Many knowledge workers stumble when they try to collaborate. They try to learn from the experience, but that produces mixed results, often negatively affecting their relationships with their bosses, peers, direct reports, customers, and suppliers. Multiply this across an organisation and the total business impact is huge.

The Collaborative Professional teaches both managers and non-managers the mindset and behaviours of good collaborators, and lays the foundation for the other workshops in our Collaboration Suite.

Most businesses have the infrastructure for enterprise-wide collaboration, with most of their knowledge workers already briefed on the need to collaborate with colleagues. However, the quality and longevity of a healthy collaborative culture is dependent on the ability of each person to perform successful trades and trade-offs while they maintain healthy long-term work relationships. Good collaborators are deliberate when they apply their influence, build reciprocity, and develop credibility. Good collaborators, when they exist throughout an organisation, strengthen internal teams, build trusted and loyal business relationships, grow profits, and create a strong brand reputation.

Influencing Collaboration is the second programme in our Collaboration Suite, and it presents very specific tools and techniques not covered in The Collaborative Professional programme.

Build your people’s ability to spot opportunities for collaboration, and bring people together into well-organised meetings that drive progress. When your people can effectively lead discussions during these meetings, they become an instrument for collaboration – they fill gaps in communication and deftly navigate the chaos that comes with dealing with people who have divergent interests and goals.

Facilitating Collaboration is the third programme in our Collaboration Suite. It involves developing crucial facilitation skills that lead to collaborative and innovative meetings.

It’s not easy to become a new manager. Many new managers struggle for several years to find their footing. In the meantime, their direct reports suffer from their lack of leadership skills, leading to lower productivity and higher attrition. Without positive interventions, many new managers never become good managers.

The ability to motivate direct reports is a crucial management skill. Motivating Direct Reports is a programme that teaches managers how to motivate their people without having to resort to regular pep talks. During the course of this programme, they discover multiple ways to build a motivated and high-performing team. New managers also learn the difference between management and leadership, and how to bring out the best in their teams by motivating their people through setting goals, redesigning job scopes, and giving feedback.

There is a difference between good and great managers, and not everyone makes that transition. This programme is for managers who have been on the job for at least 5 years. It explores fundamental concepts in motivation (such as how to set goals and redesign their direct report’s job), before exploring less common approaches (such as setting high standards, demonstrating personal congruence, and creating a climate where their teams feel safe when challenging each other).

Moving up the leadership ladder is such an inviting prospect that many professionals aspire for higher and higher positions. But there are many pitfalls along the way. With each promotion comes the threat of under-performance, the multiplication of mental stress, and the subsequent derailment of career goals. This programme is designed for people who aspire to move up the leadership ladder while helping their direct reports do the same. In both situations, we’ll pay attention to how to prepare for the next rung of the ladder, test to see if the next rung is right for them, and minimise the chance of career derailment in a fast-changing world.

There will be times when there is a need to hold an uncomfortable or difficult conversation. But many professionals are not taught how to navigate such conversations, so they’re left to learn from trial and error, burning bridges as they try and err. In many Asian cultures where maintaining cordial relations is highly valued, it becomes even more difficult to initiate these difficult conversations. Unfortunately, avoiding such conversations comes with a price – paid for with personal ineffectiveness and poor team performance that leads to depressed organisational results.

Corporate town halls are often one-way communication events because the audience won’t ask questions. This also happens in smaller office meetings. When talents, technical experts, and managers don’t ask questions (or ask them poorly and without sound business thinking), when they don’t add to discussions with facts, ideas, or viewpoints – then concerns go unaddressed, decisions lack quality, and long-term plans miss out important details.

Some professionals do not ask good questions at town halls and meetings because:

• They don’t know how to think on-the-spot about business or technical issues when listening to a presentation or when participating in a discussion. 
• They don’t know how to formulate and verbalise their questions clearly.

The Art of Asking Good Questions teaches professionals how to think about what’s being discussed, and then how to formulate and verbalise good questions that clarify, explore, or challenge – questions that will result in a far more productive meeting.

This is a simplified version of The Art of Asking Good Questions, and it is targeted at support staff who lack the confidence and thought processes to ask questions during office meetings. 

Like a large ship, organisations have an inertia that prevents change. Help your leaders to steer change with some quick leadership ideas.

Help your leaders to create change with open communications, clear expectations, and the ability to guide their people.

Help your leaders to get the most out of their teams with quick performance management tips that are based on tried and true fundamentals.

Proposals often die not because their ideas are bad, but because the proposer didn’t appreciate the value of allies that can advocate for their proposals. And they didn’t have the skill to manage potential blockers.

Everyone has a mental map of their world – their hopes, fears, goals, job, and organisation – and no two people have exactly the same map. These maps shape how people behave and respond to new ideas. Therefore, understanding such maps will help a great deal when it comes to influencing others. Similarly, we all have access to resources that we often overlook – personal resources as well as those of others in the organisation.  This short course explores both these concepts.

Throughout the ages, human communities survived and thrived because of their ability to give and take – we are social beings and reciprocity is part of our nature. This short course explores how to effectively reciprocate, in an effort to build long-term professional relationships that will help get things done. 

When your people participate in discussions or when they listen to presentations, there are times when they are unclear about what is said – this is when they need the skills to ask questions that clarify. Meanwhile, there are times that your people are clear about what is being said, but suspect that there are hidden gems to be found within the ideas presented – these moments call for questions that explore. By being able to ask questions that clarify and explore, your people will be able to make better-informed decisions.

It’s common for factually inaccurate ideas or unexpressed assumptions to rise up during meetings or discussions. This short course teaches participants to challenge each other in ways that maintain respect – so that inaccuracies or unhelpful assumptions don’t derail projects.