LEADERSHIP, EMPOWERMENT AND TEAMBUILDING

Leadership and the Development of the Empowered Employee

Topics include: the conceptual basis of empowerment; situational leadership; interpersonal leadership and developing self-motivated employees; leading vs. managing; fatal errors that managers make; opening up information channels; the dynamics of delegation; effective conflict management and resolution; creativity and problem solving skills; effective meeting management.

The Art of High Impact/Performance Leadership

Topics include:  what is High Impact/Performance Leadership; understanding and applying Emotional Intelligence for results; acquire repeatable leadership/mentoring skills; steps for growing a Culture of Productive Excellence; leading your team to a shared vision for 21st Century success; thinking from a high performance leadership perspective; engagement strategies for flowing ideas/solutions into the organization in the most effective way; laying a “living foundation” for growth and stability in an ever-changing business environment; leading through chaos; understand how to identify and analyze key leadership and business challenges and approach them as opportunities for change and growth.

Front-Line Supervision

This program is adapted from the “Leadership and Development of the Empowered Employee” training and is geared towards the special needs of the front-line supervisor.

Empowerment: The Practical “How-to’s” of Implementation

This program focuses specifically on the concrete implementation of the concepts of empowerment, and provides practical how-to’s and basic formulas. Topics include: the art of delegation; opening up information channels; results-oriented meetings; how to model empowerment; minimizing fears associated with change; and, understanding your role as a facilitator in the empowerment process.

Teambuilding: The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of its Parts

Topics include: the conceptual basis of teambuilding and group dynamics; team roles and responsibilities; developing the effective team mix; identifying primary leadership styles; leading vs. managing; the dynamics of delegation; negotiating styles; managing competition, cooperation and conflict; fatal errors that team leaders make; managing the “unmanageable” team player.

Emotional Intelligence: Understanding the Underlying Dynamics of Success in Today’s World

Emotional Intelligence has been identified as one of the key components for job success in today’s world.  In fact, research has shown that approximately 85% of job success is due to a person’s level of Emotional Intelligence.  As individuals and leaders, success and the success of organizations depends on a leader’s ability to practice self-awareness; to read other people’s signals and react to them appropriately. Therefore, as leaders develop the mature Emotional Intelligence skills required to better understand, empathize and negotiate with others, particularly as the economy has become more global, they become invaluable in their contribution to a productive and effective business environment. Topics include:  identifying the five categories of Emotional Intelligence (EI); acquiring skills and awarenesses for developing and modeling EI; initiating and/or managing change; pursuing goals despite obstacles and setbacks; seeing what others need to progress and bolster their abilities; anticipating, recognizing and meeting a client’s true needs; modeling effective persuasion tactics; understanding, negotiating and resolving disagreements; working with others through shared objectives; creating group synergy in pursuing collective efforts and goals.

FranklinCovey’s “Speed of Trust Foundations™”

Trust is the new currency in today’s connected, collaborative world.  Contrary to what most people think, creating trust is a learnable skill.  When trust is low, individuals become suspicious of each other, their manager and of the organization and they guard communication, speculate and disengage.  As a result, productivity grinds to a crawl and costs increase.  When trust is high, communication, creativity and engagement improve.  Also, Productivity speeds up and costs decrease as attention is redirected toward objectives instead of suspicion and frustration.  In the Speed of Trust Foundations work session, individuals become competent in using the framework, language and behaviors that lead to high-trust teams and organizations.  Topics covered:  Identify and address “trust gaps” in personal credibility and relationships, Practice the 13 Behaviors of High Trust to develop, restore and extend trust; Create Trust Action Plans; Practice communicating transparently, respectfully and directly; Identify how to extend appropriate levels of trust with others; Improve their track record of keeping commitments through a Peer Accountability Process.

