Event Schedule:

Please note: ALL virtual sessions will be recorded and saved for participants who are unable to attend a scheduled webinar. Links to the recordings will be provided so that participants can view/listen to the recording at a time that works best for them.

Strategic Conversations Bootcamp Overview:

A lack of strategic thinking and planning in organizations is costly. The greatest expense is the investment of time and resources into activities that do not support company goals or the mission. In addition, employees show up, do their work, and go home. This results in missed opportunities. Without a context for their work, employees are not inspired to think or plan creatively about process improvement, innovation, or cost savings. And anyone who has tried knows, it can be a struggle to get teams to buy-in to strategic goals, much less think and work in alignment with those goals.

Developing your leadership ability for strategic thinking and planning, coupled with the skills to engage in strategic conversations significantly improves your value as a leader. The days of hiring an outside agency to create a strategic plan for your organization are over; so too should be strategic plans developed at the top and handed down for others to implement. Organizations poised for growth and success have leaders who are adopting strategic thinking as an on-going way of doing business and strategic planning that engages employees across the whole organization as well as external stakeholders. They engage everyone in developing agile plans, cycles of experimentation and learning, innovation, and measuring actions against relevant metrics.

COURSE OUTCOMES:
This training will prepare you to engage your teams in strategic conversations that can:

• Increase productivity, engagements, and organizational effectiveness;
• Reduce costs, misalignment, and conflicts;
• Improve customer service levels;
• Innovate in the face of challenges; and
• Make a positive contribution to the bottom line.

Using two very powerful methodologies (SOAR and the Appreciative Inquiry 5-D Cycle), you will have the tools to engage teams from a whole system perspective in conversations to:

• Address short- and long-term challenges, systems, and innovation;
• Explore strengths, dynamic capabilities, and opportunities;
• Develop or re-evaluate organization’s values, vision, and mission statements;
• Set goals, objectives, strategies, and action plans;
• Clarify roles, relationships, and expectations; and
• Track progress through regular cycles of action learning.

This bootcamp will support your capacity and develop capabilities to have strategic conversations at the level of the individual, team, division, and the whole organization or community.

Course Modules:

MODULE 1: VALUING STRATEGIC THINKING

PURPOSE: Appreciate the value of strategic thinking and adopt an appreciative framework for strategic conversations.

OBJECTIVES:

• Understand the importance of strategic conversations and the role generative questions and positive framing play.
• Adopt an AI framework for strategic thinking.
• Recognize the 3 key factors of strategic conversations and the basic principles for leading them.
• Practice framing and asking generative questions for simple strategic conversations.

MODULE 2: FOSTERING SOAR CONVERSATIONS

PURPOSE: Learn how to use SOAR to frame strategic conversations.

OBJECTIVES:

• Understand the SOAR Framework for strategic thinking.
• Experience SOAR as a positive approach for strategic conversations.
• Practice positive framing and generative questions using SOAR at various levels in the organization.

MODULE 3: THE AI 5-D CYCLE

PURPOSE: Entertain strategic conversations at scale, e.g., strategic planning or whole system change, using the AI 5-D Cycle.

OBJECTIVES:

• Learn how you engage whole systems in strategic conversations.
• Use the two AI practices – positive framing and generative questions – to frame a topic and craft an inquiry.
• Identify opportunities to facilitate whole system conversations.

MODULE 4: STRATEGIC AREA FOR APPLICATION

PURPOSE: Build capacity for practical application of SOAR and the AI 5-D Cycle.

OBJECTIVES:

• Deepen your capacity to foster strategic conversations.
• Design and share a prototype for a strategic conversation.
• Practice giving and receiving feedforward.

Method of Delivery:

These live events will be delivered and recorded using Zoom. You can participate in these live events using any device: computer, tablet, or mobile. Please participate using the dial-in method you feel most comfortable with. You will receive the meeting login information from your trainers in two separate emails. First email will be sent two weeks prior to the event; the second to be sent the day before the bootcamp.

Affiliate Program Offered in Partnership with:

 

 

 

 

EVENT SCHEDULE:

Please note: ALL virtual sessions will be recorded and saved for participants who are unable to attend a scheduled webinar. Links to the recordings will be provided so that participants can view/listen to the recording at a time that works best for them.

CONVERSATION BOOTCAMP OVERVIEW:

Conversations are at the heart of everything we do. They are key to effective communications, leadership, high performing teams, and strong relationships. We all know that they influence us, but we rarely stop to think about how much they affect our well-being and others as well as the health of our organizations and communities. Our conversations directly influence our present moment and possible futures. Are you engaging in Conversations Worth Having?

Communication. It remains the top issue for organizations, teams, and relationships. Almost everyone struggles with how to effectively communicate when they are frustrated or facing conflict. The effects of poor communication are costly. They show up in organizations as:

• Employee disengagement, malaise, and turnover;
• Dysfunctional teams;
• Poor performance;
• Inability to give and receive critical feedback; and
• Negative attitudes, cliques, and gossip: a culture of “me”.

If you’re dealing with any of these outcomes, the Conversations Worth Having Bootcamp will give you the skills and tools to turn them around. This program is grounded in Appreciative Inquiry, one of the most widely used positive change approaches. Two simple Appreciative Inquiry practices can turn your entire culture around, creating a culture of conversations worth having.

Following this workshop, you will have tools to establish communication practices that will support productivity, engagement, high performance teams, regular feedback, positivity, and a culture of “we.”

