Individual Programs

Accelerating High-Performing Virtual Teams is a highly interactive program conducted virtually using the Adobe Connect platform. It is designed to equip virtual teams with the key skills and tools to enhance their leadership and team effectiveness.

Because today’s teams are dispersed geographically, sustaining high-performance levels, continuously improving, and staying “engaged” is incredibly challenging. In addition, while the attributes of high-performing teams are the same for all types of teams, several key distinctions must be considered for virtual teams to achieve high performance. These include challenges to focus and flexibility, using technological tools, and engaging virtually, given the lack of “live” face-to-face interaction on virtual teams. This program equips team leaders and members to accelerate performance in the virtual environment.

Accelerating High-Performing Virtual Teams is delivered in four phases:

Phase 1: Team assessment of current strengths and opportunities
Phase 2: Team “virtual” observation with feedback
Phase 3: Four team skill-building modules:

• Active Listening
• Assertion
• Conflict/Trust
• Decision Making

Phase 4: A 90-day, post-learning assessment that measures the team’s progress and effectiveness.

Additional team coaching and consulting support can be provided through the Guttman Leadership Institute to enhance continuous learning and development.

Learning Objectives

• Assess current “as is” virtual-team effectiveness through an online survey and real-time observation of team members.
• Understand the skills, accelerators, and stallers of high-performing virtual teams.
  Identify the actions and behaviors necessary to leverage the skills/accelerators and mitigate the stallers.
• Practice critical skills, including virtual meeting facilitation, assertion, active listening, decision-making, building trust, and resolving conflict in a virtual environment.

In today’s organizations, work gets done through teams. You are not likely to succeed unless team members are aligned, accountable for one another’s success, fully engaged, and competent to act. But no team can operate at peak performance from Day One, though you can accelerate the process. This highly intensive and interactive two-day program is exclusively for entire teams and is designed to quickly move your team along the path to high performance. Team members will learn to diagnose their team’s behavior by mastering the “Team Development Wheel.” This will enable them to assess the team’s “as is accurate,” identify the blockers preventing them from attaining peak performance, and develop a shared understanding of—and commitment to—a game-changing strategy for team success. This hands-on program deals with structured exercises and “live” team issues. Participants will begin redefining their business relationships and ways of working individually and as a team.

Learning Objectives

During the session, participants will:

• Understand the various stages through which a team progresses on its journey to high performance
• Assess precisely where their team is positioned on the “Team Development Wheel”
• Identify their individual and collective strengths
• Look for potential opportunities—and derailers—as they strive to raise performance levels
• Build strong relationships and greater trust among one another
• Uncover and replace negative “stories” that have been impeding their ability to work together
• Reduce blind spots that negatively impact performance
• Formalize productive ways of working together as a team
• Plan the next steps to continue the momentum built up during the session

The “Coach Yourself to Win” program is designed to help senior leaders throughout an organization develop to their full potential by providing them with the capabilities to take responsibility for their growth and development. As organizations attempt to green the next generation of leaders in times of significant constraints, this program equips future leaders to take command of their careers and develops bench strength throughout the organization.

Guttman’s self-coaching approach allows organizations to develop talent continuously while setting the organization up to win big in the future. A self-coaching program is a cost-effective way to develop talent.

Participants will be introduced to Guttman’s dynamic 7-step self-coaching process. They will learn and apply each step, from determining their self-coachability to setting their Intention, from soliciting and analyzing feedback to developing an action plan and tracking progress. This will give them a clear, proven pathway to personal and professional success.

Based on the executive-coaching model that Guttman has used with senior managers for more than 30 years, the process has been adapted for anyone who wants to take his or her career to the next level. The self-coaching process is featured in the book Coach Yourself to Win by Howard M. Guttman.

Learning Objectives

At the end of this program, participants will have the following:

• Determined whether or not they are self-coachable
• Clarified, set, and committed to a realistic Intention related to increasing their impact organizationally
• Examined and shifted the “stories” that have kept them from realizing their full potential as business leaders
• Selected a Guide and Circle of Support to assist them in achieving their goal
• Employed specialized tools to gather and analyze feedback on their current performance
• Created a Personal Development Plan based on the input
• Learned how to monitor progress as their move toward their goal and get back on track if they derail

For managers, one of the most difficult challenges is resolving “people problems,” especially when a direct report’s performance is off the mark. The search for cause often devolves into pointing the finger at the employee; rarely does the manager hold up the mirror to reflect on his or her performance or to look for causes of underperformance that lie in the work environment.

