• Understand and interact with complexity to exercise strategic judgement under conditions of uncertainty, enabling informed leadership decisions when outcomes cannot be fully predicted.
• • Diagnose how leadership, culture, and organisational learning enable strategic transformation by sustaining direction while allowing adaptation over time.
• • Design and oversee human capital strategies that activate synergies and complementarities, supporting the continuous renewal of organisational capabilities.

In an environment of geopolitical instability, technological disruption, and economic fragmentation, strategic transformation has become an ongoing leadership challenge shaped by growing complexity rather than a one-off change initiative. Designed for senior leaders and decision-makers, this course develops the strategic judgement required when clarity is limited and equips leaders to harness human capital as the driving force of strategic transformation. Participants gain insights and tools to navigate complexity, foster adaptive cultures, and enable sustainable value creation under conditions of uncertainty.

Moving beyond “last-century models,” attempts to “fix mindsets,” and generic “best practices,” the course focuses on three core questions every organisation must continuously revisit in an age of uncertainty:

• how value is created for customers,
• which organisational capabilities are required to deliver that value, and
• what human capital strategy must be in place to ensure those capabilities are continuously renewed rather than eroded.

At its core, the course frames human capital not as a collection of individuals, but as a system of synergies and complementarities, shaped by context, activated through learning, and enabled through leadership.

The course draws on a carefully selected set of research-based theories and frameworks, translated into tools for real-world leadership practice. At its foundation is complexity science, more specifically Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) theory, which underpins the shift from traditional, linear models of strategy and change to an ecosystem-based view of value creation. From this perspective, value is not static or episodic, but continuously shaped through interaction, interdependence, and adaptation - an essential lens for navigating geopolitical volatility and systemic disruption.

Building on this logic, the course draws on ecosystem logic to examine how organisations create value for customers while remaining adaptable to shifting global conditions. The concept of dynamic capabilities provides a complementary framework for understanding how organisations sense needed change, seize emerging opportunities, and continuously renew their capabilities over time.

At the core of the course is the H-factor, which reframes strategic human capital as a system of synergies and complementarities rather than a collection of individuals. Frameworks such as value creation vs value capture and “both-and-logic” are used to highlight how organisational advantage depends on aligning people, structures, and systems in ways that enable capability creation and renewal. The course also engages with the concepts of emergent leadership for hybridity and the automation–augmentation paradox, helping participants understand how leadership evolves in complex environments and how human and technological resources can be combined to support sustained transformation.

Rather than offering prescriptive solutions or step-by-step playbooks, the course integrates these theories into a coherent, evidence-based compass for leadership, supporting informed judgement and navigation in conditions where no fixed map exists.

• Classic and basic theory
• New theory
• Teacher’s own research
• Methodology
• Models

• Discussion, critical reflection, modelling
• Peer review including Peer-to-peer
• Activities that contribute to new or existing research projects
• Students conduct independent research-like activities under supervision