We offer over 20 powerful workshops on a range of timely topics. These workshops can supplement your in-house training programs, motivate your employees, and stimulate new ways of thinking. All of our workshops are designed to be experiential and provide interactive learning.
PROCESSES
Learn Best Practices
Appreciative Inquiry
Organizations can be thought of as living beings made up of the individuals working within it. Appreciative Inquiry has the ability to change the whole organization by changing the people. Through positive questioning people will be directed to move in a positive direction. Recognizing the strengths and values of what works as opposed to what’s wrong will transform the individuals and thus transform the organization. Appreciative Inquiry is a shift from looking at problems and deficiencies and instead focusing on strengths and successes. It is a tool for organizational change and it will strengthen relationships. Who doesn’t like to share good positive stories and events?
Workshop Objectives:
- Know the meaning of appreciative inquiry
- Think in positive terms and avoid thinking negatively
- Encourage others to think positively
- Recognize positive attributes in people
- Create positive imagery
- Manage and guide employees in a positive environment
Business Ethics
A company’s ethics will determine its reputation. Good business ethics are essential for the long-term success of an organization. Implementing an ethical program will foster a successful company culture and increase profitability. Developing a Business Ethics program takes time and effort, but doing so will do more than improve business, it will change lives.
A company’s ethics will have an influence on all levels of business. It will influence all who interact with the company including customers, employees, suppliers, competitors, etc. All of these groups will have an effect on the way a company’s ethics are developed. It is a two-way street; the influence goes both ways, which makes understanding ethics a very important part of doing business today. Ethics is very important, as news can now spread faster and farther than ever before.
Workshop Objectives:
- Define and understand ethics.
- Understand the benefits of ethics.
- Create strategies to implement ethics at work.
- Recognize social and business responsibility.
- Identify ethical and unethical behavior.
- Learn how to make ethical decisions and lead with integrity.
Conflict Resolution
Wherever two or more people come together, there is bound to be conflict. This course will give participants a seven-step conflict resolution process that they can use and modify to resolve conflict disputes of any size. Your participants will also be provided a set of skills in solution building and finding common ground.
In the Conflict Resolution workshop, participants will learn crucial conflict management skills, including dealing with anger and using the Agreement Frame. Dealing with conflict is important for every organization no matter what the size. If it is left unchecked or not resolved it can lead to lost production, absences, attrition, and even law suits.
Workshop Objectives:
- Understand what conflict and conflict resolution mean
- Understand all six phases of the conflict resolution process
- Understand the five main styles of conflict resolution
- Be able to adapt the process for all types of conflicts
- Be able to break out parts of the process and use those tools to prevent conflict
- Be able to use basic communication tools, such as the agreement frame and open questions
- Be able to use basic anger and stress management techniques
Crisis Management
Crisis management is as important as finance management, personnel management, etc. Having a clear and effective program and plan for an event is critical not only to your survival, but critical to the profitability and possibly the survival of the company. Being able to identify risk, assess the situation and respond appropriately is important, and requires not only training, but practice.
Workshop Objectives:
- Identify potential risks
- Understand the myths behind workplace violence
- Define escalation and identify examples
- Learn concerning behaviors
- Know what a trigger is and how that can escalate
- Understand the proper response to an event
Facilitation Skills
Facilitation is often referred to as the new cornerstone of management philosophy. With its focus on fairness and creating an easy decision making process. Creating a comfortable environment through better facilitation will give your participants a better understanding of what a good facilitator can do to improve any meeting or gathering.
The Facilitation Skills workshop can help any organization make better decisions. This workshop will give participants an understanding of what facilitation is all about, as well as some tools that they can use to facilitate small meetings. A strong understating of how a facilitator can command a room and dictate the pace of a meeting will have your participants on the road to becoming great facilitators themselves.
Workshop Objectives:
- Define facilitation and identify its purpose and benefits.
- Clarify the role and focus of a facilitator.
- Differentiate between process and content in the context of a group discussion.
- Provide tips in choosing and preparing for facilitation.
- Identify a facilitator’s role when managing groups in each of Tuckman and Jensen’s stages of group development: forming, storming, norming and performing.
