Overview
In a business world defined by constant change, innovation is key to staying ahead. However, many organisations struggle to overcome the hurdles that come with turning bold ideas into reality.
This dynamic two-day Korn Ferry Academy course Innovation Leadership: Mastering the Working Backwards Methodology introduces the Working Backwards Method – a proven approach to product development that starts by envisioning a fully developed, market-ready product centred on customer needs. Rather than jumping directly into product creation, this approach helps to begin with a clear, customer-focused vision based on insights and feedback – and then work backwards to achieve it.
Throughout the course, you will collaborate with fellow participants to apply the methodology to real ideas, engage with practical tools to develop and validate business plans and cultivate an intrapreneurial mindset that drives customer-centric, commercially viable innovations. You will also learn to lead large-scale innovation initiatives with both speed and effectiveness.
The Working Backwards approach has been key to building Amazon.com, AWS and Alexa, and has also fuelled innovation across other major global enterprises like DBS, Changi Airports, Petronas and Astro.
Learning Outcomes
- Master the Working Backwards Approach: Learn when and how to effectively apply the Working Backwards methodology to drive both incremental and disruptive innovation.
- Leverage Essential Tools: Utilise the 12 Working Backwards tools to efficiently conduct Customer, Solution and Business Validation processes.
- Navigate Enterprise Challenges: Identify and overcome common organisational obstacles, while engaging leadership and stakeholders throughout the innovation journey.
- Implement the Scientific Method: Use scientific principles to analyse product-market fit, increasing the success rate of your innovative products each year.
- Enhance Validation Skills: Develop essential competencies in customer validation to accelerate the time-to-market for your product innovations.
Course Topics
Customer Validation: Covers identifying target personas, developing hypotheses, and conducting experiments to validate assumptions effectively.
Solution Validation: Focuses on mapping pain points to features and testing solution resonance with potential users.
Business Validation: Utilises the 7V framework for financial analysis and crafting investor-ready business plans to showcase your innovation’s potential.
Who Should Attend
Assessment & Evaluation
To be eligible for funding, participants are required to attain a minimum 75% attendance and pass the course assessment. Please refer to our Terms & Conditions for more details.
Course Fees & Funding
| Participant Profile | Self-Sponsored | Company-Sponsored | |
|---|---|---|---|
| SME | NON-SME | ||
|
Singapore Citizen
≥ 40 years old |
$266.70
(After SSG Funding 70% + MCES Funding** 20%) |
$266.70
(After SSG Funding 70% + ETSS Funding* 20%) |
$266.70
(After SSG Funding 70% + MCES Funding** 20%) |
|
Singapore Citizen
< 40 years old / Permanent Resident |
$686.70
(After SSG Funding 70%) |
$266.70
(After SSG Funding 70% + ETSS Funding* 20%) |
$686.70
(After SSG Funding 70%) |
| International Participant |
$2,289
(No Funding) |
$2,289
(No Funding) |
$2,289
(No Funding) |
*ETSS – Enhanced Training Support for SMEs
**MCES – Mid-Career Enhanced Subsidy
Self-sponsored participants may use SkillsFuture Credit (SFC) to offset fees
Course Fees are inclusive of 9% Goods & Services Tax
Course Schedule
Facilitator Bio
Eric Tachibana
Eric Tachibana is a Senior Client Partner with Korn Ferry, and a distinguished faculty member at the Korn Ferry Academy, with a 30-year track record in executive leadership, venture capital advisory and enterprise intrapreneurship and transformation. A recognised global thought leader, he has authored eight books on technology development and innovation management. Eric is dedicated to partnering with senior leaders to implement large-scale change, with a strong emphasis on practical, hands-on execution. He excels at building high-performing teams, encouraging innovative thinking and fostering cross-organisational collaboration to drive results.
Before joining Korn Ferry, Eric served as the Global Chief People Officer and APJC Head of Professional Services at Amazon Web Services. He also held leadership roles as CTO and COO for UBS and Merrill Lynch Bank of America in the APJC region. In these positions, he collaborated with boards and senior teams to achieve business outcomes through cultural transformation, innovation, leadership development and operational excellence.
