Bitesize Learning

Leadership & Management

Conflict Management

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Discover the behaviours and attitudes that will help you if you find yourself getting into a conflict situation.
  • Learn how to manage your emotions when in a disagreement, so that you are in the right state
  • Understand the difference between personal and impersonal, feelings and facts and how to discover what people actually mean.
  • Realise that how people say things can be different to the meaning they want to convey
  • Become better at managing others in conflict.
  • Practice techniques and choose the ones that best suit you in a given situation

Business today moves at an alarming rate. It’s no longer about the big eating the small, it’s about the fast beating the slow. Businesses that master the speed of development are at the leading edge, those that don’t find the going tough. There are obvious differences here. They do however have something in common -conflict. There will always be differences of opinion, misalignment, poor communication, resources, leadership, the list is endless.

There is no quick fix. Every occasion is determined by its situation. We know that avoiding it doesn’t work, but we hope it goes away. Compromising means no-one feels satisfied, letting people off means losing for someone. We need to work out a way to work together, we must have the conversation and one that clarifies what it is we’re here to talk about, how we know this, how it makes us feel and what will happen if it’s not addressed, how we could have acted different and that we really want to move on and resolve. Conflict will always be present, but at least we can deal with it in a way that everyone moves forwards.

Managing a remote workforce/team

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Learn how to develop and build a team that can work well at distance
  • Discover the tools, techniques and technology that will enable others to do their jobs well
  • Establish strong relationships and build trust to fuel motivation, collaboration and productivity
  • See how you can keep connected in a meaningful way
  • Focus on the quality of your employees’ work, not their style of doing it.
  • Understand how to fight burnout for you and them

When your team shares the same office, same floor, even the same building, then management and leadership can be direct. You are actually there for them on location and in turn, they for you. What about though when your team is spread around? Their role involves travel and distance from head office, they may even be based at home or working in another time zone. There are processes in place for them to carry out their role so performance can be measured, right? How though do you enable them as individuals, how do you develop them, how do they develop themselves? You need to be able to lead through outcomes, set clear expectations, communicate and develop trust, discover what it is each individual needs so that they feel part of the team yet retain that feeling of individuality and responsibility.

Inspirational leader

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Share who inspires you and why
  • Discover what all inspirational people have in common and how we can model these behaviours
  • Learn how to unleash the power of energy and presence as a means of inspiration
  • Develop a personal purpose and mission and be able to share it in a way that will inspire the people around you.
  • Practice a specific situation where you would like to inspire others
  • Recognise what else you can do to inspire beyond what you thought was possible

Presentations are hard. They didn’t use to be though. When we were young we had no problem standing in front of the class telling everyone what we did at the weekend. We were excited, inspirational and great at story telling and we were only 6! Now we are adults, experienced, mature, qualified – dull! The reason for this newfound dullness is that we’ve become over cautious. We want our presentation to be safe, perfect, state the facts, keeps the emotion out of it. Being an Inspirational Presenter keeps it simple but makes it fresh, has no self-doubt and is free from worry. There is honesty, integrity and passion. They are exciting, confident and are available to the audience.

Situational leadership

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Experience and practice using a clear framework and process for effectively leading individuals and teams to greater results
  • Develop the capability to get the most out everyone from disgruntled low skill workers to highly skilled, motivated employees
  • Enable effective and dynamic performance
  • Create a shared language of leadership within your business
  • See how to improve job satisfaction and morale at all levels

In the role of leader, often people have been extremely talented at the role of those they are now leading. Sometimes they are given responsibility for others within a role they have little or no knowledge of, but they are there because they have shown the ability to learn and adapt. Some are fortunate to have specific training and development, others left to rely on experience and knowledge. Often, these leaders will become an extension of their previous role and who can blame them. Leadership is an art. It is not necessarily natural and it can definitely be learnt. Great leaders know that one style of leadership does not fit all. They know that people can vary from task to task, from day to day. They have the tools to chose the most appropriate leadership style in any situation, to develop others skills, motivate them and achieve the business goals.