- Identify ways a facilitator can help a group reach a consensus: from encouraging participation to choosing a solution.
- Provide guidelines in dealing with disruptions, dysfunctions and difficult people in groups.
- Define what interventions are, when they are appropriate and how to implement them.
Knowledge Management
The Encarta Dictionary defines knowledge management as the organization of intellectual resources and information systems within a business environment. Sounds pretty simple, right? Take a moment, though, and think about all the information that each person has in their brain. That’s a lot of knowledge!
The Knowledge Management workshop will give participants the tools that they will need to begin implementing knowledge management in your organization, no matter what the size of the company or the budget. Wherever there are humans working together for one goal, there is knowledge to be harvested, stored, and dispensed as needed.
Workshop Objectives:
- Understand the basic concept of knowledge management (KM)
- Identify the do’s and don’ts of KM
- Identify the KM live cycle
- Identify the new KM paradigm
- Identify the KM models
- Understand how to build a KM rational for your company
- Understand how to customize KM definitions
- Identify the steps to implementing KM in your organization
- Identify tips for success
- Understand the advance topics in KM
Meeting Management
This workshop is designed to give your participants the basic tools you need to initiate and manage their meetings. They will learn planning and leading techniques that will give then the confidence to run a meeting that will engage the attendees and leave a positive and lasting impression. Through this workshop your participants will learn the needed skills in planning and implementing a successful meeting.
The Meeting Management workshop will explore how to reduce waste and make meetings more efficient. This is a hands-on workshop and your participation will help make it a valuable experience. Use this time to begin the process of developing your skills along with other participants who share the same desire to improve their meeting management skills.
Workshop Objectives:
- Planning and Preparing
- Identifying the Participants, setting up meeting space
- How to choose the time and place
- How to create the agenda
- How to incorporate your electronic options
- Meeting Roles and Responsibilities
- Use an agenda
- Chairing a Meeting
- How to deal with disruptions & personality conflicts
- How to take minutes
- How to make the most of your meeting using games, activities and prizes
Teamwork and Team Building
For most of us, teamwork is a part of everyday life. Whether it’s at home, in the community, or at work, we are often expected to be a functional part of a performing team. Having a strong team will benefit any organization and will lead to more successes than not.
The Teamwork And Team Building workshop will encourage participants to explore the different aspects of a team, as well as ways that they can become a top-notch team performer. Your participants will be given the details and concepts of what makes up a team, and what factors into being a successful team and team member.
Workshop Objectives:
- Describe the concept of a team, and its factors for success
- Explain the four phases of the Tuckman team development model and define their characteristics
- List the three types of teams
- Describe actions to take as a leader – and as a follower for each of the four phases (Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing)
- Discuss the uses, benefits and disadvantages of various team-building activities
- Describe several team-building activities that you can use, and in what settings
- Follow strategies for setting and leading team meetings
- Detail problem-solving strategies using the Six Thinking Hats model — and one consensus-building approach to solving team problems
Systems Thinking
Systems thinking is a holistic approach to analysis that focuses on the interrelationships of the systems parts and how the systems work over time. It’s a tool that reduces inconsistencies between the actual flows of the System, and your understanding of the System and its flows.
Systems Thinking allows us to understand and to integrate ourselves into the larger System. This understanding supports the creation of Learning Organizations, ultimately reducing mistakes and leads to greater innovation.
Workshop Objectives:
- Introduction – What is Systems Thinking?
- Analyzing systems
- Systems Thinking vs. Design Thinking
- Why Systems Thinking?
- Understanding interconnectedness in systems
- The Six Fundamental Systems Thinking Tools
- Leadership and the System Perspective
- Creating Learning Organizations
PEOPLE
Support & Develop Your Employees
Anger Management
- Understand anger dynamics in terms of the anger cycle and the fight and flight theory.
- Know common anger myths and their factual refutations.
- Know the helpful and unhelpful ways of dealing with anger.
- Understand the difference between objective and subjective language.
- Know tips in identifying the problem.
- Express a feeling or position using I-messages.
- Negotiation and solution-building.
- Reflect on one’s hot buttons and personal anger dynamics.
