Discover how to connect purpose to performance and design systems that make excellence sustainable. Because excellence isn’t a project, it’s how leaders think, act and lead every day.

Hosted by Scottish Water | Developed by S A Partners

Over the course of this workshop we will help you turn your personal convictions into enterprise-wide results: craft a clear Leadership Manifesto, align culture with a shared story, and build a 90-day Excellence Roadmap—anchored by a collective Excellence Pledge—to make excellence visible, repeatable, and sustainable.

“For me personally, it’s the best leadership training program I have been on and if we achieve only a fraction of what we have set out to we will save our organisation millions.”

Why Attend?

Align belief and behaviour. Turn your leadership values into observable, repeatable actions.
Design systems that sustain. Embed principles into strategy deployment, daily management, improvement, and leadership development.
Accelerate transformation. Leave with a 90-day Excellence Roadmap and a shared Excellence Pledge to catalyse cultural and systemic change.
Accelerated Learning from the thinking of Edgar Schein, Stephen Covey, Russell Ackoff, Peter Drucker, W. Edwards Deming, the Shingo philosophy, and frameworks from Deep Excellence and Essence of Excellence.
Discover the reality that Excellence exists inside your organisation and it is your role to ‘Find it, Nurture it and Sustain it”

What previous Delegates have said…

“For me personally, its the best training programme I have been on – its been invaluable and if we use what we have been taught well collectively it completely optimise our business.”

“S A Partners is a dedicated partner, who delivers a relevant and fun way of training and supporting our team. S A Partners strength is that they take time to focus on each individuals learning styles ensuring they make everyone involved & feeling comfortable”

“Great workshop which was engaging and relevant. A lot of help and guidance from the facilitators which helped us to target areas and identify how best to tackle leadership within our organisation”

What You’ll Experience Over 2 Days

This is not a lecture – it’s a hands-on, practical masterclass designed to challenge your thinking and sharpen your approach.

Module 1

Excellence Begins Within (The Leaders Inner Work)

Theme: Leaders as the first system – shaping belief, purpose and mindset

Concepts: Schein (leader as a culture-creator), Covey (principle centred leadership, trust), Ackoff (seeing wholes); Drucker (culture eats strategy)

Workshops: Personal leadership manifesto; Story Circle and Leadership Story Workshop; Gap Analysis; Behavioural Manifestation

Module 2

Shared Story | Shared Culture (from ‘I’ to ‘We’)

Theme: Leadership Community alignment – building a common narrative and cultural foundation

Concepts: Shingo (respect, humility, ideal behaviours); Deming (profound knowledge, psychology of change); Marquet (Intent based leadership); Quirke et al (Deep Excellence – your story in your system structure and impact on behaviours)

Activities: Cultural Archaeology (artifacts/values/assumptions); Defining behaviours that matter; Systems Self-Assessment; Strategy Deployment; Daily/Tiered Management; Improvement Management; Leadership Development; Systems Design; Excellence Roadmap

Module 3

Designing Systems for Excellence (Making it Real)

Theme: Embedding beliefs into systems and frontline behaviours

Concepts: Deming (problems are mostly systemic); Ackoff (purposeful system design); Shingo (align systems; tools; results); Drucker (Turn values into practice); Quirke et al (Deep Excellence)

Activities: System Mapping; Behaviour to System Design Excellence Roadmap (90 day actions; one belief to reinforce, one story to tell, one system to influence); Understanding your voice and use of language; Your individual Voiceprint.

How It’s Delivered

Onsite Training: Two immersive days (2 × 7-hour sessions) hosted at Scottish Water, combining case studies, interactive activities, and practical exercises.
1:1 Coaching: Every participant will receive personalised coaching from an experienced coach to support real-world application.
Experiential Learning: Define and adopt your own Leadership Manifesto as part of the course

Your Takeaways

By the end of this masterclass, you will:
✔ Define Personal Excellence – craft a personal leadership manifesto aligned to your core values & observable behaviours
✔ Diagnose systemic gaps – evaluate how strategy, daily management, improvement and leadership development support (or block) excellence
✔ Connect Behaviour to Systems – link leader behaviours with system effectiveness and frontline performance.
✔ Design a Strategic Action Plan – build a practical 90 day roadmap to deploy your manifesto through organisational systems.
✔ Lead Systemic Change – Use tools and cadences to embed excellence in both culture and operations.

Who Should Attend?

Senior Executives shaping culture and strategy – C-Suite, Operations Directors, Senior Management ready to lead measurable change across their enterprise.

Why Now?

The pace and complexity of change have never been higher and the limits of traditional transformation are showing. Many organisations have the right tools and strategies, but not the alignment, culture, or systems to sustain them.

The Enterprise Excellence Leadership Masterclass meets this moment, helping senior leaders reconnect purpose to performance, and redesign systems that make excellence sustainable. Because excellence isn’t a project – Excellence is an Inside Job – it’s how leaders think, act, and lead every day.

About the Host Site: Scottish Water

Scottish Water is Scotland’s publicly owned water and wastewater company. That means every pound of surplus is reinvested back into the network—so communities see the benefit in safer water, smoother operations, and a greener future. As part of the Masterclass you will have the opportunity of meeting and talking with the operational excellence and transformation teams.