1 Foundations

By explaining Module Mechanics, Team Power, collaboration and GenAI Usage, this chapter accelerates your learning.

Strategy is fundamentally a social, collaborative, and iterative process that should never be undertaken as a solo exercise. This chapter establishes the essential structure, tools, and expectations you need to thrive, covering everything from the module’s high-energy mechanics to the transformative potential of Team Power. By embracing Generative AI as a powerful learning partner, you will move beyond passive observation to learn by doing, building the vital foundations required to lead and innovate in a digital world.

1.1 Module Mechanics

1.1.1 Workshops and Learning Rhythm

The module is delivered through ten three-hour workshops held during Semester 2. Each core workshop follows a predictable, high-energy rhythm divided into three 50-minute topics. This structure ensures that you move quickly from theory to practice.

Every topic consists of:

1. Explanation: A 15-to-20-minute plenary session where the facilitator introduces strategic tools and techniques.
2. Knowledge Check: A short multi-choice quiz to consolidate the introductory learning points.
3. Team Application: A 20-minute session where your team applies the tool directly to your assigned case study, recording your insights in a team workbook.
4. Playback: If time permits, a brief session where selected teams present their findings to the whole group for shared learning.

Workshops are designed for energy, participation, and real-time learning. You will learn by doing, not by observing.

1.1.2 The Strategic Storyboard

The module follows an approach that mirrors real-world strategy consultancy. Before the module begins, the module leader meets with organisational sponsors to document their actual strategic challenges. This information is validated and turned into an Anonymised Organisational Brief, which serves as your primary case study.

Two teams are typically assigned to each brief to provide diverse perspectives. Between workshops, you are expected to meet as a team to refine the notes in your workbook, turning raw workshop ideas into structured strategic advice. The organisational sponsors will join us in Week 2 to give you the opportunity to ask clarifying questions and test your early assumptions.

1.1.3 Assessment Overview

The module’s assessment is designed to reflect the multi-faceted nature of professional strategy work. It consists of three components:

1. Strategic Presentation: In Week 10, your team will deliver a 15-minute presentation to the organisational sponsor and a panel of VIP guests. These presentations are marked, and a winning team is selected based on the quality and clarity of their advice. The scores contribute to the team component of the assessment.
2. Group Essay: After the final workshop, teams submit a 3,000-word essay that synthesises the content from their workbook into a formal strategic report for the sponsor.
3. Individual Reflection: Throughout the module, you must maintain a weekly learning journal documenting your personal journey and insights. These journals form the basis of an individual reflective essay.

Assessment reflects real strategy work: analysis drawing on insight to generate advice which is then communicated to stakeholders.

1.1.4 Expectations

We aim for the module to reflect workplace conditions as closely as possible. So the cohort members are expected to act professionally throughout. This includes:

1. Attend and engage with every session

2. Work actively within teams

3. Provide respectful feedback

4. Use GenAI responsibly

5. Apply module tools to build high-quality strategic advice.

6. Spend around 20 minutes previewing each chapter before workshop and reviewing afterwards.

1.1.5 Golden Thread

This is a pictorial representative of the narrative that flows through the module (and Pressbook), referred to here as ‘the Golden Thread’. This is the top level ‘golden thread’:

Which is supported by three sub-threads as follows:

race digital complexity by assuming the best of people and designing systems and processes accordingly.”

1.1.6 Animation

Prefer to watch an animation explaining the module mechanics?  Follow this QR code:

1.2 Team Power and Reflective Practice

1.2.1 The Social Nature of Strategy

Strategy implementation is fundamentally a social act, rarely achieved in isolation. In this module, we move beyond the idea of the ‘lone strategist’ to embrace Team Power. High-performing teams do more than just complete tasks; they think together, challenge underlying assumptions, and combine diverse perspectives to build ideas that no individual could develop alone. By working in teams, you are participating in a ‘mini-organisation’, where the patterns of collaboration you practise here directly mirror real-world strategic work.

1.2.2 Team Dynamics and Psychological Safety

For a team to become a ‘learning engine’, it requires more than just talent; it requires trust and clarity. Teams benefit from clearly defined roles including facilitator, timekeeper, scribe, and challenger. They must establish communication norms.

