Leadership Development
Learning Sessions: Building Winning Teams & Leaders
THE HUMAN FACTOR, Inc. specializes in providing a comprehensive and sustainable approach where real learning and behavior change is achieved. We know that excellence happens in contextTM – employees do well when they have the right tools and skills to get the right job done. Our role is to support you in creating a context (including individual behaviors, processes, skills & tools) that supports and encourages the type of results critical for your success. We work to enable you to continue long after we are gone, creating competence and self-reliance in the organization. We provide engaging and interesting learning in the moment, tools to apply on the job, exercises to stimulate interest, and follow up as appropriate to embed the desired behaviors. Conducted on-site at your place of business, via webinar, or video our leadership development programs offer a convenient and cost-effective way to increase your leadership capabilities, grow your key managers and build a stronger, more capable organization.
STRATEGIC PLANNING
Is your strategic planning process mostly hit or miss? This comprehensive overview of strategic planning takes all the guesswork out of the process and puts you in control of your business. Topics covered include:
- Establishing a mission, vision, stakeholder value propositions, and guiding principles
- Determining destination points
- Building appropriate business models to support getting there
- Creating quarterly operational plans
- Coordinating supporting budgets
- Linking to team and individual accountabilities
- Cascading communications to align the organization
Includes models, worksheets, questions, tips and templates to support your plan and turn your vision into reality.
INNOVATING EVERY DAY
When was the last time someone on your team came up with a really new idea that contributed significantly to your business? This session will teach you how to incorporate innovation into everything you do by:
- Exploring what innovation looks and feels like
- Developing awareness of current decision making and thinking processes
- Assessing individual and organizational innovation, including getting clear on what is possible and determining what is desired
- Unlearning embedded innovation eradicators
- Practicing innovation techniques
- Learning to see the world in a multitude of ways so that innovation becomes an every day activity rather than an occasional event
You’ll get tools, tips and techniques that can be used immediately to achieve desired business results. All participants receive a reference book and a series of weekly email follow-up materials to support cultivating the habit of innovation.
WHO AM I AND WHO THE HECK ARE YOU?
Have you ever wondered how you can instantly hit it off with some people while others drive you nuts? This upbeat and interactive program looks at decision-making, data gathering, communication, organization and living style utilizing the Myers-Briggs Temperament Sorter and Ladder of Inference. Participants will:
- Build awareness of their personal preferences in data gathering, information processing, and decision-making styles
- Learn how to make better decisions
- Learn how to communicate so others hear and understand them better
- Discover how to use their new knowledge to increase professional effectiveness
The session provides teams and organizations with a framework and common language for dealing with difficult workplace challenges. It includes a self-assessment, debriefs, exercises and follow-up emails to embed the learning and develop desired behaviors.
COMMUNICATIONS: PRODUCTIVE COMMUNICATIONS
Want to learn how to communicate quickly and effectively in today’s “get to the point” business world. Then our “Productive Communications” seminar is for you! Key learning points include:
- Understanding what works and why in today’s business environment
- How to choose the appropriate communications tools
- How to compose clear and concise emails, memos and executive summaries
- Adapting your communication method and style to the audience
- How to plan and deliver effective communications in a variety of situations
The session includes a self-assessment, practice exercises and take-away tools to embed the learning and develop desired behaviors, and can be delivered in a series of three 1-hour lunch & learn sessions.
COMMUNICATIONS: UNDERSTAND & BE UNDERSTOOD
Do your employees truly understand what you say, or do they just nod their heads and pretend? Stop hoping they “get it” and make sure with this insightful program designed to develop deeper communication competencies for more productive conversations. You will:
- Explore the differences in telling, gathering, observing and asking
- Learn when and where each of these approaches is appropriate
- Practice uncovering your own decision making and communication process
- Learn how to constructively disagree with others
- Practice structuring an agenda and preparing to lead a meeting to achieve your objectives
This program includes a self-assessment, use of participant examples and take-away tools to embed the learning and develop desired behaviors, and can be delivered in a series of three 1-hour lunch & learn sessions.
A BETTER CRYSTAL BALL: VALID INTERVIEWING & SELECTION
Tired of going through one bad hire after another before finding the right person? Learn how to hire right the first time with proven behavioral interviewing and selection techniques. This highly interactive 4-hour session explores key aspects of the interviewing and selection process, including:
- The basics of behavioral interviewing and why it works
- The right way to screen, question and assess candidates
- Applying the methodology to make better hiring decisions
- How to conduct valid, legal and productive interviews
This session includes group discussion, hands-on practice and development of work product, as well as tools and templates to use during the actual hiring process.
