Aim

To experience communicating at a high level

Objectives

• Understanding the basic principles of Intentional Communicating
• Being still and receptive
• Learning Active Listening
• Turning on and tuning in
• Practising switching in and out

Communicating

This Ignition Event provides an intense practical experience of deep-level communication and how to achieve it.

It demonstrates, in an experiential way, how to be able to switch in and out of the Intentional Communication state.

It allows you to experience intense focus and deep concentration and you will learn how to be able to access these at will.

You will learn about the Alpha and Beta states of brain activity and how each state affects the quality of your concentration and, therefore, of your communication.

Outcomes

• This Ignition Event will enable you to: 
• Translate the principles of Intentional Communicating into action
• Use Intentional Communicating to develop relationships and performance
• Listen actively and understand the deep impact it has
• Tune in to the overt and subliminal messages others send
• Being able to switch in and out of Intentional Communicating at will

Become more assertive

Objectives

• Pinning down where you are on the Assertiveness Triangle
• Knowing your tendencies under pressure
• Determining a strategy for those situations
• Practising assertiveness techniques
• Making a practical plan for people and situations where you currently have difficulty

Assertiveness

Humans are creatures of habit who repeat their problems, often throughout their lives. This Ignition Event shows you how to break the patterns of a lifetime. Through analysis, guidance and creativity you select alternative ways of operating: choosing different behaviours will give you different results. Assertiveness comprises a set of behaviours which amount to nothing less than the ability to conduct your life well. Assertiveness will bring peace of mind and relaxation. Assertiveness gives you the tools to be able to reduce to a minimum the problems, difficulties, arguments, friction, frustration, pressure and angst which are so much a part of many people’s daily lives.You will learn simple, practical ways to respond in situations which usually cause you difficulty. You identify the trigger points in yourself and decide whether to avoid certain situations and people or formulate strategies and tactics to be assertive.People who are able to behave assertively, especially when they are under pressure, are people who are calm, in control and thinking. Assertive people are, in the end, effective people and happy people.

Outcomes

• This Ignition Event will enable you to:
• Deal with difficult relationships and uncomfortable situations
• Develop strategies for times of conflict and creating win-win outcomes
• Manage your anxieties, fear, panic and inner conflict
• Deal with anger – your own and others
• Consciously disengage from the games you and others play and deal with them in a straight way

Outline

A large part of individual effectiveness is the extent to which an individual believes, and has confidence, in him/herself and how this shows in their behaviour.

Assertiveness is getting what you want without affecting other people, or yourself, in a harmful way. Influencing is working effectively with others, using your personal style to best advantage with their personal style.

Being assertive with others, influencing them in constructive ways, you will be able to achieve results beyond anything you could achieve individually. Many people are unable to do this, ignorant to a very large degree of the impact they are having on others, and unwilling to spend the time and energy learning how to be assertive and influence others to better effect.

Aim

To understand assertiveness and influencing and how to reflect this in behaviour

Objectives

• To understand assertion, passivity and aggression

• To analyse how these are reflected in behaviour

• To examine how this behaviour affects others

• To become highly-aware of personal style

• To develop the ability to better influence others by tuning and changing behaviour

Outcomes

• The ability to stop some unconscious, ineffective aspects of your behaviour immediately

• Decisions about how to behave more effectively, acting on these decisions

• Understanding the effect of your behaviour on others and how to alter this for better results

• Ability to moderate your style with different people in different situations to be more effective

Outline

Many people make decisions too early, too late or not at all. They make decisions with too little information, too much or none at all. Effective performance can be severely affected by the ability or inability to make the right decisions quickly and accurately.

How decisions are made, or not made, in organisations leads to poor results but often is not identified as a culprit.

Both logic and emotion have a part to play in decision-making to ensure that more of the right decisions are made with the right information at the right time with the right results.

Aim

To make you more able to make the right decision with the right information at the right time at the right speed

Objectives

• To become aware of how you currently make decisions

• To understand what causes you to delay making a decision, to make a decision too quickly or to make the wrong decision

• To properly understand how to assess risk

• To build your confidence in your natural decision-making ability

• To have a blueprint for improved decision-making in different situations

Outcomes

• Understand why and how you make/fail to make decisions

• You will stop delaying, you will stop making decisions too quickly

• You will have an improved ability to avoid making wrong decisions

• Ability to categorise the risk relating to your decisions

• The necessary skills to make decisions naturally and without too much effort and difficulty

• A blueprint to assist you in making difficult, and other, decisions

Outline

In today’s high-pressure, fast-moving, competitive world there are huge pressures on us to take decisions more and more quickly. Individuals find themselves agreeing to do all sorts of things which they then either fail to do, fail to do by the agreed deadline or do in a less than adequate way. The corresponding drop in credibility affects their self-confidence, their professional performance and how others regard them.

To be able to be decisive, taking appropriate action with the right amount of information, analysis, risk-analysis, input from others and required urgency, is rare.

Those who consistently take effective action under pressure are unusual. Sometimes it means acting immediately, sometimes it means waiting. Knowing the difference, and using personal judgement to decide, is a valuable skill.

Aim

To understand how and when to take effective action

Objectives

• To understand the mental processes you go through prior to taking action

• To identify situations when you take ineffective, or no, action and what drives this

• To clearly understand the difference between thinking, feeling and doing

• To identify situations which require you to take effective action and understand what to do in these situations

• To improve your thinking processes and your confidence to act

Outcomes

• Better ability to gather and analyse information and plan and deploy resources

• Understanding how to analyse risk in a realistic way

• Able to do all of the above in a conscious, rational manner

• Understand when taking effective action means doing something, when it means not doing anything and when it is a mixture

• You will have greater understanding of the importance of timing

Aim

A practical insight in to the essentials of leadership

Objectives

• Understanding what leaders do
• Identifying key behaviours involved in leadership
• Understanding which of these behaviours you already have and which you can develop
• Practice in accessing these behaviours
• Clarifying your next steps

Leadership

Leadership is much misunderstood. In all the debate about whether leaders are born or made the key point, usually missed, is that it is contextual: leadership is what a specific person does at a specific moment in a specific situation. Often it boils down to someone who seizes the moment. The person who seizes the moment may or may not be a formally-designated leader.

