Welcome to The Business Acumen Course
A Platform for Business Coaches and Consultants to Add Value to their Customers
What's so important about Business Acumen?
Based on breakthrough research between Quad Assessment and Monash University, The Business Acumen Course is a data-driven approach to getting the best possible results from your organization through excellence in leadership and management.
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84% of organisations anticipate a shortfall of leaders by 2028. All claim high importance to develop leaders at all levels, but only 5% have implemented solutions.
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Business leaders account for 70% of variability in employee engagement and need focus and skills to keep employees resilient and focused
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In post-covid lockdown we have changed the structure of the workplace. Globally employees have permanently shifted how often they are in the office. Virtual work is the norm, and leadership development needs to change accordingly.
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63% of millennials believe they need leadership development and aren't getting it.
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Rapidly expanding AI capabilities are changing the landscape of employment, of problem solving, of research, of executing tasks both simple and complex. Leaders need a new level of strategic awareness and alignment to transition to new paradigms..
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66% of business leaders are losing sleep due to stress. Peer relationships are necessary so leaders don't feel isolated and alone.
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According to Gallup's research on employee engagement 70% of the variance in a team's engagement is related to their management. Developing and retaining top talent requires tools and capabilities that leaders need to learn.
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We've designed our curriculum to target unique strengths and unique development needs that get real business results - fast. We don't just empower leaders, we enable them to become value creators for their businesses.
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Our original research into Business Acumen shows eleven specific and measurable capabilities underpin leadership's ability to get the job done.
An Advanced Platform for Developing Business Leaders and their Successors
We've designed The Business Acumen Course as a platform for coaches and online trainers to build lasting value for their customers. Use our system to deliver high quality structured coaching, results-focused content, and facilitated training and team coaching sessions within private branded cohort areas. Based on breakthrough research between Quad Assessment and Monash University, The Business Acumen Course is a data-driven approach to getting the best possible results through excellence in leadership and management development.
What Coaches Get with The Business Acumen Course
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Bulk purchase program for purchasing subscriptions for your client base
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Private cohort room setup with customisation and hosting priveleges
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Ability to livestream and provide live webinars to your private cohort groups
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Training materials for providing training sessions live or via video to your unique cohorts
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Coaching best practices for using the platform to add value to your coaching clients
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A structured approach to coaching that gets real business results
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A robust peer learning program, leadership library, and tools for gaining valuable capabilities that enable real business results
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Ongoing connection points with customers via private direct message and cohort group chat, and community
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A powerful online product and virtual service delivery platform for you that we have invested in so you don't have to.
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Opportunities for additional revenue streams through subscriptions, assessments, coaching, training, and private custom webinars and events.
As a coach you can set your own price point for training, facilitating or coaching using The Business Acumen Course.
Use our platform to:
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Augment existing leadership development programming
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Act as a framework for facilitating webinars or in person training on the eleven capabilities using our materials or your own
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Provide structure for executive coaching that gets real business results
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Administer and Debrief the Business Acumen Gauge 360 Assessment
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Create customized/ branded online cohort areas for teams, groups, or whole organizations
There are three ways to provide The Business Acumen Course to your clients:
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APPROVED RESELLERS. Become an official reseller. Our official resellers get priority service and individual attention, as well as complimentary inclusion in our master level Master Business Acumen Gauge Coaches Certification Programme. With your official reseller status you are able to include the Business Acumen Gauge multi-rater assessment as part of the programs you offer. As us about bulk purchase discounts or financial rewards for referred subscribers.
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COACHES AND FACILITATORS. Order The Business Acumen Course without the assessment for individual or group cohorts at the retail rate and facilitate your own leadership course using our materials. We will provide you a free private cohort group for any group cohort over 10 participants and the ability to livestream and post videos, chat, and more in your own private cohort space.
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MASTER CERTIFIED COACHES. You'll get all of the above plus the ability to offer the Business Acumen Gauge Assessment plus the Business Acumen Course once you have successfully completed the Master Certification Course.
When You Join as an Approved Reseller
Approved resellers get priority attention from our support resources, as well as...
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Individual client access to The Business Acumen Course, includes the introduction, community, expert speakers and events, and course materials and chat for each capability.
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Group access to The Business Acumen Course, includes the above plus a private cohort group and the ability for coaches/ facilitators to livestream their own unique training and coaching content. If you opt to bring 20 or more participants to The Business Acumen Course we'll provide you a free space in our next Master Coach Certification.
