Trainings & Workshops

Brighter Strategies offers virtual and on-site training, workshops, and team building programs to strengthen your organization. Our customized training programs provide your team with the strategies and tools to improve performance, communication, management, and team dynamics. We teach organizations how to develop winning strategic plans and valuable core competencies.

small group training

Some of our popular workshops include:

This list is a sampling of some of the workshops and trainings that Brighter Strategies can offer your team. Please contact us if you have something else in mind.

Whole Team Focus

While many team development tools exist, we like walking our clients through Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team model. Lencioni believes, and we agree, that if teams are willing to address these five dysfunctions (which all teams experience at varying levels), teams will be more comfortable asking for help. They will be better able to tap into one another’s skills and experience, avoid wasting time, focus on critical topics, and become more aligned.

The key to leadership is building effective and innovative work teams, supporting decision-making, and empowering employees. This workshop will explore techniques for building effective and innovative teams.

Organizational change can be scary and is often poorly planned. This session will provide you with a model for successful organizational change. We will share tips and techniques to overcome resistance to change and teach you how to lead change with awareness and purpose.

In most conflicts, neither party is right or wrong; instead, different perceptions collide to create disagreement. Conflict is natural and can be positive if dealt with openly. This session walks participants through an understanding of the different types of conflict, the difference between constructive and destructive conflict, and how their personal communication style can impact or mitigate conflict. Participants have the opportunity to discuss their concerns in small teams as part of the interactive nature of this session. Participants walk away with methods to improve their communication and resolve conflict using “win-win” methodology.

Creativity and innovation are imperative for growth and sustainability in today’s work environment but can be difficult to capture or execute. In this interactive training program, learn how to leverage a company’s most important competitive advantage.

There is no formula for more effective success except self-awareness and authenticity.  Learn the importance of identifying a unique leadership style and engaging self-management practices to increase influence and impact.

In this interactive half-day workshop, you will learn what a theory of change and logic model are and why you need them. At the end of the workshop, you’ll have a working draft of both for your organization to use.

This workshop helps participants reflect on their experiences as influencers and provides some structure for future growth and development of their influencing skills. In this workshop, participants have the opportunity to reflect on their attitudes and approaches toward influence and leadership. We will also walk through specific planning modules to prepare participants for particular influence opportunities.

This workshop provides employees with the principles and techniques of communication such as body language, active listening, constructive feedback, fostering support, credibility, and respect, avoiding sensitive topics and offensive words, and speaking with tact, clarity, and confidence. Employees will also learn how to communicate during conflict and understand their communication style.

This course will provide tools to improve participants’ interpersonal and communication skills and, in turn, build stronger relationships with co-workers, employees, and clients.  We will discuss the communication process, barriers to communications, and personal communication preferences. Interactive exercises will help illustrate feedback, non-verbal communication, and communication preferences.  Participants will be able to use this information to create better self-management strategies and improve the receptiveness of their message.

Many people find themselves in meetings over half the workweek. With all that time spent in meetings, one would expect the meeting process to be near perfect, yet there seems to be a collective dysfunction in most meeting processes. Effective meetings begin with good planning, improve with active facilitation and troubleshooting, and continuously improve with reflective evaluation.

Are you successfully hearing past what people say to what they really mean?  This session focuses on recognizing the value of mediation-based negotiation and successfully identifying underlying (and often unstated) needs.

This workshop helps participants understand and change the “politics as evil” paradigm to “politics as a fundamental aspect of organizational behavior.” We teach participants how to use the forces at play to get things done. We will also look at opportunities that may exist for influencing organizational politics.

The ability to plan and strategize one’s work is vital to a successful working environment. Participants will learn new skills to plan their work to be more effective and work more efficiently. Through the organization and setting of priorities, participants walk away with S.M.A.R.T. goals to propel themselves forward in their work units. This highly interactive workshop contains lecture segments and time for both individual (introspective) activities and group work to facilitate learning and team cohesiveness.

This workshop explores a common approach to decision making. Building on the work of Dr. David Koehn, participants learn the nine-step decision-making process to facilitate better problem solving and decision making both in a team environment and on their jobs.

