Seminars by Dr. Ann Atkinson

Note: All seminars are custom tailored to the needs and desired results of each client. The seminars listed are those that have been presented for the purpose of giving potential clients an idea of the range of value provided.

1. Scenario Planning.
This program in scenario planning is designed to enable the learner to explain the benefits and process of scenario planning, to assemble a well-constituted team for scenario planning, and to conduct a scenario-based analysis of any company and industry.

2. Leading Through Creativity
Creativity is not just something that artists have, or a personal characteristic that we feel good about. It's a vitally important business skill: today's leaders must be able to work creatively and foster creativity throughout their organizations. In this program you'll study and practice a large number of proven techniques for doing exactly that.

3. Board of Directors Training
Is your board staff-driven or board-driven? Do you pay attention to critical issues or detail? This workshop focuses on preparing board members for their role in maintaining and sustaining growth for their organization. This workshop applies either to profit or not-for-profit organizations.

4. Ethics: From Rhetoric to Reality
Ethical issues are not only among the most important issues executives face today, they are also among the most threatening. Ethical issues are important because of the intense public scrutiny under which organizations operate. They are among the most threatening because ethics are often judged in hindsight and for political purposes. This session will help you sort rhetoric from reality in ethics and help you define a winning ethical stance for your organization and for yourself.

5. Workplace Trends – 2010 – Generational Issues
Understanding and adapting to changes in the workplace can give your organization a competitive advantage. This course will examine major workplace trends and their implications for the next century. There will also be discussions on how trends in demographics, values and employee attitudes will affect your leadership role.

6. Emotional Intelligence – the Real Key to Leadership
Emotional intelligence, or EQ, is the ability to identify and understand emotional reactions – your own and those of others. Your level of emotional intelligence matters because EQ is a predictor of personal and professional success. EQ is more than twice as important as IQ and technical skills combined. If you have high EQ, you can regulate your emotions and use them to make good decisions and to be more effective.

7. 360° Feedback Sessions
Certified by the internationally acclaimed Hay Group, I provide opportunities
for leaders and potential leaders to receive feedback from people at all levels in their organization. From this feedback, a coaching path is created. This is an extraordinarily effective tool for change. No organizational action has more power for motivating employee behavior change than feedback from credible work associates.
This tool gives individuals a clear understanding of personal strengths and areas for development, and it enhances the effectiveness of team-based work structures.

8. Values in Conflict: Coping in a Changing World
Does value-added mean different things to different board members? Do your co-workers have a variety of opinions about what is important at work? Are today’s kids a mystery to you? In this class, you’ll learn how values are formed and see with greater clarity how your values both compete with and complement those of your board, staff, and volunteers. You’ll learn how to work more effectively with people with different values – and when and how to adjust a “work values prism” to see things differently.

9. Realistic Risk Taking
If you’re willing to take realistic risks, you’ll probably end up with better products and a better staff. This course will help you identify and evaluate such risks in your management arena. You’ll assess your own risk-taking style and learn tactics for minimizing the danger of taking risks.

10. Creativity and Problem Solving
This course will prepare you to engage in effective and focused creative thinking and problem-solving strategies. You will learn how to identify and reduce barriers to innovative thinking. And, you’ll be challenged to apply your problem-solving skills by examining problems from many different angles.

11. Creating Balance: Having More of the Life You Want
Accountabilities, responsibilities, and personal choices all come together, creating pressure and stress for professional women and men. Will it ever end? When it comes to job, friends. Community, health….how does one choose, find value, obtain balance and avoid or manage conflicts? These and other value-laden issues will be explored.

12. Organizational Crisis: Managing and Communicating in the Midst of Chaos
You hope it will never happen to you – but if it does, you must be prepared to act immediately and effectively. Your crisis could be a natural disaster, harmful failure of a product or service, or the inappropriate behavior of a board member or employee. This course will review a variety of ways organizations can effectively respond to crises.

13. Self-Governance: The Issue of Modeling by the Board of Directors
The board sets the tone for the corporation, whether it is a for-profit or not-for-profit organization. The tone they set for the corporation and how they govern their own behavior is important. Because it is better to be deliberate rather than accidental, this course assists boards in determining standards by which they will govern themselves.