COURSE OUTCOMES:

You will walk away prepared to:

• Keep your cool when you want to explode!
• Effectively challenge assumptions and preconceptions, including yours.
• Deal with conflict quickly and effectively.
• Fuel productive and meaningful engagement.
• Communicate successfully with people who hold negative attitudes or defensive positions.
• Give and receive critical feedback in ways that promote learning and high performance.
• Ask the kind of questions that deepen understanding, strengthen connections, and inspire possibility.
• Talk with colleagues in ways that invite them to collaborate on projects and strategic outcomes.
• Listen with genuine curiosity.
• Frame any conversation, even one around a highly complex problem, to inspire creative and innovative thinking and solutions.

Course Modules:

MODULE 1: THE POWER OF CONVERSATIONS

PURPOSE: Understand the nature of our conversations, how they affect human being and doing, and enhance your ability to choose conversations worth having.

OBJECTIVES:

• Understand the neuroscience of conversation.
• Experiences the power of conversation.
• Practice priming the body-mindset for conversations worth having.

MODULE 2: ASK GENERATIVE QUESTIONS

PURPOSE: Understand the nature of our conversations, the basics of Appreciative Inquiry, and improve your ability to ask generative questions to foster effective communication.

OBJECTIVES:

• Experience the nature of our conversations and the effect on you and others.
• Recognize a generative question and how it influences possibility.
• Use generative questions to shift the dynamics of personal and workplace communication problems.

MODULE 3: CREATE A POSITIVE FRAME

PURPOSE: Intentionally foster effective communication using positive framing and continue to develop your ability to ask generative questions.

OBJECTIVES:

• Experience flipping negative conversations to conversations worth having.
• Use flipping to frame problems and issues.
• Develop generative questions to fuel productive and meaningful engagement around workplace challenges.

MODULE 4: FEEDBACK and FEEDFORWARD

PURPOSE: Develop a growth mindset and understand and apply the two AI practices to give and receive feedback and feedforward.

OBJECTIVES:

• Adopt a growth mindset to support openness and interest in regular feedback.
• Understand the difference between feedback and feedforward.
• Practice giving and receiving feedforward.

Method of Delivery:

These live events will be delivered and recorded using Zoom. You can participate in these live events using any device: computer, tablet, or mobile. Please participate using the dial-in method you feel most comfortable with. You will receive the meeting login information from your trainers in two separate emails. First email will be sent two weeks prior to the event; the second to be sent the day before the bootcamp.

Affiliate Program Offered in Partnership with:

 

 

 

 

EVENT SCHEDULE:

Please note: the event times listed above are Eastern Standard Time (EST) and Universal Time Coordinated (UTC)

PROGRAM OVERVIEW:

Communication remains one of the top issues for employees in most organizations. Conversations Worth Having (CWH) certification gives you the ability to positively affect people’s lives by significantly improving communication within organizations. As a CWH trainer, you will have the tools and skills to offer both virtual and on-site Conversation Bootcamp trainings. The certification program is designed to ensure that as a trainer, you will be confident and effective. Trainers must complete the 2-day Conversation Bootcamp on Conversations Worth Having and Strategic Conversations prior to attending the 2-day CWH training for trainers.

This certification is an intensive, experiential learning opportunity that combines the theory, practice, and research of Appreciative Inquiry, positive psychology, and neuroscience to support the kind of communication that fuels productivity and meaningful engagement any time, any where, and in any situation.  Certification requires successful completion of the 2-day CWH training for trainers’ program, an online final evaluation process, and acceptance of a professional project.

COURSE OUTCOMES:

• Develop practical instructional design skills and confidence plus the critical skills to facilitate learning and ensure retention.
• Use the training slides, manuals, and other materials to enhance the learning experience for participants.
• Become effective at facilitating and using case studies, activities, exercises, videos, and slides to support participant learning.
• Design workshops and/or integrate the bootcamp materials into your current work.
• Develop skills at having conversations that help yourself and others thrive and create environments that impact well-being.
• Improve your skills at turning conflict and problems into conversations worth having.

TRAINING PACKAGE:

Certified trainers will have everything they need to begin to implement Conversation Bootcamps and teach Conversations Worth Having. Trainers may list their profile on the Conversations Worth Having Training website. They will also have on-line access to the latest training materials. These materials include:

• Manuals for the Conversations Bootcamp and Strategic Conversations Bootcamp
• Training PowerPoint slides and example detailed agendas
• Facilitator/Trainer Skills Workbook and PowerPoint slides
• Case studies, stories, journal articles, video clips, and activities
• Deck of generative question cards (in development)
• Marketing materials
• Participation in CWHConnect called and retreats (a community of practice for trainers)
• Ability to co-brand materials and co-create other produces with the CWH community

In addition, certified trainers will receive their SOAR profile. This profile helps you understand your natural capacity for strategic thinking, planning, and leading.

CERTIFICATION COURSE DESIGNED FOR:

Our goal is to certify practitioners, trainers, and leaders driving positive change within organizations and communities, with teams, and with individuals. This includes:

• Managers and leaders
• Training and development practitioners
• Human resource professionals
• Organization development professionals
• Talent management practitioners
• Coaches
• Internal and external consultants
• Teachers, school counselors, and principals

COURSE PREREQUISITE:

Conversation Bootcamps 1 and 2: Conversations Worth Having and Strategic Conversations

CONVERSATIONS WORTH HAVING TRAINER CERTIFICATION:

Two and one half day training includes one year of on-line access to the latest training materials, Trainer Workbook, listing on our website, and quarterly CWH trainer calls. Additional coaching is available.

METHOD OF DELIVERY:

These live events will be delivered and recorded using Zoom. You can participate in these live events using any device: computer, tablet, or mobile. Please participate using the dial-in method you feel most comfortable with. You will receive the meeting login information from your trainers in two separate emails. First email will be sent two weeks prior to the event; the second to be sent the day before the bootcamp.

AFFILIATE PROGRAM OFFERED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: