Voices have rhythm, beats, texture, and timbre… all qualities of music. By thinking about our vocal chords as if they’re instruments to practice playing, we can open up an entire world of vocal delivery techniques that are both learnable and measurable in their impact.
Read MoreInstead of providing direct instructions and advice to employees, a manager who acts as a coach will ask open-ended questions to help their employees reflect and move forward with intention.
Download this resource to learn how managers who are empowered to be coaches support a culture of continuous improvement throughout the performance review process.
Read MoreSince check-ins are so important, we wanted to make sure managers are empowered with a diagnostic tool to evaluate the quality of the one-on-one conversations they’re having with the employees. This tool is a simple diagnostic that managers can complete after a touch point to evaluate how well they’re doing in leading these critical meetings.
Read MoreTOOL
This Google Sheets template will help you diagnose the quality of your manager/employee check-ins. Discover whether your time is well-spent, or if you have opportunity to have more meaningful, effective, and inspiring conversations.
Read MoreTo teach in an engaging and inspiring manner, transform content into an experience that maximizes impact.
Engagement tools such as cards, posters, discussion guides, workbooks, and stories can enhance the learner experience. Although creating interactive materials will extend the program-development timeline, the trade-offs are well worth the payoff.
Read MoreMost managers are well-intentioned, but for one reason or another, people are left feeling like they are lost and alone in career development. If you’re one of these people, the empowered way to navigate a situation like that is to focus on what you can control. One way to own your development is to take the reins with your manager check-ins.
Read MoreProcess Conversations focus on alignment around HOW work gets accomplished. This is different from the typical conversations at work about WHAT needs doing. Often, HOW work will get done is rarely discussed. And if it is considered with any kind of intention, it’s usually considered by a leader in isolation, who believes that how the work is done should be a decision they make unilaterally.
Process Conversations are great opportunities for leaders to inspire others, generate buy-in, and drive engagement. AND they’re an access point through which to engage and inspire UP the chain of command as well.
Read MoreStephanie was recently interviewed by Canvas Rebel to discuss Wolf & Heron’s beginnings, the life of an entrepreneur, and having kiddos in the midst of the COVID pandemic.
Read MoreManager check-ins, one-on-ones, touchpoints… Whatever you may call them, they are the foundation of a strong manager-employee relationship and the lynchpin for supporting your employees in many ways. This 30-minute-or-so recurring meeting between manager and employee seems so simple that it’s often taken for granted and therefore underutilized. They are used as opportunities to get project updates or chat about anything, when they could be so much more supportive of the employee’s professional growth and development. More often than not, we hear about employees or managers who simply put them off, postpone them indefinitely, or end up using the time as status report opportunities rather than truly leveraging their power.
It’s time to go back to the basics. Here are 4 things that go wrong with your manager check-ins and how to avoid them.
Read MoreFall is conference season. For many professionals, at some point in the fall, they’ll pack their bags, head to a hotel and mix with industry peers. There’s a lot to gain at conferences—knowledge, skills, relationships—but it can be hard to capitalize on all that conferences have to offer in the moment. Here’s a step by step approach to maximize the conference value when you’re back at your desk the following Monday and have a chance to take a breath.
Process Conversations are great opportunities for leaders to inspire others, generate buy-in, and drive engagement. AND they’re an access point through which to engage and inspire UP the chain of command as well.
Read MoreWolf & Heron announces that founder and managing partner Kara Davidson has been chosen as a speaker for DisruptHR Capital Region 3.0. The event will be held on Thursday, Sept. 28, at Armory Studios NY in Schenectady, New York.
Read MoreJust as not every individual contributor will be a fantastic manager, not every leader will be a fantastic teacher. Fortunately, these are skills that can be developed and there are rules of thumb that can be applied to ensure that content experts can jump into the role of inspiring and engaging a new generation of folks in their area of expertise.
Here are a few of the common mistakes we see leaders fall into when creating learning experiences.
Read MoreIn this Shoutout Atlanta interview, shares some thoughts around her relationship to risk, moving herself and her business to the Atlanta area, and her undying appreciation for the University of Michigan.
Read MorePresenting can be intimidating, even if you’ve done it many times before. Based on what we know about how to be a compelling presenter, here are a few suggestions for how to prepare to take the stage (or screen) for the first time.
Read MoreStephanie sat down with Jess Dewell of BOLD Business podcast to discuss how to make informed decisions with imperfect information.
Read MoreA key point relevant to stories and presentations is that stories must follow story structure while a presentation doesn’t have to. In fact, presentations often have a very different narrative structure. That being said, because human beings respond so well to stories, it can be helpful to embed short stories that follow this structure into a broader presentation narrative.
Read MoreYou’re a content expert who been asked to teach what you know. Challenge yourself to reach beyond the typical “lecture style” approach to learning—it’s not that effective anyway—and build out an interactive and engaging workshop instead. Here are some basic rules of thumb to keep in mind as you create your learning experience.
Read MoreIn this VoyageMichigan interview, Kara Davidson shares some of the challenges she’s experienced building Wolf & Heron, navigating the COVID-19 Pandemic, and what matters most to her.
Read MoreCASE STUDY
Juniper Square was excited to host it’s first ever in-person Sales Kick Off event. Given what they knew about the power of stories, the leadership determined that the SKO would be designed around storytelling with the theme Ignite: Stories Brought to Life. Wolf and Heron drew from the foundational Influential Storytelling program and created a series of storytelling training experiences for team members at all levels.
Download our case study to explore more about our partnership with Juniper Square to deliver an impactful SKO 2023.
Read MoreThe best workshops put the learning into the hands of the participants at every stage of the learning process, but sometimes the timeline—both for development of the workshop or the runtime of the experience itself—can result in more of a hybrid experience that contains both presentation-style and interactive moments. When we work with clients transforming their presentations into workshops, this is how we typically break it down.
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