This session introduces participants to a systematic process for finding the causes of performance deviations and planning for corrective action. For performance issues that require employees to change their behavior, managers will gain the coaching skills to become adept at having difficult conversations with employees.

This highly interactive session combines concept briefings, practical exercises, and hands-on application. Participants will come away able to coach effectively; contract with employees for creating goals and changing behavior; and, when needed, involve HR in the process.

Learning Objectives

By the end of “Coaching for High Performance,” participants will have learned how to:

• Use Guttman’s “Performance-Analysis Tool” to find the cause of performance deviations.
• Identify and eliminate environmental factors impeding the achievement of performance goals.
• Write SMART goals for those they supervise.
• Give and receive clear, specific, depersonalized feedback.
• Use the Guttman Coaching Model to carry out a constructive dialogue with employees.
• Determine the next steps in moving toward higher on-job performance.

Unleashing Your Creative Potential

Doing what you always did gives you what you always got. And that’s no longer enough in today’s business world, where the bar is continually being raised. An organization’s ability to adapt, innovate, and anticipate requires it to be peopled, on all levels, with creative thinkers.

The inability to unleash your potential creative hinges on how you view yourself. This program starts with the premise that everyone can come up with original, innovative ideas and combine existing ideas in fresh ways.

We’ll begin by examining the assumptions you make about what creative thinking is and what blocks it. We read the self-limiting stories that hold you back and how to replace them with confidence-building strategies to increase your ability to innovate. Whether predominantly left- or right-brained, participants will be better able to access their latent creativity and tap into the other, less-used side of their brain. Through a series of experiential and engaging exercises designed to take you out of your comfort zone, you will begin to approach reality in an entirely new and different way.

Concept briefings by the program facilitator will introduce thought-changing techniques. Then, you will practice and apply these to on-job situations requiring creative solutions. You will be introduced to a pragmatic, creative process: a step-by-step approach for guiding participants to greater creativity, from idea incubation and generation to planning actions that can be taken daily to open up the imagination within.

Learning Objectives

• Determine how you currently view your ability to think creatively
• Identify the approach you use most often when you try to innovate
• Identify the roadblocks that prevent you from being as creative as you might be and develop a strategy to break through them
• Master the process and acquire the skills to work more creatively, either alone or as a team member
• Plan and commit to concrete steps for becoming a more creative thinker on the job

Leaders are paid to get results through others. But how can a leader ensure that his or her direct reports are willing and able to give their best? Faced with greater-than-ever workplace diversity—age, gender, race, values, and much more—today’s successful leaders have learned to adjust their behavior to elicit the best performance from everyone around them. They are “player centered,” zeroing in on each team member to determine which leadership behavior works best and with which individuals and varying their interactions accordingly.

This program discusses the four basic leadership behaviors: prescribing/directing, coaching/instructing, collaborating/partnering, and inspiring/empowering.

Participants will assess their leadership behavior, identifying which behavior comes most naturally to them and probing why that choice may not be optimal in every situation. They will learn how to use the “Leader/Player Wheel,”: a dynamic model that enables leaders to effectively diagnose the needs of their players and then adjust their leadership behavior accordingly.

Learning Objectives

By the end of “Developing High-Performance Leaders,” participants will have:

• Become aware of the various leadership behaviors available to them and identify their preferred behavior
• Learned how to assess the readiness/engagement/skill levels of each person who reports to them
• Recognized which leadership behavior is most effective with each level of engagement/skill
• Learned how to adjust their behavior to drive up the performance of individuals at each level

Decision making: These two words are among the most important in the leadership lexicon. Bad decisions cast a shadow over organizations and those that run them. Effective decisions move an organization forward, create opportunities and growth, and are at the heart of high-performance leadership.

“Effective Decision Making” is a rigorously “how-to” learning experience that enables participants to master the decision-making fundamentals. Participants are introduced to the Guttman seven-step process for making decisions, practice the process on case studies, and then apply it to “live” decisions they are currently making or recommending.

In an age of data overload and increasing complexity, having a typical, step-by-step process for organizing information; asking all the key questions; and assessing outcomes, alternatives, and risks is essential. Participants come away with a common language and systematic approach to decision making, including identifying desired results, generating and assessing possible alternatives given those outcomes, and then considering potential risks—the last step being the most frequently overlooked aspect of decision making.

