As an Amazon best-selling author (management and business skills), who is passionate about management training, I love working with businesses to create and facilitate leadership development. My favorite part is watching teams grow. I gear training to the needs of the client, offering training for future and current managers as well as leadership teams. My training philosophy is based on service leadership. Over the past 30 years, every company I’ve worked with on an ongoing basis has grown. Here’s what Tom Taulman II, president of TKO Graphix had to say, “Randy began leadership training with TKO Graphix in 2008. He has molded and developed our management team with his service leadership philosophy. The best thing I can share is that our business has grown by more than 400 percent in volume during Randy’s time here.” In this post, I describe 5 leadership workshops created to lead your team to improvement.

5 Leadership Workshops

The 5 leadership workshops listed here are in no particular order and are only a sampling of the workshops, presentations, and training sessions I have to offer.

  1. Taking the Conflict out of Conflict Resolution

    In any group of people, there will be disagreements and misunderstandings, which can lead to conflict. Unresolved conflict reduces production, lowers performance, and fosters resentment. In the past you may have stayed above the fray, avoided conflict, or you may have been part of it, but now it’s your responsibility to manage it. Here are some of the points that will be covered.

The Pinch Theory of Conflict Management

The pinch theory is based on the idea that conflict can be predicted and reduced. When expectations between people are not met, a pinch, or a breakdown in the existing relationship, is created. Pinches are inevitable but can be reduced and managed.

How to Take Corrective Action

Corrective action should never be avoided for fear of confrontation. By using a plan of action, procedures, expectations, and consequences to improve performance, corrective action becomes a tool to help, not to confront.

The Sandwich Method of Critique

The sandwich is a method of one-on-one critique. The purpose of using the sandwich is to give constructive criticism without causing the employee to become defensive, angry or close-minded. When I was introduced to this method years ago, I considered it some sort of trick to be used against employees but it’s not, if it’s used correctly—and done with honesty.

We will also cover, dealing with difficult employees, facing the tough stuff, what to do when working with someone is killing you, and more.

The goal of this presentation is for everyone one to take an actionable item away. Inexperienced managers may find something they hadn’t been exposed to, others may note an action they want to take from good to great, and still others may be reminded of activities they’ve gotten away from.

The presentation includes a copy of The New Manager’s Workbook: A Crash Course in Effective Management

  1. Communicating about Communication

Poor communication is a problem in every organization. From a two-person operation to multinational businesses, poor communication causes delays, overruns, and mistakes. It may be the largest cause of inefficiency in the workplace. There’s a solution. It’s not complicated, and it’s less time consuming than the mistakes caused by poor communication. Some of the points we will cover include:

How to Improve Your Listening Skills in 5 Minutes a Day

In management, listening is more important than talking. Often, it’s not what you say; it’s what you hear that defines communication. Many managers spend time honing presentation skills, but little on improving listening. When direct reports are encouraged to talk, because their manager attentively listens to them, they’ll share their needs, wants, and desires—if we listen.

Improving interdepartmental communication  

Communication between divisions and departments is a problem in nearly every type of organization. As important as it is, as many problems as it causes, and as much as everyone wants it improved—little is done in the way of a solution. Improvement comes by understanding the causes and implementing a plan of activities for improvement.

Limiting Distractions

Can you be an active listener when your attention is divided? No, no you cannot. And as much as you want to tell yourself that you can multitask, check your phone, answer a text, and listen to someone all at the same time, that’s not how the brain works.

Improving Communication Through Follow up

Regardless of the form—email, texting, social media or verbal—to improve communication, you must confirm those you’ve communicated with understand what was said. We’ll discuss how to accomplish this.

The goal of this seminar is for everyone to choose one action to “take to the bank”. What I mean by that is each attendee commits to taking an action back to their workplace to improve communication. This session includes a copy of  The Manager’s Guide to Becoming a Leader

  1. Motivation, Team Building, and Coaching

Inspiring team members to put forth more effort and determination then they would without your influence not only increases performance and production, but improves job satisfaction, which increases retention. To do this, you must determine what motivates each person on your team. Everyone is different, and many will combine various types of motivation.

Everyone Isn’t You

The first key to motivating anyone is to understand what motivates him or her. Too often, well intentioned leaders attempt motivating their team with what works for the manager, which isn’t necessarily what works for others. We’ll discuss how to determine individual motivators. Because, everyone doesn’t think like you. Learn what motivates the team, not what motivates you, or what you think motivates them.

What Is A Team?

A team is an organized group of people who hold themselves accountable for achieving clear, definable, objective goals. A successful team, working together, will achieve more than what could’ve been achieved individually. I’ll share 13 steps to building a great team.

11 Steps to Team Success

How can an existing team improve? If you’re part of a team, what can you do to help it become a better team? I’ll share 11 ideas to achieve this. Not every idea will work for everyone. However, everyone will find ideas that will work for them.

Having Fun at Work

What is fun at work? One, often overlooked, aspect of workplace fun is getting the job done. The pride of successfully completing tasks and the attached feeling of accomplishment is F.U.N. we’ll discuss 7 Ways to Make Work fun.

We’ll also discuss why fear and money aren’t always the best motivators, the importance of specific recognition, how people want to be managed, and more.

