The skills you wish you’d learned on other leadership programmes
FEATURED ON
“Fabulous return on investment. Mojo enhancing, powerful and pithy, naMBA delivers the goods without the fluff that padded out some of my university MBA papers. Practical useable tools lie at it's heart - naMBA helps you manage boundaries, set priorities, apply systems thinking and communicate with impact. Be prepared to be blown away.”
Robin Rutter Baumann
Operations Manager, Te Whatu Ora Te Tai O Poutini
Key Learning Outcomes
Not An MBA teaches five core competency areas, equipping leaders with a broad strategic skillset.
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Flexible leaders respond to change, giving them a sustainable advantage. We don’t become flexible by accident though. Unless we intentionally stretch, we stiffen over time and end up out of touch.
In Not An MBA, you'll learn:
How to be more self-aware and attuned to changes in your environment.
How to take control and back yourself.
How to thrive when everything is a disaster.
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Decisive leaders set direction, converting uncertainty into action. Judgement and decision-making is not a personality trait - it's a learned skill that's all about how we think, and the process we use to make choices.
In Not An MBA, you'll learn:
How to understand the type of decision you're facing.
How to think out loud and with others to shape choices
How to incorporate experimentation and iteration into decision processes.
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A systems leader takes nothing at at face value – instead they learn to ask better questions every time they’re faced with a tricky problem. Rather than blaming people, systems leaders see the bigger picture as a collection of relationships, and try to understand how all fits together.
In Not An MBA, you'll learn:
How to solve problems with systems thinking
How to break down siloes and optimise relationships
How to challenge assumptions and change the status quo.
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Performance leadership isn’t about working harder than anyone else – it’s about clarity on where we focus, coherence in how we align our effort and commitment to quality and accountability. Performance leaders are calm, focused and empathetic. They’re clear on what really matters and they live and work accordingly.
In Not An MBA, you'll learn:
How to delegate and empower others to succeed.
How to focus your energy to have more impact
How to plan for risk and disaster
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Being great at your job isn’t enough to get you noticed or bring people along with you. Embracing and understanding politics is a non-negotiable skillset for strategic leaders who want to make a real difference.
In Not An MBA, you'll learn:
How to communicate and connect with others
How to build a reputation for integrity and trust
How to inspire people and lead change.
Curriculum Sneak Peek
Here’s a taster of the kind of videos you’ll enjoy on Not An MBA.
Introduction Module: Five Key Strategic Leadership Skills
Your Learning Journey
In Detail
Every Not An MBA cohort has a slightly different experience from the last. We have different guest speakers, different challenges, and tailor the experience to the specific needs and priorities of each group.
There is a broad framework for how we move through the You Don’t Need An MBA curriculum - just note that your mileage may vary!
No matter how we shape your content journey, every week includes the following:
A series of short, snappy curriculum videos to watch
An highly-interactive three-hour learning sprint to test new ideas
A pratical assignment to implement in your work and life - by Friday!
Week 1: Perspective
The famous Monkeys experiment from 1967 is a cautionary tale for any leader trapped inside teams and organisations doing things “the way they’ve always been done.”
Pushing boundaries means asking better questions, and finding intentional ways to bring fresh perspective into your daily life.
In week one, we let the monkeys out of the cage, learn how idea technology works, and experiment with new ways of looking at the world.
Week 2: Responsibility
Here’s a frustrating paradox: the more power you have as a leader, the less controllable your environment becomes.
As things around you shift, change - and sometimes break - you’ll have to let go of the idea you can control it.
What you can control is how you respond to the context you operate in. Your attitude, language, personal and professional boundaries.
In week two, you’ll learn how.
Week 3: Strategy
Good decisions aren’t defined by their outcomes - they’re defined by the process we use to make them.
But making good decisions is not an innate skill. It’s about how we think, not what we know.
In week three, you’ll learn the secret to turning strategy into operational action. Together with your peers, you’ll apply strategic frameworks to projects and teams, troubleshoot tricky choices, and learn to lift discussions out of the weeds.
Use What You Learn Immediately
“It's practical and it's applied knowledge - so you're not wading through a textbook, you're not reading about case studies that don't feel relevant. I can come away and use the skills straight away. I don’t think there’s many courses that do that.”
- Karla Davidson-Brown, Head of Procurement at Landcorp
Week 4: Systems
It’s time to stop solving problems… and start dissolving them.
Strategic leaders ask the tricky questions. They get out of their own silos and take a big picture approach, probing deeper and thinking more widely than the average bear.
By the end of this week, you will be thinking and behaving like an enterprise architect, and you’ll tackle real-life, curly issues in your workplace using your systems thinking toolbox.
Week 5: Transition
At a certain point in your career, it’s not your weaknesses that hold back your performance. It’s your strengths, overused.
Surviving the transition into strategic senior leadership - without losing your health or your minds - needs a step change in how you understand your role, your value, and your skills.
In week five, you’ll find clarity on how you should be using your time and energy, and build confidence in saying no, delegating, and empowering others.
Week 6: Relationships
Trust is an inside game. Working well with our teams, peers, colleagues and leaders requires us to make our work vulnerable to their actions. When we have deep trust and connection, we can collaborate, delegate, inspire, and create together.
This week, you’ll enjoy a sharp dose of self-awareness, deconstruct the idea of trust and influence from the inside-out, and learn how to right-size your communication and approach for different relationships.
Week 7: Influence
In most workplaces, just 3 per cent of people drive 90 per cent of the conversations.
Those super 3 per cent people have more impact, leverage, visibility, and are far more likely to make meaningful progress in their work. .
We might not have Instagram engagement metrics to prove it, but we're all influencers. Even the most introverted person will influence 10,000 others in an average lifetime.
This week we ask: how are you using your influence, and where can you level up?
Week 8: Showcase!
All the work you’ve put in over the last eight weeks has been building up to this.
Emerging from your leadership chrysalis, you’ll take the stage to inspire your tribe with your leadership movement, and delight in the inspiration of your fellow graduates.
This week is about celebration and intention, galvanising your journey to strategic leadership and setting you free to take your brilliance to the world!
