Empowerment doesn’t mean giving away the company—it means increasing ownership and accountability. But, it only works when the leader, the employee, and the organization are aligned. Through a short assessment and gap analysis, “An Empowering Organization” explores how ready the participants’ organization and leadership are to increase employee decision making authority. Discussion includes what changes in management practices, culture, structure, and processes can help achieve the goal of distributed decision-making and a greater sense of employee “ownership.”

Entrepreneurship within an organization is good—it creates new processes, products, services; or bad—it can be divisive, expensive, and out of control. “Building an Entrepreneurial Environment” focuses attention on the “internal” entrepreneur. Participants discuss the personal and organizational elements that make internal entrepreneurs successful: the person, the goal, the environment and the timing; and how they, as leaders and key stakeholders, can affect each element.

Most successful leaders owe their success, in part, to someone who advised, counseled, or inspired them. “Coaching and Mentoring” offers a simple coaching model to help participants coach others: get agreement to make a personal change, jointly develop a change plan, provide support, and reinforce the change. This module also emphasizes the critical role of mentoring by defining mentoring skills, assessing participant skill levels, and committing to establishing a mentoring relationship.

Delegating is something we all know we should do more of, so why don’t we? Participants complete a delegation quiz to identify ways they can improve their delegating skills. The issue of authority is explored and participants are provided with an “authority scale” they can use in planning their delegations. Special emphasis is placed on two critical points: delegating is the single most effective tool for developing others, and not delegating is the best way for participants to cap their own careers.

Communication is nearly always the number one item of concern in organizational surveys, and how well leaders and professionals communicate is a key measure of their effectiveness and success. “Effective Communication” provides three keys to getting messages across to others, whether in one-on-one conversations, in small group discussions, or in major presentations.

Ethics can be an empty, rote statement that has nothing to do with the true values of an organization, or they can be vibrant, living guidelines for how the organization really lives. “Ethics Alive” leads participants through a process of story-telling to illustrate how their organization’s “official” values can be lively, convincing examples of how ethics are a real force in their organization.

Praising someone validates their value. But criticizing someone is actually your opportunity to increase their value. “Giving Critical Feedback” provides participants with an easy-to-remember process for making critical feedback objective, specific, and developmental: describe the behavior, describe the effect of the behavior, describe expectations for change, explore solutions, and follow up.

Goals only contribute when they support the real needs of your business. “Goals that Matter” introduces participants to a four-element blueprint for establishing line of sight with strategy: alignment, ownership, challenge, and measurability. Participants use their own organization’s strategic plan to craft supporting goals that meet these criteria, and assess the quality of their goals with each other.

Project teams are often the best people you have, brought together to deliver critical value for your organization. Participants learn what contemporary research reveals to be the top predictors for outstanding project team performance, and how these elements are remarkably similar to current employee engagement research as well as classic motivation theory.

Disagreement is an opportunity for discovery and understanding in disguise, if it is approached effectively. “How to Disagree—Agreeably” identifies the typical communication mistakes we make when we don’t agree with what someone and provides a short list of suggestions for making disagreement an opportunity for discovery and understanding.

Employees who think outside of the box are among the most valuable assets your company has. Is your environment one that promotes creativity? ”How to Encourage Innovative Thinking” starts participants off with a new, strategic mission assignment, and then compares their creativity to that demonstrated by some well-known companies. Finally, they assess how well their own organization establishes a climate that promotes innovative thinking, and how they can personally make improvements.

The most important decision you make is who you invite to become a member of your organization. But, it’s commonly the least thoughtful, prepared, or effective decision. “How to Hire Exceptional People” explains how to identify what really matters to your organization and make sure the candidate really brings it to the table. These steps are accomplished by defining the position and its critical competencies, requiring candidates to prove they can do what you need, and employing several viewpoints to help in a balanced assessment of candidates.

