Professional Development Classes

• Learn about “Above the Line” leadership and practice claiming a space above the line.
• Understand the 4 components of Emotional Intelligence.
• Practice 2 powerful techniques for developing greater self-awareness.
• Explore the brain’s negativity bias and the impact that it (potentially) has on our leadership.
• Learn 3 ways to “prime” yourself for greater success and being a resilient leader.

Tue., April 9
1:00 - 4:30 pm
Room: 1522
Fee: $68

Rhiannon Surrenda - see bio below

Wed., April 17
9:00 am - 12:30 pm
Room: 1522
Register before Mar. 25: $54
Register after Mar. 25: $62
plus a $20 materials fee payable at registration for text and assessment

Rhiannon Surrenda has worked for the past 10 years with entrepreneurs, executives and teams from a wide range of industries to help them succeed in their change initiatives. Her passion for empowering others and her enthusiasm creates a powerful and exciting learning environment.

Balanced Perspectives

Do you feel challenged by thinking through a critical situation? Do you struggle with creativity and innovation? Have you ever been in a meeting in which nothing gets accomplished and only one person talks? Is collaboration and group participation a challenge to your team? Are you ready to evaluate personal and business decisions more easily?

All of these questions share a similar obstacle; a lack in perspective. Each one of us is a unique individual operating in a unique environment, yet we have more in common than we do our differences. How do we respect our individual perspectives while finding an equal playing field and collaborative action? The answer lies in balancing perspectives. When you look at a situation from many different angles and everyone has input, more information comes to light to evaluate decisions and problems. In this course, you will learn a process that ensures you observe a situation from varying perspectives. This process drives more effective and efficient thinking while promoting better participation and collaboration. You will practice and learn to:

• Utilize a multiple perspective process to access creativity and innovation
• Explore thinking techniques to encourage ideas and to improve group collaboration
• Facilitate valuable meetings and equitable group discussions
• Apply the perspective process as a decision making tool
  

Wed., March 6
9:00 am - 12:00 noon
Room: 1522
Register before Jan. 28: $52
Register after Jan. 28: $58

Jennifer Mount has over 15 years of experience in the design and facilitation of professional and leadership development curriculum has crossed the globe and many industries. She has worked with Fortune 500 Companies such as Microsoft, 3M, and Amgen as well as start ups, non-profits, small businesses and entrepreneurs to help enhance employee skills and work performance.

Be a Better Communicator

How many times during the last month have you delivered what you believed to be a stellar work product, but, surprisingly, it was rejected by your co-workers. You’re unsure why this happened! Unlock the mystery of communication styles - build relationships and communicate effectively with people with different behavior styles.

This course provides an effective and observable way to understand those around you and how best to work with them. In this course, you will:

• Diagnose your own behavior interaction style preference using the Bolton and Bolton Behavioral Styles Model
• Analyze the behavior styles of others
• Gain communication techniques for greater success with others.
• Practice “flexing” across styles to work well with others.
• Create an action plan for improving your communications with specific people. 
  

Wed., March 13
9:00 am - 12:00 noon
Room: 1522
Register before Jan. 28: $52
Register after Jan. 28: $58

Patricia Nelson - see bio below

Confident Decision Making

Do you want to make smarter decisions? You make decisions every day, but are they the right decisions? Are you sure you have gathered relevant data, reviewed all options, gained the required support from your management and colleagues? Whether you are making a simple or complex decision, making quality decisions does not have to be such a challenge. Increase your decision-making confidence by attending this interactive class.

• Learn how to set the context for your decision
• Identify decision challenges and barriers
• Generate and evaluate alternatives and identify risks
• Make quality decisions using a practical model
• Effectively communicate and implement the decision
  

Wed., March 20
9:00 am - 12:00 noon
Room: 1522
Register before Jan. 28: $52
Register after Jan. 28: $58

Patricia Nelson has over 20 year of experience in global leadership development, organizational development, and learning and training. At Seagate Technology, she is responsible for design and delivery of management and leadership programs and has worked with management and HR professionals around the globe in 12 countries.

Evolving Time Management

Do you feel exhausted, work really hard and feel like the job is never done? Are you trapped by your success and the overwhelming work to keep it going? Is there never enough time and is it impossible to prioritize? Are you ready to do less and create more?

Much of our exhaustion and feeling overwhelmed comes from not following our natural rhythms and cycles. Learn how to do less and create more by syncing up business and life cycles with the moon and seasonal cycles. Nature’s cycles provide important information for setting priorities and the appropriate timing for implementation and completion. This is an ancient yet modern operating system to optimize time, energy, and resources. It’s time to create sustainable success! In this course, you will practice and learn to:

• Identify the different life, business, seasonal and moon cycles
• Plan your business and personal projects based on different cycles
• Prioritize and be strategic about what to focus on and when
• Reflect on your personal and professional success
  

Wed., March 20
9:00 am - 12:00 noon
Room: 2100B
Register before Jan. 28: $52
Register after Jan. 28: $58

Jennifer Mount has over 15 years of experience in the design and facilitation of professional and leadership development curriculum has crossed the globe and many industries. She has worked with Fortune 500 Companies such as Microsoft, 3M, and Amgen as well as start ups, non-profits, small businesses and entrepreneurs to help enhance employee skills and work performance.

Women’s Leadership Renewal: Become Empowered in Your Personal and Professional Life

Renewal is the learned ability to respond to the challenges of life with strategies of action that are life affirming, not life depleting. We all do things to feel safe that disempower and exhaust us. Changing rapidly is stressful, yet necessary now more than ever. The negative impacts of stress are accumulative over time but with awareness you can undo these self-limiting habits. You will become aware of your unconscious stress reactions that create burn out, and learn new ways of dealing with stress; leading to regeneration and empowerment.

