Think Like a CEO is a one‑day, high‑intensity workshop for fast‑track executives who want to move from running a function to owning the six defining decisions that will shape an entire company’s future. Using insights from four decades of data on 3,000+ CEOs and 18,000+ strategic decisions, participants will learn to see their world through the same challenge and decision lenses as top global leaders, and to design bold, legacy‑defining moves rather than optimising noise. Through case work, heat‑map tools, and peer dialogue, they will practise thinking from their future CEO self, diagnosing the real game they are in, and choosing scalable responses that balance performance, resilience, and stakeholder trust.
Think Like a CEO
08:30–09:00 | Arrival, context and personal commitments
- Welcome, objectives, and framing: six decisions define a CEO’s legacy and you likely have about five years in the role to get them right.
- Individual exercise: “If people only remembered six of my decisions, what would I want them to be?” (letter‑to‑future‑self prompt).
09:00–10:15 | Session 1 – From operator to legacy: the CEO’s real job
- Input: how the CEO role has evolved from cost and scale to stewarding complex human systems through shocks, digital transformation, and sustainability.
- Group discussion: activity vs impact – where your current leadership agenda is busy but not legacy‑shaping.
- Tool: draft a personal “future CEO identity” statement linked to why your company deserves to exist.
10:15–10:30 | Break
10:30–11:45 | Session 2 – Seeing what CEOs actually face: the Challenge Framework
- Input: the 15 recurring CEO challenges and the Challenge Heat‑Map (market rivalry, revenue and cost, digital transformation, sustainability, etc.).
- Exercise: map your business onto the five challenge domains (external forces, stakeholder expectations, technology, internal complexity, people) using recent examples.
- Debrief: which 2–3 challenges really define your context, and what that implies for where you must think like a CEO today.
11:45–12:45 | Session 3 – From challenge to choice: the Strategic‑Decision Framework
- Input: the 19 strategic decision types across five domains (purpose and responsibility; growth and markets; competitive advantage; organizational excellence; financial and risk stewardship).
- Mini‑cases: short CEO decision vignettes (e.g. market exits, digital bets, portfolio moves, culture and responsibility commitments) tagged to the framework.
- Exercise: identify which 3–4 decision types you are already influencing and which CEO‑level moves you are not yet thinking about but should be.
12:45–13:30 | Lunch
13:30–14:45 | Session 4 – Designing like the best teams: data, human systems, and scalable decisions
- Input: lessons from elite sports analytics – start with a transformational why, turn signal into decisions, protect the asset (people), and build a human‑data partnership.
- Exercise: in cross‑functional groups, redesign one real decision in your business (e.g. pricing, capital allocation, talent, or risk) using “decision‑centric data” and next‑best‑action thinking rather than dashboards.
- Debrief: what changes when you treat analytics as an operating system for decisions, not decoration.
14:45–15:00 | Break
15:00–16:15 | Session 5 – Scenarios, eras and “which game are you playing?”
- Input: seven eras from 1985–2025 and how CEO focus shifted between offense and defense across globalization, crisis, digital and stakeholder capitalism.
- Exercise: scenario lab – place your company in one of the book’s named scenarios and stress‑test your current strategy using the challenge and decision frameworks.
- Pair work: identify one bold move where you would bet on the “future self” of the company rather than protect its past.
16:15–17:15 | Session 6 – Archetypes, expectations and your six decisions
- Input: overview of CEO archetypes and the expectations chapter – what boards, investors, and stakeholders implicitly expect from modern CEOs.
- Exercise: quick self‑diagnostic – which archetype patterns do you default to (e.g. deal‑maker, digital transformer, steward of people and responsibility) and what is missing for a rounded CEO profile.
- Tool: draft your personal “Six Decisions Roadmap” – six candidate decisions you could realistically shape in the next 3–5 years and which domains they sit in.
17:15–17:30 | Close and commitments
- Reflection: one behaviour you will stop, start, and continue to think more like a CEO on Monday morning.
- Optional: write a short “letter from the future chairman” back to yourself, capturing the legacy you ultimately aim to leave.