‘If you can keep your head . . . ‘ Kipling’s line encapsulates what the person who claims leadership does: they align their energy (feelings) with their rationality (thinking) and they ACT. They may not know exactly what they have to do but they know they have to do something . . . so they do.

Whether leadership is formalised in a title, or not, we can all access leadership within and we can all express this as Leadership Behaviour. When you take ACTION your behaviour will be recognised as such.

This exciting day will enthuse you, invigorate you and make you stimulated and aware of the leader within you and how to let it out to play.

Outcomes

• This Ignition Event will enable you to:

• Choose when and how you can seize the moment

• Understand what practical steps you can take to be a leader

• Realise which of your behaviours are Leadership behaviours

• Understand the importance of attracting people’s attention

• Understand what leaders do which makes them charismatic

Outline

Change surrounds us and permeates our lives. We choose whether it just happens to us or we manage it when it does. Many fear or dislike change, rather than managing it they expend energy in, usually futile, resistance. Some change is imposed, some we choose. Just because we choose it does not mean that accepting it and dealing with it is easy. Much change is unstoppable, that does not mean that it cannot be slowed, understood and harnessed.

An interesting facet of change is that it never, ever, has the results predicted. The gurus of the future are always proved wrong in significant ways. This is because people, complex and unpredictable as they are, change change itself.

It is also because: MTBD > MTBS – The Mean Time Between Decisions is greater than the Mean Time Between Surprises. In most organisations it takes longer to make a decision than it does for the assumption on which the decision is based to change in some unforeseen way. All change brings opportunity as well as threat. What makes the difference is how you look at it, how you think about it and what you decide to do. Ask yourself: is this an opportunity or a predicament. If it’s an opportunity, what can I do to benefit from it. If it’s a predicament, what can I do to change it, or not be harmed by it.

Change often has people reacting emotionally, becoming trapped in their feelings. Your feelings about change are a signal that you could use your thinking skills to plan a route through the change.

Aim

To be able to anticipate and plan for change

Objectives

• To understand the mental processes which occur when change is imminent

• To analyse what causes anxiety, worry or fear and what can be done about it

• To develop the ability to look ahead and anticipate change

• To be better able to use the thinking, rational part of the brain when dealing with change

• To improve in making practical plans to manage effects of change in a constructive way

• To work on how to be an initiator rather than a victim when change occurs

Outcomes

• Improvement in your thinking processes, and your confidence to act, in situations of change

• Better ability to gather and analyse information and plan and deploy resources when change is present

• Understanding how to analyse risk in a realistic way

• Be able to do all

Outline

Many people make decisions too early, too late or not at all. They make decisions with too little information, too much or none at all. Effective performance can be severely affected by the ability or inability to make the right decisions quickly and accurately.

How decisions are made, or not made, in organisations leads to poor results but often is not identified as a culprit.

Both logic and emotion have a part to play in decision-making to ensure that more of the right decisions are made with the right information at the right time with the right results.

Aim

To make you more able to make the right decision with the right information at the right time at the right speed

Objectives

• To become aware of how you currently make decisions

• To understand what causes you to delay making a decision, to make a decision too quickly or to make the wrong decision

• To properly understand how to assess risk

• To build your confidence in your natural decision-making ability

• To have a blueprint for improved decision-making in different situations

Outcomes

• Understand why and how you make/fail to make decisions

• You will stop delaying, you will stop making decisions too quickly

• You will have an improved ability to avoid making wrong decisions

• Ability to categorise the risk relating to your decisions

• The necessary skills to make decisions naturally and without too much effort and difficulty

• A blueprint to assist you in making difficult, and other, decisions

Outline

Politics is defined, in the Oxford English Dictionary, as:

1 the activities associated with the governance of a country or area. ➤ a particular set of political beliefs or principles. 2 activities aimed at improving someone’s staus within an organisation: office politics. 3 the principles relating to or inherent in a sphere or activity, especially when concerned with power and status: the politics of gender.

Issues of governance, operations, power and status are crucial to how organisations operate and whether, and how, they succeed or fail.

Humans are social animals which implies that many, most, if not all of us, are also to a degree, political animals.

The ways in which organisational culture incorporates politics is key to how that organisation operates.

Aim

To raise your awareness and understanding of how organisational politics affects performance.

Objectives

• To be able to identify the benign and malign effects of organisational politics.
• To understand your own style and consider how you can best contribute to organisational politics.
• To examine how organisational politics drives, hinders or blocks performance.

Outcomes

• A better understanding of what organisational politics is.
• A clearer idea of when it works for the organisation, when it works against it.
• Ability to read the signs in the culture of an organisation indicating how politics works in that organisation.
• Heightened awareness of which behaviours will benefit yourself and the organisation and which won’t

 

Outline

In the last decade, in many areas of business life, we have seen the ineffectiveness and failure which results from setting goals which are inappropriate, unrealistic and unreachable. These goals are usually being set without the right amount of, or no, support, lack of adequate knowledge of individual capabilities, training, coaching or resources. Small wonder that failure is often the result.

The ability to set and achieve realistic goals is one hallmark of an effective person. Much difficulty and unhappiness in life comes from a lack of goals, inappropriate goals or the inability to achieve goals.

Being able to set goals which stretch and develop the individual, contribute to the performance delivery of the team and to the overall results of the company is key to the sustained success of organisations.

Aim

To give you the confidence to be able to set, manage and oversee the achievement of appropriate goals

Objectives

• To understand what are appropriate and achievable goals

• To identify the difference between what is challenging and what is unachievable

• To analyse what causes failure in the achievement of goals

• To identify what you, and your team-members, need in order to succeed

• To understand the process of setting and managing goals

• To understand that saying it and setting it is not the same as achieving it.

