decision review

Participants can select decision approaches suited to uncertainty, complexity and changing conditions.

  • Classify situations with Cynefin: clear, complicated, complex, chaotic and confused
  • Match decision approaches to ordered, emergent and crisis conditions
  • Use scenario planning to test strategic choices against plausible futures
  • Define leading indicators, signposts and tripwires for each scenario
  • Build contingent actions around irreversible commitments and downside exposure
  • Distinguish risk registers from uncertainty requiring experiments or options
  • Sequence probe-sense-respond actions when cause and effect remain unclear

Participants can evaluate business cases and communicate financial trade-offs in executive decisions.

  • Interpret income statements, balance sheets and cash-flow statements for decisions
  • Compare proposals using NPV, IRR, payback period and sensitivity analysis
  • Translate strategic options into revenue, cost, working-capital and cash assumptions
  • Challenge business cases with unit economics, capacity constraints and opportunity costs
  • Set investment hurdles aligned with risk appetite and capital availability
  • Identify sunk costs that should not govern continuation decisions
  • Present financial trade-offs without false precision or hidden assumptions

Participants can connect strategic choices to resource allocation, operating priorities and accountable delivery.

  • Convert enterprise purpose into strategic choices, boundaries and resource priorities
  • Assess competitive position through customer value, capabilities and cost drivers
  • Allocate scarce resources using portfolio logic, dependency mapping and sequencing
  • Connect strategic priorities to operating targets, initiatives and accountable owners
  • Resolve cross-business trade-offs between growth, resilience, service and margin
  • Test whether stated priorities match budget, talent and executive attention
  • Draft a one-page strategy-on-a-page for leadership communication

Participants can build support for difficult decisions while maintaining clear accountability and governance discipline.

  • Map stakeholders by power, interest, legitimacy and potential coalition behaviour
  • Diagnose informal influence networks affecting enterprise decisions and execution
  • Prepare negotiation positions using interests, alternatives and concession limits
  • Frame recommendations for boards, regulators, investors and employee representatives
  • Handle constructive dissent without suppressing challenge or diluting accountability
  • Use stakeholder messages that state decision rationale, implications and commitments
  • Plan sponsor engagement for decisions requiring cross-functional cooperation

Participants can organise timely, accountable executive decisions during operational or reputational crises.

  • Establish crisis decision cells with roles, authorities and information rhythms
  • Prioritise life safety, legal duties, customers, continuity and reputation
  • Use rapid situation reports to separate verified facts from emerging claims
  • Make time-bounded decisions with explicit assumptions and review points
  • Coordinate incident communications across executives, operations, legal and external stakeholders
  • Preserve decision logs for accountability, learning and regulatory scrutiny
  • Decide when to escalate, pause operations or activate contingency arrangements

Participants can create executive-team conditions that support candour, accountability and enterprise-wide thinking.

  • Set executive team norms for candour, challenge, confidentiality and follow-through
  • Align incentives and performance measures with enterprise rather than silo outcomes
  • Delegate decisions with guardrails, authority limits and feedback loops
  • Address destructive conflict through interests, facts, options and agreements
  • Build psychological safety while retaining standards, consequence management and pace
  • Coach senior managers through decision ownership rather than answer giving
  • Review team effectiveness using meeting outputs, commitments and decision quality

Participants can translate executive decisions into measurable delivery plans and personal leadership actions.

  • Translate decisions into accountable actions, milestones, dependencies and control points
  • Build implementation roadmaps that connect outcomes, risks, owners and resources
  • Define outcome measures, leading indicators and review cadences for commitments
  • Use after-action reviews to capture lessons without allocating blame
  • Establish decision review triggers for changed assumptions or weak results
  • Communicate enterprise decisions through concise briefs, messages and manager conversations
  • Create a 90-day executive decision and leadership application plan

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. RAPID decision-charter template
  2. Executive evidence-register template
  3. Premortem and red-team checklist
  4. Scenario signpost and contingent-action model
  5. Board recommendation briefing template
  6. 90-day executive decision application plan

Who should attend

  • Executive Directors — responsible for enterprise choices, governance and organisational performance
  • Senior Managers — preparing for broader authority over strategy, budgets and cross-functional delivery
  • Business Unit Heads — balancing growth, service, risk and resource demands
  • Programme Directors — coordinating major change decisions across multiple functions
  • Public Sector Leaders — making accountable decisions under political, financial and public scrutiny
  • Risk and Transformation Leaders — strengthening decision discipline during change and uncertainty

Skills and tools covered

Executive decision designStrategic resource allocationUncertainty managementFinancial case evaluationStakeholder influenceEnterprise execution

Tools and standards

RAPID, RACI, Cynefin framework, Scenario planning

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to introduce methods, followed by case work, facilitated group exercises, decision simulations and structured peer challenge. Participants analyse realistic strategic, financial, operational and crisis decisions, preparing recommendations under time and information constraints. Simulations focus on executive-team discussion, stakeholder disagreement and governance communication. Individual application planning helps participants adapt the methods to a current decision, team or business priority. Trainers adjust cases and discussion emphasis to the cohort's sector and seniority.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have substantial management experience and regular involvement in business planning, budgets, major projects, governance forums or cross-functional decisions. They should be comfortable reading management reports and discussing financial, operational and people implications of proposed actions. Previous formal study of strategy, finance or leadership is useful but not required. The course does not require advanced mathematics, accounting qualifications, prior experience with RAPID or RACI, or specialist industry knowledge. Participants will gain most value by bringing a current or recent high-stakes decision to consider during the course.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants should have substantial management experience and exposure to business planning, governance, budgets or cross-functional decisions. Formal qualifications in strategy, finance or leadership are not required.

Bring a current or recent decision involving competing priorities, uncertainty or stakeholder disagreement. You do not need to share confidential documents, but a non-sensitive outline of the decision will help with application planning.

The course is designed for senior managers, directors, business unit heads, programme leaders and executives with enterprise-level responsibilities. It is particularly useful for people moving from functional leadership into broader decision authority.

This course focuses on the mechanics of making and implementing high-stakes decisions: authority, evidence, uncertainty, financial trade-offs, challenge and execution. It uses leadership and strategy concepts only where they improve actual executive decisions.

Participants receive reusable templates for decision charters, evidence registers, scenario planning, governance briefings and implementation reviews. The final module turns these into a 90-day plan linked to a real leadership priority.

Training runs from 08:30 to 16:30 each day, providing about 6.5 contact hours daily. Time is divided between instructor input, case analysis, group exercises, decision simulations, peer challenge and application planning.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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