Benefits of the HighMark Course: Successful Business Practices

  • Business development training is an effective way to learn new principles, concepts and techniques
    that can improve the operation and performance of a business.
  • However, good business development occurs when attendees apply those principles, concepts and techniques
    and make the business a more successful and satisfying enterprise.
  • The HighMark Course is designed with this in mind, and includes:
    • state-of-the-art training in the essential business disciplines
    • instruction by successful business practitioners, not theorists
    • participant-instructor interaction during the seminars
    • personal consultations during the seminar week, and
    • study groups after the seminar to share experiences in applying the principles.

Course Overview

GOAL: Upon completion of HighMark’s Successful Business Principles Course, a participant will know how to lead their business using management methods that make a business competitive in the global marketplace.

CONTENT: The HighMark Course presents practical instruction in the four business management disciplines essential for success in the marketplace: marketing, financial control, human resources development, and strategic leadership.  Detailed Course content is found at

DESIGN: The HighMark Course has been designed be taught to leaders of existing, small to medium-sized, for-profit businesses.  
Emphasis is on the practical application of management principles essential to success and is presented in a non-formal manner that fosters learning and the building of relationships between participants and instructors.

The Course includes four separate but coordinated and sequential “Seminars”, one for each of the disciplines mentioned above.  Each Seminar focuses on a single business discipline and is composed of five “Modules.” Each Module focuses on a different aspect of the Seminar subject. One Module is presented presented in four hours or one-half of a day on each of five consecutive days. This allows time for instructors to visit with the participants in their workplaces during the second half of each day.

There is a three-month period between each Seminar, and the entire Course is completed in approximately one year. During the interval between Seminars, participants meet in facilitated small groups of 5-8 persons.  A trained facilitator leads discussion regarding application of the principles taught in the most recent Seminar.

By limiting the number of persons in a HighMark Course to 12-20 and by using dialog methods of instruction, participants gain greater understanding of the principles and more mentoring by the instructors is possible.

AUTHORS AND INSTRUCTORS: Each Seminar has been developed by a team of experts in the particular discipline with academic oversight provided by a professor who serves on the faculty of the business school at a leading American university.  Each Seminar is instructed by a team of experienced American business persons who are proven leaders in the global marketplace. The principles presented in each Seminar are illustrated with examples from the experiences of the instructors.

MATERIALS PROVIDED: For each Seminar, there is provided a Workbook containing the  text from all Seminar slide presentation, a case study used int the instruction of the Seminar and worksheets used to define responses to the issues raised in the case study. A template to be used in preparation for the facilitate study group meetings that follow the Seminar is alo provided along with copies of the financial worksheets  used in the Finance Seminar.  All of these are made available translated into the local language.