Tokyo (SCCIJ) – IMD business school, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, is offering special free webinars to help businesses cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. They are held every Monday and Friday at 6 pm Japan Standard Time live for one hour on Zoom and follow the motto “Leading in turbulent times”. Also, recordings of past seminars are available for free.
The entrance of IMD’s “Executive Learning Center” in Lausanne in non-corona times (© IMD Business School via Flickr)
Cooperation with IMD
IMD offers education courses for executives and works with global and Japan-based companies in the development of business leaders. In cooperation with Naoshi Takatsu, IMD’s Managing Partner in North Asia and a member of the Executive Committee, the SCCIJ showcases two examples of such webinars.
“All of us need to connect with relevant insights to help ourselves and businesses navigate through these uncertain and turbulent times. IMD provides such insights in the form of webinars given by our faculty that you can join with hundreds of executives from around the globe”, explained Mr. Takatsu.
7 deadly sins of virtual communication - Tips for teams
This webinar with Ina Toegel, IMD Professor of Leadership and Organizational Change, and Michael Yaziji, Professor of Strategy and Leadership at IMD, aims at a better understanding of virtual communication which has become the norm in the pandemic. There is far more to the art of useful virtual communication than turning on the camera and logging into Zoom.
Do we really understand this format? What are the major barriers we are experiencing to the best possible experience of this new normal way to work? This is the overarching theme of this webinar, which offers many useful tips for employees whether their main concern is technological issues, lack of emotional connection, sub-optimal engagement, or an ebbing sense of routine.
It also offered advice on issues that would be hard to pick up on. For example, it’s best for everyone to use video in order to boost engagement and tap into facial expressions. In the event where more than one person could potentially dial in from the same computer, it’s best that they don’t as it creates negative “us” versus “them” vibes.
Ecosystem advantages: Leveraging partnerships
This webinar given by IMD’s Mark Greeven, Professor of Innovation and Strategy, focusses on two questions: What are ecosystem practices? And what part of them could you feasibly implement in your company on Monday morning?
An ecosystem of partners in turbulent times is an asset for myriad reasons, including the fact it helps you find a collective voice, boosts your resilience, and propels you faster through the tunnel of turbulence. It also supports you in efforts to keep focused and can also even help manage costs. Moreover, it increases your chance of staying in sync with your environment.
Common reasons companies do not collaborate in crises include the fact they often go into freeze mode and the high cost of switching operations if you’re in the manufacturing as opposed to the digital sector (e.g. via a joint product launch).
But there are feasible ways of going about partnership building, as well as mechanisms of a well-structured ecosystem that can be mimicked. Learn more about these and about the need for inter-dependency, for instance through digital coordination.
To look for the latest upcoming webinars and to view more past webinars, please visit the “Leading in Turbulent Times” webpage of IMD business school here. The page also features shorter recorded videos of 5-15 minutes on leadership topics such as “Leading through a crisis” and “How not to be a hostage of COVID-19”.
Text: Martin Fritz for SCCIJ