Central to this is Psychological Safety (Edmondson, 2018) a climate where team members feel safe to take interpersonal risks and ‘have each other’s back’. When diverse viewpoints are encouraged rather than suppressed, teams can manage tensions constructively and iterate toward better outcomes.

1.2.3 Deepening Learning through Reflection

To truly harness team power and experiential learning, we use Reflective Writing. Reflection is the process of pausing to consider personal and collective experiences to make sense of what happened and determine how to change future behaviour. While academic writing focuses on evidence and theory, reflective writing is an authentic, personal account of your thoughts and feelings during the learning journey.

We use a simple, three-step approach developed by Rolfe et.al. (2001) and his colleagues:

1. What? Describe the specific experience (e.g., a team workshop or a specific challenge).
2. So What? Capture what you were thinking, learning, or feeling. Did you felt overwhelmed, confident, or curious?
3. Now What? Identify what you will do differently next time, such as listening more to teammates or spending more time on pre-work.

1.2.4 Experiential Learning

Our module follows an experiential learning model: we explain the tools, apply them to an organisational brief in teams, and then reflect on the results. This cycle ensures that knowledge is not just observed but re-enforced through reflection and practical application.

By maintaining a weekly learning journal using the ‘What, > So What > Now What’ structure, you build a repository of insights that fuels both your individual growth and your team’s strategic deliverables.

1.2.5 Animation

Prefer to watch an animation explaining reflective writing?  Follow this QR code:

1.2.6 👍 Topic Summary

• Strategy as a Social Act: Strategy is viewed as a collaborative, iterative process where high-performing teams think together to combine perspectives and build insights no individual could develop alone.
• The Foundation of Trust: Successful teaming requires Psychological Safety, a climate where members feel safe to take interpersonal risks and challenge assumptions without fear of blame.
• Deepening Learning through Reflection: Teams use the ‘What, So What, Now What’ model of reflective writing to make sense of their experiences and identify how they will change their future behaviour.

1.2.7 Topic Quiz (Reflective Writing)

Please complete this anonymous knowledge check by scanning the QR code. The quiz app tells you the right answer once you have made your choice.

1.2.8 Reflection Questions

1. Strategy is described as a social act rather than a solo exercise; how will you balance sharing your own perspective with actively listening to and integrating the diverse viewpoints of your teammates?
2. Reflective writing requires you to be authentic about your feelings (e.g., feeling ‘scared’ or ‘overwhelmed’); how can being honest about these emotions help you and your team move from a ‘Fear Zone’ into a ‘Learning Zone’?
3. Using the ‘What, So What, Now What’ model, can you identify one specific team interaction from this week and explain how your reflection on it will change your behaviour in the next workshop?

1.3 Responsible Use of GenAI

1.3.1 GenAI as a Partner

In this module, we embrace Generative AI (GenAI) not as a shortcut, but as a learning partner and a powerful collaborator. GenAI is a category of artificial intelligence that generates new content by drawing on a massive bank of information and interacting with users through a conversational interface. Unlike traditional computing, which relies on rigid, codified programmes, GenAI allows for discussion, reasoning, and learning. Our goal is to use these tools for cognitive augmentation—enriching your strategic analysis and preparing you for the future workplace without replacing your own critical thinking and effort.

GenAI is a powerful tool for:

1. Generating ideas
2. Drafting content
3. Challenging assumptions
4. Structuring arguments
5. Creating examples
6. Enhancing clarity

But GenAI must be used responsibly — as a collaborator, not a substitute for your effort.

These are the sort of things you should be very aware of, and avoid

1. Unquestioningly belief in results.
2. Eliminating your thinking.
3. Forgetting about hallucination.
4. Forgetting about bias.
5. Entering sensitive information into open tools.

1.3.2 Mechanics of GenAI

To use GenAI effectively, it helps to understand the technology beneath the surface. AI is an umbrella term for digital tools that mimic various aspects of human intelligence.

Key components include Natural Language Processing (NLP), which mimics human speech and translation, and Machine Learning (ML), which identifies patterns within vast datasets. Machine Learning is powered by neural networks, computer programmes structured to resemble the human brain. These networks are ‘trained’ on massive bodies of text—books, reports, and documents—allowing them to maintain context during a dialogue.

As the number of internal connections (parameters) grows exponentially—a trend following Moore’s Law—the accuracy and reliability of the AI increase significantly.