Create direction and drive alignment

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • See how you can make the difference
  • Learn how to bring the values and visions of the business to life
  • Discover how to enable people to make the link between day to day actions and strategic plans
  • Find ways to turn words into meaning and action
  • Practice and take away tools that enable everyone to realise their role within the business and what it is they do that contributes

Be an outstanding model leader

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Establish what expectations there are of everyone in the business around behaviours, actions and attitudes towards each other and business goals
  • Ensure that calls to action are backed up by great practice and demonstration
  • Learn how to ensure greater success by implementing and celebrating milestones and achievements along the way
  • Provide everyone with a track to follow, create the desire for all to take action and ensure people are able to spend time doing things that make a difference

Why should people follow you? Why should they align to what you expect just because you ask them to, or even demand of them? It is not enough to motivate and inspire through words; leaders must do what they are asking others to do. If they do this then they prove their commitment to the business and the people they lead. Do what you say you will do and set the example for others to do the same.

Leaders set the example by standing by their decisions and actions that are aligned with their personal values, set goals and expectations that can be measured and celebrated along the way to the strategic vision, they get rid of the restrictions that stifle progress, they help others recognise what’s needed and how to get there and they make winning possible.

Energise and inspire others

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Learn how to achieve amazing results through the actions of others
  • See how recognizing all contributions, no matter how small, no matter if even expected, has the impact to make people perform beyond expectations
  • Discovering how to celebrate so that everyone feels rewarded
  • Practice how to motivate, inspire and energise people so that they want to continually achieve and ask ‘What’s possible?’

There are many reasons for people going to work. For some it is the financial rewards they get, for others it’s about the relationships they have, others it’s the difference they make. The reasons are varied and many. If businesses are to succeed then they must understand these reasons. Achieving extraordinary results is hard work, made harder by the differences of the individuals. To make sure that people come to work because they want to rather than because they have to, is a skill.

For this to happen we must ensure that we keep enthusiasm and determination present, by recognising the contributions that individuals make and sharing that. People doing their job deserves recognition and celebration, not an attitude of that’s what they are supposed to do. They way that people are treated is perfectly aligned with the results they are getting. People deserve to feel like heroes.

Deliver results

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Learn how to get the best from others and build a high performing team
  • Discover how to ensure that everyone is involved and feels part of a dynamic, successful business
  • Realise that creating a culture of trust enables results beyond expectations
  • Let each person be who they want to be, be able to excel at the role that they are in and produce more that was expected
  • Practice the leadership styles needed to engage all of the time

Challenge the Process

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Seek out opportunities to review and improve processes with the business that may be inhibiting success
  • Learn how to question established procedures to develop and improve them
  • Become comfortable with making change and taking well thought out risks
  • Accept that all processes and procedures fail and that they are an opportunity to learn, evaluate and make different decisions towards best practice.
  • Experience constrained process and have the opportunity to change it for outstanding results

Effective Communication

Communication

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Raise your awareness of how we actually communicate and how that differs from how we take communication from others
  • Understand the different mediums of communication and which are the most appropriate to use dependant upon your desired outcome
  • Discover how to ask questions that qualify what’s actually being said.
  • Learn the four levels of listening and how to recognise which one you are using at any particular moment.
  • Practice getting your message across whilst dealing with internal and external obstacles

People within business are constantly tasked with sharing communication. Strategy and resource, motivation and incentive, the list is endless. They have to be able to transfer information from one place to another, from one person to another. It’s thoughts and opinions through signs, words and writing. Sometimes it feels like a one-way process, but essentially it is two way. It’s a process where information is put into a package, sent to someone using a particular method. Sounds simple. Why then is it that there are times when the message just doesn’t seem to get through, email, phone call, face to face, none of them seem to get across how it’s supposed to. People don’t co-operate, avoid conversations, don’t return messages, make mistakes and then there’s blame. How do they bring communication to life, to share messages effortlessly and get results?

Inspirational Presenter

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Understand how to move into stretch and avoid panic in your presentations
  • Learn the three rules of presentation impact
  • Discover how to design a presentation that turns data into wisdom, using a simple four stage structure
  • Practice with different vocal qualities, body language and movement and experience how this boosts your presentation
  • Consider you opening boom statement and your closing impact
  • Deliver a presentation that is simple yet strong, fresh and persuasive

Presentations are hard. They didn’t use to be though. When we were young we had no problem standing in front of the class telling everyone what we did at the weekend. We were excited, inspirational and great at story telling and we were only 6! Now we are adults, experienced, mature, qualified – dull! The reason for this newfound dullness is that we’ve become over cautious. We want our presentation to be safe, perfect, state the facts, keeps the emotion out of it. Being an Inspirational Presenter keeps it simple but makes it fresh, has no self-doubt and is free from worry. There is honesty, integrity and passion. They are exciting, confident and are available to the audience.