• To be able to set, manage and achieve goals yourself and to do it for your team

Outcomes

• Able to set appropriate goals for yourself and your team-members

• The discrimination and assertiveness to not accept, or be bullied or coerced into setting unachievable goals

• The awareness to know when you are starting to fail and do something about it

• Ability to manage goals for the members of your team and help them achieve these goals

• The determination to only set and accept goals which you are willing and able to achieve

Outline

Team Building 3 requires a preparatory session of four hours on-site at least two weeks before the course, this is included in the price. Alternatively a team could do Team Building 1 as the preparatory session. For a team which has already completed Team Building 1 and/or 2 there is no requirement for a preparatory session unless the composition of the team has changed.

Strengths and weaknesses in the team are tested using a mixture of inputs, exercises, review, analysis, feedback and incisive discussion. This improves understanding of what individual members must change in their behaviour to ensure success and what the team must do to capitalise on this.

Aim

To forge a strong, cohesive, motivated, achieving team

Objectives

• To enable different individuals to work together as a single, cohesive unit

• To improve understanding, tolerance, communication, support, challenge and success

• To improve effective working when pressure and conflict is present

• To get all team members working at a higher level of awareness, motivation, commitment and performance

Outcomes

• More enjoyment working in this team

• Willingly contribute more of yourself to the team

• Team will work in a more high-powered way

• Honesty, directness and clarity will improve

• Team will reach higher levels of performance

• Being in this team will enable individuals to grow and develop

Outline

Meetings often take longer than they should and achieve less than they could. In meetings individuals often do not participate or, if they do, they do not do so in the most effective way for all present.

Meetings are necessary, they can be sources of information, direction and energy rather than a dreary and irrelevant waste of time that changes nothing.

To be useful meetings should have structure, focus and participation with agreements to action that are implemented. You will develop the confidence and techniques to do this with any group of people in virtually any situation.

Aim

To enable you to run a meeting that is of practical use to all attending

Objectives

• To understand the mechanics and dynamics of meetings

• To develop the skills to ensure that you and other attendees are involved and contributing

• To be able to stop unproductive diversions, wandering off, people being there but absent and to use time effectively

• To practise how to agree and reach consensus, assign and ensure practical, relevant actions

Outcomes

• Able to set realistic and relevant agendas for your meetings

• The necessary skills to keep your meeting focussed and on track

• The skills to involve everyone and ensure that everyone’s contribution is heard

• Be able to overcome barriers to consensus, gain commitment on an action plan and ensure follow- up

• Know how to write accurate, professional minutes

Outline

The inability by individuals, teams and organisations to manage time, attendance and their work costs millions. Every manager should pay attention to this, especially when it becomes a problem. If you don’t, it does.

Setting and managing custom and practice is important: if a lax culture is allowed to develop, managing time and attendance will grow into a major problem which becomes increasingly difficult to resolve.

It is far easier to set clear boundaries at the outset and relax them when necessary or appropriate than to set no boundaries and then try to impose them on unwilling people when it becomes necessary and unavoidable. This applies particularly in teams.

Self-discipline usually develops as a result of external discipline imposed. Some people have a greater capacity for self-discipline than others. It is an unhappy fact of life that some will try and get away with whatever they can. Clear rules and boundaries will help to keep everyone operating to an accepted norm and standards. If time and attendance is managed by clear, well-understood rules and guidelines, and efficient processes, then time is freed to deal with more important things.

Aim

To enable you to confidently manage time and attendance

Objectives

• To understand what is required of you in managing time and attendance

• To understand company requirements regarding time and attendance

• To be able to formulate a time and attendance plan

• To identify possible, or actual, problems and their solutions

Outcomes

• Ability to make an appropriate plan for yourself and your team

• Understanding and ability to clearly explain company and organisation requirements

• You will develop strategies, tactics and contingencies for dealing with difficulty, unwillingness and resistance

Outline

If managers at all levels in companies had better skills in selecting and recruiting appropriate people to work for them their organisations would be more successful. Managers who are skilled and confident in their ability to get recruitment and selection right more of the time than they get it wrong understand that this is where motivation starts.

The ability to interview candidates for a job helps with many of the other situations where it is necessary to manage, question and listen to others. It is very good practice for focus, paying attention, asking detailed questions, listening and exercising judgement.

If you are responsible for recruiting you should have a clear understanding of your company’s recruitment and selection process, be able to take part in this as and when necessary and be able to train others in how to operate it.

Aim

To be able to run an effective recruitment and selection process

Objectives

• To understand what your company’s recruitment and selection process involves and how it works

• To be able to talk to a candidate’s experience and understand the importance of this

• To be aware of the different types of question required and how to frame these

• To be able to probe for an adequate answer

• To understand the importance of intuition in the recruitment and selection process

• To be able to close the interview and keep any agreements made

Outcomes

• A clear understanding of your company’s recruitment and selection process

• Able to set up and run/help with recruitment and selection sessions

• The skill of questioning candidates in such a way that they answer your questions from their practical experience

• Trust in your questioning, analysis, judgement and linking it with intuition to make the right decision

• Keeping the agreements you make at the end of each interview by agreed deadlines and understanding why this is important for individual and company credibility

Outline

Many individuals will perform better than their basic job description if they are rewarded appropriately for their extra energy. If everyone gets the reward, whatever the performance, then it will come to be seen as a right not as a reward. The expectation of rights leads to complacency and laziness. Reward and bonus schemes exist to recognise performance beyond the norm. If a bonus becomes expected for normal performance then that performance will suffer.

Reward and bonus schemes are intimately linked with performance management and appraisal and should be approached as a method of developing individual and team performance.

Properly structured and managed, reward and bonus schemes lead to higher motivation, better team-working and increased commitment.

