Overview
The YARBROUGH group offers “Fire Starter”, a five course series to provide Millennials, early stage professionals and mid-level managers the critical skills to contribute their best talents at work and to support the productivity and health of the organization. Outcomes include abilities to:
· Understand and lead sustainable change
· Be both tactical and strategic in their thinking and execution
· Engage in constructive conflict
· Understand their own and others’ communication styles for higher productivity
· Recognize and use their multiple talents for trustworthy leadership
· Be better prepared for the next level of leadership
Scheduling
Time: Each class is two hours in length.
When: Classes will be offered each quarter.
Course Descriptions
Strategic Thinking
A critical skills for leadership and high productivity are solving problem and managing dilemmas (called polarities). The first is for more tactical issues that demand good solutions. The second is for ongoing tensions inherent in organizations that cannot be solved, only leveraged for sustainable performance. Dilemmas such as speed AND quality; stability AND change; individual AND group performance. By understanding the difference between these skills, participants will be able to:
· Recognize the difference between problems and polarities
· Create sustainable solutions for problems
· Take action to reap the benefit of both sides of polarities
· Be ready for higher levels of leadership.
Participants will leave the course with personal development and professional development action items.
Tools: Polarity Thinking
This course is required as the first course in the series. All other courses can be taken in any order.
Communication For Different Types
This course provides personal and professional development in effective communication. Participants will learn about their personal preferences in communicating so they can step into their strengths and contribute their best to their teams and organization. Participants also will learn how to recognize others’ styles and practice communication with their colleagues who have different preferences. Participants will leave with a clear plan to better use their own skills and with the ability to communicate across multiple perspectives. Skills learn support the use of diversity in the workplace (including generational differences), constructive conflict, and use of multiple talents for high engagement in the workforce and a healthy organizational culture that supports growth and innovation.
Tools: Myers Briggs Type Indicator
Constructive Conflict
Avoided and destructive tension consumes time and productivity, delays decisions, and ruptures relationships, the heart of high performing teams and organizations. Additional pressure is put on already explosive situations when there is increase in speed of change, amount of work, expectations for excellence, generational difference, confusing decision-making and new hires who bring their own ways of managing conflict with no way to set norms as an organization.
For example, a typical situation for Millennials is being held responsible for outcomes but not empowered to move forward. Unless there is an organizational expectation that these kinds of difficulties be addressed, motivation to excel is dampened and then disappears. Disheartened employees linger and then leave, both of which cost the organization time, talent, and money. The same results occur when there is tension between individual and groups with clashing goals, misaligned organizational goals, or even personality conflicts.
In this course, participants will increase their abilities to
· Recognize hidden conflict
· Understand the real issues that must be addressed
· Communicate their own needs and understand those of others
· Reach solutions that can benefit all concerned.
Tools: Question Thinking, Conflict Strategies
Unconscious Bias
There is clear evidence that functional diverse teams, organizations, and Boards out-perform homogeneous ones. It is also clear that with a shrinking labor pool, companies must hire more diverse employees. And yet, the same patterns occur in hiring, promotions, opportunity for development, and retention resulting in homogenous higher-level leaders. This is especially confusing when companies have spent so much time and money on diversity efforts in the past twenty years.
WHY the same outcomes? One of the main reasons is that decision-makers are unaware of their biases. They may have learned that women are not as innovative as men; that people of color are aggressive and won’t fit in; that younger generations are not committed to work; or that older employees have little ambition. They support people they believe can fit in to the existing organization and are predictable and therefore trustworthy.
This course helps participants gently acknowledge their biases (we all have them) and create action plans to nudge themselves and their organizations toward inclusion and a greater capacity for innovation. These skills are necessary for those at all levels so that the system supports a shift in uncovering unconscious bias.
Tools: Inclusion Nudges, Personal Understanding
Authentic Leadership
The basis for authentic leadership is self-awareness. Why do you see things a certain way? Behave in certain ways? Value some people and not others? React too quickly or not quickly enough? Take reasonable risks or have knee jerk reactions that whip around your team and organization? Have a vision that others will follow or resist?
When leaders, formal and informal, have self-awareness, they know their strengths and blind spots, put people around them to balance those, have ways of mitigating destructive patterns, and most of all know they are not the ‘be and end all’ of the system. Most of all they are trustworthy and can align the organization for healthy growth.
In this course, participants will look at their:
· values
· internal strengths and conflicts
· means of getting constructive and corrective feedback and
· and integrate this awareness into their leadership style.
Participants will leave the class with a tangible plan to implement their authentic leadership style.