Tag Archives: communication

The Connection between Style, Productivity, & Morale: Why it is Essential to Understand and Respond to Different Styles

 

How often do you get frustrated or upset as a result of how others have delivered their message or treated you? What about the times you’ve tried to communicate your point, but just don’t seem to get through to your audience? What’s the price you’ve paid for these disconnects in communications? How has it affected relationships and collaboration? What would be the benefit if it improved?

Anyone who has ever worked with others knows people approach situations differently. At times, these differences can create fresh perspectives, balance, and innovative solutions. Understanding personal style, and acting on that knowledge, can lead to improved performance, productivity, and morale.

Unfortunately, the converse can also be true. Often the differences in style lead to misunderstanding, mistrust, and frustration. This can then lead to lowered productivity and undesirable outcomes. Consider the following short (true) example:

I was requested by a client to coach an employee who was “having issues” with a team mate. As I sat down with the employee, something immediately became obvious… he was a matter of fact, direct, results driven guy. He acted quickly in an effort to hit his goals. His team mate, on the other hand, was relatively quiet, less direct, and seemed to take the words and actions very personally.

May not seem a big issue, but in this instance, they were required to collaborate on business opportunities. The bottom line… misinterpretations of styles and lack of insight into how to work with one another drove the two apart and cost the organization a deal worth more than $1M.

While this scenario might be extreme, conflicts, difficulty communicating with others, and less than optimal working relationships, are an everyday occurrence.

Your ability to understand your own characteristics/style, as well as those around you, can help you:

1.      Identify personal tendencies

2.      Adapt for improved communications and interpersonal relationships

3.      Effectively meet the needs of yourself and others

4.      Understand and respond to information and interactions more appropriately

5.      Get things accomplished!

For many of us, it’s likely that you’ve been using information about social style on an intuitive level for many years. Formalizing that understanding is a next step to taking actions.

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Author: Sue Cooney

Check out Sue’s upcoming Webinar – “Foundations of Style: Behavior and the Bottom Line“ – premiering November 19, 2009 at 2PM (EST)

Professional Development in a Technological Age

Has your training budget been red-lined? Most companies, schools and non-profits are looking at their training and travel budgets and wonder what happened.

E-Learning and software available today makes it possible to deliver on-site employee training programs more cost-effective than face2face training. Company of Experts.net has the expertise to deliver, great software and outstanding content to engage employees at a time that works for employees and for organizations.

Whether you have cut back or cut out your professional development programs – you may be left wondering how do I effectively manage now?   Lack of quality professional development training can be a serious and expensive problem. One direct and immediate impact may be the high cost of turnover and the cost of recruiting and retraining new employees now replaces the fund used to train and maintain your current talent.

With curriculum designed for adult learners delivered on-line in real-time or at the employees and the organizations schedule with outstanding facilitators, the learning is timely, effective and cost-efficient.  In this new era we are all required to do more and to be more independent, communicate with people in other parts of the globe and be part of the “team”. Our programs include time management, communication, customer service, motivating employees, appreciating culture.

Can soft skills really save money?  How much time do you spend with the same employees going over the same or similar issues. Perhaps these employees are great “technically” but are their interpersonal relationships slowing down productivity? Smart companies are taking advantage of the new professional development opportunities appealing to their employees desire to increase their knowledge, skills and ability to improve their working relationships.

Company of Experts has a solid set of workshops and webinars online and we can customize your professional development program for you.

New Department Chair – You’ve Got the Stuff!

A quick Google search and I found many hits for department chair. Most of these “hits” were job descriptions from a number of colleges and universities. Most start job descriptions include the statement. “The position of Chair is important and one of the most difficult in any college environment.” If you are a Department Chair this is no surprise.

Some chairs are elected and others appointed and the job comes with built in term limits. What is certain is that many are unprepared for the move from greatest educator in the classroom to the new role of go between.

Reading some of the job descriptions is like reading the script for a CBS show titled CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.  Only a forensic sleuth could wind their way through these job descriptions and know how it happened and who did it before big reveal.

The Chair position is one of great importance and sounds impressive to the lay person. To the Chair, it is a personal journey of participation and excitement as well as the opportunity to develop leadership skills. Neither faculty nor management, the department chairs that I have known usually share the feeling of being overwhelmed.

Our new Show DCI: Department Chair Institute

Solving the impossible

Scene of the Crime

Our gullible and innocent faculty member is either selected or elected to the position of Department Chair. The DC is an honor as the faculty member is recognized and respected by their peers and the college leadership.  This is a spring rite of passage for the new chair. They are welcomed into the new position. Their friends and family are so excited that they have been recognized for their hard work. It is a glorious time of excitement for the New Year. As graduation fades and the faculty begin their summer journey, the new chair realizes that summer for them is no longer a time of renewal, of travel, no opportunity to learn, to research or to write. This is the time for scheduling classes, hiring faculty, and there is usually a budget to begin to understand and maybe, just maybe program review or accreditation responsibilities.

