Interpersonal and communication skills

As workplaces become busier, and organizational change becomes the norm, the art of effective listening becomes all the more valuable. Good listeners find themselves involved in interesting work, healthy working relationships and long term career success. This is no coincidence. Effective listening skills are a large part of personal success in the workplace. The difference between hearing someone and listening to someone is enormous. Making colleagues feel that you are truly understanding not only their words but their personal point of view can change office dynamics in a profound way. Active listening has a way of making those you are communicating with feel valued and understood. In this highly interactive workshop participants can expect to not only learn the theory behind active listening but also to engage in participatory exercises and activities to practice the learned skill of active listening.

If you are looking for a presentation skills course that will challenge you and build upon your existing strengths, this course is for you. Delivered in a 1-day workshop format, this course is aimed at experienced speakers who wish to leverage their influencing skills and hone their authentic speaker style. Learn the various intangible elements that will enhance your desired outcome. Become more aware of yourself and your audience and how to connect with them so they want to listen to you. Participants will practice their skills in the presence of other advanced students and will gain valuable insight into their strengths and areas for development. Class size is small to ensure individual attention.

Conflict is a part of life. But well-managed conflict can produce benefits and positive changes, both in productivity and relationships. Communication skills, specifically the ability to communicate assertively, are among the best skills to acquire for dealing effectively with the demands of people in conflict with us, whether they are employees, colleagues, our managers or our clients. In the workplace, whether we are in a position of authority or not, we need to manage our interactions with people. We need to know what power is and how to use it: to negotiate, to express our ideas clearly so people will listen to us, even if they don’t agree with us; to stand up for our convictions, even when they are unpopular; and to deal with the emotions created by situations of conflict. At this workshop you will practice what you learn to enable you to apply the skills more readily when you return to your workplace. You are encouraged to bring examples of situations you would like to resolve.

The ability to communicate effectively at work and in life is perhaps the most critical skill for anyone. Those who have demonstrated an ability to effectively communicate are more likely to receive promotions and job offers. Effective communication allows you to use all the other skills you have to the fullest. Your success in motivating, delegating, organizing, solving problems and obtaining information depends heavily on your ability to communicate with others. At this workshop you’ll learn how to influence and inform through the use of real life examples, group discussions, role plays and interactive hands-on exercises.

Whether you’re delivering bad news, giving a negative performance evaluation, challenging a colleague or client, objecting to additional workload, presenting options in the midst of a crisis, or simply letting people know that the direction on a certain project is changing — communicating difficult subject matter can be an emotionally charged event. Understandably, many people would do anything to avoid that situation. Yet avoiding critical and difficult conversations or mishandling them can result in many negative consequences. Learn how being assertive, open, honest and fair in your critical conversations, and fostering others to do the same, can develop alignment and agreement within your organization. Encouraging open and honest dialogues around important, emotional, or risky topics – at any level – can significantly reduce and resolve conflict, nurture relationships and boost productivity and efficiency. This workshop is designed to help individuals, teams and organizations improve the way they approach their critical conversations, with confidence, and manage the conversation skillfully so that feelings are spared and the organization’s best interests are kept front and center.

Almost every organization has people whose personality, behaviour, attitude, work habits or other characteristics present an occasional or frequent challenge for those around them. this workshop will provide you with practical tools and skills to handle difficult people whether or not you have sufficient positional authority. In this course, you’ll learn to distinguish between various types of difficult behaviour, and chose responses that have a high probability of succeeding rather than escalating a difficult situation. Develop analytical skills, specialized communication, confronting skills, interpersonal negotiating, coaching, plus stress and conflict management strategies.

The ability to succinctly brief others is a highly valued competency in today’s fast-paced workplace. This expertise requires the speaker to clearly understand the issue, structure the briefing in a way that is easy to transmit, and deliver the message effectively. Participants will leave this interactive workshop with techniques, strategies, and tips for framing issues, focusing on what listeners remember, and presenting in a clear, concise manner.

Learn how to inspire, influence and motivate people to accomplish important goals – when you have no formal direct reporting authority over them. Managing people when they don’t report to you can be tough. How do you deliver feedback? How do you hold people accountable? How do you keep them on track? How do you arrive at consensus? How do you mediate conflict? In this highly interactive and practical workshop, you’ll get the skills and knowledge you need to help work colleagues perform at their best.

Working with other alumni of the Managing Skills for Non Managers Level 1 program, you will identify and resolve your leadership, influencing, cooperation and accountability challenges. You’ll dive more deeply into the tools you acquired during your MSNM Level 1 program and apply them to resolving your challenges. Your workshop is rounded out with new tools to help you create better relationships and productive results.