- Learn and practice de-escalation techniques.
Coaching and Mentoring
You are in your office looking over your performance report and it happened again. Your low performing employee failed to meet quota this month even after you spoke with them about the importance of meeting goals. This employee has a great attitude and you know they can do better. You just do not know how to motivate them to reach the goal. Money used to work, but that has worn off. You are baffled and you know being frustrated makes matters worse. What do you do?
The Coaching And Mentoring focuses on how to better coach your employees to higher performance. Coaching is a process of relationship building and setting goals. How well you coach is related directly to how well you are able to foster a great working relationship with your employees through understanding them and strategic goal setting.
Workshop Objectives:
- Define coaching, mentoring and the GROW model.
- Identify and set appropriate goals using the SMART technique of goal setting.
- Identify the steps necessary in defining the current state or reality of your employee’s situation.
- Identify the steps in developing a finalized plan or wrapping it up and getting your employee motivated to accomplish those plans.
- Identify the benefits of building and fostering trust with your employee.
- Identify the steps in giving effective feedback while maintaining trust.
- Identify and overcoming common obstacles.
- Identify when the coaching is at an end and transitioning your employee to other growth opportunities.
- Identify the difference between mentoring and coaching.
Communication Strategies
For the better part of every day, we are communicating to and with others. Whether it’s the speech you deliver in the boardroom, the level of attention you give your spouse when they are talking to you, or the look you give the cat, it all means something.
The Communication Strategies workshop will help participants understand the different methods of communication and how to make the most of each of them. These strategies will support an understanding of the potential communication strategies based on age, gender, race, religion, and other real or perceived differences. These strategies will trickle down throughout the organization and positively impact everyone involved.
Workshop Objectives:
- Understand what communication is
- Identify ways that communication can happen
- Identify barriers to communication and how to overcome them
- Develop their non-verbal and paraverbal communication skills
- Use the STAR method to speak on the spot
- Listen actively and effectively
- Use appreciative inquiry as a communication tool
- Adeptly converse and network with others
- Identify and mitigate real or perceived differences
- Establish common ground with others
- Use “I” messages
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence describes the ability to understand one’s own feelings, and that of groups, and how these emotions can influence motivation and behavior. The concepts of Emotional Intelligence have been around since at least the 1900’s, but the term was first introduced by Wayne Payne in 1985.
As a result of the growing acknowledgement by professionals of the importance and relevance of emotions to work outcomes, the research on the topic continued to gain momentum, but it wasn’t until the publication of Daniel Goleman’s best seller Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ that the term became more widely accepted by mainstream media.
Workshop Objectives:
- Define and practice self-management, self-awareness, self-regulation, self-motivation, and empathy.
- Understand, use and manage your emotions.
- Verbally communicate with others.
- Successfully communicate with others in a non-verbal manner.
- Identify the benefits of emotional intelligence.
- Relate emotional intelligence to the workplace.
- Balance optimism and pessimism.
- Effectively impact others.
Employee Motivation
When you think of staff motivation, many things may come to mind: more money, a bigger office, a promotion, or a better quality of life. The truth is, no matter what we offer people, true motivation must come from within. Regardless of how it is characterized, it is important to get the right balance in order to ensure that you have a motivated workforce.
The Employee Motivation workshop will give participants several types of tools to become a great motivator, including goal setting and influencing skills. Participants will also learn about five of the most popular motivational models, and how to bring them together to create a custom program.
Workshop Objectives:
- Defining motivation, an employer’s role in it and how the employee can play a part
- Identifying the importance of Employee Motivation
- Identifying methods of Employee Motivation
- Describing the theories which pertain to Employee Motivation – with particular reference to psychology
- Identifying personality types and how they fit into a plan for Employee Motivation.
- Setting clear and defined goals.
- Identifying specific issues in the field, and addressing these issues and how to maintain this going forward
Improving Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a term that is frequently used but rarely defined. Practicing true mindfulness encourages living in the present while it addresses the danger of distorted thinking, Staying in tune both mentally and emotionally improves perspective to enhance personal a professional success.
With our Improving Mindfulness workshop, your participants will begin to identify their own patterns of thinking. As they learn to practice mindfulness, they will cultivate positive emotions that will have a dramatic effect on the work environment.