Giving and Receiving Feedback

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Discover the impact of the positive in influencing people’s behaviour.
  • Find out the blockers to feedback and how to overcome them
  • See the impact of appropriate and timely feedback
  • Ensure that the feedback is useful and adds value
  • Recognise the perceptions of giving feedback to senior leaders and learn how to challenge them so you enable upwards
  • Plan how to get to understanding

Feedback is just dialogue between people that can be used to let them know how they are doing against goals or tasks, an opportunity to talk about what they need to do to improve and what they are doing that they need to continue. Often though, feedback can have the opposite effect that was intended. By focusing on negatives or phrased as ‘constructive criticism’ people focus on what they are doing wrong and is it any wonder they find it hard to develop. The advice or feedback that they are receiving is perfectly aligned with the results they are getting! The Giving and Receiving Feedback programme will show how there are some amazing, impactful ways to deliver feedback so that people can really succeed.

Tough Conversations

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Understand what it means to have a tough conversation and what the benefits are.
  • Learn seven principles to enable you to be yourself, address the issue, make decisions and move forwards
  • Provide a framework that enables you to open the conversation so everything is clear, how you know, what may happen and needs to change and how you will contribute towards a solution
  • Practise having the tough conversations that you need to have

These conversations are named not because they are about being aggressive, it is simply because having these conversations can often be tough for you to have. Most people fear them for a whole variety of reasons. However, we should actually fear not having them! They are often avoided or handled poorly, key issues don’t get fixed, resentment builds and issues escalate into something bigger then it ever was and needed to be. The purpose of this programme is to explore some principles that will help you to have great conversations with people, give you a framework to build your conversations around and enable you to say what you need to say in a way that leads to the best result for all.

Meeting Magic

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Learn how to get your meeting ready so you know it will deliver exactly what you and others want from it before you’ve even had it
  • Know how to ensure that the people who are coming will add value and that the meeting will add value to them
  • Leverage peoples skills in the planning, running and conclusion of the meeting
  • See how keeping it simple enables the meeting to flow, be engaging and impactful
  • Recognise the things that knock a meeting off track and have strategies ready to get it back on
  • Ensure people leave wanting more

There are some amazing business statistics available today, none more so than those around meetings. We’ve all seen them, 11 million meetings in business per day and people attending 62 meetings a month for example. So what? Well, these figures take on powerful relevance when we consider that research suggests over 50% of these are a waste of time, which constitutes to 4 working days lost per month, that 9 out of 10 people miss them, miss parts of them or daydream whilst in them. 7 out of 10 people do other work in them; believe it or not 4 out of 10 have actually fallen asleep! It’s no surprise that meetings have a bad reputation.

We have to start again, start with the basics. Educate people that meetings are an integral part of business, ensure people know the purpose, the agenda, their role, so that they can make better decisions on whether they need to be there or not and in what capacity. We need to understand the place for formal, informal, the role of technology both helpful and restrictive and how to apply all they learn so that meetings become places where the people in attendance are actually there in mind and body.

Think Customer

Customer Service Culture

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Understand how to align strategy, values and behaviours for outstanding customer service
  • Know what to look for when recruiting people
  • Drive employee and customer engagement and empowerment
  • See how creating a culture of autonomy and trust leads to action and results
  • Encourage a sense of responsibility and accountability from all
  • Create a strategy for effective employee and customer communication

Customer Service

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Discover amazing techniques that make your customers realise you are the best with a service to match leaving them ready to recommend you to others.
  • Learn techniques to build rapport, belief and trust instantly
  • Find ways to build customer relationships so that they remain loyal
  • Build the brand that you want people to associate with you, through behaviours, actions and story telling
  • Practice dealing with all types of situations from repeat business to disgruntled consumer

Great customer service makes a business what it is. You can offer as many promotions as you want, you slash prices to bring in new customers, but unless you can get some of them to come back, you won’t be profitable for long. As well bringing them back, you need to send them away happy – happy enough to share positive feedback about you and your business to others, who then try what you offer for themselves, providing you with another opportunity to turn them into repeat customers. How do we do this? By remembering that you are judged by what you do, not what you say.