14.An Introduction to Facilitation: A Necessary Skill
Effective facilitation can keep your meetings on target. This course is designed to enhance your understanding of the role of the facilitator and to help you organize meetings to accommodate the facilitation process and achieve desired outcomes.

15.Successful Delegation
We know we should delegate – but sometimes we just won’t let go! Whatever the reasons, failure to delegate can affect your organization’s productivity. This course will cover the basic principles of effective delegation – including how to avoid common pitfalls and how to maintain the right amount of control.

16.Facilitation: The Advanced Workshop
The role of facilitator is demanding, requiring strong communication skills and an ability to influence others. This course will help you identify and enhance the interpersonal skills you need to become a more capable facilitator. You’ll learn when to intervene in the group process – and how to provide and receive feedback accurately. These techniques will help you keep your boards, committees, and other groups moving towards their goals.

17.Basic Presentation Skills
Are you nervous when presenting? Do you choke up when you’re behind a podium? This basic speaking class will focus on channeling stage fright and other signs of nervousness into speaking energy. Additionally, participants will focus on audience analysis, parts of a presentation, methods for organizing information and basic delivery techniques. You will have an opportunity to practice techniques covered in the class.

18.Handling a Hostile Public
As environmental, regulatory and business decisions become more complex and controversial, your organization is likely to face opposition. In this course, you’ll learn tips and techniques for identifying and diffusing potentially disastrous conflicts. You’ll also learn how to maintain your organization’s credibility in the wake of controversy.

19.Gender Diversity in the Workplace
Are gender differences a catalyst for conflict in your organization? How do male/female work relationships affect your productivity? This interactive course will explore the history of gender diversity in the workplace. Discussions include perceptions and misconceptions of male and female leaders, consequences of “Minority” status; the impact of gender differences on performance evaluations, and sex role stereotypes in the office. Participants will come away with skills for handling gender diversity issues in the workplace with greater sensitivity and ease.

20.Managing Through Continuous Change
Change is no longer a single force in the environment; it “is” the environment. In this course, you will identify what makes a change-adapt professional. You will build strengths to confront change confidently, and you will learn how to develop lifestyle and work habits hat increase your ability to copy with, and manage through, change.

21.Excellence in Customer Service
If you don’t provide quality service to your customers, your competition will. This course will help you assess how your organization currently serves its customers and identify ways you can maximize customer satisfaction. You will examine the critical areas that must be addressed before an organization can improve its service. And, you will learn how to get feedback on your service and respond more quickly to customer needs.

22.Conducting Employee Performance Appraisals
Do your employee performance appraisals encourage positive working relationships? Or, do they foster a climate of fear and distrust? This course will teach you to conduct performance appraisals that will motivate your employees, contribute to their careers and your own, and achieve organization objectives. You will also learn to employ follow-up techniques that will ensure long-term desired performance.

23.Small Business Workshop
This workshop will provide you with the information and tools you need to develop programs and services for small businesses. You’ll review issues, programs, and resource materials relevant to small businesses. And, you’ll evaluate your existing structures and learn to identify new services.

24.Success in Organization Management
What does it take to be an effective organization manager and to have a successful career in the field? This course will provide an overview of fundamental organization management precepts and identify benchmarks found in successful market-driven organizations. Using case studies and small group discussion, this course will help you identify key competencies needed for individual success in organization management.

25.Dialogue on Critical Issues: Valuing Diversity
This course will allow participants to share insights and exchange ideas on diversity in a facilitated group discussion. Topics will include the “added value” of diversity; managing the diversity change process in organizations; and managing and creating teams in a diverse community.

26. Gender and Communication Style
If your attempts to communicate with the opposite sex leave you shaking your head, this workshop is for you. The course explores the richness and complexity of documented gender differences in conversation style, non-verbal behavior, and relational goals. You’ll become more aware of the impact these gender differences produce. And, you’ll master strategies for translating, interpreting, understanding, and relating effectively as you communicate with the opposite sex.

27. Effective Listening
Listening: it’s crucial to your success, and it isn’t as easy as you think. If you’re like most people, your mind wanders during meetings and presentations. The result: you miss information critical to decision-making. In this workshop, you’ll apply techniques that will immediately improve your listening skills and reduce miscommunication.

