1.The 4 Es of Leadership: (Half-Day) Introduction: If you were to offer four pieces of essential advice to a manager so that he/she could be successful, what would you advise? In effect, this program answers that question. Using the easy to remember idea of “4 Es”, this program presents four separate leadership strategies and related concepts to help those who manage/lead others, at any level, be fully effective and respected, read more…

2.Making Meetings Magnificent. When most managers are asked about the key skills to be an effective manager, ‘running good meetings’, if it is mentioned at all, is usually way down the list.  This is a huge mistake.  For most professionals today, meetings both formal and informal, can account for well over half of the work-day, and are the place where key information is reviewed and much of the important work gets done.  If meetings are not well planned and well run, staff can view them as a waste of time and as a result disengage and view their manager negatively. And indeed meetings can be a huge waste of money, and read more…

3.High Impact Coaching Through ‘GROW’. We see the effects of coaching clearly in sports. Most of the time, a team with a superb coach and average players will do better than an average coach and superb players. Great coaching will bring up performance every time. Legendary teams always have legendary coaches. The same is often true in organizations. The role of the manager, acting as coach, is to help bring up individual and team performance. The problem is, without effective training, many managers assume that “coaching” is simply “telling”. This approach is wrong, and can often actually worsen performance. read more…

4. Engagement: Fact, Fiction, Application (Half-Day) Introduction: The words “engagement” and “engage” are now used often in most workplaces. For example: “We want to engage our staff”, or “We want more engagement of our customers”. The problem is, like many other words used in today’s organizations such as “customer service” or “communication”, we all have our own definitions and standards and there is little common agreement on what these terms actually mean. In the last 20 years, many organizations have begun to measure their levels of ‘employee engagement’, in the hopes that it will strengthen other factors they care about, such as morale, effort and… read more…

5.Staying Rational in an Irrational World. We are living in stressful times.  Most families have two working adults and yet still struggle with weighty debt and insufficient savings; salaries for 95% of us have not kept up with inflation over the past 40 years; and competition is intense in our schools, the job market, and in life generally.  No wonder that in the US and Canada the rates of opioid and drug addiction have risen dramatically; alcoholism has increased steadily year over year; suicides and gun deaths are way up; and stress-related illnesses are now the most common seen by family physicians. The challenge today… read more…

6.Exceptional Customer Service. Borrowing ideas from Wegmans, this session looks at the difference between “good” and “exceptional” customer service. Ideas, stories and best practices are shared; and commitments or “promises” to one’s “customers” are developed.

7.Developing a Workplace Covenant^tm. Workplace relationships are the key to success. In particular, the manager-team relationship is vital to group effectiveness and morale. The Workplace Covenant is a process to develop and maintain respectful, trustworthy, aligned and partnership-oriented relationships. This session outlines the need, the process, and then guides participants to develop a Workplace Covenanttm for their own group.

8. Empowerment: A Way to Engage, Energize and Excite Your Team. Unlike some other workplace initiatives over the past 40 years, empowerment is not a fad.  Empowerment, at its core, is about the control we believe we have at work over what we do, and how we do it.  Recent research suggests that empowerment is composed of these four components: meaning (do we identify and support what we are doing at work); impact (do we have the ability to influence goals and colleagues); self-determination (can we make decisions independently without layers of approval); and competence (do we believe in our own abilities as applied at work).  When these four… read more…

9.Managing versus Leading: (Half-Day) Introduction: If you supervise others, no matter what level, this program is for you! The verbs “manage” and “lead” (as in “he manages that group” or “she leads this team”), and the titles “manager” and “leader”, are often used interchangeably but in fact there are meaningful differences in behavior, skill and outcome. The challenge is that in order to be fully effective, a supervisor (or “manager”, “director” or “executive”) must both “manage” and “lead” at various times for their group to be successful. So what are managers good at? What are leaders good at? What are the key differences and what are… read more…

10.Myers-Briggs – Finding Your Personality Style. This session would provide each participant with the Personal Style Inventory (PSI, a short self-scored version of Myers-Briggs). In the session, they would learn their Myers-Briggs style (e.g. ESTJ), the meaning of this, and have a chance to share and action plan with colleagues. The benefits and limitations of knowing your style would be covered, as well as suggestions on how to leverage the “diversity” of style in your work-group. (Note: This session would have an additional cost of $8 per participant to cover the expense of the copyrighted inventory.)

11. Creating High Performance Teamwork. The challenge of creating effective teams has increased in the 21st century, where there are now “teams” of one (e.g., business partners and consultants) who work with clients, or teams of many distributed across time and location (e.g., virtual work).  No matter what your organization does, it is likely that most of the work and results get done through the collective effort of teams.  Yet as most of us have experienced, ‘high performance teamwork’ does not happen by chance, and too often we may have worked on “teams” that lacked clear goals, effective leadership, supportive… read more…

12. Dealing with Conflict; Negotiating Confidently (Full-Day) Class Overview: This full-day interactive program, Dealing with Conflict; Negotiation Confidently is divided into two sections. In the first half, the focus is on conflict generally. This is important because all negotiating takes place in the context of differing goals, the related effects on important relationships, and the impact of our behavior. Hence, in this section participants reflect on their experience with conflict at work or at home, and then proceed to learn a few key ideas about its causes, their personal style in relating to conflict, and then several practical ‘tools’ and concepts to… read more…

13.Performance Assessment and Development. This session provides tips and ideas on how to prepare for, and conduct, a motivating and meaningful “performance appraisal” conversation. A short 18 minute video will be included, followed by dialogue, sub-group discussion, and practical suggestions.

14.The Soul at Work: Discovering the Meaning of What You Do. This session is a somewhat more reflective and ‘deep’ look at what each person finds meaningful in their lives, and how some of this can be enacted at work. Without reference to any particular religion, views on the purpose of life will be shared in sub-groups, “appreciation lists” will be created, life goals and personal values will be reflected on, and work as a way to make a contribution to the world and feel connected to others will be discussed.

15.Effective Presentation Skills. This session includes ideas and tips on making powerful, attention-grabbing, and effective presentations. A short (20 minute) video is followed by brief concepts, and then ‘real-time’ skill practice in small groups, where everyone can make a short presentation and receive constructive feedback.

16.Ethics at Work. This session delves into the more subtle aspects of ethics. Everyone knows stealing, lying and bullying are wrong. But what about withholding information, skewing facts, not keeping promises, misuse of privileged data, or choosing between two competing ‘rights’? Following a short video (20 min.), sub-group discussion is held to explore ethical issues at work, at home, and in the community. Participants take away a heightened appreciation of the ethical dimensions in everyday interactions, and the importance of modeling the right behaviors, at all times, in all places.

17.Change is inevitable; Progress is a Choice (Half-Day) We have all heard the refrains: ‘The only constant is change’, and Darwin’s famous, ‘Survival does not go to the strongest, fastest, or smartest, but to those most adaptable to change’. The statements are mostly true but do not make the challenges posed by change any easier for individuals, groups or organizations. Much research suggests that individuals who maintain a positive, optimistic outlook (‘see the glass as half full’); manage stress effectively (i.e. are not consumed by frequent worry or fear); and are flexible in the face of changing conditions, will lead healthier, happier and longer lives. Put differently, read more…

18. Dealing with Incivility and Negativity in the Academic Workplace This three hour program explores the phenomenon of incivility, negativity and bullying in the academic workplace. It begins with the obvious, but important, conversation on what the school’s goals are with respect to the workplace and how everyone should be (or not be) treated, read more…