“Effective Decision Making” goes beyond how to “make” decisions per se and transfers the Guttman Decision Protocol for Implementation, which includes issue identification and prioritization, determining levels of decision-making involvement, and selecting the best decision-making mode: unilateral, consensus, or consultative.

Learning Objectives

• Improve decision-making capability through mastery of the GDS decision-making process
• Learn how to ask the right decision-making questions, organize and assess relevant information, and involve others in the decision-making process
• Provide a common language and approach to make or recommend decisions within a team and communicate those decisions to others in the organization
• Identify key decision issues, set priorities, and assign accountability for action.
• Practice the decision-making process and apply it to real-time decisions

“Enhancing Leadership Effectiveness” is a breakthrough leadership development program that is based on Guttman’s years of experience working with generations of leaders in organizations of every size and type across the global landscape. We have structured an integrated, best-practices learning experience that features five core GDS leadership programs, upfront organization assessment to ensure relevance and cultural fit, and post-program performance measures.  We then field-tested the program over many years.

The process begins with a needs assessment in which we probe the leadership-related issues confronting the organization, both currently and in the near future, the capabilities needed to achieve success, and the skill gaps and developmental priorities. The findings allow Guttman consultants to tailor each building block—and to reconfigure the building blocks themselves—to meet specific organizational objectives.

Each of the five building blocks focuses on mastering a core team leadership capability: influencing—engaging others to move in the desired direction; conflict management—working through issues in a way that builds relationships and accelerates results; developing high-performance leaders—enabling leaders to assess the strengths of team members and vary their leadership behavior accordingly; leading high-performance teams—driving up results by structuring teams for high performance from day one.  And, lastly, managing performance—enabling managers and employees to work together as partners to raise productivity and business results significantly.

While “Enhancing Leadership Effectiveness” offers a robust leadership development experience when embedded directly into business units and functional groups, it is ideal for those corporate universities seeking to go beyond standard, ad hoc training programs to offer a more strategically focused, results-based approach to building the leadership capability of current and emerging leaders everywhere in an organization.

“Enhancing Leadership Effectiveness” consists of five one-day programs, delivered at phased intervals over six months:

• Managing Conflict
• Influencing Others for Results
• Developing High-Performance Leaders
• How to Lead Your Team
• Managing Performance

After each building block is completed, participants return to the workplace with specific objectives and assignments intended to enrich their mastery of the subject matter and embed newly acquired capabilities into their leadership behavior. Pre- and post-program assessments monitor progress and behavior change.

Learning Objectives

By the end of “Enhancing Leadership Effectiveness,” participants will have learned to:

• Resolve conflict, whether in one-on-one interactions or team settings
• Improve their working relationships with colleagues throughout the organization
• Identify their current influencing behavior, evaluate its costs/benefits, and develop a plan to improve results when seeking to persuade others to act significantly
• Use their influencing capabilities to gain the agreement, cooperation, and support of others
• Identify their preferred  leadership behavior and adjust it to drive up the performance of the individual members of their team
• How to lead successfully from Day One: structure the team correctly, create a team identity, establish relationships, protocols, etc.
• What performance management is, and how it differs from performance evaluation
• How to write performance goals that clearly define results and can be measured objectively
• Participate in mutually effective performance discussions at every phase of performance management

In the words of sports great Casey Stengel, “It’s easy to find good players; getting them to play together is the hard part.” Working in teams doesn’t come naturally for most people, whether in sports or business. In business organizations, the difficulty is compounded by the fact that, traditionally, employees have been rewarded for their contributions to the organization.

As more organizations have shifted to the team model, and more and more work gets done by teams—whether cross-functional, cross-regional, or global—the ability to lead a team effectively and efficiently is at a premium. But becoming a high-performance team leader doesn’t come naturally, at least not for most managers. Nor is the traditional route to team leadership—technical proficiency and functional expertise—an adequate training ground for learning how to work through others to get results.

It is an acquired capability that involves mastery of the critical elements necessary for team leadership and success. “How to Lead Your Team” is designed to transfer that capability.

