Facilitation and Team Skills Courses
Teams become high performance teams when they operate in a state of flow. Flow is a mental and emotional state of operation in which the team is fully immersed in what they are doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.
This course focuses on 8 key practices that facilitate the experience of flow for teams. These include:
- Developing an inspiring vision
- Dealing with differences
- Facilitating collaboration
- Balancing task, process and relationship
- Decision-making
- Clarifying values
- Addressing emotional triggers
- Appreciation: The Key to Engagement
Who Should Attend:
This program is ideal for intact teams or for those leaders who wish to create a more collaborative team/organization.
Format/Structure:
Two-day in-person session, followed by 1-2 follow-up webinars, and optional coaching.
This course is essential for anyone who leads meetings, project teams, group gatherings (such as trainings, workshops, or learning groups). The program focuses on how to successfully guide groups so that their desired outcomes are achieved such a way that participants feel included and engaged.
Program topics include:
- How to set up gatherings for success (clarity on desired outcomes, agenda, roles and responsibilities).
- Facilitation tools that generate creativity and innovation AND focus on results.
- How to manage conflicting points of view.
- How to work with difficult behaviors.
- Effective follow-through.
Who Should Attend:
Anyone who leads meetings, project teams, group gatherings.
Format/Structure:
Two or three-day in-person classroom sessions.
Leaders and team members must consistently communicate and work with people who have a variety of interaction styles. Seventy-five percent of the people we deal with are different than ourselves. It is important to be flexible and tailor speech, body language, and approach so that others become more open to listen and accept ideas.
This is especially important in critical business situations, such as when you are selling, problem solving, working on a team, or providing customer service. When you can spot cues and subtle differences in the way people interact, you can effectively deal with team members, employees, peers, and customers.
This half-day or full-day course provides each participant with their interaction style profile and offers them the skills and mindsets necessary to effectively flex and communicate with others.
Who Should Attend:
Individual contributors, team members and leaders who need to work successfully with others in teams or across matrixes where style differences come into play.
Format/Structure:
Full or half-day in-person session.
Have you ever struggled to provide difficult feedback to a direct report? Do you find it difficult to raise a tough topic with your manager? Would you like to be able to transform conflict with a peer into a productive conversation? Do you lead a team where you are seeking more innovative, creative solutions? In this dynamic and interactive course, participants are introduced to the key tools and elements that facilitate masterful conversations while preserving important relationships.
Masterful Conversations is designed to help you learn the core skills and mindsets necessary for initiating and leading a difficult conversation.
Program topics include:
- How to use advocacy, inquiry and the ladder of inference in the context of difficult conversations.
- The ladder of inference
- Practice using reflective listening
- Emotional triggers and their impact on conversations
- Empathy with another person's strong feelings while not agreeing/disagreeing with the other"s point of view
- Managing one's own judgments and strong feelings and transforming those for productive purposes in the conversation
Modules
Masterful Conversations workshops typically include the following modules
Understanding Mental Models
Examines the subjective values and assumptions that inform one"s diverse moral reasoning and partisan perceptions.
External Skills and Behaviors
Focuses on what we say and do when we communicate.
Left-Hand Column Case
Familiarizes participants with patterns of emotional and defensive dynamics in conversation.
Role Reversal Exercise
Studying a real conversation from the perspective of the other person.
Redesigning the Left-Hand Column Case
Examining the driving dynamics, assumptions, and filters one brings to a difficult conversation.
Managing Our Own Feelings in Conversation
Exercises to expand participants" self-knowledge of feelings and provide strategies for maintaining equilibrium in conversation.
Managing Other"s Feelings in Conversation
Exploring the practice of empathy through role-playing.
Who Should Attend:
Individual contributors, teams, team leaders, anyone interested in mastering difficult conversations.
Format/Structure:
The class is a 2-day program. There is the option for follow-up teleconferences and/or coaching to integrate the material.
Register for Course - May 6 & 7 / 13 & 14 Tucson, AZ
Register for Course - June 3 & 4 Cambridge, MA
Often in times of challenge and change, teams and organizations engage in a reactive orientation and often act with haste. What they miss is creating a compelling new vision and innovative strategies. Everyone in the organization needs to learn to challenge the status quo and think outside the box.
The current economic crisis is unprecedented. Business as usual will not suffice. As Albert Einstein said: "No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it – we must learn to see the world anew." We need "Out-of-the-Box" mindsets and tools to meet today's challenges and create strategies for long-term sustainability and growth.
This course will introduce a spectrum of tools and paradigm-shifting models that include:
- Quantum Systemic Thinking.
- Identifying unique value propositions.
- Accessing intuition.
- Unleashing creativity, 'Theory U'.
- The power of presence and social and emotional intelligence.
Who Should Attend:
Leaders who need to drive innovation or change, L & D and OD professionals.
Format/Structure: One or two-day in-person sessions.
Self aware leaders know their strengths and weaknesses. They have a deep sense of purpose and values and bring it to their work. They are aware what triggers their negative impulses and how to stay centered and constructive in face of these "triggers."
Social aware leaders sense other people's feelings and perspectives. They accurately assess the underlying interests of key stakeholders and the forces that shape their views. Understanding differing styles, temperaments and viewpoints become critical skills in working well with others.
Team aware leaders understand how to create a space where groups can tap into and fully utilize its collective wisdom. They engage the creativity, experience and commitment of a diverse team. They know how to organize and work with others.
“Not only did they motivate and leave me with lifelong leadership skills, but I was surprised and thankful for all the things they taught me about myself. I could not have had a more quality experience."
"”Greg Hopkins
Executive Vice President, Stream Global Services