Essentials for Management

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Impact on the Organization

Are your managers as effective as they could be? Are they motivating their direct reports to perform at high levels, while maintaining morale? Do they communicate effectively with all employees? Do they function well as a team and work together to solve company problems? This program gives them all the basics to handle their responsibilities. It is designed to develop people skills as well as skills in leadership, performance management and managing change. By making sure your managers have the skills they need to perform at their best, you help your organization meet the challenges of a competitive marketplace.

Topics Covered

• Leadership
• Developing Relationships
• Effective Communication
• Performance Management
• Coaching and Feedback
• Managing Conflict
• Managing Change
• Building Successful Teams

Many of the topics include assessments and all use interactive training techniques. Participants will practice the skills they learn in exercises, simulations or role plays. Participants will gain new ideas on employee involvement, how communication styles affect productivity, and proven ways to deal with conflict. In addition, they will learn performance management tools and coaching techniques.

Whether participants are new to management or need to sharpen their skills, this program is designed for them. Current topics, assessment tools, and a building block approach make this time well spent. Participants will learn new ideas on employee involvement, how communication styles affect productivity, and proven ways to deal with conflict. In addition, they will learn performance management tools, coaching techniques, how to better handle change, and how to build a team.

WHO SHOULD TAKE THIS COURSE? Essentials for Management is designed to meet the needs of management level employees. The ideal candidate is any manager with at least one direct report.

TIME REQUIREMENTS: Four and a half days.

Topic summaries

Leadership

Participants will gain a better understanding of the skills required to be an effective leader. They begin by assessing their specific strengths and opportunities for improvement. Once participants know where their strengths and weaknesses lie, the workshop reviews the areas of task related and people related leadership competencies. Participants practice the skills that will enable them to be better leaders, learn tools to improve weak areas, and create a development plan to assist them in making the changes needed to become more effective.

Developing Relationships

This topic is designed to highlight the application of the techniques required to show respect, actively listen and solicit feedback. Participants learn to use the DiSC typology of behavior styles in order to build commitment and good working relationships. This highly interactive module will help participants understand the importance of personal communication styles and the connection to productivity.

Effective Communication

The focus of this topic is to understand why effective communication is important and how to develop effective communication skills. It includes a discussion of the communication process, communication barriers, and how communication affects business. Participants will practice the skills required for constructing clear, concise messages, listening actively, and techniques to overcome barriers to communication.

Performance Management

This interactive topic introduces the company’s process in light of the manager’s role in guiding the performance of employees. Participants will review the performance management process, tools and documentation requirements, and discuss how to get maximum benefit from the performance review system. Participants will discuss how to set clear expectations, build employee commitment, and accomplish agreed upon improvement.

Coaching and Feedback

This topic, which is linked to the performance management process, identifies the components of effective coaching and feedback, and participants will learn techniques to enhance their effectiveness. Participants will prepare and practice two different coaching and feedback sessions: one where job performance is below standards and one where job performance is meeting or exceeding standards. The Action Planner tool is introduced (which ties to “Developing Relationships”).

Managing Conflict

This session helps participants learn the sources of conflict. The Managing Differences Inventory is used to identify each participant’s style of handling conflict. This topic introduces a model for managing differences that includes a unique, nine-part approach, with equal focus on each of the nine approaches. Participants determine which styles will help them be more successful in dealing with and resolving differences, practice using these nine styles, and learn to vary them based on the situation. Along with actual examples, participants will use exercises and simulations to practice new skills and help translate these skills for use in everyday work situations.

Managing Change

Participants will examine change management strategies and discuss when particular strategies are appropriate. The elements of Change Management will be presented including motivation for change, identifying dysfunctional system elements, and the process of planned change. Participants will learn how to overcome resistance and how to plan for an upcoming change. They will then apply their learning to a change situation at work and come away with an Action Plan for Change.

Building Successful Teams

Participants identify the characteristics of high performing teams, the stages of team growth, and the steps to improving team performance. A step-by-step approach is presented and the elements of team process are studied in detail. Simulations are incorporated to allow the participants to experience these team processes. Specific emphasis is placed on roles and responsibilities, setting and communicating priorities and changes, conflict, and the differences between building teams within participants’ organizations versus across functional boundaries. Specific emphasis is also placed on capturing the individual and collective talents of participants’ staff in order to empower their teams to the appropriate level for the task. These concepts and tools are applied during the workshop and participants analyze their own team and plan for its development.

Customization

This program can be customized to include your organization’s procedures, policies, cases, examples and terminology. Kindly inquire about these consulting services.

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