What is the right way to give sincere feedback? Feedback can be uncomfortable, but constructive and well-received feedback is possible with some training. In the training, learn to reflect on your current feedback process and be trained to give effective and constructive feedback.

A vital but often overlooked part of the strategic planning process, strategic thinking is the process of identifying and conceptualizing the vision for the organization. In this course, participants learn the importance of the strategic thinking process and how to leverage that process to create opportunities and growth.

Efficient time management is the key to getting the most out of your day—and to feeling like you’ve accomplished something meaningful. Proven time management skills and strategy development will help you determine how much energy and resources are needed to be successful at the end of the day.

Today’s workforce encompasses four or five distinctly different generations. Organizations are confronted with the transition from retirement-aged Baby Boomers to mid-career Gen-Xer’s and Millennials to those entering the workforce, younger Millennials and Gen Z. This workshop provides background explaining why each generation is unique, addresses the challenges of generational differences, and provides some best practices regarding working in a multigenerational environment.

Manager/Leader Focus

No one can teach another person leadership. Leadership is something one teaches themselves. As a result, this workshop is highly experiential. Participants will grow their skills, knowledge, and attitude to help themselves be better, well-rounded leaders. The overall goal of this workshop is to teach participants to continually choose to be a leader, growing in their capacity in time in their role.

Effective management requires a balancing act. One day managers are trying to win cooperation and build trust. The next day they are motivating employees to give their “A game,” all while making sure to complete deliverables on time! This interactive training helps you build an arsenal of skills and tools.

People work in systems; therefore, attention is required in human development, as well as system design to create the healthiest and most productive environment for achieving the organization’s mission, curbing turnover, and obtaining maximum performance. Organizations must develop talent in the context of their culture.

Managing a team requires handling emotion, conflict, and change. It is essential that managers communicate clearly and effectively in good times as well as during difficult situations. This interactive training program demonstrates effective techniques to communicate messages effectively and with tact to the desired audience. Special attention is spent on how to engage staff in difficult conversations.

Overwhelmed? Stressed out? Taking work home?  Delegation is one of the most important management skills; saving energy and time and motivating and developing employees. Yet managers often fail to delegate because they are worried about results or time. In this interactive course, participants gain better insight into how they delegate and learn how to turn delegation into their best management tool, resulting in more time for them and more satisfaction from their employees.

This interactive training program helps managers develop the skills needed to create an employee development and evaluation plan with measurable goals for employees. Participants also learn how to coach their employees to peak performance and provide feedback that ensures they are on target for success.

Coaching is a combination of listening and mentoring techniques that produce individual, team, and organizational performance and success. This workshop is designed to teach effective coaching skills and provide participants with action steps to improve overall leadership and their role as internal coaches.

Performance Appraisal time can inspire dread in many: What will I say? How can I be honest without hurting this person’s feelings? What if they disagree with me? This training is a must for anyone who supervises one or more staff or for anyone who wants to learn about their personal communication style.

What’s the real cost of the wrong hire?  Participants in this workshop will learn how to differentiate between talents, skills, and knowledge; assess attitude, and interview successfully to evaluate potential integration with the existing team and corporate culture.

Many people think of “team building” as an annual event, and many companies treat it as such. This presentation focuses on the necessity of integrating team development into a company’s regular workload. Teams that play together perform/work well together. The more interconnected and interdependent individuals are, the more likely they will be able to perform well as a team.

We’re happy to discuss personalizing training and workshops for your team.

Power Team

The power of two is greater than the power of one. And the power of “more than two” is limitless. Brighter Strategies offers a fresh perspective on how to create a “power team”—a group of two or more people who come together to work toward a common goal.

After reading and completing this workbook, you will understand team basics, including the definition, types, and natural development. You will complete a simple five-step team-building process, which includes creating the team, clarifying roles, communicating well, collaborating to meet goals, and celebrating team success. If you want to maximize your organization’s effectiveness, choosing to form a team to complete a task is the first step in the right direction.

Power Teams: Creating Effective Work Groups that Get Things Done ebook

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