Being a Trusted Advisor

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Being a trusted advisor begins with listening well and requires the ability to coach, provide feedback, and navigate the organization. Learn all these skills to build a trusted advisor relationship.

Duration: 55 minutes of video lessons

The course covers:

  • Building listening skills
  • Creating a coaching environment
  • Giving and receiving feedback
  • Managing stakeholders

The target audience for this course consists of individuals who want to build strong, trust-based advisory relationships. Consultants and other service professionals will find it of particular interest. The value of this course to participants and the organization are:

  • Stronger relationships that that lead to faster development and longer partnerships
  • Faster behavior change through the delivery of more specific feedback
  • Improved identification of issues and opportunities through more careful listening

Sabrina Smith is a principal at thoughtLEADERS. She brings more than 20 years of leadership and training experience into the classroom. She’s led diverse teams at U.S. Cellular, Xerox, and DIRECTV/AT&T. She’s built and delivered coaching and training curricula across large networks of operational sites. Her experiences and her education in organizational leadership have helped her grow the next generation of leaders at every organization she’s worked for. She’s a graduate of Lewis University with a BA in Business Management and Organizational Leadership.

Mike Figliuolo is the founder and managing director of thoughtLEADERS. He is an internationally recognized author, trainer, speaker, and blogger on the topics of leadership, communications, strategy, decision-making, problem solving, and other critical business skills. An honor graduate from West Point, Mike served in the US Army as a combat arms officer. Before founding thoughtLEADERS, he was an assistant professor at Duke University, a consultant at McKinsey & Company, and an executive at Capital One and Scotts Miracle-Gro. He is the author of three books: One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership, Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results, and The Elegant Pitch: Create a Compelling Recommendation, Build Broad Support, and Get it Approved. Mike is also one of the most popular authors on LinkedIn Learning where he has published 30 courses that have been viewed millions of times by learners from around the world.

 

Engagement Management

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Whether you’re an internal or external consultant or a project leader, learn proven methods, techniques, and processes to effectively lead consulting engagements that drive your client’s success.

Duration: 2 hours (Approximately 60 minutes of video lessons and 60 minutes of exercises)

Leading consulting engagements is challenging and requires approaches unlike most typical corporate work. Whether you’re an external consultant, part of an internal consulting group, or functioning as a consultant within your organization, your ability to effectively lead consulting engagements is the key to your client’s success.

Based on the approaches used by elite consulting firms like McKinsey & Co. and Bain and Company, this course provides participants proven and time-tested approaches to running consulting engagements. In the program, participants learn how to:

  • Apply the engagement management model where the EM is at the center of the “wagon wheel”
  • Use a structured approach to running an engagement including scoping, delivery, and wrap-up as well as how to allocate and manage work across team members
  • Define and apply engagement guiding principles like the obligation to dissent, attacking the problem and not the person, the best idea wins, and it’s not about you – it’s about the best answer
  • Manage up and manage expectations of both senior consulting stakeholders as well as client stakeholders and client team members

The course consists of instructor-introduced concepts, practical application exercises, and supporting materials. The course includes:

  • Extensive instructor videos to guide you through the content
  • A downloadable course guide of slides to help you follow the instruction
  • A downloadable workbook to apply the method as you take the course
  • Exercises, quizzes, and case examples to help you apply the method as you learn it

The target audience for this course consists of individuals in, or soon to be in, engagement management roles at mid- to senior levels. The value of this course to the participants and to the organization are:

  • More effective consulting engagement management where teams do a better job of getting to the right answer and getting there quickly
  • Better team dynamics both within the consulting team as well as with clients
  • More confident engagement managers who are capable of leading the thinking, leading their teams, and pressing for the necessary changes required to dramatically improve client organization performance

Mike Figliuolo is the founder and managing director of thoughtLEADERS. He is an internationally recognized author, trainer, speaker, and blogger on the topics of leadership, communications, strategy, decision-making, problem solving, and other critical business skills. An honor graduate from West Point, Mike served in the US Army as a combat arms officer. Before founding thoughtLEADERS, he was an assistant professor at Duke University, a consultant at McKinsey & Company, and an executive at Capital One and Scotts Miracle-Gro. He is the author of three books: One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership, Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results, and The Elegant Pitch: Create a Compelling Recommendation, Build Broad Support, and Get it Approved. Mike is also one of the most popular authors on LinkedIn Learning where he has published 30 courses that have been viewed millions of times by learners from around the world.

 

Structured Thought and Communication

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Craft clear and compelling recommendations that resonate with stakeholders. Get your ideas approved by using a proven method for delivering executive-level communications.

Duration: 2.5 hours (Approximately 90 minutes of video lessons and 60 minutes of exercises)

If you want to get to “yes” efficiently and effectively, this course is exactly what you need. You’ll learn a method for defining and analyzing an idea as well as how to successfully create, communicate, and gain support for initiatives through the application of an efficient, effective analytical approach.

You’ll learn how to:

  • Create and define a “core idea” you want to get support for
  • Build logic to support that “core idea”
  • Define the analyses required to support that “core idea”
  • Draft and discuss your “story” with key stakeholders
  • Package your “story” in a variety of formats (presentation, memo, email, etc.)

The course consists of instructor-introduced concepts, practical application exercises, and supporting materials.

The target audience for this course consists of individuals in analytical or persuasive roles at mid- to senior levels of corporations (e.g., analysts, managers, mid-level executives). The value of this course to participants and the organization as a whole are:

  • Clearer communications leading to more efficient, effective, and faster decision making
  • More efficient analysis and less re-work which leads to higher productivity
  • Crisper thinking to eliminate low-value work and prevents pursuit of low-value ideas

Mike Figliuolo is the founder and managing director of thoughtLEADERS. He is an internationally recognized author, trainer, speaker, and blogger on the topics of leadership, communications, strategy, decision-making, problem solving, and other critical business skills. An honor graduate from West Point, Mike served in the US Army as a combat arms officer. Before founding thoughtLEADERS, he was an assistant professor at Duke University, a consultant at McKinsey & Company, and an executive at Capital One and Scotts Miracle-Gro. He is the author of three books: One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership, Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results, and The Elegant Pitch: Create a Compelling Recommendation, Build Broad Support, and Get it Approved. Mike is also one of the most popular authors on LinkedIn Learning where he has published 30 courses that have been viewed millions of times by learners from around the world.