Implementing a change that you did not originate can be difficult, and is especially difficult if you don’t agree with it. “Implementing Change” explores how managers can make change initiatives succeed by addressing resistance, maintaining high expectations regarding performance and support, communicating the vision of the change, protecting trust, and—above all—first getting on board themselves.

Organizations need both leaders and managers: leaders to create the strategy and managers to execute the plan. “Leading and Managing” emphasizes the importance of mastering the skills of both leadership and management. The module includes an assessment of how much participants focus on each skill-set in their current roles and a discussion of how the environment participants create can inhibit or enhance leadership and management effectiveness.

Your most important role as a leader is to change your organization—without change, you will fail. “Leading Change” begins with participants quickly sketching a change initiative; they compare their plans with seven common reasons change initiatives fail, and seven critical requirements for leading successful change. The module concludes with a representation of three elements that must be considered: the nature of the change, the magnitude of the change, and the time required for the change.

Decisions are tough when they involve complexity, uncertainty, and emotion. “Making Tough Decisions” explores why some decisions are harder than others, how we commonly react to these “tough” decisions, and recommendations for increasing confidence in decisions by following a rational process.

Is your staff really a team? Should it be? “Management Teams” acknowledges that management staffs are often not “teams.” The critical ingredients of a genuine team are discussed: shared goals and interdependence, agreed-upon roles and procedures, and behaviors that support collaboration and cooperation. Participants judge whether their own staffs are really “teams,” and how they can influence their staffs toward increased teaming.

Joan of Arc wasn’t the only one who heard voices—we all do. The conversations we have with ourselves have an enormous effect on the attitude we take to work or home. “Managing Your Emotions and Your Attitude” is not the same as suppressing your emotions. Managing attitude means being able to understand the source of your feelings, control or minimize the conditions that cause them, and let them play out in non-destructive ways. Participants are provided with steps to identify and manage the emotional triggers that drive their attitude.

The conclusion of a negotiation with someone sets the tone for your next negotiation with that person. What will the tone be? “Negotiating” provides participants with a discovery process for negotiating that reduces the polarities of “winning” or “losing;” instead, emphasis is placed on identifying interests and ways of meeting those interests without surrendering critical needs.

Things just seem to go better when you’re organized. But, organization isn’t just about being tidy or on time. In “Personal Organization,” participants are provided tips for setting priorities that maintain a healthy life balance, managing their space and environment more effectively, and techniques for budgeting time and controlling interruptions and other time-killers.

The same tools used in high-level, strategic planning are helpful for planning at any level of the organization. “Planning Strategically” explains eight core elements for strategic planning that help to establish clear direction, minimize risk, and ensure follow-through.

There are always questions and more issues to address. You can use the “Roundtable Discussion” to conclude the program by providing time at the end of the day to address unplanned participant questions, concerns, and issues, and provide additional discussion of the day’s topics.

Years of research demonstrate that holding high expectations of others actually does improve their performance. “Setting and Managing Expectations” translates over thirty years of research into a practical set of how-to’s for setting and achieving high performance expectations. Research in the “Pygmalion Effect” explains the steps for setting a proper climate, communicating positively, providing resources, and establishing accountability.

Strategic plans fail even before they’re packed into that big binder if the right conditions are not met. “Strategic Planning” lists six “ losers”—behaviors that sabotage strategic plans, and six “ winners”—key planning elements required for strategy to be relevant and implemented: process, realism, debate, alignment, accountability, and sustaining energy.

Structured discussion of a topic you select. The “Structured Discussion” takes place during a working lunch, and provides an opportunity to explore an issue important to you or your team. The topic is selected in advance of the program so that the facilitator is prepared to stimulate discussion of the topic by participants and to provide suggestions and best practices during the discussion.

Making “gut” decisions is something we do every day, but how often have we heard it’s not a good idea? “Trusting Your Intuition” summarizes research in the accuracy and dependability of intuition. Participants learn how research supports the validity of intuition in decision making, and the limitations and pitfalls that accompany the use of intuition.