During this hands-on session, managers will learn to apply a state-of-the-art technique of coaching employees to peak performance.

1. Get employees involved and engaged in the process
2. Focus on the future
3. Give effective Feedback
4. Overcome rater errors
5. Employ a “conversations, not evaluations” approach
6. Coach employees to better productivity

Effective performance management is difficult if the right tools and techniques are not employed. Design the right tool and the right process to improve employee productivity.

Who Should Participate
Managers
Supervisors
HR Professionals
Anyone Who Supervises others


Freebie:
Coming Soon


Bio: Christopher D. Lee, Ph.D.
Chris Lee is a human resources practitioner, lecturer, researcher, and author. His background includes having served as the chief human resources officer for three different colleges or universities and a state college system.

Formerly a question writer and member of the Exam Review Panel for the PHR and SPHR examinations administered by the Human Resources Certification Institute (HRCI), he is now a member of its board of directors. His areas of expertise are employment, training, and performance management—or, in his words, "finding, developing, and managing talent in organizations." He is the author of numerous human resources related articles and two books. Most recently he has published Performance Conversations: An Alternative to Appraisals and is developing a software program based upon the performance conversations® approach.

He has presented at conferences in the US, Canada and Australia on HR related topics. He holds a master's degree in HR Management, a doctor of philosophy degree in HR Development, and he is also certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources.

Website
Performance Conversations.com

Once you understand the different ways people make decisions you’ll be empowered to use the right tools to persuade just about anyone you face.

1. Most managers try to change other people’s mind from 180 degrees in the wrong direction
2. Understanding how your co-workers think is your key to unlocking the door of influence and persuasion
3. Learn the tricks that naturally influential people use to change other people’s minds
4. The principles taught in this session work equally well in business and at home
5. There is not a one-size-fits-all persuasion strategy – and that’s a good thing


The next time you need to persuade people within your organization, you now have a workable framework to get people to see things your way.

Who Should Participate
Salespeople, managers, people at professional service firms, people who deal in ideas, anyone who has to routinely convince others to change their mind



Freebie:
Coming Soon



Bio: Steve Hughes
Steve Hughes is President of Hit Your Stride, LLC, a communications consultancy that helps clients create and deliver world-class presentations.

His seminars have been featured on National Public Radio and he is the creator of “National Face Your Fears Day” (observed annually on the 2nd Tuesday in October). Today he works with a host of national clients including MetLife, Nestle Purina and the American Marketing Association.

Prior to speaking full time, Steve spent 12 years in advertising and PR—most recently he was a managing partner at an award winning 50-person advertising agency in St. Louis.

Steve holds a BA in French Literature and European History from the University of Kansas and an MBA in Marketing from Washington University, where he was awarded the prestigious Olin Cup.

He resides in St. Louis with his wife and their two well-behaved daughters.

Website
HitYourStride.com

Learn about bullies and gain practice advice and strategies for effectively dealing with bullies in the workplace.


What You Will Learn
In this interactive session, you will learn:
1. Gain a working definition of bullying including the characteristics and the motivations of a bully
2. Understand the differences between bullying and harassment
3. Recognize the effects of bullying on co-workers and culture
4. Understand the costs and legal issues surrounding bullying
5. Gain practical tips and tools for handling bullies and creating a safe workplace

Who Should Participate?
* Anyone who has a bully in the workplace

Freebie
TBD

Bio: Allison West
Allison West has a simple approach to employment practices: be proactive. Describing herself as a recovering defense attorney, Allison uses her employment law background, coupled with her sound knowledge of human resource practices, in providing proactive risk management services aimed at helping companies both prevent and resolve employment claims. She is a frequent speaker on employment law and human resources topics at national and local human resources, diversity and industry conferences.

Allison specializes in delivering one-on-one sensitivity training to executives, managers and employees concerning harassment, discrimination, and disciplinary and/or behavioral issues. Her practices also includes expertise in delivering customized in-house training programs, conducting workplace investigations, providing expert witness assistance and other HR consulting. .

Allison is a member of the State Bar of California and holds a Senior Professional in Human Resources certification. Visit Employment Practices Specialists at www.employmentpractices.net or contact awest@employmentpractices.net

Learn communications skills that can dramatically change the outcome of any customer situation, based on the latest principles of behavioral psychology.


What You Will Learn
In this interactive session, you will learn:
1. How to connect with any customer within the first 30 seconds
2. How to use “staging” to deliver difficult messages painlessly
3. How to use the “can-can” to prevent customer anger and never say no
4. How to defuse a customer crisis
5. How to take control of talkative customers – and make them feel great!

