Services

Web-Based Trainings

Web-Based Trainings Overview

Catalyst Connection has partnered with DDI International to provide you with a number of web-based trainings that you can complete at your own pace.

Please note: The cost of each web-based training course is $100. Most courses take approximately 2 hours to complete. For more information, contact David Rea, Managing Director of Organizational Development, at drea@catalystconnection.org.

Web-Based Training Course List

Click any of the course titles provided below for more information and to register:

Addressing Poor Performance

A single employee with chronic performance problems can dominate a leader’s time, and drag down the productivity and morale of an entire work group. This course builds leaders’ skills in handling chronic performance problems. They learn how to document and present a solid case for needed improvement and use effective interaction skills. Leaders identify the steps to take after the performance problem discussion to provide ongoing feedback and support, and determine if it is necessary to impose formal consequences.

Participants will learn how to:

  • Effectively address poor performance in a firm, fair, and consistent manner.
  • Minimize the impact of chronic performance problems on people, productivity, and profitability.
  • Provide problem performers with a clear understanding of what they must do to improve and the consequences of failing to do so.
  • Encourage people to take ownership of, and be accountable for, improving their work performance.

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Building and Sustaining Trust

What does trust have to do with business success? Everything. Trust is directly linked to employee engagement, retention, productivity, and innovation. Leaders who demonstrate trust and trustworthiness inspire higher eels of performance and commitment to team and organizational success.

This course introduces Trust Builders, actions leaders can take to build and sustain trusting relationships, as well as common Trust Breakers that can erode or quickly break trust. Applying these skills to build trusting relationships enables people to take risks, identify and solve problems, and collaborate to achieve business results.

Participants will learn how to:

  • Recognize how trust in the workplace affects business results.
  • Analyze their role in building and sustaining trust.
  • Identify common workplace behaviors that can build, sustain, or break trust.
  • Demonstrate behaviors that show they trust others, as well as give people the confidence to trust them.
  • Use interaction skills to foster open communication, build and maintain trusting relationships, and repair damaged ones.

Prerequisite: Communicating for Leadership Success.

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Coaching: Move People Forward

Research has confirmed the significant business outcomes of coaching. While coaching can look differently across situations, it always aims to help people move forward. Good coaches create a relationship built on trust, meet the other person’s needs, and energize the person to achieve a goal.

In this course, leaders recognize the benefits of a growth mindset, and the insight tool measures their general orientation to how they view other’s potential to grow. They learn and practice a practical approach to coaching in the moment, in any situation.

Participants will learn how to:

  • Recognize and nurture the potential within others to grow and change.
  • Build a coaching relationship based on trust.
  • Guide, inspire, support, and empower in the moment.
  • Ask questions, connect at a human level, and energize into action.

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Communicating with Impact

Many organizations focus on technical skills as all-important to success in the workplace. Yet strong interpersonal skills are equally essential in transforming individual contributors into exceptional performers who have a greater impact in their roles.

This foundational course provides individuals with a powerful set of interaction skills that enables them to communicate more effectively with colleagues and customers and, in the process, build trust, strengthen partnerships, and achieve desired results.

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Communication: Connect Through Conversations

Much of a frontline leader’s work is accomplished through conversations, from the everyday routine to the extreme and tough challenges. Effective leaders are able to get things done through others by paying attention to the people doing the work.

This course teaches leaders that engaging the “head”—the business outcome of the conversation—is just as critical as recognizing and addressing the “heart”—people’s feelings such as being respected or appreciated. Leaders will recognize the role of emotional intelligence in success as a leader as they develop foundational leadership skills that apply to the wide range of workplace situations they must handle.

Participants will learn how to:

  • Conduct conversations that achieve the intended business goals.
  • Communicate and respond in ways that meet the unique personal needs of team members and others.
  • Recognize and react to emotions (their own and others’) present in work situations.
  • Use a technique to provide meaningful, supportive feedback.

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Delegation: Engage and Empower People

This course sets out to help leaders shift their mindset about what they can delegate and feel more comfortable and confident doing so. Learners dig into their workload to identify tasks they’d never consider delegating. They use methods for matching people to tasks they’re both motivated and capable of doing. And, they practice the delegation conversation they’ll have to ensure success.

