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June 6 Chicago
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Leadership Strategies is a national leader in meeting facilitation, facilitator training, consulting skills, leadership skills and soft skills training for information technology professionals.
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Here's your Leadership Strategies newsletter for June and July. We think you'll find this issue chock full of helpful techniques, interesting articles, and valuable discounts. Enjoy!
Best Practice Tip for this Issue: Rotate and Run Brainstorm! When the energy level gets low during an afternoon session, try this technique to get people out of their seats and get the creative juices flowing. Start by positioning four or more flip charts in different areas of the room, as far apart as possible. Title each chart in advance with different but related topics for the brainstorm session. For example, if the objective of the brainstorming session was to find ways to increase revenue, you could title one chart with "How To Find New Customers", another with "New Products We Could Offer", a third with "How to Increase Business with Existing Customers", and a fourth with "Ways to Sell Multiple Products in One Sale."
Divide the group into small teams, with one team positioned at each chart. Give each team a different color marker and have them elect a team scribe. Kick off the brainstorm by explaining the overall objective, and tell the teams they have one minute to come up with as many ideas as they can for their topic and record them on the chart. When the first minute is up, have the teams rotate as quickly as possible to a different chart. When they reach the new chart, they should read what the previous team has written and add any new contributions. After the next minute is up, have the teams rotate to a different chart. Continue the rotations until each team has visited each chart.
Keep the energy high by shouting "Rotate and Run!" and encouraging the teams to move quickly during the rotations. You can also increase the energy by offering a prize to the team that has the most total contributions across all the charts. You will be able to identify each team's contributions by the color of the marker. You'll be amazed at how many ideas you can generate in four short minutes! Like any brainstorm session, be sure to follow the activity with some type of grouping or prioritization to highlight the best ideas.
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| For Leaders: Delegating Decision Making | | | Your employees want you to delegate more and micromanage less. You want to make sure that they understand the big picture before making decisions. In the last issue, we discussed the four dimensions of trust and how to build trust with your employees. In this issue, we recommend ...
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| For Facilitators: Conference Calls and Virtual Meetings | | | In today's high-tech global economy, face-to-face meetings are rapidly being replaced by their electronic counterparts: conference calls, videoconferences, and other virtual meetings. While electronic meetings provide low cost convenience, they present significant challenges for the facilitator who must ...
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| For IT Professionals: Doing the Right Job | | | As consultants, we pride ourselves on being technically competent and on knowing how to do a job right. As you progress through your career, however, you may be dismayed to learn that "Doing the Job Right" is less than half of what you need for success! What's more important ...
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| For Strategic Planners: Positioning Strategies | | | In the course of developing a strategic plan, many organizations find themselves taking a step back to ask the question, "How can we differentiate ourselves from the competition?" The answer to this question often results in the development of positioning strategies, which are ...
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Client Success Story: CheckFree | | | The techniques we teach in our courses are focused on being productive in the workplace. But, there is an intrinsic value in education and learning. Once something is learned, it can never be "unlearned," and people find themselves applying our principles in everyday life ...
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