Whole-person leadership results in increased versatility and impact with deeper authenticity in relationship to self and others. In this fun, interactive, two-class series you will learn:

• Body/mind practices that facilitate your capacity to change and regenerate from the inside
• Identify your stress reactions (body & mind)
• Fight/Flight Syndrome – instinctual, unconscious level
• Discover your leadership style (strengths & limitations)
• Develop versatility – 4 Leadership Strategies
• Move from habit to choice

You'll also learn how to be more effective with less stress by:

• Having clear boundaries and creating your own safety
• Confronting with heart
• Letting go of your position, without giving up yourself
• Yielding without giving up your goal
• Penetrating resistance without effort
• Returning to “Center” amidst chaos
  

Sat., March 23
10:00 am - 4:00 pm
Room: 1522
Register before Jan. 28: $125
Register after Jan. 28: $138

Rhiannon Surrenda has worked for the past 10 years with entrepreneurs, executives and teams from a wide range of industries to help them succeed in their change initiatives. Her passion for empowering others and her enthusiasm creates a powerful and exciting learning environment.

Crystal Forthomme, M.A., a founding professor of Movement Psychology, created Being In Action; stress management and empowerment trainings for women leaders. Her clients and students discover how to incorporate awareness practices and how to initiate change from the inside and discover the transformational tools to become empowered in their lives.

What Motivates Me? ®

Employee engagement is a serious issue. Whether you are the employee working in a de-motivating environment, or you are the leader responsible for that environment, you have more power than you think to influence the culture and get people engaged when you understand motivation!
 
Research teams at The Culture Works have studied more than 850,000 people globally to learn what makes people the most engaged in their jobs. Bottom line? People are most engaged when their work aligns with their primary motivators. But most of us don’t even know what our primary motivators are!
In this class, you will…

• Interpret the results of your online Motivator’s Assessment ® (taken in advance)
• Work through a set of thought provoking exercises to help discover what you love best about your work
• Make a plan for sculpting your job for higher satisfaction

*Participants need to purchase the book, “What Motivates Me” from Amazon.com or your local bookseller (approximately $16).
Please use the code included in the book to take your online assessment and bring the printed report to class.

Wed., April 3
9:00 am - 12:30 noon
Room: 1522
Register before March 25: $64
Register after March 25: $72

Rhiannon Surrenda has worked for the past 10 years with entrepreneurs, executives and teams from a wide range of industries to help them succeed in their change initiatives. Her passion for empowering others and her enthusiasm creates a powerful and exciting learning environment.

Creative Problem Solving and Effective Decision Making

Do you struggle with making good decisions? Do you feel your creativity is lacking when it comes to finding a solution to a problem? Have you ever used a band aid solution and the problem became bigger? Do you want to feel confident in your decisions and innovative in your solutions?

Every moment, we are making decisions and solving problems. How do we do that? When it comes to trivial or big decisions and minor or serious problems, we utilize a process that helps us to retrieve information so that we can create solutions and make good choices. In this course, you will learn the fundamentals of the decision-making and problem solving process. This process allows you to get to the heart of problems and decisions so that you solve the right problem and assess decisions properly. You will practice and learn to:

• Prepare yourself for solving critical problems and making big decisions
• Identify the problem, decision, stakeholders and parameters
• Investigate the root cause of problems and criteria of decisions
• Choose a solution or decision with an evaluation grid
  

Wed., April 10
9:00 am - 12:00 noon
Room: 1522
Register before Mar. 25: $52
Register after Mar. 25: $58

Jennifer Mount - see bio below

Big Data, Big Value

Do you ever struggle with decisions because you have too much information?  Do you wonder how other businesses turn their mountains of data into analytical tools? Are you ready to learn how to receive big data and turn it into valuable action and profits?

We are currently in the era of big data, in which technology has made more information available than we could have imagined. Now that we have figured out how to receive this level of information, we have to sift it down in order to identify that which is most beneficial. In this course, you will learn how to design and break down data into its most valuable parts. As you learn to utilize data effectively and efficiently, you make better decisions and become a trusted adviser. In this course, you will practice and learn to:

• Design data so you receive the information you want
• Align data to business and personal objectives
• Test data to ensure it is accurate and valuable
• Advise others using data
  

Wed., April 24
9:00 am - 12:00 noon
Room: 1522
Register before Mar. 25: $52
Register after Mar. 25: $58

Jennifer Mount - see bio below

Dynamic Listening and Questioning

Do you often get frustrated in conversation with certain people? Do you ever feel embarrassed about how you reacted or responded to a situation? Have you found yourself upset because your voice has not been heard? Are you ready to go to the next level in your communication skills?

Our communication challenges stem from how we receive and give information. In order to improve our communication skills, we have to become engaged listeners and ask better questions so that intentions and information are clear. In this course, you will learn how to activate your listening, probe for more information with valuable questions and give information so everyone gets the message. You will practice and learn to:

• Develop awareness of listening skills and difficulties
• Be conscious of how others receive and give information
• Ask value-add questions to deepen your understanding
• Articulate and express the information you have received from another person
  

Wed., May 8
9:00 am - 12:00 noon
Room: 1522
Register before Mar. 25: $52
Register after Mar. 25: $58

Jennifer Mount has over 15 years of experience in the design and facilitation of professional and leadership development curriculum has crossed the globe and many industries. She has worked with Fortune 500 Companies such as Microsoft, 3M, and Amgen as well as start ups, non-profits, small businesses and entrepreneurs to help enhance employee skills and work performance.