1.3.3 Navigating the Toolset

The landscape of available tools is fast-moving and diverse. While ChatGPT (OpenAI) is the most well-known, other major players like Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Apple Intelligence offer unique strengths, such as integration into office suites, real-time web access, or enhanced privacy.

Beyond these general assistants, specialist tools can assist with specific research tasks: NotebookLM allows you to interrogate your own specific document sets, Otter AI can transcribe meetings, and Goblin Tool provides support for neurodivergent learners.

We encourage you to experiment and explore these different options to find what best supports your personal studies and your team’s workflow.

1.3.4 Principles of Ethical and Responsible Usage

Responsible usage is founded on transparency and scepticism. You must always declare when and how GenAI was used in your work and remain critically aware of its limitations. Because GenAI is trained on existing data, it can inherit biases or suffer from ‘hallucinations’ that is confidently producing realistic but entirely false information.

A useful way to view this is the ‘Drunk Einstein’ analogy: imagine a brilliant professor who is highly knowledgeable but occasionally becomes intoxicated; they may give you a smart-looking answer with total confidence, yet it is totally wrong because they are ‘drunk’. Therefore, you must verify every output against trusted sources and never use AI to bypass the essential learning process

Your use of GenAI should be:

1. Transparent: declare when and how you use it

2. Original : always add your reasoning and judgement

3. Critical: question and refine outputs

4. Responsible: avoid relying on unverified material

5. Supportive: use it to enhance learning, not bypass it

The goal is cognitive augmentation, not replacement.

1.3.5 Getting the most from GenAI

To get the highest quality strategic advice from GenAI, you must practice prompt engineering. This involves providing clear instructions, offering reference texts, and splitting complicated tasks into simpler subtasks.

If you provide generic or dumb prompts, you will receive formulaic and generic answers. Instead, use GenAI to challenge your assumptions, generate alternate strategic framings, or simplify complex ideas. The most effective teams blend the generative speed of AI with human judgment, empathy, and ethical decision-making.

The Pressbook offers specific GenAI usage guidance in the first three chapters, but not thereafter. This is to prevent the advice becoming repetitive.

1.3.6 GenAI and this Pressbook

I’ve used GenAI extensively to build this Pressbook. I initially seeded the chapter / topic structure by ingesting the module slides into a departmental (locked, private) Chat-GPT project. I also used NotebookLM to help build topic summaries and multiple choice quizzes. Finally, I used Claude extensively in the final editing process. However, I take full responsibility for the Pressbook content.

1.3.7 👍 Topic Summary

To better understand this partnership, think of GenAI as a high-speed research assistant joined at your hip. It can sprint through libraries and draft reports in seconds, but it lacks the heart and context of your organisation. It can provide you with a map, but as the crew, you are the only ones who can feel the wind and decide where the ship should actually steer.

• Cognitive Augmentation: GenAI is embraced as a learning partner to assist with generating ideas, drafting content, and challenging assumptions, rather than as a substitute for human effort.
• Responsible and Ethical Practice: Users must remain transparent about AI usage and maintain extreme scepticism toward outputs, being wary of hallucinations or the ‘Drunk Einstein’ effect where the AI provides confident but false information.
• The Art of Prompt Engineering: Effective results depend on providing clear instructions, reference texts, and splitting complex tasks into simpler subtasks to avoid generic or formulaic responses.

1.3.8 Topic Quiz

Please complete this anonymous knowledge check by scanning the QR code. The quiz app tells you the right answer once you have made your choice.

1.3.9 Reflection Questions

1. How will you use GenAI to enhance your learning in this module rather than using it as a shortcut to bypass the essential cognitive effort?,
2. What specific risks or challenges must you manage when using AI, particularly regarding potential biases or the Drunk Einstein effect of confident but incorrect hallucination?,
3. How could GenAI specifically support your team’s collaborative workflow and help you challenge assumptions during your strategic analysis?,

1.4 Chapter Summary

Chapter 1 establishes the foundation for the module explaining how workshops run, how teams collaborate, and how GenAI enhances learning.

The principles we have introduced will prepare you for the strategic frameworks and organisational models explored in later chapters.

1.5 References

• LEGO Serious Play (2024). Method Overview.

• Palfreyman, J. (2025). Workshop 1 Materials.

• University of Leeds (2024). LUBS Module Handbook.