FranklinCovey’s “Leading at the Speed of Trust 3.0™”

Water is the vital substance that sustains all life on this planet.  When it’s there, everything flourishes and grows.  When it’s not there, everything withers and dies.  The same is true for trust.  Where there is no trust, relationships decay, projects fail, customers go to competitors, initiatives under-perform, and work grinds to a crawl.  Like a ripple in a pond, trust begins with you.  Leaders who attend the highly interactive “Leading at the Speed of Trust 3.0” work session will increase their personal credibility and practice specific behaviors that will increase trust.  As a result, they will be able to better manage change and lead high-performance teams that are agile, collaborative, innovative and engaged.  Topics include:  The Case for Trust; Self Trust (increasing personal credibility); Relationship Trust (Behave in ways that inspire trust—learn and practice the 13 Behaviors of High Trust); Organizational Trust (Align their team, symbols, systems and processes with principles of high trust); Market Trust (Improve the team’s reputation) and Societal Trust (Make a positive contribution to their world). Materials include:  Participant Guidebook, Speed of Trust Action Cards, Weekly Trust Huddle Guide, The Speed of Trust Book, Speed of Trust Digital Coach app (1 year of electronic reminders/follow-ups) and a 360/Trust Quotient (tQ) Assessment (pre/post work session).

The Totally Responsible Person (TRP)®

Business cultures that practice the qualities of the Totally Responsible Person (TRP)® experience positive results. These are the cultures where team members get the job done with high levels of collaboration and respect. Challenges are met with optimism, knowing there are solutions waiting to be discovered. Every day is full of opportunities to learn, to grow, and to make a positive impact.  Cultures begin to break down when victim mentality is allowed to take hold of our thinking. TRP helps shape cultures where this simply isn’t possible. When each of us takes responsibility for our own actions and attitudes, we are powerfully productive, creative, and the results speak for themselves! The Totally Responsible Person (TRP)® is a practical, full day workshop that will help every employee—leaders and individual contributors – to learn innovative and proven ways to control negative emotions, beliefs or habits that impede cooperation and productivity.  This workshop will help each participant see themselves as an “owner,” not just an employee but someone who is responsible for how they handle any given situation and will be accountable to others, as well as themselves.  Topics covered are:  Recognize Moment of Choice and exercise courage and self-control in the face of adversity; Reverse the Flow by using negative emotions, challenging situations and even stress or conflict to create positive change and “win-win” outcomes; Eliminating Gossip and Criticism; Influence Others without Rescuing or Enabling negative behaviors and attitudes; Uncover Deep Meaning and Purpose in work and life; Staying out of the Drama Triangle; and Discover how OFLAGs (Opportunities for Learning and Growth) can change our perspectives.  Presented with humor, the workshop is nonthreatening, yet has a profound impact on those who attend.  It is fast paced and includes lecturettes, role plays, skits, video clips, group discussion and reflection. TRP is grounded in research and values that help to shift the culture of an organization from one of blame to one of respect and accountability, helping both employees and organizations thrive even in the midst of change and adversity.

CREATIVITY AND CHANGE

Managing Change Into the 21st Century

This program provides concrete and immediately-useable strategies for managing change in oneself and others at any level of the organization. It allows individuals, managers and/or team members to develop skills to deal with current, real-life organizational changes. Topics include: the change/growth model; change from the manager’s and employee’s perspective; the single most difficult aspect of dealing with change; managing different reactions to change; maintaining morale during transitions; and strategies for moving quickly through the three basic phases of the change process.

The Innovative Employee: Models and Strategies for Practical Creativity

This fast-paced program allows individuals and/or teams to get out of “mental ruts,” and develop their creative problem-solving skills while working on an actual business challenge. Participants will walk away with a five-part problem-solving model, as well as a set of creativity tools which can be applied to future challenges. Topics include: getting out of mental ruts; determining your creative style; the five-phases of the creative process; using the technology of mind-mapping; overcoming Creativity Busters in your environment; fostering team innovation and creativity; selling your ideas.