Who Should Participate?
* Front-line customer contact professionals and their managers


Why Buy?
For attendees, this program teaches interpersonal and leadership skills that last a lifetime, that will help you become supremely confident in any customer situation. For organizations, this program has a track record of making substantial, measurable changes in customer satisfaction levels, morale and turnover, based on the author’s own experience “turning around” the performance of customer contact operations.


Freebie
TBD

Bio: Rich Gallagher
Rich Gallagher is a leading national authority on communications skills and workplace culture. His seven nationally-published books include The Soul of an Organization and Smile Training Isn't Enough, both of which were book club selections that reached the Amazon.com top 3000. His recent book Great Customer Connections: Simple Psychological Techniques that Guarantee Exceptional Service is currently the number one e-book on customer skills on Amazon.com, as well as a worldwide top seller in print. He is also a certified instructor for the American Management Association as well as the subject matter expert for their highly successful Communication Bootcamp program.

Rich recently signed a two-book deal with AMACOM, one of the nation’s leading business publishers. What to Say to a Porcupine, a business fable collection that brings the fun back into creating excellent customer service, was released in June 2008 and reached the top 20 on Amazon.com’s business humor chart. A subsequent book How to Tell Anyone Anything: Breakthrough Techniques for Handling Difficult Conversations at Work is scheduled for release in early 2009.

His lengthy management career includes helping to lead a West Coast software startup to become a major NASDAQ firm as its director of customer services, as well as leading another major software call center to near-perfect customer satisfaction ratings and near-zero turnover. Rich’s materials have been used by Fortune 500 clients, Dale Carnegie and others, and he is a veteran of numerous speaking engagements, media appearances and corporate workshops.

Website
Point of Contact Group
Great Customer Connections

Help supervisors learn strategies for dealing with negativity that lead to a more positive atmosphere in the workplace.


What You Will Learn
In this interactive session, you will learn:
1. Learn how to use the concept of blind spots to help people go “from furious to curious” in response to frustrating situations.
2. Learn what new research in neuroscience has to say about why we so often respond with cynicism, complaining, and negative judgments.
3. Take away a set of useful questions that can stop the broken-record cycle of complaints to help grumblers re-evaluate their beliefs and see alternative perspectives.
4. Discover how you can empathize with valid complaints and concerns without adding to the negativity.
5. Learn ways to use complaints as a springboard to creative problem-solving.

Who Should Participate?
* Supervisors, team leaders, department heads – anyone who feels responsible for reducing negativity in the workplace and creating a more positive and productive atmosphere.

Freebie
Coming Soon

Madeleine Van Hecke, Ph.D.
Madeleine Van Hecke, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist who has taught graduate courses in Creative Thinking and in Critical Thinking at North Central College in Naperville, IL. As part of Open Arms Seminars, she now gives seminars on reducing negativity in the work place, handling stress, encouraging creativity and improving communication. She is the inventor of the family word game, Wicked Words, and the author of Blind Spots: Why Smart People Do Dumb Things (Prometheus Books, 2007).

Website: Overcome Blind Spot

This session will help you understand the underlying reasons for difficult people, manage those difficulties, work productively with a diverse work force, and transform work misery into productivity.

1. Get employees involved and engaged in the process
2. Focus on the future
3. Give effective Feedback
4. Overcome rater errors
5. Employ a “conversations, not evaluations” approach
6. Coach employees to better productivity



Who Should Participate
* Bosses who need to improve their management skills with difficult employees.
* Employees who work with difficult bosses or co-workers.
* People who want to learn how to manage conflict.


What You Will Learn:
* What to do when the people you work with drive you crazy.
* How to turn adversaries into allies.
* How to negotiate with reluctant participants.
* How to use conflict productively.
* How to make specific requests instead of complaints.