Workshop Objectives:
- Define mindfulness
- Develop techniques to make oneself more attuned to the present moment
- Understand the value and utility of one’s emotions
- Learn how to identify and counter distorted thinking
- Learn how to cultivate genuine positive emotions
- Become more fully present in social interactions
Managing Workplace Anxiety
The workplace is one of the leading locations where people experience stress and anxiety. Every employee will encounter it sometime during their career. Everyone should be aware of the signs of anxiety and the tools needed to cope and deal with it.
Our Managing Workplace Anxiety workshop will provide your participants the important skills and resources to recognize and manage workplace anxiety. By identifying these symptoms and coping skills employees and managers will be better suited in dealing with these common situations. Through this workshop your participants will be better suited to the challenges that the workplace can bring.
Workshop Objectives:
- Explore different types of workplace anxieties
- Learn to recognize symptoms and warning signs
- Determine ways of coping and managing problems
- Recognize common trigger and accelerants
- Learn the difference between anxiety and common nervousness
Presentation Skills
Many studies have found that public speaking is the number one fear amongst most people, outranking flying, snakes, insects, and even death. Ironically, it is also one of the skills that can make or break a person’s career. Your participants will be provided a strong set of skills that will complement their current presentation skill set.
The Presentation Skills workshop will give participants some presentation skills that will make speaking in public less terrifying and more enjoyable. This workshop includes topics that participants can look forward to including: creating a compelling program, using various types of visual aids, and engaging the audience.
Workshop Objectives:
- Perform a needs analysis and prepare an outline
- Select presentation delivery methods
- Practice verbal and non-verbal communication skills
- Knock down nervousness
- Develop and use flip charts with color
- Create targeted PowerPoint presentations
- Utilize white boarding for reinforcement
- Describe how video and audio enhance a presentation and list criteria for determining what types to use
- Enrich the learning experience with humor, questions, and discussion.
Unconscious Bias
The concept of unconscious bias or “hidden bias” has come into the forefront of our work as diversity advocates because the dynamics of diversity are changing. We have generally assumed that patterns of discriminatory behavior in organizations are conscious; that people who know better do the right thing, and those who don’t cause bias.
As a result, we have developed a “good person/bad person” paradigm of diversity: a belief that good people are not biased, but inclusive, and that bad people are the biased ones. This belief becomes even more significant as our mental models cement these beliefs/biases.
Workshop Objectives:
- Definition of biases
- Introduction to Mental Models
- Conscious vs. unconscious bias
- Recognizing that you have biases
- Identifying the types of biases
- Deciding which of your biases you will address first
- Eliminating your biases
- The Power of Reflection
Workplace Harassment
The Workplace Harassment workshop will help give participants the tools necessary to recognize harassment in the workplace as well understand your rights and responsibilities under the law, with regard to safety in the workplace. Through this workshop your participants will recognize that it is necessary for everyone to help create programs that teach employees to identify harassment and exercise anti-harassment policies.
Workshop Objectives:
- Identify the words and actions that constitute harassment
- Understand what the law says about harassment
- Implement anti-harassment policies
- Educate employees and develop anti-harassment policies
- Discuss employer and employee’s rights and responsibilities
- Address accusations of harassment
- Apply proper mediation procedures
- Deal with the aftermath of harassment
PERFORMANCE
Improve Results
Change Management
Change Management Workshop Change is a constant in many of our lives. All around us, technologies, processes, people, ideas, and methods often change, affecting the way we perform daily tasks and live our lives. Having a smooth transition when change occurs is important in any situation and your participants will gain some valuable skills through this workshop.
The Change Management workshop will give any leader tools to implement changes more smoothly and to have those changes better accepted. This workshop will also give all participants an understanding of how change is implemented and some tools for managing their reactions to change.
