NAIOP Executive Development (NED)
The NAIOP Executive Development (NED) Program is a 6-month personal and professional development program designed for professionals with 10+ years of commercial real estate and related experience.
Designed for professionals with approximately 10+ years of industry experience, this program assists in preparing its members to take the next steps in their commercial real estate careers by providing the opportunity for personal development and to build management, negotiation, presentation, and other essential skills.
The NED Program will lead its dedicated cohort of 20 participants through a personal development journey beginning in June and ending in November of each year. The six sessions will feature three overnight retreats, interspersed with three skill building workshops, small group virtual check-ins, assignments, and optional coaching.
Review the Application Process & Apply
Philosophy behind the NED Curriculum
Leaders today need increasingly sophisticated and agile mindsets characterized by maturity in perspective taking, the ability to deal with uncertainty and ambiguity, comfort with challenging assumptions in self and others and the capacity to learn and integrate new understanding.
To truly develop this capacity, we need to move away from focusing on what leaders know, towards understanding how leaders make sense of the things they know. This requires mindset development - investigating beliefs, biases, habits and autopilot behavior. The majority of leadership development time and money is invested in the realm of skill development - preparing leaders to successfully achieve stated objectives; building mastery in areas with relatively well defined and agreed upon outcomes (e.g. sales, hiring skills). To develop mindsets to match the demands of today, a different approach is needed.
Why? We are wired to avoid change; and brain research suggests our largely unconscious habits of mind drive our behavior. This means 90% of our decisions, motivations and reactions are influenced by automatic, unconscious processes. We naturally default to familiar solutions and processes, even when they no longer match the new or changing environment. Therefore, we need experiences that disrupt habitual ways of doing things to open our minds. We also need exposure to different worldviews and a process of reflection to integrate and make sense of new perspectives.
Neuroscience on “sticky” learning tells us that deeply meaningful learning over time is critical to gain the impact we seek from leadership development programs. Additionally, research has consistently demonstrated that people develop in relationship with others. Sustainable learning and growth happens when people feel they are in a safe community, when they are challenged and when they are engaged in connected and authentic (or deep) dialogue. To accomplish mindset development in NAIOP, it needs to occur in a cohort over time.