12 Month Leadership and Management Programmes

ThinkTalent offers managers and senior-level leaders a powerful year-long opportunity to grow and develop among peers. Over a twelve-month period, the leadership and management program includes workshops, coaching, senior-level assessments, and webinars. Each program has been designed in an interactive format that is customized to the client.  The content is highly relevant to the participants, the group discussions are dynamic and the exercises, case studies and materials are substantial.

1. APEX – A LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME FOR MIDDLE MANAGERS

APEX is a leadership development programme that combines parallel coaching and individual personality profiling. It is aimed towards addressing areas of leadership, business and management development required by middle management positions. ThinkTalent’s objective is to facilitate a process whereby the learning is linked to business outcomes ensuring that the training is geared towards achieving tangible enhancements in organisational leadership.

2. INSPIRE – A LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME FOR JUNIOR MANAGERS AND SUPERVISORS

The ‘INSPIRE’ programme is a leadership development programme for the organisation’s junior management. ‘INSPIRE’ aims to facilitate a process whereby learning is linked to achieving tangible enhancements in team leadership. The training process warrants a special focus on the development of core leadership behaviours accompanied by an intense coaching cycle to support the application. The framework provides an incremental performance standard to be applied in team leadership scenarios and in the process brings about individual and organisational development.

3. PEAK – A LEADERSHIP PROGRAMME FOR SENIOR EXECUTIVES

PEAK is a senior leadership training programme designed to enable participants to acquire a deeper understanding of fundamental leadership influence and gain the hard skills they need to become an inspirational leader. It offers opportunities to develop personal leadership abilities and explore the way participants work with others in the organisation. PEAK encourages participants to look at the changing needs of their role as a leader and the appropriateness of their current leadership style. PEAK uses unique discovery learning techniques that result in higher participant engagement, understanding, application and learning retention. It encompasses a range of business simulations that replicate a slice of “reality” from the work environment and enable participants to acquire the critical business skills and knowledge needed on the job. Participants will require complex critical thinking, effective communication, strong cooperation and high levels of initiative. Additionally PEAK offers one-to-one coaching throughout the programme that supports a significant transition in business outlook and leadership behaviour.

Shorter Courses for Leadership and Management Training

Short courses are typically between 8 to 12 hours each depending on the client’s needs.  

1. EMERGING LEADERS

Great leaders don’t set out to be a leader. They set out to make a difference. It is never about the role, it is always about the goal. Kick start your new journey in management or as a team lead and transition smoothly with our Emerging Leaders Programme. This 3-day workshop will deliver a personal and professional development programme that focuses on the core skills required by leaders to be really effective in their work. These include communication and feedback skills, managing time, and being good role models for their team.

2. LEADING AND WORKING WITH EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

This valuable workshop delivers the in-depth knowledge and practical skills a manager needs to be a strong, emotionally effective leader. It will highlight the importance of monitoring and adapting one’s own emotions and behaviours for self-benefit, the team and the department. The programme explores the practical application of twenty leadership competencies as highlighted in the Emotional Competency Framework by Daniel Goleman. It also looks at the four main Emotional Intelligence Abilities developed by John Mayer and Peter Salovey: the ability to identify, use, understand and manage emotions in oneself and others. Participants may also take the MSCEIT (Mayer, Salovey, Caruso, Emotional Intelligence Test) a formal Emotional Intelligence assessment. The MSCEIT provides test-takers with scores and feedback on each of the four abilities as well as recommendations for further development.

3. MOTIVATING SELF AND OTHERS

This programme looks at the main theories of motivation and gives a practical application to the world of work. It focuses on the ability to motivate oneself, especially in challenging times, as well as motivating others. Through a case study approach, participants explore and discuss the various factors that increase or decrease motivation and develop ways of creating and promoting a motivating culture and working environment. Participants are also helped in identifying their personal sources of motivation and finding ways of integrating these in their work so that they can motivate themselves.

4. COACHING & MENTORING AT WORK

Coaching and mentoring are becoming an integral factor of successful businesses, with mentoring being an essential part of talent management and succession planning programmes. Based on the integration of the GROW model and Gerard Egan’s Coaching and Mentoring Framework, the programme covers the basic skills of active listening, clarifying, summarizing, questioning, and giving feedback. It also covers the more long-term skills of understanding differences in personalities, problem-solving, developing preferred scenarios, goal setting, action planning and progress evaluation. This programme prepares selected candidates to develop themselves and gain the necessary self-awareness and skills to be effective coaches/mentors in their organisation.

5. CONDUCTING EFFECTIVE PERFORMANCE REVIEWS & RELATED SKILLS

The central aim of a performance appraisal is to provide an opportunity for employees to assess their own performance at work, match this assessment to the feedback they receive from their evaluator, and use this information to further develop themselves and their career. It is primarily a tool that should lead to increased motivation and improved work performance. This performance management programme covers the necessary skills in carrying out effective performance evaluation sessions. It enables appraisers to use the interview as a motivating tool that focuses on strengths and achievements and encourages appraisees to identify areas for development and commit themselves towards achieving their goals.

6. PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROCESS

Effective and successful project management is a key competence for any manager. This programme gives participants the ability to improve project management performance in time, cost and quality and in the process focus on the stakeholders’ needs. It provides participants with the tools they need to manage projects and related tasks effectively and how to delegate and manage the workload in a structured manner. Participants will achieve greater productivity in managing value-adding and strategically important projects, whilst reducing stress and eliminating wasted effort and resources.