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Master Coach Certification in The Business Acumen Gauge
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Individual access to The Business Acumen Gauge multi-rater assessment tool (can be administered by certified coaches only)
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Marketing Opportunities. If you are an author, podcaster, professor, speaker or researcher we would love to discuss how we could feature you as an expert speaker and highlight your work.
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Technical and content related support. We've created facilitator decks, coaching best practices, and support areas just for you. We also have a dedicated resource to help you get the most out of your experience with The Business Acumen Course.
We are here to help - let us know by contacting us, or sign up for our Master Business Acumen Coach Certification here:
The Customer Experience
INDIVIDUAL ASSESSMENT
The Business Acumen Gauge multi-rater assessment is part of the premium package for The Business Acumen Course. If you have elected to take the assessment you'll receive an invitation and information at the outset of the program to guide you through the process. As a certified coach you will provide you a targeted, individualised development recommendation for engaging with the materials that follow.
EVENTS
Events include discussions, livestreams, webinars, meetings and live group chat. For private cohorts you may have your own private events. We have great guest speakers and informational sessions where you can interact with experts in Business Acumen and its application to leadership.
CAPABILITY MODULES
For each capability there is a set of learning materials and tools. These modules include Course Materials and chat functionality. Course Materials are designed to be useful and practical information, and they are also designed for interaction. All of the capability modules are "just-in-time" materials that can be accessed as needed when needed. We know leaders are busy, and we've designed our content to appeal to time-poor executives who need practical tools and exercises.
CUSTOM PRIVATE COHORT SPACES
For your team, group of executives, high-potential managers, line leaders, business students or successors we provide private cohort spaces for private events, conversations and information sharing.
ADD-ON BUSINESS ACUMEN COACHING
We work with coaching partners who are certified Business Acumen Coaches. As a qualified reseller you will have access to master level certification in debriefing the Business Acumen Gauge multi-rater assessment via the platform, coaching via the platform, and facilitator resources including pre-populated training decks for engaging your audience in live sessions.
The Business Acumen Course Enables Participants to...
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Make better decisions
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Better understand value and risk
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Leverage tools for team building and collaboration
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Work with tools and strategies to focus on future opportunities and threats and find actionable solutions
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Execute strategy with better communication of strategic imperatives down the line
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Engage logic and rationality in the face of challenging decisions
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Generate optimism and resilience in the face of change through cultivating a learning and growth mindset
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Improve management of financial, physical, time and human resources
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Improve employee engagement for participants and their direct reports
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Develop the leadership pipeline of successors and high potential management
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Access their coach for assessment, guidance, integration of learning, and more.
The Research
Business Acumen is the cluster of capabilities that allow leaders to effectively grow and manage their enterprise to achieve successful business outcomes.
The Business Acumen course you’re about to take is the first and only comprehensive, evidence-based model of business acumen backed up by data and research. Before the Business Acumen Gauge assessment and the Business Acumen course were developed, there was no clear and commonly accepted definition or model as to what constitutes business acumen and how to assess it. Business acumen had been described as everything from the ability to manage, leadership capability and being good with numbers, to plain old business savvy. Even MIT Professor emeritus and father or organizational development Edgar Schein* described it as an ‘elusive’ concept, difficult to pin against a universal measure and even more challenging to cultivate. As coaches working with the world’s top business talent, we weren’t satisfied with an inconclusive definition or measurement for this crucial aspect of leadership development. So we commissioned researchers and authored the world’s first comprehensive study of business acumen, including a complete review of the literature as well as of academic and corporate training programs.
We brought all the data together into a single, streamlined model for the first time, spotlighting the 11 capabilities that determine success in leading and executing strategy in organizations:
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Mindset
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Foresight
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Broad Scanning
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Strategic Alignment
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Collaborative
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Resource Management
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Systems and Processes
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Decision Making
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Talent Development
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Duty of Care
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Financial Literacy
Next we combined the research with our collective 50-plus years of international experience with business leaders and developed the Business Acumen Gauge (BAG) assessment for strategic leadership.
And then we tested it. We subjected the Business Acumen model and the BAG assessment to rigorous analysis. We took our data set comprising thousands of cases in 283 companies operating in 16 countries and invited researchers at Melbourne’s Monash University to undertake a thorough, independent, statistical analysis of our data to scientifically analyze whether the BAG was accurate and robust (spoiler: it was). The research team also systematically reviewed over 60 years of literature to compare practice to theory. The research confirmed those 11 capabilities comprise business acumen. Bingo! We now had a validated definition that underpinned the model and assessment and The Business Acumen Course. The research did something else important too. It debunked the traditional belief that business acumen is something fixed that you are either born with or not, or only gain ‘on the job’ through experience - and that more years of experience means greater business acumen.