Helps leaders:

  • Delegate work that they wouldn’t have before.​
  • Identify tasks to delegate that engage, empower, and develop the team. ​
  • Match a person’s capabilities and motivations to an appropriate task.​
  • Share work that extends the right amount of ownership and decision-making authority. ​
  • Establish clear boundaries, support,​ and follow-up with each delegation.

Competencies developed:

  • Delegation & Empowerment
  • Sharing Responsibility

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Developing Yourself and Others

Development is critical to attracting and retaining talent, driving employee engagement, preparing future leaders, and ultimately ensuring the success of the organization. Clearly, development is just as important to leaders as it is to their direct reports.

In this course learners are introduced to a practical process to guide their own and their direct reports’ development-planning efforts. The outcome is a meaningful development plan that supports the organization’s current and future business needs.

Participants will learn how to:

  • Recognize the role of the leader and the team member in development planning and execution.
  • Recognize the importance of development to the success of individuals, teams, and the organization.
  • Use a three-step process—Assess–Acquire–Apply—to identify strengths and growth areas, plan development actions, and successfully implement development plans.
  • Employ a set of best practices to overcome common development barriers and challenges.
  • Measure the effectiveness of their development efforts so they know they are successful.

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Driving Change

In today’s complex and competitive environment, it’s no surprise that 70 percent of workplace change initiatives fail. For workplace change initiatives to be successful, organizations need leaders who are able to turn resistance into commitment and inspire team members to take ownership of change.

This course provides the skills and resources leaders need to accelerate the process of implementing change with their team members and to create an agile work environment where people are more open to change.

Participants will learn how to:

  • Accelerate the process of making change happen.
  • Minimize the potential negative effects change can have on productivity, morale, and collaboration.
  • Turn resistance into commitment and inspire team members to take ownership of change.
  • Clearly communicate the business rationale and benefits of change for the team and the organization.

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Engaging and Retaining Talent

Research tells us that employee engagement is the primary enabler behind the successful execution of any business strategy. And, no one affects engagement and retention more than the employee’s immediate leader.

This course provides leaders with a model to determine what drives each individual’s engagement, as well as methods for proactive engagement and talent retention. Participants learn how to conduct “engagement conversations” and “retention conversations.” They explore ways to offer recognition and create an engaging environment using no-cost “everyday engagers.”

Participants will learn how to:

  • Engage individuals on a daily basis.
  • Uncover and address what individuals need to be more satisfied and engaged at work.
  • Inspire higher levels of engagement by acknowledging the value people bring to the organization and showing them that they matter.
  • Increase the quality of conversations with people about their engagement and intent to stay.

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High-Impact Feedback and Listening

When sharing feedback is part of an organization’s culture, it is an effective business tool that reaches across all levels. In this course, individual performers learn how to effectively deliver both positive and developmental feedback. They also learn how to be receptive to feedback and to listen to accurately understand the speaker’s intended message. In the workplace, these skills help them to optimize and sustain their own and their coworkers’ performance.

Participants will learn how to:

  • Support colleagues’ job performance, growth, and development.
  • Build authentic, trusting relationships with colleagues.
  • More wisely choose opportunities to give and seek feedback.
  • Handle, reduce, or eliminate defensiveness or negative emotions that can occur in a feedback discussion.
  • Help create a culture of teamwork and performance.

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Making High-Quality Decisions

Sound decision making demands much more than coming up with or picking the best alternative or option. It requires analyzing potential problems or opportunities and making sound judgments based on analysis. Using an engaging simulation, this course teaches a logical decision making process that addresses the critical elements that result in high-quality decisions. Participants also learn how to avoid the pitfalls that often undermine high-quality decision making.

Participants will learn how to:

  • Make business decisions more effectively and confidently.
  • Avoid obstacles to objective analysis and judgments.
  • Involve the right people at the right time in the decision-making process.
  • Gain the help and support needed to make high-quality decisions and to implement them.

