Board Member, Staff, and Volunteer Development Programs

Retreats and Workshops for CPA Organizations...

CPA Leadership Conference

Helping Board Members, Staff, and Volunteers Make a Difference!

Managers maintain the status quo during times of stability. Leaders take risks, see the benefits of change, and promote a shared vision. This seminar demonstrates how exemplary leaders turn challenging opportunities into remarkable successes. Discover proven techniques used by skillful leaders to gain commitment from its organization's members. Focus on specific actions and behaviors that leaders apply to turn their vision into reality and lead them successfully into the future.

Topics:

The Other Half of the Story - What Followers Expect of Leaders. Explore the specific leadership characteristics that constitute admired leaders. Strategies, tactics, skills, and practices are empty unless we understand the fundamental human aspirations that connect leaders and organizational members. Leadership is a reciprocal process, complete only when organizational members see their own views represented. You'll focus on the dynamics of this relationship and how leaders gain commitment.

The Fundamental Practices of Exemplary Leaders - Look deeper into the dynamic process of leadership and find fundamental practices that enable leaders to get extraordinary things done. These practices are not the private property of a few select leadership stars. They are available to anyone, in any organization or situation, and have stood the test of time. Through authentic, colorful examples, you'll see how ordinary people used these practices to achieve remarkable results. Here, we develop a leadership model that positions individuals to consistently be at their personal best.

The Commitments of Leaders - Identify the actions and behaviors exemplary leaders have demonstrated to reflect their true commitment. Deep commitment is the foundation for leadership and learning to lead. Through the use of engaging, real examples, we outline these behaviors and relate them to the leadership practices. These behaviors and the commitment to them serve as a guide for our discussion on how leaders get extraordinary things done in organizations.

Program Approach:

The specific characteristics, practices, and commitments of extraordinary leaders are based on the factual results of numerous research projects conducted in the 80s and repeated in the 90s. These projects included the participation of thousands of both leaders and followers.

We offer a "Business Theater" approach to delivery that is inspirational, engaging, and entertaining. We add fun and excitement to the conference. Our multi-media approach includes challenging exercises, videos, graphic models, and open discussions that energizes conference attendees. Activities cover essential topics and prepare participants to use this information in their leadership roles.

Board Member Development Workshop

Keeping your Board on Board

Active, effective boards have high expectations of the organizations they serve. How are those expectations developed and communicated? What actions does the Board demonstrate to make its vision a reality? What exactly is the Board's role and more importantly, the role of each of its members? What is your role as executive staff when interacting with the Board? These questions and more are explored in this one-day interactive workshop.

Here, Board members participate with the executive staff of the CPA Organization. Each session is custom designed to meet the needs of your specific group and organization. Factors such as Board experience level, management experience, mission, objectives, vision, values, and bylaws are all considered before the agenda is finalized.

Typical Topics:

Growth Curve Model – Some organizations grow and grow…others grow and die. Here we explore the cycle of organizational development and interventions required for long-term success. After establishing this framework, we focus on the common characteristics of organizations that not only survive, but also thrive in an environment of constant change characterized by unpredictability, uncertainty, and vulnerability. We identify vehicles for achieving success and examine how successful organizations and individuals apply these vehicles to shape the future.

Board-Level Team Skills - Board members develop an understanding of how to operate as a high-performing team for the CPA organization. Discussion focuses around the development cycle of teams, high performing characteristics and the roles of individual team members as it relates to their board function.

Expectations - Minor gaps in communication can lead to major misunderstandings. This can keep the organization from achieving its objectives. Here we identify any clashes in expectations both within and between the Board and executive staff and resolve any conflicts by mapping them against the organization's mission, vision, and values.

Our facilitated sessions are highly interactive and engaging. Since these sessions are fully customized, our approach will vary based on the specific needs of each organization we serve.

Staff/Volunteer Team Development Workshop

Helping Staff and Volunteers Produce Extraordinary Results!

Successful organizations understand that collaboration rather then competition can produced increased results. When the environment is right, groups of people can produce results far in excess of the sum of the individuals. What makes the environment right? How can you use teams as a key strategy to produce extraordinary results for your organizations? These questions and more are answered in this highly engaging, fast paced, two-day team development workshop. A workshop that truly makes a difference.

Topics:

Team Skills and Behaviors - To reach optimal performance, a team must evolve through a variety of stages. Before the team can advance to the next level, it must master specific skills. This requires that the team learn together, behave in specific says, and develop a collective personality. Discussion focuses around the development cycle of teams, high performing characteristics, and the roles of individual team members.

Overcoming Barriers - How quickly a team advances through each stage of development requires team members to identify and overcome the obstacles to growth. We introduce proven strategies to address and overcome common hurdles and ask participants to identify potential barriers in their organization that may impact team effectiveness. Plans are then developed for possible future action.

Cross-Functional Teamwork - We expand the concept of individual teams across functional areas. Here, we focus on how cross-functional teams can collectively work to produce extraordinary results through collaboration rather than competition. Participants engage in an activity that identifies opportunities for cross-functional teamwork, assesses barriers to success, and recommends strategies for overcoming these hurdles. These strategies are further developed as each team shares its thoughts with the entire group.

Role of the Team Leader/Facilitator - Participants explore and clarify the role of team leaders and facilitators within their respective environments. We examine skills and behaviors associated with successful team leaders and productive team meetings. This is a very interactive module, which allows participants to develop specific plans for action for their teams.

This two-day agenda includes multiple workshop activities throughout, which aggressively engage participants in team member and team leadership activities. Each participant has the opportunity to receive specific feedback from other participants on their interaction.

Achieving Continuous Improvement by Managing Business Processes!

For organizations to produce stellar results, it takes more than just hiring good people and giving them financial incentives. It requires identifying, establishing, and managing critical business processes. We lead people but we manage business processes. Here, we focus on proven techniques to accomplish this objective.

Top organizations understand that well thought out and orchestrated business processes produce the largest portion of results. This two-day workshop not only explains the benefits of using business process management but also shows you specifically how to apply these concepts to your organization. Through facilitated workshops you'll identify and rate your critical business processes. You'll select one process as a pilot and participate in a process improvement workshop.

Topics:

Business Process Management - What is it and why should we be interested? Here we make the case for business process management by introducing, reviewing, and discussing the benefits. We also explore strategies for achieving continuous process improvement and the roles suppliers and customers play in attaining this objective.

Facilitated Process Planning - We lead your staff through a planning meeting where they identify the critical businesses processes for your organization and develop an overall process management strategy. They'll select one process as a pilot for the process improvement activity that follows.

Accelerated Process Improvement (API)ä Methodology Workshop - We introduce the APIä methodology for initial process work and apply it to the pilot process. This results in identifying what changes should be considered to improve the pilot process and shows your staff how to apply this methodology in other business areas. 

Program Approach:

This two-day agenda includes multiple workshop activities throughout, which aggressively engages your organization in process improvement activities. We tap into the knowledge and understand that your staff has of your business, your members, and associated problems and potential solutions to achieve results for your organization.

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