The Investigation Begins

From an actual job description found on the web “The Dean ….will listen sympathetically to suggestions about such [training] opportunities. This is a major shift in the drama. The new chair isn’t automatically provided training to do their job? How, What and Who?

From the start, this DC will identify the evidence at the scene of the crime (no budget), hit the high tech lab (also known as business services) and apply the most scientific techniques used today by DC’s to crack this case also known as building a team.  This is definitely for someone who likes to learn on the job.

  • Communication
  • Motivation
  • Hiring Faculty
  • Managing Time

The Finale

I will admit that I have never been a chair but I have worked with Department Chairs for nearly 30 years. My knowledge comes from these department chairs as well as those who have attended the Department Chair Institute. All good employees who wanted to do a service for the college.

Foundations of Style: Behavior and the Bottom Line – webinar

Webinar: Foundations of Style: Behavior and the Bottom Line

Location: Webinar – Online

Date: November 19, 2009

Start Time: 2:00 PM (EST)

Register Now: Click here

Description: Using the Social Styles model as the foundation, this workshop provides an introduction to four personal tendencies: Analytical, Driver, Amiable, and Expressive. Through this awareness, participants are more prepared to understand, and adjust, when interacting with others.

While it is true that “we are who we are”, the ability to adapt our style of communicating and interacting is essential for achieving the results we desire. Learn More>

Jeanie Cockell

Jeanie Cockell Profile Picture

Dr. Jeanie Cockell, is president of a consulting company based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Jeanie is a dynamic facilitator who is known for her creativity, sense of humour, sensitivity, and ability to get diverse groups to work collaboratively together. She is a leader in Appreciative Inquiry as an organizational and community development process, a research methodology and foundation for fostering collaboration in groups. Jeanie has been certified by Company of Experts.net as both an Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator and an appreciative Inquiry Facilitator Training (AIFT) Trainer.

Since 1999 Jeanie has worked as an educational and organizational consultant with organizations in the private, public and social-profit sectors. She has extensive experience in facilitating, presenting, training, coaching, conflict resolution, leading and collaboratively designing strategies for individuals, groups, organizations and communities to build positive futures and to respond effectively to change.

Her background includes teaching, presenting and delivering workshops in a variety of areas: appreciative inquiry; team building; leadership; diversity; mathematics; adult learning; instructional skills, planning and design; instructor and program evaluation; and facilitator training. As well Jeanie has had formal leadership roles at Vancouver Community College as Mathematics Department Head, Associate Dean; at the Institute of Indigenous Government where she consulted as Dean in the senior executive team; and at the British Columbia Ministry of Advanced Education as Project Officer leading a large provincial project.

Her consulting work is based on the expertise that she developed and continues to enhance as an educator and leader, as well as the theoretical/research background she developed in doing her Masters research on “Power and Leadership: A Perspective from College Women” (1993) and her Doctoral  research on “Making Magic: Facilitating Collaborative Processes (2005).

Jeanie has a BA in Mathematics, an MA in Higher Education and an EdD in Educational Leadership and Policy all from the University of British Columbia. She is also an Instructional Skills Facilitator Trainer, Gender and Diversity Facilitator Trainer, Sociocultural Competency Trainer, and Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator Trainer.

Publishing includes:

  • Cockell, J. (1999). Power and leadership: A perspective from college women. In Gender and Diversity: Facilitator Guide, 115 – 120. Victoria, BC: Ministry of Advanced Education and Centre for Curriculum Transfer and Technology.
  • Cockell, J. (2006). Making magic: Facilitating collaborative processes. In Research in Action, Proceedings of the Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education (Atlantic Region) conference.
  • Cockell, J. contributor to Reed, J. (2007). Appreciative Inquiry: Research for Change (p. 143, 144, 145). Sage Publishers.
  • Cockell, J. (2007). Making Magic Doing Research. In AI Practitioner: The International Journal of AI Best Practice, 47 – 48, November 2007.
  • Cockell, J. (2008). Appreciative Inquiry. In Four Arrows Don Trent Jacobs (Ed.), The Authentic Dissertation: Alternative Ways of Knowing, Research, and Representation (pp.201 – 205). NY,NY: Routledge.
  • Cockell, J. (2010). The AI Circle. In AI Practitioner: The International Journal of AI Best Practice, 43 – 46, February 2010.

