The Executive Course

Ask people about the boss who mattered, and they rarely mention a raise. They tell you about the one who saw something in them and did something about it. Sent them somewhere, put them in a room, gave them a skill they still use twenty years later.

That is what this is. The Executive Course is a three day program that trains the specific, observable skills behind negotiation, difficult conversations, and internal alignment. It has a curriculum, a completion report, and a credential, so it fits how companies approve development. What you are giving someone is a capability they will carry for the rest of their career.

The program is built on five competencies. Each is taught as named, practicable technique, demonstrated live, then drilled on participants' real situations.

• Interest-Based Negotiation. Finding what the other side actually wants so agreements capture value instead of splitting the difference.
• Storytelling. Making complex work memorable and persuasive to boards, customers, and teams.
• Conversation. Listening and question technique that surfaces what people are not saying.
• Conflict. Turning disagreement into better solutions instead of quiet resentment or lost accounts.
• Presenting. Delivering ideas so they change behavior, not just transfer information.

Most people in this course did not find this page. Someone put their name on a seat.

If that is you, here is what you are looking at: three days in St. Louis, practicing on the negotiations and conversations you actually have, with seven other people doing the same. The company pays for the seat. What you learn is yours, and it goes where you go.

If nobody sent you but you think your company should, apply anyway and say so. Making that case to your own company is a fair first negotiation, and Vance will help you make it.

A board does its work through conversation. Directors do not run the company. They ask questions, disagree, persuade, and decide, and every one of those is a communication act. Most board development money goes to governance mechanics and leaves those skills to chance.

The conversations that go wrong in boardrooms are the same ones this course drills: asking the question that surfaces what is not being said, disagreeing without fracturing the room, and opening the subject, succession among them, that everyone has quietly agreed not to open.

Boards send directors to the same classes companies send executives to. A chair and an incoming director who train together bring a common language back to the table. For a full board, a private session can be scoped instead.

• Format: three consecutive days in St. Louis, eight seats per class, drawn from a small number of companies and boards so no single firm dominates the room
• Cadence: two classes per year; standing two-seat commitments hold their places before the calendar opens
• Completion: leadership receives a completion report; participants leave with a credential and a personal practice plan they present on the final day
• Scale path: a five-session in-house program is available once your first participants return, delivered in your building for whole teams

A company or association can also reserve a full week for its own people. The three winter 2027 cohort weeks went that way, reserved for Ag View Solutions clients.

Annual seat commitments and in-house programs are scoped in a single call.

Two classes a year, eight seats each. Sixteen corporate seats exist, total. Standing commitments claim theirs first.

We are a board of directors, not an operating company. Is this for us?

Yes. A board's work runs on conversation: questioning management, disagreeing productively, and opening hard subjects like succession. Directors attend the same classes as company-sent executives, and a private session for a full board can be scoped on a call.

How is this different from the Open Course?

Same instructor, same toolkit, different room. The Open Course is for individuals who applied on their own behalf. The Executive Course is for people a company or board is sending, with a completion report to leadership and a credential for the participant.

How is this different from typical corporate communication training?

No role-play scripts and no lecture hall. Eight people work on their own live negotiations and hard conversations, and the group tells them honestly how it landed. The techniques have names, mirroring and steelmanning among them, so people can use them the next morning.

What does it cost?

Seat commitments and in-house programs are scoped in a single call with Vance. Companies typically send two people so the training compounds after they return.

Can we bring the training in-house for a whole team?

Yes, after your first participants return. A five session in-house program is delivered in your building, scoped on a call.

Who teaches it?

Vance Crowe, former Director of Millennial Engagement at Monsanto and a communications strategist at the World Bank before that. The course teaches the techniques that survived a career of hard conversations with skeptical rooms.