7. NEGOTIATING SKILLS FOR LEADERS

The ability to negotiate situations is integral to the senior management role and has a significant impact on processes, performance and culture. Negotiation is so ingrained in the role of a manager that one may hardly realise that one is negotiating. This programme will enable participants to attain the best outcomes from their negotiations. It will expose participants to negotiation skills, insights and competencies to assist managers to remain focused when planning, delivering and closing a negotiation. It will help them assess and manage the risks when negotiation fails, manage emotions and behaviour, build confidence and assertiveness to secure the desired outcome.

8. MANAGING UP

A good, productive and communicative working relationship with the boss should enable the development of skills, knowledge and career. Mismanaging this relationship can create a manipulative relationship where office politics or personal style dominates and can lead to feelings that the protagonists are on opposing sides, or at least not on exactly the same team. Managing Up enables participants to know what is possible and feasible, en route to achieving the results that matter. This programme exposes participants to powerful tools for effectively managing the relationship with their boss. Participants will discover techniques on how to construct a relationship of mutual trust, communicating properly, and identifying any blockages to the relationship.

9. THINKING FOR CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION

The need for innovation has become an integral part of the current business scenario. Apart from looking outside for innovation, companies look to their people to come up with new ideas for innovation. Creative thinking is about being inventive as well as being able to see things from a different perspective. Innovative thinking is a skill which like any other, can be learnt. This programme will provide techniques to accelerate the creative process and assist participants to identify their hidden creativity by breaking the normal rules of planning, behaviour and decision-making. By changing the way things have always been done, new possibilities emerge.

10. DEVELOPING POLICY

Policies are the strategic link between the company’s vision and its day-to-day operations. They provide a guide to achieving business strategies and objectives. They allow employees to understand their roles and responsibilities within predefined limits and allow management to guide operations without constant management intervention. This programme will enable participants to fully understand the process of policy development and provide skills to manage it. They will learn to identify the right policy developers and the best champions for the policy. Finally, they will be trained on how to measure the performance of policies and evaluate the extent to which they are fulfilling their purpose.

11. CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Change has become a constant in all economic spheres and organisations are called upon to always be prepared to respond effectively and proactively if they are to thrive. The status quo is no longer a guarantee for survival but rather a recipe for stagnation. This programme will enable participants to understand and overcome resistance to change. They will be able to recognise opposition and thus be better equipped to manage it. Managers will learn how to manage change as well as lead it while instilling a commitment to change for business success in the whole organisation

12. BUILDING ACCOUNTABILITY

Employee attitudes and ways of thinking are key to the success of an organisation. People often complain, blame, victimise or procrastinate especially when dealing with change, negatively influencing the morale and productivity of the whole organisation. This programme aims to address this negative mindset and build on personal accountability to ensure a motivated workforce, a strong team spirit, empowering employees to take ownership of results and perform their best.

13. ACHIEVING QUICK CHANGEOVER

This programme will highlight the principles of achieving quick changeover times by reducing inventory and backlog, improve product and process quality, and improve responsiveness to changes in customer demands and competitive pressures. Participants will understand the changeover methodology that will enable them to improve operational flexibility, overall process flow and achieve profitability without new capital expenditure.

14. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MANAGING PEOPLE

Dealing with the essential psychological skills of leading and managing people, this programme is divided into two parts. In the first part, it looks at the intrapersonal aspect of the leader focusing on self-awareness and self-assessment. In the second part, it looks at the essential interpersonal psychological skills. This includes understanding and working with different personality types, communicating to reduce resistance and defensiveness and maximise openness and acceptance, motivating people, the positive practice of authority and leadership, managing self and others under pressure.

15. DECISION MAKING & PROBLEM-SOLVING

Effective decisions are critical especially when they impact on financials, people and processes, and influence the reputation of the department, operating units and companies. This programme will enable participants to discover the importance of not procrastinating when faced with tough decisions, to rely on intuition and even allow uncertainty to take control. It provides the tools to achieve the clarity that balances intuition and rational thinking. Participants will be able to align outcomes to create buy-in and make decisions that are smart, timely and effective.

16. RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Resource Management refers to the efficient and effective deployment for an organisation’s resources when and where they are needed. The goal is maximising utilisation. In terms of people management, this implies the appropriate allocation of employees among various projects or business units, in possession of the right tools, training and skills to perform the activities that are necessary to achieve business goals. Participants on this course will critically evaluate, appraise and analyse the people management strategies that maximise the skills and contributions of people for the development of business strategy.

17. STRATEGIC PLANNING WORKSHOP

Strategic planning is the process by which senior management establishes how the organisation will achieve its objectives, given the environmental opportunities and constraints. It provides a sole plan for execution for the whole organisation. This workshop will enable participants to understand the nature and value of strategic planning, how to devise a plan that allows the organisation to reach its goals, the components of a good plan that brings alignment, employee engagement and improved performance, whilst taking into consideration the operating environment of the organisation.

18. BUILDING COMPANY VALUES

Corporate values are a critical element in the organisation’s ability to align employees to its vision and goals. The training is aimed at promoting model behaviours and driving actions that enhance the organisation’s service culture and thus impact on sustained business success. The focus of this workshop is in-depth personal development work. Inclusive in this experiential learning process will be an emphasis on developing interpersonal communication skills, eliminating habits that don’t work, and creating a powerful, personal vision for every participant’s own life.

19. DEALING WITH PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACT OF CHANGE AND TRANSITIONS

Many elaborately planned change programmes fail because they do not cater to the psychological impact and the human factors involved in the change process. This programme deals with managing the psychological side of change and focuses on managing transitions effectively. It helps participants understand the nature of transitions and the various stages involved in dealing with change. Participants will appreciate that change involves endings and new beginnings, a period of confusion and uncertainty, and an adaptation process that if managed well, can be a challenging and exciting journey. The programme is anecdotal and includes experiences and inspirational stories of people and organisations initiating change or responding to imposed change.