Workshop Objectives:
- List the steps necessary for preparing a change strategy and building support for the change
- Describe the WIFM – the individual motivators for change
- Use needed components to develop a change management and communications plans, and to list implementation strategies
- Employ strategies for gathering data, addressing concerns and issues, evaluating options and adapting a change direction
- Utilize methods for leading change project status meetings, celebrating a successful change implementation, and sharing the results and benefits
- Describe the four states of Appreciative Inquiry, its purposes, and sample uses in case studies
- Use strategies for aligning people with a change, appealing to emotions and facts
- Describe the importance of resiliency and flexibility in the context of change.
Creative Problem Solving
In the past few decades, psychologists and business people alike have discovered that successful problem solvers tend to use the same type of process to identify and implement the solutions to their problems. This process works for any kind of problem, large or small.
The Creative Problem Solving workshop will give participants an overview of the entire creative problem solving process, as well as key problem solving tools that they can use every day. Skills such as brainstorming, information gathering, analyzing data, and identifying resources will be covered throughout the workshop.
Workshop Objectives:
- Understand problems and the creative problem solving process
- Indentify types of information to gather and key questions to ask in problem solving
- Identify the importance of defining a problem correctly
- Identify and use four different problem definition tools
- Write concrete problem statements
- Use basic brainstorming tools to generate ideas for solutions
- Evaluate potential solutions against criteria, including cost/benefit analysis and group voting
- Perform a final analysis to select a solution
- Understand the roles that fact and intuition play in selecting a solution
- Understand the need to refine the shortlist and redefine it
- Understand how to identify the tasks and resources necessary to implement solutions
- Evaluate and adapt solutions to reality
Decision Making & Mental Models
Sound decision making is a critical part of life and work. Even if we understand the processes involved in making good decisions, our mental models or biases can lead to poor decisions.
The Decision Making & Mental Models Workshop will provide participants with an understanding of the different decision types and the processes. The workshop will also describe how our mental models can lead to poor decisions.
Workshop Objectives:
- How to Clarify and Define the Problem
- Understand the benefit of collective problem solving and decision making
- Examine decision making models
- Apply Creativity in Problem Solving/Decision Making process
- Define the Decision Driven Organization
- Understand Mental Models and their impact on decisions
- Bridging the gap between Knowing and Doing
- Factors to consider in the decision making process
- Inquiry vs. Advocacy
- Using Appreciative Method
Diversity and Inclusion
With the world becoming more mobile and diverse, diversity & inclusion has taken on a new importance in the workplace. Your participants will be able to use strategies for removing barriers and stereotypes, and to encourage diversity in the workplace and even through their community.
The Diversity & Inclusion workshop will help participants understand what diversity & inclusion is all about, and how they can help create a more diverse world at work and at home. They will be instructed to use skills such as active listening to receive messages in a diverse population, employ effective questioning techniques, and communicate with strength.
Workshop Objectives:
- Explain the definition, terms and history of diversity
- Describe the meaning of stereotypes and biases, how they develop, and the reasons for your own perspectives
- List strategies for removing barriers to encouraging diversity for yourself, in the workplace, and in the social community
- Use active listening skills to receive messages in a diverse population, employ effective questioning techniques, and communicate with strength
- Identify ways to encourage diversity in the workplace, and prevent and discourage discrimination
- Understand and respond to personal complaints, and develop a support system to manage the resolution process
- List the steps a manager should take to record a complaint, analyze the situation, and take appropriate resolution action
High Performance Teams (Non-remote)
High Performance Teams are organizations, teams or groups working inside an office environment that are focused on achieving the same goals.
With our High Performance Teams workshop, your participants will begin to see how important it is to develop a core set of high performance skills while working in an office locale. By knowing and managing the way people interact in an office setting, you will be positioning your high performance teams for great success!
Workshop Objectives:
- Understand the benefits of high performance teams
- Address challenges
- Conduct effective meetings
- Be able to see the big picture
- Work collaboratively
- Adequately praise team members
High Performance Teams (Remote)
High Performance Teams (Remote Workforce) are organizations, teams or groups working in a virtual environment that are focused on achieving the same goals. Bringing team members together through a virtual environment can be a challenge task. This workshop identifies these challenges and helps your participants push through to success.
With our High Performance Teams (Remote Workforce) workshop, your participants will begin to see how important it is to develop a core set of high performance skills, while working remotely. By knowing and managing the way people interact in a remote environment, you will be setting up your high performance teams to accomplish any task.
