Adapting to the new normal in the business world of 2020

Even wondered what it takes to become a CEO of an international company in China? How to market to consumers during the coronavirus era, or how mindfulness can play an integral creative role in the business landscape? Here is your chance to discover more.

Starting this week at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), the International Business School Suzhou (IBSS) Executive Education is launching a range of open enrolment courses that are set to inspire future business leaders as well as offer insights into the best business practices in 2020.

The series is comprised of six English and two Chinese courses with online and offline sessions designed to appeal to industry practitioners who are seeking self-development.

The courses will be rolled out between July and November, with programme topics including: Marketing Strategies in a Post-Covid World, Must-Have Leadership Skills for Today’s China Market and Mindfulness, Creativity and Entrepreneurship: Beyond Stress Reduction.

Interest in the subject of mindfulness has accelerated in the past decade, from 2010 when around 200 journal publications on mindfulness were produced that year, to 2020, when an average of 60 journal publications on mindfulness are being produced every week.

One of the course leaders,, marketing expert and mindfulness practitioner Dr Sunny Pan, explains how mindfulness can stimulate creativity in business environments.

“Creativity is considered the single most important leadership competency and the key driver of long term organisation success,” Dr Pan says.

“Mindfulness is the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose in the present moment and non-judgmentally. As a measure to facilitate creativity, encourage adaptability and empathy, as well as reduce stress in the workplace, mindfulness has great merit.

“The key characteristics of many of today’s workplaces can be defined using the acronym VUCA: volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Also, workplace practices encourage routine and habitual ways of doing business which may prevent adaption to changing conditions or a failure to recognise new opportunities.

“Stress and negative emotions can result from working in such environments which can adversely affect creativity. The ability to think creatively, of being able to learn, absorb and adapt means stepping out of rigid and fixed views and becoming receptive to new possibilities.

“This course will demonstrate how Mindfulness as an approach can increase positivity. By creating a space for your mind it can help reduce stress and help increase creativity, enabling new connections between ideas to form.”

As well as appealing to students' the IBSS courses are open to professionals already practicing business.

Other courses in the series will consider how companies are adapting their identity and communication strategies as a consequence of the outbreak of COVID-19, organisational change and innovation management and the latest concepts in international project management.

Full course information is available here.