Become a member of Ireland's premier management learning and research institute.
Fergus Barry discusses IMI's Diploma in Strategic HRM
Talk to our programme advisors today and see how IMI can transform the way you and your business works.
Email: programmeadvisors@imi.ie
Transformational Change - A New Paradigm
Tuesday, 20th November
Whether a business succeeds or fails will likely be determined by how effective it is at delivering change. Our next IMI Briefing which takes place on Tuesday, 20th November will look at how the magnitude, pace and persistence of change is such that organisations need to develop the capability for continuous, transformational change. Read more here.
HR Briefing - Building the High Performance Pipeline with Billy Walsh, Head Coach, Irish Amateur Boxing Association, 25th September
On 25th September next IMI Members will have the opportunity to gain an exclusive insight into the High Performance system that saw the Irish Boxing Team return from London 2012 with four Olympic medals. Fergus Barry, IMI Programme Director for the Diploma in Strategic HRM will host a conversation with Billy Walsh, Head Coach of the Irish Olympic Boxing Team and explore the practices underpinning this phenomenal success.
Click here to find out more about this event.
Booking: To register your interest and receive booking information on these events please email Membership@imi.ie by noon Thursday, September 13th.
SMILE - It's Good for You and Good for Business, with Brendan Foley, 19th September
As managers and leaders, how can we keep ourselves and our teams consistently motivated over time and how can we achieve this against a challenging economic backdrop? Our Evening Briefing – SMILE! – led by Brendan Foley on Wednesday September 19th will explore some practical techniques for doing just this.
Click here to find out more about this event.
Booking: To register your interest and receive booking information on these events please email Membership@imi.ie by noon Thursday, September 13th.
CEO Briefing 'The End of Competitive Advantage'
with Prof. Rita McGrath, 11th September
The context of business has changed rapidly over the past few decades that it may be time to challenge some of the established thinking about strategy and competition that has driven business advantage in the past.
Our next exclusive CEO Briefing will be by leading strategy expert, Prof. Rita McGrath of Columbia Business School.
In her forthcoming book, The End of Competitive Advantage, Rita McGrath takes on one of the most fundamental and recognised notions in strategy: that of sustainable competitive advantage. She argues this can no longer be the Holy Grail for companies because in a constantly changing environment deeply ingrained structures and systems designed to extract value actually become a liability. The new path to winning includes taking advantage of shorter term opportunities, as well as relying on new organisational talents like speed and decisiveness.
Prof. McGrath defines the new transient lifecycle of competitive advantage and shows how successful firms manage through it by using an updated philosophy. To keep your strategy moving as fast as your business, Rita offers a bold new set of principles for competing in what we now understand is a continuously volatile and uncertain environment.
Innovation & Creativity Day with Edward de Bono - Wednesday, 2nd May
To mark the launch of IMI as the official accredited centre for The Edward de Bono Foundation training programmes in Ireland Dr de Bono led a half-day Creativity Masterclass at IMI on Wednesday, May 2nd.
Lateral Thinking
Edward de Bono coined the term ‘lateral thinking’ and has developed a number of thinking methods, including the Six Thinking Hats. His work has been influential the world over in a range of different contexts from corporate organisations to government agencies through to sports teams and education.
De Bono’s thinking techniques are designed to enable individuals and groups to overcome the limitations of purely linear thinking processes. He stresses the importance of disrupting this dominant thinking pattern to enable more creative and effective problem solving. He sees lateral thinking as a learnable skill and is a proponent of teaching thinking as a distinct subject in schools.
In organisations, de Bono’s methods are used to great effect to develop co-operative and collaborative thinking in teams to improve problem solving and decision-making and ultimately deliver better outcomes and higher productivity.
Customer Development with Brant Cooper - Tuesday, 1st May
Brant Cooper, author of 'The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development', led a half day workshop on Customer Development on May 1st, at the IMI.