28. Gearing Up for the Global Challenge
The world has clearly entered a period of immense international activity. Globalization impacts every business in North America. Your success in the future may depend on how well you can deal in the international arena. Every culture has its own way of building relationships, motivating people, negotiating, and working. In this workshop, participants will examine, compare, and contrast various global cultures – looking at how beliefs and values typically impact business interactions and influence business behavior.

29. Management Excellence
Management excellence is an essential characteristic of leaders in a successful organization. This course will review the evolution of excellence, examine emerging trends, and discuss the changing role of managers in organizations. Case studies will be used to examine real-life situations involving organization change and redesign.

30. Managing Executive Stress
The words executive and stress too often go hand in hand. You will learn to recognize the symptoms of stress and relieve them by incorporating a series of relaxation techniques into your daily routine. This course will provide you with the skills you need to overcome an inevitable side effect of executive responsibility.

31. Developing and Managing a Program of Work
An organization’s program of work serves many purposes. Not only does it play a significant role as you fulfill your philosophy and mission – it also serves as the primary means of telling your community what actions your business is willing and planning to undertake. It provides focus and guidance while serving as a marketing tool. In this workshop, you will learn how to prepare and formulate a program of work – and how to promote the finished product.

32. Preparation Skills for Effective Presentations
A powerful presentation combines efficient content preparation with skillful delivery. This workshop provides practical, proven methods for writing and structuring effective presentations. You’ll examine the skills of dynamic delivery and learn techniques for developing any presentation in 15 minutes or less!

33. Advanced Strategies for More Effective Presentations
This advanced workshop will help you improve the way you look and sound while delivering presentations. You will learn how to convert nervous energy into effective gestures and speaking emphasis. Language skills are introduced that will help you deliver messages for the audience’s ear – and memory. Your words and your actions will become more consistent, creating a credible and dynamic way of speaking. In this workshop, your presentations will be videotaped, and you’ll receive constructive feedback on your presentation strengths.

34. Issues Forum
This in-depth, confidential forum enables your senior management team to act as consultants for your company. The group will identify six major issues that are especially challenging in today’s environment. You and your peers will discuss the challenges, and through shared information, insights, and professional experience, will identify workable solutions.

35. Mergers, Alliances, and Strategic Partnerships
From 1959 to 1990 the number of 502(c) 6 organizations exploded exponentially. The years ahead look somewhat different. Waves of consolidation have hit private business. Can these waves of organizational change also force other profits and non-profits into new relationships? In this workshop, you’ll discover what it takes to create successful joint ventures, and identify partnerships that fit your organization’s mission. And, you’ll develop skills that will help you negotiate the best deals for your business.

36. Skills to Influence and Motivate
This workshop focuses on practical skills for influencing and motivating people. You’ll explore different behavioral styles and temperaments, learn how to gain trust, and identify ways to give and receive feedback. As a result, you’ll develop your own behavioral style to build compatibility with others and encourage positive behavior.

37. Advanced Session: Managing and Motivating Your Staff
Unclear and ambiguous communication can lead to unhappy employees and unsatisfactory performance. This workshop will teach you how to communicate your expectations to guarantee mutual understanding and commitment. You’ll learn to give constructive feedback that will help improve employee performance and ensure that your organization’s objectives are met.

38. Habits for Enhancing Personal and Professional Effectiveness
Based on the work of best-selling author Stephen Covey, this workshop uses a hands-on approach to introduce key habits for enhancing personal and professional effectiveness. This is a holistic, integrated, principle-centered approach that offers a way to perform self-exploration and become more aware of our impact on others. You will discover and validate your own “durable truths” as they apply to various aspects of your life – with the primary focus on professional productivity and quality of work life.

39. Psychology of Success
Are you living up to your potential? For many people, the obstacles to this success are internal. This workshop will explore the principles of a “psychology of success.” You will learn to extinguish limiting attitudes, develop habits of success and tap into your full personal and professional capabilities.

40. Strategies for Success in Tourism
This workshop identifies for you the crucial components of effective tourism management, differentiating the requirements of urban, small town and resort tourism programs. Other subjects include convention and group marketing and promotion, hospitality industry management, CVB funding and program budgeting, developing a cost-benefit analysis and research/evaluation.

