Influencing and Impact

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.

Would you like to write more effectively? Have you forgotten what you learned in school? Would you like to have a greater impact and influence on your readers? Today’s business environment relies heavily on the written word. Whether you’re answering email, writing a detailed report, or responding to a customer query, your effectiveness will be judged by your ability to write in a clear and concise manner. Each participant receives a workbook and bibliography of helpful references. Seminar participants are encouraged to participate in writing exercises throughout the day and there is an opportunity for one-on-one consulting to answer specific questions and evaluate personal writing styles.

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.

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 experiential workshop with techniques, strategies, and tips for delivering a structured and influential oral briefing to senior management.

Most professionals don’t think of their day as a negotiation, but it is. Every time priorities compete, deadlines shift, scope expands, or expectations are not fully aligned, a decision has to be made. When handled with a soft yes, rushed compromise, or unclear commitment, the impact often shows up later as rework, missed handoffs, strained relationships, and avoidable escalation. Designed for Canada’s public, private, and non-profit sectors, this practical workplace negotiation course focuses on the everyday decisions that shape how work gets done. Using PMC Training’s MOVE framework, participants learn to define the outcome they need to protect, understand what may be driving the other side, identify realistic trade-offs, and build clear if/then agreements that prevent one-sided concessions. Through practical scenarios involving competing priorities, timeline pressure, changing requirements, and pushback, participants develop the judgment to respond deliberately instead of reacting. They leave better prepared to create clearer agreements, reduce rework, improve accountability, and support consistent follow-through across teams.

In matrix and cross-functional environments, results often depend on people, priorities, decisions, and handoffs that sit outside one person’s direct control. When ownership is unclear, decisions stall, or commitments become vague, shared work can slip even when everyone is trying to help. This course helps participants strengthen accountability around the work itself. They learn how to clarify decision paths, define stronger commitments, keep progress visible, and reset the path when priorities, capacity, or support change. The focus is practical: fewer surprises, less chasing, cleaner handoffs, and better follow-through across teams, projects, partners, and stakeholders.

Influence is a key skill that is necessary for having impact on organizations and communities, especially when you do not have formal authority. Being a leader means sharing your ideas and taking action, regardless of your position or title. This session focuses on how participants can have a positive influence on their personal and professional communities without depending on authority or organizational hierarchy.  Instead of considering influence to be a process of “persuading others”, this session focuses on building 5 key leadership qualities that will positively impact those you work and socialize with. Participants will learn communication strategies to improve influence. This session also includes a social styles assessment to help participants learn how to leverage their strengths. Even when in a formal leadership role, influence can motivate, engage and empower others, rather than relying on giving orders or using formal ‘power’. Instead of presenting traditional approaches to influence such as ‘networking’ or ‘ being persuasive’, this session focuses on authentic leadership, building relationships,  effective communication, connecting ideas to organizational values, and being a leadership role model. Myths around influence as applying pressure, manipulation, or requiring a social media presence will be dispelled. Participants will have the opportunity to develop communication skills, craft a vision statement, and create an action plan for making an influence in their community.

Management is frequently described as the art of getting work done through others. This requires a set of skills and talents that Administrative Professionals can develop to extend their influence, meet their manager’s expectations, create a professional image, take initiative, solve problems, resolve conflict, plan current and future activities, and have a springboard for career development. If you are in the role of executive secretary or administrative assistant you’ll find this workshop to be essential to your present job and critical to your future. This workshop is not a lecture. It is a “hands on” opportunity to identify your existing management skills, develop new skills and bring increased opportunity to your organization and to you personally. The list of practical exercises includes confidence & conflict resolution role-plays as well as a ‘guess my personality type’ exercise based on the True Colors personality indicator. For prioritization, students will learn how to create a Daily Map in order to prioritize tasks.

Leadership and management are some of the most challenging roles in work and business. Leaders strive to achieve results while effectively leveraging the skills and talents of their teams. In today’s workplace it is critical to recognize that people bring both their minds and their emotions to work and the reality is that emotions drive performance. The research is clear—leaders who have higher levels of emotional intelligence create positive work environments, generate higher levels of employee engagement, deliver higher performance, manage change better and experience less work-based stress. This course considers the impact of emotional intelligence (EQ) on leadership and organizations. It presents research that supports the business case for EQ in the workplace. Participants will be introduced to key concepts of EQ and self-evaluate their current leadership style, identifying areas of strengths and opportunities for development. Participants will build knowledge and skills related to self-awareness and self-regulation and how to be emotionally intelligent leaders. The second half of the course will focus on how to use EQ to motivate teams and implement practical strategies for organizations.

