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Maintaining good communication and coordination is essential to any effective organization.  We  have a number of programs that can help you coordinate with your staff and with other government entities, build practical skills and theoretical frameworks, help you work through difficult issues, resolve conflicts, and do more with fewer resources.  These include:

• Dialogue 101: An Introduction to Basic Dialogue Skills

• Facilitation 101: An Introduction to Basic Facilitation Skills

• Navigating the Obstacles in Planning, Convening, and Conducting a Public Process

• Introducing and Using Dialogue Strategies in Public Policy Debates

• Political Leadership Turnover in a Collaborative Process

• Building Effective Teams

Effective policy making requires effective partnerships with the community. We have a number of programs that will help you to get the most out of collaborative processes. These include:

• Collaborative Governance 101: Understanding Different Models Of Civic Engagement and How They Can Work For You

• The Changing Face Of Civic Engagement: An Overview of Lessons Learned From The 2006 National League of Cities Report on Changing The Way We Govern And Other Current Research

• Partnering With the Public: Getting The Most Out Of Public Engagement Processes: 4 Modules Covering How to Plan For, Prepare, Implement, and Evaluate Public Engagement Processes

• Different Voices, One Council: This program, designed to help individuals blend as a council, reviews differences in how individuals communicate, how conflicts within groups evolve, and communication patterns that lead to productive dialogue.

Supervisors and managers play a vital role in ensuring high performance from staff, effective teamwork, and increased productivity, and maintaining employee morale. This session examines the roles of coach, counselor, and mentor that supervisors must play. These programs look at behavioral differences and why and how people behave the way that they do. Participants will learn how to build their workplace into a committed team of people with excellent relationship skills.

Programs:

• Coaching, Counseling, and Mentoring Employees
• Building Effective Communication Skills in the Workplace
• Managing in a Multigenerational Workplace.

Every good meeting has certain qualities: a purpose, an agenda, participants that understand their roles, and an effective facilitator. Our programs teach tools and techniques to help conduct good meetings. Participants will learn how to plan for an effective meeting by setting goals and determining an agenda. Participants will also learn skills that will help them facilitate meetings. These programs will also cover other tips for making presentations or trainings more effective.

Programs:

• Planning for Effective Meetings: A Review of the Basics
• Leading Successful Meetings: Building Facilitation Skills
• Communicating Effectively: Adjusting for Different Styles, Temperaments & Generations
• Using Dialogue to Enhance Planning

In a changing workplace, healthy differences can escalate into conflict. These programs will help you recognize signs of conflict, assess the impact of conflict on your employees and organization, choose effective intervention strategies, and handle conflict related discussions effectively.

Programs:

• Managing Change: Challenges and Opportunities
• Resolving Conflicts: Practicing Different Approaches
• Using Dialogue to Resolve Conflicts
• Understanding and Minimizing Intergenerational Conflicts

There are many aspects to diversity.  In addition to our HBDI™ seminars, we offer segments on learning style preferences, differences in temperament, and generational differences.  We also have a range of programs focused on promoting tolerance or confronting hate within an organization or community. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it today to learn more about these services.

Different Voices, One Board: This program, designed to help individuals blend as a board, reviews differences in how individuals communicate, how conflicts within groups evolve, and communication patterns that lead to productive dialogue.

Understanding Public Conflicts: These programs review the nature, causes, and evolution of public conflicts that can develop over policies, funding decisions, and other issues, different approaches to public engagement, and approaches to productively resolving public conflicts when they arise.

Working with the Media: A Review of the Basics: These programs available, both in basic and advanced forms, help build the skills needed to work well with the media from responding to questions to drafting press releases to writing editorials or conducting interviews.  We can help you and your staff build the skills that you need.

Thinking in Questions: Questions are a key part of dialogue.  Learn how to identify what types of questions to ask to build productive dialogues and generate options for moving forward through difficult issues in a way that is productive and builds strong relationships.

Using Dialogue: What, Why, and How: These program segments look at what dialogue is and how it differs from discussion or debate, why dialogue helps kids learn or promotes effective team interactions, and how to put dialogue to use in your school or classroom. Key dialogue skills are also reviewed and taught.

Work Style Preferences: Implications for Learning and Teaching

These interactive programs look at work style preferences, primarily in reference to the Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI)™. These work style preferences affect the ways in which individuals receive and process information, and thus how they communicate. In its simplest form, the HBDI™ is a research-based assessment tool that measures work style preferences. The underlying research and model for the HBDI™ provides a framework that has been used by many corporations—including Starbucks, General Electric, and IBM—to enhance teamwork, planning, and communications.

Workshop 1 (1/2 Day): This program will focus on identifying different types of work style preferences, understanding how those preferences affect both what people hear and what they say, and how to work more effectively with others.

Workshop 2 (1/2 Day): This program will focus on how to coach student teams as well as creating lesson plans that accommodate different kinds of learners.

These workshops may be combined for a full day program. Our programs can be customized to meet your school's needs.

Partnering With the Public: Getting The Most Out Of Public Engagement Processes: 4 Modules Covering How to Plan For, Prepare, Implement, and Evaluate Public Engagement Processes

"Authoritative Communities": Using the DVD and research booklet, "Hardwired to Connect" from the Institute of American Values, this program examines and invites dialogue on what recent research reveals about how to build communities that support youth in becoming productive adults and strengthen intergenerational ties.

Dialogue 101: An Introduction to Basic Dialogue Skills

Facilitation 101: An Introduction to Basic Facilitation Skills

"Ask The Right Question": Putting the Right Question Project's "Question Formulation Technique" to Work for You.

Hate Hurts: Recognizing Hate and Minimizing Its Effects in the Community. This program, based on recent research, looks at many different forms and levels of hate and associated communication patterns, and at effective and low-cost ways citizens and communities can counteract the effects of hate.