We use negotiating techniques in our everyday lives, sometimes without realizing it. In our professional lives, however, negotiating is a necessary and versatile skill. The ability to negotiate appropriately can be your edge in achieving success. Whether you’re dealing with colleagues, employees, senior management, prospects, clients or suppliers, you will achieve your goals more often by using powerful, appropriate and effective negotiating strategies and techniques. You will learn how to improve your negotiating skills with a clearer understanding of highly effective communication techniques. You will better understand the ins and outs of negotiation, and develop effective strategies, tactics and counter-measures for manipulative opponents. The workshop uses experiential methods allowing you apply what you have learned and practice your new skills in a variety of methodologies. These include role plays, case studies, personal skill analysis questionnaires, games and trainer-led discussions.

If you’ve ever had occasion to facilitation or lead a meeting, you probably understand how challenging it can be. Not only do you need to stick to the agenda, you need to manage group dynamics, and often, get everyone to agree on a decision. That is no easy task, especially when opinions and personalities conflict. Facilitation is part art and part science, and luckily, it is a skill that can be learned. Leading a group through the facilitation process- rather than controlling the meeting- will result in participants fully supporting and taking ownership of the outcomes. Ensuring that all have been heard and have an opportunity to voice their opinions reduces negative feedback and backlash afterwards. After all, most people will accept not getting their way, but will resent not having their say. Facilitation skills is one of the most important competencies professionals can develop for their career today. Meetings are unavoidable, and if you can manage them effectively and efficiently, you’ll be an asset to any organization. In this dynamic and practical facilitation course, participants will learn how to gather information from a group, clarify and present ideas, remain neutral when appropriate, and gain consensus. They will learn strategies to manage group dynamics, how to deal with a group that is “stuck, and techniques to keep energy high. Participants will practice their new skills in a safe and supportive environment.

Designed for small groups, the workshop is led by an experienced public speaker who will entertain, inform and inspire you to deliver effective virtual and in-person presentations. Does speaking in front of a room of people make your heart beat faster, your hands sweat and your knees go weak? Would you like to master the art of public speaking? Do you want to have a greater impact on your audience? The impact we have is largely based on how well we communicate our ideas. Whether we are providing information to an internal audience or making an impassioned plea externally, we need to be confident in our ability to express ourselves. This two-day workshop is specifically designed to reduce the anxiety of public speaking and help you gain competence and confidence. Gain practical tips that you can apply immediately. You will participate in a number of different exercises and also have a chance to do a mini presentation and gain immediate feedback and coaching.

Leaders come from diverse backgrounds. Sometimes you report to them, sometimes they lead your project, and sometimes they are in charge of your kids’ sports team or the place where you volunteer. Some leaders naturally align with your preferred style of following, while others do not. Adapting to different leadership styles is key to maintaining your motivation, performance, resilience, and peace of mind. The instructor for this course trains, coaches and supports 2,000 plus leaders from every sector each year. He designed this program to help followers create a successful collaboration with the wide variety of leaders he works with.

Many people understandably dislike the concept of office politics since it brings to mind manipulation, questionable tactics and closed doors. Yet politics need not be dirty. In fact, an understanding of office politics is a critical element in gaining resources and information to do your job. To be effective in any organization, political skill is needed. Through facilitated discussion, group and paired exercises and brainstorming, this workshop will show you how to reframe the concept of office politics into a positive force. You’ll discover how to use different types of power; work effectively with others; build influence; understand the political give-and-take of any organization; and maintain high integrity.

The Canadian workplace is becoming increasingly more diverse, and this brings new challenges to which all must respond. Employees have the challenge of working in new ways with other employees, of being part of an effective team where the members are unlike each other in race, culture, language, or customs. Managers need to create an inclusive environment in which all employees understand, value, and respect each others’ differences.

While many companies promise to deliver an incredible customer experience, some are better at delivering than others. This two-day course is designed around six critical elements of customer service that, when the company lives them, bring customers back to experience service that outdoes the competition.

Is your organization going through a shuffle or “reorg”? Is your team feeling disoriented and without focus?  Or is it struggling to hone a meaningful identity and purpose for itself in an environment where the culture is changing? Culture change is always going to happen. What’s important to recognize is that everyone reacts differently to it and will apply their particular coping mechanisms to deal with it. As a result, a team can lose its motivation, become fragmented and at worst, dysfunctional. What you need is a team that is cohesive, confident and impactful! Using the DISC personality assessment tool, you and your team will understand the drivers behind your behaviour and coping mechanisms, and how you can best leverage your strengths in order to rebound and build a team that is cohesive and resilient to change. In addition, you will develop a robust team strategy to help you embody and communicate your value proposition so that you can position yourselves as experts in an organization that needs you.

This one-day course will help prepare you to develop a message and remain on topic when presenting that message to the media or public, without straying from the point, or points, you want to make. The final session will give you the opportunity to craft and hone a message of your own.