We begin by examining why great business teams outperform others and the pivotal role of great team leaders in shaping a group of individuals into a goal-driven, aligned entity focused on achieving team wins. We introduce the “Guttman Team Development Wheel” and review the four stages of team development and the specific strategies that team leaders must adopt to manage players through each step, ultimately taking the team to Stage 4: High Performance. During this highly experiential session, participants will take a close, introspective look at their leadership behaviors, examine how they may be inadvertently sabotaging team performance, and then be introduced to—and practice using—the tools needed to plot a path toward the highest level of team performance.

Learning Objectives

• The elements that are necessary to create successful teams and successful leaders of teams
• Their current strengths and challenges as a team leader, behaviors they currently engage in, and “stories” they tell themselves that have kept them from leading maximally
• What is expected of them as a leader, and what should they expect of their team members
• How to lead successfully from Day One: structure the team correctly, create a team identity, establish relationships, protocols, etc.
• How to plot a path to get their team from Stage 1 to Stage 4 on the Team Development Wheel
• What support do they need to give to individual team members as they move through the stages
• What vehicles can they create to move their team forward, such as developing protocols for holding meetings, resolving conflict, and making decisions
• How to give and receive feedback

Leadership at the Top is an integrated, 360-degree program designed to equip senior-level leaders with the full range of strategic, operational, and interpersonal capabilities needed to show powerfully and excel in today’s organizations.

To compete effectively at senior levels, leaders must think incisively about their organization’s future direction: to ask the tough questions and understand how strategy drives operational planning and decision-making. They must be fully evolved; high-performing players can build high-performing teams and possess the savvy and interpersonal skills to shape and influence outcomes across organizational boundaries, especially in highly matrixed environments.

Mastering the full range of these capabilities cannot be done in a single session or with an ad hoc selection of program offerings. For this reason, we offer a 12-month career-building experience with a carefully designed curriculum.

This in-depth development combines ongoing assessment of each participant’s leadership behavior and progress, hands-on learning led by expert facilitators, peer-to-peer interaction and cross-fertilization of ideas and experiences, and optional one-on-one coaching.

Each workshop is limited to 12 participants who meet in two-day sessions four times during the program year.

Participants must be in a senior leadership position to qualify for Leadership at the Top. They must also have time to participate in all four quadrants of the program.

The curriculum begins with assessing participants’ leadership behavior, including strengths and areas for improvement. Before the first session, those attending the program will be asked to complete a leadership inventory, which has been designed specifically for senior-level leaders. This instrument enables participants to profile their leadership skills/behavior accurately and provides essential guidance for program facilitators, ensuring that program content meets participants’ needs.

Leadership at the Top is divided into four quadrants:

Quadrant 1:  Leading for High Performance
Quadrant 2:  Leading High-Performance Teams
Quadrant 3:  Leading by Influencing Across Your Organization
Quadrant 4:  Leading Strategically

Following each Quadrant, participants return to their organizations guided by specific objectives and assignments intended to reinforce and extend their learning; ongoing assessments will monitor progress.  Coaching and consulting support are provided through the Guttman Leadership Institute to work individually and organizationally to enhance continuous learning and development.

Learning Objectives

• Take stock of their leadership strengths/areas for improvement and strengthen their ability to lead up, down, and across their organization.
• Master the Guttman Leader-Player model, measure their leadership behavior against the requirements of the model, and apply the model to real-time leadership issues
• Lead horizontally, across functions, and within complex matrixed structures
• Acquire leadership coaching skills through concept briefings and hands-on practice
• Create teams of leaders within key intact and issue-specific groups
• Influence outcomes, especially in situations where there is no direct authority
• Formulate strategy, review the strategic plans of others, and make more effective day-to-day decisions

This program” is a 12-month, integrated program designed to equip senior-level women leaders with the full range of strategic, operational, and interpersonal capabilities needed to excel in today’s organization. The in-depth development experience combines ongoing assessments; hands-on learning, led by senior experts, during and in between sessions; peer-to-peer interaction; structured in-company mentoring; and individual coaching. The Guttman Leadership Institute’s recognized leadership and organizational development expertise ensures that participants will quickly and effectively optimize their leadership talent and acquire the capabilities needed to meet future challenges.

Each program is limited to 12 senior-level women leaders who meet in two-day sessions four times during the program year. To qualify for this program, participants must be in a senior leadership position within their organization. They are also required to participate in all four quadrants of the program. The curriculum begins with “you” as a leader: Where you’ve been, where you are now, and where you want to go. Participants will assess their leadership behavior, identifying strengths and improvement areas. This creates a development roadmap for participants and our facilitators.