The presentation will include a book.

The goal is to make each participant a better team builder and motivator by committing to actionable takeaways.

  1. Taking Time to Improve Your Time Management

As a manager, it’s critical, to use your time wisely by applying good time management techniques. Regardless of how competent you are in your position, using your time unwisely can be a formula for failure. If I were discussing the wise use of corporate funds, you would agree with me that unwise use of organizational monies could lead to failure. It’s the same with time. Just like money we spend time. We’ll talk about ways to spend it wisely.

4 Time Management Hacks that Are Like Putting Time in a Bank or How to Add 30% More Time to Your Workday

Here’s why we all need these 4-time management hacks. You and I live in an interconnected, hyper-paced world. There are not enough hours in the day, are there? I want you to think about something, is time as valuable as money? I think it might be more important. Here’s the thing, most of us have some control over our money; we deposit our checks and pay our bills online. We have an idea of how much money we have, and if we’re fortunate, we might even save some of our hard-earned cash. But what about time? Do we keep track of it, save, or bank it? My educated guess is most people don’t spend much time trying to save time.

How to Limit Procrastination

Are you putting off more and accomplishing less? Have you tried time management tools, like daily planners, but feel like you’re getting nowhere? (Does this sound like a commercial?) Do you want to understand why you procrastinate? This talk is designed to help you understand procrastination and offer a few strategies.

The Failures of Micro-Managing

When people aren’t allowed to make decisions or mistakes, they don’t grow. Don’t waste the most valuable resource you have – people. Logic dictates your organization will struggle to improve if it ALL depends upon you. The de-motivation, resentment, and fear created by micro-managing will weaken your organization. Although micro-managing may work occasionally, in the long run it will hinder growth, reduce performance, and waste time.

Learning to Say No

Don’t commit to meaningless tasks. A job may seem inconsequential or may be off in the future, however, if it doesn’t help your team reach their goals, develop team spirit, or help the organization, it may be a waste of time. It’s OK to say no. When you agree to too many projects, stop and think about the projects you won’t be able to complete. Make sure you are following you and your team’s priorities, not the priorities of others.

Delegation 

Do you think you have to do it all, and then complain there aren’t enough hours in the day? You may need to consider improving your delegation skills. The more team members you trust to complete projects to your satisfaction, the more successful, committed, and satisfied your team will be. Oh, and BTW, you’ll have more time to concentrate on important tasks.

Controlling the Ping 

Email and social media can be a tremendous distraction and time killer. We are becoming a society of ADHD squirrel chasers. We allow pings to pull us away from what we’re doing, interrupt our activities, and slow us down. It’s difficult not to; that ping delivers an adrenaline rush. It validates our importance and our connectedness. To control correspondence, email, social media, and text you need to determine the minimum time required daily to respond.

The Urgent vs. Important Dilemma 

Are your priorities confused? Is there no one who can do it as well as you? Do you have to do it? Why is that? It could be how you’re prioritizing tasks.

The goal: I’ll  cover time wasters and time savers, and then everyone will take a time management  inventory choosing one of each to concentrate on improving.

The presentation includes a book for each participant.

 

  1. You Can’t Talk Shit Done – Adding Action to Words

In America today the most recognized waste of time in the workplace are meetings. Studies, reports, and surveys share that the majority of workers in the USA would rather do almost anything than attend meetings. Inc.com 17% of employees would rather watch paint dry than sit through a meeting.

Why is that? Is it because meetings lack agendas, include unneeded personnel, and too often become rambling lectures? Yes, and more, but it’s not only meetings, it’s training sessions, conferences, symposiums, and demonstrations.

What if every meeting, instruction, and forum concluded with a plan of action? And what if that plan of action was implemented, followed up, and revised as needed? What if the participants of these sessions knew that a plan of activities was the goal of the gathering? If that were the case would you rather watch paint dry or participate in the action plan?

Taking Action 

The trouble is very few business sessions end with an action plan. Most get stuck at talk. This presentation is how to get unstuck, how to elevate the meetings, training sessions, and conferences that you conduct or attend past talk into action. You can’t talk shit done. It’s been tried. It’s not working, is it?

Throughout history it has been those who have taken action that have changed the world. It’s the same with your industry, and your business. Are you ready to add action to words or do you want to talk about it some more?

The goal of this presentation is for every attendee, regardless of their position, to complete provided action plans.

Studies have shown that most people retain only a small percent of what they’re introduced to in seminars. With that in mind, the seminar includes a copy of You Can’t Talk Shit Done: Adding Actions to Words for each participant to be used for effective follow up.

Did any of the 5 Leadership Workshops Hit Home? 

Are you ready to lead your team to improvement? If any of these 5 leadership workshops fit your needs please let me know. And if you have specific needs I can create and facilitate a workshop designed for your team.

I like to help people and organizations, but I have three criteria I consider before taking an assignment – I believe in what the organization stands for, I know I can help,, and it looks like fun. If you have any questions or would like to discuss any of these 5 leadership workshops, Contact Me. 

Does your business have a  management training plan? Many organizations, large and small, use my book, The New Manager’s Workbook a crash course in effective management, as the basis for their leadership development program. I’m also available to conduct the training outlined in the book as well as the 5 leadership workshops. Have a great day!