You Want to Incorporate a Coach Approach into the Leadership Style of Your Mid-Level Managers . . .

…Without A Huge Time and Financial Commitment

Developing the leadership skills of mid-level managers is an ongoing challenge. Managers are the strongest pool from which top new leaders can spring. Yet with budget constraints, how can your company develop the leadership potential of your management team, and not over-invest?

The Navigational Conversations Workshop has been expressly designed to solve this problem. Through its rich and thorough format, mid-level managers make exponential leadership development gains within a compressed—but not hurried—two days. Our philosophy is that people learn best by doing. The majority of the workshop is skills development. Since participants use existing workplace challenges for practice, they solve some of their most significant leadership problems while learning.

You Want Your Leaders to Unlock the Power and Creativity of Your Workforce

They Must Improve Their Ability To Coach and Develop Others

It is widely understood that the quality of leadership is reflected in the quality of workplace conversations. If managers do not conduct effective conversations—offering feedback and coaching—the whole organization is affected. Where there is poor communication, there will be friction, pushback and team breakdown. Time and energy will be wasted.

Everyone knows what it costs when there is poor communication. If you don’t equip mid-level managers with the tools to motivate, inspire, and move others into action, your company pays in lost productivity. The source of the problem may not be obvious at all levels of the company, but it’s obvious to the employees on the receiving end of the poor communication.

You want to turn ordinary workplace conversations into leadership conversations. Opportunities for coaching are not restricted to interactions between managers and subordinates. The coach approach can be applied to solving problems throughout an organization.

These Are The Problems You’re Looking To Solve

We’ve created this workshop to address specific organizational needs. These needs cluster around the requirement to turn ordinary workplace discussions into leadership conversations. Such interactions don’t have to be solely the realm of managers. Coaching conversations can help solve problems throughout an organization. This workshop is designed to address the following situations:

• You’ve decided to invest in and improve the ability of mid-level managers to conduct effective coaching conversations. You’re a large company where mid-level managers haven’t received the leadership development they require. You’ve got some communication breakdowns, perhaps caused by leaders with high technical skills but limited people skills. They don’t need lengthy training—and it wouldn’t be financially feasible. You want to make a dramatic difference in a short amount of time.
• Your training or Human Resources department must recommend a first-rate coaching program. Highly educated and deeply experienced trainers want a failsafe way to deliver coaching skills to workplace conversations. These professionals know how to match training solutions to business problems. They want an efficient and effective program that delivers exactly as promised—every time.
• Your organization has a heavy influx of new hires and you want a program to develop their leadership skills. You have an intake of new graduates, or some new initiative has resulted in heavy hiring. You want to provide a uniform training experience to get the new leaders launched in the best way possible.

• Your mid-level managers must improve engagement with employees by developing coaching skills. Perhaps promotions have been given to highly skilled technical people, but their lack of communication ability has become problematic. What got them promoted—head-down hard work—is insufficient for them to be successful as managers. You want to provide what they need to be successful.
• Your corporate internal university wants a scaled up way to grow employees who aim for management positions. You want a way to provide massive value in a short time to management aspirants. You know what you want employees to learn and how you want them to grow. More than anything, you want them to be prepared to step into a leadership position when there is an opening.

Once The Workshop Is Complete, You Can Expect These Outcomes

Your Managers Bring Coaching Skills Into Their Workplace Conversations

You see immediate shifts in leadership behaviors. As soon as your leaders return from two days working on coaching skills, you will see differences. They are profound and they are lasting. The outcomes you can expect are:

• Managers understand how to connect and build trust with others. Learning to build trust is critical to being an effective leader. It’s also essential in order to conduct coaching conversations.

• Managers know how to enroll others in the organization’s agenda so that it becomes the employees’ agenda. When there is alignment between the agenda of employees and the vision of the organization the power of coaching can be unleashed. This is not manipulation, but drawing the alignment in such a way that the coachee becomes excited, buys in, and wants to contribute.
• They shift from a superior-to-subordinate directive style to a peer-to-peer collaborative style. Working collaboratively becomes second nature, replacing the impulse to rely on positional authority. Managers come away from the workshop with the ability to attract others to “play at a higher level”, thereby evoking greater loyalty and dedication.

• They shift from problem-solving to unlocking the problem-solving capacity of others. This is perhaps the most significant outcome of the Navigational Conversations Workshop. By learning to develop the problem-solving skills of others managers free themselves to be better leaders. They have more time to strategize, coach, and look at the bigger picture.
• Rather than “doing it all”, managers become leaders and develop the capacity of others to perform.  They no longer take on all the problems that arrive in their office. They support others to grow and handle issues. They are truly leading, not doing the work of others.
• They move others to take action. They come away from the workshop with the ability to inspire and support others in moving forward and maintaining momentum. They finally understand what motivates others.

