Tips of the week

Communication Skills – Listening

Listening is an essential skill whereby you make a conscious effort to hear and understand what people are saying.

Four ideas to increase success with listening include:

1. Tune in with more that your ears.  Listen with your eyes and your heart as well.
2. Take notes.  A short pencil is better than a long memory.
3. Keep an open mind.  Keep listening even if you don’t agree… there may be more commonality than you initially realize.  Be aware of your biases and prejudices.
4.  Be prepared to paraphrase to demonstrate your understanding; this practice will actually increase your listening ability.

Our Toronto based communication skills training course provides the communication skills for performing positively and clearly to enhance your career and personal success.

We can help you build your professionalism!  Contact us today to find out how our Toronto based communication skills training courses and other management skills and leadership seminars and workshops.

Leadership Skills

Coaching a perfect team is a dream, not always a reality.  In many situations there is a need to work with team members who lack either commitment or interest in their job.

Seven ideas to create a motivational climate include:

1. Allowing team members to challenge the way things are done.
2. Share a team vision… make certain that everyone answers the question “Why are we here?” in the same way.
3. Enable team members to act by building their self esteem; make them feel good about themselves.
4. Encourage them; recognize accomplishments; forgive mistakes
5. Model the way
6. Value a unique relationship with each team member; no favourites.
7. Develop yourself; be a work in progress, growing changing, improving.

Our leadership skills training workshop provides the skills for performing positively and clearly to enhance your career and personal success. 

Contact us today to find out how our Toronto based leadership skills training courses and other management skills and communication seminars and workshops can help you build your professionalism.  

Communication Skills – Listening

Listening is the most underutilized communications skill we possess.  We have increased our activity levels, frequently multi-tasking and need to re-learn the singular act of effective listening.

Four ideas to increase success with listening include:

1. Value the interaction; you can’t learn less. Listen for ideas.
2. Assume responsibility.  Even if the speaker is boring or redundant, work actively at listening. Confirm and clarify when appropriate
3. Make it ­­­easy for someone to speak to you.  Maintain eye contact. Maintain a positive facial expression & posture. Provide non-verbal signals like nodding to show acceptance and interest.
4. Clear your thoughts.  While you can listen six times faster than anyone can speak resist distractions; stop clicking your inner channel changer and stay with the speaker.

Our Toronto based communication skills training workshop provides the communication skills for performing positively and clearly to enhance your career and personal success.

Build your professionalism with our communication skills training and other management and leadership courses and workshops and seminars.

Project Management Skills

Project management is the application of knowledge, skills and techniques to execute projects effectively.

Two ideas to increase success with projects include:

1. Every project needs a plan.The purpose of the plan is to:

• Outline responsibilities, and duties of the team members
• State how the project will be managed in terms of the time cost and performance
• Summarizes the resources required (human, electronic, external, physical)

2. Projects can benefit from the application of the following tools:

• Project team cooperation checklist
• Planning and organizing checklist
• Responsibility assignment matrix
• Gnatt charts
• Critical Path Mapping
• Contingency planning charts
• Follow up evaluation questions

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Our Toronto based project management skills training workshop provides the project management skills for effective project planning and control.

Contact us today to find out how our Toronto based project management skills training and other management and communication and leadership skills courses and workshops can help you build your professionalism.

Leadership – Increasing Team Cooperation

Effective teams build your organization.  Instilling team spirit, creating a cooperative climate and channeling group effort are keys to productivity and success.

Three ideas to increase success with team cooperation include:

1. Discuss openly and recognize the problems facing team members in order to aid them in making their maximum contribution.
2. Pay attention to how team members treat each other.  Accept nothing short of respect.
3. Use specific problem solving models to aid the team to solve problems.

Our Toronto based Leadership skills training workshop provides the skills for performing positively and clearly to enhance your career and personal success.

Contact us to build your professionalism!  Find out how our Toronto based leadership skills training program and other management skills and communication courses and workshops can help.

Project Management Skills

Project management is a systematic approach essential to achieving goals with respect to schedules and budgets.

Two ideas to increase success with projects include:

1. Every project needs a sponsor. Do not begin until there is someone who is responsible for:

• Approving the team and defining the responsibilities
• Providing information and resources
• Clarifying critical issues
• Acting as key communication link between departments

2. Every project needs a clear statement of the expected outcomes, the approach, the timelines and the budget.  Do not commence any activities related to completing a project until the initial planning process has provided a statement that has the sponsor’s approval.

Our project management skills training workshop provides the project management skills for effective project planning and control.

Contact us today to find out how our Toronto based project management skills training and other management courses and communication skills and leadership skills workshops can help you build your professionalism.

Leadership – Increasing Team Cooperation

Effective teams build your organization.  Instilling team spirit, creating a cooperative climate and channeling group effort are keys to productivity and success.

Three ideas to increase success with team cooperation include:

1. Ensure that team members understand the total problem.
2. Ensure that team members understand how they can contribute toward solving the problem.
3. Make team members aware of the potential contributions of the other project team members.

Our Toronto based Leadership skills training workshop provides the skills for performing positively and clearly to enhance your career and personal success.

Contact us today to find out how our leadership skills training and other management skills and communication courses workshops and seminars can help you build your professionalism.

Negotiating Skills

Much of what you accomplish is the product of negotiation.

Four ideas to increase success include:

1. Know “when to fold ‘em” i.e. when to walk away… set specific limits. It’s OK to say, “That’s more than I‘m prepared to do.” or “That’s more than I‘m prepared to spend.”
2. Use silence as a technique to gain more information and more power.  The other person will fill the silence with information that will be potentially useful to you.
3. Think of compromise …the 50/50 split, as your secondary strategy.  A collaborative effort where you both uncover common ground and mutual benefits is the best approach and will produce a better outcome for both of you.
4. Ask questions like:

• What will it take to close this deal?
• What will it take to resolve this conflict?
• What will it take to earn your trust?
• What will it take to satisfy you?
• What will it take to fix this?

Our Toronto based Negotiating skills training workshop takes the mystery out of negotiating.  Focus on understanding five negotiating strategies and counter strategies and developing techniques to handle negotiations.

Contact us today to find out how our Toronto based Negotiating skills training and other management skills and leadership seminars, courses and workshops can help you build your professionalism.

Leadership Skills – Providing Feedback

Feedback can accomplish three important objectives:

• Provide recognition
• Boost morale and motivation
• Correct performance problems

Feedback answers the question, “How am I doing?”  Feedback requires no complicated forms and shows you’re there to help.

Our Toronto based Leadership skills training workshop provides the skills for performing positively and clearly to enhance your career and personal success. 

Contact us today to find out how our Toronto based leadership skills training and other management skills and communication courses, seminars and workshops can help you build your professionalism.

Communication Skills

First impressions count.  In minutes, a person forms an opinion about you based on your appearance, body language, demeanor, mannerisms.

Three ideas to increase your communication success with a first impression include:

1. Make eye contact and remain focused on their face until you know the colour of their eyes.
2. Build rapport by using their name.  Be careful not to overuse this practice.
3. Use the headline technique; keep your sentences short.  You will be asked to elaborate if they are interested in more detail.

Our Toronto based Communication skills training workshop provides the communication skills for performing positively and clearly to enhance your career and personal success.

Contact us today to find out how our Toronto based communication skills training and other management skills and leadership courses and workshops can help you build your professionalism.