Aim

To be able to rigorously manage reward and bonus schemes

Objectives

• To understand what the purpose of a reward and bonus scheme is

• To understand and be able to quantify the qualification criteria

• To be able to explain this at the outset to team-members

• To be able to clearly explain degrees of success, and failure to qualify, to team members

Outcomes

• Ability to set appropriate levels of qualification for your team

• Understand how to explain clearly what the qualification and measurement procedure will be

• Ability to use reward and bonus schemes to manage success and failure in your team

Aim

To experience communicating at a high level

Objectives

• Understanding the basic principles of Intentional Communicating
• Being still and receptive
• Learning Active Listening
• Turning on and tuning in
• Practising switching in and out

Communicating

This Ignition Event provides an intense practical experience of deep-level communication and how to achieve it.

It demonstrates, in an experiential way, how to be able to switch in and out of the Intentional Communication state.

It allows you to experience intense focus and deep concentration and you will learn how to be able to access these at will.

You will learn about the Alpha and Beta states of brain activity and how each state affects the quality of your concentration and, therefore, of your communication.

Outcomes

• This Ignition Event will enable you to: 
• Translate the principles of Intentional Communicating into action
• Use Intentional Communicating to develop relationships and performance
• Listen actively and understand the deep impact it has
• Tune in to the overt and subliminal messages others send
• Being able to switch in and out of Intentional Communicating at will

Outline

Change surrounds us and permeates our lives. We choose whether it just happens to us or we manage it when it does. Many fear or dislike change, rather than managing it they expend energy in, usually futile, resistance. Some change is imposed, some we choose. Just because we choose it does not mean that accepting it and dealing with it is easy. Much change is unstoppable, that does not mean that it cannot be slowed, understood and harnessed.

An interesting facet of change is that it never, ever, has the results predicted. The gurus of the future are always proved wrong in significant ways. This is because people, complex and unpredictable as they are, change change itself.

It is also because: MTBD > MTBS – The Mean Time Between Decisions is greater than the Mean Time Between Surprises. In most organisations it takes longer to make a decision than it does for the assumption on which the decision is based to change in some unforeseen way. All change brings opportunity as well as threat. What makes the difference is how you look at it, how you think about it and what you decide to do. Ask yourself: is this an opportunity or a predicament. If it’s an opportunity, what can I do to benefit from it. If it’s a predicament, what can I do to change it, or not be harmed by it.

Change often has people reacting emotionally, becoming trapped in their feelings. Your feelings about change are a signal that you could use your thinking skills to plan a route through the change.

Aim

To be able to anticipate and plan for change

Objectives

• To understand the mental processes which occur when change is imminent

• To analyse what causes anxiety, worry or fear and what can be done about it

• To develop the ability to look ahead and anticipate change

• To be better able to use the thinking, rational part of the brain when dealing with change

• To improve in making practical plans to manage effects of change in a constructive way

• To work on how to be an initiator rather than a victim when change occurs

Outcomes

• Improvement in your thinking processes, and your confidence to act, in situations of change

• Better ability to gather and analyse information and plan and deploy resources when change is present

• Understanding how to analyse risk in a realistic way

• Be able to do all

Outline

A large part of individual effectiveness is the extent to which an individual believes, and has confidence, in him/herself and how this shows in their behaviour.

Assertiveness is getting what you want without affecting other people, or yourself, in a harmful way. Influencing is working effectively with others, using your personal style to best advantage with their personal style.

Being assertive with others, influencing them in constructive ways, you will be able to achieve results beyond anything you could achieve individually. Many people are unable to do this, ignorant to a very large degree of the impact they are having on others, and unwilling to spend the time and energy learning how to be assertive and influence others to better effect.

Aim

To understand assertiveness and influencing and how to reflect this in behaviour

Objectives

• To understand assertion, passivity and aggression

• To analyse how these are reflected in behaviour

• To examine how this behaviour affects others

• To become highly-aware of personal style

• To develop the ability to better influence others by tuning and changing behaviour

Outcomes

• The ability to stop some unconscious, ineffective aspects of your behaviour immediately

• Decisions about how to behave more effectively, acting on these decisions

• Understanding the effect of your behaviour on others and how to alter this for better results

• Ability to moderate your style with different people in different situations to be more effective

Outline

Politics is defined, in the Oxford English Dictionary, as:

1 the activities associated with the governance of a country or area. ➤ a particular set of political beliefs or principles. 2 activities aimed at improving someone’s staus within an organisation: office politics. 3 the principles relating to or inherent in a sphere or activity, especially when concerned with power and status: the politics of gender.

Issues of governance, operations, power and status are crucial to how organisations operate and whether, and how, they succeed or fail.

Humans are social animals which implies that many, most, if not all of us, are also to a degree, political animals.

The ways in which organisational culture incorporates politics is key to how that organisation operates.

Aim

To raise your awareness and understanding of how organisational politics affects performance.

Objectives

• To be able to identify the benign and malign effects of organisational politics.
• To understand your own style and consider how you can best contribute to organisational politics.
• To examine how organisational politics drives, hinders or blocks performance.

Outcomes

• A better understanding of what organisational politics is.
• A clearer idea of when it works for the organisation, when it works against it.
• Ability to read the signs in the culture of an organisation indicating how politics works in that organisation.
• Heightened awareness of which behaviours will benefit yourself and the organisation and which won’t

 

Outline

Core to leadership is the ability to read other people: their strengths, weaknesses, tendencies, potential. Good leaders take the time to get to know the people they are leading. This is best done by observation of behaviour, by listening and by testing. Much assessment by leaders is either too fleeting or too formal. To really understand someone’s behaviour, performance, potential and quirks is not something that can be done either quickly or easily.

The people who work for you are the ones who guarantee your results. If you know and understand the raw material you are working with you will be better able to direct them to better outcomes. Assessment should be both formal and informal. The leader who does not do it properly is short-sighted and, almost certainly, ineffective.

Your people support you by delivering results, support them by using accurate assessment to ensure you are utilising them to their best.