Workshop Objectives:
- Define high performance teams.
- Define remote workforce.
- Understand the characteristics of a high performance team.
- Understand how to create teamwork.
- Understand the importance of communication.
- Understand how to train your high performance team of remote employees.
- Learn how to manage a high performance team.
- Learn the techniques of an effective team meeting.
Leadership Development
They say that leaders are born, not made. While it is true that some people are born leaders, some leaders are born in the midst of adversity. Often, simple people who have never had a leadership role will stand up and take the lead when a situation they care about requires it. A simple example is parenting. When a child arrives, many parents discover leadership abilities they never knew existed in order to guide and protect their offspring.
Once you learn the techniques of true Leadership Development, you will be able to build the confidence it takes to take the lead. The more experience you have acting as a genuine leader, the easier it will be for you. It is never easy to take the lead, as you will need to make decisions and face challenges, but it can become natural and rewarding.
Workshop Objectives:
- Define “leadership”
- Explain the Great Man & Trait Theory
- Understand Transformational Leadership
- Describe leadership styles
- Understand the people you lead and how to adapt your leadership styles
- Conduct a personal inventory
- Create an action plan
- Establish personal goals
Measuring Training Results
Although we all know that training can have many amazing benefits, sometimes it can be hard to prove those benefits and attach a dollar value to training. Some topics, like sales training or time management, might have direct, tangible benefits. Other topics, like communication or leadership, might have benefits that you can’t put a dollar value on.
Our Measuring Results From Training course, your participants will learn about the different ways to evaluate training progress, and how to use those results to demonstrate the results that training brings. Once the training has been evaluated the next step is to modify and updated the curriculum to create a content that is better suited for the participants.
Workshop Objectives:
- Understand Kolb’s learning styles and learning cycle
- Understand Kirkpatrick’s levels of evaluation
- Be familiar with many types of evaluation tools, including goal setting, tests, reactionary sheets, interviews, observations, hip-pocket assessments, skill assessments, and learning journals
- Understand when to use each type of evaluation tool
- Be able to perform a needs assessment
- Know how to write learning objectives and link them to evaluation
- Be able to write an evaluation plan to evaluate learning at each stage of the training and far beyond
- Know how to identify the costs, benefits, and return on investment of training
- Be familiar with the parts of a business case
Performance Management
Performance Management is making sure the employee and the organization are focused on the same priorities. It touches on the organization itself by improving production and reducing waste. It helps the employee or individual set and meet their goals and improves the employee manager relationship. The key in keeping an organization and employee aligned, which improves performance and productivity, is Performance Management.
When changes occur Performance Management helps the transition to be smoother and less hectic. It helps the organization and employee have a stream-lined relationship which improves communication and interactions between the two groups. It will help close any gaps that exist in an employee’s skill-set and make them a more valuable employee through feedback and coaching.
Workshop Objectives:
- Define performance management.
- Understand how performance management works and the tools to make it work.
- Learn the three phases of project management and how to assess it.
- Discuss effective goal-setting.
- Learn how to give feedback on performance management.
- Identify Kolb’s Learning Cycle.
- Recognize the importance of motivation.
- Develop a performance journal and performance plan.
Succession Planning
The loss of valuable leadership can cripple a company. Business succession planning is essentially preparing successors to take on vital leadership roles when the need arises. It is essential to the longterm survival of a company. Every company should have a form of succession planning in its portfolio as it is not the expected absences that can cripple a company, but the unexpected ones.
Whether it is preparing someone to take over a position of leadership in a corporation, or the sole proprietor of a small business Succession Planning will teach you the difference between succession planning and mere replacement planning. How you prepare people to take on the responsibilities of leadership so that the company thrives in the transition is just as important as picking the right person for the job.
Workshop Objectives:
- Define business succession planning and its role in your company.
- Lay the groundwork to develop a succession plan.
- The importance of mentorship.
- Define and use a SWOT analysis to set goals.
- Create a plan, assign roles, and execute the plan.
- Communicate to develop support and manage change.
- Anticipate obstacles, and evaluate and adapt goals and plans.
- Characterize success.