41. Executive Roundtable
This special workshop gives you the opportunity to discuss the problems and issues related to your effectiveness as an executive. Reactions and suggested solutions are provided by other senior executives in a collegial and supportive network. This is a unique forum for frank and open comment from your peers on matters that concern you and your business.

42. Winning at Job, Salary and Benefits Negotiation
Ever wonder how some people end up with the perfect job, making lots of money? In this workshop, you’ll learn how to overcome roadblocks to success and engage in high-performance negotiating for both jobs and salaries. You’ll learn strategies for improving your marketability and techniques for identifying and winning at different negotiating styles.

43. Developing Life Planning Skills
Throughout our lives, we frequently feel the need to stop and evaluate how far we have come professionally and personally as well as where we want to direct future energies. By completing a life-management inventory, you will identify potential areas of change, clarify your personal life vision, and develop a plan for reaching your established goals. Along the way, you will take a hard look at life crises and ways to avoid their pitfalls.

44. Understanding Multi-Cultural (Cross Cultural) Diversity
a. Managing foreign nationals
b. Servicing foreign nationals as customers
This workshop focuses on two key areas: How to maximize the productivity of a different culture, race or work ethic from that of the management group; and sensitizing all the staff on correct strategies in dealing with others who are foreign nationals.

45. Secrets of Effective Positioning
This workshop targets marketing strategies and demonstrates ways you can effectively carve out a niche for yourself in the competitive environment.

46. Developing a Winning Marketing Plan
An intensive session that takes you step by step toward developing a plan that delivers the “maximum bang for your marketing buck.”

47. The Psychology of Winning Companies
Often the key ingredient for success is a company’s view of itself. Find out if your company fits the profile and what buttons to push if it doesn’t.

48. The Canadian Extension
There is a vast market just north of the border (or south of the border depending on where you are located) that is both nearby and easy to penetrate when you know the ropes.

49. Selling in Tough Times to Difficult People
Unlock the secrets of truly effective selling techniques and strategies.

50. The Cost of Poor Service
If there is any doubt in your mind that training doesn’t improve the bottom line, let’s look at a business’s budget and year-end results that paid attention to training and one that did not. Finally let’s look at the costs of customers not returning to a business because of bad service and how word of mouth can either kill you or save you.

51. Putting Leadership Back Into Management
This seminar discusses six behavioral dimensions of leadership that are immediately transferable to any business and also provides steps for making each employee develop their own leadership potential.

52. Leadership and Mastery
This is the second phase of the leadership piece that focuses on vision and creativity as it relates to increased market share and increased business.

53. Teambuilding
This workshop develops teambuilding by focusing on each individual and why they do what they do. The Myers-Briggs Type Inventory is used in this process to help people focus on the important issues.

54. Cross Train Employees for Greater Productivity
Everyone gives lip service to the fact that employees are happiest when they are highly motivated. Here you will be given the tools to keep employees happy and inquisitive.

55. Interviewing Skills
Traditional interviewing just won’t work in our environment today. There are other ways…find out how you can find the right person.

56. Transitioning from an Operational Mentality to a Marketing Mentality
This program focuses on the senior management team and pinpoints their primary responsibility for the new millenium: building revenue.

57. Misguided Missiles in the Executive Suite
Executives who seem to be doing a fine job may often represent potential threats to your organization’s survival. Find out how to rehabilitate these “misguided missiles” before it’s too late.

58. Entrepreneurial Planning: Setting Goals that Enhance Growth
Fresh perspectives on the planning process in growth companies.

59. Dealing with Change
This program focuses on the aspects of change, how to work with employees who cannot deal with change, and how to use change as a positive force for your business.

60. Employee Labor Relations
If your business is union or non-union, there is information in this workshop that will be helpful to your organization.

61. Employee Relations Reflects Productivity
Methods for getting your employees back on the right track so that turnover is reduced and customers want to return.

62. Train the Trainer
Designate a person in every department and have them take the task of a designated trainer. The rewards are measurable.

63. Empowering Employees
A customer wants his complaint solved immediately and to his benefit. An employee should be able to handle his request on the spot. If you waste time finding a “decision maker,” you also lose the customer.

64. Activating an Effective Communication Plan in a Merger/Acquisition/Takeover Environment
This workshop demonstrates deliberate communication steps to make any transition more understandable and less defensive.