Aim

To enable you to accurately assess anyone you are responsible for leading

Objectives

• To understand what constitutes a realistic and accurate assessment

• To be able to use assessment to build self-awareness and self-discipline

• To understand the balance to be achieved between formal and informal assessment

• To be able to use feedback to give assessments which are motivational and developmental

• To be able to keep your finger on the pulse

Outcomes

• The ability to use formal and informal assessment to build motivation and discipline

• The discrimination to judge when to use formal and when to use informal assessment

• The capacity to deliver both in effective and appropriate ways

• The ability to give honest, accurate assessments with examples

Aim

Making a start on client-centred coaching

Objectives

• Understanding basic principles of client-centred approaches in coaching
• Practising the vital components
• Learning Active Listening
• Using a range of exploratory questions to focus
• Experiencing total concentration: extreme mindfulness

Coaching

Coaching is the simplest, most time-effective, cost-effective and reliable way of developing other people.

People who receive good coaching will learn, become more responsible and actively seek to do better work.

It is the best way of ensuring that people you work with have energy and focus in their careers, are in a process of development which challenges them, motivates them and helps them improve their performance.

It ensures that there are always candidates ready to take on added responsibility, more complicated tasks and more senior roles.

Outcomes

• This Ignition Event will enable you to: 

• Coach people to perform better

• Coach with confidence

• Improve your communication skills

• Practise Active Listening and questionning skills

• Focus intently and with intention

Outline

This course is a useful precursor to Team Building 2 and Team Building 3. All three Team Building courses can be done as a sequence.

Team Building 1 ensures that all team members get to know each other, understand more about each others’ personalities, skills and ways of working and develop effective ways of working as a team.

As the team work together in an improved way, motivation and commitment to the success of the team will increase.

Aim

To get to know each other and be able to work better together

Objectives

• To get to know and understand the other members of the team

• To work out effective ways of working together

• To build familiarity, motivation and commitment

Outcomes

• All team members will know each other

• All will understand more about the way they operate

• Develop structured ways to work more effectively as a team

• Will be more motivated

• More committed to the success of the team

Outline

Increased competition and pressure at work has seen a mirrored increase in pressure on the internal structure and organisation of companies. This has resulted in re-organisation after re-organisation and either a return to rigid command and control hierarchies or a slide into a lack of management control, indiscipline and anarchy.

It helps to understand, other than money and adequate working conditions, what gives people a higher motivation. To get the best out of individuals and teams it is necessary to give them love and boundaries. Love is given in the form of greeting, conversation and purposeful discussion, approval, rewards and bonuses, special events, recognition and promotion. Boundaries are given in the form of clarity about rules, processes, operating norms and the disciplinary process. Like children, adults respond best when they know where they are, what they are supposed to be doing, where they are going and have a good reason for wanting to go there. This is done by building a clearly-structured working environment with sensible rules and operating norms. This leads to efficiency and minimal time wasted.

The best discipline is self-discipline: when individuals can monitor and control themselves the atmosphere of responsibility which ensues results in higher motivation, better performance, consistent delivery and a better atmosphere in which to work.

Aim

To enable you to build motivation and discipline in any team you are responsible for leading

Objectives

• To understand what motivates different individuals and how to benefit from this

• To be able to build a high sense of organisation into a team such that self-discipline results

• To develop the ability to achieve a balance between discipline and motivation

• To understand that individuals need both in order to give of their best

• To understand that leaders can do this without it becoming a popularity contest

Outcomes

• Ability to motivate different individuals

• A higher awareness of how your own behaviour affects motivation in your team

• The ability to build structure, organisation and discipline in any team

• Insight to apply motivation and/or discipline as necessary

• Ability to use motivation and discipline in a planned, structured way in your team leading to team-members taking increased responsibility

Outline

Increased competition, busy-ness and pressure at work means that performance is often not managed and assessed effectively and productively.

To get the best out of individuals and teams it is necessary to plan how best to deploy and develop their skills and abilities, as well as continually managing and reviewing their performance. For teams thisr esults in higher motivation, consistently good results and a better atmosphere in which to work. For individuals it will result in professional and personal development, increased commitment and consistently-improving performance.

Performance management and appraisal enables the manager to know what the team is capable of, what is going on at any particular time, better awareness and understanding of problems arising and what to do to solve them. It ensures a thorough knowledge of individuals and anything which might be needed to ensure their continued commitment and high-level performance.

Aim

To enable you to manage and appraise individual and team performance rigorously

Objectives

• To understand what results from good performance management and appraisal

• To analyse what is required to manage performance and be able to do it

• To have a blueprint for formal and informal appraisal

• To enable you to use performance appraisal as a developmental tool

Outcomes

• Understanding of what performance management is and how to do it

• Ability to plan and structure an effective appraisal session

• The necessary skills to do formal and informal appraisals

• The skills to use PM&A to build involvement and contribution

• Understanding how PM&A helps individuals take responsibility for their own performance

Outline

One of the biggest benefits in developing those who work for you is that you are almost guaranteed to have one or more people ready, when the time comes, to step into your shoes. This frightens some managers, so they don’t bother to develop their people: they would rather stand out as competent in relation to a bunch of incompetents than shine as a competent, confident developer of people surrounded by achievers.

Too few organisations these days are able to look to their own employees for the next generation of skilled people. Having to look outside for good, skilled people is an indictment of your ability to recruit, induct, train, coach, mentor and develop individuals and imbue them with the motivation and loyalty to want to work for you. Properly assessing and developing the individuals who work for you, using their capability and potential, is by far the simplest, easiest, most effective and cheapest way of finding your new deputies, team leaders and managers. Why would you even consider not doing it?

People who already work for you are a known quantity, they understand the culture of the company and they do not have to prove themselves in the same way as someone new to the company.