PERFORMANCE EXCELLENCE (FOR MANAGERS)
Motivating and encourage employees to higher performance is one of your most important roles as a manager. This program takes an in-depth look at the critical aspects of performance management, including:
- Setting clear performance expectations
- Communicating how individuals contribute to business success and how they will be evaluated
- Aligning individual goals with key business priorities
- Recognizing what gets done (results) and reinforcing how it is achieved (means)
- Measuring progress against specific goals and making adjustments as necessary
- Working with problem performers
This 4-hour session reinforces the notion of performance management as an ongoing process rather than a one-time event, and can be adapted to meet the unique needs of any group. Participants will walk away with tools, templates and reference materials they can easily integrate into their own performance management systems.
STRAIGHT TALK
What if you went to a basketball game and they didn’t keep score? Now you know how employees feel when they don’t get the feedback they want and need! Providing deliberate, direct and skillful feedback is essential for a happy, motivated and productive workforce. In this intense 4-hour workshop, you will learn how to conduct conversations that produce:
- Mutual understanding between manager and employee
- Clarity around issues
- Enhanced working relationships
- Shared responsibility
- Resolved problems
The session includes a self-assessment, group activities, video, and follow-up materials to embed the learning and shift behaviors.
DEVELOPING & COACHING OTHERS (FOR MANAGERS)
When it comes to developing your people, which would you rather be – a role model or a horrible warning to others? This program offers a forthright look at how the best managers develop their people, including:
- When and why significant learning takes place
- How to make the most of ‘on the job’ training
- How to assess learning ability in yourself and others
- Uncovering and eliminating blocks to learning
- Creating catalysts for development
- How to model personal development for your employees
The session includes a self-assessment, practice session, and development planning process guide to embed the learning and develop desired behaviors
JUST GETTING IT DONE: DRIVING EXECUTION
Sports shoe giant Nike says it best – just do it! But sometimes “just doing it” isn’t so easy. In this fast-paced program you will learn to get the right things done efficiently and effectively by:
- Identifying common barriers to execution
- Developing an action and decision orientation
- Creating clarity throughout the organization
- Staging yourself and your organization for success
- Constructing progress scorecards and holding people accountable
- Communicating effectively
- Informing, inspiring and engaging at all levels of the organization
- Eliminating excuses
The session includes multiple templates, tools and tips that can be used to accelerate your organization in achieving desired results.
THRIVING @ the SPEED OF CHANGE
In today’s business world, constant innovation via new products, services, methods, channels of delivery and pricing structures is a given. The organizations that lead the way are those who have leaders that embrace change rather than resist it. To assist you in thriving at the speed of change, the session shows you how to use change to your advantage by becoming more:
- Positive. Displays a security and self-assurance that is based on a view of life as complex but filled with opportunity.
- Focused. Maintains a clear vision of what you want to achieve
- Flexible. Demonstrates a special pliability when responding to uncertainty.
- Proactive. Engages change rather than defends against it
- Organized. Develops structured approaches to managing ambiguity and uses frameworks to constantly sort and process information.
You’ll get very clear on your current attitude toward change while identifying what you can do to help yourself and others in your organization become more resilient in the face of constant change.
ENHANCING YOUR OWN EFFECTIVENESS
What would you do with your life if you had greater self-awareness coupled with the clarity, energy and resources to achieve your personal vision? Find out in this intensely personal session that uncovers the secrets of your personal success. In a safe and comfortable manner, you will discover what is really important in our life how to build the right support system to help them get it. Specifically, you will be guided to:
- Develop a deeper understanding of your own temperament, including decision making, data gathering, communication, organization and living style utilizing the Myers-Briggs Temperament Sorter and Ladder of Inference
- Explore values and operating principles through assessment and candid conversations
- Determine the allocation of personal time and energy and uncovering what areas need work and why
- Establish a personal purpose and vision that is compelling and inspiring
- Create a personal breakthrough model that outlines steps to achieve desired results, including the creation of a personal board of directors and commitments for follow-through
This session is designed to last between 4 and 6 hours broken into 1-three hour portion, and 2-one and one-half hour pieces. It can be also subdivided over the course of 2 days or delivered in one full day. Participants walk away with a learning journal that can be referenced and used time and time again. They also receive a series of email follow up materials to support achieving their personal purpose and vision.
THE MANAGER’S ROLE
The “what” of the manager’s role is easy — establishing and aligning team vision, goals and objectives. The “how” is not so easy. With so many responsibilities and demands on your time, how do you know what to focus on in order to fulfill your role? This hands-on session covers the five key areas of the manager’s role — planning, organizing, developing teams and individuals, communicating and monitoring – and shows how to develop the building blocks that will enable your organization to create a sustainable competitive advantage.
Additional sessions include:
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE: GETTING IT, KEEPING IT, USING IT
MEETING MANAGEMENT & FACILITATION
© 2012, The Human Factor, Inc.