The video outlines Accelerate Strategy Leadership Solutions Training’s 15‑year history of delivering professional leadership and strategy programs to corporations and higher‑education institutions. It details the firm’s push to expand partnerships with colleges and universities, focusing on two primary tracks: (1) integrating their curriculum‑based leadership and strategy training into academic programs, and (2) offering guest lectures by Dr. Walter V. Murray. Dr. Murray’s talks can be delivered in various formats—departmental seminars, course sessions, career fairs, research days, commencement keynotes, or hybrid virtual events—tailored to each institution’s needs. The presentation then shifts to strategic execution data, revealing that 67‑90 % of strategic plans fail to be implemented, and stresses that out‑innovating competitors (e.g., Elon Musk’s Tesla) is crucial for success. However, it warns against the common mistake of innovating “for” customers rather than “with” them, using Google Glass as a cautionary example of a product that failed because it lacked customer co‑creation. The overall message encourages universities to partner with Accelerate for real‑world leadership insights and to adopt customer‑co‑creative innovation practices to improve strategic outcomes.
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Our firm, Accelerate Strategy Leadership Solutions Training, has been developing professional leadership and strategy training programs for corporate training for the last 15+ years. We have also provided this professional leadership and strategy training for universities and colleges, either as part of their academic curriculum or as part of their professional development track. We are ramping up our partnerships with colleges and universities. We are exploring partnering with colleges and universities to provide professional leadership and strategy training programs as part of their academic curriculum or as part of their professional development track.
So, what does this partnership look like? What is our vision for this partnership? At Accelerate Strategy and Leadership Training, we see two key tracks for partnering with colleges and universities for leadership and strategy training. First, guest lectures. These lectures to students in your business management and leadership programs are a great way for students to hear from someone with decades of experience in the fields that they are preparing to enter. Dr. Murray does an excellent job in connecting academics to the real-world on-the-job realities. Students who attend these guest lectures always comment about the amazing insights they get into what it will take to succeed in the world of entrepreneurship, business management, and leadership. Dr. Murray can present his lectures in departmental seminars, conferences, in a course where the content for that day's course is presented by Dr. Murray, or in a career fair. Also, Dr. Murray has presented in university research days, where he speaks not only to students but to faculty, staff, and other professionals. Dr. Murray's guest lectures can also be in the form of a graduation commencement keynote address or addressing the graduates in a departmental celebration of their graduation. Of course, how and where Dr. Murray shares his guest lectures with your department is up to you. You can be as creative as you want to be in how Dr. Murray gets to share his experience expertise, and insights with your students, faculty, or staff. They could be virtual, in-person, or a hybrid presentation.
67%— in some cases as high as 90%. That's what the data shows. 67 to 90% of leaders, managers, and teams that have a strategic plan fail to implement that plan and thus fail to reach their goals and objectives. It is a true statement in business that the organization, the business owner that could out-innovate the competition generally is the one that leads the pack. Elon Musk and Tesla. There are literally dozens of other electric vehicle companies But Elon Musk is still leading the pack at Tesla because he was able to out-innovate and be first to market. But innovation, if not done right, could actually be the death of your company. For example, when organizations and business leaders innovate, creating a new product, a new service, they make one cardinal mistake. Cardinal mistake is that business owners and business leaders invariably innovate for the customer rather than innovating with the customer. It's a big difference. It might sound like a nuanced difference, but if your organization is hell-bent on innovating for the customer rather than innovating with the customer, you're going to probably end up like Google. Now you say Google, right? Google is a successful company. Yeah, they are one of the largest companies in the world. I think their balance sheet, last time I checked, had almost $10 billion in cash. How many of you have ever heard of Google Glass? Google Glass? No? Well, you see, Google had this brilliant idea to innovate something extraordinarily innovative for the customer. Google Glass was a type of wearable technology, right? I mean, it's real high-tech. So you imagine your smartphone on the inside of your glasses. Some engineer thought that was a brilliant idea for the customer. Never really did enough research with the customer to find out if this brilliant, creative, innovative idea was actually going to work. But needless to say, the fact that none of you here are wearing a Google Glass, or half of you have never even heard of it, tells you that it did not succeed. It was innovating for the customer rather than with the customer.
