When You're Asked To Do The Impossible
Based on the book of the same title, this workshop examines why some teams succeed at accomplishing the "impossible" time and again. It explores the nature of teams and leaders who take on the toughest challenges and accomplish their goals even against great odds. Using a interdisciplinary range of case studies, we will explore the four dimensions of high-stakes teams that must be carefully addressed. We will look at competencies and skill sets, team formation, operations, decision making in the face of chaos, motivation, and learning. We will also consider the leadership and cultural aspects required to turn the impossible into the possible.

The New Leader-Follower Dynamic:
A Contemporary View of Teamwork
There is no leadership without followership. The success of any organization will depend largely on whether the goals and the styles of the leader and the followers come together in a positive synergy. This course provides a contemporary model of the leader-follower dynamic. It includes such topics as the leader-follower "revolving door," matching leadership style to the organizational life cycle, the value of vision and norms, the need for clarity about governance and decision-making, and the new realities of motivation.

Getting It Together:
Enhancing Interpersonal Processes
This workshop provides clarity and practical tools for improving key interpersonal processes within groups. Questions to be addressed include: In what ways might we deal with diverse thinking style? How do we best communicate important ideas? How might we employ constructive conflict to produce the highest quality decisions? What are the five different conflict styles and when should they be employed? In which ways might we best handle positive and negative feedback? What is the role of dialogue in contemporary organizations?

Essential Negotiation:
From Conflict to Collaboration
Combining highly engaging simulations, personal reflection and peer debriefings, this spirited program illuminates the negotiation process and builds strong conflict management skills. Our goal is to develop and apply the strategies, tactics and attitudes of successful value-focused negotiators. Better understanding the nature of conflict and the value of joint problem solving, participants will explore how to achieve results that best meet their interests, develop the largest mutual gains for all parties, encourage collaboration, and facilitate the development of community.

Leading High Stakes Teams:
Success through Synergy
Many, if not most, groups never become teams, let alone high-performing teams. This experience-
and research-based workshop focuses on three goal sets—task achievement, team cohesion, and individual motivation—to move work groups to the highest levels of performance. This course, which can be tailored for specific work groups, is very practical in its orientation. We will look to develop task and team roles and traits that further the goals of the organization, promote the continual growth of the team, and deal with current and projected team challenges.

Leading High Reliability Organizations: Preventing and Dealing with Crisis
This course focuses on crisis leadership and how to lead organizations that face high intensity, high stakes challenges on an ongoing basis. Drawing from the research on decision making under stress and high reliability organizations, as well as dramatic case studies, we will explore the important principles and operational tactics that promote vigilance, provide the ability to prevent and/or contain catastrophe, and develop the skillfulness to promptly return to normal operations. We will also investigate the intriguing and important challenges of "weak signals" and "practical drift."

The Contemporary Leader:
Leading in an Age of Complexity
For over 400 years, our thinking has been dominated by a mental model that views the world—and organizations—as "machines" capable of prediction and control. But contemporary thinking and recent catastrophes have made clear that we must survive and succeed in a world of great complexity and uncertainty. With a new model along with new strategies and tools, we will explore such topics as complexity, human systems, leading for transformation, and enlightened strategic thinking in order to prepare a new breed of leader—one focused on the chaotic world of the 21st century.

The Challenge of Change
Leadership at all levels, by definition, is about change. Yet over 70% of change initiatives fail. Why is this crucial leadership role so badly fulfilled? Taking a more contemporary perspective, we will see why "old thinking" is counterproductive in the information workplace. We will take a fresh look at motivation and the strategy and tactics of change leadership. We will look at what has to be undone before new things can be done; a "taxonomy" of change challenges; and how multiple, interlocking programs may be the secret to change success.