Business Effectiveness

In an increasingly global marketplace organisations can't afford to neglect the importance of good communication. Companies that invest in cultural awareness training undoubtedly reap rewards through effective working relationships, better communication, employee retention and productive staff. The aim of this training is to increase cross-cultural awareness and improve relationships between managers and staff based in different countries.

The workshop is appropriate for anyone who needs an increased awareness of differences and similarities between different cultures in a business context.

• Greet others in accordance with their customs
• Build strong and lasting relationships with people from other cultures
• Know the right way to go about conversation, holding business meetings, negotiating, etiquette etc
• Increased awareness of the differences in approach to those in positions of authority
• Enhance your reputation when doing business in other countries or working in a cross-cultural team

Why cultural awareness matters

• What do we mean by culture? How is it defined?
• What can go wrong? How do misunderstandings occur?

Recognising our own cultural assumptions

• Hidden beliefs about how things should be and how they lead to thinking something is 'right' or 'wrong'
• How cultural values affect the way we behave

Stereotypes and prejudice

• The danger of judging people by their appearance
• The nature of prejudice, the horns and halo effect and the importance of valuing diversity

Seeing the world through the eyes of other cultures

• Considering perspectives and world views of those from another culture or country

Meeting and greeting

• How conventions for meeting and greeting vary
• What to say - and not say. How close to stand etc

Social etiquette and rules for personal space

• Taboos - being aware of things you must do in a business context in other cultures

How rules for personal space vary

• Cultural perceptions of time
• Different conventions for being on time or late and how they can lead to tension

Taking account of communication styles

• Cultural expectations about how people communicate

Managing people in different cultures

• Approaches to authority and management style
• How to handle disagreements and manage conflict in different cultures

We can't avoid conflict. It happens because we all have different perceptions, values and beliefs. Yet if we don't handle it well, we risk jeopardising the results we want to achieve and losing the benefit of productive, positive working relationships. This course will help you waste less time on sorting out people problems and enable you to enjoy work more.

Anyone who wants to be better equipped to deal with people they have a difficult relationship with or handle those who have different ways of working.

• Avoid wasting precious energy on feeling negative about a person or situation.
• Learn new strategies for handling disagreements and misunderstandings constructively
• Help yourself and others move on and be productive.
• Minimise departmental/team/client politics.
• Get to the root cause of difficult behaviour.
• Acquire influencing strategies that smooth the path to resolution.
• Be able to use four styles of persuasion - asserting, attracting, bridging and proposing.
• Know what to do when faced with 'difficult' behaviour and how to overcome resistance.
• Leave having practised a step-by-step process for successfully managing conflict.

What is conflict?

• From discomfort to crisis - how conflicts escalate.
• Exploration of typical work conflict situations.
• Recognising conflict and potential triggers.

Approaches to conflict

• Thomas Kilmann's five ways of handling conflict.
• Why problems don't go away when we ignore them.
• Identifying your preferred style and adapting your.

Mapping the conflict

• How different people perceive conflict situations.
• Recognising the positive intention behind behaviour.
• Mapping tool for defining the problem and understanding.

What people want and need ?

• How to identify the root cause(s) of a situation

Discover what's important to you and others

• Working out what's important to you at work.
• Identifying and checking what's important to others.
• Why the most challenging conflicts involve values.

Developing behavioural flexibility

• Understanding your, and other people's, styles.
• Why differences in styles can create misunderstandings.
• Be aware of how non-verbal behaviour and voice tone affects your approach.

Willingness to resolve

• Why people over-react and are sometimes unwilling to resolve a problem.
• Managing people who resist or don't want to come to a resolution.

Influencing in conflict situations

• Selling ideas and getting buy-in.
• Techniques that help you to achieve a win-win.

Roadmap to resolution

• An easy-to-use and effective step-by-step process for resolving any conflict.
• Building trust and respect to keep relations positive.

Managing emotions

• Dealing with anger and other emotions.
• Keeping your emotions at bay when others are upset.
• Strategies to minimise hostility and defensiveness.

Conflict and power

• Games people play and how they respond to power.
• How to deal with people who play these games.
• Managing conflict with your boss, senior managers or other authority figures.

Your success as a manager depends on how you get the best from all the resources available to you - your team, your time and your colleagues. Managing others - and doing it well - is one of the most challenging roles anyone can undertake. With the pressure to stay ahead of the game, and provide value to internal and external customers, you owe it to yourself and your organisation to invest time in getting it right. This course provides hands-on experience of the essential skills to be successful as a manager.

Newly appointed first-line managers who want a flying start, or those with experience who want a good grounding in best practice for managing people.