Learning Objectives

• Acquire the leadership skills needed to succeed in today’s fast-changing, matrixed global organizations
• Master the Guttman Leader-Player model, measure their leadership behavior against the requirements of the model, and apply the model to real-time leadership issues
• Assess their ability to coach, learn and practice leader/coaching skills
• Build high-performing, horizontal teams of leader-players
• Exert influence, especially in situations where there is no direct authority
• Ask penetrating strategic questions, formulate strategy, and make more effective day-to-day decisions
• Leverage network opportunities within the organization
• Surmount the barriers to achieving full leadership potential

The GLI Leadership, Excellence Acceleration Program, is divided into four quadrants:

Quadrant 1:  Leading for High Performance
Quadrant 2:  Leading High-Performance Teams
Quadrant 3:  Leading by Influencing Across Your Organization
Quadrant 4:  Leading Strategically

Following each Quadrant, participants return to their organizations guided by specific objectives and assignments intended to reinforce and extend their learning; ongoing assessments will monitor progress. In addition, LEAP provides a structured mentoring program with on-site support, a world-class GDS leadership coach, ongoing research-based insights into women’s leadership issues and trends, and access to a network of peers to exchange ideas and experiences.

LEAP for Women is designed exclusively for senior-level women leaders. It provides a unique, supportive learning community in which successful women leaders can sharpen their strategic, operational, and interpersonal leadership capabilities, learn from experienced consultant-facilitators, as well as from other participants, and bridge the learning/doing gap through structured interim assignments, one-on-one coaching, and structured sponsorship and mentoring.

This in-depth development experience combines ongoing assessments; hands-on learning, led by senior experts, during and in between sessions; peer-to-peer interaction; structured in-company mentoring; and individual coaching.

Like the LEAP Program for men and women, LEAP for Women provides deep grounding for advanced leaders covering three core areas: strategic decision making, team and organization development, and interpersonal dynamics.

You will complete the program better equipped to meet today’s executives’ complex demands and overcome the unique challenges confronting senior-level women leaders.

Each program is limited to 12 senior-level women leaders who meet three times during the program year.

To qualify for this program, participants must:

• be a senior-level woman leader
• be nominated by their organization
• have the support of their organization for structured sponsorship and coaching
• have the time to participate in each of the three modules and complete interim application assignments
• participate in each of the three leadership development modules and complete interim assignments

The curriculum begins with “you” as a leader: Where you’ve been, where you are now, and where you want to go. Participants will assess their leadership behavior, identifying strengths and improvement areas. This creates a development roadmap for participants and our facilitators.

The GLI Leadership Effectiveness Acceleration Program for Women is divided into three leadership development modules:

Module 1: Developing Your Leadership Brand, Leveraging Your Influence, and Managing Conflict
Module 2: Leading Your Team for High-Performance
Module 3: Making Strategic Decisions

Following each Module, participants return to their organizations guided by specific objectives and assignments intended to reinforce and extend their learning; ongoing assessments will monitor progress.

Learning Objectives

By the end of LEAP for Women, participants will have learned to:

• Build a powerful leadership brand that commands respect
• Succeed in today’s fast-changing, matrixed global organizations
• Master the Guttman Leader-Player model, measure their leadership behavior against the requirements of the model, and adjust their leadership behavior to real time leadership situations
• Assess their ability to coach; learn and practice leader/coaching skills
• Build high-performing, horizontal teams of leader-players
• Exert influence, especially in situations where there is no direct authority
• Ask penetrating strategic questions, formulate strategy, and make more effective day-to-day decisions
• Leverage network opportunities within the organization
• Surmount the barriers to achieving full leadership potential

Strategic thinking, planning, decision making, financial understanding—these and other “hard” skills are the competencies on which leaders have traditionally been judged. In the last few decades, however, businesspeople have understood that there is another dimension to successful leadership: building solid working relationships within teams and with all those critical to your success. This entails more than intellectual prowess; it requires high emotional and Social Intelligence.

On the intellectual level, team members may agree with and respect their leader, but if they don’t “resonate,” it is doubtful that they will ever fully support or be inspired by their leader’s vision and goals. And, in today’s matrixed business world, we all need to collaborate with people from other functions over whom we have no positional authority. Success requires building, sustaining, or rebuilding trust and establishing strong connections based on mutual respect and understanding with team members and functional colleagues.

