Around this time of year, people are planning large-scale and high-stakes gatherings, and they want to make sure the time and money invested in these events are well spent. Nine times out of ten, that means folks are putting pen to paper and coming up with an agenda. If you’re in the early stages of doing just that, here are some tips to make sure your agenda (and the resulting gathering) are designed with outcomes, engagement and a thoughtful flow in mind.
Read MoreThe definition of the term “coaching” matters because it’s the substance of the engagement. Inherent in the definition is an understanding of the desired outcome, and a notion of why an executive coach is the right partner to get you there.
At Wolf & Heron, we think of coaching the same way The International Coaching Federation (ICF) does. The ICF defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.
Read MoreREFERENCE
A one-page reference basic story structure with some tips for how to work through mapping your story idea to the structure.
Read MorePresenters want to include stories in their presentation, but have no idea where the stories should go or what they should be about. Here are a few moments in your presentation where leveraging a story is particularly effective.
Read MoreBROCHURE
Read our detailed brochure about our flagship and longest-running program for business leaders.
Read MoreGiving constructive feedback is tough. Once a manager has mustered up the willingness to prepare for and deliver feedback, it requires attention, time and curiosity to work through. For many managers, these difficult conversations cause additional mental load because they are accompanied by fear and anxiety.
Read MoreTOOL
This Google Docs worksheet will help you prepare for a difficult feedback conversation with an employee.
This worksheet includes questions to help you process through the issue and behaviors and provides a template for a feedback conversation.
Read MoreCrafting an influential story is tough. Where do you start? What do you do along the way? How do you know if and when you’re ready to share your story? We thought it would be fun to try to lay out our process from beginning to end. During our Influential Storytelling program, we take participants through the entire process of crafting an influential story, but it’s something else to see it laid out on a page. Let’s see if we can do it!
Read MoreTOOL
Before you jump to building a slide deck for your next presentation, take the time to craft your message and consider what’s most important.
The worksheet includes questions to help you consider the context, audience and messages that will help you design your presentation for success.
Read MoreWe have identified some common mis-steps when it comes to planning interactive sessions, so we thought we’d bring them to you. If you’re looking to leave the presentation behind and design a more engaging session for your audience, here are 5 tips to consider.
Read MoreThis 4-page takeaway accompanies the workshop titled Maximizing the Manager/Employee Check-In, which helps people leaders think about ways to better utilize their one-on-one touch points with team members.
Read MoreCASE STUDY
The Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) launched an annual cohort leadership development program (LEAD) in 2021. Because their members have diverse experience and goals, and work for a variety of organizations throughout the U.S., executive coaching would play an important role in tailoring the learning to each individual leader’s needs.
Download our case study to explore more about our partnership with CSTE over the years.
Read MorePresentations aren’t always the best idea. Unless a presenter is phenomenally dynamic and engaging in her own right, audience members are going to have to consciously choose to pay attention and process the information. This takes effort, and it’s almost guaranteed that more interesting distractions will find their way into the space. If the presenter is presenting information that is remotely complex, dry, or worse, poorly organized, the audience is surely checked out.
Most of the time, when working with clients, the belief is that “net new” information needs to be presented first, and the only opportunity for interactivity is in the application of that knowledge. This is simply not true.
Read MoreThis takeaway accompanies the OneHour Workshop titled Managing Time to Reduce Overwhelm. This workshop helps people leaders prioritize, focus, and ultimately find more space to serve their team members.
Read MoreAs executive coaches, we’re trained in conversation strategies that can unlock our client’s potential. What’s interesting in our coaching conversations is that we’re often talking to leaders about how THEY can unlock the potential of their employees or team members.
Here are a few scripts that can get you started if you’re also trying to achieve the same thing.
Read MoreWe are firm believers in the value of empowering leaders (and people) to be compelling communicators who can inspire and persuade others with stories. Now that we’re almost a decade into delivering our flagship program, Influential Storytelling, we’ve partnered with clients ranging from Google to the University of Michigan, Uber to McGraw Hill. In that time, we have developed a strong point of view about what it takes to create an effective storytelling learning journey.
If you’re designing a storytelling learning journey for your employees, here are a few guiding principles we recommend you keep in mind…
Read MoreFeeling a sense of belonging as part of a team at work has become a bit of a hot topic in the past few years. This is no surprise given the rapid globalization and distributed nature of teams. Managers used to be able to rely on the office and the daily proximity of team members as a relationship-building accelerator. Now that many teams are almost exclusively virtual, the approach has to be different. It’s still possible to create a sense of belonging in a virtual and distributed workplace, but it requires more intentionality; with fewer ad hoc moments of connection, relationship-building has to become a workstream rather than something that just happens by itself. The benefit is that the focused effort can lead to even stronger and purposeful connections.
Here are some ideas you can leverage to create a sense of belonging for your virtual team members…
Read MoreAll too often, weekly (or monthly) status updates end up being a verbal report-out by team members to the team lead. The team members feel like the time is wasted and the information could have been better communicated in an email. The team leader struggles to get anyone to participate outside of their own report. Now that many of these calls are happening in the virtual space, it’s no wonder that everyone on these calls is multitasking and disengaged.
But what can you do? As a manager or project lead, you need to get updates from the team to make sure all the work streams are on track. How can you rethink—and hopefully reinvigorate—the status update meeting?
Read MoreAfter coaching many individuals as they prepare for a talk, keynote, panel, interview, etc, we think we have figured out why it’s hard to see your own strengths and opportunities in this space; public speaking is not just about the moment on the stage. Great public speaking begins weeks before the actual event, when you figure out what you’re going to say. Then, in the moment, it’s about knowing how to say it just right.
Check out these guiding principles to prepare and deliver a masterful presentation.
Read MoreHere are a few questions to consider for your next Manager/Employee check-in. If you’re a manager, try a few out on your employees. If you’re an employee, try to answer them ahead of your check-in and see if they inspire a different kind of touchpoint.
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