Aim

To enable you to be able to identify, develop and groom individuals in your team for promotion

Objectives

• To understand how to identify possible candidates for promotion by recognising potential and capability through competence and performance

• To be able to develop them through coaching, mentoring, delegating

• To monitor these individuals behaviourally ie by what they do and say

• To use feedback and Performance Management and Appraisal to control their development

Outcomes

• Clear understanding of the importance of continually observing and assessing individual performance

• Ability to identify those with competent performance who have development potential

• Willingness to use succession planning to improve your performance as a manger

• Skills to use formal and informal appraisals with extensive use of behavioural feedback to manage this process

Outline

‘No man can serve two masters and be a servant to both.’ (Matthew ch.6 v.24). Matrix management seeks to disprove this by attempting to have individuals taking responsibility for different aspects of their job by reporting to different managers and formalising this in the reporting chain.

At its simplest, matrix management implies that a manager can build good relationships with individuals who do not report directly to him/her and get results from them even though they may have no sanction in the formal reporting chain. This is not always easy, especially since the formal manager may see what you are doing as cutting across their authority.

In attempting successful matrix management your personal management style is key to success.

Aim

To understand and be able to work with matrix management

Objectives

• To understand matrix management as a concept

• To analyse the fundamentals of building good, professional working relationships quickly

• To examine the difficulties and what can go wrong

• To understand how your personal management style will work, or not, in matrix management

• To identify what you might need to tune to get better results

Outcomes

• A clear understanding of matrix management

• Anticipation of problems and making plans to deal with them

• Planning how and with whom to build relationships

• Ability to clearly quantify the minimum result required

• Ability to use contingency planning to negotiate obstacles

Outline

This course is designed to follow the Team Effectiveness Analysis course using the Outline Plan for improved performance as the starting point. The strengths and weaknesses of the team are examined through exercises, review, feedback and discussion. Specific actions are determined to improve effectiveness and performance.

To get the best out of individuals and teams it is necessary to plan how best to deploy and develop individual skills and abilities and to continually manage and review performance. For teams this results in higher motivation, consistently good results and a better atmosphere in which to work. For individuals it results in professional and personal development, increased commitment and consistently-improving performance.

Team Effectiveness Implementation will enable the team to move forward by addressing aspects of behaviour and the ways in which the team gets things done. An Action Plan is developed to ensure structured improvement. It will help the team to plan more effective ways of organising themselves and improving their individual and collective performance.

Aim

To use analysis of team effectiveness to tune performance

Objectives

• To understand, and build on, the strengths of the team

• To analyse where, why and how the team is weak

• To understand the practical impact of this on daily operation of the team

• To build effective processes

• To improve understanding, reduce friction and enhance performance

Outcomes

• Balance of Task and People effectiveness will be clarified

• Clarity on where you should focus and what you must do to improve

• Detailed Action Plan to rectify/improve Task and People weaknesses

• Specific examples at work to test all this

Outline

Increased competition, busy-ness and pressure at work means that performance is often not managed and assessed effectively and productively.

To get the best out of individuals and teams it is necessary to plan how best to deploy and develop their skills and abilities, as well as continually managing and reviewing their performance. For teams thisr esults in higher motivation, consistently good results and a better atmosphere in which to work. For individuals it will result in professional and personal development, increased commitment and consistently-improving performance.

Performance management and appraisal enables the manager to know what the team is capable of, what is going on at any particular time, better awareness and understanding of problems arising and what to do to solve them. It ensures a thorough knowledge of individuals and anything which might be needed to ensure their continued commitment and high-level performance.

Aim

To enable you to manage and appraise individual and team performance rigorously

Objectives

• To understand what results from good performance management and appraisal

• To analyse what is required to manage performance and be able to do it

• To have a blueprint for formal and informal appraisal

• To enable you to use performance appraisal as a developmental tool

Outcomes

• Understanding of what performance management is and how to do it

• Ability to plan and structure an effective appraisal session

• The necessary skills to do formal and informal appraisals

• The skills to use PM&A to build involvement and contribution

• Understanding how PM&A helps individuals take responsibility for their own performance

Outline

PEI builds on existing characteristics, skills and effective behaviours: the emphasis is on being constructive and supportive. Participants’ willingness to deal with areas of strength and weakness in self and others increases their confidence, attitude and ability. Fresh awareness and new practical skills enable them to operate more effectively. Successful implementation of learning on PEI requires a commitment to support and challenge others in their performance and development.

Throughout the first course a Development Plan summarises individual development needs with suggestions for increased effectiveness and performance improvement through specified behavioural change. This three-part programme uses the time between the two courses to practise different behaviours and assess their success. The practicality of the Development Plan is reviewed. Successes and failures are monitored and used for further development on the second course.

Taking personal responsibility for what is happening around you implies that individuals can affect the way things are going, even in large organisations: if you are one of the ingredients in the pudding then you affect the flavour.

How it works

Participants can be from different areas in a company or from the same team/department. They work in Support & Challenge groups of three/four people, in other task groups and in the whole course group.

In the Support & Challenge Group they:

• Discuss their development in a supportive and challenging environment.

• Practise giving and receiving direct, honest and constructive feedback. This is based, as much as possible, on perceptions of and reactions to, behaviour and performance.

• Develop the ability to assert themselves and support others: i.e. to work effectively.

• Discuss, make sense of and learn from what happens and translate it to practical action.

On completion of PEI each person will have learnt the skills necessary to adapt their behaviour with different people in different circumstances to get better results. They will also have the information necessary to make decisions about which aspects of their behaviour they want to, or must, change in order to be more effective.

