Business Execution: How Companies Actually Get Things Done New

This is a course about what happens after a company decides what to do — the often-invisible work of turning a decision into something that actually happens. Every organization eventually confronts the same gap: leadership sets a direction, and someone has to make it real, across teams, incentives, risk, and constraints leadership rarely sees up close.

Through a running case study of a fictional company, students will translate a vague executive mandate into a measurable target, design an early-warning system to catch problems before they escalate, negotiate the rollout of a new tool against internal pushback, redesign a team structure, and manage an external partner. The week culminates in a live simulation in which students, in the operating leader's seat, must present and defend a decision under pressure.

Students leave with a concrete sense of what execution-level leadership actually requires — distinct from business strategy (deciding what to do) and distinct from operations management in the traditional sense (running production and logistics systems). This layer - the judgment, trade-offs, and follow-through that determine whether a good decision becomes a good outcome - will give a look at the kind of judgment calls that define operational leadership roles.  Students interested in business, leadership, or how organizations function will find this course a useful introduction.