Recently, Eric has assisted Fortune 500 companies in adapting the Working Backwards approach to enterprise innovation. Since 2018, spinouts from the "Innovation Engine" have attracted over $200 million in funding and generated more than $25 billion in revenue impact for clients.
Based in Singapore, Eric has extensive experience in emerging markets across the APAC region. He is passionate about exploring new possibilities with seasoned leaders and has delivered impactful solutions for global MNCs, including DBS, Globe Telecom, Petronas, LG and Astro. He holds a BA in Anthropology from UCLA, a Master’s in Science, Technology and Public Policy and an MBA from the National University of Singapore.
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Success Stories
Don’t just take our word for it
Redefining the High-Performing Team in Today’s Business Landscape
If you’re a middle manager in Singapore, this may feel familiar: your senior leaders are shifting priorities with each quarter. Budgets are tight. The market is sluggish. Meanwhile, your team is weary, some demotivated, some anxious about AI, and some quietly drifting. You’re trying to hold everyone together, deliver results, and keep morale up, even when you yourself feel uncertain about the direction.
Leadership has never felt more complex from the middle.
In 2017, Google’s Project Aristotle identified five timeless characteristics of a high-performing team: psychological safety, dependability, structure and clarity, meaning, and impact. But the environment in which these traits must now be nurtured has changed dramatically.
Trade tensions, inflation, demographic shifts, and the rise of agentic AI are reshaping how teams work and what they need from their leaders. The question isn’t just how to build a high-performing team anymore. It’s how to help teams stay human, adaptable, and aligned in a world that no longer stands still.
What’s Holding Teams Back Today?
Even with capable people and good intentions, many teams are underperforming, and the reasons run deeper than individual skill or will.
In Singapore and across Asia, employees are grappling with job security fears, especially in light of slowing markets and restructuring. The rise of AI has made roles less predictable—some feel replaceable, others unsure how to grow with the technology. Many are craving career development, not as a perk but as a survival strategy. And increasingly, especially among Gen Z, there’s a desire for work that aligns with personal values.
📌 Korn Ferry research confirms this shift—employees today prioritise job security, development, well-being, and belonging more than ever before.
At the same time, team structures and leadership expectations are straining under pressure. Uncertainty and ambiguity are now the norm—strategies shift, timelines compress, and few managers feel truly equipped to lead through fog. AI anxiety, unclear priorities, and generational friction make alignment harder than ever.
🧩 When these tensions go unaddressed, even high-potential teams lose trust, energy, and cohesion, making it difficult to perform, let alone thrive.
High-Performing Team Characteristics in 2025 and How Leaders Can Build Them Now
To lead a high-performing team today, you need more than motivation and monitoring. You need to cultivate five core capabilities and translate them into team behaviours week by week.
What great teams look like: They pivot quickly without burning out. They absorb change while protecting emotional resilience and shared purpose.
Korn Ferry’s 2024 resilience study shows that emotionally resilient teams outperform others by 31% during disruption.¹
What leaders must do:
- Talk openly about change; Acknowledge ambiguity without sugarcoating.
- Set a sustainable pace; Model boundaries and prioritise rest.
- Introduce recovery rituals, such as team check-ins and debriefs after high-stress cycles.
Signal that adaptability includes emotional and strategic flexibility.
What great teams look like: They stay focused even when the world shifts. Everyone understands the “why,” the “what,” and their role in delivering it.
A 2024 meta-study in the Journal of Organizational Behavior found that clarity of purpose is the most reliable predictor of team performance in volatile environments.²
What leaders must do:
- Establish shared goals and revisit them monthly, not quarterly.
- Co-create team norms and decision rights using simple tools (e.g., RACI, team charters).
- Start each week by anchoring on priorities: “What matters most now?”
- Use ambiguity as a moment to clarify, not retreat from, direction.
🎯 A powerful example came from Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong’s ministerial statement following recent tariff announcements. While he couldn’t provide certainty, he showed up quickly, framed what was known and unknown, and, most importantly, shared what the government planned to do next. That’s the essence of clarity in uncertainty—and what today’s teams need from their leaders.