SPECIALIZED NEEDS

The Opinion Survey: Gauging the Temperature of Your Organization

This organizational development process includes a unique qualitative process of gathering data about your organization or group, and a highly effective format for feedback and ongoing leadership development.

The Leadership Image Study: Turning Managers into Leaders

This leadership development process is a uniquely effective combination of qualitative data, test administration and one-on-one feedback and consultation. This process has proven highly effective for mid-to-upper level managers seeking to improve or further develop their leadership skills.

Outdoor Adventures: The Experiential Approach to Teambuilding

In conjunction with one of the country’s leading outdoor centers, Rice & Associates offers a day-long outdoor adventure focused on leadership development and team building. A blend of instruction, activity and discussion empowers both individuals and teams.

Executive Coaching: Strategic Tools for Effective Leadership

Executive Coaching is a custom-built, group and one-on-one developmental experience for the mid to senior-level executive who is preparing for a leap forward in leadership capacity, for a greater scope of responsibility or to move subordinates and the organization to a higher level of functioning.  Key components of this program include:  the ability to create a vision for the organization, team and self that will drive towards the highest stated goals; capacity to support middle-level managers in implementation of the strategy throughout the organization; opportunity to take out time for his/her own personal growth and in turn support that in subordinates.  Coachees receive instruction on how to incorporate what they have learned into action plans that support a collaborative coaching environment with their subordinates.  The process includes: clear agreements with the person being coached, a custom-designed package that typically includes a personality and style survey, 360-degree feedback instruments and telephone interviews with selected work colleagues; in-person feedback and goal-setting sessions; ongoing coaching utilizing a variety of media that could include:  telephone, in person, video, or on-line contact; on-site observations-shadowing can be included in the assessment or coaching phase; short and long-term strategies tied to the organization’s mission and objectives.

Leadership Versatility Index (LVI)/Leading Edge 360 Tool

The Leadership Versatility Index (LVI)/360 Tool is the next generation in 360 Feedback.  It is a comprehensive assessment that takes a positive approach and offers data on a scale that measures specific leadership behavior in categories as being “too much, too little or just right.”  Therefore, a behavior isn’t wrong; it may not be emphasized enough (Shortcoming) or emphasized too much (Overused Strength).  The two main Leadership Dimensions measured are Forceful versus Enabling Leadership and Strategic versus Operational Leadership. The remaining questions further qualify and round out the idea of being a “Versatile Leader” versus a “Lop-sided Leader.”  It provides both quantitative and qualitative information for a leader to determine what behaviors to “watch” and what behaviors are serving them well.  It enables the leader to absorb the feedback in a non-judgmental way and to devise actionable steps to become an even more Versatile Leader.  The LVI/360 Feedback Tool can be complemented by Executive Coaching sessions that support integration back into the workplace of what was uncovered and learned.

MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE INDICATOR TRAINING PROGRAMS

The MBTI: Assessment and Teambuilding, Levels I and II

Topics include: test feedback; analysis of your team based on learning styles, work styles and personality types; analysis of team roles; developing an effective team mix; conflict management and resolution based on Myers-Briggs types; temperament analysis and management styles; FIRO-B test assessment and feedback.

COMMUNICATION DYNAMICS

 Precision Communication Dynamics™

Precision Sales Dynamics™

Precision Customer Service Dynamics™

Topics include: effective influencing skills; sales dynamics; presentation skills; conversational styles; rapport-building; conflict management and resolution skills; negotiating styles; effective meeting management.

Conflict Resolution: Managing the Process

Topics include: what is difficult behavior? a three-part formula for delivering feedback; specific coping strategies for problem behaviors; the six-step formula for handling difficult conversations; coping with problem behaviors in meetings; the interplay of leadership styles and difficult behaviors.

Consultative Skills/Selling

In today’s economy, providing superior service is no longer optional – it is a survival skill. Organizations face stiffer competition, more knowledgeable customers, and tougher market conditions. The sales relationship is no longer a mere “number’s game” but rather an “accuracy game”, where building relationships and value are critical to the organization’s success.