• Create SMART objectives and communicate expectations clearly to your team
• Understand your management style and get the most out of people by flexing your approach
• Develop your team's potential through coaching
• Manage the competing demands on your time effectively
• Prepare a realistic agenda and chair meetings well
• Acquire strategies for encouraging contribution and commitment in meetings
• Create a development plan for your team using structured development tools
• Handle performance appraisals effectively
• Deliver tough messages & handle conflict sensitively
• Delegate in a way that makes the most of available resources and motivates your team
• Gain buy-in to your ideas through a range of influencing and persuasion techniques
• Create an environment that motivates others to perform to the best of their ability
• Communicate effectively at a distance when managing a remote team
• Leave with increased confidence in managing an effective and motivated team

This overview provides an example of what can be included in a typical programme

Module 1 - Setting direction & managing performance

Management vs leadership

• The differences between these roles and the activities that underpin them
• Overview of different management styles

Identifying management styles

• Four management styles and when to use them
• Impact of each style if you don't adapt to others
• Understanding different perspectives

Managing performance

• The Performance Management Cycle - managing performance every day
• What gets in the way of staff performing effectively
• SMART objectives and monitoring progress effectively

Core skills - powerful questions and active listening

• Powerful questions and when to ask them
• Using listening skills to attend to what is and isn't said
• How to make sure your feedback is effective

Delegating effectively

• What to delegate and why
• How to delegate and to whom
• The difference between delegating and dumping

Coaching for results

• What coaching is and isn't
• Coaching 'on the fly' - in everyday situations
• Going beyond behaviour to work on beliefs and values

Module 2 - Managing competing/conflicting demands and communicating effectively

Dealing with competing managerial demands

• Stop wasting time on destructive or unproductive tasks
• Focusing on what's important and knowing what's not
• Managing upwards, sideways, the team and yourself
• Making decisions in an effective and timely way

Goal setting and prioritising tasks

• Putting first things first - how to prioritise and get the most from limited resources
• The what, why and how of planning and scheduling

Today, more than ever, every hiring decision is critical. Competency based interviewing is designed to minimise personal impressions that can affect the hiring decision. By focusing on the applicant's actions and behaviours, rather than subjective impressions that can sometimes be misleading, interviewers make more accurate recruitment decisions. Having the right people in the right jobs is essential in achieving your organisational objectives. This highly practical course will be tailored to work around your company's competency framework and participants get the opportunity to practise and receive feedback on their interviewing skills.

Effective coaching used on a daily basis will develop a team's skills, enhance performance and increase productivity. It also encourages ownership and responsibility. This course unlocks your natural coaching skills. It helps you to challenge beliefs that inhibit successful performance. It provides models and techniques that can be put into practice immediately, so you leave with increased confidence in your ability to release the potential of your staff.

Managers or supervisors who want to get the most out of their team will benefit from attending this highly practical and experiential course.

• Understand what coaching is and isn't
• Recognise the value of using a coaching style on a daily basis in everyday situations
• Listen actively and ask powerful questions
• Use the GROW model with ease
• Be confident to put your coaching skills into practice
• Bring about changes in behaviour by working with and changing limiting beliefs
• Demonstrate your ability to help people make progress and be accountable for their development
• Adapt your coaching style to match individual needs and behavioural styles
• Avoid the most common coaching pitfalls

Why coaching is important

• How coaching can be used to raise productivity, empower others and increase team motivation
• Why coaching skills enhance your career prospects
• Coaching as a 'win-win-win' approach

Natural coaching

• Uncovering your natural coaching skills
• How body language and voice can be used to build rapport and win people's trust
• What coaching is and isn't - the difference between coaching and mentoring, training and counselling
• Coaching myths debunked

Using the Skill/Will Matrix

• Knowing when coaching is the best intervention to use
• Planning your approach for each person in your team

Asking powerful questions

• Types of questions & what makes questions powerful
• Understanding the funnel technique

Developing listening skills

• Being present and being in the moment
• The difference between everyday and active listening

Being a coach vs using coaching skills

• Why managers can't be coaches in the true sense
• Coaching as a management style
• Coaching in the moment - when someone asks for help or advice

Using coaching models and processes

• How to structure the coaching process
• Introduction to the GROW model

Giving feedback

• Guidelines for giving effective feedback
• Making sure what you say is useful to the receiver

Adapting your coaching to individual needs

• Understanding behavioural styles
• Flexing your style to meet others' needs

'Holding them big'

• The power of being a champion and cheerleader for the person you are working with
• How you are affects how they are

Going beyond behaviour - coaching beliefs and values

• The importance of beliefs in bringing about changes in behaviour
• Working with people to overcome limiting beliefs
• Avoiding common coaching pitfalls

Many managers spend as much as 50% of their working life in meetings - and consider much of this time to be wasted. Good chairing skills are crucial - yet everyone who attends a meeting has a stake in its success and can influence its outcome. This course shows how careful preparation and effective chairing and communication skills can steer a meeting to a successful conclusion, saving considerable time.