65. Time Management for Managers
Fighting alligators again? This workshop will eliminate that sentence from your vocabulary and allow you to lead a balanced life.

66. Customer Service Training: A Workshop in Customer Care
Turn acceptable service into EXCEPTIONAL service. This workshop provides a simple model of service that is applicable to all organizations.

67. Sharpening Your Analysis Skills
Analyzing performance problems in the future will demand that you address a broad scope of issues. Find out what the issues are and what sources and strategies for information-gathering you will need to perform a thorough analysis in a timely manner.

68. How to Evaluate and Access Potential
Managers who bring out the best in their employees help themselves, the workforce, and the entire organization. This session shows how to create individual development plans that accurately reflect the organization’s goals.

69. Developing Teams Through Games and Creativity
An experience is sometimes worth thousands of words. Find out what innovative games and techniques can do to foster creativity, excitement and motivation.

70. Fear in the Workplace
Fear of taking risks or presenting new ideas can stifle productivity and change. Find out what your employees are most afraid of and how you can mold a fearful environment into a place of safety, trust, and risk-taking.

71. Planning for Quality
The planning deficiency has saddled our companies with chronic quality control problem: loss of market share, poor customer relations, high costs of poor quality, an internal atmosphere of mutual blame. This program provides a structured approach to planning for quality.

72. Win/Win Relationships on the Job
How to improve interpersonal communications, prevent conflicts, increase your confidence, performance and job satisfaction.

73. Customer-Centered Selling
All the newest techniques for meeting the customer, presenting the product and closing the sale.

74. Supervisory Training
A program which delivers state-of-the-art supervisory skills training in a format which is flexible and easy to use and apply.

75. Solving People Problems
This workshop will demonstrate why problem behavior occurs, how to recognize and deal with problem people, and how to listen, confront and when to discipline.

76. Vision and Visioning: Two Different Leadership Strategies
Explore the differences in the purpose and impact of leader-defined vision and the vision developed collaboratively in the organization. Find out when each is necessary and how to achieve a clear vision.

77. Issues in the Design of Succession Planning
The key to succession-planning is the identification, assessment and development of high potential people. This session will show you how to get top-level support and how to link succession criteria to business strategy and organization culture.

78. Incentive Plans for Line Employees
Profitability can be extraordinary when everyone is a stakeholder in making the bottom line grow. You don’t have to give the house away to design incentive plans that really work for everyone.

79. The Systems Approach to Organizations
Learn to see organizations as systems and to apply open systems analysis to improve management, work-team, and organization performance. This takes the lessons provided by Dr. Peter Senge of Innovation Associates.

80. Substance Abuse and Other National Health Concerns
This informational program could cover some or all of the following: alcohol, drugs, AIDS, and stress-related illnesses. They impact the company’s productivity as well as the individual’s life – and there IS something you can do about it.

81. Putting Focus into Non-Profit Organizations
Tools are given for non-profit organizations, which will enhance the delivery of their services and improve morale for the employees.

82. Customer Service Strategies: Listening Between the Lines
Powerful tools you need to promote an authentic customer-oriented strategy in all ranks of your company. Learn how to listen to the customer’s hidden voice and how to choose between customer service that pays off and meaningless “perks” that just cost you money.

83. Criteria to Achieve Total Quality Management
This seminar will guide you through criteria that will help you develop and enhance your firm’s TQM program. If your business needs a boost in productivity or profits, this session will teach you successful approaches to get your company on the road to total quality improvement and great business success.

84. Creating Effective Teams
You’ll discover why some groups perform better than others, which behaviors characterize effective groups, and most importantly, how group members can improve the way they work together to produce maximum results. You’ll also learn critical guidelines for improving teamwork and building consensus.

85. True Partners: Sales and Customer Service
The process of listening to the customer begins at the initial meeting between salespeople and potential customers and continues with the follow-up by your customer service representatives. In this session you’ll discover effective strategies to turn customer service calls into sales; how to counsel your team to ensure total customer satisfaction in every area; how to engage in “partnering.”

86. Getting the Most Out of Self-Directed Work Teams
You’ll find out how eliminating supervisors has actually improved productivity and created better decision-making. The result: multi-skilled workers able to swiftly key into and deliver what customers really need and want.

