Aligned with the components of Aberfoyle’s Organizational Crucible and The Capacity-Building Wheel, our workshops will contribute to the development of a culture of engagement, strengthened focus, and enhanced performance. Workshops are offered on or off site, and may range from between half-day to three-day sessions.
Instructional Intelligence
The Facilitation Team at Aberfoyle Consulting utilizes instructional methods that take into consideration all learning styles. The use of auditory, visual, and kinaesthetic learning experiences provided through a combination of direct instruction, large and small group, paired and individualized activities promotes high levels of participation and subsequent application. Moreover, the use of case studies and opportunities for reflection serve to make learning a social exercise with practical relevance.
Learning must also be fun. Our Facilitators are dynamic and engaging. They are committed to creating learning environments that enable participants to feel safe, to take risks, and to consider current and future practices.
Current Workshop Series
High Impact Teams > Learn to create and participate on teams in which all members are highly engaged and focused on your organization’s goals. Participants will develop improved communication skills, learn how to be a part of productive team meetings, and use SMART goals to increase performance. Learn the value of collective commitments and the eight features of high impact teams.
Vital Signs: Managing Conflict > Conflict is an unavoidable circumstance of work. Providing employees with tools to resolve conflict reduces workplace tension and enables employees to function collaboratively and productively with co-workers. Participants will learn to deescalate conflict before it becomes uncomfortable or explosive.
Transformational Leadership > Learn to shift the workplace culture from one of employee compliance to that with deep levels of commitment. Leaders have a crucial role in connecting employee performance with the organization’s core purpose and vision. Learn to use the four strategies behind transformational leadership that will enhance your leadership skills and the performance of your team members.
The Leader Within > Employees who develop a leadership mind-set become increasingly engaged and focused on your organization’s core purpose and vision. With retirement levels continuing to climb over the next ten years, organizations would be wise to develop current and future leaders. Whether employees ever aspire to a leadership position, we are all leaders. Participants will better understand their leadership style, along with strengths and areas for future development.
Establishing a Professional Learning Organization > Most companies have vision and mission statements but few organizations use them to their full impact. Learn how to leverage your organization’s core values and vision to create outstanding performance results. Learn about the number one feature that distinguishes good from outstanding organizations. Learn how companies get the best results from their employees and establish a solutions-based organizational culture.
Personal Selling > Energize your sales staff with a tool kit of strategies designed to enhance their performance, boost sales, and company profit. From cold calls to closing a deal, learn Aberfoyle’s 3x3 approach to personal selling. Through instruction and simulation opportunities, learn the three top-selling strategies and the three pitfalls that all salespeople need to avoid.
Front-Line Service > The front-line staff are the most visible representation of your organization. Whether it’s over the phone or in person, customers, colleagues, and competitors form impressions of your organization in very short order. Already established relationships can be positively or negatively influenced by interactions with all front-line personnel. From call centre staff to receptionists to service and trades staff, demonstrated attitudes and behaviours are more important than any form of advertising that an organization can undertake. Participants will learn nine strategies that will enhance their interactions with customers and the general public, and enhance the image of your organization.
Maximize Your Time > Establishing priorities and managing time are essential to individual, team and organizational performance. The pressure to find innovative ways to achieve goals, stay ahead of the competition, respond quickly to customer needs, and enjoy life outside of work is increasingly intense in today’s less structured, information-driven workplace. Maximize Your Time helps people create a personal plan that enables them to accomplish more each day, meet project deadlines, serve customers without added staff, and establish personal organizational systems.
Maximize Your Time may be taken in conjunction with The Time Mastery Profile.
Working with Diversity > Through this insightful and reflective workshop participants will better understand workforce diversity issues. As the dramatic shift to a highly diverse workforce continues, organizations know they must help all employees understand, accept, and capitalize on differences. They know that the cultural, age, gender, abilities, and experiences of diverse employees and customers can enrich the organization, making it more innovative and competitive.
Recognizing the benefits of diversity involves meeting the diversity challenge through self-awareness, understanding, and acceptance of differences. This workshop is useful for all employee groups and for team and organizational leaders who value the need for diversity within their organizations.
Working with Diversity may be taken in conjunction with The Discovering Diversity Profile.
Working with High Impact Teams > Collaboration is the defining skill that differentiates all successful and innovative organizations. As organizations rely increasingly on teams to innovate, problem solve, perform and compete at the speed of change, understanding and capitalizing on individuals’ unique abilities and aligning them with group processes is essential to creating high impact teams.
Building on our High Impact Teams workshop this in-depth and experiential learning opportunity will enable existing teams to
- identify individual approaches to innovative teamwork,
- match individual strengths with team roles,
- reinforce and appreciate the contributions of others,
- reduce team stress and conflict,
- foster trust and build mutual support, and
- reduce project-cycle time and increase productivity.
This workshop is facilitated to established teams and may be used in conjunction with The Team Dimensions Profile.
Striking a Work-Life Balance > Today’s organizations require high levels of engagement and performance among its employees. That does not have to mean putting work ahead of everything else. Today’s dynamic, team-oriented organizations require flexible, creative, sustainable performance, the kind that comes with people who know how to balance the urgent demands of work life and personal life without sacrificing either.
Participants in this workshop will learn about and develop strategies related to
- how stress in one area of life impacts other areas,
- how resources in one area can be used to decrease stress in other areas, and
- the relationship between stress and personal/professional resources and how they can lead to life satisfaction.
Striking a Work-Life Balance may be used in conjunction with The Coping and Stress Profile.
Customize a Workshop > With the support of our Design Team, Facilitators, and instructional strategies, create a workshop that meets the training and development needs of your organization. Convey powerful messages and important knowledge to your staff, or deliver memorable and easy-to-follow external presentations. Create workshops and presentations that will have the highest level of resonance for your intended audience.
Changing Minds > Think about how difficult it can be to change someone else’s mind about something important. How about changing your own mind? Learn the resistance factors that inhibit people from shifting their thinking and changing their minds. Learn the levers that shift ways of thinking and enable people to embrace different options and new possibilities. Research based approaches, role plays, case studies and practice assignments provide for an engaging and revealing workshop experience.