Leading with Emotional and Social Intelligence is designed for teams of every type to raise team members’ emotional competency and performance and for individuals seeking to raise their ability to work effectively with others.

The program utilizes the latest ESCI (Emotional and Social Competency Inventory) assessment instruments provided by Korn Ferry. We begin by raising participants’ awareness of the 12 Emotional and Social Competencies that differentiate outstanding from average performers, then helping them identify their current level of proficiency in each. With input from the facilitator and fellow participants, each attendee will develop concrete plans to increase Emotional and Social Intelligence in his or her development areas. The session provides opportunities to practice these new skills.

An added benefit: The emotional and Social Intelligence breakthroughs that participants make during this program will significantly impact all aspects of their professional and personal lives.

Learning Objectives

• They completed the 360-degree Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ESCI) to identify their competencies, strengths, and development opportunities
• They reviewed their scores with a Korn Ferry, ESCI-certified Guttman coach
• Gained an understanding of their choices in terms of their behavior and the impact of those choices on themselves, their team, those around them, and the results they deliver
• Built upon their strengths, helping them to broaden their range of leadership and influencing styles and improve their impact on their team and other key stakeholders
• Made concrete plans to begin immediately using the skills

Change is about going from here to there. Sounds easy, but navigating the space between the two is rarely straightforward. “Managing Change” provides the road map to cross the challenging terrain between the current situation and the desired future.

Change can be disorienting, especially when it is poorly communicated and not understood. This program provides the key questions that participants need to ask to gain clarity and demonstrates how to integrate the answers into a purposive way forward to “there.” The discussion emphasizes organizational and personal preconditions for success in managing change.

Change begins with the individual. People typically go through several transitional phases when faced with both an ending and a new beginning: the four “Ds”—disorientation, disidentification, disengagement, and disenchantment. During the program, participants complete a self-assessment exercise to determine their phase and how they can move beyond the “Ds” to align with and even embrace change. They also assess which Nine Key Competencies for Dealing with Change they already possess and which they need to acquire. The program zeros in on the causes of change resistance and outline individual, team, and organizational strategies for dealing with them.

Learning Objectives

• Become aware of the broad spectrum of reactions generated by the change
• Learned the Nine Key Competencies for dealing with change, measured their competency against these, and developed personal plans to close the gaps
•  They identified the beliefs and practices that create individual and organizational resistance
• They explored capabilities and strategies to overcome that resistance
• They examined their role in facilitating team and organizational change
• They have achieved an understanding and expertise regarding stewarding shifts within their organization
• Created action plans for managing individual transitions and building corporate support for change

In today’s organizations, most work gets done by cross-functional teams. Leaders and members of high-performance teams need a new set of conflict management and influencing skills to succeed in this new work environment.

Based on more than 30 years of experience managing conflict at all organizational levels, this program presents a powerful and unique process that enables participants to constructively deal with interpersonal conflicts—whether one-on-one or in teams—and organizational conflict—whether rooted in cultural processes or structure.

The ability to influence others up, down, and across the organization is also essential for success in today’s organizations. Influencing others is a learnable capability acquired through mastering a systematic process, which is what this program transfers. You’ll learn a step-by-step approach for sizing up situations and people, employing the right influencing strategy to excel, and persuading and engaging others while maintaining solid interpersonal relationships.

Learning Objectives

• Resolve conflict, whether in one-on-one interactions or in team settings
• Assess organizational “hot spots,” where conflict is likely to occur, and plan corrective action
• Negotiate artfully to resolve core differences and solve interpersonal problems
• Listen more effectively and assert themselves without impairing business relationships
• Improve their working relationships with colleagues throughout the organization
• Identify their current influencing behavior, evaluate its costs/benefits, and develop a plan to significantly improve results when seeking to persuade others to act

Use their influencing capabilities to gain the agreement, cooperation, and support of others, including how to:

• “Read” situational cues
• Listen intently and actively.
• Identify—and change—their position on the “Assertion Continuum”
• Set boundaries
• Effectively “push back”
• Question without interrogating.

