THE NEED: Many businesses and organizations experience lower employee productivity and morale because management-level personnel are unaware of using a management style that breeds interpersonal tension and interferes with open and effective communication. This negative interpersonal dynamic contributes to a lack of employee motivation and feelings of resentment that drain away creative energy and interfere with successful task accomplishment. In turn, this can adversely affect a company's bottom-line or the fulfillment of an organization’s mission and goals.

THE OBJECTIVE: This workshop aims to teach executives and managers how to inspire trust, unleash creativity, and motivate cooperation on the part of their employees and team members. This will be accomplished by teaching principles of effective motivational leadership, in particular a set of practical interpersonal skills that are designed to improve communication, foster an atmosphere of cooperation, and generate positive feelings of loyalty that engender higher levels of productivity.

WORKSHOP FORMAT: The format of this intensive skills-training workshop is uniquely powerful at eliciting concrete and long-lasting changes in attitudes and behavior. The workshop provides demonstrations and frequent coached practice exercises and group processes so that participants can internalize new patterns of interaction with team members and, by extension, with management colleagues and other significant parties such as customers and clients.

WORKSHOP OUTLINE: The workshop is structured in a two-day format, each day comprising two modules.

Module 1 introduces participants to the fundamentals of the Interpersonal Dynamics^sm Skills Training Program and explains its utility in executive and management leadership. Special attention is given to the principles of effective motivational leadership. In addition, the two core skills of effective communication - expressive speaking and empathic responding - are explained and demonstrated. Coached practice exercises facilitate the mastering and internalizing of the expressive speaking skill.

Module 2 continues with additional coached practice exercises on the use of the empathic responding skill. Participants then will be given the opportunity to rehearse using both skills by role-playing realistic scenarios and issues encountered in the management of individual employees.

Module 3 provides participants an opportunity to apply these core communication skills in a group setting by role-playing issues, problems or conflict situations that might arise in the context of a work group or team meeting. This facilitated exercise allows participants to deepen and refine their ability to use these skills to enhance their team’s ability to work cooperatively in a group setting.

Module 4 teaches participants how to generalize these skills beyond their immediate team environment so that they can be used with other colleagues in the company or organization, with external business associates or stake holders, and with customers and clients. The goal is to learn how to generate good will and build a cooperative atmosphere, thereby diffusing potential conflict and improving the odds for meeting shared goals.

FOLLOW-UP TRAINING AND CONSULTATION SERVICES are available on a custom-tailored basis to meet your work group or organization’s special needs for additional skills training or for consultation and facilitation in resolving particularly difficult problems.

     Team-Building

     Customer Relations Training

For further information, or to schedule a workshop for your work group, team, department or organization, please contact Rob Scuka, Ph.D., M.S.W., L.C.S.W.-C., at 301-986-1479, or by email at niremd@nire.org.