Good sales people can sell anything, to anyone, once. But it’s your approach to customer service that determines whether or not you’ll ever be able to sell that person something else. The essence of good customer service is forming relationships. It’s all about a relationship that a customer wants to build and develop and ultimately stay with. How do you go about forming such a relationship? Talk to you customers not at them, understand them first before you help them understand you, keep your promises, truly listen to them, deal with their concerns, go the extra step and give them something they didn’t expect.

Performance

Managing Performance

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Experience what the essence of great performance management is
  • Know when you need to do it and equally when no to
  • Discover just what it is that each person you work with needs to feel inspired and motivated
  • Decide when to tell, when to suggest, when to advise and when to ask
  • Realise that performance is an on-going journey

You want people in your business to succeed. You want them to be the best they can be, all of the time. Your people are your business. Your role is to manage their performance. If you get this right the benefits are endless, people spend more time doing their job, projects come in on time and your business goals are met effectively and efficiently. Communication through the business is simplified, people are responsive, they progress personally and professionally, career planning becomes part of everyday activity and performance reviews add value and have purpose. If your people’s performance is managed at the peak then your people will thrive.

Creating High Performance

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Understand what high performance is and how that relates to what it is you want to achieve
  • Recognise the role of the individual, the interaction between the few and the synergy of the many and how all combine to achieve a result beyond expectation
  • Learn how the will to win triumphs over avoidance of defeat
  • Focus on goals, objectives and outcomes for the right reasons
  • Allow flexibility into your strategy
  • See how physical and mental fitness are of paramount importance

What is high performance? How does it differ over good, average and poor? It really is the holy grail of any team and constantly searched for by all businesses. High performance starts at an individual level and the roles they have to play, how people work together to generate more, the importance of mindset, asking what’s possible, knowing the result that you want and how to get there, being flexible to change and being in the best condition for success.

Quite simply there are 5 principles of High Performance. These show people, if they are to truly achieve it, they must adopt a winning mentality and the benefits of doing so. How they must have a clear focus on the goals and objectives and what outcomes they want. They must be absolutely clear on the result that they want. They must be flexible to change or unexpected happenings and be able to adapt to these to the point where they can see them coming and that they must look after their fitness, both in mindset and physically.

Objective Setting

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Recognise the importance of objectives and the role they play in our development.
  • Break the belief that it’s a tick box exercise and a time stealer
  • Learn how to make them impactful and useful not overwhelming and insignificant
  • Understand the importance of regular revisits to check alignment and relevance and recognising the things that can knock us off track
  • See the significance of importance so that personal objectives are achieved and they align totally to the needs of the business
  • Practice writing actual objectives not make believe

Objectives in any business are important and if that business is to succeed they must be achieved. They should give people clarity and understanding, act as markers that people can constantly realign to, when things happen or impact them, they give people the ability to all move in the same direction, even though they are performing different roles, have different jobs. Often though people are asked to do more but working harder is not the answer. Even when people are working hard, all carrying out their job spec, completing their daily activities, if they are not all going in the same direction towards the vision of the company, then the business will not be as successful as it really should be. Research shows that when everyone is aligned to and working towards a company’s vision, it will outperform by 12 times those that don’t! Objectives are about expectations not effort.

Inspiring PDP's

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Recognise that change and shift happens at alarming rates and frequency, which will impact on any individuals development
  • Understand you have a choice to make regarding your development and that it is your choice, it’s your attitude and no one can choose it for you
  • Experience the three mentalities that either take you forwards, keep you where you are or take you backwards
  • Learn how these mentalities translate into your business, the impacts and what needs to be done
  • Ensure you are thriving and align your development needs with that of the business and the others around you

People are constantly striving to develop themselves. They may be at different rates, with different aims and goals, but in one way or another people attempt the need to develop. Within the business environment there is a process that helps people to do this – Personal Development Plans. Different business, different industries have different names for this process but in essence they are the same, a roadmap of development with goals, targets and measured outcomes that enable people to achieve what they have set their sights on. So if they are here to help people, why are they seen as a boring conversation, a hoop to jump through?

