Course Overviews

Change

When dealing with change, or attempting to help others navigate the turbulent waters, do you notice when communication goes off track?  It can be as subtle as the other person looking at the floor or making a joke at the expense of the company.  Fortunately, there are a number of skills and strategies that will ease the process of change.  These skills turn stress- and fear-inducing circumstances into team-building opportunities, staff recommitment and improved job performance.   See the course description for details.

Coaching

One of our most popular courses, the focus is on using an “ask” versus “tell” approach to leading change, dealing with problems and breakdowns, and bringing out the best in others.  Unlike other programs that emphasize the theories of coaching and leadership, this course puts into practice what experts do to successfully coach and collaborate with each others.  We emphasize and key off participant’s work situations, applied to current challenges.  A unique framework builds eight essential skills into your natural coaching style.

Our “Manager as Coach” module (Coaching & Leadership Skills), is for those in formal leadership roles, addresses the dual agenda that managers, supervisors and executives have of upholding management’s interests while bringing out people’s unique strengths and abilities.  Coaching from an agenda means being more assertive, evaluative, consultative and at times straight-out negotiating with employees for the best possible work agreements.  Back in 1999, estimates were that coaching and mentoring would comprise 60-75% of a modern manager’s job; by now, some feel that’s all they really do. This module provides a roadmap so managers can shift from “boss” to “coach” and back again, when necessary, with ease and fluidity.

These days, everyone can benefit from coaching, and peer-to-peer or cross-functional or dedicated (non-management) coaching roles have become widespread in most company cultures.  Our Coaching for Performance program consistently receives rave reviews and delivers results through powerful tools that are immediately useful on and off the job.

See also:  Sample testimonials from our satisfied clients.

Communication

This course is for when clear, precise communication is vital to business success.  The advanced course leads people though an easy step-by-step system to detect and correct communication errors before they happen.  This course deals with the challenge of successful communication and collaboration with people of diverse styles, backgrounds, cultures and agendas.  The objective is to get at the useful bits of what other people know or perceive.  Topics include persuasion and influence, confrontation without defensiveness, handling resistance and conflict, dealing with negativity, asserting healthy boundaries, avoiding getting “hooked” by other people’s issues, and managing your own mood and emotions.  The results are solid workplace relationships that allow for faster, higher quality results.  See the detailed course description for Communication Skills.

Conflict

Specific skills for managing differences – between people, groups, departments or with outside vendors or customers – can prevent much misery and lost energy.  The key to dealing well with differences is to approach each situation with a “we can work this out” assumption.  The course also includes a conflict management style instrument to self-assess one’s own preferences in deal with conflicts, and how to deal with those who would use a different approach.  See course description.

Difficult Behavior

There are no difficult people, only difficult behaviors and situations (and somewhere in there are the players).  If we focus fully on dealing with the behaviors and process problems, somehow conversations go better and there’s less defensiveness, more cooperation.  Rather than taking one particularly annoying behavior out of context of the complete system (of both annoying and not-so-annoying things that people do at work), this workshop narrows in on five behaviors that are the root cause of all the others:  negativity and blame, resistance, passivity, aggressiveness, and dealing with someone who is excessively critical or confrontational.  This course focuses on what the participants encounter most and provides strategies and proven skills for handling each.  See the course description for Handling Difficult Behaviors.

Facilitation

Ever wonder how professional facilitators could have the nerve (let alone the ability) to work with groups of “diverse” participants?  Get the inside secrets of their success in this program designed for dealing with even the most outspoken and obnoxious group members.  Learn how to create groundrules on the front-end to provide enough structure and safety to reach the group’s goals without being thrown off by strong personalities and egos.  Gain mastery of sixteen facilitator tools to boost group and individual performance.  Optional video tape feedback and coaching accelerate learning. Prior public speaking experience is helpful, but not necessary.  Course description.

See also, “Presenting & Public Speaking,” for related course curriculum.

Innovation

Aligning innovation imperatives with reward systems is helpful, but so is having fun.  Shocking as that may sound, and unproductive as it may look at times, a degree of relaxation and safety must accompany successful ideation.  Then proven processes that result in healthy competition can streamline the rest.  Combining elements of Agile Development and experience gained through nearly 20 years of teaching entrepreneurship to MBA students, this program is based on winning strategies and curriculum tested and honed in dozens of industries.  Ask us for details.

Humor

Studies have shown a link between pressure and performance, and humor and laughter are ways to maximize performance when pressure builds to the breaking point.  Humor is an effective business tool when things get too heavy, too stressful, too darn serious. This is about using humor for better self-management, teamwork, innovation and business success.

Sense of humor is as diverse and culture-specific as how people think, but it is easy enough to use humor without stepping on toes (or worse).  Some may object to certain forms of humor at work, and if you really want to have fun, it pays to be aware of the limits.  This course is about how to assess and safely increase your humor quotient (HQ) and not drive everyone else [even more] insane.

Dilbert and television program The Office can be entertaining (and frightening), but if you’d like to actually improve teamwork and performance (rather than just make light of it behind people’s back), see the course description.

Leadership Development

This “total quality” leadership workshop series is designed to provide core skills and tools for anyone who aspires to proactive lead change and deal with organizational issues and the corresponding opportunities for performance improvement.  Three overlapping domains are win-win negotiation, using a coaching approach, and effective communication.  These are the tools of collaboration and effective teamwork.  See Leadership Skills & Team Communication (modular series) or Coaching and Leadership Skills, or call us at +1.831-761-0700 Ext 7 for a roadmap detailing specific learning objectives.

Negotiation

How to get what you want while helping the other party to also get what they want.  Negotiation is not debate or having an argument – though that may be the approach used in high stress workplaces). The art of the “deal” (all win) negotiation involves keeping the perceived level of conflict low enough to get results through open discussion and collaboration.  Our model balances assertiveness with cooperation to get optimal results, providing proven techniques for dealing with a vast array of challenging negotiation, confrontation and conflict resolution situations. See Course Description.

Presentation & Public Speaking

Two of our three courses on speaking and presenting require some prior public speaking experience (we recommend Toastmasters clubs as a good place to practice on an audience outside the workplace; see Toastmasters International to find a club near you).   Courses are:

(1) Presentation Skills for Professionals, an intensive for those who regularly present to groups and wish to master the art of speaking to persuade, inform, or make winning proposals.

(2) Meeting Management & Presentation Skills (ask for syllabus)

(3) Brilliant Presentations using PowerPoint goes well beyond the basic” do’s and don’ts” of using MS PowerPoint.  This is a course for integrating electronic multimedia into your oral communication for maximum impact. This course includes techniques and guidelines consistent with best practices and is applied directly in a workshop format, which can serve current project goals as well as build skillsets for future assignments. Can also be structured for executives who are going to be “under the spotlight” of speaking to a group, perhaps with challenging or even hostile questions thrown at them.  Using the latest advancements, participants learn how to enhance their effectiveness with this powerful media, avoiding the pitfalls of overuse (e.g., flying text, reading from slides, boring visuals, too much information per slide, and dozens of others).  The purpose is to make powerful contact with audiences, and deliver your message to achieve your goals.  This course works best with video feedback sessions.

Sales

This approach to selling is based on strategies of NeuroLinguistics (also known as NLP) where the client is assisted to make a wise purchase decision.  By understanding the prospect’s decision-making strategy, you win much more than the sale – you also gain a lasting partnership. This course presents an organized system for examining buyers needs and analyzing their buying styles.  See the course description, or refer to the book Beyond Selling: How To Maximize Your Personal Influence.  Pre-study materials also available.