Our Services

Essential Lessons for Today’s Leader

The challenges of Team Leads today are distinctly different than a decade ago. Being the Supervisor (an individual who oversees the activities of others) isn’t the definition that works in contemporary workplaces. Being a Leader is much more effective today than being a “Boss.” Today’s team leads, supervisors, and managers deal with important responsibilities each day – improving the performance of others, resolving conflict, and leading effective teams, to name just a few. A breakdown in communication can cause massive losses to any organization. Through a combination of interpersonal skill-based sessions, intertwined with some of the latest learnings in emotional intelligence and behavioral sciences, Chris and Richelle’s “Leadership Today” Series addresses key areas team leads, supervisors and managers face, and how to get beyond them to build more productive and high performing workplaces.

The Role of Leadership

• Best/Worst Leaders
• Your Place in the Organization
• Setting Expectations
• Your Roles and Responsibilities
• Eight Good Behaviors
• The “Gift” of Feedback
• Guidelines for Giving and Receiving Feedback

Communicating Effectively

• Taking Charge of Your Communication
• How to Develop Rapport and Empathy With Others
• Powerful Listening Strategies
• Verbal vs. Non-Verbal Communication
• How Social Styles Develop
• Understanding Our Social Styles (DISC)
• Flexing to the Styles of Others
• Understanding the Impact We Have on Ourselves and Our Team

Managing Our Conflicts

• Interpersonal Conflict – And How We React
• Common Causes of Conflict
• Using Appropriate Conflict Management Skills
• Coping with Difficult People and Situations

Leading Effective Teams

• What Makes Effective Teams
• Why Teams?
• Trust is the Foundation of Teamwork
• Team Roles
• Making Teamwork Work
• Consensus Decision Making

In today’s competitive business climate, strong long-term customer relationships are essential for continued business sustainability and growth. To create valuable, sustainable customer relationships, great organizations don’t sell customers on contracts – they seduce them with connections. Impactful, memorable, emotional connections lead to true customer loyalty. Most importantly – the best customer relationships are interactive two-way partnerships that thrive on respect, trust and credibility. Through a combination of highly-interactive interpersonal skill-based sessions, CNR Solutions’ “Enhancing Our Customer Relations” program addresses key areas to help enhance relationships, improve understanding and build more productive and higher performing workplaces.

Understanding the Effects of Customer Relationships – Both Groups

• Why Enhance Customer Relationships (Internal and External)
• Understanding the Issues
• Building Rapport and Developing Empathy
• Understanding Ourselves and Others
• Enhancing Our Listening Skills
• Seeing Ourselves as Others See Us
• Moments of “Magic” or “Misery”
• Building Long-term Loyalty

Creating Better Customer Relationships – Inside Staff/Sales

• Why are Customers Different
• Interpersonal Conflict – and How We React
• Strategies for Diffusing the Situation
• Enhancing our Telephone Skills
• Practicing with Our Difficult Situations (Role-Play)
• How We Affect Others

In today’s competitive business climate, strong long-term client relationships are essential for continued business sustainability and growth. To create valuable, sustainable client relationships, great organizations don’t sell clients on contracts – they seduce them with connections. Impactful, memorable, emotional connections lead to true client loyalty. Most importantly – the best client relationships are interactive two-way partnerships that thrive on respect, trust, and credibility.

Through a combination of highly-interactive interpersonal skill-based sessions, Chris and Richelle’s “Enhancing Our Client Relations” program addresses key areas to help enhance relationships, improve understanding and build more productive and higher performing workplaces.

Understanding the Effects of Client Relationships

• Why Enhance Client Relationships
• Understanding the Issues
• Seeing Ourselves as Others See Us
• Moments of “Magic” or “Misery”
• Building Long-term Loyalty

Creating Better Client Relationships

• Building Rapport
• Understanding Ourselves and Others
• Enhancing Our Listening Skills
• Questioning Techniques
• Developing Empathy
• Trust and Credibility

Understanding Different Client Styles

• Why are Clients Different
• How Social Styles Develop
• Understanding Our Social Styles (DISC)
• Flexing to the Styles of Others
• How We Affect Others

Improving Difficult Client Relationships

• Interpersonal Conflict – and How We React
• Strategies for Diffusing the Situation
• Practicing with Our Difficult Situations (Role-Play)
• 7 Steps for Effective Apologies
• Positive Accountability

Personal Competence – how we manage ourselves

Self-Awareness: Introduction to Emotional Intelligence

• Knowing one’s own emotions and recognizing their impact
• Accurate self-assessment: Knowing one’s strengths and limits
• Self-confidence: Having a sound sense of one’s self-worth and capabilities

The Deeper Dive

• Self Management: Resilience & Maintaining a Positive Attitude (including DISC)
• Emotional self-control; Keeping disruptive emotions and impulses under control
• Transparency: Displaying honesty, integrity, and trustworthiness
• Adaptability: Demonstrating flexibility in adapting to changing situations or overcoming obstacles
• Achievement: Having the drive to improve performance to meet inner standards of excellence
• Initiative: Being ready to act and seize opportunities
• Optimism: Seeing the ‘up side’ in events

Social Competence – how we manage relationships

Social Awareness: Interpersonal Skills (Communication) and Customer Focus

• Empathy: Sensing others’ emotions, understanding their perspectives, and taking active interest in their concerns
• Organizational awareness: Reading the currents, decision networks, and politics at the organizational level
• Service: Recognizing and meeting follower, client, or customer needs