PDP’s should be inspiring. The opportunity to set out the picture of someone’s development, a map of development, it is their very future. It’s about raising peoples awareness of this opportunity, that wherever they want to be, whether promotion or happiness, is formed by this conversation. Their development shouldn’t be constrained by this process; it should be the fuel to propel them forwards at whatever rate and height they want to get to. It’s something done for them no to them.

Coaching

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Learn how to get your meeting ready so you know it will deliver exactly what you and others want from it before you’ve even had it
  • Know how to ensure that the people who are coming will add value and that the meeting will add value to them
  • Leverage peoples skills in the planning, running and conclusion of the meeting
  • See how keeping it simple enables the meeting to flow, be engaging and impactful
  • Recognise the things that knock a meeting off track and have strategies ready to get it back on
  • Ensure people leave wanting more

Coaching is about belief. The belief that people can demonstrate ability, capability, desire and motivation towards achieving a goal or objective. Coaching is about knowing exactly what it is that a person needs in any given moment, with any given task and then being able to choose the style that best supports that diagnosis. Coaching is underpinned by set of skills, tools and models and a great coach will achieve all of this through the simplicity of 1-2-1 conversations through to fully integrated teams. They are great communicators, enablers, highly aware, responsive, flexible and trustworthy. Coaching can absolutely transform people’s performance.

Personal Effectiveness

Influence

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Experience the skills that we can model from the great influencers
  • Realise the barriers we create for ourselves that prevent us from seizing the opportunity in front of us
  • Understand the 6 ethical principles of influence, how to use them and how to recognise them in others
  • Practise the 6 principles to influence and convince
  • Develop the tools needed to move from skill to art

Think of your day, whether in work or out. How are you spending your time? Is it on the things you can actually do something about? Or is it spent trying to influence things that you have absolutely no ability to? We do like to moan about the weather don’t we? Problem is, we can’t change it. What’s the weather like for you? People who are able to influence get things done. They can influence the behaviours of others, they create long term relationships and yield long term results, they know how to influence and more importantly the exact moment when to influence. Their ability to do these things enables people and business predictability so that decisions can be made with newfound confidence.

Time Leadership

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Discover the difference between urgent and important and how they are joined determines the impact they have
  • Learn how time can be viewed in two different ways, each producing very different experiences
  • Understand in order to say yes to some things you need to say no to others and how to do this
  • Recognise the what, why and when of decision making
  • Find strategies to stop you being busy in the practice of being busy, for example how to push back
  • Ensure your time is best spent on the things that make a difference to you and the business

Businesses today seem to great at the practice of being busy. In fact we always seem to be busy being busy! There never seems to be enough time to do the things on the to do list. More and more of our work responsibilities are creeping into our personal time. Emails sent earlier, or later, organisers left turned on at our bedsides, where does one day end and the other begin? Wouldn’t it be great if we could manage time? Sadly though, there will always be 24 hours in a day, that’s what we’ve got and it’s up to us to make the best of it. We can do this by deciding at the outset which tasks must be done and by when. Finding out how we can get stickability, manage our state, have purpose, clarity and focus on specific actions. We can get control of our time.

Situational Thinking

In just 90 minutes you will:

  • Understand your Primary thinking style
  • Realise that you have access and do use 3 other distinct thinking styles
  • Recognise and utilise the strengths these can bring
  • Consider the limitations you set on yourself by refusing to understand others thinking styles
  • Learn the skills, strengths and perceptions of all four styles
  • Practice a number of conversations so that you meet the needs of others, then enable them to meet yours

At times we are expected to be all things to all people. The business expects us to build the future, deliver strategy, engage, inspire and motivate people, engage and retain customers, provide a plan of execution and the facts to go with it. Some of the expectations we are comfortable with and love to be involved in, other parts are more difficult, even annoying. Intuitively we know this but struggle to gain the understanding as to why. Situational thinking styles helps you to understand why so that you can make more informed decisions on expectations set on you and others, even the ones that they don’t like doing. This is not about avoidance, it’s about tapping into that style that you need, in order to achieve the results you want.

Testimonials

Just had to let you know, yet again, what fantastic, motivational courses you run. Your character is infectious Steve & delegates can’t fail to come away without a highly positive attitude. I just love every minute I’m in the room with you. I’ll let you know when I hit my 1st target as I’m sure I would have struggled to rally the enthusiasm without you.

Gail Rogers
Manager, Britvic

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