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Specialties:

  • Appreciative Inquiry
  • Building Teams
  • Change Management
  • Collaborative Learning
  • Communication
  • Conflict Resolution
  • Developing cultural inclusion in teaching and training
  • Diversity in the Workplace
  • Facilitating
  • Great Teaching or Great Teachers Seminars
  • Instructional Skills Workshops
  • Leadership Training and Development
  • Organizational Development
  • Participatory Learning
  • Presentation Skills Workshops (PSW)
  • Spirit in the Workplace
  • Strategic Planning
  • Teacher or Trainer training and development
  • Visioning and Futuring
  • Women in Leadership

Cheri Torres

Cheri-Torres1

What might be possible if community and organization members were fully engaged and using their strengths to collectively achieve shared visions?

This is the question that motivates Cheri Torres and has her focused on collaboration. Given current global challenges, Cheri uses strengths-based organizational design practices to help clients respond effectively to increasing levels of complexity in their environments and growing demand for innovation and change. Her strategy is to expand collaborative capacity in communities and organizations using Appreciative Inquiry, Sociotechnical Systems Design, and Experiential Learning.  She does this by partnering with her clients to intentionally design workplace environments, multi-stakeholder conversations, organizational systems and individual and team training to maximize value for all stakeholders.

Her experience has taught her that systems and events that are intentionally designed for collaboration elicit our inherent collaborative capacity, regardless of our differences in background, views, or values. Expanding that capacity through lessons and intentional practice leads to increasing competence in thinking and working together with joy and creativity, resulting in sustainable innovation and ever-evolving excellence.

Cheri believes people are capable of extraordinary contributions when given the opportunity; consequently, she works with organization and community leadership to design for full engagement, and she provides strategies for people to expand their capacity to take advantage of new opportunities.  Her training and coaching programs are uniquely designed for immediate and long-term impact, focusing on changing workplace practices rather than people.

Cheri has worked in education, healthcare, manufacturing, service industries, government, military, and community services thoughout the United States as well as in Mexico, Canada, Ireland, and Great Britain. She has trained thousands in the practice of Appreciative Inquiry and Experiential Learning and she has authored or co-authored numerous articles and books, including Dynamic Relationships: Unleashing the Power of Appreciative Inquiry in Daily Living, The Appreciative Facilitator, and From Conflict to Collaboration. In 1996 she co-designed a patented, award winning, innovative portable challenge course training using Appreciative Inquiry, which is used in hundreds of schools, community youth programs, military training programs, and corporations around the world.

Cheri holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology with a specialization in Collaborative Learning from the University of Tennessee. She also holds an MBA, a Masters in Transpersonal Psychology, Level II certification in Spiral Dynamics Integral, and training in the Sociotechnical Systems Design Process.

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Specialties:

  • Appreciative Inquiry
  • Appreciative Process
  • Collaborative Decision Making
  • Communication
  • Conflict Resolution
  • Leadership
  • Learning Styles
  • Management Development
  • Myer-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
  • Service Learning
  • Team Building

Barbara Kerr

Barbara Kerr

Barbara A. Kerr has worked in higher education as a faculty member, an administrator, a consultant, and an executive coach. As part of her consulting services, she has assisted three Washington State college boards in hiring their college presidents, and has facilitated the hiring of many other college administrators and faculty. Currently, Barbara is the principal of a Seattle-based consulting firm that provides coaching and consulting services to government, non-profits, higher education, and business organizations.

Barbara has completed a post-graduate training course as a Master Certified Executive Coach and is a certified administrator of the EQ-i, an emotional intelligence inventory, as well as a number of other assessments to assist individuals, teams, and organizations in moving forward. She has developed a unique dual coaching process that provides individual coaching for executives while at the same improves and enhances the work of the executive team as a whole. She has developed expertise in working with individuals and teams to assist them in clarifying their values, creating a vision in alignment with those values, building a plan of action, and supporting the implementation and assessment of the plan. She has also developed an interactive board game to assist clients in better understanding the concepts of emotional intelligence, as well as how to enhance their own competencies. She is the author of several books, including “Read All Your Life” and co-author of “You Can Choose Your Own Life.”

Her clients have included many two and four-year colleges and universities, Center for Information Services, Commission on Colleges and Universities, United States Navy, the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, the Washington Educational Leadership Association, Olympic Mental Health Associates, Washington Mutual Bank, the Charles Moriarty Foundation, and a number of individual executives and administrators. Barbara has a Ph.D and an M.A. in English from Temple University.

Specialties:

  • Accreditation and program assessment
  • Board Training and Development
  • Chief Executive Officer evaluation
  • Coach and Counseling
  • Communication
  • Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace
  • Employee Development
  • Environmental Scanning
  • Executive Coaching
  • Facilitation
  • Interpersonal Relationships
  • Leadership Coaching
  • Leadership Development
  • Life Coaching
  • Meetings
  • Strategic Planning
  • Team Building
  • Team Development
  • Values Clarification
  • Visioning and Futuring

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