TRANSITION MATTERS® - A Human Resources Group

Building Effective Managers and Leaders

Our staff has experience in all arenas of the human resources field such as employee and labor relations; staffing and recruitment; supervisory, performance management and communications training. We also have staff trained as facilitators in strategic planning and leading focus groups. We can customize to meet your individual organizational needs.

First Stage: Pre-Management

Is Management For Me?
This workshop is designed to assist participants with making the decision of whether or not to choose a management career path and take on the more difficult road of leading people. It explores the rewards and drawbacks that are inherent in positions of management, and helps employees, through situational activities, decide if this is an area where they can find satisfaction and success. It introduces leadership competencies and qualities required for management positions and give participants an opportunity to self-assess against these competencies. Participants explore the questions of "Am I cut out for this?" and "If this is advancement, why aren't I enjoying myself?" Through a daylong workshop participants can take the first critical step in deciding if management is the right path.

Leadership 21: Everyone's Responsibility
This new leadership approach and demand mean that employees must step up as "corporate citizens," and be leaders within their own work areas in a variety of ways. It starts with looking at yourself and your current leadership competency level, as well as your thinking style and behaviors. It allows participants to explore and apply the ideas of community building and preparing for leadership opportunities. This workshop is interactive, supplemented with video depiction of major points and provides for self-assessment as well as group exploration and discussion.

Measuring UP! Emotional Intelligence
This workshop is designed to introduce the participant to emotional intelligence and to develop related competencies for direct and immediate application. The workshop materials and activities will allow the participants to define the general concept of emotional intelligence and the specific competencies that one must employ to model effective emotional intelligence.

The material presents a synopsis of the background research conducted and offers practical suggestions for ways to apply these findings in all areas of life. It presents for exploration, discussion and application, material based on the research linking emotions and social skills to ultimate professional and personal success.

It is considered a primer on the subject and is developed with exercises and activities on how to put emotional intelligence to use in each participant's life. The intention behind the material is for use as a guide in which to begin a developmental plan to move ahead and reach the full potential available to each of us.

FISH!
A series of workshops built around the world famous Seattle Fish Market philosophy. It will, through activities, inspire managers to create an environment that is more interesting, playful, and energetic for themselves and their employees. It centers around the philosophy to Play, Make Their Day, Be There, and Choose Your Attitude! Dynamic, inspirational, energizing and mobilizing are just some of the terms used by managers and employees alike whom have attended. Check out how FISH! can change your team, department or organization. It inspires participants to create a more interesting, playful, and energetic workplace. It centers around attitude, accountability, energy, creativity, integrity, and trust. Perfect for teambuilding, strategic partnering, change management, leadership development and customer service.

The Art of Listening
Listening is the most difficult communication skill to master. Through a series of exercises, videos and an interactive learning environment, you will start the process to improve communication and relationships.

Communicating for Team Effectiveness
Knowing your communication style will help you understand not only yourself but also others on your team. Learn how to communicate better so that the entire team works in a cohesive, participative decision-making environment.

Understanding Yourself and Others (MBTI)
Get insight into understanding your behavior and others so that you can effectively build better relationships. Take the Myers-Briggs Temperament Instrument (MBTI) and learn your Type. It will give you a better understanding of yourself and others.

Second Stage: Supervisory/Management

Managing Your Staff - Human Resources Management Responsibilities
The most difficult task in today's Federal environment is being a supervisor. HOW you manage your staff will impact directly on organizational results. You will be held increasingly accountable by Congress, the courts, and the American public for adhering to sound management practices that reflect merit system values. This workshop will provide the foundation and the tools for making knowledgeable HRM decisions.

Knowing the rules and regulations will assist supervisors and managers in managing their staff on a day-to-day basis. This three day workshop will cover the merit system principles, performance management, poor performance and conduct issues, employee rights and ethics, and administrative issues such as leave, grievances and EEO complaints. In addition to the workbook, participants will be provided with an HRM Tool Box that contains checklists, sample worksheets, and a quick reference guide.

