Managing the “Tuff Stuff” of Leadership in Government

Janelle Brittain, MBA, CSP

A Leader needs to be able to see the invisible, and deliver on the impossible, amidst opposition.

Leadership in government today requires a sturdy stomach, a diplomatic approach and unwavering conviction to “Get it done.” Take a moment to step above your situation with Janelle Brittain, to gain some insights into fresh perspectives on how to lead your staff. Choose from any of these topics:

• Leading Change Without Stress
• Leadership Speaking
• How to Run Great Meetings That Get Results
• Collaborative Communications: Bridging the Differences
• Successful Delegation: Your Career and Sanity Depend on It

How to Run Great Meetings That Get Results And Don’t Waste Time

By Janelle Brittain, MBA, CSP

Time: 1 to 1.5 hours

• “That meeting was a waste of time!”
• “I hate these meetings!”
• “I’m not looking forward to this meeting. I just know he/she is going to dominate the meeting.”
• “Why do these meetings have to take so long? They go on and on with no decisions being made.”

Would you rather have people saying, “That was a great meeting! We got so much done.“ What distinguishes meetings where people leave excited and invigorated with a sense of accomplishment, from ones where people leave tired, unmotivated and cynical? The answer is not simple. It involves specialized knowledge, commitment, discipline and a sense of adventure.

Learn 13 Ground Rules to create results focused, collaborative meetings. Because time is usually tight and goals can be challenging, it is important to take steps to get the most out of every meeting.

In this program you will:

• Learn 5 practical processes that will set the meeting up for success
• Examine specific “Meeting Communication Agreements” that will prevent tension, anger and angst during meetings
• Share how to create more respectful conversations during meetings.
• Acquire a Meeting Assessment process that brings runaway meetings back on track.
• Discover how to handle the tough people issues of meetings like complainers, sarcasm, negativity, filibusters and many more.

Learn how to make the best use of everyone’s time and motivate people to complete their Action Items.

Leadership Speaking Presenting Yourself with Confidence

By Janelle Brittain, Certified Speaking Professional

The ability to stand before others and present ideas convincingly, is a vital skill for leaders. This introductory program shares the key persuasion factors important for leaders who must either stand before others or convince one person of an important point. This program focuses on how to:

• Capitalize on the fact that You are the message
• Analyze your audience
• Build your confidence
• Polish your delivery techniques
• Connect with your audience
• Adapt your style to the audience
• Use a microphone for impactful results
• Use humor
• Close the presentation with impact.

Janelle Brittain, MBA, CSP Presentation Coach

Janelle has been speaking publicly before groups since she was 9 years old. As a young person she was in speech contests and minored in speech in college. While in healthcare for 10 years, she spoke publicly representing healthcare services to large audiences, as well as on TV, radio and the press. After founding the Dynamic Performance Institute, LLC in 1989, Janelle began speaking professionally. She has spoken in front of thousands of people over these decades, whether it was a small group of executives, a class of staff or a ballroom full of hundreds of people. She has earned the prestigious Certified Speaking Professional designation from the National Speakers Association. This is a designation that only 800 people have ever been able to achieve worldwide. Her style is a natural, engaging approach that focuses on making content meaningful and memorable. Her listeners have commented that they could listen to her all day.

Note: This is an in-person program, best delivered to small groups of 1-10 people in order for each person to receive coaching and feedback.

Collaborative Communications: Bridging the Differences

Presented by Janelle Brittain, MBA, CSP

Time: 1.5 hours

Seeking to understand others is vital in successful collaboration. However, we must go one step further: we need to truly understand where they “are coming from.” Real understanding happens when the psychology of communication is learned and applied.

In this program you will first learn how to analyze your style of collaborative communications by taking a Communications Style Profile. Then, you’ll learn how other people view the world differently and how to see the world through their eyes.