Whether you’re delivering bad news, giving a negative performance evaluation, challenging a colleague or client, objecting to additional workload, presenting options in the midst of a crisis, or simply letting people know that the direction on a certain project is changing —- communicating difficult subject matter can be an emotionally charged event. Understandably, many people would do anything to avoid that situation. Yet avoiding difficult conversations or mishandling them can result in many negative consequences. This one-day workshop is designed to help you approach difficult conversations with confidence, and manage them skillfully so that feelings are spared and the organization’s best interests are kept front and centre.

This one-day course is designed for anyone wanting to improve their oral communication skills in a non-threatening environment. Participants will work in plenary session, in small groups, and individually using hands-on techniques and material geared specifically to their work environment. You’ll briefly review the theory behind effective communication strategies and quickly move into applying this knowledge in a practical way. You will also learn the most effective ways of using PowerPoint and other visual aids as an outline tool.

The foundation of personal and professional success lies in understanding oneself, understanding others, and realizing the impact our personalities have on others. The DISC Personality Test is a multi-purpose learning instrument that helps individuals assess to what degree they use each dimension of behaviour, in any given situation. DISC is a very simple and memorable model, made up of four basic personality types: D, I, S, and C. The goal of this workshop is not to change who you are, but to learn how to adapt your behaviour to the situation at hand. This enables us to to facilitate good communication and ensure the best possible interaction with others. Origins of DISC Both DISC Personality Profiles and Myers Briggs (MBTI) are based on the work of Carl Jung, the psychiatrist known for founding analytical psychology and for developing key personality concepts such as introversion and extroversion. DISC was further developed by William Moulton Marston, who divided the personalities into four quadrants along two axes. Interestingly, he also discovered that when people lie, their blood pressure changes. He was instrumental in the invention of the polygraph. Additionally, DISC and Myers Briggs (MBTI) both measure our “hard wired” behavioural styles – as in, how we behave naturally in our “comfort zone”.

The foundation of personal and professional success lies in understanding oneself, understanding others, and realizing the impact our personalities have on others. The DISC Personality Test is a multi-purpose learning instrument that helps individuals assess to what degree they use each dimension of behaviour, in any given situation. DISC is a very simple and memorable model, made up of four basic personality types: D, I, S, and C. The goal of this workshop is not to change who you are, but to learn how to adapt your behaviour to the situation at hand. This enables us to to facilitate good communication and ensure the best possible interaction with others. Origins of DISC Both DISC Personality Profiles and Myers Briggs (MBTI) are based on the work of Carl Jung, the psychiatrist known for founding analytical psychology and for developing key personality concepts such as introversion and extroversion. DISC was further developed by William Moulton Marston, who divided the personalities into four quadrants along two axes. Interestingly, he also discovered that when people lie, their blood pressure changes. He was instrumental in the invention of the polygraph. Additionally, DISC and Myers Briggs (MBTI) both measure our “hard wired” behavioural styles – as in, how we behave naturally in our “comfort zone”.

The ability to succinctly brief others in plain language is a highly valued competency in today’s fast-paced workplace. This expertise requires the writer and speaker to clearly understand the issue, structure their message in a way that is easy to comprehend, and deliver it effectively. Participants will learn how people read and listen today, how to plan and fine-tune effective briefings, and how to deliver them clearly and succinctly. They will also know how to put together and use effective decks that accompany these briefings. Participants will leave this interactive workshop with techniques, strategies, and tips for framing issues, focusing on what recipients remember, and presenting information in a clear, concise manner. Each participant will receive a detailed workbook that is theirs to keep.

Your organization’s success depends on the professionalism of its customer service people. Do you know how to deal effectively with difficult or angry customers? Can you confidently turn a negative situation into a positive one? Do you always create a good first impression? Do you build rapport effortlessly with your customers? This workshop will help you become a model of professional behaviour and skill. You’ll develop a system for staying calm, motivated and enthusiastic regardless of pressures and problems. Learn techniques for dealing effectively with angry or difficult customers, and for being creative in dealing with challenges and the unexpected.

During our career, we are all required to work with others to reach a desired goal, and while being a part of a team can be rewarding, it can also offer challenges.  Research shows that building a more positive team in the workplace makes a significant difference in both an employee’s success and well-being. This can have a significant impact on the success of your team, and organization. This one-day workshop discusses the skills and behaviors that are necessary to develop a cohesive team that can work together to build success. This program explores what is currently working on your team, identifies team challenges, and will provide you with an opportunity to better understand yourself and your team. Discussions will focus on how creating an effective and results-focused team begins with improving communication.

Being able to get along with co-workers and cooperate effectively towards the achievement of common goals is a highly valued key competency that can open the doors to increased responsibility and opportunities in your career. This workshop will give you the insight you need to better contribute to your team’s success. Using an 18 point personal assessment tool you’ll gain a better understanding of your individual team style and learn how to identify team strengths and trouble spots. You’ll learn valuable skills to transfer knowledge and information to other team members in an effective way to maximize productivity. You’ll also learn how to improve communication and build rapid rapport using the True Colors model.