Merit System Principles
Are your supervisors being accused of pre-selection? Are EEO complaints and grievances on the rise? Do the supervisors in your agency know what the nine Merit System Principles are and that conversely there are twelve Prohibited Personnel Practices?

Your supervisors and managers can:

complete a workshop that provides a safety net for them and for your organization;
leave equipped to better handle their daily personnel management requirements; and
make personnel decisions that will reduce the potential for grievances and EEO complaints.

The GAO has found that the majority of supervisors and managers are not familiar with the merit system principles that are the foundation of all their human capital decisions. This half-day interactive workshop covers the merit system principles and the prohibited personnel practices through case studies and discussion.

Measuring up for Interpersonal Effectiveness - Emotional Intelligence
This workshop is designed to strengthen the interpersonal skills for supervisors and managers that build strategic partnerships and improve organizational performance. It will provide an understanding of the competencies that are necessary for a supervisor/manager in building successful relationships with their staff. The new yardstick, according to Daniel Goleman, is about distributing the dimensions within that yardstick, as it relates to supervisory success, in a new manner. It is about recognizing that traditional management and leadership competencies are not sufficient in and of themselves. It is about acknowledging that transformational leaders of today understand the need for incorporating the traditional competencies with ones that help you excel in developing excellent working relationships, and in guiding, inspiring, coaching and motivating people. For workplace success to be a reality, the manager and leader of today and tomorrow must also refine another kind of intelligence, beyond reason and logic. An intelligence that--if we could learn to access it--could become nothing short of a touchstone to greater collaboration, a higher level of influence with others, more productivity and effectiveness.

Meeting the Challenge of Performance Management
One of the most important functions of a manager is to continuously improve performance of staff members. It is also the most difficult. This workshop covers the aspects of performance improvement, effective feedback and coaching and developing a learning organization that is strategically aligned to your organization's mission.

Dealing with difficult staff members can also be a very draining, emotional experience. Learn how to give effective feedback and place an employee on a performance improvement plan to achieve your goal of having a productive employee.

Coaching and Mentoring for Success
An effective manager can and will have a positive impact on those employees that are seeking career development. Part of being a coach is to understand and motivate staff. In this workshop you will learn the communication skills to become a more effective coach and increase productivity of your staff. An effective manager can and will have a positive impact on those employees that are seeking career development. An organization also can "grow" its own staff to become tomorrow's leaders. A mentoring program can be developed and established for your organization, to would include workshops, that helps develop your managers into effective and inspirational leaders.

Building Trust and Relationships
Key to the foundation of any work environment is the ability of the organization to create trust in the daily lives of its employees. To foster a positive change, it is essential to communicate and build the relationships within the organization. Employees are experiencing emotions that should be acknowledged. They need to be led through the "chaotic" period so that upon entering their "new beginning," they emerge as productive individuals with their self-esteem intact.

Creating a Resilient and Effective Workforce
"There are two ways of exerting one's strength. One is pushing down, the other is pulling up." - Booker T. Washington. The words of Booker T. Washington are resounding throughout government organizations as the benefits of preparing a workforce that is resilient and effective are realized.

This workshop explores how to create a learning environment that supports Booker T. Washington's exhortation of "pulling one up." It also looks at how to link mission accomplishment, employee growth and ongoing development. Using tools, developmental techniques and mentoring methodologies, the participant will learn how to challenge and develop higher level critical thinking skills that will help individuals thrive and the organization succeed. They will learn to support, inspire and build upon their own competencies, thereby modeling the behavior necessary for transformation t a resilient, flexible and effective workforce. It also demonstrates the value of using an Individual Development Plan (IDP) effectively to improve individual performance. Supervisors will learn to use strategic alignment as an effective approach to the challenges and opportunities inherent in the ever-changing work environment. Participants learn how to use effective career development to help prepare a flexible and responsive workforce. Using the positive energy generated with a mindset of flexibility, the participants will also develop approaches that will prepare them personally to meet the challenges of tomorrow, and will again offer the modeling of behavior desired in a flexible and resilient workforce.

