Vocational Rehabilitation Leadership

Using the Skills of Improv Comedy to Enhance Teamwork and Creativity

SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT: LINDA HEDENBLAD

Being an improvisational comedian has changed my professional life. I began improv as a way to meet people and hone skills as a presenter. What I discovered is that there are many parallels between the skill sets I had been teaching, and those that make improvisational comedy successful.

Enhancing Personal Resilience was the first workshop I developed using research from the field of positive psychology and techniques of improvisational comedy. Improv teaches people to listen, be in the moment, to accept offers, and to experience a side of themselves our professional lives rarely allow. Through the experiential workshop participants experience their own creativity, and the creativity of others through team building exercises.

Personality, Leadership and Followership

SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT: ROBERT FROEHLICH

What is your preference and why does it matter? This interactive, group activity focused training allows participants to gain a basic understanding of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and how the constructs underlying the instrument play out in real work world settings. The training takes a topic that can be emotionally charged and uses a combination of humor and empathy to allow participants to understand peers and co-workers, and more importantly, to understand what motivates them on a personal level.

Leadership Development Institutes

SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT: ROBERT FROEHLICH

We have the capacity to use more than 15 years of experience delivering leadership institutes for a variety of vocational rehabilitation audiences (new supervisors, emerging leaders, and executive level professionals) to tailor a program based upon the individual needs in your setting. You can select from common leadership topics such as clinical supervision, conflict management, communication, ethics and leadership, human and organizational leadership theory and application, legislative development and advocacy, technology and supervision, etc., or we can create specific modules to address your needs.

Rehabilitation Leadership

SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT: JEANNIE MILLER

This seminar explores the external environment and changes in the Disability Movement and rehabilitation history. As “the past is prologue to the future,” leaders must consider the multiple constraints and drivers of change over time and in their present circumstances.

Leveraging Strategic Opportunities and Managing Change

SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT: JEANNIE MILLER

This session is aimed at managers and leaders who are faced with multiple and competing priorities. Tools for identifying long term strategic impact of decisions will be practiced.

Much better value compared to other platforms and companies offering this service.

Personal & Organizational Accountability

SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT: JEANNIE MILLER

The extent to which we are able to depend upon others and others are able to depend upon us creates trust and responsibility. This seminar presents models for understanding the human and systems issues at play in creating an accountable culture.

Is Management Right for Me?

SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT: JEANNIE MILLER

Helping Emerging Leaders Find Their Path: This coaching process gets into the nuts and bolts, pros and cons of what it means to be a manager and affirms the power of leadership at all levels of an organization. Do we need a title to have influence? This is a guided self-exploratory process of finding alternatives for making the most significant contributions in your career.

Agile Leadership

SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT: LOU ADAMS

VR leaders are operating in the most complex environment of the past decade with more change coming on the horizon. Research shows that agility is a key factor in contemporary leadership and in leadership potential. Sometimes called “knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do”; the ability to be nimble in one’s thinking; extrapolating from past experiences to create new models for navigating the “terra incognito” or unknown territory we are all entering, is becoming increasingly essential.
This workshop provides practical approaches to develop the agility and ability to change to meet the new requirements of a changing environment – a crucial skill for leaders and an important organizational competency to develop in all levels of a VR agency. Among the topics covered will be:

Relational Agility: Using authentic conversations and a collaborative stance toward others that moves from motivation and manipulation to co-creation of new and better approaches – creating working alliances which work.
Mental Agility: More than thinking “outside the box”, this is learning and choosing to view things in an entirely different way.
Agility in Generating Change: Involving others in experimentation and putting curiosity and experimentation ahead of the false safety of the status quo
Results Agility: Delivering results quickly by reinventing teams, acknowledging the brutal facts and moving past handwringing and fear to meet your mission with confidence and optimism.
Mindfulness: The self-reflection and self-awareness for the leader to discover how his/her personal and professional choices and stance impacts the organization and her/his own effectiveness as a leader.

Organizational success and sustainable performance belongs more and more to those with agile and creative leadership. This workshop can develop your current leaders and key staff to meet the increasing and changing demands of VR leadership.

Leadership Team Development

SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT: LOU ADAMS

The members of a State’s VR Leadership or Executive Team, in whatever configuration might exist, are the fundamental group responsible for propelling the mission and outcomes. High team performance doesn’t happen on its own; it takes commitment and cohesiveness from the team along with effective practices and processes to drive organizational results. Coaching top teams help them to improve their performance by focusing development on specific business challenges at a collective and individual level. Common issues facing leadership teams covered in this coaching model include:

Tensions between accountability for individual assignments and the accountability to the overall success of the organization.
Addressing trust, conflict and power differentials within the team.
Keeping the “end in mind”
Clarifying roles and making decisions
Creating successful meetings, executive communication and defining what constitutes effective “staff work”.

The spotlight is on the VR Leadership Team. Everyone in the organization, as well as the Designated State Agency, legislators and other stakeholders scrutinize their every move. The pressures of increased accountability, transparency and outcomes along with the day to day grind can take its toll on even the most functional of teams. VR Development can provide skillful coaching and consultation, giving your Leadership Team the tools necessary to meet the demands.
Technical Assistance/Consultation

Authentic Conversations

SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT: LOU ADAMS

Conversations are the main way we engage with others have the power to create the culture of an organization and to influence positively or negatively the day to day operations. How we communicate them can have a huge positive or negative impact on what is accomplished. Commitment can be gained, resistance reduced or not – depending on the authenticity of the conversation. This workshop includes:

A focus on using conversations for engagement and commitment
Conversations with ourselves – Why all change is personal
Understanding and dealing with resistance
Choosing contribution over cynicism
Learn the essential skills of engagement
How to engage with those who have ‘checked out’ or are in the ‘we tried this before camp’
Hands on, effective and low risk activities
Tools and take-aways

I’m signing up my entire department for training!