Aim

To enable participants to identify, develop and practise the skills and behaviours necessary for influencing other people to achieve the best possible outcomes professionally and personally

objectives

• Increase self-awareness, understand your style, the way you operate and the impact this has

• Develop self-confidence and confidence in your ability to influence and manage people at any level, internally and externally

• Get better results when influencing and managing people in different situations: face-to-face, at a distance, in groups and through presentations

• Present a rational case to, and manage inter-actions with, senior managers, other colleagues and clients; explain the consequences of decisions, particularly where there may be conflicting goals

• Develop support networks within your company encouraging people to contribute at an individual, team and organisational level

• Deepen your understanding of stress and improve your ability to deal effectively with it

• Understand your responses to conflict and develop the ability to manage yourself, your feelings, reactions and behaviour, in more productive ways when conflict is present

Subjects covered

Awareness of self and others	Analysis of strengths and weaknesses
Setting goals to improve performance	Managing task and people
The impact of your behaviour	Balancing rationality and emotion
Identifying and choosing effective behaviour	Anxiety, insecurity, confidence and assertion
Effective personal presentation	Prioritising, planning and organising
Listening with focus and intention	Influencing clients and senior managers
Support & Challenge Groups	Productively managing stress and conflict
Giving and receiving feedback

This in-company course is available to people from the same or different departments. PEI analyses what underpins productive inter-action, successful working relationships and effective personal development. It examines the complexity of understanding self and others and the importance of Task and People factors when working together. It promotes learning by Doing, Thinking, Feeling and Changing Behaviour using presentations, exercises, discussion, coaching and large and small group work to achieve this. Participative review and feedback sessions heighten awareness of personal style and its effect on others.

Nailing the four vital areas an effective manager takes care of

Objectives

• Understanding the four key areas vital to being an effective manager
• Identifying those where you are strong
• Clarifying those where you need to develop
• Thinking about how to play to your strengths
• Planning how to compensate for and/or outsource your management weaknesses

Is about getting the best out of yourself and others. Not many are really good at this. This is usually because they are skilled in some of the FourSight management areas and not in the others. A truly effective manager is highly-skilled in all FourSight areas.This Ignition Event will clarify in which of the FourSight areas you are strongest and weakest. This information enables you to choose behaviours which play to your strengths and develop a strategy to minimise your weaknesses.This Ignition Event will set you on fire about the areas of management where you need to pay attention. The heightened awareness this gives you will begin a nerve-tingling climb towards the higher reaches of management effectiveness.

Outcomes

• This Ignition Event will enable you to:

• Be able to remedy how you habitually **** up managing yourself *

• Manage tasks better

• Manage people more effectively

• Deploy these to drive performance

• Be cooking on gas with a magical blend of all four

 * cock

Outline

Coaching uses practical steps to improve performance over a defined period with regular progress checks. The individual being coached enjoys learning because they experience tangible improvement. A gain in confidence usually accelerates improvement.

Unfortunately, with the advent of ‘life coaching’, much coaching has been coated with elements of unrealistic positive thinking coupled with jargon and a New Age approach which often bears little practical relevance to the development needs at hand. Effective coaching is much more than common-sense, encouraging homilies and emulating particular role-models.

The main features of effective coaching are that it is tailored to the individual and is achievable over a defined period. It should be supportive, realistic, helpful, practical, useful, carefully monitored and done in manageable chunks. It starts with clear definitions of the current state of skill, the desired state of skill and the improvement needed to get from one to the other. All effective coaching starts with a session to establish a starting point, what is to be achieved and over what period of time.

Individual coaching

Coaching undertaken 1:1 is extremely effective because of the amount of attention and concentration that can be given to the person being coached and to the skill in which they are being coached. It gives more time for practice, questions and feedback ensuring that fine detail can be concentrated on.

Coaching in small groups

Coaching can be undertaken in small groups. The main benefit is that individuals assess their own style and learning by observing others and using those comparisons to correct mistakes, adjust style and find one’s own best approach. The coach needs to be sure that inter-action in groups is encouraging rather than discouraging and act quickly with particular individuals to ensure that they are keeping pace with others. Any competitive element must be carefully managed.

Management coaching

Appropriate for those starting their first management role or those already working as managers at any level. It is best done when preceded by Management Analysis, this results in a comprehensive report on management ability and performance along with development needs and suggestions for further training. Management coaching works best on-site, in tandem with observation, once a relationship has been established between the coach and the person being coached.

Executive coaching

Beneficial for those at the most senior levels in companies. At this level executives should be prepared for a more critical and confronting approach to gain full advantage from the process.

Leaders and senior people don’t get anywhere like the amount of coaching they need because there is an assumption from them, and others, that somehow they have risen beyond the need for it. It is rare to find an individual who is too senior or too talented to benefit from effective coaching. Executive coaching is often not done because of the difficulty of finding someone who can speak honestly to these people at their level. All the more reason it should be done.

At its simplest it can be compared to the slave who was instructed to accompany Roman Emperors as they paraded through Rome in their Triumphs regularly whispering ‘Remember, you too are human’.

Vertical Horizon has many years experience of intensive, high-level coaching and will undertake Executive Coaching which is guaranteed to be honest, confronting and developmental.

Outline

Vertical Horizon consultants have in-depth, extensive, practical knowledge and experience of relevant areas of consultancy. They will tailor what they do to your particular circumstances, immediate needs and future requirements. Our consultants work in close communication with you on-site.

Involvement is for as long as agreed it takes to get the job done. We prefer to work to a timetable with a clear end-point. This helps control cost and keep the focus clear. Analysis and assessment will precede any advice given. Outcomes of recommended action will be presented for consideration.

A scope of necessary work will be undertaken after initial discussion. Reviews, scheduled at regular intervals, sustain momentum, provide information, provoke analysis and maintain control. Changes to the initial scope are discussed with full involvement of the client. Vertical Horizon endeavours to establish clarity at the outset: we use extremely clear work definitions to achieve the aim, specific objectives, required outcomes and deadlines. Progress, performance and success are measured against these criteria. We maintain a disapproving attitude toward slippage.

Strategic consultancy

Vertical Horizon provide expert consultancy in:

Cost control
We help individual department heads, managers and companies identify where to take action to control spending. Using a creative and pragmatic approach, we ensure individuals and teams understand why this is important and what they can do to take willing responsibility for achieving cost goals.

Credit and collection 
We provide advice, training and/or a full service relating to credit and collection. This work is delivered by accredited and recognised industry professionals.

