5
Modules
5
DAY PARTS
10 - 14 weeks
Duration
NL
Language
Overview
What challenges are you facing?
You have mastered the methods, strategies, and challenges of stakeholder communication. Your relationships with stakeholders have strengthened—they seek your input in decision-making, value your advice, and recognize your expertise.
Yet, you want to take this a step further. You aspire to be involved earlier in discussions, shaping decisions from the outset. You want to contribute your insights, make timely adjustments, and mitigate risks—even when difficult conversations are required. These conversations may not always be easy, but they are essential if you want to be recognized as a true strategic partner.
The purpose of this program
This program helps you unlock what it takes to make a greater impact. In Business Partnering I – “Navigator”, the focus is on understanding and influencing your stakeholders. In “Captain”, the emphasis shifts to your personal transformation—helping you elevate your role as a business partner.
You will refine the tools and techniques from Business Partnering I while exploring new strategies to build strong, sustainable stakeholder relationships. Throughout the program, you will work closely with a business partnering ‘buddy’ and apply your learning to a real-life case from your daily work. This hands-on approach ensures that you not only enhance your own skills but also contribute to your buddy’s growth.
After this you will be better able to:
- Approach (new) assignments with confidence, maximize your impact, and set clear boundaries.
- Navigate stakeholder interpretations, judgments, assumptions, and emotions—allowing you to guide them more effectively in their decision-making.
- Act as a trusted partner who provides direct, constructive feedback—even in uncomfortable situations. By doing so, you will reshape how stakeholders perceive you, helping them recognize new growth opportunities and potential risks.
Who is this program for?
This program is for anyone who has completed Business Partnering Skills I (or an equivalent training) and is not yet experiencing the ‘magic’ of applying that knowledge, perhaps due to lack of time, or because the desired outcomes have not been forthcoming. Therefore, in this program, you will receive limited but inspiring content. We’re going to practice, practice, practice!
Program modules:
We start with a kick-off where we ‘onboard’ you into our online ‘gamified’ learning environment. In addition, we share the overview and objectives of the program. After boarding, you are invited to prepare for the crossing.
You will be asked to go through the familiar short, “gamified” micro-learnings as preparation. You will also get access to the micro-learnings that you have already completed in the previous business partnering training.
We get to know each other and introduce a “buddy” system. Then we will determine together how you can prepare to make the transition to “Business Partner Captainship” by considering the following questions:
- What did you learn in BP 1 / and what do you apply or not apply from it?
- What is your biggest goal/desire to achieve from “Business Partner Captainship”?
- Which tools from your “business partner toolkit” do you want to utilize more?
We define your end goal clearly and together determine a first small step forward. You are now ready to leave your home port!
A good master also dares to be a student. You have gained your first experiences with your practical assignment. Together with your buddy, you dive into the results/questions from the practical assignment.
For this purpose, your buddy is instructed, for example with specific questions that he/she can ask. We look at how we can improve ourselves as buddies, focus strongly on listening better and tie up the loose ends from the practical assignments. Then we will make another small, concrete step.
What is step 2 towards your big goal?
You are moving more towards “Business Partner Captainship”. Pick up the catch (and by-catch?) from the previous practical assignment with your buddy.
This time we are going to take a bigger step forward: you have identified your most difficult learning point and how challenging it is.
- Can this ever change? We help you not to break the line: beliefs!
- Which beliefs are significantly hindering you from increasing your impact?
Beliefs can be very self-judgmental, obstructive or tough and are also the most exciting to tackle! So we do this together.
We look back at the practical assignments: what were the results?
- What can we celebrate?
- What can we learn from each other?
- What do you still need to have complete confidence in your own qualities and possibilities?
- How can your buddy help you with this?
We look at how we can continue the buddy system.
- How do you become ‘buddies for (work) life’?
We share with each other what we have learned.
- What are the ‘deeper’ insights that make Business Partner Captains successful?
- Then we record these as ‘Cool Ways to Fly’ and ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ as a business partner.
- You take your first steps on land. Ah, sea legs! You schedule your next appointment with your buddy.
- We conclude with the Certification.
You are now a Captain in Business Partnering.
What do people say?
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