Relationship Management I: Influence and Change

• Influence: Ability to recognize, manage, and evoke emotions within oneself to promote change
• Change catalyst: Initiating, managing and leading in a new direction

Relationship Management II: Conflict Management

• Handling relationships and emotions in others
• Conflict management: Resolving disagreements

Relationship Management III: Fostering Cooperation and Teamwork

• Building bonds: Cultivating and maintaining a web of relationships
• Teamwork and collaboration: Fostering cooperation and team building
• Decision Making: Appropriate application of emotion to manage change and solve problems

In this workshop, Individuals will learn to improve their opportunities for successful relationships by getting along better with others. This workshop concentrates on how to become a more effective communicator, improve skills for dealing with difficult people and situations, and improve the interpersonal skills required when dealing with people, both one-on-one and as a team. Attendees will gain an appreciation for necessary and unnecessary conflict and constructive strategies for resolving issues and developing positive relationships.

Communicating Effectively

• Taking Charge of Your Communication
• How to Develop Rapport and Empathy With Others

It’s Not What You Say, But How You Say It

• Powerful Listening Strategies
• Verbal vs. Non-Verbal Communication
• Understanding the Impact We Have on Ourselves and Our Team

Methods for Managing Conflict

• Interpersonal Conflict – And How We React
• Sources of Conflict in the Workplace
• Using Appropriate Conflict Management Skills
• Coping with Difficult People and Situations

Understanding Ourselves and Others

• Guidelines for Giving and Receiving Feedback
• How Can We Be Both Candid and Caring?
• The “Gift” of Feedback
• To See Ourselves as Others See Us

Working Together

• Building Trust
• The Power of Working Together
• Action Planning Going Forward

This highly engaging workshop is designed to help individuals recognize the value of giving feedback and how it influences employee performance. During the course, participants will explore their role as leaders, become familiar with communication techniques, and identify ways to breakthrough barriers to giving feedback. Participants will learn how to use expectations, recognition, and modeling as effective performance management tools.

What you will learn:

Introduction to Leadership

• Best Leader/Worst Leader – What does it look like?

Holding peers accountable

• “Do your best” – Giving the gift of feedback and goal setting
• Johari window – A brief reminder of how we see ourselves and others
• Situational Behavior Impact (SBI)

Positive Accountability

• Trust is the foundation of success

Dealing with Resistance

• Visiting the World Café with my Father-in-law

In these trying economic times, all organizations are trying to find new ways to do more with less. Every organization needs its greatest asset – its people – to find innovation and efficiency, through collaborative understanding and more effective communications. Whether we are partnering with vendors, relating to customers, or developing the strengths of team members, great communication is the foundation for success!

In this highly interactive workshop, individuals will learn how to improve their opportunities for successful relationships by sharing the right information, understanding others and their viewpoints, and creating an atmosphere of mutual respect.

What you will learn in this course:

• Learn to take charge of our communication, both verbal and non-verbal.
• Apply powerful listening strategies through practice in Active Listening.
• Identify ways to develop rapport and empathy with others.
• It’s not what you say, but how you say it!
• Use constructive strategies for resolving issues and developing positive relationships.

In these trying economic times, all organizations are trying to find new ways to do more with less. Every organization needs its greatest asset – its people – to find innovation and efficiency, through collaborative understanding and more effective communications. Whether we are partnering with vendors, relating to customers, or developing the strengths of employees, great communication is the foundation for success!

In this highly interactive workshop, individuals will learn how to improve their opportunities for successful relationships by sharing the right information, understanding others and their viewpoints, and creating an atmosphere of mutual respect. The course introduces the concept of how to communicate with credibility and confidence, handle difficult people and how to take positive steps to turning problem relationships around. Individuals who attend this workshop will leave armed with powerful tools, critical for success in today’s workplace.

What you will learn in this course:

• Gain insight into our own personality style and the styles of others
• Learn to take charge of our communication, both verbal and non-verbal
• Apply powerful listening strategies through practice in Active Listening
• Identify ways to develop rapport and empathy with others
• It’s not what you say, but how you say it!
• Discover how to give and receive the “Gift of Feedback”
• Develop skills to “gather” vice “guess” the information we need
• Learn to collaborate with even the most difficult customer or co-worker
• Use constructive strategies for resolving issues and developing positive relationships

Oftentimes, individuals who hold various positions with an organization are relied upon to make professional presentations to other managers, to groups inside the organization or to the public. During that presentation, their skill in presenting can leave a lasting impression on the audience. During the presentation, the speaker literally becomes the organization they represent. These spokespeople are typically not professionally trained speakers, and they don’t intend for public speaking to become their primary job. In fact, these individuals may not even have the advanced communication skills to effectively stand in front of a group.

This highly interactive workshop will help participants learn how to prepare for a presentation, create speaking objectives, learn how to deal with difficult people and situations, learn how to use presentation tools effectively, and practice making a presentation before a live audience (the other participants) and the course facilitator. Feedback sheets are used to provide ideas for improvement, and shared with each presenter in an effort to help them gain the confidence they need to improve their skill levels.

What you will learn in this course:

• What is the objective of my talk?
• What are the primary points I need to cover?
• How to create a presentation plan.
• Dealing with difficult people and situations.
• Using presentation tools effectively.
• The fine art of practice, practice, practice.
• Improvement through observer feedback.
• Tools and techniques for delivering effective presentations.
• Planning Your Next Presentation.