This course dispels the myths of building an excellent network internally and externally by giving participants a toolkit to assess and build lasting professional relationships. Participants learn to easily identify various communication styles, how to make a lasting impact with others, and thoughtful follow through. Harnessing these skills ensures participants are more influential and ultimately successful in their career.

Based on the proven principles found in Stephen R. Covey’s best-selling book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, this course sets the foundation for professional effectiveness — increasing productivity, strategic long term goal setting, and developing tools for leading yourself and others. Participants take an honest assessment of the ineffective habits that distract and derail and learn how to implement the 7 success habits by way of a personal commitment to being their best in all aspects of their work.

Studies have shown that emotional intelligence has a much greater impact on career success than a person’s IQ. Emotional intelligence capabilities are not innate talents, but skills that can be learned. This course will enable participants to identify and develop the competencies that you most need to develop and create an action plan to grow stronger in each key emotionally intelligent area.

This course empowers leaders to practice the skills they need to become engaging in a way that creates confident, inspired, empowered, and enthusiastic teams. Linking practical leadership theories to dynamic team building, this course comes to life by working through common challenges and managing the reality of getting the best from a wide variety of people who need to work together.

If you’re not getting the results you’re looking for, it’s likely a critical conversation has you stuck. Whether it’s a problem with poor quality, declining satisfaction, or a strained relationship – you need the skills to discuss these issues and provide critical feedback that leads to positive change. This course teaches techniques for creating alignment and agreement by fostering open dialogue around high-stakes topics and empowers participants with a framework to approach discussions that they may otherwise have poorly or avoid altogether.

Collaborative work environments make it possible for partnerships to prosper, inside, outside, and across an organization. They create an atmosphere in which people can more easily adapt to day-to-day needs and challenges, and use them to rise to new levels. This course provides participants with the knowledge and know how to be agents of collaboration thus generating innovative thought and problem solving.

Our mindset is the way we think about successes and challenges. A growth mindset evolves from an attitude of hard work, learning, training, and perseverance. In comparison, individuals with a fixed mindset believe that success comes from innate ability and dread experiences that push them out of their comfort zone. In this course, participants develop strategies to increase their own growth mindset and lead others to learn and grow from individual, team, and organizational challenges.

Become clear, confident, and engaging through the work of storytelling. A good story not only engages the imagination of the listener but also reveals the speaker’s passion. Participants will understand the impact stories have, how to use both personal and company narratives, and how to deliver stories that motivate.

Understanding others and meeting the needs of diverse teams presents challenges that require new skills. Participants will acquire the ability to increase commitment & engagement, leverage conflict, and adjust their leadership style when necessary. Participants gain a clear view of their impact on the organization, how to utilize strategic communication skills, and enhance their executive presence.

Participants will develop key presentation skills and learn how to share their ideas with conviction, control, and poise. This course examines common public speaking fears, how to overcome them, and sets the foundation of great public speaking.  Participants learn how to communicate the same message to different listeners, have excellent verbal and nonverbal skills, overcome ineffective habits and nervous tendencies, engage others in effective Q&A, and provides a reliable method to be a truly engaging speaker.

Successful everyday communication within a workplace can determine whether a business, company, or individual thrives or not. If communication breaks down, efficiency, requirements, and morale can easily fail. This course covers the most common communication skills used in the workplace – email, conference calls and meetings both in person and virtually – and how to utilize those tools to improve engagement.

For the first time, four generations of employees are simultaneously playing a prominent role in the workplace. Bridging age gaps involves more effort and investment in relationships. People are products of their history, their environment and their experiences, so different generations often have varied life experiences that shape how they think, what they value, and what drives them at work. Participants will learn how to value these differences and communicate with one another in results oriented ways for better engagement.

Caring Personally while Challenging Directly — is a method for providing guidance and feedback that’s both respectful and clear, specific and sincere. It’s a simple concept that’s not always easy to practice. Based on the bestselling book Radical Candor that launched a global management revolution, this course helps participants level up their feedback skills and activate a team culture that promotes timely and effective communication focused on people and process improvement.

You never get a second chance at a first impression, especially in the public eye. This course goes well beyond the “here-are-your-three-key-messages” approach and also trains participants to subtly steer media interviews and panel discussions so they sound like real conversations, not stilted talking-point memos. Participants emerge with an understanding of the mindset of a reporter or facilitator, how to deftly handle controversy, ways to steer clear of negativity, and how to brand yourself through the art of subtle storytelling. And participants will become camera and microphone ready!