Customer Development is a four step framework for discovering and validating the right market for your ideas, building the right product features that solve customers' needs, testing the tactics for acquiring and converting customers, and deploying the right organsiation and resources to scale the product / business. It is a systematic approach to developing the right products to meet market demand.
This workshop also looked at how Lean principles can inform the change and (disruptive) innovation process where uncertainty is a key component.
The New HR Agenda - Breakfast Briefing on with Prof. Paul Sparrow, 9th March 2012
Paul Sparrow is Director of the Centre for Performance-Led HR and Professor of Human Resource Management at the Lancaster University Management School and an Associate Faculty at IMI teaching on our Diploma in Strategic HRM. In 2010 he was voted amongst the Top 15 Most Influential HR Thinkers by Human Resources Magazine. He has published over 100 journal articles and chapters and several books. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
The New HR Agenda
The first phase of research at the Centre for Performance-Led HR, focused on ways to enhance the experience of the work force and the productivity and performance of both employees and HR functions. As a central issue for innovation and growth in businesses, this raises questions about business model change, organizational design, employee engagement and talent management. The latest phase of research has looked at the underlying drivers that will shape performance - innovation, customer centricity and lean management - and identified another raft of challenges to be faced.
Considering the future of work, questions of fairness are becoming more complex. Many issues, from pension provision to the question of reward through to global sourcing of work to name but a few, are impacting across generational groups and across different internal employee segments. Many organizations now face the challenge of providing seamless HR support to business arrangements that might be based on partnering (in its many guises), and this raises questions about how best to ensure governance, risk management and capability development across partnered business arrangements, or in business models that involve several agencies.
Flourishing: The Art & Science of Being at Your Best - Dr Maureen Gaffney , 1st March 2012
Dr Maureen Gaffney is an expert on change management, emotional intelligence, ‘gender at work’ and on work/life balance. A clinical psychologist she has worked with companies in Ireland, UK, Israel, and the US in the areas of leadership, change and transition, emotional intelligence and managing diversity.
In her recent book ‘Flourishing’ she explains that adversity can be a positive turning point and looks at the factors which enable individuals overcome adversity, maximise their potential and enjoy life, the topics she covered at the IMI on March 1st.
Maureen is a well-known broadcaster, writer and columnist and has served as Chair of the NESF, Chair of the Council of the Insurance Ombudsman of Ireland; as a board member of the HSE; Council member of the ESRI; and as a Law reform Commissioner.
Six word wisdom: Build the organisation of your dreams – Professor Gareth Jones
We’re launching a series where we call on thought leaders in business to summarise their message – in just six words. In honour of Bloomsday on Sunday we’ll kick off by quoting Molly Bloom and asking: “Oh Rocks – Tell us in plain words what you really mean!”. First up is Professor Gareth Jones expert in Read On
MOOCs won’t change learning – they will change teaching.
Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) and their B-movie monster-like threat to traditional education are all over the blog world again this week. I’m personally very excited by the tsunami of free online content. I just finished the excellent Model Thinking from the University of Michigan on Coursera on models for better decision-making. The platform felt flexible but was deceptively fast-paced so Read On
Are You Interested? – Guest Post: Nancy Kline
To coincide with her visit to IMI this week Nancy Kline – the originator and pioneer of The Thinking Environment® process shares her thoughts on attention and interest in a coaching exchange: Are You Interested? By Nancy Kline ‘You are so patient.’ I hear this after almost every Thinking Session demonstration. Other people tell me Read On
Who Needs a PA? Free Online Tools for Managers
As a manager you need the right information delivered in a succinct and timely manner. It’s easy to feel bombarded by the different data sources competing for our attention in the modern working environment. And while the Internet is undoubtedly a rich source of information, comparatively little has been done to connect the vast number Read On
Empathy, the ‘hardest’ management skill at work…
Just over a week ago I was sitting in the panel of the IMI Diploma in Leadership audit presentations, as I heard each manger and executive reporting back on their leadership audit journey I found very interesting how many of them recognised empathy as a critical area for development. In my job as facilitator, empathy is the Read On