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Resolving Workplace Conflict

Today’s business environment challenges organizations to increase productivity, improve quality, shorten cycle time and reduce costs. An unfortunate but natural byproduct of these challenges is conflict. While conflict can lead to discoveries such as new ideas and innovative breakthroughs, it can, if allowed to escalate, result in damage to critical working relationships.

This course teaches leaders how to recognize the signs of escalating conflict and take appropriate action to minimize damage. Leaders are introduced to two resolution tactics–coach and mediate–and practice using the interaction Essentials as they coach then mediate to resolve a conflict.

Participants will learn how to:

  • Reduce the damaging effects of workplace conflict on individuals, groups, and the organization.
  • Effectively address workplace conflict and enhance productivity, efficiency, and morale.
  • Help others take responsibility for resolving their own conflicts.
  • Promote a culture of trust and mutual respect within their work group.

Prerequisite: Communicating for Leadership Success.

Register

Setting Goals and Reviewing Results

People are more engaged and strive for better results when they feel ownership of their work in both the process and the outcomes. Unfortunately, leaders fail to engage and reinforce this sense of ownership in performance management discussions. This course will show the positive effect of shifting the traditional role of planner and evaluator from the leader to a shared responsibility between leader and employee. This shift builds ownership with the employee and frees up time for leaders to focus on coaching and developing throughout the performance cycle. Leaders will experience how to use effective (SMART) goals to help them and their employees track progress and fairly evaluate outcomes. A well-written performance plan is also a powerful tool for leaders to use when determining where to focus their development and coaching discussions with their employees.

Participants will learn how to:

  • Ensure direct reports take a more active role in managing their performance.
  • Manage performance on an ongoing basis while working within the organization’s time parameters for goal setting and performance reviews.
  • Provide the ongoing coaching and feedback your direct reports need to achieve their goals.
  • Increase your direct reports’ confidence and commitment to their own success.

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Targeted Selection: The Art of Behavioral Interviewing

This course teaches hiring managers and interview team members how to conduct interviews that are objective, fair, and provide the candidate the opportunity to shine. Learners leave the class knowing how to build rapport, manage an interview, and ask pertinent questions to gather data that are predictive of future on-the-job success.

Helps interviewers:

  • Create a positive experience for the candidate by building rapport and managing the interview.
  • Ask behavioral questions that uncover job-related skills and actions and minimize bias during the interview.
  • Gather specific examples of a candidate’s past behavior to predict future workplace behavior.
  • Determine the candidate’s motivation for the job and organization.   

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Targeted Selection: The Science of Behavioral Interviewing

This course teaches interviewers how to make the best hiring decisions by collecting high-quality behavioral data around job-related criteria for success. Interviewers build their skills in using an objective, consistent, and unbiased process for evaluating candidate data, and learn how sharing their data and considering the data that other interviewers have collected leads to hiring the best candidate every time.

Helps interviewers:

  • Measure candidates against well-defined job criteria (knowledge, experience, competencies, and motivations).
  • Focus interview questions on job-related behaviors.
  • Avoid bias by focusing hiring decisions and promotions on the job requirements and data instead of on feelings or impressions.
  • Follow a consistent and methodical process to evaluate data for every candidate.
  • Integrate candidate information from multiple interviewers to make the best hiring decision.

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Your Leadership Journey

Making the transition from individual contributor to leader is both exciting and challenging. Unfortunately, we often promote individuals based on their hard work, and they struggle because being a leader is a career change, not just a slight shift in the work they do.

This course arms a new or prospective leader with the knowledge and skills they need to confront the challenges they face early in their leader career. The course encourages the learner to think about the transitions that newer leaders face and how to handle those challenges. They are introduced to three leadership differentiators that are most important to building a positive reputation as well as contributing to the organization’s success.

Participants will learn how to:

  • Reduce the stress associated with the shift to leading others.
  • Act with authenticity to build trust.
  • Bring out the best in others to enhance engagement and capacity.
  • Look for and accept feedback with grace.

Register

Web-Based Training Questions?

If you have any questions or would like additional information on our web-based trainings, contact Cindy Connelly, Manager of Events.