As organizations become increasingly matrixed and global, the ability to influence others has become a must-have for leaders. When working across functions and geographies, leaders are often expected to produce results through people over whom they have no direct authority. How can you become a powerful influencer across your organization which commands respect without commanding it? And one who can turn your agenda into theirs by gaining the commitment of others rather than forcing compliance?

This interactive session probes the dynamics of power and organizational politics. Participants will examine how they show up to others.

They will learn to become more agile in their interpersonal relationships, able to employ the full range of influencing behaviors that will enable them to project a new, more powerful image. They will learn how to take the measure of critical colleagues—potential partners, fence-sitters, and adversaries—and frame strategies for positioning their ideas and plans for maximum acceptance by each group.

Learning Objectives

• Become aware of the degree to which they are viewed as a powerful, influential force in their organization
• Learned techniques for modifying or changing their image and becoming a more vital force
• Gained practical tips for understanding and navigating organizational politics
• Learned how to assess the degree of cooperation they can expect from critical colleagues
• Used the “Matrix for Framing Strategies” to vary the way they market their ideas to colleagues
• Created a concrete “Influence Plan” that will enable them to achieve results across their organization

Optimizing Your Performance Management System

For many supervisors, performance management means dispensing the dreaded annual performance rating, the results of which often determine merit raises and promotability. It is not an especially effective approach, for many reasons, including:

• Performance feedback is typically a once or twice-a-year activity that has little positive impact on the results you get from your employees.
• Supervisors often find it challenging to set measurable performance goals, provide constructive feedback, and give employees the support they need to continually develop and improve their on-job performance.
• Employees may find it challenging to receive constructive feedback and are not clear about the accountability they have to partner with their supervisor to effectively manage their own performance.

“Optimizing Your Performance Management System” is designed to help managers and employees work together, as true partners, to create high-performing individuals and organizations. This program describes performance management as a year-round, joint effort between manager and employee to manage employee performance. One of the unique features of the program is that it provides parallel capability-development tracks for both managers and employees. Each session begins by having participants examine the performance management system currently in place in their organization. How is it structured? What actions are required on the part of supervisors and employees in order to make it successful?

Because meaningful goals are key to the success of any performance management system, we next focus on transferring to both groups a set of capabilities that will enable them to create clear, measurable goals. In an initial two-day session, managers practice writing such goals for their employees; in a half-day program, employees learn to draft their own goals, which they will share and discuss with their supervisor back on the job in order to align with them on performance expectations.  In a second, follow-up training session nine months later, supervisors will prepare to conduct effective year-end performance discussions with employees. This “just-in-time” approach for supervisors gives them the skills they need, at the point in the performance management cycle that they need them, so that learnings are fresh and immediately applied.

And because so much of the success of a performance management system depends on the dynamic between managers and employees, both groups will be introduced to and have an opportunity to learn and practice the interpersonal skills they need to become performance-management partners: active listening, assertion, coaching, resolving differences, giving and receiving feedback.

Learning Objectives

After attending one of the specially designed initial sessions for either managers or employees. Both managers and employees will have learned:

• What performance management is and how it differs from performance evaluation
• How to describe their organization’s current performance management system and the accountabilities of both supervisor and employee in ensuring its success
• How to write performance goals that clearly define results and can be measured objectively
• The interpersonal skills that are necessary to participate in mutually effective performance discussions at every phase of performance management

Managers will additionally have learned:

• How to effectively coach employees on progress against goals to achieve the desired results
• How to handle difficult performance issues that may arise
• How to handle resistance and defensiveness on the part of those who report to them
• How to coach employees between performance reviews to help them achieve their performance goals and develop the skills to advance in the organization
• How to effectively conduct a performance-review session

Employees will have learned the following:

• How to make explicit, specific requests to their supervisor to help them be effective

After attending the half-day program, which is presented nine months after the initial two-day session:

Managers will have learned the following:

• How to evaluate and rate employees against goals
• How to plan for and conduct performance reviews with their employees
• How to create specific, actionable development plans for employees

Flawless project implementation. It’s a tough challenge, given the need to work across national boundaries and functions and under severe time and budget constraints. In today’s business world, there is no safety net. Projects must be delivered on time, on budget, and on goal every time. “High-Performance Project Implementation” prepares leaders and members of project teams to achieve those results.

Our approach aligns and develops the three foundational elements required for flawless project implementation: project leadership, team behaviors, and project processes and capabilities. We go well beyond one-dimensional interventions that focus either on capabilities or tools or processes. As a result, leaders and players can transform their project teams into high-performing entities that routinely exceed expectations.