Leadership Styles & Tools helps participants make the shift from successful individual contributor to effective manager – one of the biggest and most difficult transitions for any leader. Understanding others and meeting the needs of diverse teams presents challenges that require new skills. Participants will learn about the six leadership styles, identify their own, and practice using it to increase commitment & engagement, problem solve, and adapt leadership styles when necessary.

Leading within an organization is a powerful and humbling experience. Top leaders play an enormous role in the success of organizations and they need to excel in new ways. The challenges of leadership at the top are far-reaching, complex and essential to get right. In this course top leaders gain a clear view of their impact on the organization, how to develop action and plans, and transition from managing process to leading others.

Psychological safety refers to an individual’s perception of the consequences of taking an interpersonal risk or a belief that a team is safe for risk-taking. In a team with high psychological safety, teammates feel safe to take risks and innovate which leads to better structure and goal clarity, dependability, and impactful work. In order for psychological safety to occur each individual must understand and help implement the 4 quadrants – learning safety, challenging safety, collaboration safety, and inclusion safety.

Having a great idea isn’t enough. Ideas are the easy part. The challenge is driving them to implementation. Successful innovators have to have knowledge and skills that will enable them to drive an idea through the levels, departments, personalities, questions and potential obstacles that can stand in the way of implementation and success. In this course participants will acquire the ability to navigate detours, potholes and roadblocks that often cause innovation to fail, as well as develop and define ideas with power & clarity.

Structured problem-solving, scope definition, and developing recommendations are core skills of both emerging and established leaders. When these skills are supplemented with effective communication and influencing skills projects succeed. Participants will learn to define and manage complex projects and deliver superior results.

The dynamic changes in the business environment today dictate that leaders engage their team members to accomplish an inspirational vision. Being comfortable and competent with developing and communicating that vision is key to great leadership. This course covers the essential elements of vision development and implementation and will be used as a springboard to generate both a personal and professional visionary narrative.

Mentoring others is one of the most challenging aspects of our professional lives and learning to do so effectively can be a career-long endeavor. Even those with the very best intentions get it wrong sometimes. This course is designed to help you create a productive road map that serves both the mentor and the mentee in achieving their highest potential from the working relationship. Participants learn to mentor employees based on their individual needs and support their career path based on what brings out the best in them.

Today’s leaders and emerging leaders face increasing pressure to deliver short term results and long term value, goals that often conflict. Leadership is often lonely, and few leaders possess the full range of experience or expert thought partnership to tackle every issue they will face in our fast paced, dynamic business environment. That’s where coaching comes in.

Cork’s approach to coaching focuses on helping leaders establish and achieve key business goals. The coaching process helps an executive identify individual/team/organizational strengths and weaknesses and focuses on mastery of the skills and behaviors to achieve established goals.

A Cork Certified™ coach creates a safe environment in which the executive can feel comfortable taking the risks necessary to explore, learn and grow. Drawing from rich experience, a deep knowledge base and a comprehensive repertoire of learning tools, the Cork Certified™ coach offers guidance and activities that help the executive meet their business goals.

A Cork Certified™ coach earns trust with an executive and an organization through ethical practices and confidentiality.

Cork Certified™ coaching activities are underpinned by research-based principles of adult learning: awareness, action, and reflection.

Executive Coaching

Coaching of senior managers or leaders (e.g. vice president, S/EVP, president, or C-suite exec). Executive coaching focuses on mastering key individual skills and expanding a senior executive’s impact on others and the organization overall. The Cork Certified™ coach helps the leader identify goals to maximize impact and effectiveness, then helps the executive identify and master key behaviors, habits, and skills that align with the executive’s goals.

Emerging Leader Coaching

Coaching of newly minted managers and emerging leaders (e.g. directors, managers). Cork helps these leaders accelerate assimilation into and effectiveness in their new leadership role. Coaching helps these leaders clarify the most important responsibilities – on behalf of the individual executive, team and entire organization – and work toward goals to be successful in each capacity. New managers and emerging leaders often are highly competent and promoted for individual contributions and strong technical skills. Coaching helps these leaders complement these skills with excellent communications, interpersonal, and leadership skills.

Subject Matter Coaching

This type of coaching is based on any of the ~20 Cork training topics.

For example: Presentation/Storytelling/Communication coaching focuses on helping clients improve the way they communicate and influence others. A Cork Certified™ coach helps the coachee master effective oral, written, and slideshow development skills, resulting in more effective communication in team and board meetings, virtual and live presentations, panel discussions, and daily work conversations.

Individual coaching clients are selected by an organization’s senior leadership.  Each client is assigned a specific number of private coaching sessions with a Cork Certified™ coach.  Confidential coaching sessions are executed over a specified time period based on the organization’s and individuals’ needs and goals.