Formulating and maintaining an exceptional image of service is integral to sustaining the internal/external customer relationship. Participants gain concrete step-by-step skills on the consultative skills/sales process.

Topics include: What is “consultative skills/sales”, behaviors that promote long-term customer relationships, identifying the true needs of each individual customer, managing perceptions and adapting to customer type, handling objections, matching communication styles, building and maintaining customer trust, recognizing and dealing with customer’s real needs, verbal and non-verbal communication skills, identifying the main causes of interpersonal communications breakdown, how to listen the customer into buying, developing clear and mutually acceptable outcomes, elements of short and long-term rapport, managing disagreement and differences in the consultative relationship, negotiating styles analysis, dealing with difficult customer behaviors and the dynamics of risk taking: the “when” and “how”.

The Art and Science of Negotiation

Topics include: the conceptual basis of negotiations; determining negotiating styles; effective influencing skills; conflict management and resolution; collaborative problem-solving: arriving at win/win solutions.

Results-Oriented Meetings: Structure and Process

This program is built around an innovative technology for running meetings which has reduced meeting time up to 50%. Topics include: mind-setting and outcomes; negotiating styles; the benefits of time constraints; encouraging and managing creative conflict; finding win/win solutions; dealing with problem behaviors; goal-setting and accountability.

Writing Your Way to Power in the Workplace

This program helps employees and managers become comfortable as they write memos, reports, proposals and letters that get results. You will learn: to “feed” your manager by communicating ideas that make both of you look good; to combat writer’s block with creativity exercises; to edit your own writing; to write persuasively; to deal with procrastination and make deadlines; to participate effectively in group writing projects.

CONSULTING/ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

 Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning is an organizational management activity that is used to set priorities, focus resources, strengthen operations, ensure employees and key stakeholders are working toward common goals, establish agreements around intended outcomes/results, as well as assess and adjust the organization’s direction in response to a changing environment.

Rice & Associates’ customizable process (2-4 months) for Strategic Planning is a disciplined effort that produces fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization is, who it serves, what it does, and why it does it, with a focus on the future, while providing specifics to evaluate and measure progress and success.  There are many different frameworks and methodologies for Strategic Planning and Management. Our methodology utilizes group and individual interviewing to assess the following:

1. Analysis of current internal and external environments.
2. Strategy formulation, where high level strategy is developed and a basic organization level strategic plan is documented.
3. Strategy execution, where the high-level plan is translated into more operational planning and action items.
4. Evaluation or sustainment/management phase, where ongoing accountability or refinement of strategic management issues occurs.

Executive/Life Coaching

Facilitation and Mediation

Process Consulting

OTHER PROGRAMS AND SERVICES

Strategic Thinking

Strategic Thinking helps all members of an organization, leaders and individual contributors alike, find balance between meeting today’s expectations and requirements and reaching for tomorrow’s possibilities by thinking and acting in a strategic way.  This one or two day interactive and customizable workshop provides concrete frameworks and methodologies for Strategic Thinking that matter today.  Topics include:

• Identify the purpose of strategy in the strategic hierarchy
• What it is and why we need to know how to incorporate Strategic Thinking into our work
• Learn how to ask Key Performance Questions (open-ended) that directly relate to business strategy
• Setting a strategy and objectives in line with organizational vision and mission
• Practice Strategic Thinking tools that are usable in the workplace
• Explore what holds people back from Strategic Thinking
• Manage the Strategic Change process
• Create individual and team agreements that utilize Strategic Thinking tools and how to practice accountability for incremental implementation.

Managing Stress With Ease

This program allows participants to develop individualized strategies for coping with change-related stress. Topics include: understanding the change model; internal and external causes of stress; determining favored coping styles; values and stress; developing varied skills to manage stress in the workplace.