Investing in the Future: What's New, What's Next, What Matters
According to a 2001 GAO report to Congress, "...inattentiveness to such personnel management issues as how federal workers are recruited, trained and rewarded has led to a government-wide risk, that urgently needs greater attention to ensure maximum government performance and accountability for the benefit of the American public." The report added "strategic human capital management," to a list of government programs that the GAO considers to be at "high risk" of mismanagement.

This course is designed to present current thinking on critical human capital issues as defined in the above report and to examine how they may be affecting an agency now and in the future. It provides an opportunity to examine options and develop steps to help avert the GAO predicted crisis and achieve a "return on investment" for each current and future agency employee.

As part of addressing human capital issues, participants will also tackle the unique challenges inherent in managing the new and upcoming workforce. With the cost of hiring new employees continuing to climb, how does an agency ensure the highest return and provide the kind of organization where employees want to stay. This course explores these issues and prepares the participant for meeting the challenges of managing generations X, I, and D, and promoting ways that different generations can use to maximize their productivity. Participants will develop an understanding around new workforce concepts by utilizing tools and techniques for addressing workforce needs and organizational requirements. It takes participants on a short journey to the next generation and looks at how to best manage and retain these individuals.

Making Meetings Work
One of the biggest complaints from employees is the amount of time wasted in unproductive or unnecessary meetings. How can team leaders, supervisors and managers create an environment that enables participants to identify problems, generate out of the box thinking, make decisions, and build commitment? It requires effective decision-making, the balancing of priorities, using conflict management skills, as well as good planning and communication skills. This half-day workshop will provide the foundation, tools and steps for conducting effective meetings.

Power of Teamwork
Learn how to harness the power of an effective team. How do you select the team based on their individual strengths and weaknesses? How do you build individual and collective commitment? How do you create trust? How do you value the differences and how do you motivate and strengthen the team? Most importantly, how do you involve the team to effectively problem solve and make decisions?

MBTI and Team Building
Our trained MBTI facilitators will conduct a workshop that includes the MBTI and will show how effective it is to understand each others' MBTI to build and foster teamwork in your organization.

Using Feedback to Enhance Organizational Success
Have you ever wished you were more adept at giving immediate feedback both constructive and instructive...or in providing regular, routine updates to a staff member? The giving, receiving, accepting and using of constructive feedback can be a critical key to organizational success. Unfortunately, due to lack of development or interest, it is a key that is more often used to lock a door rather than to unlock performance potential. This is true primarily because most individuals view feedback as only one-way communication, thereby choosing and using language that inhibits responses and stifles constructive dialogue. This perspective limits the possibilities available in feedback when used as a two-way communication process.

This workshop focuses on the competencies needed for feedback, the critical elements of effective exchanges, the variety of communication styles you can encounter, as well as the benefits of effective two-way feedback. It also allows participants an opportunity to use a self-assessment instrument and to prepare an action plan for development in this critical management and communication area. Techniques and tools in the art of giving and receiving feedback are covered and situational application is used to ensure the participant's success.

Third Stage: Executive

Leading Through Emotional Intelligence: The Transformational Leader
This workshop is designed for the senior level executive. The role the transformational leader plays within an organization is critical to the organization's effectiveness. The more effective a leader is at attracting others to follow, the more efficient the workplace and workforce becomes. According to Daniel Goleman, in Emotional Intelligence at Work and Primal Leadership, such leaders don't order or direct; they inspire. They are committed to nurturing relationships with those they lead. The single most important factor is not IQ, advanced degrees, or technical expertise, but emotional intelligence.