Freebie: Coming Soon


Bio: Lynne Eisaguirre
Lynne Eisaguirre (pronounced eyes-a-gear) is the author of Stop Pissing Me Off! What to Do When the People You Work With Drive You Crazy published by Adams Media and The Power of a Good Fight: How to Embrace Conflict to Drive Creativity, Productivity and Innovation as well as books on diversity and harassment. She has presented speeches and seminars to hundreds of organizations across the United States and Canada, including Harley-Davidson, Southwest Airlines, Bristol Myers Squibb, CH2M Hill, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, Coors and Excel Energy. Her company, Workplaces That Work, offers a variety of professionals trained in different disciplines who provide human resources consulting, speaking and training in the areas of conflict management and negotiation, leadership, employee retention, diversity and harassment. Lynne’s business experience includes founding and managing a public company, practicing litigation and serving as a law professor, professional arbitrator and mediator. She has published articles in many national and international magazines and newspapers, has appeared on ABC News and Bloomberg TV, and has been quoted as an expert on conflict, diversity and leadership in the San Francisco Chronicle, Entrepreneur, Executive Excellence, The Denver Post, The Orlando Sentinel and many other media sources. Lynne appears as a workplace expert on CNN Headline News.

Website
workplacesthatwork.com

Learn a painless and highly effective approach for coaching, giving feedback, and improving performance on your team, based on the latest principles of strength-based psychology.


What You Will Learn
In this interactive session, you will learn:
1. How to create a neutral opening that gets you into dialogue on any subject
2. How to ask appropriate questions to gather information and build trust
3. How to make it safe to talk about even the most sensitive issues
4. How to take the emotion out of attitude problems, personal conflicts, and performance issues
5. How to create real, benefit-driven motivation for performance change

Who Should Participate?
* Managers
* Supervisors
* Anyone who needs to coach or influence people in the workplace

Freebie
TBD

Bio: Rich Gallagher
Rich Gallagher is a leading national authority on communications skills and workplace culture. His seven nationally-published books include The Soul of an Organization and Smile Training Isn't Enough, both of which were book club selections that reached the Amazon.com top 3000. His recent book Great Customer Connections: Simple Psychological Techniques that Guarantee Exceptional Service is currently the number one e-book on customer skills on Amazon.com, as well as a worldwide top seller in print. He is also a certified instructor for the American Management Association as well as the subject matter expert for their highly successful Communication Bootcamp program.

Rich recently signed a two-book deal with AMACOM, one of the nation’s leading business publishers. What to Say to a Porcupine, a business fable collection that brings the fun back into creating excellent customer service, was released in June 2008 and reached the top 20 on Amazon.com’s business humor chart. A subsequent book How to Tell Anyone Anything: Breakthrough Techniques for Handling Difficult Conversations at Work is scheduled for release in early 2009.

His lengthy management career includes helping to lead a West Coast software startup to become a major NASDAQ firm as its director of customer services, as well as leading another major software call center to near-perfect customer satisfaction ratings and near-zero turnover. Rich’s materials have been used by Fortune 500 clients, Dale Carnegie and others, and he is a veteran of numerous speaking engagements, media appearances and corporate workshops.

Website
Point of Contact Group
How to Tell Anyone Anything

Gain key strategies for attracting, on-boarding and retaining each age group, particularly the Baby Boomer and Millennial generations. Human Resource professionals will be able to create bridges of understanding among their staff to promote retention of top performers.Line managers will be able to open channels of communication with direct reports, peers and senior management to better leverage their performance and gain maximum results from internal clients.

What You Will Learn
In this interactive session, you will learn:
1. Who are the “Veteran” generation and how is our current workforce still shaped by their values?
2. How do you retain aging Baby Boomers with an eye still toward developing younger generations?
3. How do you leverage the labor-tight “Gen X,” pool and incorporate them into your succession planning?
4. What are the attitudes of the “Millennials,” and how do you prepare your workforce for the “next greatest generation”?

Who Should Participate?
* Senior management
* Human Resources professionals
* Line managers

Freebie
Coming Soon

Bio: Shira Harrington, CPC
Shira Harrington, CPC, is a consultant and presenter on managing the multigenerational workforce. An outgrowth of her successful recruiting career, Shira brings her extensive research and her unique, ‘real world’ perspective of the world at work to bridge the perceived gaps between the generations and prepare executives for the coming labor shortage. Differences in work ethic, life values, work-life expectations, teamwork, communication styles and relationship to authority are just some of the challenges facing employees of each generation. Moreover, as Baby Boomers prepare to retire, employers are likely to be short-handed unless succession planning begins now.

Shira has been a Sr. Recruiting Consultant with Positions Inc. since 1994 and plays an active role in the Washington, DC metropolitan human resources community. She was recently the Vice President of Programs for the Human Resources Association of the National Capital Area; she has been on the program committee of the Finance and Administration Roundtable and she runs a monthly brown bag lunch for human resources professionals. She earned her Masters in Public Relations, with a focus on employee communications, from the University of Maryland at College Park.

Website
Shira Harrington