Managers Will Never Be Effective Leaders Without Mastering the “Coach Approach”

They Don’t Need to Become Professional Coaches, But They Must Gain Coaching Skills To Be Successful Managers

Coaching—the ability to grow and develop others—is the most sought after leadership skill. This ability is the foundation for strengthening an organization. As the old style of “command and control” fades from the workplace, it is being replaced by collaborative working styles. Your organization needs leaders who are capable of developing leadership in others. Here are the benefits you can expect your managers to gain from this workshop:

• This workshop specifically fits mid-level managers’ leadership development needs. Organizations today require leadership core competencies (ability to build trust and rapport, communicate effectively, develop others, and support them in a plan to go forward). The challenge is how to train managers in those competencies. This workshop has been designed to deliver those skills, while requiring minimal training time.
• This workshop is absolutely relevant to the bottom line of your business. If your managers are not using a coach approach, they are probably doing all the work themselves. With these skills, managers expend less effort and avoid burnout—therefore you have lower turnover. Your highly motivated people will stay with your company, rather than “jumping ship” because they aren’t getting enough support. The rule of thumb for the cost of turnover is 1X up to 1.5X the annual salary of a lost employee.  Managers who engage and inspire others drastically reduce turnover costs.
• You get the benefit of “discretionary effort” from employees. They give that extra effort to accomplishing organizational goals. Employee engagement is almost the Holy Grail for a business. There is no better way to get a highly engaged workforce than developing coaching skills in your leaders. Effective workplace conversations unlock the creative potential of your workers and bring out their innovative ideas.

• Participants bring their issues and problems into the workshop, and practice handling them in new ways. They aren’t simply learning new skills. They develop their skills while working on their most pressing problems. They are also gaining a new understanding about how changes in their behavior change their results.
• Your leaders are equipped to have difficult conversations. The most frequent request we hear from mid-level managers is that they need help in giving corrective feedback. When managers do not have the skills for these types of conversations, they avoid them. What happens then? A tiny problem festers until it becomes a big problem, consuming massive amounts of time with multiple parties. Whether it’s gossip, resentment, or “stirring the pot”, these small matters waste productive time and resources.
• Managers gain practical leadership skills that they immediately apply to workplace conversations. The next day after the workshop, they apply relevant and useful skills to improving the effectiveness of their conversations. Participants in the workshop are not just learning theory. They participate actively and practice what they are learning. They gain new skills by using them.
• The workshop material has “legs”—the effect is long-lasting. We extend the reach of the information, through job aids and videos that managers can consult post-workshop. This helps your leaders review the skills and practice them in everyday work life.
• Workshop content is customized to your business and relevant to your managers’ specific requirements. We use examples—drawn from participants—that reflect real workplace conditions and situations. Whether your business is technology or customer service, your managers will work with examples from your work environment—not a rigid set of scenarios.

The Quality of Conversations Your Leaders Have Can Make or Break Your Organization

Make Sure They Are Equipped To Have Powerful Coaching Conversations

Your next move is to contact one of our global master facilitators for a free consultation. We will talk about your organization’s mid-level leadership development needs. During this conversation, we’ll explore the following:

• Your business drivers—what is going on in your business that requires leadership development? Why now?
• Leadership requirements of your organization—what are the targets you want to aim for in leadership development?
• Must haves—what specific criteria have you set for your leadership development initiative?
• ROI—How can you get the best return on your investment, and what are your ROI requirements?

This is an opportunity for us to get to know each other and discuss your goals and objectives. We’ll examine whether or not Navigational Conversations is your best solution. Are we a fit for your situation? Are you a fit for our service? Can we fulfill your requirements?

One of the most important aspects of this conversation is a discussion of the role and commitment of your top executives. What will they do to ensure the success of the initiative? How will managers be supported after the workshop? What structures will be in place to support the ongoing coaching development process?

Where To Next?

Now that you know the issues this program addresses, the outcomes you can expect to get, and the benefits of the workshop, click Navigational Conversations: Content Overview to learn the details of the program.

It is also possible for you to license the Navigational Conversations materials and “white label” them for your internal training needs. Learn more about our Customization Services.

If you have questions about the Navigational Conversations Workshop, or would like to discuss your leadership development needs, Contact Us.

We’ll Get Right Back To You To Set A Time To Discuss Your Needs