Art of Productive Conflict

Art of Productive Conflict is a highly interactive course is for any businessperson who interacts with teams dealing with difficult or challenging issues or wants to enhance their ability to engage in almost any form of interaction skillfully.

OVERVIEW
Most human beings don’t handle disagreements very well…have you noticed?

However, for any community to function effectively they must work out how to reach agreements, handle
conflict, hear one another, be clear and efficient in their exchanges, and generally be responsive to others in
their spheres of influence.

Throughout the training, whether it’s in-person or virtual, we will progressively build and layer learnings.
We’ll discuss, practice, and integrate feedback around the Realms of Control to positively affect the
interaction.

1) Start with Self

• Identify key strengths and challenges associated with Stress
• Response/Communication Style
• Raise and address any highly charged issue
• Utilize the GYR Model to create a safe structure to open difficult conversations
• Practice with a higher intention or goal, state concern, and set up a process

2) Command your Communication Skills

• Generate clear, memorable, listener-focused communications
• Demonstrate good listening – whether in conflict or not!
• Replace distracting idiosyncrasies with the 5 Effective Behaviors
• Utilize the ART Response Model to handle challenging questions

3) One Conversation at a Time

• Practice delivering a complete courageous conversation, with feedback from the coach and team
• Apply a quick DNA Analysis to increase your targeted impact
• Adjust content/approach to meet various demographics and be more inclusive
• Receive a Personalized Coaching Development Plan and incorporate listener input

4) Cultivate the “Intangibles”: Equanimity and Courage

• Identify and develop key supportive qualities as a communicator
• Hone and polish your skills through further practice and coaching
• Deal with nerves, self-consciousness, and shyness from the inside out
• Build trust in your own natural style or brand

Communicating Across Cultures

OVERVIEW:
Communicating Across Cultures is a must if you collaborate in a global team, serve customers/suppliers abroad, or work with culturally diverse organizations. Learn how people from different cultures approach relationships with managers and team members, reach commitments, view initiative, accept accountability and share information. After this course, you will see how culture can affect motivation and performance. Learn strategies to communicate while building teamwork in an environment in which people of all cultures will excel.

• Gain insight into various cultural approaches to time, information, planning, decision-making, relationships, power and change
• Test your skills to “read between the lines” and increase your insights across cultures
• Apply six tactics to write clear emails to be understood globally
• Learn to facilitate meetings to balance cultural styles and increase participation and inclusiveness
• Learn clarification strategies when you get a polite “yes” too often
• Read non-verbal communication signals and avoid offensive gestures
• Learn techniques to communicate clearly with “global English” and understand accents
• Give feedback that motivates Asians and Europeans
• Identify assumptions about trust and how to build trust more effectively across cultures
• Recognize conflict and how to discuss it when there are different cultural approaches

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Cross-Functional Collaboration and Influence

OVERVIEW

Organizations that understand the benefits of good communication prioritize and constantly strive to achieve better working relationships through establishing trust, credibility, and mutual value. They create productive work environments that encourage higher levels of employee and team performance, a common sense of purpose and better business results.

KEY TOPICS

Building Trust 

• Understand why trust is the foundation for effective collaboration
• Apply strategies for building a foundation of trust over time
• Identify common causes of broken trust and learn strategies for rebuilding relationships

The Role of Influencing and Convincing

• Understand why influence is critical to cross-functional collaboration
• Learn strategies to influence without formal authority
• Recognize common barriers to effective influence and collaboration
• Use influence to build trust, reduce conflict, strengthen collaboration, and get work done more effectively

Dealing with Pushback

• Maintain a positive mindset when faced with pushback
• Understand why people resist or push back
• Use open-ended and closed-ended questions to uncover concerns and gain understanding

Gaining Alignment

• Recognize the signs and impact of alignment and misalignment between individuals and teams
• Apply active listening and positive intent to move conversations toward alignment
• Practice developing questions that helps address pushback and create shared understanding

Breaking Down Silos

• Explore the impact of silos on individuals, teams, and organizational results
• Learn best practices to break down silos

Communicating Effectively

• Balance inquiry and advocacy in collaborative conversations
• Strengthen active listening skills and overcome common barriers to effective listening
• Use active listening and thought-provoking questions to improve communication and clarity

Understand Working Styles for Effective Influence

• Gain insight into your preferred styles of working and communicating effectively with others
• Understand how different working styles influence communication, decision-making, and collaboration
• Learn how to adapt your communication and influence approach to different styles
• Understand others’ styles and how to influence them
• Identify strategies for communicating, collaborating, and influencing with each style

Seek and Leverage Different Perspectives

• Recognize the value of multiple viewpoints in decision-making and collaboration
• Learn strategies for engaging individuals with different goals and perspectives
• Putting it all together: teamwork and collaboration

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Emotional Intelligence at Work

OVERVIEW:
Emotional Intelligence at Work course teaches you to understand and effectively apply the power of emotions to be a better professional. EQi measures the ability, capacity, or skill to perceive, assess, and manage the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups.

The pre-course assessment and interpretation during the course will provide insight into your current working relationships and help you prioritize areas for improvement.

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Know Your Communication Style and Impact

OVERVIEW:
Working with people demands a deep appreciation of different individual working styles and the flexibility to deal with those differences. Learn your preferred communication style along with your strengths and drawbacks, and build rapport and influence with other communication styles.

KEY TOPICS:
Know Your Working Style

• Understand the importance of individual communication styles and their impact
• Learn the strengths and drawbacks of your preferred working style
• Recognize all four working styles’ benefits and blind spots
• Learn strategies for adapting your approach to different individuals and situations
• Apply style-awareness techniques to reduce misunderstandings and improve collaboration

Communicate Effectively

• Avoid communication stoppers
• Balance between inquiry and advocacy
• Seek to understand others’ thinking and rationale
• Ask open-ended questions to understand their viewpoint
• Articulate your ideas and viewpoint

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Managing Unconscious Bias

OVERVIEW:

Managing Unconscious Bias will discuss the negative impact of micro-messaging and will provide specific actions to create allyship. We will not only look at what Unconscious Bias is, but how it can manifest itself in the workplace in different ways. This course is aimed at raising our awareness to the thousands of messages we send every day that can either value or devalue an individual. While small, these messages can have a macro impact on overall morale and productivity.

Participants will learn strategies to minimize the negative impact of these micro-behaviors and foster an environment where everyone’s voices are heard.

• Define Unconscious Bias
• Discuss how Unconscious Bias manifests itself through Micro-Messaging
• Identify two types of Micro-Messaging: Micro Inequities and Micro-Inclusion
• Discuss personal experiences of Micro-Inequities and the impact on morale, relationships, and performance
• Discuss the impact of Bystander Apathy and the need for Allyship
• Discuss specific actions that can turn Bystander Apathy into Bystander Empathy
• Identify ways to move Micro-Inclusion to Conscious-Inclusion
• Define the four best practices to consistently bring Conscious-Inclusion into the workplace

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StrengthsFinder: Strengths-Based Development for Individuals

OVERVIEW

High-performing employees achieve greater success by building on their natural talents rather than focusing solely on improving weaknesses. Grounded in the Gallup CliftonStrengths® assessment (formerly Clifton StrengthsFinder®), this interactive workshop helps participants identify their unique strengths and learn how to apply them to increase performance, engagement, collaboration, and career growth.

Participants discover their Top 5 CliftonStrengths themes and explore how their natural talents influence the way they think, communicate, solve problems, build relationships, and achieve results. Through self-assessments, group discussions, practical exercises, and guided reflection, participants learn how to intentionally develop their strengths and apply them more effectively in their current role and future career opportunities.

KEY TOPICS

• Understand the principles of strengths-based development and why it leads to higher performance.
• Recognize the value of developing strengths rather than focusing exclusively on weaknesses
• Identify their Top 5 CliftonStrengths themes and recognize how they influence workplace behavior.
• Build greater self-awareness by understanding their unique talents and potential.
• Leverage your strengths to improve communication, collaboration, and productivity.
• Increase engagement, confidence, and job satisfaction by working from their natural talents.
• Develop strategies to apply their strengths in new challenges and career opportunities.
• Identify opportunities to contribute more strategically to your team and organization
• Recognize and appreciate the strengths of others to build stronger, more effective partnerships.
• Create a strengths-based approach to collaboration and problem-solving

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Stress Management

OVERVIEW:
Stress Management helps identify the causes of stress and how to manage the variables that are constant and within our control: our mindset, our time management, and relationships with others. Participants are left inspired, empowered and in action to create a plan and workplace reality that fosters teamwork and productivity.

Today’s work environment can be described as trying to put together a puzzle while others are continually moving and changing the puzzle pieces. While the pieces may rapidly change the deadlines and pressures remain constant. During these challenging times when people are dealing with a composite of personal, professional, and societal stress, it is more important than ever to understand, plan, and manage yourself for change.

• Dealing with stress from long-term uncertainty
• Reducing stress in the virtual workplace and with the global team
• Stress affects – identifying the physical, mental, and emotional impact of stress on the individual
• Resilience assessment and techniques for building resilience
• Five keys to manage stress and how to interrupt the stress cycle
• Micro practices for on-going stress management
• Managing your Relationship to Time and Work Environment
• Defining mindfulness and developing practices to support and calm presence

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Thriving on a Hybrid Team

OVERVIEW:
Hybrid teams are here to stay. Gallup anticipates that over 91% of the working population will prefer to be either remote or hybrid for the foreseeable future. The environment of a Hybrid team can be unsettling and difficult to navigate which requires a heightened sense of connection, focus and intention.  This highly interactive virtual session gives you the best practices to connect and communicate with remote team members to enhance collaboration, engagement, and productivity.

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