But simply understanding is not enough. We need to learn to communicate in ways that other people will understand, almost like speaking another language. You will learn specific ways to communicate differently in order to promote open, collaborative communications.

Conflict and miscommunications often arise due to different communication styles, resulting in people hearing a different message from what you intended. In this program, you will:

• Take a self analysis Communications Style Profile in order to identify your current, dominant style.
• Learn the perspectives and contributions of other communication approaches.
• Learn how to adapt your communications according to the needs of each person to assure they really understand.

Interactive exercises are used to help you practice the application of collaborative communication. After mastering these skills, you will be able to "speak the language" of each person, focusing more on how you deliver the message to assure understanding, openness and collaboration.

Leading Change Without Stress

By Janelle Brittain, MBA, CSP

Format: Workshop 1.5 hour webinar, 2 hours in-person

Whether the change comes from higher-ups or the outside or a person needs to change their performance behavior, learn the psychology of how to make change flow easier. In this interactive program, you will learn the reasons why people resist change and techniques to help yourself and your team adapt more quickly to a changing environment. You will take a Change Style Profile, to learn the typical styles and behaviors which people slip into when faced with change. Through a combination of experience and practical content, you’ll discover how the reactions can contribute, how they impede, and how to work best with each. Practice methods to increase personal flexibility and show you how to introduce change to others so they will accept it more readily.

You'll have the tools to address these issues about any change. Personally:

• How do I tend to handle change now?
• What can I do to help make it easier on myself?
• How can I increase my flexibility to handle any change I'm faced with?

For your team:

• Learn the reasons why people resist change and how to overcome them.
• How to introduce change so your team is most likely to accept it
• How to support and motivate people as they go through the change
• How to identify, understand and deal with change related misbehavior

Managing the Inevitable Stress of Change

Explore the emotional, behavioral and psychological reactions to challenging change situations. Assess yourself and others against a list of typical behaviors to see what level of stress you are currently at and how you are expressing it physically and behaviorally. Then learn a list of positive actions you can take to address these reactions and choose which ones you want to implement. These two lists are helpful to use periodically to assess yourself to monitor your progress or regress. And learn ways to help others expressing stress related behaviors come back to productivity.

Note: For in-person sessions, participants will be able to experience change and gain personal insights about why they responded the way they did. We will be able to have more interaction, so the time is 30 minutes more.

Successful Delegation – Your Career & Sanity Depend On It

Delivered by Janelle Brittain, MBA, CSP

Time: 1 to 1.5 hours

Summary

Leaders cannot lead if they try to make all the decisions and do everything. They must learn to let go of some power. But this process must be carried out with great care and forethought. Learn:

• What To Let Go Of
• When To Let Go
• Who to Let Go To
• How To Let Go

The end results are better decision making, leaders who are freed up to lead and stronger leaders, managers and employees. This application-focused session helps each leader apply the analysis process to their real work situations. Why is it that delegated work, often boomerangs back? Why doesn’t the person “get it” and do it like you’d do it?

As managers are required to do more, they must delegate more to others. That not only involves passing on the responsibility, but properly training that person to do it the right way. The challenge is that most managers are unconscious of all they go through to make a decision or handle a responsibility because they have been doing it for so long.

This program leads managers through the delegation application of one of their decisions/responsibilities, following a 6-step process. The result is they will understand what process to go through for any future situations where they must pass on decision making power or a responsibility.

This is more complex than simply teaching a skill to someone. It is passing on how to think in a certain way. Through this practice application, managers will be more prepared for delegation.

Participants will take a Pre-session delegation assessment. Then they will learn:

• What undermines successful delegation
• What will happen if you don’t delegate (or don’t do it well)
• What works best to delegate
• How to pick the right person to delegate to
• How to create buy-in and motivation to do the new task/responsibility
• How to monitor progress without micro-managing

Learn how to delegate effectively through strategies that get it done right & in less time. Experience results driven techniques for passing on work- using the realistic 6-step delegation process.