What great teams look like: They don’t just feel comfortable—they feel courageous. Team members speak up even when it’s hard. They challenge assumptions, surface risks, share contrarian views, and still rally behind the final decision once it’s made.
What leaders must do:
Since the pandemic, many leaders have rightly focused on comfort, responding with empathy to burnout, disconnection, and stress. But many now find themselves stuck. Their teams are pleasant, but passive. Harmonious, but hesitant.
The next evolution is moving from comfort to courage. Teams must feel safe enough to speak hard truths, share unpopular opinions, and then be committed enough to act decisively together.
To create this, leaders must go beyond good intentions:
- Invite respectful dissent: “What are we not seeing yet?”
- Acknowledge contrarian views, even when uncomfortable.
- Show that disagreement and alignment can coexist.
- Pay close attention to your words, tone, and body language—are you empowering individuals or causing them to shrink?
A leader must constantly ask themselves: “Am I creating light—or casting a shadow?”
Courageous cultures aren’t accidental. They’re designed, moment by moment, by how leaders show up.
What great teams look like: Trust isn’t just relational—it’s operational. People deliver. They keep promises. They give visibility, not just updates.
Korn Ferry’s 2023 research found that operational trust, built through transparency and follow-through, is the strongest predictor of performance in distributed teams.¹
What leaders must do:
- Use visible team dashboards to track progress.
- Acknowledge and reward consistent delivery, not just heroics.
- Set clear expectations around responsiveness, turnaround times, and ownership.
- Create norms for feedback: “I expect to hear from you if you’re stuck.”
What great teams look like: They don’t wait for direction—they shape it. Everyone has a stake. Leadership is distributed, and execution is faster because buy-in happens early.
According to the Center for Creative Leadership, inclusive teams make better decisions 87% of the time and execute 60% faster.⁴
What leaders must do:
- Use “decision canvases” to co-create decisions with teams.
- Involve people early when scoping change, not after the plan is made.
- Delegate not just tasks, but outcomes and authority.
- Regularly ask: “Who hasn’t spoken? Whose view haven’t we heard?”
💡 To activate these shifts, leaders need new tools and capabilities. Korn Ferry Academy offers leadership programmes like the strategic problem-solving course and business communication training course, built to equip leaders with the mindsets and methods to lead in today’s environment.
Learn from the Experts in Building High-Performing Teams
To develop a high-performing team in today’s dynamic economy, leadership development is essential. At Korn Ferry Academy, we support organisations in building high-performing teams through expert-led programmes rooted in real-world insight and behavioural science.
Our programmes cover:
- Developing emotional intelligence and adaptability
- Creating clarity in complex environments
- Managing a high-performing team across generations and geographies
- Coaching leaders through AI transitions and strategic uncertainty
Whether you’re managing a high-performing team today or aiming to build one, we’ll equip you with the mindset, tools, and frameworks to lead with impact.
Middle Manager’s Survival Guide: 5 Moves You Can Make This Week
- Re-anchor your team. Start Monday’s meeting with: “What’s changed? What’s unclear?”
- Show your presence. Even if you can’t give certainty, offer clarity: “Here’s what I know, and what I don’t. Here’s what I’m focused on this week.”
- Make one person feel heard and stretched. Ask someone, “What’s something you see that others might be missing?”
- Normalise feedback. Schedule 15-minute check-ins. Praise challenges and contrarian views.
- Don’t fake optimism. Be honest, be hopeful, and keep moving.
It won’t fix everything. But it will build trust, direction, and momentum—one conversation at a time.
- Korn Ferry Institute. (2023–2024). Global Talent Trends.
- Journal of Organizational Behavior. (2024). Meta-analysis on clarity and performance.
- Edmondson, A. (2019). The Fearless Organization.
- Center for Creative Leadership. (2023). Inclusive Leadership and Decision Speed.
- Microsoft Work Trend Index. (2024). AI Readiness at Work.
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Great leaders know an opportunity when they see it—and grab it on the spot. There’s no better time than now to start investing in yourself and your people. Speak to a Korn Ferry Academy consultant today.