Process Improvement: Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma, Statistical Process Control and Problem Solving

Lean Manufacturing is currently one of the leading process improvement methodologies worldwide. In an increasingly competitive global market, its customer and process based focus on reducing non-value added activities allows companies to provide superior quality products and services in a timelier manner with lower costs. The creative input of all employees is emphasized to improve workflow, productivity, efficiency, and workplace organization while reducing inventory and interruptions.

Six Sigma Basics

This one-day class gives students an overall view of the Six Sigma DMAIC/L process improvement methodology. The history, concepts, and vocabulary of Six Sigma are presented in an easy to understand manner to allow students to “Talk the Talk” of the Six Sigma world. The DMAIC/L tools and methods are then taught in a hands-on manner to begin to “Walk the Talk” using students’ examples for implementation of a Six Sigma project.

Six Sigma Green Belt Certification

Certified Six Sigma Green Belt (CSSGB) professionals are very much in demand in manufacturing and service industries. This course is a blend of 20 hours of on-line training and 24 hours of classroom instruction spread out over 10 – 14 weeks. A Six Sigma project with appropriate reporting is required to demonstrate the DMAIC/L methodology acquired from the course. Additional Green Belt certification requirements include passing all on-line modules’ post-tests and a final exam.

Lean Six Sigma

This 2-day course combines the power of the two leading process improvement methodologies – Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma. Lean Six Sigma’s customer and process focus leads to improved quality and on-time service while cutting costs through waste and variation reduction. There is a heavy emphasis on Value Stream Mapping to determine a company’s current and future state. Once you know where a process is and where you would like to be, a detailed plan can be developed to achieve the future state using the Lean Six Sigma tools. A factory simulation is used to apply the Lean Six Sigma tools learned in class to transform a non-Lean operation to a Lean one.

Lean Six Sigma for Leaders

The implementation of Lean Six Sigma in a traditional management setting often times results in limited success that is not sustainable over time; this leads companies to declare that “Lean Six Sigma doesn’t work here”. What’s needed is a new Lean Six Sigma management system to take full advantage of the powerful Lean Six Sigma tools and create a culture for continuous improvement. This course covers the different approaches for implementing Lean Six Sigma along with a “day-to-day” management system that will extend and sustain the considerable benefits of Lean Six Sigma. An overview of the Lean Six Sigma tools is also included.

Statistical Process Control

This course teaches basic statistical process control (SPC) using real world data. Tools and methods are taught in a hands-on manner, first using manual calculations and then expanding to excel and other software applications. Students will be taught the importance of correctly applying SPC for meaningful understanding of processes in order to make better decisions with proper data.

The Resilience Advantage Workshop™

Resilience skills for clear choices, optimal performance and innovative action. Based on more than 20 years of HeartMath’s published, peer reviewed research on science and resilience, the Resilience Advantage program provides a powerful skill set and state of the art technology to prepare you to thrive in a fast-paced world of complexity, challenge and opportunity. Benefits are as follows: increased situational awareness in relationships, meetings and projects; enhanced ability to focus, process information and solve problems; heightened creativity and innovation; expanded ability to handle challenging clients and situations; broadened access to intuition for fast, effective decision making on complex issues; increased regenerative sleep, vitality and resilience; and reduced stress, worry and fatigue. This program also provides participants the opportunity to experience real time feedback through state of the art Inner Balance or emWave technology to monitor and sustain results. Can be delivered in two-hour modules, two half-days or one full day. The US Navy, hospital systems and Fortune 500 companies have used this best-in-class program worldwide.

The Resilience Advantage Coaching™

A customized one-on-one program for wired, tired and stressed leaders who need to consistently bring their “A” game to work and life. The focus is on operating with optimal effectiveness in a rapidly changing business climate while leading in a high-risk environment that requires the ability to focus, be in the flow, process information quickly and make fast, impactful decisions in challenging situations. Coaching also leverages tapping into “on the move” innovation and problem solving while staying resilient and agile over the long haul.

Train-the-Trainer Programs

Specific programs are available in a “Train-the-Trainer” format. Contact Rice & Associates for details.