87. Using Power-Packed Customer Relations to Enhance Your Service Strategy
You will learn innovative ways to formulate and develop an effective customer relations program. You’ll find out how to discover what your customers really think of your business, employees, and your organization’s quality.

88. Common Principles of Excellent Organizations
Participants will learn the fundamental differences between “best” rated and “poorest” rated companies plus the winning philosophies that drive people and productivity to new heights of profitability.

89. How Benchmarking Can Help Your Organization Achieve A
Sustainable Competitive Advantage
During this workshop you will learn how benchmarking (the discovery and incorporation of best practices into day-to-day operations) can help you change your operations in order to better satisfy customers. Learn to define what benchmarking is and isn’t; define the key terms that make up the language of benchmarking.

90. Redesigning Work for the New Millennium
Participants will have a clear understanding of the impact of organization design and individual behaviors on: teamwork, employee involvement in goal setting; individual motivation; communication; decision-making; and business performance.

91. Grow Your Own Leaders
As corporations prepare to deal with “work force 2000” issues, leaders will become an increasingly vital necessity. The anticipated decline in the size and quality of the workforce will mean corporations must grow their own leaders. This session provides direction in establishing a process to grow leaders.

92. Self-Managing Teams
Most workers prefer self-managing teams to traditional workgroups. The job of the organization is to create the circumstances in which self-managing teams can succeed and then enable them to do so. This workshop will help you create these circumstances by equipping you to measure your organization’s readiness to implement self-managing teams.

93. Beyond Brainstorming: Tools for Developing Ideas with Groups
How can you tap the experience and creativity of a group with creating chaos! Many use brainstorming but have few other strategies for managing creative thinking with a group. With the tools given in this workshop, you will be able to guide a group through idea development or help a group that’s stuck by assessing their key needs.

94. Going Global: Designing Training for Cross Cultural Leaders
This workshop will provide participants the opportunity to evaluate their global mindset, explore American values in contrast to values of other cultures, examine the impact of cultural variables on learning styles and select instructional strategies for different learning styles in order to maximize learning.

95. Improving Performance Through New Structures
Using Robert Fritz’s work, this workshop will focus on the need to build, support and “educate” changing organizations. This presentation will introduce the concept of a structural organizational approach as an integral element to organizational success. This workshop is based on Fritz’s books, Corporate Tides, Creativity, and The Path of Least Resistance.

96. Creative Focus
This workshop will develop your ability to generate creative and effective solutions to business problems. You will learn the elements of creativity and how to participate in effective team processes using creativity techniques.

97. Technologies for Creating
This is a two-day workshop in which the creative process is discussed within the context of the business environment. Participants will explore what their organization is trying to create and position it in relation to the organization’s needs. Participants can learn to evaluate and adjust their actions for greater impact and structure their actions for greater success. Consulting skills are also included which will help participants find motivation for their results, create continuity and be consistent with their organization’s goals.

98. Working with Native American Concerns
Native Americans have different issues that other groups. This open discussion addresses those issues and offers viable solutions to solve current issues. This workshop is based on experience with hundreds of Native Americans in North America.

99. Community-Academic Partnerships for Community Activism
Many strategies can be used to incorporate community activism into the work of universities. When you build on a foundation of community involvement, you set the stage for interdisciplinary approaches which can be used to blend teaching and research to service communities in non-traditional ways. This workshop will include faculty, student and community thoughts about the process mentioned above.

100. Structural Thinking Beliefs
Based on the work of Robert Fritz, this workshop looks at fundamental structures of organizations and the behaviors that get in the way of achieving desired results. This workshop serves as a framework to help participants create what matters to them and to the organization.

101. Strategic Planning for Results
This approach shows techniques that can be used in every department to help everyone work towards the same goal. It creates stakeholders in every employee, and it allows each employee to know the “why” of their job. It also clearly helps them to see why service is so important.

102. “Different” Motivational Lessons for Managers and Employees
These activities are designed as inexpensive motivational experiences to illustrate the value of teamwork as it relates to communication, trust and problem solving.

103.Yield Management in Sales
Product merchandising is a fine art and a fine skill, and it makes a significant impact on the bottom line on your business. Find out why this yield management plan allows the business to achieve maximum revenues.

104.Sales Efficiency
This is the report card on how well your merchandising plan worked. Details on how to use this tool as a profit planner and for inventory management as discussed.