This course presents the concept of the transformational leader from both an organizational and individual perspective. It will cover organizational culture, structure, change, communication, and transformational leadership competencies (emotional intelligence competencies that contribute to the success of the leader and the organization). It is designed to provide attendees opportunities to examine, assess, demonstrate, and reflect on their understanding of a leader's influence on organizational culture and its operational components. In addition to enhancing the students' understanding of the underlying concepts, the course is designed to provide participants with an increased awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses and to demonstrate how those attributes affect subordinates' attitudes and performance and, in turn, organizational effectiveness.

Situational Leadership©
What is a leader? Is a leader someone who is "born" with a special set of skills that allows him or her to attract followers? Is it someone who has nurtured in a leadership environment? Is it someone who studied to learn the "skills" of leadership? Is it someone who, when thrust into a leadership role as a result of circumstances, behaves in a way that others admire? Is it some or all of these?

Every minute of every day presents each of us, those in positions of authority as well as those in subordinate roles, with a multitude of opportunities to behave in leader-like ways. Most of us, however, prefer to address many of these leadership opportunities with the same "leadership tools." In reality, each situation is different and may require the leader to use different tools than the one he or she is comfortable using. How a person in a position of authority responds to the myriad of situations she or he is confronted with everyday goes a long way in determining whether their employees are following out of respect or because they have to. Why do your employees choose to follow you?

What are your favorite tools (i.e., your leadership style)? How many tools do you have in your leadership tool box? This introduction to the major components of the Situational Leadership© model will be presented through a variety of instructional methodologies including, but not limited to: self-assessment, situational analysis, media analysis, case study, lecture, and collaborative learning.

Executive Coaching - Follow-up to Situational Leadership
Transition Matters® proposes to support and supplement the Situational Leadership training provided in the Situational Leadership classes by providing each of the attendees with personal one-on-one coaching for one half hour per week on a bi-weekly basis for a six month period to assist them in:

Analysis of employee readiness in work/life situations involving members of their own work group;
Self analysis of their leadership responses to work/life situations; and
Use of the Situational Leadership Staff Member Readiness Rating and Manager Rating Scales.

The Readiness Scale instruments are practical tools designed to help the leader apply the situational leadership theory learned in the training session to the real world. If used properly they can clarify differences of opinion with regard to both the leaders' and employees' understandings regarding organizational objectives and job responsibilities. Each student will be given hands on coaching on how to use this instrument with is or her employees.

Leading - "The Way"
This workshop is designed to be conducted one day a month for a six-month period. The target audience is mid and Senior Level Management.

"Thinking effectively about leadership will not be enough to prepare men and women for leadership. In order to strengthen the relationship between ideas and actions students must be presented with learning situations both in the classroom and in other settings. Only by combining formal classroom learning with direct leadership experience, and the opportunity to learn by observing others, can students integrate their development into meaningful leadership competencies." The University of Richmond, Jepson School of Leadership

Each of us has our own ideas as to what comprises leadership behavior. Therefore, there are numerous attributes and behaviors that could be perceived to be leader-like. Many of us have attended lecture based leadership courses in which these issues were "discussed." In each of these courses we may have learned something "about" leadership. The amount that we "learned" may have been quantitatively measured via some testing mechanism. However, what we really learned is what we now demonstrate through our daily actions and behaviors. This workshop is designed to provide the attendees with practical experiences intended to nurture leadership attitudes and behaviors. The experiences are based on competencies identified in the leadership research. Leadership research has recognized that most effective leaders are lifelong learners; seek to serve others; act as mentors; experiment and take risks; etc. The course will provide the student with situations that will require him or her to adopt leadership attitudes and/or exhibit leadership behaviors.

Much like a typical lecture based workshop, this workshop intends to teach or reinforce leadership skills. However, it differs from a traditional classroom workshop in that the lessons are presented as practical opportunities. The source is designed to allow the students to teach themselves about leadership by encouraging personal reflection, by observing others and by reporting on their personal and public observations. Each participant will be expected to read assigned articles, complete additional assignments between modules and maintain a journal throughout the six-month program.