Time Management Techniques

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Time is the only thing you can’t get back so you have to make the most of it. Learn simple techniques you can immediately apply to use your time more effectively and get more done.

Duration: 24 minutes of video lessons

The course covers:

  • The Elements of Good Time Management
  • Reducing Demands on Your Time
  • Increasing Your Supply of Time
  • Saying “No”
  • Managing Your Calendar
  • Taming Your Email Inbox

The target audience for this course is anyone who is trying to reclaim their time and be more efficient as well as have more time for themselves. The value of this course to participants and the organization are:

  • Improved productivity and efficiency
  • Less stress and feelings of being overwhelmed
  • Better work-life balance because of increased efficiency

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.

 

Finding Your Next Career Step Up

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To grow your career, take a deliberate approach to how you plan and execute your path. Identify specific roles and tackle challenges that will prepare you for the next step ahead.

Duration: 28 minutes of video lessons

The course covers:

  • Defining the Attributes of Your Destination
  • Creating Your Experience Checklist
  • Plotting Out Your S-Curves
  • Choosing the Right Role
  • Creating Space to Make the Leap
  • Creating Conditions for Success

The target audience for this course is anyone who is trying to advance their career to the next level. The value of this course to participants and the organization are:

  • Faster advancement and greater career satisfaction
  • Broader skill-sets and deeper bench strength
  • Higher retention and greater willingness to take on new roles

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.

 

Recovering from Burnout

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Burnout is the result of chronic stress. Your ability to recover from burnout is based on how well you care for your body, care for your mind, and give yourself breaks along the road to recovery.

Duration: 29 minutes of video lessons

The course covers:

  • Chronic Stress and Burnout
  • Defining Burnout
  • Assessing Your Burnout Level
  • Recovering the Body
  • Recovering the Mind
  • Recovering with Breaks

The target audience for this course consists of anyone who is feeling the effects of chronic stress and wants to become more resilient. The value of this course to participants and the organization are:

  • Improved ability for individuals to cope with long-term stress
  • Reduced fatigue which should reduce errors and mistakes and improve performance
  • Improved resilience and physical/mental well-being

Jon Wortmann is a principal at thoughtLEADERS. He is an executive coach, trainer, and best-selling author of five books including Hijacked by Your Brain and Mindfulness is Sublime. He has delivered over 3,000 public workshops and trainings across a variety of industry sectors. In addition to corporate teams, he is the leadership trainer in multiple towns and school districts in New England. His writing has been featured in Fast Company, Psychology Today, O Magazine, and Elle. A graduate of Carleton College and Harvard University, he also coaches golfers in the NCAA and on the PGA Tour.

 

How to Delegate Effectively

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You can’t do it all yourself. Effective delegation helps you get more work done, focus on critical tasks, and build the skills and capabilities of your team members at the same time.

Duration: 14 minutes of video lessons

The course covers:

  • Why You Need to Delegate
  • Determining What to Delegate
  • Helping Delegates Succeed
  • Delegated Projects Won’t Always Go Perfectly
  • Building a Team You Can Delegate To

The target audience for this course consists of leaders who have to step up to the next level, allocate work across team members, and build the skills of those around them. The value of this course to participants and the organization are:

  • More work gets done more efficiently
  • Increased bandwidth for leaders to step up to the next level of responsibility
  • Improved skills of team members who take on new tasks

David McNeill is a principal at thoughtLEADERS. His approach to development is built on 30 years of experience managing a diversified mix of businesses and serving in a wide range of leadership and managerial roles. His broad spectrum of experience includes CEO/President for mid-market private and public companies, consultant, Managing Director and Operating Partner for private equity funds, start-up CEO, coach and trainer. He’s worked for leading organizations including IBM, Coca-Cola, Bain & Company, and TPG Capital. He is a graduate of Auburn University and has an MBA from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC-Chapel Hill.

 

Deliberate Decision Making

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Make better, faster, and more effective decisions. Apply simple yet powerful decision making tools to define decision authority, manage risk, increase accountability, and drive execution.

Duration: 2 hours (Approximately 80 minutes of video lessons and 40 minutes of exercises)

Do you struggle to make decisions quickly? Are you worried about managing the risk that comes along with any decision? Deliberate Decision Making teaches you how to make better, faster, and more effective decisions. You’ll learn how to do this through the application of simple yet powerful decision making tools.

This course covers:

  • The decision making cycle
  • The four primary styles of decision making and when to use each one
  • How to appropriately involve others in decision making
  • The four kinds of ambiguity and how they affect decisions
  • The three kinds of decisions you can make and how to make them
  • Ways to reduce risks inherent in decision making

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 these methods as you learn them

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

  • Faster decision making which enables you to capture opportunities faster
  • More support for decisions being made and better team involvement in the process
  • Reduced risk of bad decisions and the losses associated with them

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: Problem Solving

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Clearly define a problem, scope all issues related to the problem, generate potential solutions, then analyze and select the best solution by using time-tested critical thinking methods and tools.

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

Are you dealing with big, challenging, ambiguous problems with no clear answers? Learn a method for how to define a problem, scope issues related to the problem, generate potential solutions, then analyze and select the best solution. You can do this through the application of an efficient and effective analytical method. This course explains how to:

  • “Pin” the problem to clearly define the real issue at hand
  • Put structure to ambiguous problems in an issue-focused way
  • Generate potential solutions to the problem
  • Quickly prioritize the highest potential solutions
  • Analyze the solutions and make a case for the recommendation

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

  • Extensive, in-depth 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 analytical or persuasive roles from junior to senior levels of organizations (e.g., analysts, managers, mid-level executives). The value of this course to the you and to the organization as a whole are:

  • Clearer issue definition and more holistic evaluation of possible solutions
  • Efficient and focused problem solving and analysis which saves time and money
  • Higher confidence in recommendations being the right recommendations
  • Better prioritization of efforts so teams work on the highest value opportunities and avoid working on 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.

 

Storytelling for Leaders

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Create business stories that inspire people, build connections with your audience, and ultimately advance your organization’s goals by using a repeatable, straightforward method.

Duration: 3 hours (Approximately 120 minutes of video lessons and 60 minutes of exercises)

Learn how to craft compelling stories that resonate with your audience to drive people to action, set a vision, lead change, sell ideas, inspire teams, or foster more creativity and innovation.

Participants learn 1) what a business story is, 2) when to tell stories and when not to, and 3) how to craft stories for maximum impact. This includes learning techniques for:

  • How to choose the right story
  • Proper story structure
  • The use of emotion, surprise, dialogue, and length
  • Telling stories with data
  • Where to find stories

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

  • An ability to create messages fueled by stories to advance their business goals
  • Quicker audience connections by addressing their concerns and pain points
  • Increased confidence in storytelling which reduces over-reliance on data which saves time and money
  • Clearer communications leading to more efficient, effective, and faster decision making

Paul Smith is a principal at thoughtLEADERS. He is a former consultant with Accenture and more recently an executive at The Procter & Gamble Company. He is an internationally popular speaker and trainer in leadership and storytelling techniques. Paul is the author of the bestselling book Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives That Captivate, Convince, and Inspire. He’s also written the bestselling Sell with a Story: How to Capture Attention, Build Trust, and Close the Sale and The 10 Stories Great Leaders Tell.  Paul holds a bachelors degree in economics, and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

 

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.