Design of comprehensive training programmes 
Following an assessment of your training requirements/needs Vertical Horizon will design a comprehensive training programme to meet those needs. This will not necessarily include us as the deliverer of the programme.

Diversity and equality 
Every business in the U.K. has a legal requirement to walk-the-talk on diversity and equality in their practices and procedures. It is not good enough simply to have a policy. A National Standard Accreditation scheme is available for all businesses that will satisfy even the most rigorous assessor.

Employment law 
Ranging from specific advice on U.K. employment law to a full out-sourcing of the HR function in your company. All aspects of employment law are covered, from legally-required documentation to industrial tribunal representation A 24-hour-a-day advice line is available. You can obtain the most suitable package for your company by selecting what you need. Protecting your business is our business.

Health and safety 
We offer full out-sourcing of all your health and safety requirements. This includes all legally-required documentation, zero legal fees if a court case occurs and a 24-hour-a-day advice line. We can develop tailor-made training courses for your staff. Protecting your business has never been easier.

Management/oversight of training programmes 
We offer management of training programmes to ensure that training takes place at the agreed time and location, that attendance/numbers do not become an issue, that aims, objectives outcomes are being met and that any problems are dealt with. Assessment will be carried out some weeks/months after particular pieces of training to check actual effect once any course glow has worn off.

Task and people integration
We will work with you to ensure that your company achieves an appropriate balance in managing task and people issues, enabling you to perform at optimum levels.

Training needs analysis 
An in-depth analysis identifies what training you require to bring understanding, skills, motivation, commitment and performance to optimum levels. Typically this will include individual development, identification of skills shortages/inadequacies, technical/specialist training, management and team development.

Outline

Most organisations pay lip-service to the importance of customer service. Fewer do it well. Behavioural customer service training emphasises the importance of behaviour as the basis for delivering a service which is noticeably better than that of other organisations. It focuses on active management of the professional relationship with customers and clients.

Behavioural training of all staff is fundamental in Vertical Horizon customer service training programmes. Employees learn how to deliver superior service in a structured, individual, creative and consistent way. This results in strong relationships with clients and an understanding and interest in how they use your products and services. Your service to customers will not be based on only reacting to events when things go wrong.

Our programmes are tailored to your specific circumstances and requirements. Understanding and responding to your customers’ needs and concerns will enable you to give them a service which they appreciate and value. Vertical Horizon customer service programmes are about being authentic and instigating real behavioural change, they are not easy. It is difficult for organisations to change culture and behaviour, however, once inertia is overcome, expect amazing things.

Aim

To deliver effective and noticeably-superior customer service at all levels

Objectives

• To help employees understand why customer service is so important

• To understand the different components of good customer service

• To understand what this requires individuals to do

• To motivate and train individuals to deliver superior customer service

Outcomes

• Your employees will understand and deliver superior service in all circumstances

• Everyone will understand, at a practical level, desirable and undesirable behaviours

• Your organisation’s atmosphere and culture will become delivery-focused

• Your customers and clients will notice the difference and love the service

• They will tell others . . . the best marketing there is

Outline

Vertical Horizons Events are highly-organised, planned in great detail and carefully analysed for the unexpected with contingencies ready for deployment. They are designed using hindsight, insight, foresight, creativity and freshness. Participants find them interesting, informative, involving, useful, enjoyable and memorable.

Events can be as short as one hour and as long as a week. Events take place indoors and/or outdoors and can be stand-alone or part of some other company event e.g. a Sales Conference. They can be recorded.

During the proposal and detailed planning stages there is thorough discussion and agreement with clients with regular reporting. Vertical Horizon keeps all agreements it makes with clients by agreed deadlines. If there is any doubt about whether an agreement can be kept this is discussed prior to the agreement being made. If the doubt persists the agreement is not made.

Proposals include an outline and an overall budget. A high degree of clarity is required regarding general aims, specific objectives and desired outcomes. All delivery will be done by individuals who are experts in their area of knowledge. Virtually any resources can be included.

We use the principles of Task and People in the design, planning and delivery of our events: on the Task side we ensure that everything is well-planned, rigorously and robustly designed and that it all works. On the People side we use a high degree of creativity to ensure that events capture the imagination and involvement of those present. We endeavour to ensure that learning and enjoyment takes place.

Vertical Horizon ensure that any briefing and/or pre-publicity is done in good time and all participants have the information they need at the right time to get the most out of the event.

Examples of events

Major Bank: 2 days, 40 people, English Channel, U.K., Outdoors
Two-day sailing event in the Solent to reward successful sales people and teach them more about the benefits of team work and co-operation. They already knew about the benefits of individual initiative and competition. First day was a problem-solving exercise sailing in flotilla. The second day was a race, with problem-solving elements added, in different legs with some exchange of crew members. Therer were off-shore and on-shore review sessions.

Computer Company: 4 days, 1,200 people, Outskirts of Paris, France, Indoors
Sales conference. Vertical Horizon provided creative inputs between each segment of the conference to ensure everyone was awake, involved and working with what they had just seen in presentations. A special lighting rig was designed to enhance mood and change focus at different times. The conference was used to signal a change in direction for the company which would materially affect the sales force. This was well-received and a potentially difficult change of direction and culture was openly welcomed rather than silently resisted.

Software Company: 10 days, 50 people, Thames Valley, U.K., Indoors & Outdoors
New, young, eager company. Wanted to set the right culture from inception. Event took place on-site and off, indoors and out, in four separate stages over four consecutive months. The First Stage was an exploratory about what features employees wanted to see in the developing culture. Stage Two was to get to know each other, this took place off-site and consisted in an extended outdoor event with shelter-builds over-night and barbecues for food, some catered, some done by the groups themselves. Stage Three was a series of practical sessions on-site to look at how the desired features of the culture could be built in a practical sense. Stage Four was in the form of a course to test how individual behaviour was promoting or blocking the desired culture. There was a short review three months after the event. This organisation now has an annual event to reinforce the company values.