“High-Performance Project Implementation” is rigorously results focused. Project management is not a result; it is a process. We prefer to keep the focus on implementation, which is a result.

During the program, participants begin to work on actual projects: setting project objectives, developing working project plans and schedules, delineating responsibilities, creating protocols for team issue resolution and team behavior, and acquiring the capabilities they will need to continue implementation back on the job.

Learning Objectives

• Learned the “Eight Absolutes of Project Implementation”
• Learned the distinct characteristics of a high-performing project team
• Become familiar with a proven process for improving the success rate of projects
• Set project objectives and developed a project plan and schedule for a project they are currently working on
• Recognized the importance of and began drafting team protocols for issue resolution, decision-making, and team behavior
• Be introduced to several tools that will significantly increase the chances that their project will meet or exceed expectations
• Planned the next steps they will take back on the job.

In a world where change is the new normal, strategy is more important than ever. It provides a compass point for making the key product-, market-, and resource-allocation decisions that drive the business.

In “Strategy Formulation and Implementation,” participants will be introduced to Guttman’s disciplined process for setting strategy—whether for the enterprise, business units, or functions—and linking it to business operations.

By the end of the session, participants will have a solid grasp of what strategy is and what constitutes the key elements of a strategic framework. This will enable them to set strategy fully confident that they have touched all the bases.

Strategy is first about taking stock. Participants will learn how to conduct a thorough Situation Appraisal of the current product and market landscape, the competitive picture, internal strengths and vulnerabilities, and potential external threats and opportunities. They will come away from the session knowing how to establish a solid baseline for setting strategy. Armed with this information, the session moves to a discussion of how to develop a clear, specific strategic vision. Participants will learn the key questions to ask to set strategy, how to establish competitive differentiation, and how to go about making the best choices for optimizing scarce resources.

Strategy is also about making key choices relating to produces, markets, key capabilities and financial expectations. This session provides a disciplined, step-by-step process for making key decisions, including a consideration of risk factors. In addition, participants learn how to structure the involvement of others to ensure maximum commitment.

For strategy to be effective, it must be implemented. What key elements must be in place for strategy to take hold? What are the key alignment levers that drive implantation? What are the implications of alternative strategies on organizational structure, processes, capabilities, and culture? And how best to identify the barriers to success? “Strategy Formulation and Implementation” provides guidance for answering these questions.

A key objective for the session is to have participants develop a first-draft strategic plan for setting strategy, whether at corporate, business unit, or functional levels.

Learning Objectives

After attending “Strategy Formulation and Implementation,” participants will have:

• A firm understanding of the core elements of a strategic framework
• Learned the basics of the Guttman strategy formulation and implementation process and begun to apply it to their own situation
• Learned how to identify the key strategic choices for developing a clear, specific strategy
• Identified potential problems that could stand in the way of successful implementation

Successful negotiation is more about mindset than muscle. Suppose you approach negotiation as a winner-loser, zero-sum game. In that case, you might ink the deal, but don’t count on it being implemented—especially if the support of your “adversary” is required. Consider negotiation a win-win process, and both sides will walk away from the table eager to go from discussion to positive action. But attitude is not enough. Negotiating is a capability that requires a keen understanding of strategy, tactics, human dynamics, and information requirements. Whether your job requires negotiating internally, with other managers and departments, or externally, with clients, vendors, and legal representatives, this program will provide you with the range of win-win mindsets, the core capabilities to excel as a negotiator, and a proven process to ensure that you—and your counterparts—leave the negotiating table as winners fully committed to the outcome.

The program begins with an introduction to the most common negotiating styles. These serve as a template that enables participants to assess their negotiating style and that of the individuals on the other side of the table. The GDS five-step negotiating process—preparation, strategy setting, tactics, closure, and follow-up—will be explained and illustrated, and participants will practice applying the method to various situations.

Learning Objectives

• The five critical mindsets are needed to negotiate successfully and consistently achieve win-win outcomes.
• A proven negotiation process and how it can be applied to any negotiating situation
• How to prepare for a negotiation session
• How to assess the negotiation style of the other side—and adapt their style in response
• The best tactics to deal with unexpected issues as they arise
• How to move from stalemate to settlement
• How to build lasting relationships with negotiating counterparts