Those who want to be able to chair a meeting effectively or anyone who is tired of attending ineffectual meetings and wants to create productive meetings.

• Clearly define the purpose of a meeting, and prepare a realistic agenda
• Brief participants in a way that ensures maximum involvement and commitment to the process
• Improve your ability to chair meetings effectively
• Stimulate and control discussion with ease
• Be able to handle negative, time-wasting and disruptive behaviours effectively
• Manage telephone meetings in a way that keeps people's attention
• Know how to make the most of every meeting

Achieving best practice in meetings

• How and why a meeting can go wrong
• Benchmarking good and bad practice
• Key factors that lead to shorter, productive meetings such as starting on time and managing the human element

Planning for a meeting

• Planning ahead of time and setting things up to succeed
• How to draw up an agenda that works
• Essential preparation to ensure success

Managing the meeting process

• Getting off to a good start by setting the scene
• How to keep the meeting on track and to time
• Encouraging and controlling the discussion
• The power of summaries to clarify understanding

Get your message across and make an impact

• How to make sure your points are taken on board
• The role of body language and voice in making a positive impact in meetings
• The importance of behaving assertively

Handling difficult people and situations

• Managing group dynamics
• Dealing with people who waste time, are negative and hold side conversations

Chairing and managing meetings

• The role of the chair and qualities that lead to success
• Achieving objectives and clarifying action points
• Bringing the meeting to a successful close

Teleconference meetings

• What to consider in telephone meetings
• How to make sure everyone is paying attention
• Taking personal responsibility for making it a success

Taking minutes

• How to make minute-taking simple and effective
• Recording actions to be taken and agreements made

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is one of the most powerful forms of applied psychology available today. If you want to be clear about what you want at work and know how to make sure you get it this course will be a great investment for you. It will strengthen your ability to connect with clients and colleagues and help you perform at your best for more of the time by challenging and changing beliefs that hold you back. You can banish negative thinking and achieve more than you ever thought possible.

If you want to be more effective in your working life, connect with people easily and make sure you achieve your career and business goals, attend this course.

• Use NLP tools to dramatically change your mental patterns and develop your true potential
• Establish rapport with others, developing fulfilling and productive relationships
• Discover exciting and ethical ways in which you can influence and persuade others
• Learn how to build and maintain your confidence in a variety of situations
• Uncover and replace restrictive habits and limiting beliefs so you can achieve business and personal goals
• Equip yourself with fast, proven techniques for solving conflict and handling difficult behaviour
• Know how to model excellence in others

What is NLP?

• NLP is defined and the personal and business benefits you can gain are explored
• The four pillars of NLP: well-formed outcomes, sensory acuity, behavioural flexibility and rapport
• Putting NLP presuppositions to work

Make it happen with NLP's well-formed outcomes

• The importance in business of setting goals
• Going beyond SMART with the concept of wellformed outcomes
• Create a new you with the New Behaviour Generator

Representational systems and submodalities

• How we code information using our five senses
• Practise reading eye accessing cues
• Change your experiences with submodalities

Change your emotional state with NLP anchoring

• Learn about anchors & how to collapse negative ones
• Discover ways of feeling more resourceful in any situation using the Circle of Excellence technique

Learn from the best with NLP Modelling

• Expand your range of skills and capabilities using NLP Modelling techniques
• Know how to challenge and change limiting beliefs

Change your viewpoint with Perceptual Positions

• Gain insight into challenging relationships using this well known NLP technique

Use Precision Questioning techniques

• How to ask questions that get you information you need with speed and precision
• Know just the right question to uncover what has been deleted, distorted and generalised

Rational, problem-solving intelligence is not enough. While IQ may get you hired, it's EQ that will get you promoted. Emotional Intelligence is defined as 'the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions'. Learn how to harness your emotions to bring out the best in others. This course offers a comprehensive introduction to one of the most important business developments in recent times.

Every company needs all staff to be as emotionally intelligent as possible to give it a competitive edge. This course will benefit anyone who wants to get ahead in their career.

• Know what Emotional Intelligence is and why it matters
• Be aware how your emotions affect your performance
• Become more aware of your EQ 'blind spots'
• Use EQ to bring out the best in others
• Deal with disappointments, challenges and obstacles
• Demonstrate empathy in a wide range of situations
• 'Read' and interpret 'silent messages' people send
• Give Emotionally Intelligent feedback that people can take on-board easily
• Use Emotional Intelligence in difficult conversations

Why Emotional Intelligence matters

Where do emotions come from?

Test your own EQ

The EQ model

Exploring self-awareness

Managing your emotions

Developing social awareness

Enhancing relationships

Dealing with difficult people and difficult situations

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