Influence without authority is a daily reality for individual contributors who need to move work forward through people they do not formally manage. A request may depend on a peer’s input, a stakeholder’s decision, a partner’s handoff, or a colleague’s follow-through, and even when people intend to help, work can stall through vague asks, soft yeses, competing priorities, delayed replies, or unclear ownership. This course helps participants make clearer asks, test whether agreement is reliable, keep progress visible, and choose the right next move when work starts to slip. Participants leave with practical tools to get work done through others with more confidence, while organizations benefit from fewer delays, clearer handoffs, stronger follow-through, and less unnecessary escalation.

Project management doesn’t have to feel complicated. At its core, it is about understanding what needs to be done, who needs to be involved, what could get in the way, and how to keep the work moving. This course helps participants build a solid foundation in project management. Through a realistic project scenario, they work through the key steps of managing a project, including how to clarify the work, plan ahead, communicate with stakeholders, manage risks and changes, and make better use of time, budget, and resources. It is designed for professionals who manage, coordinate, support, or participate in projects and want a clearer way to keep work organized and on track. Facilitated by a certified Project Management Professional (PMP).

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.

In today’s workplace, the administrative support position is the nerve centre of business, industry and government at all levels. Called upon to increase the effectiveness of the office environment, the administrative assistant needs to manage strategies, public relations, resources, time, stress, difficult people conflict and crisis situations calmly, effectively and professionally. This workshop provides management skills vital to today’s support position. This energetic, fun and fast-paced course will show you how to achieve respect as an indispensable member of your office team. In a comfortable and controlled learning environment, you will explore and expand upon techniques and methods, and learn the critical skills required to get the work done on time, keep the office running at peak efficiency, and balance work and personal life.

This two-day workshop provides an overview of how to develop and manage your career progression. You will learn and apply skills to support your career planning. You will also learn how to organize key information in a way that will support your career objectives. You will receive practical tips to apply at any stage of your career and work search journey.

This 2-day program equips experienced sales professionals with the tools and frameworks to approach negotiations strategically, handle challenges effectively, and drive better outcomes. Participants will develop a structured approach to preparing, guiding, and closing negotiations while maintaining strong client relationships and profit margins.

The Fundamentals of Selling course is designed to equip sales professionals with the core skills necessary to excel in today’s competitive business environment. This three-day program provides a structured, consultative approach to selling, enabling participants to gather meaningful market intelligence, build strong client relationships, and propose tailored solutions that address customer challenges. Attendees will develop competencies in sales strategy, technology, prospecting tactics, consultative sales calls, negotiation, and self-management.

In the current work environment, most employees are dealing with a lot of uncertainty and change, with a subsequent negative impact on productivity and job satisfaction.  This two-day course will help you to recognize the importance of being a more positive model as a leader in order to have more engaged employees.

Stakeholders are parties that will be affected by a project’s execution or results. Stakeholders can have their own expectations and objectives and have the potential to strongly influence a project’s outcome in positive or negative directions. Whether obvious or covert these stakeholders’ expectations must be articulated and understood before they can be managed. This workshop focuses on tools and techniques to discover the project’s stakeholders, identify and clarify their expectations, and develop a plan to manage these expectations. Attention is paid to stakeholders’ spheres of influence, including their influences on each other. Political, legal, and community influences will be examined along with strategies to mitigate or enhance such influences. Political and legal influences can include existing legislation as well as future trends and directions. Community influences could originate in the geographical, business and social community where the project is occurring, the professional/technical community that is involved in implementing the project and using its results, as well as other interested communities of people. Case studies are used as learning vehicles to develop an awareness of stakeholder expectations and expectation management plans, and to tie stakeholder requirements to the project’s scope management, procurement management, risk management, and resource management plans.

Employee engagement is not a new concept. Lessons from psychology and the sociology of organizations have been with us for decades. What is new is the realization that various issues of policy, program, culture, leadership and several other factors form a strategic whole which can either maximize the full potential of “employee engagement” or detract from the psychological contract that drives performance. Surveys in Canada suggest that only two or three employees out of 10 are fully engaged in their work, yet 90% welcome challenges that allow them to grow. This stunning contradiction gets to the heart of the importance of employee engagement. This workshop deals with the broader issues of employee engagement but focuses specifically on equipping Managers and Supervisors with the understanding, tools and behaviours to maximize engagement within their area of responsibility. Tapping into discretionary effort is a critical management skill in our competitive world. This workshop will equip you to significantly enhance your ability to leverage actions and behaviours into high levels of commitment and engagement.

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 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, and presenting information in a clear, concise manner. Each participant will receive a detailed workbook that is theirs to keep.

This advanced 2-day sales program equips sales professionals with the skills to take a strategic approach to account management, reduce competitive threats, and strengthen client retention. Participants will develop strategic planning frameworks to maximize the return on time invested and create long-term, high-value client partnerships.

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.